Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 4 Issue 1, January 2024 ISSN: 2786-9792 1 WHAT DO WE DO WITH AFRICAN COMMUNALISM? Ike Odimegwu & Christopher Ogugua Department of Philosophy Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka ikennaodimegwu@gmail.com Abstract If the development of Africa shall be founded on African philosophy, the foundations of African philosophy must be strong, dynamic and clearly articulated. Communalism is arguably one of the cornerstones of African Philosophy. It has variously constituted foundation for African philosophy, framework for African personhood and touchstone for African identity. A number of African nationalist leaders sought to build the socio-political and economic structures of their nascent independent states on communalism. In the heat of the struggles, the exuberance of emergence and the confusion of neocolonialism, many scholars have made many claims for communalism that have evoked diverse critical reactions. While a number of the claims are difficult to substantiate, some of the reactions have also been extreme. Social life in post- independence African societies has also called to question the non-periodized claims on behalf of communalism. The undifferentiating reference to traditional mode of living, current social reality and/or philosophic notions and concepts of communalism has introduced much confusion in the discourse of communalism in African philosophy. This paper undertakes conceptual dialogue with the various participants in the African communalism symposium in order to unpack the confusion of reference and ascertain what foundation and service communalism as an African philosophy can constitute for and render to the present and future of African development. Keywords: Communalism, African communalism, African philosophy, foundations of philosophy, development. Introduction The very first challenge that confronted advocates of the existence of African Philosophy during the Great Debate was the problem of identity, that is, what is specifically African about African Philosophy? In the works of many African philosophers in that Debate, communalism was implicated as one of the principal elements that distinguish Africa on the one hand and African Philosophy from other traditions of philosophy on the other hand. Thus, communalism has variously constituted foundation for African philosophy, framework for African personhood and touchstone for African identity. It was in this context that a number of African mailto:ikennaodimegwu@gmail.com 2 nationalist leaders sought to build the socio-political and economic structures of their nascent independent states on communalism. In the heat of the struggles, the exuberance of emergence and the confusion of neocolonialism, many scholars have made many claims for communalism that have evoked diverse critical reactions. While a number of the claims are difficult to substantiate, some of the reactions have also been extreme. In addition, certain manifestations of socio-political life in post-independence Africa such as leadership failure, economic corruption authoritarianism, one-party system, self-perpetuation in power, human rights abuse, the continuing failure of liberal democracy, tribal conflicts and ethnic acrimonies have called into question the non-periodized claims of the African communalism exponents. The undifferentiating discourse of communalism in reference to traditional social life, current social reality and/or philosophic concept notions and concepts has introduced much confusion in the discourse. Therefore, while African scholars such as Uduigwomen (2002, p. 3) may have been correct that the debate on whether or not there is an African philosophy is dead and buried, the controversy surrounding aspects of these debates is far from settled as confusion has continued to dog such defining elements of the Debate and the philosophy like communalism. Hence, this paper undertakes conceptual dialogue with the various participants in the symposium on African communalism in order to unpack the confusion of reference and ascertain what foundation and service communalism as an African philosophy can constitute for and render to the present and future of African development. African Communalism and Controversies The history of communalism in Africa like the history of philosophy itself is punctuated with controversies. The controversies stem from variety of sources and causes: the nature, concept and practice of communalism, the relevance and resilience of communalism in the context of colonialism and neocolonialism, the reality, status and currency of communalism in the changing contexts of African social existence and the impact of communalism on the vexed issues of enduring social crisis, political stability and development in Africa. However, the massive attention and the consequent controversies surrounding African communalism are not surprising since the definitions of African Philosophy, African identity and African personhood from onset have been tied to communalism. There are a number of specific areas of these controversies that are of interest to this paper. The first is whether communalism is specific to Africa or common to all primitive societies. The second is whether the communalism of traditional African society is still relevant to contemporary Africa. The third is whether it is legitimate to talk about African communalism considering the diverse nature of Africa cultures. The fourth surrounds the justification for the frequent claim that African