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Karl Marx and African Emancipatory Thought: A Critique of Marx's Euro-Centric Metaphysics

«Karl Marx and African Emancipatory Thought: A Critique of Marx's Euro-CentricMetaphysics»

by Tsenay Serequeberhan

Source:

PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 1+2 / 1990, pages: 161-181, on www.ceeol.com.

http://www.ceeol.com/

http://www.ceeol.com/



RETHINKING MARX: IMPERIALISM AND EURO-CENTRISM

E THOUGHT:A CRITIQUE OF MARX'S

EURO-CENTRIC METAPHYSICS

Tsenay Serequeberhan

Tribes living exclusively on hunting or fishing are beyond the boundry line fromwhich real [historical] development begins.

Karl Marx, from the Introduction to a Critique of

Political Economy, 1857-58.

Then there is also the case of the conquest and brutal destruction of economicresources, by which, in certain circumstances, a whole local or national economicdevelopment could formerly be ruined. Nowadays [the 19th Century] such a caseusually has the opposite effect, at least among great [European] peoples: in the long

run the vanquished [the African, the Asiatic, Le., the non-European] often gainsmore economically, politically and morally than the victor.Frederick Engels, letter to Joseph Bloch, 1890

I say, listen to my words and mark them. We have fought for a year. I wish to rulemy country and protect my religion. We have both suffered considerably in battlewith one another. I have no forts, no houses. I have no cultivated fields, no silveror gold for you to take. If the country was cultivated or contained houses or property,it would be worth your while to fight. The country is all jungle, and that is no useto you. If you want wood and stone you can get them in plenty. There are also many

ant-heaps. The sun is very hot. All you can get from me is war, nothing else.Sayyid Mohamed Abdille Hassen, Somali anti-colonialist fighter

1899-1920, Open letter to the English people.

Karl Marx is the one European philosopher whose thinking has directly orindirectly, positively or negatively, affected concrete events in the contemporaryhistory of Africa. l Most of those whose names (at some level or other) areassociated with this history and its emancipatory struggles - Nkrumah, Senghor,Cesaire, Fanon, Nyerer, Cabral ...:. have been influenced by some form or other

ofMarxist socialism. Furthermore, each of these thinkers has presented a readingofMarxist ideas that attempts to curtail - on the level of politics - the Euro-centricorientation of Marxist thought.2 In this respect, Aime Cesaire's 1956 letter ofresignation from the French Communist Party addressed to Maurice Thorez, andAmilcar Cabral's rejection of the Marxist justification for· European colonialismare the two most lucid and concise articulations of this effort. 3

However, these efforts - including Cabral's - have all fallen short of a systematicand critical undoing of the Euro-centric metaphysics that structures and grounds

Marx's perspective. Thus, beyond a political critique, the metaphysical groundingofMarx's discourse is left intact. This paper is therefore aimed at supplementing

Praxis International 10:1/2 April & July 1990 0260-8448 $2. 00



162 Praxis International

this critical lack by presenting a systematic philosophical exploration and de-structionof Marx's perspective. In this respect then, this paper is a contribution to thedevelopment of the negative task of African philosophy, which is aimed at thesystematic de-struction (un-masking) of the Euro-centrism on which the Western

philosophical tradition is grounded. 4

Marx like his mentor Hegel was a "child of his time" ,5 fundamentally weddedto the Idea of European supremacy. As we shall see, in his articles on Britishcolonialism, Marx supported and justified European expansion. This, in itself,is not new. In this regard what needs to be done is to hermeneutically demonstratethat the central and foundational notions of Marx's "materialist conception ofhistory"6 are intrinsically embedded in a Euro-centric metaphysics of human

existence as such.

Marx's Euro-centric orientation is not an extrinsic or accidental element of histhought but is the heart and substance of his 'materialist conception of history'.To that extent, a Marxist orientation on African problems and concerns is ofnecessity Euro-centric precisely because it is grounded on a metaphysics thatprivileges and ontologizes the European historical experience. It is only by destructuring the overall metaphysical casing ofMarx's thought that singular aspectsor elements of his thinking can be made available to the African emancipatorystruggle. Marx's perspective has to be disentangled or unhinged from its

metaphysical grounding in order that elements of his thought can serve an emancipatory function within the African cultural and historical milieu.

The importance and necessity of such an undertaking lies in the fact that, Africanemancipatory thinking - as indicated above - has felt the need to utilize Marxand yet has failed to properly confront the inherently Euro-centric character ofhis thought and its implications for African problems and concerns. The paradoxinherent in this failure lies in the fact that it risks presenting Marx - a championof 19th century European colonialism - as the paradigm for African liberation. 7

In other words, unwittingly colonialist/Euro-centric ways of thinking and understanding the African situation in the modern world are smuggled into the veryeffort directed against colonialism and neo-colonialism. Thus, in exploring themetaphysical foundation ofMarx's 'materialist conception of history', we will alsoexamine - taking our cue from Cesaire, Fanon and Cabral - the possibility ofAfrican freedom beyond the confines of Euro-centric concepts and categories. In sodoing we will isolate some elements in Marx's critique of European modernity thatcan be of some use to the continuing emancipatory struggles of the African continent.

I

Commenting on Marx's knowledge of non-European histories and cultures, theMarxist historian Eric J. Hobsbawm points out that it was "thin on pre-history,on primitive communal societies and on pre-Colombian America, and virtuallynon-existent on Africa" .8 Yet, in spite of his virtual ignorance of non-Europeanhistories and cultures, Marx supported the colonial subjugation of the non-Europeanworld and in so doing saw himself as a sanguine advocate of human freedom and

emancipation. This is the paradox whose Euro-centric metaphysical grounding weneed to explore and expose.



Praxis International 163

One of the most memorable passages of The Communist Manifesto is the passage

in which Marx celebrates the advent of the modern age, i.e., the global expansionof Europe and the establishment of "the world-market". 9 This expansion,

draws all nations, even the most barbarian, into civilization. The cheap prices of its

commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls . . . It

compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode ofproduction;

it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become

bourgeois themselves. In a word, it creates a world after its own image. lO

European expansion creates one unified world "civilization". To be sure, Marx

hesitates for a moment: the bourgeoisie compels barbarians to 'introduce what

it calls civilization'. But this is only a momentary hesitation. Earlier in the same

passage Marx points out that the bourgeoisie 'draws all nations even the mostbarbarian, into civilization' , furthermore, it cannot be otherwise since the historyof human society is the "history of class struggles". 11

Capitalist subjugation or European colonialism is the avenue through which

differing non-European cultures are unified and subsumed under European civiliza

tion, which, in this schema of things becomes the condition of the possibility of

communism or true human freedom. This is so precisely because the capitalistmode of production reveals "what man's activity can bring about" .12 It creates

the ontologically privileged ontic-cultural context in which the human-being is, 'compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life and his relations

with his kind".13 In its radical and unprecedented "[s]ubjugation of nature's

forces to man", capitalist society discloses the' 'productive forces slumbering inthe lap of social labour" .14

Thus, the historical necessity for the global expansion of capitalist society, ispredicated on the dominating and instrumental relation of man to nature which

it institutes. In other words, as Marx points out in a revealing comment on the

effects of British colonialism in India, the

bourgeois period of history has to create the material basis of the new world - on

the one hand the universal intercourse founded upon the mutual dependency of

mankind, and the means of that intercourse; on the other hand the development of

the productive powers ofman and the transformation of material production into

a scientific domination of natural agencies. 1s

It is to be noted that the 'scientific domination of natural agencies' refers not only

to nature as such, but also to 'the productive powers of man'. Thus, for Marx,

the 'domination of natural agencies' and the simultaneous subjugation of non

European civilizations is part of the same fundamental and necessary movement

of world history.As Claude Lefort correctly points out, in the Manifesto as in his other writings,

Marx claims to be speaking from the point of view of History as such. In otherwords, Marx is not articulating a specific position but expressing the' 'objective"

Truth of world history. 16 Thus, in regards to non-European histories and cultures,

Marx's perspective is basically the projection of European history on a global

scale. I7

Marx ontologizes the antic eventuations of European history in privileging

capitalist society as the historical space in which the 'real conditions of life' are




disclosed. For him, world history is a singular process ofhumanity that has presently

found its highest concrete manifestation in European modernity, i.e., the historicalspace in which the most "advanced" class struggle is taking place. The struggle,

whose consummation will be the global overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the final

and total liberation of humanity.For Hegel, world history - from which he held Africa was excluded - is the

development of the Idea of freedom as it moves from the Orient to the accident.

