In 1988 the outstanding Congolese scholar Valentin Yeves Mudimbe published a seminal work that revolutionized the concept of what Africa is. He focused more on the idea of Africa rather than the concrete geographical space like the large land mass we consider today as the continent. Mudimbe argued that what we think Africa is, is nothing more than an amalgamation of disparate ideas coalesced into one entity by the name of Africa. These ideas date back to the ancient Hellenic world. They were also constructed and developed by missionaries and early European explorers. The content of these ideas, which Mudimbe referred to as the colonial library, would then be passed down to ethnographers and anthropologists.
After them came black intellectuals and clergyman, mainly from the West Indies and other parts of the Americas, who would be next in line to adopt and adapt this library, giving it a much more positive history and setting in stone the continents pan-African outlook. The last in line to adopt this library, ironically, would be the people of the continent themselves, as the 20th century marked the age when native Africans began to critically assess why they referred to themselves as Africans in the first place. (To be concluded)
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