Rethinking Sage Philosophy: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on and Beyond H. Odera Oruka 1666903868, 9781666903867

Citation preview

Rethinking Sage Philosophy

African Philosophy Critical Perspectives and Global Dialogue Series Editors: Uchenna B. Okeja, Rhodes University; and Bruce B. Janz, University of Central Florida Editorial Board: Anthony Appiah, Valentine Mudimbe, Gail Presbey, Achille Mbembe, Robert Bernasconi, Samuel Imbo, Tsenay Serequeberhan, Thaddeus Metz, Katrin Flikschuh, Niels Weidtmann, Christine Wanjiru Gichure, Kai Kresse, Joseph Agbakoba, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Dismas. A. Masolo, Pedro Tabensky The African Philosophy: Critical Perspectives and Global Dialogue book series aims to promote emerging critical perspectives in different branches of African philosophy. It serves as an avenue for philosophers within and between many African cultures to present new arguments, ask new questions, and begin new dialogues within both specialized communities and with the general public. By merging the critical and global dimensions of thoughts pertaining to important topics in African philosophy, this series beams the lights and rigor of philosophical analysis on topical as well as classical questions reflective of the African and African diaspora search for meaning in existence. Focused on the best of African philosophy, the series will introduce new concepts and new approaches in philosophy both to intellectual communities across Africa, as well as the rest of the world.

Recent titles in the series: Rethinking Sage Philosophy: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on and beyond H. Odera Oruka, edited by Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath Odera Oruka and the Human Minimum: An African Philosopher’s Defense of Human Dignity and Environment, by Michael Kamau Mburu Africa beyond Liberal Democracy: In Search of Context-Relevant Models of Democracy for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Reginald M.J. Oduor Menkiti’s Moral Man, by Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy, by M. Molefe Menkiti on Community and Becoming a Person, edited by Edwin Etieyibo and Polycarp Ikuenobe African Philosophical and Literary Possibilities: Re-reading the Canon, edited by Aretha Phiri Derrida and Africa: Jacques Derrida as a Figure for African Thought, edited by Grant Farred Afro-Communitarian Democracy, by Bernard Matolino A Discourse on African Philosophy: A New Perspective on Ubuntu and Transitional Justice in South Africa, by Christian B. N. Gade

Rethinking Sage Philosophy Interdisciplinary Perspectives on and beyond H. Odera Oruka

Edited by Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE Copyright © 2023 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-66690-385-0 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-66690-386-7 (ebook) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Foreword D. A. Masolo

vii

Preface: Odera Oruka’s Sage Philosophy in Process: A Participant’s Observations from the 1980s Chaungo Barasa Acknowledgments

xv xxxi

Introduction Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

1

1 Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project: Continuities and Discontinuities in the Research Methodology Reginald M. J. Oduor

37

2 Exploring Indigenous Knowledge: An Exposition of Sage Philosophy and Oral Literature Projects in Kenya Francis Owakah

57

3 “Does this mean that there is philosophy in everything?”: A Comparative Reading of Henry Odera Oruka’s and Antonio Gramsci’s First- and Second-Order Philosophy Benedetta Lanfranchi 4 Wisdom from Women in Kenya Gail M. Presbey 5 Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity Bruce B. Janz v

77 99 123

vi

Contents

6 The Collective Sage: Maasai Philosophy and Resilience Donna Pido

141

7 Sagacity is Relational: No Individual Owns Any Story Jared Sacks

161

8 On Being Human—Bedo Dano: Some Acholi Thoughts on “Being Human” J. P. Odoch Pido Afterword: The Future of the Sage Philosophy Project Anke Graness Appendix 1: The Life History of Mama Julia Auma Ouko: A Tribute to an African Woman Sage Humphrey Jeremiah Ojwang Appendix 2: Interview with Julia Auma Ouko, Kamagambo, May 3, 1999 Gail Presbey and Humphrey Ojwang (Transcription and Translation by Robert Vincent Okungu)

187 211

225

229

Appendix 3: Interview with Ntetia Nalamae, Olepolos, April 25, 1999 Conducted by Gail Presbey (Translation by Daniel Sasine)

239

Appendix 4: Interview with Professor Henry Odera Oruka, October 27, 1993, University of Nairobi Kai Kresse

245

Appendix 5: Philosophy Must Be Made Sagacious: Interview with Professor Henry Odera Oruka, August 16, 1995, University of Nairobi Kai Kresse

253

Index 263 About the Contributors

267

Foreword D. A. Masolo

It is more than four decades since the late Henry Odera Oruka launched what, according to his own branding, has come to be popularly known as “Sage philosophy.” It came out of a variety of circumstances at a time when “Decolonizing the Mind” was a popular war cry of the African quest for independence in all its possible forms—political, economic, and cultural. Oruka’s contribution to this war, so to speak, fell under the latter category. His own and his fellow African cultural warriors’ vision was that, hopefully in the end, Africa would regain its cultural autonomy. Like I have said elsewhere and several times before, continent-wide, East Africa and Kenya in particular included, good progress was being made in the emergence of African literature and in the teaching of African languages. These were quickly replacing the colonial dominance of European languages and literature. In the social sciences, particularly in history, oral accounts of history were slowly but surely taking a center stage as a valid method. The decade was the sixties, and many names jump out as catalytic to these developments. In literature, names like Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwenzi, Ferdinand Oyono, James Ngugi (later Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o), David Rubadiri, and Okot p’Bitek, among many others, come to mind. In history, following the courageous and groundbreaking suggestions by the Belgian Jan Vansina, African historians were turning to oral accounts to reconstruct African history from their own perspectives. Joseph Kizerbo, Bethwel Allan Ogot, Alexis Kagame were leaders in the field despite the hypocritical resistance by Western institutions and their leaders who, in a contradictory stance, believed they had control over African educational systems, especially over what the parameters of “reliable scholarship” had to be. But why would Western scholars and institutions, playing gatekeepers of access to what counts as knowledge, and how its production ought to be organized, deny to Africans what they themselves had used, wrongly in most vii

viii

Foreword

cases, to portray and then impose their own “views of Africa and Africans?” I was still in graduate school when, in 1978, philosophical news flashed across the world about a young African philosopher from Kenya shouting—actually warning, or giving notice—at the 16th World Congress of Philosophy in Düsseldorf (August 26 to September 2) that “The West does not possess monopoly over philosophy!” This was the late famous Henry Odera Oruka. He and I would meet in person in Rome in early 1980 where he had detoured from a trip to a conference in Ankara, Turkey, to come meet with me. He was reported to have repeated this notice ten years later at the 18th Congress in Brighton in 1988 (August 21–27). Like the editors of this volume have indicated, the coincidence between the launch of the “Sage philosophy” project, on the one hand, and the launch of the Philosophy Department under the founding leadership of Oruka himself, on the other, was a significant pointer to the chasm that was occurring under the drive of folks in the humanities and social sciences. In the historical and cultural circumstances of the time, the phrase “decolonizing the mind” might well have been a translation of Not Yet Uhuru, another significant title (that adorns a book by Oginga Odinga) that captures a complex political angle along the path toward a meaningfully liberated people and their cultures. Incidentally, Oruka would later embark on a goal to highlight Odinga’s uncompromising belief in the significance and need to liberate ordinary African folks from the choking grip of Western neocolonial structures—referred to as “imperialism” in the vocabulary of political economy—but also to amplify and emphasize the philosophical significance of Odinga’s thought and work as an integral part of the “political trend” of African philosophy. Like Odinga, Oruka believed firmly that true cultural freedom—of thought and practice in the sociopolitical or other domains—required bold but carefully considered steps. He knew, again like Odinga, that such steps would have their skeptics, even blockers, both local and foreign. The real obstacles, he believed, were the former. Caught between the anonymity of ethnophilosophy and the reclusivity of institutionalized philosophical practice, with the latter believed to be molded according to the categories, values, and standards of the West from which Africans sought to culturally liberate themselves, “sage philosophy” was about individuals who, supposedly, were shielded from Western influence by virtue of having little or no formal schooling in the discipline à la européenne. If “ethnophilosophy” was, à la Paulin Hountondji, a Europeanization of African beliefs through the imposition by proxy of explanatory categories for thinking about the world, and the professional philosopher a prototype of his/ her European counterpart who had submitted to being misled by Tempels, then the “sage philosopher” was the representative of she/he who was a truly African thinker—the “uncolonized indigenous intellectual” and a critical