For Hegel's Idea, Marx substitutes an abstract notion of humanity whose "develop

ment" - through the class struggle - is then the objective unfolding ofworld history.

As we shall see, it is this speculative schema that compels Marx to support and

present an ethical-metaphysical justification for European colonialist expansion.

11

Marx explicitly recognized the destructive consequences of capitalist colonialism

on non-European societies. In discussing the subordination of distribution to

production in the context of conquest and colonial subjugation, Marx notes that

[c]onquest may lead to either of three results. The conquering nation may impose

its own mode of production upon the conquered people (this was done, for example,by the English in Ireland during this century, and to some extent in India); or it

may refrain from interfering in the old mode of production and be content with tribune(e.g., the Turks and Romans); or interaction may take place between the two,

giving rise to a new system as a synthesis (this occurred partly in the Germanicconquests). 18

What is important for us here are the examples Marx uses and the relationships

he alludes to. He notes that conquest 'may lead to either of three results'. He does

not however mention that the result of conquest is basically determined by the

relative strength - hence violence - that the conquerors can call into play. But

it is clear that this is the case, because the mode of production, which for Marxis the focus of attention in conquest, is basically the expression of the concentrated

might and strength of a given social formation. Now, in Marx' s examples, the

English (capitalists) impose their mode ofproduction. The Turks and Romans (pre

capitalist colonizers), on the other hand, are satisfied with tribute without interfering

in the mode of production of the conquered. And the Germanic tribes create a

synthesis between the conquering and conquered modes of production.

The mode of production of a society is the particular instantiation of the symbiosis

of man and nature, which for Marx is the fundamental ontological antecedent toany social formation. The 'organic composition' of this symbiosis, furthermore,

is constituted and measured by the level of dominance and violence directed against

nature or the lack thereof. It is clear, therefore, that anyone of the above three

results of conquest is determined by the degree of violence against nature reflected

in the mode of production of the conquering society. The strength of the conquering

society, in other words, depends on the extent to which this society has subduedthe forces of nature - as exemplified in its mode of production.

What decisively distinguishes the British from the Turks and Romans, insofaras the subjugated are concerned, is that the British as capitalists/modem Europeans




have achieved the highest subjugation of nature, and are thus capable of unleashing

the most concentrated and organized form of violence. This violence furthermore

is not a violence of mere destruction. Rather, it is a violence that ranks human

societies in subordination and duplicates European society in the non-European

world, thereby denying the difference that constitutes the subjugated as human. 19

The non-European is subdued and fiolded - just as a thing of nature - in the service

of "human civilization" understood in the singular, and properly speaking, asEuropean.

To be sure, Marxwas never particularly concerned with the plight of the

colonized. In the last chapter of Capital Vol. I, for example, he writes in great

detail of the problems of capital and its re-production in the colonies. About the

expropriation and extermination of the aboriginal populace that colonialism pre

supposes, however, nothing is said. In the concluding section of the first part ofthe German Ideology, entitled "Conquest", Marx discusses the part played by

conquest in history and its possible incompatibility with his perspective. Marx's

only concern here, as elsewhere, is to show that even if "barbarians" conquer,

ultimately they are conquered by their "civilized" victims.20

On the other hand, the subjugation of the non-European - in the 19th century

- which Marx witnessed, is viewed by him as the positive result of the negative

encounter of Europe and the rest of the world. The violence of European conquest

is endorsed by Marx, precisely because it Europeanizes the world. It institutes

on a global scale the European relation to nature, which Marx views as the onto

logically proper relation of humanity to nature, i.e., "civilization". Hence, the

trans-forming or "civilizing" by conquest of indigenous non-European societies

is a necessity ofWorld History required by the ontological status of humanity as

such. European colonialist expansion is thus for Marx the fulfillment of the most

fundamental ontological possibility of human existence.

In "The Future Results of British Rule in India", written in 1853, Marx

approvingly points out that

England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating- the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying of the material foundationof Western [properly human] society in Asia. 21

In "The British Rule in India", written around the same period, Marx also points

out that

England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindustan, was actuated onlyby the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that

is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfill its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the

crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about thatrevolution. Then, whatever bitterness the spectacle of the crumbling of an ancientworld may have for our personal feelings, we have the right, in point of history

to exclaim with Goethe:

,'Should this torture then torment usSince it brings us greater pleasure?Were not through the rule of TimurSouls devoured without measure?"22




What has to be noted in these passages - which applies not only to India but to

the rest of the non-European world as well- is that Marx is not blind to the hypocrisy

and brutality of British rule in India. In fact he recognizes in detail, in his articles

on India, as he also does in Chapters 26 and 31 of Capital, Vol. I, the violence

upon which European expansion is based. In point of 'history' , however, and interms of the 'destiny' of 'mankind', the destructive violence of European conquest

and expansion are exonerated. This is so because the 'torture' of conquest makes

possible a 'fundamental revolution in the social state' of the non-European world

which promises 'greater pleasure', i.e., European modernity/human society, on

a global scale.Marx views the violence of European conquest as a historical necessity, as being

internal to the hidden dialectic of history that is at work in colonial expansion.

The end result of this dialectic, furthermore, is not only the material transformation- railways, roads, industry . . . etc. - and thus the material Europeanization of non

European territories, but more fundamentally, the fruit and highest achievement

of this dialectic is the westernized native, i.e., the spiritual or cultural transformation

of the colonized.Indeed, as Marx points out, under British subordination and tutelage, "a fresh

class is springing up, endowed with the requirements for [European] governmentand imbued with European science.' '2 3 It is in the Europeanized assimilado or

evolue that Marx places his hopes for the future possibilities of the non-Europeanworld. 24 Strangely enough, for Marx, it is the culturally alienated, self-negating,

schizoid evolue, the 'black skin with a white mask' to use Fanon's words, who

is the hope of the non-European world. The cultural indigence - from the perspective

of the indigenous ethos - that is incarnated in this de-humanized being is something

that Marx does not even consider. In fact, it is precisely this cultural indigence

of the colonized's indigenousness which needs to be achieved if 'mankind' is to'fulfill its destiny'. For Marx, the

Indians [the non-European world] will not reap thejruits of the new [evoluel elements

of society scattered among them by the British [European] bourgeoisie, till in Great

Britain [Europe] itself the now ruling classes shall have been supplanted by theindustrial proletariat. 25

Thus, everything remains surbordinate to Europe. The circle remains closed. Human

freedom can only come from the European proletariat and the Europeanized/

indigent evolue. In Hegel, the dialectic of history, which is internal to European

modernity, drives it to colonialist expansion, Le., the global institution and establishment of the Idea of freedom. 26 With Marx we see that colonialism brings about

global Europeanization and thus plays a "positive" role in the "developmenf'

towards freedom (communism) of the non-European world. Indeed as OlivaBlanchette points out,

Marx's claim to 'comprehend theoretically the historical movement as a whole'

through the proletariat, while being perhaps better grounded in actuality than Hegel's

conception, is still not the kind of 'absolute knowing' that it claims to be. Even if

it were to be actualized . . . it leaves out too manypeople in the world, and it is readyto trample innocent bystanders that stand in the way. 27




The emancipation of the non-European is possible only as an adjunct to the struggle

of the European proletariat and will be actualized by the westernized native, the

one who, among the natives, has been assimilated into the uni-verse of Europeancivilization and its struggles.

