36V o l u m e 9 3 / 2 0 2 2 | J o u r n a l I S S N : 2 0 7 5 2 4 5 8 P E E R R E V I E W Abstract In this essay, I deploy a liberation philosophical perspective in order to understand Thabo Mbeki’s decolonial imagining of an Af rican in the Af rican Renaissance. It is my understanding that the Af rican of the Af rican Renaissance is one who has awakened to the task of undoing coloniality in the Af rican postcolony. For instance, that an Af rican has to declare that ‘I am an Af rican’ in Af rica, as Mbeki does, reflects the troubled and also troubling idea of being Af rican in the Af rican postcolony. It might seem that being human, and Af rican in Af rica, is an idea under question that must still be declared or defended. Whether one is an Af rican or not in the postcolony is not a given, as colonialism succeeded in changing the being and belonging of Af ricans in Af rica. Through colonialism, settlers became local in Af rica and Af ricans became aliens in their own native territories. Colonialism, especially in its apartheid expression in South Af rica, questioned the humanity of Black Af ricans, displaced them, and dispossessed them of their land. It is the uprooted, displaced, and dispossessed Af rican represented in Mbeki who makes the remark that: ‘At times, and in fear, I have wondered whether I should concede equal citizenship of our country to the leopard and the lion, the elephant and the springbok, the hyena, the black mamba and the pestilential mosquito.’ This dehumanised Af rican is the subject who travels f rom the dystopia of colonialism to the utopia of reconciliation and a renaissance of Af rica. This is the Af rican who was caught in the tragic optimism of the liberation ‘dreamer’, but was later to concede that after the end of juridical colonialism, South Af rica remained ‘two nations’ racially and socially. Even a globally celebrated democratic Constitution did not come close to solving the political and social equation, the paradox, where South Af rica remains the ‘most unequal country in the world’. For the Af rican of Mbeki’s representation and observation, the dream of liberation f rom colonialism collapsed into a nightmare of coloniality, and the starting point of an Af rican renaissance is the decolonial effort to dare dream and imagine another Af rica and other Af ricans built f rom the ashes of the colonisers and the colonised. This essay is also an observation of the dilemma of a philosopher of liberation who was torn in between the necessity of justice for the victims of colonialism and the importance of reconciliation with the colonisers in the Af rican postcolony. By William Jethro Mpofu Thabo Mbeki’s Decolonial Idea of an African in the African Renaissance 37 T H E T H I N K E R | J o u r n a l I S S N : 2 0 7 5 2 4 5 8 Af ricans were not named Af ricans by themselves but by their colonisers – led Mogobe Ramose (2005: 4) to accept being called an Af rican in Af rica only ‘under protest’. Mbeki’s speech was delivered at an uneasy time in the South Af rican postcolony. It was a time when the Black South Af rican population had high expectations of liberation after the long years of apartheid. It was a time when white South Af ricans were gripped by fear of the revenge of Black people, who for very long had lived outside the mainstream economy and polity of the country. Political leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Mbeki had to negotiate high Black expectations, while also allaying deep white fears at a time when the South Af rican constitutional and democratic experiment was still young and f ragile. The language of forgiveness and reconciliation was, at the time, the currency of political trade in a South Af rica that Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1996) had christened the ‘rainbow nation of God’, where seemingly impossible forgiveness and reconciliation between the victims and perpetrators of apartheid was taking place. Mbeki’s speech could not escape being infected or flavoured, depending on where one stands, by the political climate of the time. As such, the Af rican that Mbeki describes in his speech is an Af rican who seeks to re-invent the self and the continent of Af rica itself. For instance, Valentin Mudimbe (1998) described how Af rica and Af ricans needed to be re-invented after the continent and its people had gone through decades of ‘invention’ by colonialism. The idea of the Af rican Renaissance itself might, after all, be an idea about the decolonial re-invention of Af rica and Af ricans. Re-inventing Af rica and Af ricans takes a decolonial imagination and a tragic optimism that is clear about the colonial invention of Af rica and Af ricans and can envision a re-invented Af rica and new Af ricans. That task, as represented by Mbeki, takes an