Foreword

ix

thinker in his/her own right. If the nature of the then-general skeptical European discourse on whether an indigène could think, and the nature of Oruka’s own specific and personal experiences under a similarly skeptical European theologian were, at least in part, some of the motivations for the project, then, to ironically parody Tempels, Oruka’s project was set out “à la trace des philosophes africains indigènes,” while the findings themselves became the “témoignages sur l’existence des philosophes africains indigènes.” Oruka beat many odds as he courageously embarked on the path to “sage philosophy” by taking on not just the pundits of European skeptics of African intellectual abilities, but also fellow African colleagues who took pride in being the “successful” cultural clones of the British, and of the French elsewhere, manifesting this cultural derangement by despising everything indigenous. Do you not remember Gayatry C. Spivak’s lament (see Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason.) regarding the task of converting the fellow indigenous or local intellectuals to embrace and hold up high both herself and her people’s local productions, including knowledge, instead of being the self-deprecating “native informant” for the Western investigator who falsely scripted herself/himself on local texts as the “true scholar?” Derided as inferior by both the European and the Europeanized native, the uncastrated, or uninvaginated native intellectual, including Oruka’s “sage philosopher,” had a Herculean task in branding her/himself as a significant cultural agent in the form of producer of introverted knowledge who needed to be taken seriously, and Oruka acted boldly as their pioneer medium. You can notice that I am avoiding the use of the descriptive name, “mid-wife” for him. His screams in Düsseldorf and Brighton were like a General’s calls to a following of willing troops—those who would unknowingly reject Kant and Hegel while adopting Marx’s description and abstract of her/him as the authentic (pre- or extra-industrial, mentally and intellectually uncolonized) laborer. Largely ignoring the historical connections of Oruka’s project to the preceding and causally related discourses, some contributors to this collection of essays have directed their focus to the theoretical content of the thoughts of African “sage philosophers” and its usefulness to the advancement of philosophy in Africa from the standpoint of purely theoretical claims. This focus on claims or meanings, from an inevitably comparative angle, is a good thing, and perhaps long overdue. The editors of the volume are, however, decrying the lack of similar and more widespread, robust, and sustained engagement with “sage philosophy” by professional philosophers, and are therefore calling for a return to, or resuscitation of a practice that is akin to Oruka’s original method of interviews with sages. It should be noted that Oruka’s interviews were remarkably—although not by design—different from the style adopted by J. O. Sodipo and Barry Hallen in their Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft

x

Foreword

(1986, second edition 1997). By their own report, Sodipo and Hallen made us understand that theirs were conversations with the medicine experts whom they regarded as “equals.” These were “experts” who were versed in the explanatory nuances related to their professional practices. Their style, as per imagined expectations, would suggest that the conversations were openended, and their direction was dictated by the explanations, arguments, or suggested views, explicitly or only implied, in the course of the conversation. Whether we refer to these events as dialogues or palavers, they appear to be a contrast to Oruka’s interviews. The driving force behind the idea of this volume, namely that Africans have not engaged robustly enough with the ideas advanced by the sages is, in the most part, undeniable. Yet, to give them credit, the ideas so lamentably ignored are precise that African cultural values and practices are built with some variations of specifics across the continent. The late Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu, who was long engaged in discussions with Oruka on some fundamental philosophical issues, has exemplified magisterially to us how this can be done. Barry Hallen’s recent Reading Wiredu explains, also magisterially in its own right, how Wiredu’s philosophy engages universal philosophical problems while remaining thoroughly African. Wiredu’s impact and contribution to philosophy as a discipline in general is that he offers solutions to some universal philosophical problems that Western— both European and American—philosophers have not been able to resolve on their own. Like Wiredu, Jean Godefroy Bidima has also shown us how “African modes” offer better solutions to hard social, moral, legal, and political problems where, again, Western approaches, as practiced by either Westerners themselves or as adopted by Africans as part of their colonial legacy, show theoretical inadequacy. See Bidima’s Law and the Public Sphere in Africa: Palabre and Other Writings. Wiredu and Bidima both show us how well universal philosophizing can be done while the debate is grounded, for comparative purposes, on one or more cultural resource platform. When this is well done, what the editors call “the anthropology of African philosophy” is likely to have a sparkling showing just like it does in all other philosophical traditions including in the West. There are many ways of doing so, the practice of interviewing sages being just one of them. Additionally, however, African philosophers, because they are philosophers already, shall, hopefully and in their own expected best ways possible, reflect critically and profoundly on those issues in African experiences that excite them. The point made by Wiredu and Bidima is vastly different from the proposal of talking with the sages. Oruka’s point was also different from what this call to return to the sages is claiming African philosophers should be doing. I strongly believe, like Wiredu and Bidima among others, in returning to the theoretical strings of our cultural beliefs and practices. It is the heritage I

Foreword

xi

know, and I strive to understand by grappling with the meanings that inform it. Because of that belief, I always wish that such a quest for meanings that inform African heritage would be the guide to all those people who wish to take Oruka seriously in returning to the historical circumstances around Oruka’s rencontre with the sages—seriously à la Tempels, but without endorsing what Hountondji, Oruka’s friend and fellow African cultural warrior, called “ethnophilosophy.” The oblique reference here is to Tempels’s Notre rencontre (Centre d’Etudes Pastorales, Léopoldville, 1962) in which he narrates the circumstances that had led to the idea of a Bantu philosophy when he first conceptualized it in the 1930s. Oruka did not embark on his own path to the encounters with awareness of Tempels’ past circumstances, but they were not significantly different either. In fact, the similarities are striking. If we conversed with the wisdom of the sages—meaning not necessarily literal one-on-one interviews—we probably would credit Oruka with calling our attention to the orientation that Wiredu and Bidima also beckon us to turn to, and then just practice philosophy under the drive to consider carefully the meanings that fuel the discourses. Emphasis should be placed on the phrase “consider carefully,” because it is used here as a check against unanimity. Bidima, in particular, argues that if we put the mechanisms that arise out of the axiomatic African presuppositions of the human condition into the workings of our legal operations, for example, we probably would find better and more lasting solutions not just to effect legal justice, but also to effecting lasting peaceful coexistence after satisfactorily resolving conflict. He argues that the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) failed in its mandate because it imposed on African victims a Eurocentric view of justice that did not go the distance expected by Africans. Such a Eurocentric view of justice and its mechanisms left the aggrieved victims abandoned without a proper resolution of animosity and conflict, two evils that shatter social integrity. On the contrary, in his argument, restitutive justice, which is an African ideal, moves from conflict resolution to peace-building where social ideals have been broken or compromised. The TRC abandoned its mandate midway before these ideals were achieved, thus leaving the South African society ruptured. Perhaps Oruka drew a line too sharp between his categories, or trends as he called them—ethnophilosophy, ideological, professional, and philosophical sagacity—of African philosophy. The point is that these categories are not unique to Africa. The so-called “philosophical sages,”—meaning the Socrates-like individuals who think well despite lack of formal schooling, especially in the subject of philosophy—are everywhere and probably can be found in every community around the world. I live with them in a major American city as my neighbors. I also live with other neighbors who, despite their formal education, some to college level, are as dumb as the rocks of