The problem with Marx's position, of course, is that such natives are nowhereto be found, since those Europeanized natives - assimilado or evolue - who join

the struggle for emancipation do so by rejecting their assimilation of indigence

and successfully indigenize themselves. The re-claiming of one's indigenousness

is in fact - for the evolue - the originative moment of the anti-colonial struggle.

It is the moment of an historical and existential decision, at which point the evoluebegins the cultural metamorphosis that will positively immerse him/her into the

indigenous historicality of the colonized. On the other hand, those natives who

are made and remain in the image of the colonizer as the incarnations of culturalestrangement - the assimilado or the evolue on whom Marx placed his hopes

are the embodiments of neo-colonialism. As Albert Memmi points out,

. . . the colonized's liberation must be carried out through a recovery of self and ofautonomous dignity. Attempts at imitating the colonizer required self-denial; thecolonizer's rejection is the indispensable prelude to self-discovery.28

The native engages in mortal combat in order to overcome the colonial domination

that suffocates both his cultural and material existence, and not to consummate

the dialectic of European modernity in the colonies, as Marx seems to explicitlysuggest. As Frantz Fanon so vividly puts it, in

the colonial countries where a real struggle for freedom has taken place, where theblood of the people has flowed and where the length of the period of armed warfarehas favored the backward surge ofintellectuals towards bases grounded in the people,we can observe a genuine eradication of the superstructure bullt by these intellectualsfrom the [European] bourgeois colonialist environment.29

In other words, 'where a real struggle for freedom' has taken place, the westernized

native is absorbed back into the indigenous milieu and re-integrated into the cultural

heritage from which he had been alienated by westernization and which he now

feels as domination. This does not mean that the European values (Marxist theory

for example) infused in the person of the westernized native are discarded. Rather,

the arrogant Euro-centrism in which these values are incased is purged and European

values and technics are accepted for what they are - culturally circumscribed

products of human existence.The achievements of European culture are recognized as the achievements of

a particular culture. In this recognition the universalized particularism of Europe- Euro-centrism - is discarded and elements of European culture are appropriatedand become indigenized organic aspects of re-emerging African cultures.30 It

should be noted that, in so far as Marxist theory is itself a European cultural

historical product, it is only through this indigenizing transformation that elementsof this theory can be of use in the cultural-historical context of Africa. This trans

formative appropriation is what Basil Davidson designates by the term "afro

communism" .31

As Fanon puts it, commenting on the utility ofMarx's thought in the contextof the colonized world, the




cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because

you are rich. This is why Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every

time we have to do with the colonial problem. 32

This 'slight stretching' has to be understood as a basic destabilization of the

Euro-centric orientation of the 'materialist conception of history' . It should be notedthat, 'slight' as this 'stretching' may be, it of necessity dislocates and rejects the

symmetry of Marx's metaphysical presuppositions, as evidenced by the basic

direction and tenor of Fanon's thought as a whole.In like manner Cesaire points out, the Marxist "doctrine and . . . movement"

must be "tailored to fit men, not men to fit the movement" .33 In other words,

from within the political constraints and possibilities of their own particular historical

context, Fanon and Cesaire suggest that aspects ofMarx' s thought can be of use

in the colonial context, provided that their Euro-centric underpinnings are discarded.Elements ofMarx's thinking - namely the critique of capitalist production and

the critique of estrangement in modern society - can be utilized only by being

purged ofMarx's Euro-centric metaphysics, Le., the 'materialist conception of

history' .34 Once purged of this metaphysical Euro-centric system, then Marx's

critical insights can be re-thought, indigenized and appropriated within the African

cultural and historical milieu.

It is only by renouncing Marx's thought as Marxism/the 'materialist conception

of history' - i.e., an "ism" which is a systematic privileging ofEuropean existence

- that disen1bodied elements ofMarx's critique of modern society can be appro

priated and indigenized. In this way the uni-verse of Euro-centrism is broken,

un-structured and the multi-verse of the ' 'fusion"35 of various cultural historical

horizons is inaugurated in a concrete process of struggle.

As Isaias Afewerki puts it, "the aspiration for socialism [Marxism] in the Third

World is completely understandable" , since it is necessary to "transform the social

and economic formations" of these societies.36 But this has to be understood in

the context in which

the Third World and people in this area [Africa] in particular have to come out with

a philosophy that conforms with the present situation and the future developments

that might come without the presence of the Soviet Union or the Americans in thisregion. 37

Speaking out of the political concerns of his particular situation - the Eritrean

anti-colonial struggle in the Horn ofAfrica - Afewerki asserts the need to overcome

Euro-centrism from both the 'East' and the 'West'. In so doing he is re-asserting

what Fanon had forcefully articulated in the Wretched of the Earth.

[The] concrete problem we find ourselves up against is not that of a choice, cost

what it may, between socialism and capitalism as they have been defined by menof other continents and other ages. 38

Let us now look more closely at the metaphysics ofEuro-centrism at work in Marx's'materialist conception of history'.




At this point we have to consider systematically what is at stake. Why is it that

Marx - inspite of his recognition of the brutality of colonialism - explicitly supports

European expansion and conquest. Our question is: What is it in the structure ofMarx's thought which leads him to support European colonialism? In what has

been said thus far I have charged Marx with a metaphysical Euro-centrism. It is

therefore necessary, at this point, to give a full and systematic substantiation ofthis charge.

In the famous 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique ofPolitical Economy,Marx proclaims as a major discovery and as a cornerstone of his thought the results

of his re-reading ofHegel in the mid 1840's. This re-examination was necessitated

by Marx's inability to adequately discuss questions touching on economic andmaterial interests. The concrete socio-economic question that interested Marx was

the "deliberations of the Rhenish Landtag on forest thefts" .39 At the time Marx

held the view that the state as opposed to its Idea was being transformed into a

mere tool in the hands of a section of society. As Leszek Kolakowski points out,

Marx argued that the state was being "degraded" to the status of an "instrument

of the private interests of landowners and was thus contravening the very [I]dea

of the state" .40 It is the re-examination of this question, as Marx tells us, which

leads him to a critique of his Hegelian heritage.

The Hegelian conception of the state as a manifestation of the Idea, was theview that Marx discarded. In its stead, Marx explains that his re-examination of

Hegel in the mid 1840's led him to the crucial conclusion that,

neither legal relations nor political forms could be comprehended whether by themselves or on the basis of a so called general development of the human mind . . . onthe contrary they originate in the material conditions of life. 41

The state and the various socio-political relations that constitute it were then to

be understood in terms of the underlying 'material conditions of life' on which

they are grounded. In other words, the non-material relations of social, political,

cultural existence are reduced and devalued to the status of phenomena whose truth

is to be found in the 'material conditions of life'.

But what precisely are these 'material conditions of life'? InMarx's often quoted

words, the

general conclusion at which I a r r i v ~ d . . . the guiding principle ofmy studies can besummarised as follows. In the social production of their existence, men inevitablyenter into definite relations which are independent of their will, namely relationsof production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forcesof production. The totality of these relations of production constitute the economicstructure of society. . .At a certain stage of development, the material productiveforces of society come into conflict with the existing relations ofproduction . . . Fromforms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.Then begins an era of social revolution. 42

What is of primary interest to us in this passage is not the much belabored issue

of the base and super-structure, but rather, the fact that Marx is not making a

historical statement but is enunciating a speculative metaphysical principle.