traditional society is communalist. This section will be devoted to discussing these debates and controversies. What Do We Do With African Communalism? - Ike Odimegwu & Christopher Ogugua Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 4 Issue 1, January 2024 ISSN: 2786-9792 3 The controversy on whether it is legitimate to generalize communalism for all of Africa centers around the diversity African cultures. Commenting on this, Onwuejeogwu (cited in Okafor & Emeka, 1998, p. 20) makes the argument that: In Africa there are over a thousand ethnic groups, each having its own culture, but these have been broadly divided into eleven culture areas namely: Hottentot, Bushman, East African cattle, Western cattle, the Congo, the Guinea Coast, the East Horn, East Sudan, West Sudan, Egyptian, and Mediterranean. Each of these may be divided into sub-culture areas. Although, Onwuejelogwu, did not embark on the categorization of these sub-cultural groups, the point he tries to emphasize is that Africa is a continent of many cultures. The question therefore is whether it is legitimate to claim that communalism is a feature of these very widely diversified African cultures? A number of scholars have argued that such generalization is legitimate. Onwuejelogwu (Ibid. p. 75) after conceding the diversity of African culture still argue that “The differences and cultural diversities in Africa notwithstanding, there are enough similarities among these cultures that legitimizes us to talk about the entity ‘African culture’” He identifies four areas where this harmony is most obvious: the whole aspects of African cosmology, African communalism, African ethical belief system and burial rites. These among other practices are common among all African societies. Corroborating Onwuejeogwu, Hannah Kinoti (1999, pp. 73-82) argues that, although Africa is a vast continent and much fragmented in terms of languages, beliefs and customs, there is adequate evidence from various studies that where the basics of cultural and moral assumptions are concerned, the bottom line is fairly solid. It is therefore possible according to him, to generalize to a large extent. However, there are scholars who believe that this type of generalization has no empirical support. Olufemi Tiawo (2016, p. 84) in his objection to Ikuenobe’s généralisation of a communalist African society raised the following questions: Is it possible that, as a construct of Ikuenobe’s imagination, communalism does not describe the empirical state of African societies now or in the past? Might one derive a different, maybe even opposed, ‘conceptual normative generalization’ from the same empirical data plumbed by Ikuenobe? Are the commonalities cited as the base for his generalization what he has cashed them out to be? Despite all the caveats, Ikuenobe’s account still strikes me as just another way of affirming a problematic stance: that most of what are styled ‘traditional African societies’ were communalist…the idea of ‘traditional African society’ is problematic, to say the least; most likely, as a theoretical concept, it is vacuous. For the case can be made that most of the commonalities that are often trumpeted as typifying African cultures are not peculiarly, predominantly, not to say solely, African. 4 In this context, Taiwo contends that Africans need to abandon the legacy of colonial-inflected anthropology that lumps together several social types that serious study should easily make clear do not belong together. How communalistic could the medieval Mali Empire have been? The Ọ̀yọ́ Empire was a multinational polity that had within its borders different national and ethnic groups. On what basis could one affirm of 17th century Ọ̀yọ́ with its hierarchies— including an aristocracy and monarchy that lived off the surplus labor of others—and a complex division of labor that it was a so-called “traditional society”? Meanwhile, in the various communities that made up Igbo people, their scholars and ideologists love to trumpet their traditional preference for republicanism and their storied individualism. Yet, scholars love to talk of traditional Igbo society and affirm communalism of it in the singular (p. 85). The important point then is that Africa is too culturally diverse to be talked about generically and that this type of blanket generalization deprives the cultures in Africa the benefits of thorough and rigorous analysis that would have helped not only in diagnosing the problems of the various cultures in the continent but also needed to move it forward. Scholars have also debated on whether communalism is peculiar to traditional African society or is generally the characteristic of all primitive societies. For instance, it has been claimed that communalism as a universal idea shares a strong conceptual affiliation with terms such as socialism and humanism with roots going back to Plato‘s political theory, the communal life of the early Christians, the French revolution engineered by the encyclopaedists who aimed at rationalizing society, down to Marx/Engel‘s utopian and scientific socialism. The bottom line in this affiliation is that the emphasis on the importance of community in the functioning, the analysis and the understanding of human dignity and wellbeing is universal and therefore not peculiar to any group of people (Martin, et al., 1977). Nevertheless, as P. M. Martin, et al (1977) claim, Africans, were organized sometimes more communally in ways which were unfamiliar to others and unwitnessed anywhere else. Therefore, although