Ubuntu and Pan-Africanism: The Dialectics of Learning About Africa

Abstract

Ubuntu and Pan-Africanism, though broadly interrelated with one another, are historically two different political philosophies that define historical and contemporary Africa. Their thoughts have been formulated and promoted by similar intellectual and political constituents but in different periods within the evolution of contemporary Africa. In this research project, I argue that Africa is the continent where the basis of its peoples’ solidarity is the weakest, despite the pragmatism of their collective ethos at the communal and institutional levels such as the family. This factor has had a negative impact on the efforts to consolidate the African education systems and development paradigms. Based on realist historical facts, I also argue that no people, country, or continent has genuinely and sustainably progressed in the contemporary world of nation-states without rooting its dogmas and ultimate principles of development on a consciously chosen philosophy or a political ideology. Thus, as we continue to look for new paradigms of development in Africa in deconstructing the received ones, two of the political philosophies I am studying further are Ubuntu and Pan-Africanism. Using historical-structuralist approaches and neo-constructuralism, my main objectives are to interrogate their practicality and their origins, compare and contrast their claims, definitions of African cultures, African politics (nation-states), the African ways of doing things, and African historical configurations of progress. What kinds of development do their dogmas embody and project? I pay attention to how they define state-society relations. Although this work is essentially a critical reflection, my arguments are shaped by African historical, political, and sociological references.