Af rican who sees and believes in the utopia of forgiveness, reconciliation, and liberation – under a dark cloud of the real history of the dystopia of colonisation, dehumanisation, and oppression in the postcolony. That the Af rican Renaissance itself is an awakening is based on the reality that there was a colonial wound to heal and a colonial slumber f rom which Af ricans must wake. Introduction In this essay, I deploy a liberation philosophical perspective in order to understand Thabo Mbeki’s decolonial imagining of an Af rican in the Af rican Renaissance. It is my understanding that the Af rican of the Af rican Renaissance is one who has awakened to the task of undoing coloniality in the Af rican postcolony. For instance, that an Af rican has to declare that ‘I am an Af rican’ in Af rica, as Thabo Mbeki (1998: 31) does, reflects the troubled and also troubling idea of being Af rican in the Af rican postcolony. The idea of being Af rican is troubled in that it is a search for true liberation and full humanity where liberation remains elusive, and the humanity of Af ricans continues to be questioned if not denied. It is troubling in the sense that the insistence by Af ricans that they are Af rican and human haunts those who have sought to question their humanity and have benefitted f rom their dehumanisation. Mbeki imagined the Af rican Renaissance as the awakening of Af ricans in South Af rica and beyond f rom a colonial slumber to decolonial consciousness that would lead to justice and liberation. The philosophical dilemma that conf ronted Mbeki’s imagination is that true liberation and reconciliation between the former colonisers and the colonised could not be achieved without justice. Mbeki, as the Vice-President to President Nelson Mandela, presented the ‘I am an Af rican’ speech on behalf of the Af rican National Congress (ANC) in Cape Town on 8 May 1996, on the occasion of the passing of South Af rica’s new Constitution. The speech became a classic amongst many other speeches that Mbeki presented as part of introducing the idea of the Af rican Renaissance. Mbeki’s poetic declaration that ‘I am an Af rican’ in South Af rica might just indicate that being human, and Af rican, in Af rica is an idea under question that must still be declared or defended in the postcolony. So f ragile is being Af rican in Af rica that as part of his explication of the idea of the ‘postcolony’ in Af rica, Achille Mbembe (2001) notes that being Af rican, thinking about Af rica, and writing about it has never come easy. It has never come easy because the postcolony is that uneasy place where colonialism has not really died, while liberation f rom colonialism struggles to be born. The long history of the dehumanisation of Af ricans by slavery and colonialism – and the fact that P E E R R E V I E W 38V o l u m e 9 3 / 2 0 2 2 | J o u r n a l I S S N : 2 0 7 5 2 4 5 8 Mbeki begins his ‘I am an Af rican’ speech by invoking the name of the Af rican in Af rica as a victim of conquest and colonisation who is proudly prepared to march to a new future with some dignity. This is an angry and proud Af rican who is only too aware of the depth of the colonial wound that continues to bleed, even after political independence has been declared. It is this Af rican who says: I owe my being to the Khoi and the San whose desolate souls haunt the beautiful Cape – they who fell victim to the most merciless genocide our native land has ever seen, they who were the first to lose their lives – in the struggle to defend our f reedom and independence and they who, as people, perished in the result. (Mbeki, 1998: 32) As Sisonke Msimang (2000: 70) notes: ‘after three years of carefully constructed Mandela speeches on the importance of ‘non-racialism’ there was something in Mbeki’s affirmation of Af rica that seemed to be alluding to a South Af rica that was very different f rom the Rainbow Nation.’ This was the South Af rica of the angry but proud Af rican who still looked at the bleeding colonial wound and was not easily enchanted by the ‘sugar-candy mountain’ of reconciliation. However, as if unable to escape the enchantment of the ‘rainbow- ism’ of the political moment, in the same speech and same voice, Mbeki turns around to describe another Af rican who is not simply Black and native to Af rica, but rather an inclusive Af rican whose ‘Af ricanity’ accommodates others, including the white settlers themselves, ‘whatever their own actions’ in the history of South Af rica. This other Af rican who Mbeki projects is a wounded but forgiving victim who dreams of a South Af rican future that includes both the victims and the perpetrators of apartheid as fellow citizens who are prepared to pursue a future together: I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still part