The Colonial Lie That Africans Cannot Think

Dr. Ratzinger E. E. Nwobodo (Ph.D) explores colonialism not just as territorial conquest but as intellectual domination. It begins at the 1885 Berlin Conference, where European powers divided Africa—a continent they viewed as a “blank” map. This theft was justified through the “three C’s”: Christianity (saving souls), Civilization (erasing existing cultures), and Commerce (extractive economics). The result was deracination—the uprooting of African identity through language bans and forced assimilation.

The philosophical root of this oppression is exposed in the writings of Hume, Kant, and Hegel. Hume denied Black people possessed reason; Kant created a racial hierarchy labeling Blackness a “degradation”; Hegel excluded Africa entirely from world history. These thinkers provided the moral license for colonization by declaring Africans incapable of abstract thought.

In response, African philosophy emerged in four waves: ethno-philosophy (locating wisdom in cultural traditions), philosophic sagacity (individual critical thinkers in villages), nationalist ideology (Nkrumah, Nyerere), and professional philosophy (rigorous academic analysis). Tensions between tradition and critique were resolved by Theophilus Okere’s hermeneutics: culture is the raw material (clay), philosophy is the critical interpretation (pottery).

Decolonization is redefined here not as flag independence, but as removing “undue influences” (Kwasi Wiredu) and healing psychological wounds. Poka Laenui’s five stages—rediscovery, mourning, dreaming, commitment, action—frame it as collective therapy, not just policy change.

A seven-step action plan follows: reclaim indigenous knowledge, revitalize African languages, critique Eurocentrism, reinterpret history, diversify curricula, restore communal ethics (Ubuntu), and engage globally as equals.

The central question posed: Are we living in a “translated world” —perceiving reality only through Western concepts? True decolonization means thinking in African languages and governing through African logic, not copies of European models.

Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Welcome back to the deep dive. We are doing something a little different today. Usually we look at the world map and we talk about geopolitics, borders, resources, you know, the physical stuff, the tangible things, exactly. But today I want to look at that same map, but through a completely different lens. We are looking at the history of the mind, and it's a history that is often