all human beings are said to be social, there seem to be some unanimity among African philosophers, that Africans exhibited some sort of sociality that was both unique and more than the normal expected level of sociality. In fact, for H., Kimmerle (1989), this level of sociality was both unique and transcendental. Kimmerle argues that the notions of Ubuntu and communalism are not used for instrumental purposes as in the West. According to him, in ubuntu which is a form of African communalism, the African community spirit is epitomized. This implies that there is a high estimation of the community in African thought and practice, higher than that of the individual, but not at the cost of forgetting the individual person. This is so because a person is a person in the context of community. Thus the special relationship communalism has in Africa is coloured by African culture most importantly in granting mutual help, caring for each other and sharing with each other by means of dialogues. However, some scholars such as Tiawo remain unconvinced about the uniqueness of African communalism. Taiwo (2016, p. 85) argues: What Do We Do With African Communalism? - Ike Odimegwu & Christopher Ogugua Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 4 Issue 1, January 2024 ISSN: 2786-9792 5 The contrast between the Western and the African is hardly ever illuminating; often the obscure and this should not come as a surprise: it frequently is motivated by the need to affirm African difference. Outside of this overarching need to treat the West as a monolith in order thereby to affirm Africa in its radical difference, this cannot be a very plausible idea unless it can be shown that communalism, even of the variety that Ikuenobe defends, is not part of the philosophical history of the so-called West. Certainly, given that many of us African scholars engaged in this debate are native speakers of the so-called Western philosophical idiom, we can assert that we know that not too dissimilar versions of communalism are significant parts of the Western tradition. Tiawo’s substantive claim here is that there is not enough evidence to show that the version of African communalism defended by Africanists is different from the versions in other parts of the world. He maintained that communalism can be affirmed of much of the human race and various societies at different times in the past whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America. But if this is true, then a special case needs to be made for the legitimacy of the affirmation and deployment of African communalism. The Greeks worshipped mountains, found gods everywhere, and insisted that a being-out-of-community must be a god or a beast. They also held that the group is prior to the individual… The contrast between Africa and Europe is badly drawn and likely to obfuscate rather than illuminate the nature of societies and the individuals that make them up. Have African societies always been ‘community societies’ and European societies ‘collectivist’ ones? (p. 85). In other words, communalism’s pedigree is not traced to geography or history of any particular people. It is rather to be sought in the modes of production of material life. If this is so, communalism is distributed across cultures and peoples who are otherwise distinct and different in their cultural productions would share communalism insofar as their modes of production are the same or very similar. Therefore, “Communalism is widely diffused across the globe from Europe to Asia and the Americas at specific historical conjunctures.” Furthermore, while such scholars as John Mbiti, Sender Senghor and a whole lot of others were convinced that African traditional society was decidedly communalistic, there were scholars who contest this claim. Parrinder (1969, p. 90) for example mentioned that African past was not a heaven of perfections. It had its own problems and limitations. He writes: It is easy to idealise the past and sign for an imaginary golden age away from the disturbing present with its rapacious commerce, oppressive politics and bitter warfare. The facts are that even in the past there were unpleasant customs, tyrannical rulers, sudden deaths and human sacrifices. Based on this some scholars have gone as far as denying that traditional African society was communalist. For Nkrumah (1967), an idyllic African classless society (in which there were no rich no poor) enjoying a drugged serenity is certainly a facile simplification; there is no 6 historical or even anthropological evidence for any such society. Defending his ground against a classless African traditional society, Nkrumah points out that feudalism, a deep and exploitative social stratification founded on the ownership of land, existed in some parts of Africa before colonization. He further noted that slavery existed in Africa before European colonization. Before colonization Nkrumah insists, Africans were prepared to sell, often for no more than thirty pieces of silver, fellow tribesmen and even members of the same extended family and clan. V. G. Simiyu (Cited in Kimmerle, 1989, p. 30) cautions against what he describes as exaggerations of African traditional socialism. “How do we defend equality of people in traditional Africa face–to-face with innumerable beggars, homeless people, unattended sickly people that populated that epoch?” While the picture painted above may apply to some African communities, it raises some issues. For one, equality does not presuppose the non-existence of social classes. What may