xii

Foreword

Colorado. So one wonders what is special about “good-minded” Africans to warrant special attention on them, and to show, indeed, that they are more than just being “good-minded”: that they are indeed like Socrates. Well, Oruka himself designed his project in order to answer that question: because the racist Western skepticism about the humanity of Africans—of which he was a direct victim in the then-nascent Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Nairobi—required a response to show Africans’ participation in the universality of reason in its different manifestations from the everyday ordinary thinker, through the different categories, all the way to the professional philosopher like himself and his colleagues across the continent. And some of them from that generation like himself, and the Ghanaians Kwasi Wiredu and Willie Abraham, the Beninois Paulin Hountondji, Cameroonians Eboussi Boulaga, and Marcien Towa, and the Congolese V. Y. Mudimbe and Tshiamalenga Ntumba, the Egyptians Mona Abousenna and Mourad Wahba, and many others, by nation and theme of work, and they were super good, which was easy to show. Note that I have intentionally left out the “ethnophilosophers” by Hountondji’s classification, or their “ethnotheological” colleagues. But their texts, written mostly in the 1960—1970 decade, and thus including John Mbiti’s text, African Religions and Philosophy of 1969, were popular in the African humanities. They constituted a significant wave in the emerging postcolonial fervor. But not everyone was a fan. While Mbiti became an instant hit at Makerere and farther afield in the fast-liberating African studies, at the University of Nairobi, in Mbiti’s own country, things were different. When the former University College, Nairobi became the University of Nairobi in 1970, the Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy was one of the new departments established at the time. It was placed under the leadership of the retired British Anglican theologian, Bishop Stephen Neil. Due to a lack of staff, and, perhaps more pressing, the Africanization then underway, he appointed Dr. Henry Odera Oruka and Dr. Joseph Nyasani as special assistant-assistant lecturers to teach philosophy. Yes, special assistant-assistants! This rank had never existed in the University teaching ranks. But he was accorded the permission to create it as a favor to these young Africans despite his belief that Africans were incapable of thinking abstractly, let alone logically. He would assign them classes as he saw fit by his judgment of what he believed to be the level of rigor in the course. While Neil was the Department Chair, the philosophy subsection was overseen by Professor Joseph Donders, a Catholic priest whose liberal stance toward African intellectual abilities was also suspect. But he was a critic of Neil’s unabashed racist extremism. In hindsight, I am not always sure what The Reverend Bishop Neil was skeptical about. There has never been any indication that he was aware of what constitutes indigenous thought, or how it was produced. One time he openly stated that he was not surprised

Foreword

xiii

that Oruka’s students were finding the Introduction to Logic course difficult because he believed it to be the case for both students and their teacher. So his blanket insult of Africans as handicapped in logical reasoning was derailing enough to Oruka that he was driven to show how even that everyday African without formal education could in fact do a good job in explaining her/his world in philosophically significant ways. If Neil was the pre-1939 Levy-Bruhl, Oruka was Griaule of sorts. To be clear, Oruka was always a firm believer in the high-level intellectual abilities of everyday folks. His distinction between an “ordinary sage” and a “philosophical sage” affirms his understanding of the different levels of intellectual practice as a natural human reality, not unique to Africans, nor one from which they are exempt. It is in these respects that the “Sage Philosophy” project was born in significant part out of the need to counter the colonial position as personally represented by Bishop Neil within a passive institutional context. I have said elsewhere that in this decolonizing war, Oruka’s allies at the time came predominantly from folks in literature, with a few, including Bethwell A. Ogot, from history and the social sciences, while some of the core opponents of the idea of native philosophers sometimes came from within philosophy itself. The editors of this collection refer to a significant essay by Paulin Hountondji, the assumed originator of the widely debated concept of “ethnophilosophy”—pejorative in his rendering—namely the view that much of African products, including knowledge, is extraverted, meaning directed toward other, non-African audiences as the intended primary consumers. Within the broader postcolonial thought, this view is famously supported by scholars like Gayatri C. Spivak (1999) and V. Y. Mudimbe (1988). Oruka’s “sage philosophy” belongs to this genre but preceded them all. It was a discourse whose content was meant for Western consumers—readers. What we need, as indicated by Hountondji, Spivak, Mudimbe, and others, either directly or by implication, is a philosophical discourse by and for us. Hountondji has told us that like folks anywhere, the list of problems for us to think and debate about for our own good is endless. Let us do it as people who, intravertedly, can show genuine concern for the problems African people face every day. And this point need not mean or imply that meaningful African philosophy can be only about social matters. Theoretical problems requiring attention, especially for philosophers, are spread all over human experience, and so can be detected where they are woven into what is explicitly expressed in claims, or hidden in assumptions that also come, often unexamined, with firmly held beliefs or claims. It is for this reason that philosophers find their urges in new and old texts, or, as the ancient Greek sage Socrates taught us through his pupil’s recordings, in popular but unexamined beliefs. The editors may rejoice in knowing that there is some work that already responds to their worries. The recent publication by Grivas M Kayange,

xiv

Foreword

Meaning and Truth in African Philosophy: Doing African Philosophy with Language, is a good piece of work in analytic philosophy. But even with that said, it still remains kind of sad that African philosophers, and intellectuals or thinkers just generally, have failed to engage with such theoretically rich indigenous texts as Ogotemmêli’s monologues dictated to Marcel Griaule. I recently have been discussing some parts of the text with graduate students who come from my general neighborhood here and attend colleges and universities located not far from here. The challenge is that many times, or indeed most of it, I must first introduce philosophy and key conceptual or theoretical terms—like materialism, physicalism, and definitely their contraries, and others—that I wish them to focus on. Although the intention has never been to give free “Introduction to philosophy” lectures in my library, it turns out to be fun sometimes. The hard part is that there are no secondary texts of explanations and debates on these matters as applicable to the original text that they can revert to break down some of these key concepts—or to assess whether they are indeed what the text projects—especially since these students are not really philosophy majors or enthusiasts. Now, Ogotemmêli is long gone, but his ideas keep begging for exposition and discussion, and we are largely ignoring it. The editors are right about this missing intraverted conversation among us about the texts that spell out our intellectual legacies. We should remind ourselves, of course, that Ogotemmêli’s text stands somewhat against the Islamic texts from the Timbuktu tradition (see, e.g., Shamil Jeppie and Souleymane Bachir Diagne, eds., The Meanings of Timbuktu), and the Ethiopian texts as availed to us all by the Canadian priest, Claude Sumner. If we hope to build a tradition, then the best way to do so is by building continuities of debates on the original texts. This book is provocative because it takes the lid off our shortcomings.

Preface Odera Oruka’s Sage Philosophy in Process: A Participant’s Observations from the 1980s Chaungo Barasa

I would like, when I die, my works to outlive me for even 200 years or more . . . in fact, I believe that before I die, we . . . shall set up an academy Odera Oruka talking to Chaungo Barasa in 1988, driving from Sega to Busia in Western Kenya If Oruka was still alive, he would have been seventy-four at the time of me first drafting these thoughts. In this short chapter, I share for the very first time in writing how I met Professor Odera Oruka, I outline my involvement in the sage philosophy research, and provide a recap of the method that we applied. I make a case for eschewing what I would call a “paralysis analysis” of sage philosophy, and instead do what Odera liked to do best: applying practical philosophy to tackle real-life socioeconomic, political, and legal challenges facing society. I call upon academia, civil society, and sages in Kenya and Africa to stand up and lead the fight against the ethnic leadership hegemony that has captured African states for six decades, breeding monumental impunity and greed. This has trapped a billion people under the perpetual yoke of poverty. That yoke is becoming heavier and ever threatening by the day, with the spiraling of the environmental pandemic now best known globally as climate change. HOW I MET ODERA ORUKA I first met Professor Odera Oruka in Nairobi in the last quarter of 1981. It was a meeting that was to grow and blossom into a strong intellectual relationship xv