Unknown Speaker  0:22  
uncomfortable. Frankly, yeah, it's messy. It is, but it is absolutely necessary if we want to understand not just history, but how we think today, why we value certain ideas over others. Yes, and to set the stage properly, we have to time travel a bit. We are going back to a very specific, likely, very smoky room in the late 19th century. The year is 1885 the place is Berlin, the infamous Berlin conference right now, when I learned about this in school, it was just a footnote European powers meant to divide Africa. End of sentence, yeah, a line in a textbook. But the source material we're looking at today this paper by Dr Ratzinger, EE and wobodo paints this scene in a way that actually made my skin crawl a little bit. It describes the colonial masters gathering in Berlin. And it's crucial to picture this. You have these men in suits holding brandy snifters standing over a massive map. And the most important detail about that map, it was largely blank to them, right? They were drawing lines through territories they had never seen, through communities they didn't know existed. The text notes that Berlin was the center of power at the time, and the objective was, well, it wasn't diplomacy, no, it wasn't a meeting of equals. The source uses a very specific word loot. It says they gathered to share Africa like a loot among the conquerors. That word loot implies something illicit, doesn't it? Oh, absolutely. You don't loot your own house, you loot a bank, you loot a store. It implies theft on a massive continental scale. It does. It implies that the object in question has no owner, and that is the inciting incident of our deep dive today. How do you justify that? How do you sit in a room in Europe, 1000s of miles away from the Congo or Nigeria and decide, I own this now you can. You can't just do that with guns. I mean, you can, but to sustain it, you need a story. You need a narrative to make you sleep at night. And that narrative was the concept of the Dark Continent precisely. If you convince yourself and your public that a place is dark, meaning chaotic, empty, void of reason, then you aren't invading you're bringing the light. You are bringing the light. You're doing them a favor. It's the ultimate gaslighting operation, and the source breaks down this light they claim to be bringing. They had a slogan, almost like a corporate mission statement, the three C's, the three C's, yes, this was the moral cover. Okay, let's unpack these, because on the surface, they sound, well, almost harmless. The first one is Christianity, right? The argument here was that Africans were devilish or pagan, so the invasion wasn't a conquest. It was a crusade. It was a rescue mission for souls. And if you believe you are saving someone from eternal damnation, you can justify almost any atrocity in the here and now. That leads to the second sea civilization. This is the arrogant one. I mean, they're all arrogant, but this one, this one is special. By claiming you are bringing civilization, you're implicitly stating that the people there have none. It completely erases the empires of Mali, Great Zimbabwe, the complex social structures that had existed for millennia. It just wipes the slate clean. It reduces an entire continent to a state of nature and the third C commerce. Ah, yes, commerce. This is where the mask slips a bit. The idea was that by integrating Africa into the global market, they were developing it. But in reality, commerce was a euphemism for extraction, right? It wasn't trade. It was looting with a receipt. So you have this trifecta, the Bible, the flag and the ledger, and together, they created this justification that Africans were irrational, backward and needing guidance. And that brings us to the core conflict of this deep dive. It isn't just about the theft of land. It is about the denial of reason. The source material points out something shocking. The colonizers didn't just say Africans were behind technologically. They argued that Africans literally lacked the faculty of philosophizing, that they couldn't think like biologically, essentially, yes, that they were incapable of abstract thought. That is, I mean, it's absurd to deny an entire continent of human beings the ability to think. It sounds like bad science fiction. It is intellectual colonization, yeah, and that is what we are here to explore. We're going to map out exactly how this epistemic violence, this violence against knowledge, happened, where you're going to look at the specific European philosophers who perpetuated this lie, and these are names you know, names you definitely know, names you probably respect, which makes it even harder to swallow. But we aren't just going to wallow in the bad news. The second half of this deep dive is about the fight back, how African thinkers are reclaiming.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Their intellectual heritage. Exactly We are going to define decolonization. And spoiler alert, it is not just about changing a flag or singing a new national anthem. Deeper than that, it is a mental reset. It is about the software of the mind, not just the hardware of the government. So let's get into it. Section one, the anatomy of colonialism. To understand the cure, we have to understand the disease. Dr enubo Do starts with the word itself, colonialism. We use it so much in political discourse now that I feel like it's lost its edge. It just means mad thing from the past, right? It's just a label. But where does it actually come from? The etymology is fascinating, and it tells you a lot about the mindset. It comes from the land in Colonia, which means a landed estate or a farm, and colonis, which means a tiller of the soil or a farmer. So at its root, it's about agriculture, about growing things. Originally, yes, the Roman concept, it implied settling in a new land to cultivate it, to grow things. But as the source points out, over the centuries, the meaning shifted drastically. It moved from simple settlement to domination. How so it became about sending people not to farm the land alongside the locals, but to govern, subjugate and exploit the indigenous population. So it's the difference between moving to a new neighborhood and planting a garden, right? Versus breaking into someone's house, taking over the master bedroom and making them sleep in the garage while they tend the garden for you, that is a very apt analogy, and making them pay you rent for the garage right? Now, the source breaks down that there isn't just one flavor of colonialism. I think we tend to lump it all together. But there are nuances here that matter. Yes, four types to be exact, and understanding the difference helps explain why different parts of Africa look so different today. First you have settler colonialism. Okay, lay that out. This is what we saw in places like South Africa or even the United States and Australia. It's large scale immigration where the goal is to replace or permanently dominate the original population. So they're not just passing through. Settlers come to stay. They build cities, they bring their families. They try to make the new place look exactly like Europe. Okay. Then there is exploitation, colonialism. This is more like the trading post model. Think of the Belgian Congo under King Leopold, fewer colonists, maybe just soldiers and administrators. They aren't trying to build a new life there. They're there for one reason, resources, rubber, gold, ivory, human labor. So get in, get the stuff, get out rich, exactly. It's purely extractive. Then the source mentions surrogate colonialism that's a bit more niche. Yeah, I hadn't heard that term before. It involves a settlement project supported by a colonial power, but the settlers themselves come from a different ethnic group than the ruling power. It's a way of creating a buffer class, you know, a middle man. Okay? And the fourth one, this is the one that I think is most relevant to modern politics, Internal Colonialism. This is the most insidious one. It explains why independence didn't magically fix everything. Internal Colonialism happens within a state. How does that work? How do you colonize yourself? Well, imagine the British leave a country. They take down the Union Jack. They get on the boats. But the system they built, the bureaucracy, the police state, the economic pipes that flow from the rural poor to the urban elite, that stays exactly the same. So the structure is still there, the wiring is the same, right? And now the little elites, who are often educated by the colonizers, move into the governor's mansion. They step into the shoes of the oppressor. They exploit their own people using the same mechanisms the Europeans used. That sounds like a structural hangover that never goes away. It is. It's why you see such disparity in many post colonial states. The face has changed, but the power dynamic didn't. But why did Europe do this in the first place? I mean, besides the obvious greed, the source cites Ali Mazrui, who is a titan in African Studies, he gives three reasons for this exploration. Yes, masri's breakdown is classic. First, there was scientific curiosity, which sounds noble, like Star Trek to boldly go. It sounds noble, but it was weaponized. It was about mapping the unknown, describing the Dark Continent. You have to remember, knowledge is power, literally, okay, you cannot conquer what you haven't mapped. You cannot exploit a river if you don't know where it flows. So the explorers, the geographers, they were the recon team for the armies. The second reason ethnocentrism and racism, this was largely rooted in Western Christianity, the drive to convert and save souls if you believe your religion is the only truth with a capital T and everyone else is living in darkness. You feel a moral obligation to intervene. It justifies the destruction of culture. I'm destroying your shrine to save your soul, exactly. And the third reason is imperialism, plain and simple, the desire for territorial expansion and economic dominance, national prestige.