of me. In my veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came f rom the East. Their proud dignity informs my bearing, their culture is part of my essence. The stripes they bore on their bodies f rom the lash of the slave-master are a reminder embossed on my consciousness of what should not be done. (Mbeki, 1998: 32) In this essay, I write about this wounded but forgiving Af rican. My observation is that this is not a f ragile Af rican who espouses forgiveness and reconciliation f rom a position of defeat, surrender, and weakness. Rather, this is an Af rican with a liberation philosophy purpose: one who sees liberation beyond not only the conflict between the coloniser and the colonised, but also beyond the identities and positionalities of the oppressor and the oppressed. Paulo Freire (1993) refers to such liberation thinkers and political activists as great humanists who have the task not only to liberate themselves, but also to f ree their oppressors f rom the existential and systemic prison of being oppressors. The oppressors, Freire notes, by virtue of being oppressors do not have the power to f ree their victims or themselves. They can only be f reed by the power that arises f rom the ‘weaknesses’ of the victims who are the ones who can forgive, even if they do not forget. Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2016) describes such political thinkers and activists as the ‘decolonial humanists’ who practice the ‘politics of life’, as opposed to the politics of revenge and death. It is such thinkers and political activists who can, in the midst of dystopias such as post-apartheid South Af rica, dare to imagine the utopia of a working constitutional and democratic dispensation where former perpetrators and former victims can live under one Republic, salute one flag, and sing one national anthem. As forgiving as these thinkers and political activists seem to be, they nonetheless retain a sharp memory and view of the colonial wound. They do not forget. It was Mbeki, the philosopher of liberation (Mpofu, 2012), who in the midst of his conciliatory P E E R R E V I E W My observation is that this is not a fragile African who espouses forgiveness and reconciliation from a position of defeat, surrender, and weakness. Rather, this is an African with a liberation philosophy purpose: one who sees liberation beyond not only the conflict between the coloniser and the colonised, but also beyond the identities and positionalities of the oppressor and the oppressed. 39 T H E T H I N K E R | J o u r n a l I S S N : 2 0 7 5 2 4 5 8 speech could be un-forgetful enough to remember that post-apartheid South Af rica would necessarily have to accommodate those who colonised South Af ricans and those who continued to economically benefit f rom the proceeds of apartheid. In expressing the philosophical and humanist dilemma of accommodating former enemies, Mbeki poetically noted that: ‘At times, and in fear, I have wondered whether I should concede equal citizenship of our country to the leopard and the lion, the elephant and the springbok, the hyena, the black Mamba, and the pestilential mosquito’ (Mbeki, 1998: 31). The liberated South Af rica of Mbeki’s philosophical and poetic imagination was a South Af rica where the Af rican would share citizenship with dangerous monsters whose history and deeds resembled those of leopards, mambas, hyenas, and pestilential parasites such as mosquitos. In dehumanising the Af ricans through colonisation and apartheid, the colonialists dehumanised themselves into wild animals, venomous snakes, and other creatures of the wild. As a forgiving but un-forgetting philosopher of liberation, Mbeki remained clear about the violence of apartheid in the past and in the present. Nonetheless, he remained dedicated to reconciliation and democracy. Such forgiveness, as is required f rom the victim of colonialism and other crimes against humanity, is described by Hannah Arendt (1958) as impossible but necessary and therefore achievable by those who have the courage and the optimism to see brighter human futures in dark times. Such forgiveness, Arendt noted, is more religious than political in origins. Arendt observes how forgiveness after large-scale crimes, such as holocausts and genocides, is actually a quality of God which only some brave human beings with great purposes can afford. The great purpose of re-inventing Af rica and Af ricans required not just humility, but also the courage to forgive the unforgivable. South Af rica’s transition f rom apartheid to democracy involved the victims of apartheid forgiving their victimisers. This is why the transition was understood as a kind of miracle: because apartheid wounds were too deep, Black expectations of liberation too high, and white fears of punishment