xvi

Preface

of fourteen years until December 1995 when Odera died. It is a relationship that lives on nearly a quarter of a century since the death of Africa’s most innovative and prolific philosopher of the late twentieth century. I was then a first-year paramedical student (Orthopedics) at the Kenya Medical Training Centre (MTC) in Nairobi.1 Together with a friend, Mbui wa Musau, we had accidentally come across books on philosophy while searching for texts in Psychology at the University of Nairobi Medical School which is next door to MTC. We developed a craving for books on logics, ethics, and political philosophy so much that we began sneaking from our campus to go to the library to read philosophy in the evenings and on weekends. We soon formed a student association called the “Association of Logical Philosophy.” We inquired at the medical school if there was a philosopher there. But we were told there was none. Instead, we were advised to try at the main campus in the center of the city. Mbui and I visited the University of Nairobi’s main campus on a Saturday afternoon for the first time, in search of a philosopher to come and give a talk about philosophy at MTC. After wandering around the campus, we were finally led to the then Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies,2 where we met Professor Joseph Donders at his desk. This must have been the second time I was meeting a professor, an awesome and adorable creature to Kenyan secondary and high school students of those days.3 Donders was seemingly so shocked but thrilled to see students of a medical college seeking after a philosopher. He removed his eyeglasses, peered at us, put them back again, and fell back into his seat. He told us that the right person to address our request was Dr. Henry Oruka. He said that he would nevertheless pass our request to Dr. Oruka, and that we should come back the next week to meet him. He gave a short and enchanting talk about logic and dismissed us politely. Musau and I felt on top of the world, as were the association members back at MTC when we broke the news to them. The following midweek, we went back to the department, and that is the day I met Professor Odera for the first time, who introduced himself to us as an associate professor of philosophy. Odera was so excited to hear about our interest in philosophy. He peered quickly at his diary and readily agreed to give a lecture the following weekend. The lecture was such an overwhelming event that students filled the then main lecture theater on the MTC campus and spilled outside. The topic was Philosophy and Other Disciplines, including medicine.4 Students were thrilled and talked about it for weeks, with many expressing a wish to quit their paramedical courses and pursue philosophy. But they of course knew that was not possible as philosophy was not even being taught as a subject in any of the courses at MTC. It was also during 1981 that I first met another African intellectual who was to have a long-term and profound effect on my worldview—the great Ugandan poet Okot p’Bitek. Odera invited me to attend a lecture by the

Preface

xvii

great poet at the University’s Taifa Hall. P’Bitek was a moving speaker, and tears silently rolled down my cheeks as he lambasted and caricatured the African elite who follow the customs and worldviews of the white man blindly, spiting their own, and hence providing no leadership for the evolution of authentic African philosophies, literature, and political ideologies. Okot’s lecture kept reverberating in my mind for a long time. Okot was to die in 1982, barely a year after I attended his lecture. In 1991, a decade since attending his lecture, we were gifted with a daughter. We named her Lawino, after Okot p’Bitek’s mother Lawino Lacwaa, as immortalized in his seminal poem “Song of Lawino.” After one year at MTC, I got bored with the paramedical course that I was doing. I transferred to the Kenya Polytechnic in Nairobi to study for a diploma in Water Engineering. While at Kenya Polytechnic, I maintained regular contact with Odera. I would go to his office and to the University library to read books on philosophy or help him to sort and arrange papers and books (which would be scattered everywhere again the next time I visited), or to transcribe some meeting or conference tapes. He would also invite me to listen to Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) meetings and symposium events. I enjoyed them thoroughly.

MY INITIATION, INVOLVEMENT, AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO SAGE PHILOSOPHY I completed my course at the Kenya Polytechnic in 1984, and was posted to the Busia district in West Kenya. I was based in Busia town. Odera would visit me in Busia whenever he came to his home near Sega in Ugenya, barely 35 kilometers away from Busia, and I would also visit him whenever I went to Nairobi and he was in town. (Communication those days was mainly through face-to-face meetings, as telephone those days was only landline, mainly in offices and quite unreliable). Whenever in Busia, he would ask me numerous questions and we would engage in long conversations about the culture of the people of Busia, compared to that of the people of Bungoma, my home district. I did not by then quite understand why he was so keen on the subject, but I had already made tapings of conversations with some elders in my community out of a curiosity to know my own ancestral roots, and I delighted in playing some back to him. He particularly liked my conversations with Simiyu Chaungo on the Khibe clan lineage and migrations, initiation, marriage, and burial customs (Oruka: 1990). I started interviewing sages in 1985. But it was in 1986 that the research intensified. Sometime toward the end of December 1986, Odera Oruka visited me at my home in Bumula, Bungoma. Out of the blue, he posed a question:

xviii

Preface

“Do you know that SM Otieno has died?” Of course, I did not know who SM Otieno was, and whether he had died. But that was vintage Odera the philosopher, always informing and educating through shock questioning. I was to learn later that news of the death of SM Otieno, a prominent Kenyan lawyer based in Nairobi, was everywhere in the national newspapers. Odera told me that a dispute was already brewing over the burial site of SM, with the wife routing for their urban city home in Ngong (ever since known in Kenyan folklore as Upper Matasia) and SM’s clan which was adamant about burying him at their rural home in Nyamira village home in Siaya, Nyanza (now known in Kenyan folklore as Nyalgunga).5 He speculated that the dispute was likely to go to court and might be protracted. (True to his prediction, the litigation went on for nearly six months, being determined only at the Court of Appeal, then the highest court in Kenya. The court finally ruled in favor of a Nyalgunga burial in Western Kenya by his Luo clan, and against the claims of his Gikuyu widow to have him buried near their home outside Nairobi.)6 Odera said the litigation was likely to be a landmark in the contemporary debate between tradition and modernity, and that he therefore wanted to research into the customs and traditions of various Kenyan cultures particularly around the subject of setting up a home, as well as death and burial customs and rites. Then he posed the question: Are you interested to assist with this sage philosophy research, with a focus on the Luyia region?7 But back to how we had started in 1985. He visited me one day in Busia during the afternoon and told me that he wanted to interview some people who were reputed to be wise within their communities. Did I know any in Busia? My work involved working with communities in rural areas, so I had heard of a few leaders reputed to be wise in their communities. So I replied “yes” without thinking twice, and hence we set out to interview two sages that day, with him posing the questions to the sage while I translated the questions and responses. The interviews were recorded on a portable cassette player tape. Odera later explained to me the procedure for interviewing sages and shared a list of the key questions that I should pause to the sages. He asked me how I would go about identifying the sages and I made some suggestions, which he agreed to, including how I would be transmitting materials to him. He handed over to me a batch of empty cassettes rated 60 and 90 minutes and I set off. I went on to interview over 30 sages over a period of fifteen years categorizable under at least five phases: 1985–1986: This was the core sage philosophy research phase featuring many themes including reflections on culture, God and religion, knowledge, wisdom, ethics, politics, and so on. It continued until the end of 1986. Early 1987: The theme was around customs and procedures on establishing a Luyia home, on marriage, and more importantly, on death and burial rites.

