In search of real justice for Africa and Africans,and her/their descendants in a world of justice,injustices and impunity

Abstract

The quest for justice by Africans and peoples of African descent, wherever they may be in the world, is arguably one of the most daunting mental, psychological, moral, legal and material challenges facing humanity in general, and the peoples of Africa in particular. It is a question of whether African peoples demand justice for the wrongs committed against Africa and its peoples over the last 500 years, or whether Africa and African peoples accept complicity in the global impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of those injustices, and by doing so diminish the significance of contemporary enthusiasm for global justice. Centralising the question of impunity to date for horrendous crimes, gross human and peoples’ rights violations and other injustices against Africa and Africans is not meant to distract Africans in Africa and the diaspora from the quest, in the 21^st century, for a new Africa that we have a historical responsibility to build and, by doing so, to ensure that the past is not repeated. Acknowledging the wrongs of the past and making symbolic reparative actions for those wrongs are essential for ensuring that the pursuit for a better world of justice is not built on top of underlying sinkholes and on the waste dumps of past injustices. Critical breakthroughs, such as the commitment enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the African Union (2000), on crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and the prohibition of unconstitutional change of government, must be vigorously pursued to their logical conclusion. To do so requires an understanding of where Africans, in their relationship with peoples in the rest of the world, are coming from. Smaller parts of the world have experienced similar heinous injustices with impunity, and Africa's pursuit of real justice also applies to those states and their peoples. Corrective or reparative justice is needed to clear the path for the meaningful and honest promotion of real global justice in the making of the future. It is imperative that the making of the African Renaissance confront real global justice for the sake of the past, the present and the future.     

Towards an Afrokology of knowledge production and African regeneration

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of the scientificity of studying and generally investigating historical phenomena in which African achievements are properly recognised and appropriated as such by all humanity. This approach is not necessarily African‐centric or Afrocentric. It is a universal scientific approach that goes beyond Eurocentricism. It recognises other sources of knowledge as valid within their historical, cultural or social contexts, and seeks to dialogue with them. It recognises tradition as a fundamental pillar in the creation of such cross‐cultural knowledge in which Africans can stand out as having been the forebearers of much of what is called a Greek or European heritage. This scientific approach is provisionally called Afrokology, which encompasses the philosophical, epistemological and methodological issues, all seen as part of the process of creating an African self‐understanding that can place Africa in today's global world, and in which it is recognised as a full partner and forebear of much of the human heritage.

African scholars must pursue knowledge production that can renovate African culture, defend the African people's dignity and civilisational achievements and contribute afresh to a new global agenda that can push humanity out of the crisis of modernity as promoted by the European Enlightenment. Such knowledge must be relevant to the current needs of the masses, which they can use to bring about a social transformation out of their present plight. We cannot just talk about the production of ‘knowledge for its own sake’ without interrogating its purpose. There cannot be such a thing as the advancement of science for its own sake. Those who pursue ‘science for its own sake’ find that their knowledge is used for purposes which they may never have intended it. Eurocentric knowledge is not produced purely for its own sake. Its purpose throughout the ages has been to enable them to ‘know the natives’ in order to take control of their territories, including human and material resources (Said 1978) for their benefit. Such control of knowledge was used to exploit the non‐European peoples, to colonise them both mentally and geo‐strategically, as well as to subordinate the rest of the world to their designs and interests. This article adopts and explores Afrokology, a philosophical, epistemological and methodological approach that emphasises that Africa's achievements are recognised.

The issue of an African Renaissance, which has been advanced politically, especially by the South African President Thabo Mbeki, cannot be viewed as an event in the politics of the African political elites, although that may be their purpose. It has to be taken up, problematised, interrogated and given meaning that goes beyond the intentions of its authors, and involve the masses of the African people in it if it has the potential to mobilise. It can be used as an occasion for beginning the journey of African psychological, social, cultural as well as political liberation. It can also be used as a mobilisation statement and the basis for articulating an African agenda for knowledge production that is not only relevant to African conditions, but also sets an agenda for the reclaiming of African originality of knowledge and wisdom, which set the rest of human society on the road of civilisation.     

