Insisting on distinct African communitarian categories justified socialist regimes that stifled individual freedoms

Evidence

While this distinctness could be seen as serving political or ethical purposes or even theoretical justification for whatever ideas that proceed from Africa, there is a danger attached to insistence on the existence of distinct African categories. The danger is that Africans are rendered prone to answering to a different standard or abiding by unusual dictates that require either a special understanding or an exclusive mode of operation. The belief that Africans are different and are deserving of their own standard has led to an unproductive exaggeration about the importance of the community in the individual’s identity, in shaping politics, and in determining the foundations of theory. In respect of the individual’s identity, it has become routine that the community is given priority over the individual. This is followed by the whittling down of the individual’s rights to a secondary status in comparison to the community’s rights. Thus, politically, the individual has no grounds of appeal to her rights save to infer them from the generosity of the community. This has led to the rise of socialist regimes (whose doctrines were built on such exaggerated views of the importance of the community) that ultimately operated to stifle individual freedoms and associated political practices. Theoretically, the insistence on the primacy of the community in thinking and articulating all truths about Africa has led to a one-track approach to social and political issues. This has impoverished both thought and practice, as other forms of thought are delegitimized as un-African by virtue of their failure to live up to communitarian expectations. Not only does this approach limit the possibility of African political and ethical thought, but it also hinders Africans from the possibility of being open to other systems of thought and practice that are beneficial to humanity in general and could prove to be able to take Africa to new levels of thought and practice. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 443

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A dense double-edged argument: the very assertion of African distinctness that protects against colonial imposition also authorizes community primacy that suppresses the individual and legitimizes one-track theory. The reciprocal dangers of difference-claims versus universalism is worth extended reflection.
• XREF: Parallels the tension in arguments about a distinct feminist ethic of care or standpoint epistemologies — asserting a difference-based identity can purchase political power but simultaneously box in its holders.