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
French, my empire is bigger than yours. So you have the map, the Bible and the gun, a potent combination. And the result of this, psychologically is what the source calls deracination. Deracination, that is a heavy heart. It sounds medical like an amputation, in a way, it is. It comes from the French Racine, meaning root. So deracination means uprooting, pulling something out by the roots. The source describes how African identity was literally pulled up. How did they do that? Practically speaking, it was systematic, banning native languages in schools. Children were beaten for speaking their mother tongue, wow, discouraging traditional customs as witchcraft, replacing meaningful African names with Christian names. You aren't Jedi anymore. You're a Philip. It's an identity wipe. It's a forced assimilation. It is. There's a quote in the source from Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya, that captures this perfectly. It's a bit of a dark joke, but it stings. Oh, I know this one. He said, When Europeans came to Africa, they had the Bible and the African had the land. They gave the Bible to the African and told him to hold it in his hand, close his eyes and pray. When the African opened his eyes, he had the Bible and the European had his land. It gives you chills. It encapsulates the whole bait and switch. It really does. But the source argues the result wasn't just land theft. It was a psychological theft. The African was left with a synthesis of westernness and africanness, often feeling inferior even to themselves. And that feeling of inferiority didn't just come from thin air. It was written into the textbooks. It was preached from the pulpit. This leads us to section two, the Western verdict. They cannot think. This is the part of the deep dive that really angered me, because we are talking about the greats of Western philosophy, yes, the guys we study in ethics, 101, the guys who defined reason, Hume, Kant Hegel, the heavy hitters. And when you look at what they actually wrote about Africa, it is horrifying. It's not just they are different. It is they are less. It's dehumanizing. Let's start with David Hume, 1777,

