Against decolonisation? Aren’t we supposed to be pro-decolonisation??

This book humbled me. It made me realize that, though I’ve read books *about* African scholarship, I am seriously ignorant when it comes to African scholarship itself.

Táíwò’s book was against ‘decolonisation philosophy’ and ‘decolonisation literature’—which seek to cleanse African scholarship of its colonial influences. But decolonisation philosophy also targets people I (naïvely?) considered decolonial thinkers—like Aimé Césaire, Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon 😮 Because they’re rooted in European philosophy and they write in colonial languages.

The main focus of Táíwò’s critique was Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu and Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o—

[pause: the fact that I didn’t know who Wiredu was and yet he’s considered the greatest 20th century African philosopher]

And Táíwò’s critique was basically that decolonisation philosophy—rather than deconstructing the colonizer / colonized dichotomy to liberate African scholarship—reinforces and fixes the dichotomy; permanently oppresses; and denies the ownership claim Africans have on ‘Western philosophy,’ modernity, and truth.

I’m so new to this debate. But Táíwò compared his arguments to the relationship between feminism and philosophy—and THAT I’m very familiar with. On a personal note: my academic focus is female-centred classical philosophy and I get two kinds of responses: a) “you can’t do truly radical feminism within classical philosophy,” (from my feminist readers—analogous, for Táíwò, to decolonisation philosophers)** or b) “you can’t do good classical philosophy with all this woman stuff” (from my [male] philosophy readers—analogous to philosophers who completely ignore African scholarship).

A very eye-opening philosophy book for me, overall.

** you haven’t lived until someone’s said your mind was “colonized by the phallus.”