too vivid. Those who forgive might not forget, and some might forget but not forgive, remaining with deep anger bottled up in their psyche. Mbeki, as the forgiving but not forgetting philosopher of liberation, made the bold observation that South Af rica’s beautiful and democratic Constitution, though celebrated worldwide, was unequal to the task of eradicating the social inequalities left behind by apartheid. On the occasion of the debate on reconciliation in the National Assembly, Cape Town, on 29 May 1998, Mbeki (1998: 68) delivered another historic speech: ‘South Af rica: Two Nations’. In this speech, he pointed out that South Af rica was still divided between rich white people and poor Black people. The constitutional goal of ‘national unity and reconciliation’ in South Af rica was a dream that had turned into a nightmare. The white South Af ricans who had perpetrated apartheid and who had benefitted f rom its economic and political crimes against humanity did not seem to be interested in undoing the inequalities that apartheid had produced. Mbeki (1998: 75) noted how ‘it comes about that those who were responsible for or were beneficiaries of the past absolve themselves f rom any obligation to help do away with an unacceptable legacy’. The Mbeki who delivered the ‘South Af rica: Two Nations’ speech was true to the philosophy of liberation that might forgive but not forget. In the midst of celebrating a beautiful Constitution, he pointed out that, in post- apartheid South Af rica, the social inequalities created by apartheid were not a crime of the past, but rather a crime of the present that needed urgent resolution. In other words, Mbeki insisted that apartheid was a present reality. South Af rica was true to what Mbembe (2001) has called the ‘postcolony’: a time and a place where the corpses of colonialism and apartheid insist on resurrection whenever attempts are made to bury them for good. The tragedy of the project of re- inventing Af rica and Af ricans is that those who were supposed to be forgiven did not make themselves available for forgiveness, as they resisted giving away the privileges that they gained f rom apartheid. It was a tragedy of having to forgive those who were not willing to apologise for their injustices and crimes. This turned forgiveness into an even more difficult challenge that requires political and philosophical courage. Even more tragic, perhaps, and requiring more courage, may be the attempt to forget apartheid when the social inequalities it produced are still very much alive. The two speeches ‘I am an Af rican’ and ‘South Af rica: Two Nations’ represent Mbeki as an Af rican Renaissance philosopher who was as keen P E E R R E V I E W 40V o l u m e 9 3 / 2 0 2 2 | J o u r n a l I S S N : 2 0 7 5 2 4 5 8 P E E R R E V I E W to forgive as he was not to forget the injustices and crimes of apartheid. Mbeki was vividly aware of the f ragility of reconciliation without justice, and of the shortcomings of a forgiveness and reconciliation experiment that was based on a politically-motivated collective amnesia. The Philosophy of Liberation and the African Renaissance When Friedrich Nietzsche (2014) determined himself to look ‘beyond good and evil’ and to come up with a ‘philosophy of the future’, he opined that those who fight against monsters should be careful to not become monsters themselves. Similarly, those who fought against apartheid in the South Af rican liberation movement had to take care that they did not, once in power, practice a new version of apartheid against those who had oppressed them. While Nietzsche was the direct opposite of a philosopher of liberation, because of his celebration of ‘will power’ (Nietzsche, 1968) and his valorisation of the politics of domination, his present observation affirms the philosophy and politics of liberation. The philosophy of liberation, and the politics of liberation that it gives birth to, do not privilege the ideas and practices of retaliation and revenge. In his articulation of the Af rican Renaissance, f rom his background in the South Af rican and Af rican liberation movements, Mbeki was aware that retaliation and revenge against the perpetrators and beneficiaries of apartheid were not sustainable options. Revenge and retaliation can only produce new victims and new victimisers. Nonetheless, he was also aware that those who enjoyed the political and economic privileges of apartheid were not going to easily forfeit those privileges. It became the existential and political dilemma of the leaders of the liberation movement to build a new democratic South Af rica in which even the perpetrators and beneficiaries of apartheid would find home. The tragedy of the South Af rican democratic and constitutional experiment, therefore, as expressed by Mbeki