Preface

xix

Early–mid-1988: Researches focusing on the views of sages on marriage, procreation, children, and population control—contributing to the countrywide research undertaken by Odera on population planning for the Institute of Population Studies, Kenya. I was assisted by two female research assistants. The target audience was not specific to sages and included many women. There was a standard questionnaire to fill in the responses. Only conversations with persons identified as sages were taped. We interviewed 100 persons altogether, with about 5 of them identified as sages. The overall findings countrywide were presented at a conference in Nairobi in June 2018 with the theme “Basic ethical beliefs and attitudes in Rural Kenya and the acceptance of family planning as a means for population control.”8 1992–1993: Interviews focused on Environment and on Leadership & Governance in precolonial times. In 1993, Odera visited me in Bungoma with Professor Olu Sodipo from Nigeria,9 then a visiting professor at Moi University, to observe some of the interviews. We interviewed Oginga Odinga during this period. Several papers were subsequently prepared by Odera and myself and presented to forums on Environment and Governance. The conversation with Oginga Odinga was published in a book-length form in 1992 (Oginga Odinga: His philosophy and Beliefs). 1995–1999: I interviewed more sages with Professor Gail Presbey of Marist college, USA, who lectured at Nairobi on Sabbatical during 1995, and from 1998 to 1999. This round of interviews was conducted by Gail, with me playing the role of an interpreter. We utilized the same method that we had used with Odera. Gail went further to interview some sages within the Dadaab Refugee community of about 300,000 people in Garissa, North Eastern Kenya. The Somalia refugees had fled their country during the war of 2003, which finally deposed Siad Barre. I was then working with an NGO in Dadaab and hence I assisted with travel and other logistical arrangements. Those interviews were focused on the thoughts of the sages on conflict, conflict mitigation, and peace-building. We were able to find and include a few women sages. Since the refugees were mainly Somali speaking (and a few South Sudanese), we found translators from within those communities to assist. Gail later wrote a report that we shared with some of the humanitarian agencies then working in Dadaab. THE QUESTION OF METHODOLOGY In his paper to the conference that formed a basis to this volume, titled: “Revisiting, re-thinking and reviving sage philosophy—beyond African philosophy” (Nairobi, May 2018), Kai Kresse raises a number of questions about the methodology used in the sage philosophy research and some of the

xx

Preface

problems arising from the apparent lack of clarity in methodology. A few other presentations touched on this theme. Although I don’t agree with the term “revisiting”10 in the title, I think that it is valid to re-examine and address the question of methodology. In Chapter 2 of “Sage Philosophy,” Odera covers the topic of methodology, but he does not address the technique, questionnaires, administration, data handling, and quality control of the process in a statistical manner as an orthodox reader would have expected. Instead, he highlights the assumptions regarding folk wisdom and philosophic wisdom, how a sage should be identified, the role of the interviewer, and finally, he emphasizes that sagacity is an attribute of “both pre-literate and literate societies . . . there are and there will be sages even among Africans with modern education” (1991: 37). He also thought that sagacity transcended age brackets, and hence his deliberate insistence to include me among sages, even when I was in my midtwenties then. I do not think that Odera forgot or failed to include a detailed description of methodology in “Sage Philosophy.” As quoted here below, I believe that the decision was deliberate. Knowing him well, Odera as a pathfinder is someone who preferred to tackle the bigger ideas and gaze at the bigger picture rather than dwell on the conventional, and the trite details. Indeed, Odera himself clarifies in the quote that he did not consider the application of conventional interviewing methodology applicable to sage philosophy. The following quote shows that Odera was not oblivious to the issue of method in sage philosophy. He writes: It is important to make a clear distinction between the method employed in seeking sagacity from that used in social anthropology or in oral history. In Social anthropology, the method employed is usually that of participant observation amplified by a record of results from the answers given to a questionnaire. (1991: 58)

He continues, on page 59: In both social anthropology and oral history, the goal is to establish facts which represent the beliefs of the majority of the informants . . . in researching sagacity, the objective is not to reach a communal consensus on a question or problem under discussion, but to find person(s) known to be among the wise ones in the community and to carry out a dialogue with them on various issues that are relevant to the life and culture of their community. (1991: 59)

On page 60, he emphasizes: A conversation with the sages is supposed to flow freely and should not be conducted in the form of the dry -question -and- answer style. The researcher

Preface

xxi

introduces a topic to the informant (a sage) whereupon the informant is allowed to talk or philosophize freely about the topic . . . the so -called academic training or superiority of the researcher should not be allowed to dictate the style of discussion. The informant is free to alter the topic raised or even raise and discuss the topics of his/her own special interest. (1991: 60)

Be as it may, I would like to outline briefly the process that Odera and I, and later Gail Presbey, used to interview sages.11 Outline of sage philosophy research and interview process, a personal perspective The subject matter Odera suggested a broad selection of life themes or concepts to choose from: God, Prophets and Seers, religion, culture, the concept of time, good and evil, humanity, life and death, burial customs and rites, marriage/family/children, poverty and riches, truth and falsehood, equality of man and woman, happiness and suffering, laws and punishment, politics, peace and unity, fame, wisdom/experience/knowledge, proverbs, freedom and justice, tribalism, races, conflicts and conflict resolution, education, and so on. The list is not exhaustive. Process challenges A typical interview lasted 2–3 hours for interviews that I conducted alone. The ones which Odera Oruka or Gail Presbey conducted, and I had to translate for them, lasted longer. Some questions had to be repeated several times to ensure the sage understood the meaning, or the sage got tired, and so we had to take a break or take a meal, or the conversation would be interrupted several times by people coming to consult him, or we discontinued altogether and started the next day when they felt fresher (especially for the more elderly). Hence, it was not possible to pose all the themes to one sage. The interviewer was at liberty to suggest the themes. At times, I would ask about one concept, and when the sage replies, they mention some of the concepts on my list, prompting me to pose a follow-up question on that one. I would also ask if there was a concept they particularly wanted to talk about. Looking back, I think that our approach was different from what a conventional data or information collection research would have dictated—for example, we would have been compelled to ask the same questions to all sages. I think that the activity was more of a conversation than a strict interview format. I honestly doubt that a structured and restrictive interview format would yield good results in the context of sagacious introspection, but perhaps such an

xxii

Preface

approach may be tested in the future to “standardize” methodology for a more universal application, taking into account Professor Odera’s caution cited above. Identification of the sages The sages were identified by members of the community in which they lived. I would visit a village and randomly ask numerous people in different parts of a village and administrative unit (sublocation, location, division, etc.) who they thought was a very wise person in the village, someone who was reputed for knowing the customs and traditions of the people, or for their wealth of knowledge and perceptiveness? I would then expand the administrative boundaries and ask if they also knew someone in a different village, sublocation, location, division, and the whole district who matched the description. They would then identify one or two people. If two or three samplings produced the same persons, I would then seek out the subject. For a famous sage like Manguliechi, he was known throughout the whole of Bungoma district and beyond, even featured in articles in the national press at the time.12 Although I always clarified that I was looking for male and female sages, I always ended up getting male names (I must have interviewed no more than 3–5 women in the entire process). Most of the sages were aged around sixty years and above, except for Ali Mwitani Masero who was in his late forties.13 Some of the named recommended sages declined to be interviewed. Sometimes, I realized half an hour or so into the interview that they really had nothing special to offer, then I would excuse myself politely and abandon the questioning. A few, very few, would ask for money in exchange for the interview, in which case I would drop them off the list and move on. At times, I would not find the sage at home, and after waiting for an hour or so, I would fix a fresh appointment and move on (there were no mobile phones those days, hence one had to literary travel blindly to a destination, chancing to meet the host). Introduction I started off by introducing myself, the purpose of my mission, how I knew about them, and enquiring if the sage was willing to be interviewed. I would also ask if they were a sage, and the typical reply would be, “If you were told that I am, then perhaps it is true.” I also explained that there was no monetary gain attached to the exercise, that it was all voluntary and that the conversation would take several hours, and that I sought to record it on tape. Often, I took pictures and shared them back after printing if requested to do so.

