From the Foundations of African Renaissance to the Futures of Technoscience
Theme: From the Foundations of African Renaissance to the Futures of Technoscience
Table of Contents
1. Didier Ngalebaye, Université Marien Ngouabi, Brazzaville : « Nouvelle Pensée Africaine et Développement : Construction, distribution et évaluation endo-exogènes du savoir en Afrique »
Articles summaries
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New African Thought and Development: Endo-exogenous Construction, Distribution and Evaluation of Knowledge in Africa
Given the widespread impasse in which governance in search of development in postcolonial Africa finds itself, which calls for the urgent establishment of New African Thought to inspire its actions, what could its effective content, modes of distribution and performative evaluation be? Our contribution addresses this research problem in light of the phenomenological-prospective method which, with regard to the object of discourse, unfolds in three complementary stages: 1) the historical diagnosis that brings out the facts of the problem from the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial periods; 2) the confrontation of the results of the historical diagnosis with the current state of the society concerned; and 3) the projection of the resolution of the problem studied on the epistemic (a), ethical (b), legal (c), and institutional (d) levels. The working hypotheses allow us to consider three results: New African Thought, whose objects are ontologically already masked, should be relevant, compatible and performative; the renewal of an epistemo-ethics of citizen understanding positively impacts the reorganization of public governance, thus progressively reducing the margins of the endemic crisis of confidence between rulers and ruled, the most visible manifestation of which is democratic disaffection; the endo-exogenous model of research evaluation in Africa, suggested here, after construction and distribution of the latter, takes into account both the real socio-economic situation of African Universities and States hosting them, and the shedding of the weighting of the Chinese model, proposed by Nian Cai Liu. New African Thought, in all fields and on all kinds of objects, appears to require the inclusion of an endo-exogenous cognitive framework that will emerge from the epistemological and ethical evaluation of each sector of social activity at the national level, before a continental synthesis. The optimal construction and distribution of knowledge in postcolonial Africa will arise from this endo-exogenous evaluation and presuppose the dialogical combination of three theoretical approaches: a critical and prospective grounding in a rethought African history (Cheikh Anta Diop, Théophile Obenga, Grégoire Biyogo, Niousséré Kalala Omotundé, etc.); the development of interdisciplinary research on and from endogenous knowledge (Paulin Hountondji, Charles Jean Marie Minyem, Didier Ngalebaye); and the construction of the Africa to come (Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Charles Zacharie Bowao, Didier Ngalebaye).
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Ecological Knowledge and Challenges of Sustainable Development Enculturation among the Mountain Dwellers of Northern Cameroon
This text analyzes the ecological knowledge of the mountain peoples of northern Cameroon in light of the current dynamics of sustainable development. It posits that the relationship these peoples establish with their environment is strongly correlated with their cultural infrastructure. However, sustainable development as promoted and implemented by international organizations does not sufficiently integrate the cultural dimension as a crucial variable for developing countries. Hence the numerous failures that occur during the implementation of environmental public policies. Enculturation therefore emerges as an essential requirement in the order of discourse surrounding the environment, society, and ultimately, culture
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Figures of Powers and Knowledge Codes in Ancestral Myths : the Case of Ng’ékel-ékel, Gangulu Tale of the Congo
Drawing on analogy and the hermeneutics of myths and sacred texts, this article reconstructs the meanings of power that emerge from the mythical tale of Ng’ékel-ékel, the tailed animal who deprived the other animals of the earth of any tails. The tale pits the animals, still tailless, against each other in a struggle for the conquest of O’ngâ, a fig tree guarded by Le’mpfun, the tarsier, but owned by Mbi’in, the savannah jerboa. The tale celebrates Mbi’in’s victory over Ng’ékel-ékel, whose fall results in the release of tails for the benefit of all the animals. However, absent from the discovery of the tails, E’mpâ-mpâ, the gecko, mischievously takes the tail of his friend Ng’otun, the toad. Through these animistic struggles and stratagems we see, on the one hand, both states of consciousness and character traits, as well as the will to power, the ambitions for conquest and domination of human beings over one another, driven by base interests of survival; and on the other hand, an invitation to become aware of the dual human nature of being both Ng’ékel-ékel, monstrous, and Mbi’in, a being of sunlight, bearer of divine hope. Thus, the reflection is organized into three parts: 1) presentation of the events of the Ng’ékel-ékel story, 2) analysis of states of consciousness and the stakes of power, and 3) interpretation of victory over oneself as the ethical foundation of humanity. The interest of my reflection lies in three dimensions of this critical study: that of African mythical narratives as the foundation of African philosophy, then of states of consciousness as the foundation of forms of power and knowledge about it, and finally of the determination of the “sacred” which follows as a guarantee of the becoming human of man.