170 Praxis Intemational

In the process of producing their 'social existence' , Marx tells us, human beings

enter into 'definite relations' which reveal a certain structure that holds true ofall societies. It is important to note that the 'general conclusion' and 'guiding

principle' which Marx is proclaiming is not restricted or qualified to a specific

culture or era. Rather, it is extended to include "Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modernbourgeois modes of production" , which are different levels in the historical development of the productive forces of society. 43

Marx's remarks, therefore, refer not to a specific culture or historical epoch,

but to the ontological mechanism which is anterior to the antic manifestations

of specific forms of human existence. Thus by 'material conditions of life'

Marx is referring to a specific conception of the developmental and historicaldialectic of the forces and relations of production, which is anticipated by the

less "developed" societies and is instantiated in modern bourgeois social formations.In other words, Marx basically ontologizes the antic manifestations of Europeansociety..

In the first part of the German Ideology, Marx gives us a concise example of

what this means. The German idealogues - against whom he is polemicizing descend from heaven to earth, Marx on the other hand "ascend[s] from earth toheaven' ,.44 In using this metaphor Marx means to emphasize his view that it is

from concrete and empirical premises that he starts. Throughout the German

Ideology the emphasis is on the real, understood as the empirical. Marx's text

leads one to believe that what needs doing is to focus on the particular and thespecific regarding each age and culture in order to avoid speculatively distortinghistory such that "later history is made the goal of earlier history" .45 As we shall

see, Marx falls prey to his own accusations.In the German Ideology, Marx begins by infonning us that the real basis ofhistory

are actual men in the concrete process of securing and procuring their livelihood.The initial premise of all history is therefore the process of satisfying needs and

thus creating more needs, which is the "production of life, both of one's own

in labor and of fresh life in procreation" .46 This process of the production andprocreation of life, furthermore, develops through different consecutive "formsof ownership" or modes of production which are correlated with specific levels

in the development of the division of labor and in the development of the forcesof production. Thus, the level of the division of labor is correlative to a specificlevel in the development of the forces of production. Based on this criterion,

differing societies and cultures - Asiatic/tribal, ancient, feudal and bourgeois

are ranked in a hierarchy of sub-ordination. In these various modes of production,human beings enter into relations of production which are, according to Marx,progressively more developed. Hence, the level ofAsiatic/tribal society correspondsto an "underdeveloped stage of production" precisely because the division of laborand the corresponding development of the forces and relations of production arestill at an initial stage in contrast to modern European society. 47 As Jacques

Taminiaux observes, it

is because and insofar as the productive force is thought to have attained a universaland wholly unrestricted development [in modern European capitalist society] thatthis beginning [Asiatic/tribal society] can be qualified as restricted . . . It is because

and insofar as unlimited and unshackled production is the meaning of the felos [of




history] that the arche is defined as a still restricted [inferior] production, butnevertheless production in the true sense of the term. 48

Thus, in his 'materialist conception of history' , Marx uses as a speculative standardcertain conceptions - the division of labor, the development of the forces and

relations of production, the detachment of man from natural and communal ties

- derived from the European historical experience as the fixed standard by which

human societies as a whole are to be evaluated. In other words, he makes 'laterhistory' the goal of 'earlier history'.

What is inconsistent inMarx's position is that outside the European world, history

occurs not through the development and internal dynamic of the indigenous

populace, but through European intervention. As we saw, in the German Ideology,

the basic premise of Marx' s historical materialist approach is concrete men and

the conditions in which they live. It is from them and their engagements with nature

and society that Marx claims he begins, in contradistinction to German

Idealism. 49For Marx, history is not something apart and above concrete men; it

is nothing more than the eventuations of human beings in the process of fulfilling

the objectives that they themselves establish. To be sure, this always happens within

a context of a past historical development that both hinders and simultaneously

establishes the limits of possibility at any particular moment in time.

In his writings on the non-European world, however, Marx does not seem tobegin from the same concrete engagement. He seems to have forgotten this concrete

beginning which functions as his point of departure in considering European

historical developments. In looking at non-European societies, Marx's focus is

not directed towards the concrete historical engagements of human beings in specific

and particular cultures. Rather, it is directed towards locating the avenues by which

these societies can be Europeanized. His focus is anticipatory and functions only

in terms of what European experience shows. This is so precisely because Marx

- heir to the European Enlightenment - was extremely impressed with the Europeancultural heritage, which he identified with human culture as such, and to which

he opposed the nature-confined status of human life in the non-European world.

In Capital Volume I, Marx asserts that in contrast to human life in the era of

capitalist production, pre-capitalist humanity is immature. This assertion occurs

in the famous section on the fetishism of commodities and is made in a direct

comparison of bourgeois society with Asiatic and pre-capitalist societies as a whole.

As Marx puts it:

Those ancient social organisms ofproduction. . .are founded either on the immaturityofman as an individual, when he has not yet torn himself loose from the umbilicalcord of his natural species-connection with other men, or on direct relations ofdominance and servitude. They are conditioned by a low stage of development ofthe productive powers of labour and correspondingly limited relations between menwithin the process of creating and reproducing their material life, hence also limited

relations between man and nature. 50

The point of this comparison is the situation of human beings in pre-capitalist

societies. Marx begins by maintaining that these societies are based on the 'immaturity of man', which means that man has not yet 'torn himself loose' from

the 'umbilical cord of his natural species-connection' with his fellow man and with




nature. Pre-capitalist man has not yet, as it were, emerged from the bowels of

nature - he is still a "natural' and not a "historical" being. This immersion of

man in nature corresponds with and is 'conditioned by a low stage' in the develop

ment of the 'productive powers of labour' . The explicit presupposition of the passage

quoted above is that the development of the forces of production will consequently

transform this limited and inferior mode of life.The maturity of man - if we are to play out the organic metaphor Marx uses

- will be achieved through the development of the forces of production. That which

"matures" already is and only needs to ripen. In other words, what man is in

"essence", is already present in pre-capitalist society and needs only to be brought

forth by the development of the forces of production. But are not the detachment

of human beings from natural and communal ties, conceptions and ideas specific

to European history? And does Marx not utilize these conceptions and ideas asspeculative metaphysical standards by which to measure the progress of humanity

as such? Can such metaphysical standards be used to evaluate the "progress" of

human societies without surreptitiously Europeanizing humankind as a whole?

These are questions that Marx does not ask. In fact, given his global and

evolutionary conception of history, there is nothing problematic in the above

questions. As Marx points out:

Thus the ancient conception, in which man always appears. . .

as the aim ofproduction,seems very much more exalted than the modern world, in which production is the

aim of man and wealth the aim of production. In fact, however, when the narrow

bourgeois form has been peeled away, \vhat is wealth, if not the universality of needs,

capacities, enjoyments, productive powers, etc., of individuals, produced in universal

exchange? What, if not the full development of human control over the forces ofnature - those of his own nature as well as those of so-called "nature" ?51

In the above question - as in the preceding one - Max is universalizing and

ontologizing the experiences of a particular culture and society. The complete'control over the forces of nature' which Marx promises will follow the peeling

away of the 'narrow bourgeois form', is a "hope" arising out of the concrete

historicality of European modernity. It is by no means an ontological propensity

latent in mankind as such. :rhis, however, is how Marx sees it.

