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<coqueryv@ext.jussieu.fr>
As the author of a text kindly launched on the H-Africa network by the
editors, I am slightly disappointed to see that it did not open a
discussion on-line. Nevertheless, I am happy to hear individually, from
various colleagues, that they used the texts (including Didier's answer) to
enliven discussion in their Undergraduate and Graduate seminars. Didier
told me the same on his side.
My belief is/was that it was too francophone a debate to actually echoe
in American minds. Our culture is not the same, despite the fact that we
all are *Westerners*. Some friends have suggested to me that it is not the only
reason. A South African colleague reminded me that the question was openly
discussed in South Africa, where it is literally vital. Most of you, of
course, know of the harsh discussions between Charles Von Onselen who, along
with
some other academics in South African universities (usually white scholars),
fear that academic standards are declining. Others (in the majority but not
necessarily Black people) claim that everything has been too long
confiscated by white people (politicians, businessmen, and scholars the
like), and therefore that it is urgent, necessary, and fair to dispossess
them, and the quicker the better.
Francophone or South African scholars wonder why, while the
question obviously is a target for American studies, nevertheless most
American scholars (African Americans as well as Wasps) do not want to (or
do not dare?) face it, except in some exceptional and dramatic shows
(remember the session organized against Philip Curtin a few years ago at
the ASA. Notice that most of the people who intervened were Africans, among
whom several Francophone people). In other words, there would be a kind of
public censorship on too delicate a topic.
Why? A hypothesis of my South African colleague is to suggest
that, in some way, Black South Africans feel freer than African Americans
do: they are the majority, they have an acute consciousness that they
possess and have to recover a long autochtonous history. The case would be,
albeit with such a different history, similar for Francophone Africans, who
face the situation quite naturally, once more being the majority, even or
just because they still feel so dependent from the western knowledge and
pretention of knowledge.
Is what I propose seen here as a provocation? Do I pronounce words which
in some way are indecent for American ears? I would be grateful to know it.
As for the question debated in South Africa, it is obviously
awfully difficult. Short term and long term objectives appear
contradictory. It is certainly not only unavoidable, but necessary, that
teaching and researching be strongly and quickly intensified among black
researchers. A consequent result may be, truly, a decreasing standard, from
the point of view of *western standards*. On the contrary, the long term
trend must necessarily obtain a raising standard for everybody,
proportional to the number of people, i.e. many, many outstanding Black
South African scholars. How to obtain it is obviously debatable. I would
argue that the tropical experience, where independence occurred more than a
generation ago now, may be of some help : being strongly and definitely
optimistic (afro-optimist), I think that, all in all, the result is not so
bad : even if we all know that for years (and still now) many African
scholars at home were not of an outstanding quality (beware : I don't say
all, but many), does it prevent *now* an exceptional degree of excellence
among many African scholars? Obviously not, in spite of enormous local
difficulties and material insufficiencies. Therefore nothing prevents us from
complaining now, but for the best pleasure of coming generations.
As an historian, I strongly think that most processes need time.
Higher education is not obtainable within a few days, but if you don't begin
now, sure, you will obtain little in the future, therefore the debate is
not a true one. We have no choice. And notice that French authorities
tried, for years, to limit in independent Africa the development of an
independent higher education. The result probably was just to slow down the
emergence of it. But now it comes, anyhow.
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