Thinking Freedom in Africa. Michael Neocosmos

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      Couté la libeté li palé nan coeur nou tous! [Listen to freedom; it speaks in all our hearts!]

      – Zamba Boukman Dutty, Bois Caïman, Saint-Domingue, 15 August 1791

      It is to the mute, to the stutterer, to the stranger, that the poem must be offered, and not to the chatterbox, to the grammarian, or to the nationalist. It is to the proletarian – whom Marx defined as those who have nothing except their own body capable of work – that we must give the entire earth, as well as all the books, and all the music, and all the paintings, and all the sciences. What is more, it is to them, to the proletarians in all their forms, that the poem of communism must be offered.

      – Alain Badiou, ‘Poetry and Communism’, 2014

      The people and the people alone are the motive force in the making of world history ... The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge.

      – Mao Zedong, The Little Red Book

      Except for cases of genocide or the violent reduction of native populations to cultural and social insignificance, the epoch of colonization was not sufficient, at least in Africa, to bring about any significant destruction or degradation of the essential elements of the culture and traditions of the colonized peoples … the problem of a … cultural renaissance is not posed nor could it be posed by the popular masses: indeed they are the bearers of their own culture, they are its source, and, at the same time, they are the only entity truly capable of preserving and creating culture – in a word, of making history.

      – Amílcar Cabral, ‘The Role of Culture in the Struggle for Independence’, 1972 (emphasis in original)

      If humanity does not work toward its own deployment, toward its own invention, it has no other option but to work toward its own destruction. That which is not under the rule of the Idea will be under the rule of death. The human species cannot be animal-like innocently. Man is that species which needs the Idea in order to inhabit his own world in a reasonable manner.

      – Alain Badiou, La Philosophie et l’événement, 2010 (my translation)

      Published in South Africa by:

      Wits University Press

      1 Jan Smuts Avenue

      Johannesburg, 2001

       www.witspress.co.za

      Copyright © Michael Neocosmos 2016

      Published edition © Wits University Press 2016

      First published 2016

      978-1-86814-866-0 (print)

      978-1-86814-869-1 (PDF)

      978-1-86814-867-7 (EPUB - North & South America, China)

      978-1-86814-868-4 (EPUB - Rest of World)

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.

      All images remain the property of the copyright holders. The publishers gratefully acknowledge the publishers, institutions and individuals referenced in material in this publication. Every effort has been made to locate the original copyright holders. Please contact Wits University Press in case of any omissions or errors.

      Edited by Karen Press and Russell Martin

      Proofreader: Lisa Compton

      Indexer: Marlene Burger

      Cover design: Hothouse

      Typeset by Newgen

      Printed and bound by ABC Press

      Dedication

      I would like to dedicate this work to all our political ancestors on the African continent who sacrificed their personal lives for a world worthy of humanity, and particularly to the memory of Phyllis Naidoo (1928–2013).

       Viens, écoute ces mots qui vibrent

       Sur les murs du mois de mai

       Ils nous disent la certitude

       Que tout peut changer un jour

      – Georges Moustaki

       All I want is equality

       For my sister,

       My brother,

       My people

       And me

      – Nina Simone

      Contents

       Foreword by Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba

       Preface

       Acknowledgements

       Introduction: Politics is thought, thought is real, people think

       Part 1 Thinking political sequences: From African history to African historical political sequences

       1.Theoretical introduction: Understanding historical political sequences

       2.From Saint-Domingue to Haiti: The politics of freedom and equality, 1791–1960

       3.Are those-who-do-not-count capable of reason? On the limits of historical thought

       4.The National Liberation Struggle mode of politics in Africa, 1945–1975

       5.The People’s Power

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