In other words,Marx's sixth Thesis on Feuerbach, is an apt criticism of his own

fixation on European culture. Just as Feuerbach "abstracts from the historical pro

cess" and focuses on "religious sentiment" as something' 'by itself' , in like manner,

Marx abstracts and universalizes European history. In the German Ideology, Marx

says of Feuerbach that he "stops at the abstraction 'man"' , and never gets to men

in the concrete as they actually are in life. 52 In much the same way Marx never goes

beyond European humanity. For himnon-European humanity has nothing original

or different to offer humankind, it basically is Europe at an under-developed stage

- slowly but surely coming along the singular and "true" path of world history.

What has ·to be noted, in what has been said thus far about Marx, is the

extreme Euro-centrism in which his ·'materialist conception of history' is immersed.

What is clear by now, in what Marx says of India and the non-European world

is that, for him, it is only European humanity and European culture thathave the character of being properly human. Indeed, for Marx, non-European




cultures are nothing more than inferior and/or underdeveloped modes of human

life, which is itselfbest exemplified in European culture. Again in regards to Indiansociety Marx writes that it,

. . . subjugated man to external circumstances . . . and thus brought about a brutalizingworship of nature, exhibiting its degradation in the fact that man, the sovereign ofnature fell down on his knees in adoration of Hanuman, the monkey, and Sabbalathe COW. 53

The human being for Marx is the 'sovereign of nature', that is, the ruler and lord

of creation; the subject for whom, the animate and inanimate world all around

him is the object ofmanipulative and technical control. To be sure, this metaphor

of humanity lording it over nature is a peculiarly European Idea. It originates in

the ludeo-Christian myth of the creation ofMan in the image of God. 54 Yet Marxmakes it the ult imate cri terion by which to evaluate all non-European cultures.

For Marx, the ancient Greeks - to whom the West traces its origins - are the

true archaic point of origin of humanity. He writes that, there "are rude children

and precocious children. Many of the ancient peoples belong to this category. The

Greeks were normal children.' '55 Such remarks are quite revealing. Marx, a

European, judges his ancestry relative to other ancestries by the standards of

European culture and concludes that the "Greeks were normal" as opposed to

other archaic peoples who are thus judged to be abnormal.The nonnative criteria to which the Greeks are anterior are used to make a positive

assessment of them. Marx is caught in a vicious Euro-centric circle; he fails to

recognize the hermeneutical (interpretative) character of his judgments - and is

thus caught in what one might call an interpretative or hermeneutical fallacy.56

The fallacy of positing one's own cultural pre-judgements as the "true" ontological

ground of human existence as such. He starts out by presupposing European culture

as the standard bearer of human existence and then goes on to "correctly"

recognize, in the ancient Greeks, the "true" ancestors of "true" humanity preciselybecause it is Europe that traces its origins to them. As Kostas Axelos points out,

Marx projects the history of Europe both backward and forward and understands

all things historical from a European perspective. Axelos asks,

[b]ut has it always been like that, or has not Marx once again projected and generalizedthe truth of the reality of one historical epoch (which is [violently] tending to become

universal) upon the whole of history? It seems that we can answer in the affirmativeto both questions.57

As we saw earlier, modern European civilization universalizes itselfby force andviolence. Marx directly justifies and legitimizes this whole process in the name

of human civilization and culture. ForMarx, capitalist European civilization brings

forth that which humanity has always been in its essence. One can say that for

Marx, European modernity has an ontic-ontological supremacy as opposed to other,

pre-capitalist, non-European modes of production, because it is through it that

the fundamental and "essential determinations of humanity's social and historical

life" are brought forth into the world. As Cornelius Castoriadis further observes,

capitalism is privileged, historically [ontically] and philosophically [ontologically].History is man - but man, essentially, is Labour, and this only becomes apparent




when, having swept away all previous 'lumber' and 'nonsense' , and all 'accidental'factors, the identity of this Substance/Essence can finally affirm itself triumphantlyand prevail, in and through capitalist production. 58

As we saw in our explorative discussion of the German Ideology, it is preciselybecause of this that Marx ranks societies in subordination. And it is for the same

reason that he supports European expansion. The establishment of the world market

which Marx celebrates in the Communist Manifesto is the violent process through

which 'accidental factors' are 'swept away' and the 'Substance/Essence', i.e., man

as the laboring-being in technical dominance of nature is historically instituted

'through capitalist production'. Thus, for Marx, in the non-European world,

colonialism introduces the truth of humanity beyond 'all previous lumber and

nonsense' , i.e., beyond the particularity and specificity of the non-European world.In a round about way we have returned to Hegel. For Hegel, it is the "absolute

right of the Idea to step into existence in clear cut laws and objective institutions",

which basically are European. 59 With Marx, the Idea has been replaced by the

'material conditions' ofmodem European society, but the 'absolute right' of these

conditions is still maintained.

In defence ofMarx, one could say that, historically and ' 'objectively", this is

indeed what has happened in the development of world history. That European

civilization has subjugated all other civilizations is indeed a brute historical fact.But what is at issue here is that this historical and thus contingent phenomenon

is viewed by Marx has having been "objectively" necessary and "ethically"

justified. As Fanon puts it, "objectivity is always directed against" the native. 60

In this context, "objectivity" is nothing more than a code word for the European

point of view. As Antonio Gramsci observes,

[o]bjective always means 'humanly objective'. Man knows objectively in so far asknowledge is real for the whole human race historically unified in a single unitary

cultural system. 61

Now, for Gramsci, as long as the human race is not 'historically unified in a single

cultural system', objectivity is always relative to this or that culture or system

of norms. This is what he means by 'humanly objective'. In so far as Marx's

perspective views only European culture as properly human, all other perspectives

are de facto excluded, and the perspective of "humanity" becomes identical

"objectively" with that of Europe. Marx's perspective, then, is a perspective

wedded to a fixed "objectivity" that does not take 'humanity' in its diversity intoaccount.

But why is this the case? Since Plato, the project of philosophy has been the

metaphysical discourse of the 'visible and the invisible'. 62 In the tradition of

European thought what is is understood to be that which is fixed, eternal. real

(the invisible) on one side, and that which is a manifestation of the real, on the

other side. Philosophy, furthermore, is the discourse which articulates and reveals

that which arises out of this difference. In the various texts that we have examined

thus far,Marx

is continuing this long traditionof

thought.As Axelos points out, Marx's thinking is interior to the "metaphysics of sub

jectivity". Thus he continues to think within the perspective inaugurated by Plato




which functions via the "separation between the physical and the metaphysical,

reality and idea, matter and mind (spirit), practice and theory. "63 Marx under

stands reality as "abjectness for the senses and subject to empirical grasp", in

contradistinction to which human subjectivity is viewed as that which counterposesitself to reality and in so doing subjugates and controls it. 64 Because Marx' s

thinking is interior to the structure ofmetaphysics, European culture - which views

Man as the subject "sovereign" over nature - appears to him as the singularly

proper manifestation of human historicality/existence as such.

It is for this reason that Marx endorses the violence of European conquest and

supports the world wide colonialist expansion of Europe. Marx fails to see that

non-European humanity has its own differing modes of historicality or existenceand cannot be understood or merely subsumed under the label "European humanity' ,

at a lower level of development. 65

The Euro-centric metaphysics at work inMarx's thought leads him to a deficient

understanding of the dimension of historicality in human existence. He fails to

see that non-European cultures are not inferior or underdeveloped fonns ofEuropean

culture, but constitute differing manifestations and appropriations of human

historicality. As Castoriadis puts it, the European self-centered conception that,

"in truth, there is but one history and for all that matters, this one history coincides

with our own", this view which sees European history as the transcendental Truth

of history as such, as the fundamental and "'transcendentally obligatory' meetingpoint of all particular histories" ,66 this narrowly confined Euro-centric uni-verse,

is the basic presupposition on which Marx's 'materialist conception ofhistory' rests.

