How Colonialism Preempted Modernity In Africa

Based on the idea that Africa was already becoming modern before being derailed by colonialism, the author insists that Africa can get back on track and advocates a renewed engagement with modernity. Tools toward shaping a positive future for Africa are immigration, capitalism, democracy, and globalization.

Why hasn't Africa been able to respond to the challenges of modernity and globalization? Going against the conventional wisdom that colonialism brought modernity to Africa, Olúfémi Táíwò claims that Africa was already becoming modern and that colonialism was an unfinished project. Africans aspired to liberal democracy and the rule of law, but colonial officials aborted those efforts when they established indirect rule in the service of the European powers. Táíwò looks closely at modern institutions, such as church missionary societies, to recognize African agency and the impulse toward progress. He insists that Africa can get back on track and advocates a renewed engagement with modernity. Immigration, capitalism, democracy, and globalization, if done right this time, can be tools that shape a positive future for Africa.

Based on the idea that Africa was already becoming modern before being derailed by colonialism, the author insists that Africa can get back on track and advocates a renewed engagement with modernity. Tools toward shaping a positive future for Africa are immigration, capitalism, democracy, and globalization.

In a forthright and uncompromising manner, Olúfémi Táíwò explores Africa’s hostility toward modernity and how that hostility has impeded economic development and social and political transformation. What has to change for Africa to be able to respond to the challenges of modernity and globalization? Táíwò insists that Africa can renew itself only by fully engaging with democracy and capitalism and by mining its untapped intellectual resources. While many may not agree with Táíwò’s positions, they will be unable to ignore what he says. This is a bold exhortation for Africa to come into the 21st century.

Decolonisation has lost its way. Originally a struggle to escape the West’s direct political and economic control, it has become a catch-all idea, often for performing ‘morality’ or ‘authenticity’; it suffocates African thought and denies African agency. Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò fiercely rejects the indiscriminate application of ‘decolonisation’ to everything from literature, language and philosophy to sociology, psychology and medicine. He argues that the decolonisation industry, obsessed with cataloguing wrongs, is seriously harming scholarship on and in Africa. He finds ‘decolonisation’ of culture intellectually unsound and wholly unrealistic, conflating modernity with coloniality, and groundlessly advocating an open-ended undoing of global society’s foundations. Worst of all, today’s movement attacks its own cause: ‘decolonisers’ themselves are disregarding, infantilising and imposing values on contemporary African thinkers. This powerful, much-needed intervention questions whether today’s ‘decolonisation’ truly serves African empowerment. Táíwò’s is a bold challenge to respect African intellectuals as innovative adaptors, appropriators and synthesisers of ideas they have always seen as universally relevant.

Legal Naturalism advances a clear and convincing case that Marx's theory of law is a form of natural law jurisprudence. It explicates both Marx's writings and the idea of natural law, and makes a forceful contribution to current debates on the foundations of law. Olufemi Taiwo argues that embedded in the corpus of Marxist writing is a plausible, adequate, and coherent legal theory. He describes Marx's general concept of law, which he calls "legal naturalism." For Marxism, natural law isn't a permanent verity; it refers to the basic law of a given epoch or social formation which is an essential aspect of its mode of production. Capitalist law is thus natural law in a capitalist society and is politically and morally progressive relative to the laws of preceding social formations. Taiwo emphasizes that these formations are dialectical or dynamic, not merely static, so that the law which is naturally appropriate to a capitalist economy will embody tensions and contradictions that replicate the underlying conflicts of that economy. In addition, he discusses the enactment and reform of "positive law"—law established by government institutions—in a Marxian framework.

"That Africa is at a crossroads in an increasingly globalised world is indisputable. Equally unassailable is the fact that the humanities, as a broad field of intellection, research and learning in Africa, appears to have been pigeonholed in debates of relevance in the development aspirations of many African nations. Historical experiences and contemporary research outputs indicate, however, that the humanities, in its various shades, is critical to Africa's capacity to respond effectively to such problems as security, corruption, political ineptitude, poverty, superstition, and HIV/AIDS, among many other mounting challenges which confront the people of Africa. The vibrancy and resilience of Africa's cultures, against these and other odds of globalisation episodes in the course of our history, demand the focused attention of academia to exploit their relevance to contemporary issues. This collection provides a comprehensive overview of issues in the humanities at the turn of the 21st century, which create a veritable platform for the global redefinition and understanding of Africa's rich cultures and traditions. Such areas covered include ruminations in metaphysics and psychology, pathos and ethos, cinematic and literary connections, and historical conceptualisations."

First Published in 1965. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.