Preface

xxiii

Recording of the conversations I walked with a small tape recorder and taped the entire conversation on 60or 90-minute cassettes, pausing only if we were interrupted or had to break off. I also carried a small camera with me to take a picture of the sage at times with their family. Transcription cum translation After taping the conversation, I would then play and transcribe the whole recording, writing it down in English in an A5 exercise book (96–144 pages14). Unfortunately, I did not keep a transliteration of the interview in the original language. Dispatch of the tapes and translated materials I dispatched the tapes and exercise books as a parcel via bus courier to Nairobi, and Odera would organize collection from the bus terminus. (On some occasions, I would request a friend traveling to Nairobi to deliver them.) I never made copies of the tapes nor photocopies of the notebooks—photocopiers were not easy to come by those days, and when you did, photocopying was rather expensive—about Kenya shilling 5.00 (0.05 US$ cents) a page. Verification of transcriptions and typing Odera would then verify the written text against the corresponding tape recordings, and if there were any issues for clarification, he would write me a letter raising the issues or invite me to Nairobi for a discussion if there were several issues he wanted to be clarified. He would then organize typing of the handwritten manuscripts (on a typewriter) and eventual proofreading. Abstraction of text into book content Questions have been raised about why the quoted text for several of the sages is so brief and limited. I know that in most cases, Odera abstracted and summarized the content for purposes of fitting into publication requirements. Otherwise, every sage has a full-length recording or typed script of the conversation. And the conversations of many sages remain unpublished. Odera’s idea was that these other sages would be published in subsequent volumes.15 Overall quality control of the research As I mentioned earlier on, we did the initial few interviews with Odera before he left me to carry on. Whenever I sent the tapes and notes, he would write

xxiv

Preface

back for clarification or ask me to travel to Nairobi for a discussion on issues that were not clear. The transcribed notes were checked by someone who understood the Luyia language. For the two sages interviewed by myself who were subsequently published in the sage philosophy volume (Ali Mwitani Masero, Okemba Simiyiu Chaungo), we either interviewed them jointly with Odera or he made a follow-up interview. I am therefore fully convinced about the quality and authenticity of the process.16 FROM SAGE PHILOSOPHY ANALYSIS TO PRACTICAL (SAGE) PHILOSOPHY: ODERA’S VISION Academic debates and analyses on sage philosophy have been raging in Kenya and Africa and the rest of the continents since the death of Odera nearly a quarter a century ago. Many of Professor Odera Oruka’s early students, who are now grown with doctorates in philosophy and some lecturing at Odera Orukas’ former department, are increasingly expressing a desire to move on and “do” sage philosophy rather than remain stuck with an epistemological debate on sage philosophy. In a newly launched edited book on Oruka, Odera Oruka in the Twenty-first Century (2018), Patrick Dikirr expresses his frustration thus: this project which began initially as a protest against the violence of an imperial Euro-Western episteme, has been variously packaged and repackaged, but without breaking new ground . . . perhaps a better way to rephrase this is to say that the discourse on philosophic sagacity has been caught up in a wheel that spins continuously on the same axis, but never moves. Speaking of an incarcerated intellectual imagination would be an even more appropriate characterization of the project. (Oduor et al 2018: 147)

Dikirr recaptured his agony in plenary remarks at Columbia Centre in Nairobi on May 21, 2018. And there is indeed a growing list of academics becoming disenchanted by this kind of “paralysis analysis” on sage philosophy instead of articulating practical discourses that address the key socioeconomic, political, and environmental development challenges afflicting Kenya and Africa today. In a paper by Oyekan Adeolu Oluwaseyi of Nigeria reflecting on Odera Oruka’s discourse on “Poverty and the Philosophy of Aid” (1988), he lamented: “Whenever Oruka’s name is mentioned, what readily comes to mind is Philosophic sagacity. However, focus on philosophic sagacity tends to take over attention away from other works by this prolific scholar.” Odera was always a firm believer in the potential impact of practical philosophy on society. On page 63 of “Sage Philosophy” (1991), he attempts

Preface

xxv

to demonstrate how sage philosophy can be used to train government administrators in informed governance practices. And he sets apart a whole chapter (Chapter 5 on SM Otieno burial saga) to demonstrate how he utilized evidence from sage philosophy research to assist the High Court of Kenya in determining a landmark case that dramatizes the perpetual dichotomy between tradition and modernity. In another paper on philosophy, humanity, and ecology, he creates very new thought on how we could conserve and exploit the environment differently through the “parental earth ethics” principle rather than the corrupt ways of “individual luck principle,” which many Africans seem to be so much fascinated with today (Oruka 1994: 115ff). Odera’s key social development concerns always revolved around poverty, human rights, and the damage to the environment. He believed that socioeconomic deprivation was the major obstacle to the full mental development of Africans. Like the sage Kithanje, he attributed the hunger of the stomach as a core obstacle to wisdom and the realization of full human potential. In an academic introductory paper titled “My Strange way to Philosophy” (1990), he writes: “I mean to say that socio-economic deprivation with its accompaniments, poverty and hunger, is the greatest constraint to mental development and creativity.” It was perhaps no chance happening that Odera’s most momentous, memorable, and finale events on earth as a scholar and philosopher were bringing the world of philosophy (and related disciplines) to Kenya in 1991 and 1995. Each of the conferences brought more than 250 scholars from at least five continents to Nairobi. The theme of the first conference was the World Congress of Philosophy under the topic “Philosophy, Humanity and Environment” (whose contributions were edited by Oruka; see Oruka 1995), whereas the theme of the second one in 1995, organized for the World Future Studies Federation, was “Futures beyond poverty: ways and means out of the current stalemate.” In the case of Kenya, Oruka believed this could be achieved through a “process of self-national examination and critique.” I have no doubt that if Odera was still alive today, he would be engaging African intellectuals, sages, and governments in ground-shaking debates and dialogue about poverty and the environment. No one sums it up better than Odera’s close intellectual colleague, Gail Presbey: Oruka was convinced, both by his training in practical philosophy as well as his own sense of values and priorities, that philosophy in general, and the sage philosophy project in particular, had to address itself to the concrete problems facing Kenyans and Africans. It should address issues in the present and suggest a course of action to make Africa’s future better. (Presbey 1997)

Poverty in Kenya is a deliberate artificial phenomenon created by a greedy leadership with their small clique of business people who loot the economy to raise money for buying themselves back into government during the next

xxvi

Preface

general election. The political crisis of the modern African state is perhaps best captured by the political journey of the eminent opposition leader Raila Odinga in his autobiography, “the Flame of Freedom” (2013). In Kenya, the clique of elite leaders in power since 1963 has since fully transitioned and taken over the reins and looting ways of their fathers, uncles, and cousins. A Bodaboda17 (or “bandit” as a distinguished former chief justice of Kenya termed it in 2018) politico-economic mentality has literally taken over national politics and the economy in Kenya and many African countries. The suffering masses cannot expect these looters to stop voluntarily. Yet, intellectuals, the clergy, and sages, in whom the power of the nation is vested, have gone quiet, leaving the role of the guardian “gadfly” to a few individuals like Okiya Omutatah, Boniface Mwangi, and Cyprian Nyakundi.18 The voices and agitation of civil society, universities, churches/mosques, and trade unions of the 1980s, which forced the second political liberation in Kenya, seem to have been lulled into sleep by the proclamation of the new constitution in 2010, or have since joined in the game of “eating” and primitive wealth accumulation. Academics, journalists, and civil society on the whole, as well as sages, should be the watching observant eyes of society. Students and the youth generally are society’s warriors. Academia in conjunction with the other eyes and warriors of the nation should therefore stand up in the footsteps of their forebearers (of the 1980s/1990s) and lead the masses in lawfully fighting and toppling the status quo. This should be placed with a new ideological set of leadership and governance, hand in hand with re-invigorated and heated public debates on good governance. Only then shall citizens be freed from the yoke of poverty. This was one of Odera’s central visions for sage/practical philosophy, a world in which everyone would exercise “the right to a human minimum” (Oruka 1997). This should be possible in this age of the internet, when access to information, ease of organizing, and the span and speed of travel, interaction, and communication outreach across the globe have become exponential.19 In the foregoing, I have sought to belabor one crucial point. This is that a quarter century since Odera Oruka piloted, defined, and explained the sage philosophy project as we know it, philosophers (or sagists, as I prefer to call them) should evolve beyond the preoccupation with the definition and epistemology of sage philosophy. Instead, they should apply it, in order to resolve Africas’s most acute problems of the twenty-first century: poverty, bad governance, ethnicity, climate change, and Bodaboda culture crisis.