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On the Prophetic Vision of African Renaissance by Simon Kimbangu: an Analysis of the “Mbanza-Nsanda Testament”
In 1948, Cheikh Anta Diop published “When Shall We Be Able to Speak of African Renaissance ?”, an essay in which he ponders the criteria of the realization of this idea in the fields of Arts and the Humanities. In his historical inquiry on peoples’ rebirths, Africa’s is conceived of as the remanifestation of the endogenous creative genius of African expression. Since then, the concept has widened on return to African civilization before the encounter with the West, with religion constituting the matrix. In this field of religion, the present work shows the topicality and the prospective dimension of another text: the Mbanza-Nsanda Testament of September 10, 1921. In this message to followers before his arrest, Simon Kimbangu defines the stages and the means of realization of African rebirth through three powers: spiritual power (kinzambi), political power (kimayala) and scientific power (kimazayu). Proceeding from this inheritance, kimbanguism institutes three pillars: kikongo as the vehicular language, Mandombe as the writing system, and the kimbangula as the basis of Art. To translate this new vision of the future in historical and symbolic approaches, we organize this work around three points: a historical overview of the concept of African renaissance, the origin and structure of the Mbanza-Nsanda Testament, and the foundations of African rebirth in Kimbanguism.
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On African Conceptualisations of the Renewal of Human Relations Proceeding from the Black Question : « Moun, Mounism and tout moun sé moun, Caribbean Transpositions of Umǔntu, Abǎntu, Ubǔntu
In the sugar plantations of the Americas, the call for new practices and concepts for human relationships and existence took various forms, such as marroonage, the great Haitian Revolution, and other systematic acts of defiance including systematic discourses by enslaved Africans, acts that radically opposed the equally systematic, entrenched gestures and ideologies of the enslavers. This article posits that these acts and thoughts of the deported and enslaved African communities on Caribbean plantations are part of continuities that make them not merely acts and thoughts by African, but African acts and thoughts. Whereas Africans engaged in the struggle against oppression and its structures and relationships had consistently demanded change, that change more profoundly about the philosophical aspects than on the incidental improvement of living conditions. The latter has and will have had meaning only as a praxeological translation of a profound African philosophy of freedom, dignity, and human community, firmly established around key concepts such as the Muntu and Ubuntu of the Bantu people, conceptualizations whose rediscovery is always already a thought and a practice of renewing human constitution and relationships. This framework is pursued in its Caribbean transpositions within "Munism", which is summarized in the ultra-humanist predicate tout moun sé moun, derived from Mun, a Creole term meaning "human person" and containing a sense of the African ethics of intangible human integrity. Consequently, this demand has resulted in a particularly strong emphasis on the preoccupation with newness in discourses aimed at initiating or supporting political action that itself is meant to lead to new structures and content for human relations. Many African or Afro-descendant intellectuals have striven to call for the "new" and to develop thought on the new, of the new African man and of the new man in general. Francophone and Creolophone Caribbeans, the idea is found in 1885 in the dedication made for all Black people by the Haitian Anténor Firmin in his book On the Equality of Human Races, and also in Martinican Jane Nardal’s resounding theorization of Black internationalism in 1928. In his famous 1925 article “Enter the New Negro”, the African-American philosopher Alain Locke put forward this idea of a new order to govern the affairs of Black people in the world. More recently, Martinican thinkers such as Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon have further articulated it, stating, among other things: “We need a new society,” “a new man,” “a new humanism.” Within the framework of the