As we have seen, the metaphysical grounding of this view is the belief that

European modernity's relation to nature - technological domination - is cotenninous

or isomorphic with the true ontological status of the humanity of the human in

its relation to nature. Thus, for Marx, European colonialisln is the spread ofHuman

Civilization and the globalization of the pre-conditions of true human freedom,

i.e., communism.

IV

From what has been said thus far it is clear that Marx's 'materialist conception

of history' serves well as a metaphysical and as an ethical justification ofEuropean

colonialism and expansion. It presents aggressors as historical benefactors and

victims as deserving of their victimization which is brought about by their own

indolent "historical" lethargy, i.e., their "backwardness". The operative andfundamental dichotomy at work in Marx's thought is the "disparity" between

civilized and barbarian measured on a singular, sequential, evolutionary, hierarchical

and linear progression of "history". Thus, in the guise of the dialectic of this

singular metaphysical history, the mastery of the world by Europe is presented

as the "self-mastery" and "maturity" of humanity.

This metaphysical world-historical schema, as we have shown, is not founded

on an empirical exploration of the histories and cultures that constitute humanity

as a multi-verse totality. It is, rather, the retrospective-prospective de jure justifica

tion of de facto European brutality in the manner of the' 'owl ofMinerva" which

, 'spreads its wings only with the falling [or in Marx's case in anticipation] of the




dusk".67 Thus, Marx is guilty of the charge he levels against the German Idealogues

in the German Ideology, i.e., o f speculaiively distorting 'later history' such that

it appears as 'the goal of earlier history'.

For Marx - the self-proclaimed unmasker of "unimaginative fantasies" - the

"prophets of the eighteenth century, on whose shoulders Adam Smith and Ricardowere still wholly standing," conceived the isolated individual "as the starting point

of history". The thinking of these "prophets", as Marx astutely observes, was

guided by the "anticipation of 'bourgeois society' which began to evolve in the

sixteenth century" .68 In like manner, Marx privileges the brutal spectacle of

European colonialism and elevates it to the status of ontological truth, precisely

because his thinking is formulated in anticipation of the globalization of the

instrumental and dominating relation of humanity to nature best exemplified in

European modernity.Based on the violent obliteration of difference and the imposition of sameness,

the incipient world-historical Europeanization of the globe is presented by the

'materialist conception of history' as the ontologically sanctioned actualization of

the "destiny" of humanity. But, isn't this also "an illusion and nothing but the

aesthetic illusion of the small and big Robinsonades [Europeanades]" ?69

It is the politics of this metaphysical universalism that Aime Cesaire' s political

affirmation of the particularity and specificity of the history and culture of the

colonized African world rejects. Cesaire rejects the politics of this metaphysicalidea, of a singular history within which the multiple histories and cultures of

humanity are to be subsumed under the supposed "universality" of European

particularity.

The peculiarity of our history, laced with terrible nlisfortunes which belong to no

other history. The peculiarity of our culture , which we intend to live and make live

in an ever realler [sic.] manner.

And the consequences? what if not that our paths towards the future, all our paths,

I say, the political as well as the cultural paths, aren't ready-traced on any map;that they remain to be discovered, and that the job [of] discovering then1 is our and

no one else's affair?70

It is also in this manner that Amilcar Cabral categorically reject the Marxist justifica

tion of European colonialism.

There is a preconception . . . that imperialism made us enter history at the moment

when it began its adventure in our countries. This preconception must be denounced:

for the left and for Marxists in particular, history obviouslymeans the class struggle.

Our opinion is exactly the contrary. We consider that when imperialism arrived inGuinea it made us leave history - our history. We agree that history in our country

is the result of class struggle, but we have our own class struggle in our country;

the moment imperialism arrived and colonialism arrived it made us leave our history

and enter another history. 7\

The basic starting point of Cabral's thinking on colonialism and the anti-colonial

struggle which he formulates as the' 'return to the source" is a heteronomous and

multi-valent conception of history. 72 History or culture is the actuality of

engagements, the - intellectual, artistic, spiritual, material, political, economic- existence of a people which constitutes its temporality. In reference to the natural




environment and in the context of defmite social-historical relations differing peoples

exist within the confines of specific histories/cultures that dis-close and simul

taneously are dis-closed by the lived actuality of a people. Thus,

[i]f we do not forget the historical perspective of the major events in the life ofhumanity, if, while maintaining due respect for all philosophies, we do not forgetthat the world is the creation of man himself, then colonialism can be consideredas the paralysis or deviation or even the halting of the history of one people in favourof the acceleration of the historical development of other peoples.73

To the extent, then, that national liberation is the overcoming of the colonialist

interruption of the history/culture of the colonized it is a process of returning 'to

the source' out ofwhich the colonized spun their existence prior to being colonized.

But what does this mean? What is the 'source' towards which the 'return' is directed?This 'return' is not a question of going back to some original archaic past, rather

it is a question of appropriating the cultural forms of existence that have endured

against colonialism and re-instituting them in the context of the present day actuality

of the modern world. It is a question of retrieving and re-calling "the past with

the intention of opening the future, as an invitation to action and a basis for

hope" .74 Or, in the already quoted words of Cesaire, 'our paths towards the

future, all our paths . . . aren't ready-traced on any map'. Thus - the dictates of

the 'materialist conception of history' not withstanding - the destiny of Africais not the duplication of the European mode of life. Rather, it is the tracing-out

of its own lived historicality from within the actuality of its heritage.

The 'return to the source' is properly speaking the internal, structure and dynamic

that constitutes and realizes the possibilities opened up by the anti-colonialist

struggle. If this 'return' - in some form or other - is not instituted in the actuality

of the confrontation with colonialism then the "struggle will have failed to achieve

its objective" .75 In being a historical phenomenon, the 'return' is the liberation

of the stunted - cultural, spiritual, political, historical, economic - possibilities

of the colonized.

As Fanon puts it,

[d]ecolonization is the veritable creation of new men. But this creation owes nothingof its legitimacy to any supernatural power; the "thing" which has been colonizedbecomes man [human] during the same process by which it frees itself. 76

To 'free itself', to become human, the colonized 'thing' must retrieve for it-self

and out of it-self "that unique thing in man's [human] life that is represented by

the fact of opening up new horizons".77 The colonized 'thing' must re-instituteits cultural and historical heritage, in the context of the modern world, thereby

negating the historical "task" of European colonialism. For Marx, on the contrary,

the cultural-historical obliteration of the colonized is the "task" of European

colonialism sanctioned by the metaphysics of the 'materialist conception of history' .

Contra Marx, the colonized is not concerned with consummating the dialectic

of European history in the colonies. As Cabral points out, the history of Europe

in Africa is not the epoch of the spread of civilization, but is part of the world

historical European 'adventure' through which the hegemony of a particular culture

was forcefully imposed on the planet as a whole, the period in which African




historical existence ossified and Africa was forced to become the negative underbelly

of European historical development.Paradoxically Europe undertook the domination of the world and of Africa not

in the explicit and cynical recognition of its imperial interests, but in the delusion

that it was spreading civilization and humanizing the world. As we havedemonstrated in this paper, this delusion is not extrinsic to, but embedded in andintrinsic to the very structure of Marx's 'materialist conception of history',formulated in view of the "destiny" of humanity, Le., the technical domination

of the globe. How else could Marx think himself a sanguine advocate of human

freedom while justifying European capitalist colonialism?

Acknowledgement

I wish to thank Nuhad Jamal for reading and commenting on an earlier draft of

this paper.

