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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Cultural amnesia, cultural nostalgia and false memory: Africa's identity crisis revisited |
Author: | Mazrui, Ali A. |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | African Philosophy |
Volume: | 13 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 87-98 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Africa |
Subjects: | nationalism nation |
Abstract: | This paper examines the role of the collective memory in nationbuilding and national identity in Africa through its four functions of preservation, selection, elimination and invention. Positive selection by the memory can lead to a form of nostalgia. Negative selection can lead to elimination and amnesia. Both nostalgia and amnesia can be forms of getting one's history wrong, which according to Ernest Renan is the secret of nationbuilding. Western imperialism in Africa played havoc with the African memory, initiating new forms of amnesia, nostalgia and false memories. Two forms of cultural nostalgia are romantic gloriana and romantic primitivism. Pan-Africanism is based on a positive false memory, but it is not a false hope. The paper subsequently summarizes Martin Bernal's thesis in 'Black Athena' that early 19th-century Europe deliberately denied credit to Egyptians and Semites for the cultural miracle of ancient Greece. In this way, Greece was kidnapped and made part of European civilization. Plagiarism was perpetrated by denying a significant stimulus from Africa. Culturally, European civilization committed parental abuse. Ref. |