in the ‘South Af rica: Two Nations’ speech, is that the perpetrators and beneficiaries of apartheid did not only find home in post-apartheid South Af rica, but also kept their power and privileges. As canonically described by Enrique Dussel (1969) and Paulo Freire (1993), the burden of the philosophy of liberation is that its humanist vocation compels it to look after not only the victims of oppression, but also the oppressors. Liberation philosophers practice politics not as a profession of opportunists and tricksters, but as a vocation of liberators who are determined to make the world a shared place where people of different historical and political positionalities can co-exist. This did not eventually take place in South Af rica, a country which remains racially divided, with white people monopolising the economy. This reveals the tragic messianism of the philosophy of liberation, which leaves the victims of oppression on the cross of history, crucified and sacrificed on the altars of forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace. The peace that arises f rom a reconciliation that is not accompanied by justice is a negative peace that amounts to the silence of the defeated who await the opportunity to return to conflict. The Af rican Renaissance, as articulated by Mbeki, might then have been a return to the struggle of an aggrieved philosopher of liberation who was witnessing the durability of apartheid even after political independence had been declared in South Af rica. In the narrative of Endgame: The Secret Talks and the End of Apartheid, Willie Esterhuyse (2012) describes how Thabo Mbeki was always ‘against war’ and for a negotiated liberation of South Af rica that would liberate Black people and also preserve the humanity of those who perpetrated and benefitted f rom apartheid. That South Af rica remained ‘two nations’ after the negotiated settlement might therefore have come as tragic crucifixion for Mbeki. It is the crucified Mbeki who found in the idea of an Af rican Renaissance an avenue to return to the unarmed struggle for liberation in South Af rica and in Af rica. Apartheid and colonialism were now to be fought through the re-invention of Af rica and its people, through an Af rican Renaissance that was not interested in punishing perpetrators, but was rather interested in empowering victims. Even as the Af rican Renaissance as represented by Mbeki sounded only poetic and philosophical, it was still political and powerful in the way that its project was to re-invent what had been invented by colonialism. In that way, the Af rican Renaissance was the work of beauty and power as a philosophical idea. The idea of the Af rican Renaissance suffered the Marxian limit, in which the impotence of philosophers lies in the fact that they describe the world, when in fact the point is to 41 SPECIAL EDITION T H E T H I N K E R | J o u r n a l I S S N : 2 0 7 5 2 4 5 8 change the world for the better. In South Af rica, the limits of the political messianism of the philosophy of liberation might have been the forgiveness extended by victims and their reconciliation with victimisers who were not interested in relinquishing their power and privilege. The African Renaissance The reason why Pitika Ntuli (1998: 15) had to ask ‘who is af raid of the Af rican renaissance’ is because the idea of an Af rican Renaissance threatens power and knowledge systems that have normalised Af rica as a dark continent that is beyond repair. The idea that Af rica is lost beyond recovery is comforting to the colonial ego. The idea of an Af rican Renaissance is also threatening to Af ricans who have to carry out the cultural, economic, intellectual, and political tasks that will lead Af rica to its long overdue awakening. The tasks ‘will involve [a] re-analysing of Af rica’s past’, decolonising education in Af rica, and paying attention to the diversity of Af ricans in Af rica and around the world (Ntuli, 1998: 15). In other words, the idea of an Af rican awakening is threatening to those who benefit f rom the Af rican economic and political condition of slumber. In his reading and interpretation of the work of Ngugi wa Thiongo, Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2019: 3) understands the idea of an Af rican Renaissance as the hard work of Af rican intellectuals and political leaders ‘re-membering’, in the sense of re-assembling the organs of an Af rican continent and Af rican people that were ‘dismembered’ by colonialism. This intellectual and political work is f rightening to Af ricans themselves and is threatening to those who have benefitted f rom a dis-membered Af rica. The call for an Af rican Renaissance is a direct challenge to Western economic, political, and cultural imperialism. It is a call that ‘challenges the