Notes

1. For an interesting discussion of the influence of Marx's thought in African philosophical and

political circles see, V. Y. Mudimbe, "African Gnosis: Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge",African Studies Review, Vol. 28, No. 2/3, June/September 1985, pp. 174-178. As Mudimbe points

out there are presently five officially Marxist regimes in Africa.2. In other words, all of the above thinkers in spite of their differences and differing approaches,

attempt in their respective political involvements to negate the Euro-centric tendencies ofMarx's

thought. In this paper I focus on Cesaire, Fanon and Cabral precisely because, in my view, they

best articulate the political effort directed against Marxist Euro-centrism. For a recent discussionofwhat is at stake in Marxist Euro-centrism see, Juliet Schor, "Why I am no Longer a Progressive",

Zeta Magazine, April 1989. For a critical discussion ofMarx in the context ofAfrical political thought

- which however fails to engage the metaphysics at work inMarx's thought - see, Ayi Kwei Armah,"Masks and Marx: The Marxist Ethos vis-a-vis African Revolutionary Theory and Practice",

Presence Ajricaine, No. 131, 3rd Quarterly, 1984.

3. Aime Cesaire's 1956Letter to Thorez, (Presence Africaine, 1957); and Amilcar Cabral, "BriefAnalysis of the Social Structure in Guinea", in Revolution in Guinea: Selected Texts, (Monthly ReviewPress, 1969).

4. I borrow the notion of de-struction from Martin Heidegger's Being and Time, part I, section

6, (Harper & Row Pub., 1962). A de-structive reading is one that undermines the text from within

and in terms of the cardinal notions on which it is grounded and in so doing exposes the hidden

source out of which the text is articulated. In, Martin Heidegger: The Way and the Vision, (The

University Press of Hawaii, 1976), J. L. Mehta refers to this aspect of Heidegger's thought as a

"metaphysical archaeology" (pp. 96-97), that enables the interpreter to pierce through and disclose

the originative context out ofwhich the text is articulated. For an interesting discussion of the negative

aspect of African philosophy, which takes its point of departure from Derrida's notion of 'deconstruction' see; Lucious Outlaw, "African 'Philosophy': Deconstructive and reconstructive

challenges", in Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. 5, African Philosophy, ed. , Guttom Floistad,(Martinus Nijhoff Pub., 1987).

5. Hegel's Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 11.6. As is well known, Karl Marx never used the expressions 'historical materialism' or 'dialectical

materialism'. The only formulation he used to describe his work was "the materialist conception

ofhistory", A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (International Publishers, 1970),

trans. M. Dobb, p., 220, emphasis in the original.

7. A good example of this paradoxical perspective is the work of the African philosopher Paulin

J. Hountondji (African Philosophy: Myth and Reality, Indiana University Press, 1983). Reflectingon the character ofKwame Nkrumah's political thought, Hountondji remarks that it vacillates between




an 'early' Africanist phase and a 'later' Marxist-Leninist period. By presenting what he calls a

'historicist' reading of Nkrumah's texts, he argues that, the later Nkrumah endorsed the Marxist

Leninist thesis that the struggle in Africa is nothing more than the class struggle ofWestern societies

extended to the international arena (pp. 135-137). Hountondji presents the above as a positive develop

ment and thus shares in Nkrumah' s failure to grasp the specificity and particularity of the historicalin the earlier works of Nkrumah precisely because they intend - no matter how inadequately - to

think the historicality of the African situation from an Africanist perspective. The paradoxical and

contradictory character of Hountondji's position becomes clear when he writes that, " . . . it must

not be forgotten that later he [Nkrumah] more and more openly declared his allegiance to scientific

socialism, that is to say Marxism-Leninism, though, of course, without in any way repudiating the

authentic African cultural tradition" (pp. 141-142). Such a statement is nothing more than a futile

attempt to 'square' the proverbial 'circle'. Since, to subscribe to Marx's thought understood as

'scientific socialism' or 'Marxism-Leninism', one necessarily subscribes to a philosophy (science?)

or history that places Africa at the bottom of an evolutionary ladder that fmds its end and consummation

in contemporary Europe. Such a perspective subordinates Africa to Europe and insists on "solving"African problems by imposing ideas and conceptions derived from the European historical experience.

For a cri tical discussion of Hountondji which however shares his paradoxical perspective see,

E. Wamba-Dia-Wamba, "Philosophy in Africa: Challenges of the African Philosopher", in Mawazo,Vol. 5, No. 2, December 1983. For critical discussions ofHountondji's work in African philosophy

see, Olabiyi Yai, "Theory and Practice in African Philosophy: The Poverty of Speculative

Philosophy", in Second Order, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1977. Wamba's paper will be part of a collection

of contemporary African philosophical texts that I am presently preparing for Paragon House

Publishers.

8. Eric J. Hobsbawm makes the above observation in his Introduction to Marx's texts from the

Grundrisse, which pertain to pre-capitalist societies, and have been published separatively under

the title Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (International Publishers, 1975), p. 26.

9. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto (International Publishers, 1988),

p. 10.

10. Ibid., p. 13.

11. Ibid., p. 9.12. Ibid., p. 11.

13. Ibid., p. 12, emphasis added.

14. Ibid., p. 14.15. Karl Marx, "The Future Results of British Rule in India", in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,

On Colonialism, (International Publishers, 1972), p. 87, emphasis added.

16. Claude Lefort, "Rereading The Communist Manifesto", inDemocracy and Political Theory,

(University ofMinnesota Press, 1988), p. 153; for a systematic critique ofMarx's notion of history

by the same author see, "Marx: From one Vision of History to Another", in The Political Forms

ofModern Society, (The MIT Press Cambridge, 1986). . . .17. Kostas Axelos, Alienation, Praxis, & Techne in the Thought of Karl Marx, (UnIverSIty of

Texas Press, 1976), passim.18. Marx, A Contribution to a critique of Political Economy, pp. 202-203.

19. Edward Said The Question of Palestine, (Vintage Books, 1980), p. 78.

20. Karl Marx Frederick Engels, The German Ideology, (International Publishers, 1973),

pp.89-90.

21. Marx and Engels, On Colonialism, p. 82.

22. Ibid., p. 31, emphasis added.

23. Ibid., p. 82. . . . hl24. For assimilado see, Mario De Andrade, biographIcal notes In, UnlfJJ. and Struggle (Mont y

Review Press, 1979), p. xxiii. For evolue see, Jean-Paul Sartre, Introduction to Lumumba Speaks

(Little, Brown & Co., 1972), p. 8. .

25. Marx and Engels, On Colonialism, p. 85, emphasis. a d d ~ d . , . . "26. In this regard see my paper, "The Idea of ColonialIsm In Hegel s Phzlosophy of Rzght ,

forthcoming in International Philosophical Quarterly, S e p t ~ m b e r 98? .27. Oliva Blanchette, "The Idea of History in Karl Marx ,Studzes zn Sovzet Thought, Vol. 26,

No. 2, August 1983, p. 119, emphasis added.




28. Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, (Beacon Press, 1965), p. 128. For a concise

exploration of the cultural situation of the colonized within the colonizer's hegemonic cultural dominion

see, Thomas F. Slaughter, Jr., "Epidermalizing the World: A Basic Mode of Being Black", in

Philosophy Born of Struggle, ed., L. Harris, (Kendal Hunt Pub., 1983).

29. Franz Fanon, The Wretched o/the Earth, (Grove Press Inc., 1963), p. 46, emphasis added.

30. Amilcar Cabral, Return to the Source, (Monthly Review Press, 1973), passim; and Fanon,

"On National Culture", in The Wretched of the Earth. For discussions of African efforts at

indigenizing European cultural products, specifically Christianity, see: J. F. Ade. Ajayi, "Tradition

as a Factor in African Development", paper presented at Amhert College, April 1989; and V. Y.Mudimbe, "African Theology as a Political Praxis: Vincent Mulago and the Catholic Theological

Discourse: 1950-1980", Presence Ajricaine, No. 145, 1st Quarterly, 1988.

