Article 16 Igwebuike 6. No5.cdr IGWEBUIKE: An African Journal of Arts and Humanities Vol.6 No.7, 2020 www.igwebuikejournals.com A Publication of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Tansian University, Umunya 1 THE DYNAMICS OF THE WESTERN RACIALIZATION OF AFRICA (IN THE REFLECTIVE IDEAS OF EKWURU) Obinna Victor Obiagwu Directorate of General Studies Federal University of Technology Owerri obinnaobiagwu71@gmail.com; 08033433261 & Okwara Donatus Uzoma Directorate of General Studies Federal University of Technology Owerri DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.23433.67684 Abstract Africa and its inhabitants have been one of the mysteries of nature that most of the western nations have always desired to demystify. The western nations, therefore, in their eagerness to demystify the African reality, have often reconstructed it in ways that seem strange even to African reality. The main issue then, in the modern African history, is the fact that both Africa and Africans were created and defined by the west. All about Africans were handled by non-African, who were not experts. Because of the invaded and conquered nature of the sole called White race to some part of African continent, that lead to the domination or assertion that blacks are inferior race. And this conquered continent meant the casting of the net of eternal dominion all over its shores and hinterlands. Again the defeat of the White to Black race leads to eternal dynamics of the western racialization of African. The westerners handicapped the rationality of Africans in all aspect of life: Medicine, Culture, History and even Religion etc. This paper observes that although the White races humiliated the Black races without taken cognizes of the Human Right. These tinkering have caused both races a perpetual and eternal war. It is the thinking of this paper to look into meaning and understanding of terms, and then articulate, the dynamics of the western racialization of Africa. Introduction The Western effort to present image of the African continent in their own thought culminated in the invention of the term race. For an enlightenment thinker like Immanuel Kant, that the term 'humanity' was posited and regarded as a regulative term, which means that the concept of race was invented for this purpose. The term 'regulative' here means 'adjust, arrange,' 'direct, 'govern' or rule.' It is therefore very clear that the term 'race,' is being used by the Western World, for the purpose to holding, control of entire humanity, thereby forcing it into the intellectual vocabulary of the modern world. This however, made it an effective instrument for the discourses of difference. According to Ekwum, the term race being so much useful in this sense, gradually graduated into an interdisciplinary keyword for the delimitation of a common zone of joint cultural project of imperial domination. Going further into the matter, Ekwuru also observed the fact that by defining and classifying human beings into races, Western modernity attempted to advance higher genetic laws for the explanation of 'classes' and 'differences' in the landscape of humanity. With this new science of classification, Ekwuru saw, race became a logic of separation, division, difference and reference in the larger family of human beings. Just as some groups were placed on top of the Racial Pyramid, as the noblest of all the races, while others were placed at the bottom of it as the least worthyand despicable. This form of comparative classificatory logic that sets the white people of the West on top as the Caucasoid race, and places the black people of Africa at the bottom as the Negroid race, according to him became the basic scientific logic of racial discourses of difference and discrimination against black Africans. Ekwuru went further to explain that Through this way of representing the fact of differences in human reality, 'race-talk' as it came to be known, became a central theme linking the anthropological studies of physiology, physiognomy and genetics in their varied connections, with polygenism and monogeninsm respectively. In this sense, the adoption of the term race became an organizing principle of humanity, implying permanence of essence and possession of certain traits and disposition that are biologically and psycho-physiological determined. As a result of this classification, Africa as race, was placed in the extreme position of opposition to the West as Caucasoid Race. By this logic of race, therefore made, Africa into viewed as the opposite of the West. This baseline mythology of race, which became both the philosophical and scientific axioms for moral and social discriminations against black Africans, is what Ekwurum have designated as Afri-raciology. Consequent upon this, Ekwurum also invested the fact that in the various dynamic modes of comparative differentiation and distinction between races, Afri-raciology, gives rise to the notion of socio-ecological strife and competition among races. Thus, while the white races are seen to be progressive, the black race is interpreted to be nearing extinction. In this way, according to him, a form of racio-ecological tension was mounted: the progressive races would like to determine and control the pace of the regressive trend of the race that is near-extinction. This makes it appear as if nature, in dividing peoples of the world into races, had designed it for a kind of cultural racing bout, with a mandate clearly that the winning race should dominate and reconstruct the reality of the other. If this was nature's design, the West believes they have won it and is ready to make full use of it. In the reconstruction of the African reality by arrogating to the white European race the leadership position of the entire humanity as the "tougher' stock. Western modernism therefore uses the term race for all kinds of anthropometric measurements, and as comparative indices of socio-historical records. In this way, 'race' becomes, not only a regulative term for determining who is and who is not human, but also, a distinctive measure of human types and cultural levels of achievement and advancement. (Ekwuru 2011). The Western World therefore sees the visualization of the logic of a common humanity in terms of racial athletics, as a moral guarantee for imperial domination. If in the racio-athletics of becoming human, and ever more human, a particular 'race,' sees itself as having excelled more than others in its cultural achievements, then, it is a clear sign that it should lead by determining and controlling the humanity of others. According to Ekwuru, This type of 'racial competition' that the West recognized in human nature, is an inter-racial competition between herself and others - both real and imagined. Ekwuru further observe that it is a competition in which the West started