English

English Publications
University of Iowa 1996

A Conversation about Kwame Anthony Appiahs In My Fathers House

Barbara J. Eckstein Dean Makuluni Mahoumbah Klobah Cherry Muhanji Mawuena Logan Theresa Rie

University

of Iowa, barbara-eckstein@uiowa.edu

The article was published in Iowa Review, 26:3 1996. <a >href=http://www.jstor.org/stable/info/20154330 Author posting. Copyright c Barbara Eckstein, 1996. This work is posted here with permission of the publisher, The Iowa Review and the University of Iowa. This paper is posted at Iowa Research Online. http://ir.uiowa.edu/english pubs/3

A Conversation about Kwame Anthony Appiah's "In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture" Author(s): Mahoumbah Klobah, Mawuena Logan, Dean Makuluni, Cherry Muhanji, Theresa Riffe, Barbara Eckstein Source: The Iowa Review, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Fall, 1996), pp. 1-26 Published by: University of Iowa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20154330 Accessed: 01/07/2010 09:34
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Mahoumbah

Klobah, Eckstein

Mawuena

Makuluniy
with

Cherry Muhanji,
Kwame Africa

and Theresa Riffe

Anthony in the Appiah's

Logany Dean

Barbara

about A Conversation In My Father's House: of Culture Philosophy

for Theresa Riffe

ONE from a vari Anthony Appiah as an anti-essentialist critic of "race"?(always in quo ety of contexts: in association with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as an editor tation marks); writers for the Amistad/Penguin of critical essays on African American MIGHT KNOW the name Kwame

and author of Assertion and Conditionals and For series; as a philosopher Truth in Semantics-, as a book reviewer for The New York Times; or as author in Venice. Born cated Another Death Avenging Angel and the forthcoming in Ghana of an Asante father and English mother, edu in Britain, in the U.S. academy, Appiah and employed is an on Inquiry In My issue of the novel

student of identity. Recently, he edited the Critical going on Identities rereleased in 1995 as a book. Identity?including own?is House essay mobile. For is a diasporic for the 1994 Multiculturalism the Appiah of example, African western-trained collection the 1992

Appiah's Father's

but in an philosopher, from Princeton Univer

as an African American. describes himself sity Press, Appiah us participated Six of in this conversation about In My Father's House. our identities are no more essential than Appiah's, Although they war rant some mention. Mahoumbah Klobah and Mawuena Logan are na comes from Malawi. tives of Togo. Dean Makuluni and Theresa Riffe, from Detroit and Des Moines can Americans. All are or were And Cherry respectively, Muhanji are Afri

at the Uni pursuing graduate degrees am white and teach in the English versity of Iowa. I (Barbara Eckstein) at Iowa. At my instigation these five people Department agreed to talk to life my desire to about In My Father's House on tape. They brought

Edited

by Barbara

Eckstein.

to for its challenges important ideas of "race," pan-Africanism, and African prevalent philosophy. In My Father's House participates in a tradi its many venues, Among tion of western-trained the un postcolonial philosophers questioning review of between that western colonialism easy relationship training, European in Africa, and the traditional and practices of the vari belief systems ous corners of Africa. In "Que Faire? Reconsidering of Af Inventions rica," Andrew and issues Apter provides in this continuing a useful debate. of history And indeed the principal players In it does continue. to my Father's

create

a collective

a book

the spring 1996 issue of Research attention by Dean Makuluni?four House. As do we, these scholars of Appiah's politics African-descended Appiah different arguments

in African essays

Literatures?brought to In My respond the

struggle with against African

identity. They ask if agency "different calls "tolerable falsehoods"?the idealizations appropriate, 79; quoted 120) or by Slaymaker as "strategic defends essentialism"?not different

and the reasoning and transnational unity can be located in what [that] make tolerable" (Appiah in what Katya Gibel "racial" essence but interests

falsehoods

"Tolerable"

Azoulay sources rather "experiential can be drawn ample] which

reads who Everyone all readers African racial identity, Similarly, unity, and pan-Africanism. of African in Appiah's the conundra intellectuals confront arguments educated issues institutions and in colonial languages. These through colonial are two strands of our conversation. Another strand that emerges an uncommon in framing we want

for ex [of being black or being woman, on without (137). apology" to claims for this book must face its challenges

is, however, social book. Before some we

class plays

of the role interrogation provocative identity and intellectual inquiry in Appiah's but to thank Cherry Muhanji, who transcribed who transcribed most of, our 360 minutes with its present the participants, form. I have edited

begin,

of oral

of, and Jason Mezey, In consultation dialogue. of transcript into

100 pages Tape One

as readers of Appiah's about yourselves Can you say something to the reading of a do you bring kinds of assumptions work? What Eckstein:

book like this? 2

Klobah:

If I am walking out address me, they will

to Old

and two people hanging Capitol Mall, address me as black. Am I to refuse definitely

I'm from Togo secondly. And then of race? I'm an African. the concept in Togo then in that region I'm part of an I'm from a region. And Americans locate my continent ethnic group. Although from my ac cent, They they only know countries mentioned South in the American So when to draw media. around say, "Oh, is Togo I'm cutting African, everything show where Makuluni: Togo is. when I came here in 1989, in a I first saw the essay 1985]. in New Theory?" Literatures, to Iowa and For Truth Africa?" I have I say I am the map and

short. Or

I discovered

Appiah

issue of Critical Inquiry special called "Topologies of Nativism" much that I read other

[Autumn as "New

Mantatu [7 (1990): 57-89]. I found myself disagreeing with him so

things: Assertion and Conditionals in Semantics. The it mean whether I don't black central he raises are questions of identity: what does questions or black? One of your [Eckstein's] to be African is questions sense to have us have a conversation it makes about this book. how else it could be done because this book affects caught similar us, in to

know

people. As much so many contradictions?perhaps, his own. I am an African married one claim a black when

as I disagree

with him, I find myself some of the contradictions to a white American

woman.