be posited against equality would rather be the institutionalization of such classes. That there are beggars, homeless people, and the sick questions charity rather than equality. And of course, charity or rather fellow-feeling, lies at the heart of African communalism. Where such is lacking therefore, it must be noted as minus for the claims for African communalism. That there would be such situations is only to be expected. To generalize on such situations would require further evidence and proof than mere assertion. And the picture does not seem to describe the history of the pre-colonial Igbo societies with well-developed structures for taking care of the class of people captured in the picture at the family level. Differing from what he regards as democratic myth in African traditional societies, Simiyu (2017) draws attention to the fact that hate and struggle were not unknown in these societies. Moreover, to presuppose one and the same structure everywhere proves to be a too simplistic way of speaking about traditional social life in Africa. While it is obvious and trite that the land where “everyone lived peacefully and joyfully thereafter” belongs only to the realm of mythical imaginations, Simiyu also fell into the ‘simplistic way of speaking’ in the earlier passage where the existence of ‘beggars, homeless people, unattended sickly people’ in some African societies is generalized to refute the existence of communalism in precolonial African societies. There are also critics who accept that traditional African societies were communalistic but fault any attempt to extrapolate this into contemporary African life. The claim here is that the type of brotherhood and hospitality practiced in traditional African society is limited within small units, usually the tribe which makes it a source of animosity and ethnic tension. According to Ali Mazrui (1978, p. 25), “The fact that Africans have a highly developed sense of responsibility towards their own kinsmen, has reduced their capacity to empathise with those that are not their own. The fact here is that strong tribal brotherhood easily results in isolationism among different ethnic groups?” Ejiogu (2014, p. 6) identifies this type of ethnic affiliation as the root cause of many African problems: What Do We Do With African Communalism? - Ike Odimegwu & Christopher Ogugua Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 4 Issue 1, January 2024 ISSN: 2786-9792 7 We cannot, while defending the so termed African’s natural propensity to brotherhood, keep blind eyes over chronic tribal hatred that contoured African traditional communities and have continued to torment the African continent. We habitually associate racism with the westerners, but a deep insight into the lifestyle of traditional African communities would reveal that Africans are the most racist groups in the world. Tribalism is the chief operational factor in the African continent right from its history. Language and some particular forms of culture distinguish tribes in Africa. Each African tribe would preferably choose to live, interact and inter-marry within their respective territorial confines without interfering with others and each tribe would do whatever it entails to defend her geographical location and ontological tribal identity and purity against all other tribes. It is this strong sense of tribal descent, unity and the compelling instinct of defending tribal historical cultural identity that is at the root of tribal intolerance in Africa. Ogbuja (2007, pp. 22-23) on his own, sees this as the reason why democracy has failed to work in Africa. He describes poignantly: African communalism engenders a high sense of hospitality, communality and altruism for one’s ethnic group. At this level, the different sub-cultural groups organize themselves independently of each other. Beyond the immediate community, there is neither loyalty nor compelling force of authority. Driven by the urge to satisfy the needs of her immediate members, each community competes with others for the scarce resources of nature. Often, the competition leads to confrontation, and confrontation to crisis. The preponderance of communal conflicts among the traditional Africans is consequent upon this. The high rate of instability in the art of governance within African nations is ultimately traceable to this. This ‘communal idea’ brings with it a community consciousness, a consciousness that sees the communities fighting in and through their individual members. Each time an individual is placed in a position of leadership, he sees himself first as a member of a specific community whose primary task is to promote his communal selfhood, before anything else. In doing so, he gives undue preference to issues pertaining to his primal community, while the problems of other segments of the same society are treated with levity. It is a ‘winner-take-all’ jungle society. This form of injustice and alienation of people from their main purpose of living together can only but give rise to uprisings, sabotaging of government policies, coups and counter coups, and various forms of dissension that lead to instability in governance. 