right from the early period 2 The Dynamics of the Western Racialization of Africa (in The Reflective Ideas of Ekwuru) of Greek imperialism as a winner, and in which she is determined to continue to win by controlling, determining, and dominating the social and cultural humanity of others. She achieves this through various means of constant invasion, conquest and imperial domination of the political, socio-economic and cultural spheres of other lands, cultures and peoples of the world (Ekwuru 2011). Race and Politics of Colour Variation The West has on various occasions tried to determine the humanity of the African, using the politics of colour variation. The colour difference between the white man and the black man is of a very high margin of what is being put into consideration here is not that the so-called white man is called “white” and the black man is called “black” but with the meaning attached to the human colour as 'white' and as 'black.' This is what Ekwuru described as the culture politics of assigning symbolic meanings to colours. He obviously, started that this form of cultural politics has been in the main, an indubitable politics of racial definition and castigations. The white man according to Ekwuru defines the black man as black, with its semiotic assemblages of symbolic meanings. For him, the meaning attached to racial colours, carries with it varied ensembles of moral definitions of 'goodness.' and ''badness... And this makes one to keep wondering when such an issue is raised, whether the variety of colours in nature is meant primarily for disagreeable structures of opposition or for beautiful forms of combinations. Ekwuru maintain that the theme of colour variation has gone a long way in the history of Western encounter with other races of the World. For him it is one of the issues that gave origin to the science of modem physical anthropology of which that in the 19th century America, racial colour- bar was a central issue in the socio-political life. Ekwuru posited this was the problem President Lincoln had to confront in some of this discussions about the blacks and slavery in USA. Looking at this statement, from Lincoln one can see that he was merely reaffirming the general assumption of his contemporaries. The average white American believes that African skin colour, hair texture, and facial features were associated in some way with the African way of life (in Africa) and his status as slave (in the Americans). It is very important to note at this point the fact that the colour variation on which the West base its arguments for discriminating against black Africans have became a major bone of contention among scholars globally, what this means in effect is that the problem is not the simple issue of racial colour identification, but the cultural politics of colour distinction. This is what Ekwuru we have designated as “Neroisation” the negative symbolisation of the black colour, meaning therefore, that the major issue has been the politics of colour, following the ambition of the West to dominate as a superior white race. However, Ekwuru maintains that to make colour the central fact of racial distinction was, in the main, the heart of racial politics of the white European civilisation framework. For him, colour in itself as a natural fact of identification and distinction, is a neutral element subject to the meaning given by human beings. He posits that Colours in themselves, whether black, white, red, blue, and others, are just the same in their substantial natures and qualities. For him again, Colours assume their values in the role of signification assigned to them by human beings in their different cultural set-ups. Of which he states in this case, that black or white could be used to designate the worst or the best in their various symbolic functions. Whatever meaning each colour designates the symbolic convention of the human community. Ekwuru went further again to state that it is the advantage of neutrality of colour that the West took to paint the African as black as 3Obinna Victor Obiagwu & Okwara Donatus Uzoma the devil. Looking at the antipodal structure of Western pattern of thinking, which opposes the good against the bad, God against the devil, white colour was equally opposed to black colour, and taking white as the description of their colour, black was used to depict the African. Western scientists are yet to convince us about the natural basis of this colour opposition, if not cultural Ekwuru insists. Conclusion According to George Ekwuru (2011), Race is a logic of separation, division, difference and reference in the larger family of human beings. This places some group of humans on top of what Ekwuru described as Racial Pyramid, as the noblest of all the races, while others were placed at the bottom of it as the least worthy and despicable. This form of comparative classificatory logic that sets the white people of the West on top as the Caucasoid, and places the black people of Africa at the bottom as the negroid race, become the basic scientific logic of racial discourses of difference and discrimination against black Africans. For the West, there is a "racial competition". This she achieves through various means of constant invasion, conquest and imperial domination of the political, socio-economic and cultural spheres of other lands, cultures and peoples of the world, especially the black Africans. A typical example is the case George Floyd, the African-American, who was denied "Breathe" recently by the White Police, even after calling the Mama Africa. This level of dominance, by whites over black. To achieve this, the black race shall employ the concept of morality, humanity and self esteem, as guiding principles of life, knowing fully well that in the words of Socrates, an unexamined life is not worth living. The blacks are not in any wsy inferior to the whites. Rather, the racists who painted the Devil black and the Angel white are pushing the blacks towards this inferiority complex. Rather, it is all about racial politics. The whites know the stuff the blacks are made of, but socially they would still pretend ignorance, simply because they wrote the black man's history. References Ekwuru, E.G.; The Dynamics of Afri-Raciogenesis and The Dialetics of Afrirealitism. Owerri: Totan Publishers, 2011. Oliver, R., The African Experience. New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991. Onyeoche, M.I., Africa: The country, the concept and the Horizon. Owerri: University Press, 2007. Tsenry, S. (Ed). African Philosophy: The Essential Readings. New York. Paragon Home, 1991. Young, J.C.R.; Post colonialism: An Historial Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. 4 The Dynamics of the Western Racialization of Africa (in The Reflective Ideas of Ekwuru) Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4