31. Basil Davidson, Cross Roads in Africa, (Spokesman Press, 1980), p. 31.

32. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 40.

33. Aime Cesaire, Letter to Thorez, p. 12.34. In this regard I would like to suggest that there are aspects of Marx' s work, specifically in

the 1844 Manuscripts, that are not framed within the metaphysical structure of the 'materialist

conception of history' . As Louis Dupre points out (" Marx' s Idea of Alienation Revisited", Man

and World, Vol. 14, No. 4, 1981, p. 393-394.), the Manuscripts are constituted by two contradictory

conceptions and lend themselves to fundamentally differing interpretatings. Marx criticizes political

economy in terms of "an ideal Gattungswessen [first conception] that, instead of being derived

from man's present condition, persistently contradicts it. This humanist ideal . . . does not merge

harmoniously with the social-economic definition of man [second conception]". (p. 394, emphasis

in the original) If read along these lines indicated by the first conception, as in Michael Henry's

Marx: A Philosophy ofHuman Reality, (Indiana University Press, 1983, chapters 2 and 3), these

texts are indeed a continuation of German Idealism. Or as Kostas Axelos points out, the "fundamental

premise that allows the transcendence of alienation namely, the essence ofman (something that has

never been empirically found), is metaphysical in nature. And it is metaphysical in the traditional

sense of that term, since it goes beyond the data of experience", (Alienation, Praxis and Techne

in the Thought ofKarl Marx, p. 225, emphasis in the original). These critiques insist on locating

the 1844 Manuscripts as a whole within the paradigmatic confines of the 'materialist conception

of history'. But, beyond the metaphysics of 'species being' and its realization through the stages

delineated by the 'materialist conception of history' - hidden and hampered by it - as Dupre observes

(without exploring this point further), the 1844 Manuscripts also harbor an ontological perspective

(the critique of estrangement) and an ontic analysis (the critique of capitalist production) which is

not grounded on an a-historical 'species being' and a metaphysical schema of history. It has to be

noted that the Manuscripts are inter-paradigm texts, located in-between Marx's Hegelian period

and before the formulation of the 'materialist conception of history' in the German Ideology, and

as such, are not univocal. In my view, it is this multi-vocality ofMarx's early writings that offers

itself to be explored and appropriated within the historical and cultural context of Africa.

35. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, (Crossroad Publishing Co., 1982), pp. 273-274.I utilize this notion in the sense in which it occurs in the thinking of the later Heidegger and which

Hans-Georg Gadamer appropriates as the basic structure of the hermeneutical consciousness. In

this regard see my paper, "Heidegger and Gadamer: Thinking as 'Meditative' and as 'Effective

Historical Consciousness''', Man and World, Vol. 20, No. 1,1987.

36. James Firebrace and Stuart Holland, interview with Isaias Afewerki, in Eritrea: Never KneelDown, (The Red Sea Press, 1985), p. 131.

37. Ibid., p. 133. For a more recent statement of this perspective see, Isaias Afewerki's address

to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington D.C. , May 3, 1989, printed

in Adulis (monthly publication of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front Foreign Relations Bureau),

Vo!. 6, No. 6, June 1989.

38. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 99, emphasis added. In this respect see also, Steve

Biko, I Write What I Like (Harper & Row Pub., 1986), passim.

39. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, p. 19.

40. Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents ofMarxism, (Clarendon Press, 1978), Vol. 1, p. 122.

41. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, p. 20, emphasis added.

42. Ibid., p. 20-21.




43. Ibid., p. 21. As Marx points out in the German Ideology, "all collisions [developments] in

history have their origin, according to our view, in the contradiction between the productive forces

and the form of intercourse [Le., relations of production]". (p. 89).

44. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, p. 47.

45. Ibid., p. 57.46. Ibid., p. 50.

47. Ibid., p. 44.

48. Jacques Tarniniaux, "Empiricism and Speculation in the German Ideology", in Philosophy

and Social Criticism, Vol. 6, No. 3, Fall 1979, p. 257.

49. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, p. 42-52.

50. Karl Marx, Capital Vol. I, (Vintage Books, 1977), trans. Ben Fowkes, p. 172-173.

51. Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, p. 84, emphasis added.

52. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, p. 64.

53. Marx and Engels, On Colonialism, p. 41, emphasis added.

54. For Heidegger this idea ofman, compounded with the Greek notion ofLogos, is the fundamental

and grounding perspective embodied in and unfolded by the European metaphysical tradition. Being

and Time, (Harper & Row Pub., 1962), division I, p. 74.

55. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, p. 217.

56. For the sense in which I utilize the notion of a hermeneutical fallacy see, Heidegger, Being

and Time, section 32 "Understanding and Interpretation" and specifically, pp. 194-195.

57. Axelos, Alienation, Praxis, & Techne in the Thought of Karl Marx, p. 91.

58. Cornelius Castoriadis, Crossroads in The Labyrinth, (The MIT Press, 1984), pp. 274-275.

59. Hegel's Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox, p. 219, paragraph 350.

60. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 77.61. Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, (International Publishers, 1975), p. 445, emphasis added.

62. Plato, The Collected Dialogues, (Princeton University Press, 1980), edited by E. Hamilton

and H. Cairns, the "Phaedo", No. 79a. In all fairness to Plato it should be noted that his later

dialogues place this perspective - explicitly articulated in the middle dialogues - as a whole in question.

In this regard see the "Sophist" and especially the "Parmenides".

63. Axelos, Alienation, Praxis, & Techne in the Thought ofKarl Marx, p. 146, emphasis in the

original.

64. Ibid., p. 128, see also, pp. 155-158.

65. It is interest ing to note that even Heidegger - in spite of his Being-question and all that this

question makes possible - does not escape this self-aggrandizing European delusion, i.e., Eurocentrism. Even though the basic tenor of his thought is aimed at undermining such a narrowing

of human existence as the dis-closure of Being. In this regard see, Being and Time, part I, section

11, pp. 76-77. For a more restrained suggestion of Euro-centrism in the thinking of Heidegger

see, J. L. Mehta, The Philosophy ofMartin Heidegger, (Harper and Row Pub., 1971), pp. 251-254.

66. Cornelius Castoriadis, "The Greek Polis and the Creation of Democracy'" Graduate Faculty

Philosophy]ounlal, Vo!. 9, No. 2, Fall 1983, p. 93.

67. Hegel's Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox, p. 13.

68. Marx, A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy, p. 188.

69. Ibid., p. 188.

70. Cesaire, Letter to Thorez, pp. 6-7.71. Cabral, "BriefAnalysis of the Social Structure of Guinea", in Revolution in Guinea, p. 68.

72. Amilcar Cabral, Return to the Source: Selected Speeches, (Monthly Review Press, 1973), p. 63.

73. Cabral, "The NationalistMovements of the Portuguese Colonies", in Revolution in Guinea:

Selected Texts, p. 76.

74. Fanon, The Wretched o/the Earth, p. 232. For a very insightful development of this theme

in the context of the contemporary discussions in African philosophy see; Okonda Okolo, "Tradition

et destin: Horizons d'une hermeneutique philosophique africaine", Presence Ajricaine, no. 114,

2nd Quarterly 1980. Translated by Kango Lare-Lontone this text will be part of a collection of

contemporary African philosophical texts that I am presently preparing for Paragon House Publishers.

75. Cabral, Return to the Source: Selected Speeches, p. 56.

Documents

1.9999 - Serequeberhan, Tsenay - Karl Marx and African Emancipatory Thought. a Critique of Marx's Euro-Centric Metaphysics (en)