8 How Communalist is Africa? At the centre of all the controversies discussed so far is the question of what advocates exactly mean when they claim that Africans are communalist. Ike Odimegwu (2007) indicated the various ways this question can be formulated: The question, how communalist is Africa, may be understood in various ways. What, for instance, is communalism? Is there a generally accepted concept or definition of communalism? Are there brands of communalism? Are there levels, types or kinds of communalism? If there are, which is the ideal or perfect communalism? The problem that confronts attempts to address this question is that very rarely do advocates of African communalism advance theories that specify whether there are brands of communalism or not and the specific version of these brands a particular scholar is proposing or defending. This lack of theorization has been flagged as “the basis for the continued conceptual confusion” that has dogged the discourse of African communalism. However, scholars like Oguejiofor and Tiawo have developed conceptual schemas that are very helpful in navigating through the conceptual confusion engendered by the lack of clarity of use by advocates of African communalism. Oguejiofor (2007) raises the question: “How African is Communalism?” In search of answer to the query, he distinguishes three possible senses in which communalism may be African: 1) Communalism characterizes Africa; 2) Communalism is specific and exclusive to Africa; 3) Communalism is essential to being African. In the first sense, communalism is a quality which Africans possess but this possession does not exclude non-Africans from also possessing the same quality. The second sense makes the possession of the quality exclusive to Africans or originally theirs such that even if it is found in any other group of humans, it follows that they acquired it from Africans. And in the third sense, this quality is not just characteristic and exclusive; it defines the essence of being African such that not to possess it is not to be African. Oguejiofor argues that while communalism may be African in the first sense, it will be erroneous to attribute communalism to Africa in the second and third senses. He further argues that many of the conditions that qualified Africa for the first sense are no longer available in contemporary African society. These critical distinctions are taken further by Taiwo (2016) in an illuminating classification of communalism. Against the background of a Babel of contributions on the provenance of communalism as the African possession and donation to the world, Taiwo calls attention to the many confusions that attend to the usage of the term. He distinguishes three theses of communalism in the extant literature: ontological, methodical and axiological communalism. According to Taiwo, literature in the first category, the ontological, expresses communalism as a thesis about how humans are in the world and what they are. On this reading, being-in- communion is the natural way of being human. A human being who is outside of this community communion will, ex-definitione, be a non-human. Taiwo contends that many who What Do We Do With African Communalism? - Ike Odimegwu & Christopher Ogugua Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 4 Issue 1, January 2024 ISSN: 2786-9792 9 canvass communalism in the African context subscribe to this thesis. The claim is that being- in-community is the quintessential way of being African. Methodological communalism is the thesis that no matter how humans are in the world, the best place to make sense of their being-in-the-world and their activities attached thereto is to view them through the prism of community. This thesis for Taiwo is an explanatory model and the claim is that the best way to make sense of Africans and their world is to study them within or as communal beings. The third, axiological thesis holds that communalism provides a yardstick with which to measure the desirability or worth of being-in-the world. Attention here turns on value theory. Many of the strictures that communalists place on contemporary urbanization-inflected social living and the atomization that characterizes it are on account of the individualism that is inspired, supposedly, by Africans copying Western values. Individualist behaviour is excoriated and those who embrace it, however it is conceived, stand condemned for abandoning a superior mode of social living: communalism. Taiwo (2016, p. 82) further divides axiological communalism into two categories: communalist ethics and communalist social and political philosophy or socio-political communalism. If what is to be judged is behaviour or conduct, we call it communalist ethics. If, however, what is to be judged is the suitability of modes of governance or principles of social living or ordering, resolving issues of who ought to rule when not all can rule and what end legitimate rule should tend to, we call it communalist social and political philosophy or socio-political communalism. Socio-political communalism will be important in the design of social institutions or what political institutions are most likely to ensure a better life for humans. Taiwo avers that it is easy to see how one who thinks that the system is too individualist would prefer communalism. In the political arena, one can trace much of the preference of African philosophers for one- party regimes or consensus politics to this preference for communalist arrangements. They may be taken as instances of socio-political communalism. Tiawo correctly observed that the literature on communalism scarcely, if ever, evinces any awareness of the distinctions just made. The result is a lot of confusion as to what exactly is at issue in these disquisitions. Identifying and distinguishing these different theses of communalism can illuminate a discussion that is often notorious for its murkiness. For example, the ontological thesis can be defended on several grounds, including conceptual and empirical ones. Because it is not recognized as such, many who canvass it seem to be offering empirical grounds for it. Yet, it is clear that historically it is less true of many African societies, especially those that evolved great civilizations. One could also advance communalist ethics but not defend it on empirical but ahistorical grounds as is usually done in the literature. What is more, by so championing communalism, it will be easier to address the main objective of this paper, namely, what do we do with communalism? 