contemporary project of New African Thought, this article accomplishes two main tasks. One is to establish and exemplify continuities that compel us to integrate the categories of thought produced by Africans outside of Africa, such as those of enslaved Africans on Caribbean sugar plantations, in order to grasp the cultural and political significance of knowing, understanding, and mobilizing these categories when necessary, and above all, of recognizing them as integral parts of the broader system of African thought. The second, based on these continuities and transpositions, posits the profound African philosophy of humanity as the framework and driving force behind the most advanced conceptualizations of the renewal of human relations, which have emerged from the Black experience, from the era of incarceration and centuries of the plantation system to the present day. The approach used combines the history of ideas, discourse analysis and the psychosociology of plantation discrimination to highlight the dialectic of slavery’s dehumanization of both the enslaved and the enslaver, as well as the theoretical, epistemological and praxeological re-humanization of both groups in African conceptions, Congo in particular, and their Caribbean transpositions.
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Dreams, Nocturnal Visions and Decolonial Aspirations: Pluriversal Perspectives on Peace in the Burundi-Congo Border Zones
Motivated by decolonial feminist aspirations and renewed epistemic confidence in knowledge from the African continent, this article examines the pluralistic visions of peace in the Burundian-Congolese border regions. Increasingly, peace and conflict studies recognize the limitations of peace interventions due to their Eurocentric logic and underlying epistemic violence. The border regions of South Kivu and Burundi are a prime example where large-scale peace interventions have met with limited success only. Dreams, nocturnal visions, and reverie are invoked in this text to discuss the pluralism inherent in the dreamlike. While taking into account the impacts of both armed and epistemic violence on the dream world, the cosmological diversity of the pluriversal persists and continues to constitute postures and practices of decentering, sources of imagination and mobilization for anti-colonial struggles through the dream world and reverie. By asking why and how to move beyond the coloniality of peace, this text explores epistemological avenues and decolonial feminist praxis to encourage a reimagining of peace interventions informed by the cosmologies and ethics of this border zone.
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For a Decolonial African University: Prolegomena to Sovereign Thought
This article advances a critical vision of the African university as a space that authorizes itself intellectually and institutionally. Rather than treating decolonization as a symbolic adjustment of curricula or references, it frames the university as a site where sovereignty is exercised through concrete practices of knowledge production, validation, and circulation. The argument foregrounds the idea of unconditional academic freedom as an active principle that must be institutionally protected and materially sustained. From this perspective, the African university is invited to reclaim its capacity to set its own epistemic priorities, to articulate critique without external mediation, and to assume responsibility for its archives, languages, and publishing infrastructures. The discussion unfolds through a layered approach that connects normative principles with epistemic tools and institutional arrangements. Particular attention is given to the role of African languages as conceptual resources, to archives understood as contested sites of memory and power, and to editorial ecosystems that shape visibility and legitimacy in global knowledge economies. The article further emphasizes governance, funding autonomy, digital infrastructures, and transcolonial academic alliances as decisive arenas where intellectual independence is either secured or compromised. By articulating a set of guiding principles rather than a prescriptive model, the text invites African universities to imagine themselves as active centers of thought, capable of contributing to global debates from positions grounded in their own histories, social urgencies, and epistemic traditions.