NOTES 1. I had performed with flying colors in my Ordinary level exams, emerging as the only candidate who scored a Division One in EACE exams in a class of sixty-nine

Preface

xxvii

in my school. Those days in Kenya “A” level education was a requirement to enter University. I could not raise fees for “A” level education, so I had to join a tertiary college, which did not charge fees those days, and that is how I ended up at the MTC. But I left MTC after one year out of frustration with the course. I went on to study for a Diploma in Water Engineering at Kenya Polytechnic in Nairobi and later for BSc Water Resources engineering at Kenyatta University. I am a registered Civil Engineer (Engineer’s Board of Kenya [EBK]). Odera interchangeably called me a “sage” or a “self-taught philosopher.” 2. We did not know that during the period of our visit, Professor Odera was leading a departmental struggle that finally saw the separation of Philosophy and Religious Studies as separate departments, with him being the founder chairman of the Department of Philosophy. I was therefore shocked beyond words when I visited the department thirty-seven years later, in May 2018, only to learn that the two departments had been re-merged back to “Philosophy & Religious Studies,” allegedly for funding reasons! 3. The first time was when as a third-year secondary school student in 1978, we walked over 12 kilometers from the school with a group of equally curious colleagues to see Professor Gideon Were, a renowned Kenyan Historian. 4. Reprinted in Graness and Kresse 1997, 35–46. 5. Editors’ note: This dispute has been covered in Chapter 5 of Sage Philosophy (looking at Oruka being interviewed for the case), as well as in a range of publications more generally, e.g., Cohen and Atieno-Odhiambo (eds) 1992, Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power in Africa. London: Heinemann. 6. Oruka himself was called as an expert witness on Luo customs in this trial, and this exchange is documented in the original Sage Philosophy volume (Oruka 1991: 67–83). On the burial conflict over SM Otieno and the trial, see e.g., Cohen and Atieno-Odhiambo 1992. 7. The Luyia are the predominant community of the old Western Province (Busia, Bungoma, Kakamega, Vihiga counties). Other communities include the Teso of Busia and the Sebei of Mt. Elgon. I think Odera had one assistant to interview the Teso and another to interview the Sebei. 8. I was so informed and inspired from the research that I wrote and presented a paper titled: “The Luyia concept of Lisaaye or the gift of reproduction: how does it influence population control programmes in Africa today?” 9. Editors’ note: Sodipo was co‑author, with Barry Hallen, of the influential book Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy (London: Ethnographica, 1986; second edition was published 1997 by Stanford University Press). This was the result of sustained regular interviews, conversations, and discussions with Yoruba healers. While the approach seemed similar, Oruka was critical of the project and what he saw as its ethnophilosophical features. 10. Later, toward the end of the chapter, Kresse used the word “re-invigoration” instead of “reviving,” which I regard to be more appropriate, for a lot of discourse and writing continues on Sage Philosophy; in Kenya by his former students and colleagues, in United States by Gail Presbey, D. A. Masolo, Kai Kresse and others, and across Africa by both Odera’s contemporaries and upcoming scholars, including one of his very first students, Professor Ochieng-Odhiambo.

xxviii

Preface

11. I believe that all the other research assistants and collaborators used this method—I was familiar with at least two other fellow research assistants. 12. In the early years, it was not possible for me to interview Manguliechi for inclusion in the sage philosophy text because it was difficult to secure an appointment with him. He was always in great demand, invited to give talks to schools, government training forums for Chiefs and Divisional officers on Governance, or to narrate clan oral history of a deceased. It was not until 1993 that I got hold of him, and again with Gail Presbey in 1998/1999. 13. He was included in the original Sage Philosophy volume (Oruka 1991: 92–97). 14. Computer usage was not yet widespread in Kenya those days. The first time I touched a computer was in 1995 when I undertook a course in Emergency Response 15. He told me this on October 9, 1988, the day he interviewed me, which is also when he revealed to me the plans for publication of the first sage philosophy book were now advanced. 16. I was, at the conference in May 2018, shocked and angered when I heard an elderly academic at the University of Nairobi and a contemporary of Odera make statements that seemed to cast doubt on the authenticity of research in Odera’s sage philosophy without any evidence. 17. Bodaboda is an East African term for a motorcycle taxi that emerged in Uganda in early 1990s and has spread across East Africa. The bodaboda has grown fast and by 2000 had overtaken the “matatu” or omnibus of the late 1970s/early 1980s. It is a transportation means that fills the gap occasioned by the failure by many African countries to evolve a formal mass public transportation and infrastructure system to match the growth in population and urbanization. With exception of Rwanda, Bodaboda riders in many African countries are unregulated, don’t undergo any traffic training, have neither rider’s license nor motorcycle insurance and flout traffic regulations with impunity. Whereas Matatus were drunk with impunity, indiscipline, and recklessness, the bulk of bodaboda are in addition mobolistic (mob reaction), ignorant, abusive, and dare devil (one defective bike can carry four pinion passengers, with no protective gear, while cruising on the wrong side of the road at 80 kilometers per hour). This huge economic segment is unfortunately a major contributor to traffic accidents and deaths on African roads, but hardly generates any taxes to the economy. It has an uncanny resemblance to African politicians of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century—hence the term bodaboda national mentality. 18. These are some of the renowned Kenyan public activists waging battles against corruption and impunity in the courts, streets, and in the social media. 19. Editor’s note: this was written in the pre-pandemic era before the corona outbreak.

REFERENCES Kresse, Kai and Anke Graness. 1997. Sagacious Reasoning: Henry Odera in Memorium. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang Verlag.

Preface

xxix

Liyai, Hudson Ahmed, Oriare Nyarwath and Francis E. A. Owakah. 2018. “Henry Odera Oruka: A Bio-Bibliography.” In Odera Oruka in the Twenty-first Century, Reginald M.J. Oduor, Oriare Nyarwath Francis E.A. Owakah (eds), Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series II. African Philosophical Studies, 20, Washington: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (CRVP), 1–28. Ochieng-Odhiambo, F. and C. Iteyo. 2012. “Reason and Sagacity in Africa, Odera Oruka’s Contribution to Philosophy.” In Thought and Practice. A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) New Series, 4, no. 2, December 2012, 169–184. Odinga, Raila, Sarah Elderkin. 2013. The Flame of Freedom. Nairobi: Mountain Top Publishers Ltd. Oduor, Reginald, Oriare Nyarwath and Francis Owakah, eds. 2018. Odera Oruka in the Twenty-first Century. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Oruka, H. Odera (ed.). 1990. Sage Philosophy, Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy. Leiden: E.J Brill. ———. 1990. “My Strange Way to Philosophy.” In Philosophers on Their Own Works, edited by Henry Odera Oruka, 14, 169–95. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang. ———. 1992. Oginga Odinga, His Philosophy and Beliefs. Nairobi: Initiatives Publishers. ———. 1994. Philosophy, Humanity and Ecology. Nairobi: ACTS Press. P’Bitek, Okot. 1995. Song of Lawino. East African Publishers, Rvsd. Presbey, Gail. 1997. “Who Counts as a Sage? Problems in the Further Implementation of Sage Philosophy.” In QUEST: Philosophical Discussions. 20th World Congress of Philosophy, 23, 51–56 (1998).

