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The Distorted Images Of African Continent: A Heideggerian Interpretation
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PURPOSE OF STUDY
My purpose of this project is to showcase and bring
to “more†conscious awareness the varied distorted images with which
Africans are labeled. These distorted images, though as old as the
continent itself, have continued to form ominous clouds of hatred in the
mental skies of most Westerners. The notion that Africans, especially
Black Africans, are inferior has implicitly continued to petrify in the
African relationship with the West. For instance, “eighty five years
after the witch hunt against the African soldiers in Liverpool, Anthony
Walker, a promising young black student from Liverpool was viciously
murdered with an axe on 29 June, 2005 by white youths who were angered
by the fact that Walker had a white girlfriendâ€.5 Imagine this.
To
hedge West’s sheer and implicit distortion of Africans as inferior,
Africans themselves have unconsciously submerged themselves to this
status–quo. Very soon, they will become “untouchablesâ€.
As a result
of the above, this project is not only aimed at show-casing, but is also
geared towards salvaging the tainted images of the Africans. It is
aimed at confronting Euro centric superiority by asserting the fact that
“we are all humans, irrespective of color, skin and race. Again, my
intent is that there is more to complexification (coming together) than
there is to particularization. Pierre Telhard de Chardin hit the truth
when he remarked:
It is precisely this state of isolation that will
end if we begin to discover in each other not merely the elements of one
and the same thing but of a single spirit in search of itself.6
Again,
like every other project on African experience, this project is an
attempt to unmask the “un-freedom†of Africans hobbled by many
“positive†and ‘’negative’’ elements (slavery, colonialism et cetera) as
a result of the sub-human status created for them.
I shall
interpret these images about African continent, using Martin Heidegger’s
concept of phenomenology in his “Being and Timeâ€. Remember, I am not
using this concept as benchmark to African situation; instead, I am only
interpreting his concept of phenomenology and situating it to African
situation. Again, I shall not relegate to the limbo his question of the
meaning of being by which he arrived at the fundamental ontology:
‘’Dasein’’-man. Thus “Dasein†is the gateway to other ontologies. It is
because of the centrality of Dasein with its existentials that this
project focuses on the distortions of African “Being nessâ€.
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