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The Absolute Advantages and Manifest Destiny of New African Thought: Updating African Scientific and Technical Legacies to Reshape the Global History of Cognition, Science, and Technology
New African Thought here publishes Kalala Omotunde's last major public lecture. After delivering it at the Yaoundé Conference Center (during the First Convention for New African Thought in October 2022), he died suddenly a few weeks later, as did his mentor Cheikh Anta Diop in February 1986. The world now awaits what the younger generations of Cameroonians in particular, and young Africans in general, as well as future generations, will make of these two testamentary lectures which master and disciple bequeathed them by the force of history. In the meantime, the text has been transcribed from video by Viviane Kibang, then annotated by Jean Eudes Biem edited by Charles Binam Bikoi for New African Thought, on whose Scientific Council Omotunde had hoped to serve. References have been clarified where possible and presented as are in the bibliography. Out of respect for the author and the integrity of the text, quotations whose sources could not be verified have also been retained on an as is basis. Essentially, Omotunde here outlines the grand panorama of his thought on African heritage and renaissance, founded on the uncompromising assertion that ancestral African science remains the most advanced even today, despite appearances and the denials of its adversaries which he deems delusional, and that Africa must build upon that heritage for its renaissance in all fields, with Africa’s rise to a global power status naturally following from it. According to him, Africans possess the best brains in the world, the most prepared for calculation for millennia, and the most capable, on the condition that their heritage be closely examined, reactivated, and integrated into the education and brain development of the youngest generations. He then reviews several areas of his grand panorama of the precedence of millennia-old African scientific excellence, notably: the mysteries of solids and the living void, the first theorization of the matter-void duality and associated forces as the basic constituent of the universe, of creation in general, and of life in all eras; anatomy; optics; musical notation; the invention of writing and money; the invention of architectural arts and their measurement models (sculpture, etc.); pedagogical tools; fractal geometry; infinite symmetries; algorithms; and complex self-organization. Rightly or wrongly, his concluding thesis, consistent with Cheikh Anta Diop's uncompromising anthropology, rings unequivocal: "Africa is the modernity of the entire world. Africa will always remain ahead of everyone else. After that, it's simply a matter of awareness."
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On Future African Scientific and Technological Thought Rooted in the Codes of Ancestral Intelligence: Heuristic Cryptanalysis Reports
Scientific thought and technological development take root in a society all the more strongly when they are grounded in that society's endogenous scientific heritage. For its optimal technoscientific development, Africa will draw primarily and to the greatest extent on African ancestral intelligence and the legacies it has generated. Available for this purpose are two types of evidence possessing scientific characteristics which, hidden within the continent's cultural heritage and unduly confined to the cultural sphere, precede and sometimes supersede the most advanced achievements of institutionalized science. These two types differ by virtue of their modern academic treatment. On the one hand, they encompass scientific knowledge that is sometimes contested and sometimes accepted, such as Dogon astronomy which observed the binary star system of Sirius and traced its celestial movements centuries before the invention of the lens telescope, and especially the African invention, within divination systems, of recursive mathematics, fractal geometry, and binary calculus from which all the advances of modern computing have their origins. The second type includes unsuspected bodies of scientific knowledge encoded in traditional arts, languages, techniques, and spirituality, which can be and are beginning to be uncovered through heuristic cryptanalysis, exemplified in this case by the confirmed or yet-to-be-confirmed discoveries of Georges Bell Bitjocka. In search of New African Technoscientific Thought capable of drawing upon these legacies with the highest standards of scientific validation, this article attempts, as a first approximation, to establish an optimal link between the second type and conventional or normal science within which it must be validated – though that may trigger a scientific revolution in the sense of Thomas Kuhn –, through the conclusive and undisputed aspects of the first type, whose dynamics ultimately imply full academic recognition. The methodological approach defined for this purpose consists of an epistemological and technoscientific renewal through de-culturalization and re-scientification of elements of myths, spiritualities, and all traditional African arts and literatures that present scientific and technical knowledge, in order to conduct rigorous scientific analyses and draw all the consequences in terms of technoscientific projections. By illustrating the principle with Dogon astronomy, the article suggests applying the approach to African divination systems, from which computer science originates, in order to formulate a set of hypotheses which may be confirmed or refuted experimentally. The most important of these hypotheses is that, as computing systems possibly using fractal encoding of information, certain African divination systems could contribute to solving the crucial problem of decoherence, upon which the future development of quantum computers depends.