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Modernity has given Africans a brooding feeling that they are refugees in the world—the feeling that they have to provide a justification for their existence. This state of existence is not to be confused with political or economic refugeeism. It is the kind of refugeeism that is tied to their sense of being in the world, to their identity as Africans. It is not simply a psychological state that can satisfactorily be diagnosed and addressed by psychologists, psychoanalysts, or psychotherapists. Democratization and economic development in Africa are not going to eradicate this type of refugeeism. This may postpone addressing the refugeeism that ultimately matters. The phenomenon of racism that bears so heavily on Africans is not perceived or understood in a way that gets to the root of this refugeeism. Even those who say that race matters do not have a radical grasp of what racism is.³⁵ The brooding feeling that afflicts the African today is largely a product of European modernity. It has not been a major issue in the African world from time immemorial. It calls for a philosophical diagnosis of this modernity to see how it bears on the African and, in this way, bring into the open the possibility of overcoming it. Here is one of the unenviable tasks of African philosophy today: to illuminate the ills that European modernity has inflicted on Africans. This philosophy itself has not been spared from the plight of refugeeism. It is itself an element in the prevailing refugeeism. It must overcome itself to undertake its task. Overcoming itself presupposes an awareness of the need to do so.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-52560-0_3

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