Unknown Speaker  12:01  
a hero of empiricism. What did he say? He asserted that there were no inventions, no arts, no ingenuity among Black people, basically that they had created nothing of value, a total dismissal. But he went further, there is this specific insult about a parrot. Yes, this is infamous. Hume claimed that even when a black person speaks clearly or articulately, it is like a parrot uttering words. Think about the implications of that. He is saying, I hear you speaking, I understand the words, but I deny that there is a mind behind them. It's the ultimate denial of subjectivity. He is saying, You are mimicking reason, but you don't possess it. If you aren't a rational being, then you don't have rights. You are livestock, and then you have Immanuel Kant. This is the one that hurts, because Kant is the categorical imperative, guy that treat people as ends, not means. Guy. How does that guy justify racism? It is the great contradiction of the Enlightenment. The source text dives into his book on the different races of human beings. Kant didn't just have a prejudice. He built a biological hierarchy. He argued that whiteness was the only original true race, so everyone else is a deviation, a mistake. Worse. He viewed blackness as a degradation caused by the sun. He claimed the humid weather burned the original species. But here's the kicker, he explicitly stated that this physical difference correlated to a mental one, he said, and I'm paraphrasing the source here, that they are spiritually inferior. He rendered a verdict. He did. He explicitly stated they were incapable of the kind of abstract thinking required for philosophy. Yeah. So he gave the colonizers a permission slip from this smartest man in the world. If Africans can't philosophize. They aren't rational. If they aren't rational, you don't need to respect their sovereignty Exactly. And then we have Hegel, G, W, F. Hegel, his philosophy of history, is massive. It shaped Marx, shaped everyone. Hegel view history as the manifestation of spirit or reason, moving through time like a river flowing toward freedom. But in his lecture on the philosophy of history, he looks at Africa and says, nope. He ghosted a whole continent from history, literally. He argued that since Africans, in his view, lacked reason, they had no part in the movement of history. To him, Africa was static, a place of barbarism that hadn't contributed to the human story. He basically said, nothing happens there. Nothing happens there. Imagine being told your ancestors didn't exist in history, that they were just background scenery for the real humans. And finally, the source mentions Lucien levy brill. He's important because he gave this racism a scientific sounding classification. He did. He divided humanity into rational societies, which were Western, scientific, observational and primitive societies and African thought fell into primitive Yes, he characterized it as pre logical, based on magic, sorcery, witchcraft. He created this binary where Western equals rational and non western equals irrational. So you have centuries of the smartest guys in the room telling the world.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
That Africans literally cannot think. That is the baggage we are dealing with, exactly. And that brings us to the response, because obviously Africans could think, and they did think. Section three is about the Counter Strike, the trends in African philosophy. The source describes African philosophy as a philosophy born out of struggle. It had to fight just to exist. It wasn't just debating the meaning of life. It was debating, do we have the right to debate? Dr nuwalbo outlines four historical stages of this struggle. First, there was nonexistence, silence, the period where the Western narrative dominated completely in discovery. People start claiming, wait, there is something here. These people have complex systems of justice and ethics, followed by denial. The West pushing back, saying, No, that's not philosophy, that's just myth, that's just folklore. And finally, sustained effort, where we are now moving past just defending existence to actually doing the work and justifying the methods. So let's break down the specific trends, because the source makes it clear there wasn't just one way to fight back. The first trend is called ethno philosophy. This is associated with figures like placid temples and John mbedi. The core idea here is that philosophy isn't necessarily an individual sitting in a study writing a book. Okay? They argue that African philosophy is contained in the culture and traditions of the tribe. So the Proverbs, The folk tales, the religious rituals, that is the philosophy, exactly. It's a collective worldview. Their argument was that every tribe has a unique philosophy embedded in its language and customs. If you want to know the philosophy of the Bantu, you look at how they treat their dad, how they name their children. But there was a critique of this, right? It sounds a bit limiting. Yes, the critique is that it equates culture with philosophy too. Simply, everyone has a culture, a way of dressing, eating, interacting, but not everyone has a philosophy in the strict sense of critical thinking, right? I have a culture of eating cereal for dinner. Sometimes that doesn't mean I have a philosophy of late night nutrition, exactly. And if philosophy is just what the tribe does, then there is no room for the individual dissenter. There is no Socrates. Socrates was executed because he challenged his culture. If philosophy is culture, you can't challenge it. That makes sense. So this led to the second trend, philosophic sagacity. This was a direct reaction to the collective label H odera. Oruka is the key figure here. He wanted to prove that Africans could think individually, just like the Greek sages. So what did he do? He went out and found them. He sought out sages in the community. Now define sage. Are we just talking about old people? No, and that's a key distinction. Aruka wasn't looking for someone who could just recite proverbs. Got it. He was looking for wisdom. He was looking for individuals who could explain the traditions but also critique them, people who could