10 What do we do with Communalism Today? From the foregoing, it should be obvious that one of the first things to do with communalism today is to insist on conceptual clarification. The three categories of Oguejiofor and Taiwo are steps in this direction. Further development in this direction will be positive development. It will also amount to useful engagement with communalism if any further proposition of communalism pays heed to these conceptual clarifications and applies the clarifications already achieved while striving to improve on the status quo. Again, the forgetfulness of history or the deliberate revision of history, a natural tendency of conquerors, imperialists and colonialists, has led to untoward distortion of history and untold harm to human societies and humanity generally. It behooves every people therefore to seek knowledge and possession of their history and as well as to struggle for the rewriting of their revised history. However, this historiographical responsibility imposes a further philosophic duty of critical engagement with the historicity of a people’s historical claims. That is, the need to know who I am calls up the further need to question, again and again, who I am or claim to be. Therefore, the quest to know whether Africans were communalist and the nature of African communalism, as have punctuated the controversies of African communalism, are very important and may not, in the foreseeable future, be dismissed as irrelevant or anachronistic. What to do with African communalism in this regard should be insistent inquiry into the identity or identities that this mode of existence had conferred and may yet confer on the African people as part of a conscious campaign of self-definition, recognition and possession. In summary therefore, to the question, what do we do with African communalism today, we can do three things or a number of things at three levels: we can undertake an involved and involving conceptual engagement with African communalism to achieve conceptual clarity; we can sieve the realistic from the idealistic and yet seek how the ideal can inspire and guide, motivate and activate the real to transit the engagement with African communalism from idle contending for identity to constructive action for development; we can then apply the instrument thus acquired to the development of integral and progressive African institutions, structures and operations. Whatever, we do, a necessary test of validity and relevance of the process and instrument developed from the process should include their resilience in the face of competing instruments in the global arena; their contribution or relevance to the development of Africa and Africans; their impact on the confidence of the African in the global village. Conclusion Communalism has continued to exercise overarching influence on the African social and intellectual space so much so that it is difficult to escape its ubiquity. It has been employed by African social theorists, nationalist campaigners, political leaders and scholars. This work has studied the prevalence of communalism as a social issue, political instrument and philosophic discourse. This prevalence has attracted proponents, detractors and critics. It has generated What Do We Do With African Communalism? - Ike Odimegwu & Christopher Ogugua Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 4 Issue 1, January 2024 ISSN: 2786-9792 11 many controversies. In this paper, we have addressed the controversies bordering on whether communalism is specific to Africa or common to all primitive societies; whether the communalism of traditional African society is still relevant to contemporary Africa; whether it is legitimate to talk about African communalism considering the diverse nature of Africa cultures and even the justification for the claim that traditional society is communalist. Having discussed the positions and contributions of scholars in these controversies, we examined the current reality of African society and the status of communalism in this society with a focus on the direction that attention and discussion of African communalism should adopt in order to be useful for the identity and development of the African as well as for his/her meaningful contribution to the world. This examination threw up the finding that whatever, may be done, a necessary first step is conceptual clarity. We noted that Oguejiofor and Taiwo have started out in this direction and that scholarship on African communalism will gain by continuing in this direction both in the activity of conceptual clarification and in the consistent application of the achieved clarifications. References Ali, M. (1978). Political values and the educated class in Africa. University of California Press. Ejiogu, E. (2014). Are Africans truly communalistic, socialistic and hospitable by nature? 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