The intellectual left sees
Africa almost entirely in terms of a post-colonial discourse. This discourse
consists of the development of such influential concepts, each with a distinct
origin, like genocide, power, race, plunder, rape, or exotic glance, among
others. You may well ask, why is the complex history of Africa reduced to a
string of concepts. Is there an advantage to this perspective?
There is an advantage for discourse analysts. The above
concepts, and any other emerging concepts for that matter, are advantageous because they avoid reference to individual subjects thus bypassing potential
libel while also hiding ideologically informed presuppositions. Together, they
raise the discourse to the status of being objective and unquestionable. The
resultant complex of concepts, and the assumed knowledge and language history
on which they are based, are then combined with a selected history of
institutions to become not only a sharp ideological criticism of the West, but
also a method of exposure and suspicion. And as such, let us say as a method of
exposure, it is not only used to analyze history. More importantly, it is also
used to exact reparations from national and international courts.
It is not too difficult to
understand that such a discourse accuses anyone who disagrees of being a
fascist, or if not that, otherwise ruin the disagreeable person’s career. After
all, postcolonial discourse variants expose wrong doing and hold the moral high
ground.
But is the history of Africa
with the rest of the world, or are post-colonialists’ portrayals generally,
that simple, that black and white, that morally pure? Robert Irwin (2007), in
his book For the Lust of Knowing, shows
that it is not. Another fascinating book by Dario Fernandez-Morera, The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise,
also says no. Fernandez-Morera goes further. He shows how to break away from
Discourse Analysis altogether.
See my summary below, where Fernandez-Morera shows humanity as both
suffering and inflicting suffering. He very carefully bases his findings on primary sources.
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The book, My Apprenticeship: An Intellectual Journey (2018) about my first
field work experience likewise resists discourse analysis. First hand experience with the
people one studies, living with them, experiencing their doubts, deceptions,
ideologies, theories and daily lives do not allow for simple one-sided judgments.
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