right of Europeans to impose their cultural and spiritual values on Af rican communities’ (Nabudere, 2001: 11). Dani Nabudere (2001: 1) notes how the Af rican Renaissance idea seeks to ‘redefine a new political and ideological agenda of pan-Af ricanism in the age of globalisation’ and that ‘the key pillars of the Af rican Renaissance are sociocultural, political, economic regeneration and improvement of Af rica’s geo-political standing in world affairs’. In other words, the Af rican Renaissance is not seen as a simple awakening or coming to consciousness, but also as an insurrection against Western cultural, economic, and political domination. In the first place, ‘the struggle against imperialism in Af rica was a struggle for Af rican independence and to that extent for an Af rican Renaissance’ (Nabudere, 2001: 15). In that way, the poetic but also vigorous call for the Af rican Renaissance was a call by a philosopher of liberation who had been awakened to the reality that the end of juridical apartheid and colonialism in Af rica did not necessarily entail the end of coloniality, hence the need to return to the struggle, even if it was an unarmed struggle. Percy More (2002: 61) notes that ‘the concept of the renaissance has since brought into sharp focus the post-apartheid notion of the return’. Regardless of whether the idea of return can be seen to be retrogressive and oppressive, it is in this case understood as progressive in the sense that Aimé Césaire pronounced Return to the Native Land, and Amílcar Cabral made bold the call for a Return to the Source. It is in that way of the return to the centrality of Af rica and Af ricans in the world that the idea of the Af rican Renaissance shares at least some similarity with the ‘Af rocentric Idea’ that is proposed by Molefi Kete Asante (1998), and which advances as its central idea Af rican power, relevance, genius, and pride. Another way of understanding the idea of the African Renaissance, especially as articulated by Mbeki, has been that it was a political way of returning South Africa to Africa and to the world after many years of isolation. Peter Vale (1998: 272) observes that the idea of the African Renaissance was rooted in ‘South African diplomacy’ and the politics of return to the world comity of nations. The African Renaissance had to do with ‘South Africa’s destiny’ in the world and ‘the notion that their presence should feature in African affairs seems to have been a constant thread in the rhetoric of successive South African leaders’ (Vale, 1998: 274). It is even thinkable that after Mandela’s global fame and aura, his successor had to respond to the political and intellectual pressure to engage with South Africa, Africa, and the world in the grand terms of a Renaissance. After all, the ANC had to recover its place and name in the world as the African National Congress. If the idea of the African Renaissance had to do with South Africa leading the continent in search for global relevance, then it might be true that the idea is an off-shoot of the Pan-African ideal of a united continent that would become a meaningful global player. P E E R R E V I E W 42 The Genealogies and Goals of the African Renaissance It is important to emphasise that the idea of the Af rican Renaissance was not in any measure an invention of Mbeki who, in his own words, only saw himself as an heir of a long legacy of Af rican intellectuals and political leaders. Addressing the gathering of the Second Southern Af rican International Dialogue in Namibia in 1998, Mbeki poetically claimed his intellectual heritage f rom earlier Af rican leaders, intellectuals, and Pan-Af rican activists: Let me say something about myself and about some other people in this hall who belong to my generation. I am a product of the teachings and example of Abdul Gamal Nasser of Egypt, of Ben Belta of Algeria, of Habib Bourgiba of Tunisia, Mohamed V of Morocco, of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, of Medico Keita of Mali, of Patrice Lumumba of Congo, of Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo of Zimbabwe, of Eduardo Mondlane of Mozambique, of Agostinho Neto of Angola, of Sam Nujoma of Namibia, of Seretse Khama and Ketumile Masire of Botswana, of Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela of South Af rica. (1998: 289) Mbeki’s pronunciations about his and his generation of Af rican leaders, as produced by former Af rican heads of states, some of them intellectuals and others soldiers, was a Pan-Af rican performance that accompanied his articulations of the Af rican Renaissance. Mbeki, in this and other speeches, was keen to project the Pan-Af rican and decolonial roots of the Af rican Renaissance. The speech was titled ‘Stop the Laughter’ (Mbeki, 1998: 289) and its gesture was