say, we do this ritual, but I think the meaning has changed, or justice requires this, even if tradition says that I love that proving that wisdom isn't just for the university professors. It's for the critical thinkers in the village too. Exactly. Then you have the third trend, nationalist or ideological philosophy. This sounds political. It was. This trend was born from the liberation movements in the mid 20th century. Think of kwamenkrumah in Ghana, Julius nyere in Tanzania, Leopold Senghor in Senegal. These were the leaders fighting for independence, right? So their philosophy was practical. It was about political theory, mental liberation. Nkrumah talked about conscienceism. He argued that the African identity had been battered by Islamic and western influences, and to find the true African self. You had to synthesize these but return to the core, and now you're he talked about nujama or familyhood. He tried to build a socialist state based on traditional African communal values. So this wasn't philosophy for the armchair, it was philosophy for the parliament. And finally, the fourth trend, professional philosophy, the academics, figures like Paul and Helton tonji and quasi weirdo. These are Africans trained in Western philosophy, often at places like Oxford or the Sorbonne, who argue that African philosophy must be critical reflection. They are the ones saying it's not enough to just recite a proverb, we have to analyze it. Yes, they challenge ethno philosophy for being two folk. They argue that philosophy is a specific discipline. It is second order thinking. What does second order mean? First Order Thinking is just living your life. I am paying this dowry because it's tradition. Second order thinking is stepping back and asking, what is the nature of dowry? What does it imply about gender and economics? Is it just the professionals say, unless you are doing this second order stuff, it's not philosophy. So you have this tension. The traditionalists saying, look at our culture, and the professionals saying, look at our logic. It feels like a stalemate. It was for a long time, but this is where we get to the heart of Dr mumados paper, section four. Mm.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
The hermeneutical solution. Enter Theophilus okir, the bridge builder, okira introduces the hermeneutical current. OK, stop, right there. Hermeneutics, that is a $10 word if I ever heard one. Let's unpack it so we don't lose anyone. In simple terms, hermeneutics means interpretation. It started with interpreting the Bible, but in philosophy, it means interpreting the meaning of symbols, texts and human actions. Okay? So how does okuri use this to solve the fight between the traditionalists and the academics? Okuri's core argument is that philosophy is context dependent. He agrees with the professionals that culture is not philosophy, OK? He says culture is the raw material. I like that analogy. So the myths, the symbols, the Proverbs, that's the clay, exactly, and the philosopher is the potter. You can't make a pot without clay. That's the culture. But a pile of clay isn't a pot until someone shapes it. That's the philosophy. So oker says, take the African proverb, but don't just repeat it, right? Apply an active thinker. Use hermeneutics. Interrogate the proverb. Ask, what does this saying reveal about the African conception of time or truth or God? And the result of that process is African philosophy. Yes, it validates the culture as the source. So the traditionalists are happy, but it requires the rigorous work of interpretation, so the academics are happy. That feels like a real aha moment. It respects the roots but demands the fruit. It really is the key to moving forward. It turns folk wisdom into critical philosophy. But moving forward requires more than just a method. It requires a movement. Which brings us to Section five, defining decolonization. We hear this word everywhere. Now, decolonize your bookshelf, decolonize your diet. Decolonize your yoga class. It's become a buzzword. It really has. But what does it actually mean in this context? Well, the standard definition is just a colony becoming independent. The British flag comes down, the Kenyan flag goes up, done. But Dr Ann woboto and Kwasi wiredu argue that's way too shallow, right? Quasi wiredu has a much more nuanced conceptualization. He talks about undue influences. Explain that wiredu is practical. He says decolonization is not rejecting everything Western. That's impossible. You aren't going to stop using cars or electricity or even the English language entirely. Of course not. If you tried to purge everything non African, you'd isolate yourself from the modern world. So it's not about purity. No, it's about agency. The goal is removing undue influences, ideologies that weaken the soul of the colonized, influences that hold you back. The goal is to make African philosophy more African than Western, to make sure the African perspective is the driver, not the passenger. The source also cites a definition by Sabrina, removal of ideologies that weaken the soul of the colonized that feels very spiritual it is. And to map out how you actually do that, the paper cites poco la Nuis, five stages of decolonization. This is a brilliant roadmap, and I think we should walk through it, because the order matters. Let's do it. Step one, rediscovery. This is the research phase, reclaiming the history and identity that was marginalized. It's going back and finding out who were we before they told us we were nobody, questioning the dominant narrative. Step two, and this is the one that really stood out to me, mourning. Yes, we usually skip this. We want to go straight from rediscovery to fixing it. You can't. Lenue argues that the trauma of colonization is deep, the land dispossession, the cultural destruction, the loss of language, it is a death. And if you don't mourn a death, what happens? It festers. It turns into rage or depression, exactly a necessary grief. If you skip mourning, the anger just eats the new system alive. You have to process the pain of what was lost before you can build. What comes next that is profound. It's collective therapy before nation building. Step three, dreaming.