Can

to a person of the very identity race which is historically associated with the oppression of black people? to begin with I wanted this personal reference it seems to me because is married that Appiah's contradictions of this nature, his begin with something as the son of a black African man and a white English woman. identity In the United States there are very clear lines drawn between the races,

one

fact of having a bit of black blood is taken as meaning at least the Africa that the person I know, children is black. In Africa, of mixed racial heritage were not taken as black. They had to make an effort saw advantages and not many in de were not considered black anyway. They but white, claring themselves were or considered better than black. considered, themselves, they their blackness, to declare

so that the mere

Logan: articles race.

It was

1990 when

I first I feel

came

to

look

for when

one he

Inquiry. that he cannot actually place himself. He it very peculiar that we don't fit into those racial categories, but, you know, he's says or to be called black or African talking about himself. He doesn't want I find same

in Critical

uncomfortable

of Appiah's talks about

or English or British. I can understand it, but at the European time, when you are still black. you go out in the real world, Muhanji: I was first introduced to Appiah

That's Nations. Queer Nations/Black I don't think this book is necessarily ticular book. Personally about race, as I think it's about class. It's very uncomfortable. were elitist, and his take on African Americans?the chapters he discussed them?is still as an African America.

as a gay man at a conference: I first heard about this par when so much The little first that

talking about class. I identify very quickly race in I just look at myself in the abstract American; I know I that's different in other countries, but I know who

am and what sophical

class.

has been and he has a way of being philo my experience and intellectual about all these things, and I think that's strictly

Riffe:

I come to this from an anthropologist's and I wanted viewpoint, to read it like that, but I was having a hard time with it because of how he talks about race. My initial response was that it felt like a book about class because of his background. With this early image of his in a British in the barrister's father class and education system wig,

talks about his mother just jumped right out at me. And then Appiah a book. All these examples are more about class who had published In the acknowledgments this is just in the preface. he than race. And he immediately identifies says that he's gone to Cambridge; Skip Gates we are as his runnin' buddy. Whoa, really talking about class here, but he's written books, He not a book a time know under the rubric about of race. class. It's the time for race to write how a book he fits

in racially. As a person who is multi racial, I know that you have to make decisions, you cannot jump around, see you on the street they say she's a black woman. because when people or my grandmother a I don't discount who's my Jewish grandfather doesn't native. Those are things that people don't see. I understand the confu

sion on Appiah's part. In some ways woman in the United States, I have Klobah: Asante king. Makuluni: "Near But, look also at the last He raises the issue of

I identify with it, but as a black some problems with this book. he links himself of with the

class when that his aunt

king, making

us aware

is the wife

the Asante

sentence

of

the first behind

largest city cus hedge, a in the 'garden city ofWest Africa,' our life was essentially is a village I know life." What life? Because from what exactly village seen and I have of village life in Malawi and from the photographs I have read of village in Africa life elsewhere south of the descriptions Sahara, Klobah: this is not village life. is not a This is a city, one of

the center

of the second

in Ghana,

paragraph. our hibis

Kumasi,

where

they

lived,

village.

the largest Makuluni: one

in Ghana. The difference course and the village tends to be there are large working classes in the cities, but town and village, the thought that comes up is between the town

of class. Of

as soon

as you mention

class usually. is actually in the cul invested Logan: He is showing us a person who ture of the Asante that he's people, but at the same time, he's showing
class-conscious.

Klobah:

He

needs

an extensive

and the patrilineal British, he's coming from. Makuluni: Yes, I come from

explanation so the reader will

of the matrilineal get to know exactly

Asantes where

a matrilineal society, but what's happened as far as I can century, judge, because my father left to a new town, in essence the village, went the way the family has more has been lines. Now, what's operated along patrilineal interesting in the twentieth is the very
allusion

fact

that

this book

is called

In My

Father's House?not

the

so much

. . .

Logan: sense,

If you the man

get married vorces she goes to her at all. Klobah: was

for instance, in the traditional go back to my culture, in order to has the house; you have to have the house inside the house. If the woman and bring the woman di back to her parents because the house does not belong

If I get married, born. I would build

I wouldn't another

necessarily house attached

have

to leave where

so the compound keeps on growing according that you have in the family, you see? It was there before you were, But when Appiah before your father, even your great-grandfather. talks I it's clear that this is not part of his house. of "my father's house," mean, that's what In the I think about it: he has nothing to share with it.

to my father's house, to the number of men

Makuluni: introduce used

I come from, it is usual for a man to society where as "the woman/mother his wife of the house." The word is the the full at one same sense as that used for mother in this case. It's

for woman to get

difficult The

implication in which the house

of the local language into English here. owns or is in is that the woman charge of if misleading, the man lives. It is an interesting, level the woman happen is respon in that house.

to the fact that it really points gesture because sible for the domestic things, like cooking, which

I went in December?my is some home dad's house Logan: When to the union; my mom's is here?my oh from here friends where maybe, I used to live in my "Are you at your dad's place or your mom's?" said, too when my dad wasn't mom's there. My mom's house is the house to do with my father at house of her father, her family. It has nothing all. My father's Eckstein: father's house is the house two houses mean father. Those So of my father's father, and my are different and separate. that your still has parents are divorced? of hers and because that's to be father's

that doesn't

Logan: No, the family

there . . .

no. But my mom house, family

that house terrain,

ground,

family

it's going

Makuluni:

Forever.