that Af rican leaders should stop the corruption, despotism, ignorance, greed, and violence that made Af rica’s former colonisers in Europe laugh at the continent and its people. Thus, the Af rican Renaissance was not only a movement against Western imperialism in Af rica but also against the rot in Af rican post-colonial leadership that delayed the envisaged renewal of Af rica. The paradox in Mbeki’s celebration of earlier Af rican leaders was the mention of genocidal tyrants such as Mugabe, who had become native colonialists of their own countries in their use of colonial modes of rule that combined force and f raud. It is another tragedy of the Af rican Renaissance that it had to claim its roots f rom some earlier Af rican leaders who had betrayed the cause of liberation with despotism, one-party state experiments, and a variety of claims to life presidencies. It is for that reason that Kwesi Prah (1999: 37) cautioned that the Af rican Renaissance should not fall to the temptation of ‘warlordism’ and other inimical forms of Af rican leadership. The point that is not to be missed is that, in articulating the Af rican Renaissance, Mbeki was standing on the broad shoulders of Pan-Af rican leaders, intellectuals, and some Af ricanist historians of the previous decades. From South Af rica, Pixley Ka Isaka Seme (1906) wrote of ‘The Regeneration of Af rica’ after years of colonial subjugation. Later, f rom Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe (1937) wrote of ‘Renascent Af rica’ to pronounce a vision of an Af rican continent that was bound to recover f rom colonial wounds and to claim its place amongst world civilisations. The Senegalese intellectual Cheikh Anta Diop (1966) produced a collection of essays ruminating on the Af rican Renaissance – Towards the Af rican Renaissance: Essays in Culture and Development, 1946–1960 – that claimed that Af rica was the cradle of world civilisation. The Af ricanist historian Basil Davidson celebrated the rise of Af rican nationalism in his book The Af rican Awakening (1955). This was followed by Roger Woddis, who celebrated Af rican trade unionism against colonialism in Af rica: The Lion Awakes (1961). These works highlight the idea of the Af rican Renaissance as part of the Pan-Af rican and decolonial politics of a return to the continent. V o l u m e 9 3 / 2 0 2 2 | J o u r n a l I S S N : 2 0 7 5 2 4 5 8 Mbeki’s pronunciations about his and his generation of African leaders, as produced by former African heads of states, some of them intellectuals and others soldiers, was a Pan-Afri- can performance that accompanied his articulations of the African Re- naissance. Mbeki, in this and other speeches, was keen to project the Pan-African and decolonial roots of the African Renaissance. P E E R R E V I E W 43 The idea of the Af rican Renaissance, in short, had a long history before Mbeki. This history compels us to ask what happened to the earlier calls for the Af rican Renaissance and what might be the future of Mbeki’s latest call. The suspicions that the idea of the Af rican Renaissance might be Pan-Af ricanism dressed in new words and charged with new agendas is compelling. While Pan-Af ricanism was generated as a philosophy of Af rican unity against colonial divisions of the Af rican continent, the Af rican Renaissance is trained against the coloniality that endures after the dethronement of juridical colonialism in Af rica. Sisonke Msimang poses the question: ‘Af rican Renaissance: Where Are the Women?’ (2011: 67). Msimang argues that if women and their oppression are not centred in the Af rican Renaissance, then the liberatory potential of the idea is limited and compromised. The history of Pan-Af ricanism and its leaders has been associated with the exclusion of women. Msimang contends that isolating the Af rican Renaissance to the elite circles of the South Af rican polity, academy, and corporate sector effectively limits its decolonial stamina and reduces it to a political, intellectual, and corporate slogan. As a decolonial South Af rican feminist, Msimang enters the Af rican Renaissance debate with a scathing but constructive critique. Her ideas rhyme with Dani Nabudere (2001), who suggests that Af rican intellectuals, political leaders, and activists should come forward and transform the Af rican Renaissance f rom an idea to a continental policy and cultural agenda. The Af rican Renaissance, in other words, is too important an idea to be left to a few politicians, scholars, and elites. As a committed Black South Af rican feminist, Msimang exercised political and intellectual activism in carefully reading Mbeki’s speeches, critiquing them, and eventually gleaning what the goals of the Af rican Renaissance were. Msimang (2000) notes how Mbeki’s emphasis on ‘the importance