Unknown Speaker  23:49  
This is where the imagination comes in, envisioning a future free from colonial influence. This is the what if phase right? What would our laws look like if they were based on our values, not British common law? What would our schools look like? What would our cities look like? You have to dream it before you can build it. Step four, commitment, moving from the dream to the plan. This is the political and legal determination, the consensus building. And finally, step five, action, practical implementation, reforming the schools, the institutions daily life, which brings us perfectly to Section six, the action plan how to decolonize now, because Dr nwobodo doesn't just leave us with theory. He outlines seven concrete steps. These are actionable. Let's run through them. Step one, reclaim indigenous knowledge. This means bringing back oral traditions, Proverbs and folk tales as valid sources of data, not just sudduies for kids, but data for philosophy. If you want to understand justice, look at how the elders settled disputes in the folk tales. There is legal theory in there. Step two, critique Eurocentrism. Challenge the idea that Western thought is the standard the source specifically mentions that parents should nurture children in local.

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
Dialects. Don't let the language die at home. Exactly. You speak English at work, fine, but if you speak English to your kids at dinner, you are severing the link that leads to step three, revitalize African languages. This is huge. Most African philosophy is currently taught in English or French, but language carries logic. Give me an example of that. Well, take the concept of gender. Some African languages are gender neutral. They don't have he and she in the same way European languages do. Oh, wow. When you translate that into English, you force a gender binary onto a culture that didn't necessarily have one. If you lose the language, you lose the specific way that culture structures reality. That is mind blowing. Step four, reinterpret African history. Stop teaching the primitive narrative. History must be compulsory and it must center the African perspective. Don't teach the discovery the Niger River by Mungo Park, right? The people living on the Niger knew where it was. Step five, diversify curricula. This is the reading list. Stop focusing solely on Aristotle and Socrates, they are great, sure. But replace the Monopoly with wiredu, echebi, Fanon mbidi, if an African student graduates with a philosophy degree and has never read an African philosopher, the system has failed. Step six, emphasize communal thinking. Restore Ubuntu. I am because we are exactly contrast that with the Western Cartesian model, I think, therefore I am. The western view is individualistic, the solitary thinker proving his own existence. The African view is relational. My existence depends on my connection to the community. Decolonization means bringing that community focus back into governance and ethics and step seven, global dialog, engage with the world, but as equals, not as subordinates, asking for permission to speak. African philosophy has things to teach the West, not just the other way around. The source puts a heavy emphasis on reforming the education system. Specifically, it calls the current system a sinking ship. That is a strong image, isn't it? The argument is that the current system produces graduates who are copies of Westerners, but second rate copies because they are disconnected from their own reality, right? We need entrepreneurs and leaders who understand their own context. There is also a section on reaffirming spirituality. This is about moving beyond the label of animism the West labeled African religion as animism, worshiping stones and trees to dismiss it, the source argues that African spirituality is holistic. There is no divide between the secular and the sacred. Unlike the West, where Sunday is for church and Monday is for business, right in the African view, it's all connected, the ancestors, the land, the living, the unborn, healing, the distortion caused by Western theology is part of the decolonization process. And finally, promoting cultural pride, using symbols, flags, anthems, but also pop culture, celebrating role models like Achebe and naire and entertainment and sports, embracing the amorphous nature of African culture. It's diverse, yes, but united by themes like community and respect for life. So we have the history, the philosophy and the plan. Where does that leave us? Let's head to the outro. The final evaluation in the source raises a really pragmatic problem, the problem of documentation, the books versus the spoken word. Right? The West had books. Africa had oral tradition because it wasn't written down in a book The West labeled it non philosophy. If it's not on the page, it didn't happen exactly. It's a bias of medium. And the current challenge is that decolonization is still more in principle than in practice. In African universities, you walk into a lecture hall in Nigeria or Kenya today, and often they are still teaching Kant and Hume as the gospel truth. And there is the internal struggle. The source mentions that Africans are still battling the inferiority complex implanted by colonialism. That psychological scar is deep. It is you can't just wish away 100 years of being told you are stupid. It takes generations to heal that self doubt. But that conclusion is hopeful. It is. The conclusion is that Africa must be autonomous enough to decide what is good for it. The source says simply what works for one may not work for the other. Authenticity, not isolation, but authenticity. Sifting the culture to find the philosophy within that is the goal, to contribute to the global conversation with a voice that is distinctly, proudly African. This has been an incredible journey through history and the mind. It really makes you question what we consider standard knowledge. It absolutely does. It reminds us that universal reason often just means European reason, and there are other ways to view the world. I want to leave our listeners with a provocative thought we talked about Theophilus okare And the idea that philosophy is context dependent, if that is true and if we continue to view the world primarily through Western concepts, how we view time as linear, how we view justice as punishment, how we define success as accumulation, are we actually seeing our reality, or are we just seeing a translation of it? That is the big.

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
Question, Are We Living in a translated world? What would the world look like if we interpreted it through the lens of Ubuntu first, what if I am because we are? Was the basis of our economy something to think about? Thanks for driving deep with us. Thank you. See you next time.

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