Logan:

...

forever,

yeah.

Riffe: We one

to all the family. Every have the family farm which belongs can go there. It was my grandfather's came on family's. His father the Trail of Tears and built this house and then my grandmother brought
there.

everyone

Makuluni:

some memories two po in my mind: triggered as an ems that I read several times undergraduate by Wole Soyinka? Conversation" and another early, quite satirical poem about "Telephone a westernized man. He African is talked about how his civilization This book sewn into the suit. This is the image which lining of his three-piece came to my mind when I saw Appiah's opening descrip father. A suit is very uncomfortable in most of Africa be weather. It is really remarkable that this is the first some innocence, to it as if with which presents of arrogance. time he does they criticize learned to the me going people and taking it back to Africa.

immediately tion of his cause

of warm

image of his father. He me really shows a kind Klobah: tropolis, Eckstein: about trinsic all seem Klobah: At the same

and taking

on what

If you think this is a book about class dressed up as a book of extrinsic and in race, then how do you read his discussion racism? How to feel Let's does it reflect this book? these assumptions about class you

permeate

intrinsic racism means look at go back: you don't achievement. You'll him due to links that you have support to that person. Now, with the person. And you try to attach yourself if to the Asante in the beginning, tries to attach himself Appiah, king, someone's that kind of class thing with the Asante at the part when his father dies, he shows how to the king and all the country?well, attached that I have. I mean, racism he sees that intrinsic establish that is not Eckstein: king productive. that the initial identification with the Asante king, and at the end, it is to be important that's one confusion continues something

So you're saying is intrinsic classism?

now he king is. Right even in the twentieth is very powerful century. He was a very powerful a in London, had to quit his job to go back to become lawyer king, there which is much more power which shows that there is something Klobah: Yes. West Africans know who the Asante ful than what ing himself Makuluni: The he was doing in London. You see, and so Appiah's to the Asante king gives him some kind of power. chapter is his take on another The Invention attach

In the title of this first

work?

[V.Y. Mudimbe, of Africa and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington: Philosophy Mudimbe's of how Press, 1988)]. Within analysis in the age of colonialism discourse imperialist route. He uses the same title goes a different Africanists he argues, trouble with

Invention

of Africa: Gnosis, Indiana University western European,

Africa, Appiah to talk about how pan for I have themselves, but, to say I have

invented

to this, re-inventing Africa responded in a racist manner of their own. And that. any of you

Eckstein:

Can

Appiah's calling rican approaches within Appiah's

about the trouble you have with say more and [E.W.] Blyden's Crummell's [Alexander] pan-Af black nationalism and therefore, nineteenth-century terms, racist?

own

Makuluni:

in the things Crummell and Blyden There are contradictions civilization. But they're don't know much about African because say they sure that that link with Africa is maintained, in making and interested I think, is what is racist about it, that it's an association that to Appiah, people. Crummell spent twenty years in Africa to Africa but lived there emigrated back. Even after twenty years, as a missionary. E.W. for the rest of his life. he could not identify

of black Klobah:

also Blyden came Crummell with Africans.

to eliminate its indigenous cultures" (24). by seeking were doing. I think this is racist. I think Appiah That's what those guys that racist. considers

Logan: Appiah love of Africa

says, "The

'exiles'

of

the New World

could

show

their

Klobah:

My

point

is if Crummell

is racist

against Africans,

who

then

is

he identifying with?
I think, the construction I've been quiet because, of race Muhanji: in the U.S. than other places. But I think Crummell is often is different on the racist notions Even though his skin is black, of whiteness. taking his ideology he's coming from. What is the product of where Appiah's to see by using Crummell is how he is treated at home failing This man has been totally brainwashed that he's going to civilize cans. In fact, he is seen as a savage in his own country by white ogy. But again, as a man to civilize. going in Africa. civilize the natives Makuluni: fully. Marcus Logan: Garvey?! "Okay, He I think this is a class issue. Crummell The man on feels he's the street here. Afri ideol

leaving America to is not going

that Appiah picks his pan-Africanist one. be an interesting Garvey would about pan-Africanism, in the index. There's not a DuBois, he he doesn't

examples

care

talks I looked

mention And

Marcus I said, not a the

no Marcus is not

because

he's

Garvey. a Crummell,

he's

it's a class issue." Blyden, of the epigraph first words Eckstein: At the end of

I tell you, even "Africa for Africans," here are Nkrumah?Garvey's words. about about Crummell someone

the chapter

I find tells a story which on the road how woman don't kinds start here." As

appealing to get to a place, and I understand it, he concludes

who's she

he and Blyden, lost asking a

says, "first of all, that we need certain to start to find in response to

of political solidarity, but "race" is not the place that political would you say to him solidarity. What that? One

Klobah:

is to look at the children way of thinking of that question he talks about, his nieces and nephews. They're various shades or col children. Now, one could say here's ors, but also, obviously, privileged an example of a group of children who have African the possibility of some kind of solidarity, but I think blood, who have is play that what

the question ing out in that is precisely ments I find another there of example

of class. some kind

In his of

solidarity,

acknowledg with

and so on. But what, Skip Gates, class? They're personal friendships. Makuluni: What's happened of different involved over races. and

in the What

end, does

are that

such leave

similarities? us?