of democracy and multi-party rule taking hold throughout Af rica’ and ‘the need to counter negative outside perceptions of Af rica’ were some of the prominent goals of the Af rican Renaissance. The need for economic reforms, including ‘the development of regional economic blocks’ and ending corruption (Msimang, 2000: 72) are the other goals. These goals would only be achieved if Af ricans observed the importance of peace and stability on the continent and stopped the trend of civil wars and military coups, for instance. In Mbeki’s view, Af rican leaders and Af ricans at large should work on themselves and modernise their political and economic cultures in order to be equal to the grand task of Af rican awakening. This awakening is aimed at eventually empowering Af rica to participate as an equal amongst other continents in world affairs. The business of world affairs requires an Af rica that has rid itself of tyranny, corruption, political violence, and disunity. Mbeki optimistically envisioned Af rica as a formidable player in the ‘New World Order’ amongst other continents. As President of South Af rica, delivering a State of the Nation Address on 25 June 1999, Mbeki announced the drive towards Af rica’s contribution to the New World Order: Gradually, Af rica will work her way towards the resumption of her rightful place among the continents of our globe. Where necessary, we will call on the services of such outstanding Af rican statespersons as former Presidents Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Sir Ketumile Masire and Nelson Mandela to assist in the promotion of this agenda. As part of the world community of nations, we will make our due contribution to the construction of a new world order that will be responsive to the needs of especially the poor of the world. (Mbeki, 1999: 11) Mbeki interestingly talks of ‘a resumption’ of Af rica’s ‘rightful place among the continents of our globe’ which betrays his belief in a great Af rica of the past that was once influential in world civilisation. The Af rican of the Af rican Renaissance, therefore, will be an Af rican who is concerned as much with the glories of the past as with the goals of the future. This is an Af rican who is concerned both with Af rica’s ancestors and with its descendants. Mbeki admits that the Af rican Renaissance will be ‘gradual’ and will benefit f rom the wisdom of past leaders. A decolonised and renascent Af rica would be one that is rooted in itself as a continent, united and prosperous, and ready to be relevant and competitive globally. Mbeki’s is the tragic optimism of a philosopher of liberation who was clear about the dystopia surrounding Af rica, but was nonetheless confident that with intellectual and political will, the continent could navigate itself to becoming a formidable and equal player in world affairs. T H E T H I N K E R | J o u r n a l I S S N : 2 0 7 5 2 4 5 8 P E E R R E V I E W 44 Conclusion Thabo Mbeki’s ideas of the Af rican Renaissance are characterised by the tragic optimism of a philosopher of liberation who is clear about the dystopia of the history of colonialism, but who nonetheless retains a stubborn hope for a brighter future. The declaration ‘I am an Af rican’ is at once a defence of Af rican humanity and identity and a threat of the return of the continent to a significant place in global affairs. The Af rican Renaissance philosopher of liberation forgives, but does not forget, colonial wounds and injustices. The philosopher is impatient about the tyrannies, corruption, ignorance, and political violence on the continent. The Af rican has to work on Af rican weaknesses in order to be equal to the decolonial task of re-inventing the continent and recovering it f rom dystopia in order to restore it to utopia. The beauty of poetry and philosophy are mobilised in order to resist Af rican dehumanisation and dispossession and to instead strive for the economic and political empowerment of the people and their continent. The dream of restoring Af ricans to full belonging in the global human family and the restoration of the continent to prominence belongs to the messianism of the philosophy of liberation. This philosophy is willing to save the victims and the victimisers in order to achieve a fantasy of a paradisal world that might be more real in poetry and philosophy than in the present New World Disorder, where the geopolitical and economic inequalities of the past are more pronounced than ever. References Arendt, H. (2014). The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Asante, M.K. (2004). ‘The Afrocentric Idea.’ In: R.L. Jackson, ed. African American Communication & Identities: Essential Readings. California: SAGE Publications, 16–28. Dussel, E. 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