文化自觉的现代社会发展意义

文化自觉是人类理性在求取自身生存发展和自由过程中的最高体现,它主要涉及人的解放的目的、意义、价值等关于“人自身”的问题。在社会发展的文化过程中,具体表现为人的求真精神、求善精神和求美精神,使人牢记人永远是目的而不是手段,人的目的在于人自身,关心人、热爱人,关注全人类的发展和进步,从而使人成为一种具有崇高境界的真正全面自由发展的主体。     

人文精神的理论内涵及其本质特征

人文精神是一个历史的范畴,不同的时代赋予其不同的内涵。对于当代中国人来说,人文精神的建构是一个全新的题目。人文精神是人类在求取自身生存、发展的过程中,以真善美的价值理想为核心,不断实现自身解放的一种自觉的思想信念和文化准则,其本质的规定性表现为:历史精神、文化(科学)精神、理性精神、实践精神。     

African Postmodernism: Its Moment,Nature and Content

The fulcrum of this article is its exposure of postcolonial African modernity as being both historically and philosophically, an anachronistic colonial modernity, or simply Afrocoloniality. I explicate this anachronism by pointing out that while the cultural and intellectual edifice of Afrocoloniality was built on a colonial European Modernism, whose epistemic infrastructure continues to be reconstructed by the Western postmodernist movement, the structure of this Afrocoloniality remains impervious to this reconstruction. A Status quaestionis arises from the fact that, historically, in its nascent form, this African modernity that we claim is an Afrocoloniality was facilitated by an anticolonial consciousness that embraced and generated a series of political categories and a political praxis, which, in turn, had to be trapped in the paradigms of European modernism, while this very European modernism was in a state of philosophic crisis. A recognition of this incongruity, I argue, constitutes a uniquely African postmodernist conceptual prism that can serve to appraise these politico-philosophical categories that have informed the conduct of the anti-colonial struggle and the resultant postcolonial milieu. This article therefore, makes a case for this Afro-postmodernism.     

路翎小说：生命原始强力的极端释放

张扬生命的原始强力是路翎小说的基本主题，路翎小说也因此为新文学倡导的个性解放主题开辟了全新话题。塑造具有挑战精神和反抗性的孤独英雄是路翎生命原始强力的表现途径，激情叙事是原始强力的表达话语形式。路翎小说的悲剧性表现出生命的崇高感，也表现出其崇尚生命原始强力的局限性。     

解放神学在菲律宾：处境化与回应

解放神学是20世纪60年代诞生于拉丁美洲的一种基督教社会主义思潮,自诞生以来,对亚洲、非洲等第三世界国家天主教会的神学思想转变与社会实践带来巨大影响。一方面,解放神学直接推动第三世界国家的天主教会关注穷人的困境与国家的政治经济问题,探索穷人获得解放的途径;另一方面,解放神学不可避免地面临处境化与本土化的适应与挑战。菲律宾作为亚洲重要的天主教国家,菲律宾的天主教会在解放神学的影响下,积极探索解放神学对菲律宾社会的适应,对解放神学理论做出了新的阐释与发展,不仅极大地丰富了解放神学的理论,而且积极地推动了解放神学在亚洲社会的实践,对当代菲律宾的社会政治运动产生了深远影响。     

自然的解放:法兰克福学派生态思想的探索及启示

法兰克福学派的生态思想在西方马克思主义生态研究中占据重要位置,它通过研究资本主义社会发展现状、异化消费产生、生态危机的原因,向我们描述了如何了解自然、解放自然过程。通过简要回顾法兰克福学派的生态思想,揭示了法兰克福学派生态思想的着力点,并就其思想给我们当代社会发展现状和生态文明建设的启示做出了几点归纳。     

‘The objectionable injectable’: recovering the lost history of the WLM through the Campaign Against Depo-Provera

ABSTRACT

The Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) was one of the most important social movements of the twentieth century. Although the last few years have seen an increase in historical work exploring the movement, archival-based accounts of the diverse groups that comprised the WLM are few and far between. This article will uncover, and shed light on, the important work of the Campaign Against Depo-Provera. It will explore how women’s campaigns operated during this period, whilst also providing a lens for examining how women engaged with race and class. It will argue that we need to adopt a more nuanced understanding of how feminists engaged with identity, as an examination of the Campaign Against Depo-Provera questions many of the previously held orthodoxies in the literature.     

Another Perspective on Women＇s Oppression： Reflections on Feminist Politics and Human Nature

《女权主义政治与人的本质》是阿莉森.贾格尔的代表作。该书认为异化概念可以为系统分析当代社会女性所受压迫提供一个比阶级分析更恰当的理论框架。异化是当代资本主义社会中女性的普遍和基本体验,女性的彻底解放需要一种社会生产的全新组织模式和彻底消除女性柔弱气质。该书认识到了父权制和资本主义制度之间的同一性和彼此强化性,但用异化这个马克思在其成熟时期已然弃用的概念来做理论框架的基础使得贾格尔的分析有时会显得力不从心。