among people a class element

the years is there are more marriages cases there's still I think that in most has to be aware of it. So, for ex

one

to a white American, I found outside of Malawi, that ample, to marry some people not talk to me because I knew would they assume, "Now to say, "Come It takes effort for me he's important." on, let's have a drink. We But I don't are me a higher person." Ah. good friends; this doesn't make sense that Appiah feels distant from everything else. He a village life. life, but I don't get the sense of a village

talks about

Tape

Two I heard bond among Afri saying that there is a common is it?...I see you smiling. people. Am I right? What you that in spite of himself I know he does in the to a notion subscribes Appiah sense that his writing is about in the New World. And he's editing with Gates of African black American writers. Isn't he is that in suspicion But I think he also

Eckstein:

can-descended Makuluni: of that Africa this sort

I think too.

or black series,

people

collecting

criticism to do with subscribes

something promoting of himself he also spite dismisses

people? My to such a notion.

of the historical of black the important experience questions and slavery. colonialism people: His deconstruction of race is based to a large extent on the fact that of pan-Africanism black theorists ideas of the original appropriated and American and identity from nineteenth-century European thought Is it possible then to rethink used them to build something. the cat that nineteenth-century concep egory of race without going through tion of race from the Western world? think of an oppositional idea for an Africanism Logan: Can we actually black people? Why did that isn't any kind of discrimination against and DuBois?come this idea of pan up with people?Crummell Africanism? cestry. Bad an is based on race, on common past discrimination or and other people good, that's what actually made DuBois That

10

use

the

idea

discriminate Makuluni:

it was used first to actually of pan-Africanism because sense of false Africanese all over the world. against them?a

a com to deny the history of discrimination, Appiah wants mon to just as easily trace himself history. He asks, why can't DuBois a category: a his Dutch ancestors? Ah, the point is that DuBois is in man he who tried had black blood. However elitist DuBois might be, certainly to do something In all fairness. about racial discrimination. It's almost and as if is saying that what's happened Appiah the African Americans isn't as grave as we've been to the led to

Muhanji: African believe.

The Slave Community the danger of this.When by John first came out, the charge was that he was saying some Blassingame as detrimental as we have to African Americans how that slavery wasn't been West, West. rubric led to believe. but It's true the African it's a particular experience I get shoved?more experience that has been oppressed than I'd like American is in the by the the

I know

Somehow of West.

to be?under

I think he is leading us to conclude cannot that if Africans Logan: come together because the subject of Africa has been invented, don't even think about African to Africans. He Americans is dis linking placed himself; He he cannot some see any bond really in Africans. about I don't African know

Makuluni: intellectuals that

raises in the

I can disagree

chapter with him.

questions disturbing of Nativism." "Topologies

Muhanji: What about that? Riffe: He

is this about writing

in European

languages?

Talk

to me

points out how the Congolese ambivalent about using French. "Raised and then sent to school (Belgian) Congo arrived at his formal schooling

is Sony Labou Tansi, first by his Zairian kin in the in (French) Congo-Brazzaville, writer, with its

he

guage which ment

lan (French) a strange mildness, He reported with of instruction. the way in his colonial teachers daubed him with human feces as a punish for his early grammatical later he solecisms; then, a moment

unfamiliar

11

went wright

on to talk about in French" This

his own

remarkable

work

as a novelist

and play

(53). because how fluent writing of the former colonizer is to a large a mark are in terms of of where you intellectuals are, to a large in African

Makuluni: you extent

is a major issue are in the western language in the African Appiah context is saying

class. And extent, Klobah:

that African

Europhone. But is Arabic African an African language? And Swahili? of Arabic It's a mixture form Swahili is not

an authentic then the local

language. of the area which languages

Swahili.

of non-Europhone given these two examples languages see that these in the northern and eastern sectors, we would some north historical Africa. background. came Swahili The second Arabic because came with the Arab

and language If Appiah had used extensively too have of invasion

the Arabs is that if we

and east Africa. guages, that

is where

point we would know four

began slavery in north to use African lan try homogenous. people. We have fifty is not

that Africa

My country, Togo, two different languages. Makuluni: You

has about

to five million

... are just talking about fifty two! Now in Malawi ! Consider how influential Ngugi has been in his position about lan I heard a story that once at a conference, after Ngugi had fin guage. on his position a presentation and critic, Lewis Nkosi stood the South language, in and said something up started asking each other what on

ished making African writer Zulu. Nkosi

in the room So many people said that Nkosi his point had been made. Ngugi proclaimed a call for translation, counters with this challenge which something seem to feel comfortable an estab with when with publishers dealing had lished writer The usual like him. since he decided argument made against Ngugi in Gikuyu is that he can still maintain his work who

to write which has

only followed

the audience

sixties. Writers

languages would native tongues. Apart

since he began publishing fiction in the faithfully in western have not yet established reputations not have much of an audience if they wrote in their from the problems of publishing, which are cer

12

not many to want than severe in Africa, tainly more people would a little known writer. But Ngugi translate that if his high responds an African not use that to promote gives him advantage, why profile language. Logan: says, "For Africa, by and large, this page seventy-six Appiah is a curiosity: trained in Europe or in schools and though authenticity con the African writers' universities dominated culture, European by cern is not with of a self that is the object of an inner the discovery On voyage

of discovery. Their problem?though not, of course, their sub a public not a private self." We should write for role, ject?is finding conscience the public because of a sense of African that you work for but there are only a selected few that are reading this. the community, How do we get out of it? Klobah: started Ousmane to do films more not is used Sembene made a point he made some time ago about why he that he loves litera the writer must be for

on his novels; than film,

it clear forced:

ture/writing the public, French

but he was

of Senegal and yet the parliament is for people who don't said, "Why don't we speak French. A member we come here?" The president of the assembly talk inWolof when understand the Then said, "I wouldn't you when you speak Wolof." It's easier for guy said, "I don't speak French, but you speak French." is foreign than to choose one Senegalese them to speak a language which over the other because that raises a political issue. language Makuluni: is precisely This East Africa, because nobody a very substantial literature One Swahili has been quite successful why can claim it to be their language. There in Kiswahili. written in is

the private self. in the parliament

author of Violence, was here in year Festus Iyayi from Nigeria, came up the International Writers' of language Program. The question on International Writing in the Seminar in heated discussions and in responding group Nigeria: western is, how to that question less powerful there's Iyayi talked about how to the it is in relation and the small his ethnic in larger groups Igbo. But when we use the factor at work. At the same

the Yoruba, languages,

the Hausa,

that neutralizing

13

time

there

are also which

the kind Appiah

community thing ern

of problems in terms of relating talks about. It is a rude dilemma. when above can

to the old It's some

definitely

language; cannot speak

very, very uncomfortable, located you are obviously the western languages. when

a west you speak the "people," those who

It's power. he went he they back to Haiti, speak If is very

Logan: I was listening ing in French, Creole, you know the French

to Aristide

and English. When the way language,

came turn

to Creole?wow. this around

interesting. in the inner It's the same thing with Muhanji: language not of it, you do not know it. It changes radically. Makuluni: but Yes, the intellectual might be able city. If you're

course.

the pidgin necessarily speaker doesn't So the position of the intellectual we every day. thing struggle with The intellectual does not

to participate in pidgin, access the intellectual dis is some

is still up there. This

Klobah: fact

that he

is superior, pidgin with

speaks the European so that he unconsciously don't we Logan. Why that we that know we is what

to you, but the say, I am superior think that he language makes people assumes that I speak superiority. or speak one of the speak

languages pidgin because

speak French, in Africa? We speak in common us feel comfortable. makes

a minute. Muhanji: Wait take me down they will is this. So you mean I am saying. What what Makuluni: Appiah

If J go home with this academic language, correct me and say, what like that. They will it's not that they don't necessarily understand they will charge me with is arrogance. here is, of course,

a synecdoche." you can speak what Appiah nevertheless

says on page fifty-five: is standing for Language the same that language about the African

"language something the common intellectual from

larger here. Even if can speak, people

is saying carrying

a lot of baggage

is that you are still the western world.

14

mean back, and it doesn't necessarily Muhanji: You carry the baggage a lot of times the words that you're trying to be arrogant, but slip in. me down will in a minute: is Then take "Girl, what you need they this." So saying? Klobah: back Yes, I understand are what you're saying. Your sick and tired of people situation is that the intellectual doesn't have that space, you know what I'm

the people them that telling and they can't even understand the white man's En they is saying when you go home, you have glish language. But then Dean to fight to let them treat you as equal. home are useless to say, "I'm like Ngugi has fought Somebody presumably the same person." He wears If you had never this simple-looking jacket. seen his picture, would "that's a commoner there, you say, probably the positions have been defined for too long. dress is in itself interpreted that that common arrogance. Some as yet

Makuluni:

eh?" Nevertheless, times it just seems another mark

of intellectual

"The African asks always not, says on page seventy-six: Logan: Appiah 'who am I?' but, 'who are we?' is not mine alone, but 'My' problem take on that? 'ours.'" What's your Makuluni:
in Africa

You
where

know

so many

stories
even

like this: you

contribute

come

from
money

village
you

sometimes

neighbors

for

to go to school. You are going to school on behalf of everybody. When to be everybody's person. You're sup you're finished you're supposed a job, give everybody to get everybody and all that, eh? money posed are confronted African intellectuals with this kind of situation, but at the same a time they also seem to believe that they can deal with of the type "who am I?"You see? They're in between caught

question the two. Klobah: into Yoruba "Look, because

But what

of when are we"

this "who

Appiah situation

culture. Appiah feels I'm an expert in the Yoruba African the African culture,

Soyinka? Soyinka might fit here. Soyinka is talking about the that Soyinka should be saying clearly, culture but not the African culture continent, isn't homogenous."

criticizes

15

Makuluni:

just Soyinka's?which is interesting its culture for granted. If the resulting literature as a reader you go and look for the kind of information is interesting expand your reading. And I think that Soyinka would

There's

a lot of

literature?not

takes enough, that will

Appiah less, if we

I see many African similari the story of [the play] Death and the King's Horseman, ties. For example, a was a very that idea of having idea in king's horseman, widespread In southern Africa, of the world. this ritual of the servant's my part the dead king was well-known. suicide in order to accompany expected to the Yoruba culture. And a phenomenon called "the king's pillow." The of Darkness" writer Zeleza Tiyambe by Malawian escapes. pillow who It was story "The Night is about a king's

ties. Soyinka that is similar

enough. essence. Neverthe African say there is no metaphysical talk about specific aspects of cultures, you will find similari himself talks about he sees in Greek culture something

to said that he was told stories by travelers coming Logan: But Appiah the house So you see, I think he's very distanced for that purpose. from common African culture. Yet you talk about the same thing in Malawi, that kind Klobah: about in Ghana, of African and too. Appiah wants to deny in Soyinka's world or common-ness in African culture. identity

stories If Appiah learned That brings back the issue of village. from travelers, then you need to ask, "What type his own people of village was that?" Three Last time I think we gave him a bit more as it exists now is much more rub than was

Tape

Makuluni:

In a culture necessary. African complex. rural area you might easily find kids or grownups talking about Michael is ig also makes clear what Appiah Jackson. Yet this kind of example in spite of what Michael look like now, Africans noring: Jackson might a here is a black kid making in Michael Jackson because name. When to African I was a kid, we spent a lot of time listening big a few, Brown and Wilson American Pickett?quite performers?James were black. I am thinking that maybe this is one because they precisely are interested

