AFRICAN IDENTITY AS TYPIFIED IN AFRICAN COMMUNALISM

Abstract

The debate on the existence of African philosophy got its climax with a summary discourse, which did not only concern itself with existence but also the nature and scope of African philosophy. Today, the existence, nature and scope of African philosophy is no longer an issue for debate. With the existence of African philosophy, African identity should not have been an issue that ought to be debated. This paper, following the above line of thought examines the nature, trend and the root course of African identity crises. The principle method of hermeneutics will be adopted in this work. Thereby, matching the theoretical notion of African identity and African communalism against the antithesis of classical criticism of Western colonialism and then progress to achieve a synthesis that reflect the point of view that is represented in this paper. Findings indicate that the crises of African identity and its effect on African communalism set in with the emergence of Western colonialism. This paper tries to identify the manner, method and means applied by the colonial masters that made the Africans lost hold of their identity. Inspired by the confused state of some scholars in what looks like African identity crises, this work wish to affirm that, there is African identity and that African communalism is an aspect of African identity. Although there are diverse cultural backgrounds, it is not an indication that there are problems in who or what the true Africans should be or identified with.