16

way

to one of those questions of responding you had last week the kind of classifications think about identity without how we challenges.

about that

Appiah Klobah:

an African team is playing a team out I agree. When football team might have played your country and have beaten side, the African Cameroon but the moment your country they move?like seriously, here to play in the World the whole of represent coming Cup?they African on the TV, just knows his

and noses sit, their heads spectators to win. Someone was telling me for Cameroon waiting in Africa now. They are interested about O.J. Simpson Africa. skin color Makuluni: is black. But

everyone in it because

that. In the sixties you see, there is an element beyond a lot of in my country and seventies, identified with African people the rhythm and blues, blues. Now there has been quite a Americans, so that if you and you are walking shift, in Jamaica. "sufferers," about called or to or Lusaka in Zambia, go to Malawi Chipata about in the market, think that you are you might are shouting to each other and saying we are the People are saying it in and they are not saying this in English.They The and as sufferers, reggae singers talk about black people an are rebels against is system, which oppressive Sub-Saharan Africans such language. There appropriate

the vernacular. slavery,

Babylon. is a big market for reggae in Africa, for stars ranging from the late Bob to the Ivorian and Peter Tosh, Burning Marley Spear, Bunny Wailer, If you are compe and the South African Dube. Alpha Blondy Lucky tent in both the local languages and English, you will hear that appro

like "sufferers," that identification. talks about priation of words Appiah the racialism, about questions of identity, but there's this level which is a big idol. People now come to from the book. Bob Marley's missing know words like "sufferers." lyrics, And those who him know the English the English explain does that mean? Klobah:You presence babwe before reggae bands and it makes even more language appealing. What

can link what in Zimbabwe they had erupting

is happening in Zimbabwe with Bob Marley's the Independence: he sang about Zim during he was like invited. Now Boys. we have the Bhundu

independence; from Zimbabwe

17

In that sense, Mugabe is ahead of a lot of African heads of Logan: state. He's an intellectual, but he also sees the diaspora. Bringing Bob to Zimbabwe in the 1980s was a very big step, a kind of awakening of a new intellectual who might be somebody who's hardly got to high the political message, school but because of Marley's message, he makes
a connection.

Eckstein: What litically, African with

can oral can

cultures the

and what

and accomplish po artistically, text accomplish? written single-authored is inconsistent that orality that you can only have this to and mind individual speaking

assert

philosopher the liberating

suggests Hountondji of the individual mind, text, texts that the

in a single-authored other written resisting other

suggests place, Appiah can be that's printed thing oral text and in that way oral texts are inconsistent. hand, he says that oral culture is tied to the authorities and therefore is less in fact,

In an is the way philosophy has worked. a value of literacy is that, of course, some exactly. That's not true of an reproduced On the other of the commu

to question that authority. nity, likely, in this way. Can orally in this way but authority-bound Inconsistent in here even?can texts?what we're doing they function produced and in what ways In what ways are they authority resistance? bound, are they not? Riffe: When I kept going back to the music that slaves reading, to what in direct opposition had al the masters used because in the beginning, but lowed them. They didn't really have the language The oral culture did have the songs: they were sending messages. they it was of Africa that these is, to a certain traditions have extent, resistant. to be written I think Appiah is proposing down for them to become I was

philosophy. I was growing up, one of the things in the African Muhanji: When when we would American stories, you could pass along community, never tell the story the same way. You could memorize, 'cause we were into memory, as a person you had tell it, but your effectiveness to participate, meant in the community, that your ability so to tell the story differently, to change it. The object was so it wasn't as if you could not

18

there was way. Now

a sense of resistance

to the established

maybe when we're talking about even that, in the African American com it's different. But community, there was always this outside that they were wrong. chance munity, There was room in there for that movement.

story. Jazz is the same the morals of the norms,

if not all, traditional is room for change within certain, Logan: There In my culture, what is the role of the poet? Among my people cultures. there's a group of poets: they sing praises and then they criticize the are telling and that's called halo. Those the traditions. society people They dance They have a during and the poets are questioning stories. political things by telling and say, "Okay, you might not go to the chief or to the ancestors to change this rule." The role of those poets who sing is to chal outcast. And then you also songs another on issues perspective that this could be otherwise. do not leave are not come across

to people lenge the traditions, bringing and actually broadening their perspective To say that those oral traditions Appiah room tions for of change or do not because

has mentioned

body is never

society doesn't have going What comes

criticize the norms or the tradi actually of this authority is pushing it too far. Every the same kind of tradition even if a single blockhead

to change. is philosophy up in very is a ques philosophy in chapters five and six. interesting ways the kind of questions that philosophy has and what is African

Makuluni: tion which For him,

to answer attempts in any society, but he will concerned with may be found argue on those that in the western is critical reflection tradition, philosophy kinds of problems and that all cultures do not have that kind of critical been reflection. Of what group use

If it's philosophy sense, do we need that? just in the western is it to us? The implication is that there's no possibility of critical reflection. I do not he says, "Since eighty-six: should count as African philosophy, does, that it has to be written."

I'd rather agree with page Logan: to prejudge wish the issue of what I shall not assume, as Hountondji

19

Klobah: When

he gives

are intelligible argument men over to whites in this world, that it black should give the intellect the N?gritude is their special property. But if he has problems with movement does he stand? and he doesn't agree with Hountondji, where Makuluni: One of the moves he makes is to use as an analogy If you look at what to

of N?gritude, the example and it's somehow healthier

the origins of the than the view that

is the case of the Greek Sophists. ethnophilosophy or Ameri continental in western whether today, philosophy happening or analytical, there's not a relationship, he argues, can, pragmatism So those first early that and those first pre-Socratic between attempts. should not even be taught. The fact is that if you have taken attempts courses in philosophy?which to do. The Sophists, huh? We I did?these had to do were the first things we had that pre-Socratic that the early attempts to those to those early Greek early attempts. I philosophy. are dismissable attempts. But

think this is the problem: and that ethnophilosophy I think that we'll need Klobah: I support what

he thinks is similar to go back

of a you're saying. Appiah gives an example the funny thing is that he gives an example of spirit Ta kwesi?although a white Ta kwesi. about person who has written What the he does with that ritual which and which he takes from [R.S.] as hypo he presents and ends up actually you have to take a lot

Makuluni: Rattray, thetical

showing is known is what contradicts of things at face value and that which in which is one of the ways he works the carpet. This under pushed versus modern. He gives that example of some this issue of traditional it a missionary??explaining and the villagers ing from parasites, water. So he says, well, mals in the one?is and they listen. The effect is it that we think about when then question, should we to villagers are dy that children don't get that. There're tiny ani are evil spirits in the water, there they boil the water. What talk about the traditional? Using travel 4,000 miles just to tell the same:

anthropologist, at the beginning is he works through in a similar manner: that science works

colonial

is the

Achebe's

traditional posed

somebody are wrong"? What is wrong about it as op person, "you to think about this question, to the modern? Appiah's beginning

20

us through materials are not easily accessible to and he's moving which that will carry him analysis. This is something straight black and white the postcolonial and the postmodern discussion. through Tape Four I come back is very sick. Whenever let me teach you these things before are there all the time, and he Europeans

Logan: You know, my great-uncle home from school he'll say, "Oh I die." He's doesn't a medicine man.

even you are satisfied, charge you before he performs. When come back with goats or what can bring him something. you People ever. A lot of And here I am, I don't even know anything about people. what he's been doing. Klobah: One man In a family, inherits person studies men you don't all become medicine a successor, To choose the vocation. or women. a medicine

all the members

the grandfather always If he says, "Oh you kids. Nowadays you kids are not to be trusted," to tell you something be alert. He's and testing whether you coming are ready to prove to him you can be trusted. If you don't, you lose, ber. you see? You might be asked tree for medicinal particular about the medicine. The rest to go to the bush and fetch the bark of a purposes. You is a secret you are told have almost everything to prove worthy of This happens in the pub

I mean. of his family. Carefully, Similarly, a trusted mem shares family secrets only with

is some kind of trust required. There knowing. too. The pharmaceutical West companies will not tell the general secret. lic how they produce medicines. It's a business Makuluni: about Clearing space: that

postmodernism, enthusiasm that modernism sometimes don't seem

this is a very interesting point he makes it has been greeted with the same kind of was that the main elements greeted with, it too different from modernism. So

to make

idea that these postmodernist claims are space-clearing ges Appiah's one. It's academia tures is a very interesting to and one is expected clear some space so you can say, "Hey, I'm doing here." something Klobah: a very "The Postcolonial convincing chapter. and the Postmodern" He's done a good is an intellectual job here. Then, piece, boom,

21

nine, "African you go to chapter trated. It is much less convincing. Makuluni: remember believes sustain This was I said and

Identities,"

and you

become

frus

one of the first questions we dealt with. I actually some others here too said that we believe he still of identities, but he thinks that it is possible tries to articulate being is still dealing racist. to in

in these kinds them without nine. This

being racist. That is what he to be black without is the way chapter seems to me that he though he is saying that, it just because he is black himself. black people Klobah: If he talks about

Even with

as something that existed before all ethnicity then why does he give the example of the Igbos? these racial categories, He quotes interview in which he says Igbos never ex from Achebe's because the Civil War isted until the Civil War, during they had to come together This under the rubric of being Igbo and then fight.

Makuluni:

in Africa of ethnicity is much, much more question still get the sense of an ethnic group as sort of having complex. form or possessing the same chromosome, eh?, like family. originary sort of come into play, eh? That's a problem. So language, biology still I am supposedly I come from Malawi but the fact is Chewa, myself. You that the name Makuluni It exists in a the Chewa. among as be tend to think about ethnic groups ethnic group. We areas as if they originated, as if they grew in certain like a doesn't exist in fact, there have been a lot of movements of

different longing plant peoples.

in that area, when,

it gets more complicated. When Logan: In the southern part of Africa, I asked one South African Zulu woman, what is the original "Okay, location of the Zulu people?" she said, "God!"?she got frustrated, and maybe that Mandela you know, this is a question angry too?"Ho, is trying to solve now because 'You've got to leave this say, people our ancestors is location because used to live there. Now that apartheid have been moving you gotta get out of there.'" But then people as you said. The Ewe from Nigeria, and our location people moved now are going to is Ghana, Togo, and Benin. And no Asante people come there and say that that's their location. The Ewe have been there over,

22

for some just

so many areas,

years the

and

then

the names, becomes

all

those

things.

But

then

in

idea of ethnicity

more

complicated.

It's not

the location.

Klobah: When

we talk of ethnicity we have to linked with colonialism, at pre-colonial look Africa first. Appiah talks about the indirect rule of to settle and the British: looked at the country where they they meant saw which were highly a powerful and had ruler who groups organized dominate his

did that in Zaire. They gave people. Americans more In Rwanda, when Mobutu power. you trace back, you see that the former colonists educated have to share part of the blame. They could one more the than the other. They group more than the other. After colonization that was The hired to succeed gave privileges is over, after continues to one group

group colonialist. tant, more on. When men,

independence, in the steps of the

ones are made to seem much more impor privileged so that it goes on, on and on and than the others, human get tired of being oppressed by their own country people

they take up arms and say, "No, we can't bear it anymore." That is an example. in Africa. Liberia is the cause of most coup d'etats

It is a similar situation in the United States in the sense that Muhanji: this bourgeois class of what we call high yellow blacks they educated who got the advantages, and this stuff still works itself out in American is to take up arms, but it's done only thing we haven't so many ways that we argue among ourselves over skin in been divided color, so it's the same dynamics working. racism. The Logan: You know, the Igbo were there as a group before the British, but the strategies that they used or the sense of oneness differed after colo
nization.

Makuluni:

as com identity he was War, ing up post talking exactly about. Not but the way they that there were not people speaking Igbo, as an identified the way they actually created themselves themselves, as victimized?"If we are victimized, ethnic group, seeing themselves are not are what should we do to people who Igbo who living among When Achebe talks about the Igbo ethnic Second World that's what
us?"

23

Klobah: they

And

how

are from

they become a particular part of

did

victims? the nation.

They They

are chosen speak

because

a particular

language.

Makuluni: marry come Klobah:

In Malawi that one because

now,

you get some parents she's from the North." The eh?"

saying, "You can't children say, "Oh,

on. We

are all Malawians,

But your mom will that people say that it has been established are backward, not educated. You look back, and you from the North are backward did it become that people from the North ask, "When and are not educated?" You go back and you go back and you see that it started when the white man came.

a child in a out the and he's looking Appiah's hospital and there's the Asante sword that supposedly window can't be drawn were out of the rock and Nkrumah and the Duke of Edinburgh trying Eckstein: When to pull this sword out?what the end, in the last sentence, sword has disappeared Klobah: He's talking did you make of that story? And then at says that when he's gone back the Appiah . . . formation that

but nobody about identity

analogy. the great priest of Asante, the first great ["Okamfo Anokye, two and a half centuries the kingdom king, Osei Tutu, had founded takes earlier" (172)] put the sword there. And he said that if someone it out, ogy then the whole that to tell us uses that anal will fall apart. Appiah kingdom the sword is gone, and if the sword is gone, then was an of that kingdom, of that identity, ethnicity, And so it can be dispersed.

by using who with

Anokye's invention. Makuluni: to be

formation It was What's

created.

doing the dynamics Asante

seems there is that he says that Nkrumah interesting was at the sword half-heartedly. The Duke of Edinburgh tugging more a moment to realize It's it with conviction. which seemed of power between the former the Duke, authority, is also aware of the power of the colonial really mess up this thing.

and the new

of Ghana, who president that he shouldn't and knows king,

24

Klobah: human he's not ment

Nkrumah being but

believes take

in the African it out,

tradition.

He even

knows

that

can never about

so he wouldn't of the Asante the belief his

thinking rather

the power about can he

kingdom

try. I believe at that mo

as an African. aristocrat? Makuluni: how What Asante

thinking But how

himself, explain

system that he has to this European beliefs

to explain is an attempt one look at Appiah's later outburst before the Asante king. might is at stake in his own Asante identity? Can he still claim an I think that that sword anecdote

the sword is not identity, having gone against the king? Though are still there. It is to is that the Asantes there, the implication possible an Asante have this kind of symbol. identity without I think The so. it plays out is that Jerry Rawlings, in and now we have the Asante's case represented by a hybrid the Ghanian power and the

Klobah: Makuluni: head state: of

way state?comes state

the

in this

person?Jerry

Rawlings's Klobah: But

father was

Scottish.

the point here is that Appiah wasn't doing it his way or his it his father's way, the man's way. His mother's way; he was doing I have to let my kids fight for me father knew, "This is the moment because wife, man if not, is British, dies. But takes us back to that first image you see Rawlings in the wig and the dark suit. Here is the power vested here of in then to be lost." Because this woman, his they're going so she doesn't over there if the to say have anything

Makuluni:

is lying in a coffin. And more and more about our city. "Where is the village now, eh?" "where Logan: The saying. Makuluni: times, eh? Rawlings has come back villages are cleared, and we

the lawyer this man who

at the end Appiah talks is the village?" I kept saying,

created

a city:

that's what

he's

into power

how many

times? Two

25

Klobah: Makuluni: Rawlings.

This

is the third

time. now know can't really mess with

So people

in Ghana

you

Works

Cited

Azoulay,

Katya Gibel. Identity." Research

"Outside in African

Our

Parents' 27

House: (Spring

Race, 1996):

Culture, 129-42.

and

Literatures.

Appiah, Kwame Culture. New

In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosphy Anthony. York: Oxford Press, 1992. University

of

Survival: Multicultural Societies and Authenticity, Social Reproduction." Multiculturalism: the Politics of Rec Examining Princeton: Princeton 1994. Press, University ognition. _."Identity, _. "Tolerable Falsehoods." of Theory: Selected Consequences 1987-88. Ed. Jonathan Arac and Bar Johns Hopkins University

Papers from the English Institute Series 14. Baltimore: bara Johnson. New Press, 1991. 63-90.

"Que Faire? Reconsidering Apter, Andrew. cal Inquiry 19 (Autumn 92): 87-104. Slaymaker, William. Aesthetics: Theory in African

Inventions

of Africa."

Criti

in African and Actors Antifoundational "Agents in Appiah and Mudimbe." Research and Narrative Literatures 27 (Spring 1996): 119-28.

26