Acknowledgments

This project has been building on many years of conversations and discussions between the two editors, and a common inner circle of colleagues, in Nairobi, over regular visits since our first encounter, in 1993 and 1995, then mediated by Odera Oruka himself, a longer-term fieldwork stay in Kenya by Kai Kresse from 1998 to 1999, and many subsequent visits since. Many hours were spent in social and intellectual exchange in the University of Nairobi’s Senior Common Room and elsewhere, together with colleagues including Francis Owakah, Joseph Situma, Jackson Wafula Muyila, and when he was still among us, Juma Ndohvu (sorely missed), Reginald Oduor, P. M. Dikirr, Patrick Nyabul, and others—and with Gail Presbey and Bruce Janz during the times of their stays. More recently, in May 2018, we organized a week-long workshop on sage philosophy together, involving faculty and graduate students from the University of Nairobi, Columbia University (through the Institute of African Studies there, and MESAAS Department), and the University of Dar es Salaam. Columbia University’s Global Center in Nairobi, the Goethe Institute, and the University of Nairobi hosted our group during different days of our discussions and engagements. Overall, a week of rich and engaged interaction also included small working groups visiting Nairobi-based sages in their homes and neighborhoods, or on campus. The workshop in Nairobi complemented a series of lectures and a thematic workshop over the fall semester of 2017 in New York, at Columbia University, with Oriare Nyarwath, Reginald Oduor, and Francis Owakah visiting from Nairobi—joining other U.S.-based scholars, including Gail Presbey, Bruce Janz, Selina Makana, John Ouko, visiting scholar Jeremiah Aworosegbe, and Columbia graduate students and faculty in a mutual discussion. These meetings were made possible through funding from Columbia’s Presidential Fund Initiative and the Global Office, for a project by the Institute of African Studies on “African philosophies, African xxxi

xxxii

Acknowledgments

ethnographies,” led by Mamadou Diouf, Jinny Prais, and Kai Kresse. The students, several postdocs, and New York-based faculty members had been engaging critically, in regular sessions throughout the course of the year, with Oruka’s and related readings in the wider field of African sage philosophy. We thank Columbia University, its Global Center, and particularly the Nairobi office, for funding and support. And we thank the Institute of African Studies and its staff, especially Sara Weschler, for swift, friendly, and reliable assistance, and Souleymane Bachir Diagne and colleagues at MESAAS and the IAS for their support. We also thank Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) and the University of Nairobi as our home institutions for their support of this project. We were fortunate to be able to collaborate yet again for another related interdisciplinary workshop in Nairobi in September 2019, merging up with East African colleagues and graduate students from further universities (University of Dar es Salaam, Addis Ababa University, Pwani University - Kilifi, Muslim University - Morogoro, and RAF University), as well as a Berlin-based group of colleagues and younger scholars, with funding through monies provided by the Freie Universität Berlin. We are grateful for assistance also from IFRA, the Goethe Institute, RAF University, and the University of Nairobi for hosting us on different days. And we hope that it may be possible, in the foreseeable future, to be able to plan with regular collaborative workshops of such a kind. We thank all contributors for their work, and we are especially grateful for the foreword by D. A. Masolo, a distinguished Kenyan philosopher who was a colleague and companion of Oruka’s in the 1980s, and the afterword by Anke Graness, who published on diverse aspects of Oruka’s work and recently completed an extensive study on the history of philosophy in Africa (in German). We are fortunate to have had long ongoing exchanges on Oruka and sage philosophy with both of them. In the process of manuscript preparation at its different stages, we gratefully received support from student assistants at the ZMO in Berlin, Felix Roemer, Hannah Newbery, Augustine Mwalija, and Lena Wassermeier (to whom special thanks for finalizing the manuscript). For comments on the introduction in the finalizing stages, we are grateful to Lena Wassermeier, Maxwell Omondi, Reginald Odour, Gail Presbey, Abdoulaye Sounaye, and Jeremiah Aworosegbe. Our final word of thanks should be to the late Professor Henry Odera Oruka himself. His initiative of bold and thoughtful intervention in the field of African philosophy, grounded in a wholesome sense of his own culture and society, inspired us all immensely for our own work. Through his philosophical and social engagement, his academic studies, and his engaged exchanges with colleagues in Kenya, Africa more widely, and the wider world at large, he set a role model of contemporary philosophical sagacity: critical, openminded, with good humor, and full of compassion and generosity.

Introduction Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

This introduction lays out the wider interdisciplinary field within which Oruka’s sage philosophy project is discussed, re-read, and (re)considered here in this volume, from different and partly complementary perspectives. Next to the field of African Philosophy, this includes the interdisciplinary field of African Studies, engaged through the relevant disciplines of anthropology, history, literature, and the study of religion, and taking on board the work of postcolonial critique. This overview of fields of engagement and potential mutual influence is interlaced with an introduction to the topics outlined and discussed in the chapters to follow. We try to convey a sense of historical consciousness of the debate about African philosophy and the role and position that the sage philosophy project took over within it. This is combined also with a view to the ways in which recent demands of postcolonial and decolonial scholarship can be addressed (e.g., Diagne and Amselle 2020; Grosz-Ngate 2020; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018; Arowosegbe 2021). We are asking what kind of informative, mediating, and stimulating position an engagement with sage philosophy can be seen to have within and vis-à-vis such debates. ENTRY POINTS, GOALS, AND SCOPE OF THIS VOLUME We address and explore, with this volume, ways in which it is worthwhile to engage, and re-engage, with Oruka’s work on sage philosophy today. How do we benefit, intellectually, thinking with the sage philosophy approach in mind when active in diverse fields of philosophy (African philosophy, and beyond: comparative philosophy, intercultural philosophy, postcolonial philosophy) 1

2

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

or related interdisciplinary research, on thinkers or intellectual traditions in Africa—or other regions around the world, where other paradigms of knowledge and education than the globally hegemonic Western one may be valid. (And of course, sage philosophy may be applied fruitfully in Western contexts, too.) Ultimately, we suggest, such kinds of engagement may also be stimulating and instructive for those who are considering how best to be actively redressing the dynamics of ongoing global inequality and scientific dependency (Hountondji 1990). From the early postcolonial period (and anticolonial thinkers before) until today, there has been a continuous engagement by critical scholars from Africa and elsewhere, pushing for conceptual decolonization (e.g., Wiredu 1996; Ngugi 1986; Okot p’Bitek 1970, 1986) and fundamental reorientation in the humanities and social sciences, leading to recent calls for rewriting them from Africa and the global South (Sarr 2019b; Pollock 2017; Diouf 2017). In this regard, sage philosophy is looking for and providing resources, as it is concerned with valuable insights by specific thinkers whose thoughts have thus far been largely unknown beyond their community, and undocumented to a wider public. Sage philosophy’s focus is on their reflexive utterances and conceptual arguments and suggestions, as an intellectual reservoir that could and should be made accessible to a wider world, by providing alternative perspectives and positions to think with. The point hereby is to provide access to texts, insights, and reference points for intellectual orientation from regional traditions outside the established hegemonic ones of the West/global North. Thus, engagement with Oruka’s sage philosophy project—at the basis of which is the idea to document and portray indigenous thinkers and their thoughts (see below)—is one particular pathway, or entry point, of taking “theory from the South” (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012) seriously. To summarize, then, this Introduction section seeks to clarify some of the historical contexts of the African philosophical debate within which sage philosophy was developed and emerged. Beyond that, we address the relation of sage philosophy to, and its potential relevance for, current debates and “burning issues” in related fields.1 How can thinking with sage philosophy, or rethinking it, be relevant for “us,” a diverse and wider audience of interested researchers and readers based in different parts of Africa, Europe, North America, and the wider world at large, today? This volume revisits, and rethinks (from different perspectives), the project of sage philosophy that was coined and shaped by the late Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka (1944–1995) from the 1970s onward, within a vivid and heated debate on African philosophy. His approach, which he outlined, illustrated, and commented upon in his “Sage Philosophy” book (Oruka 1991), encouraged philosophers to travel and conduct fieldwork (of sorts) in different African settings, initially focusing on places outside the urban metropoles, in order to find and interview sages, male or female people recognized as

Introduction

3

knowledgeable and wise within their communities. Among these, Oruka suggested, one may be able to identify living philosophers, namely those who would show their capacities as critical and independent-minded thinkers. By embarking upon sage philosophy, Oruka also urged others, philosophers and researchers more generally, to do the same, documenting and discussing the sages encountered as thinkers who are embedded within their respective social settings and cultural frameworks (though Oruka himself fell short of showing such embeddedness in detail or complexity). Oruka had a particular much interest in those whom he called “philosophical sages.” He regarded them as foundational thinkers by means of their critical, systematic, and fundamentally reflexive attitude. Documenting these, he argued, would provide evidence of individual philosophers and their insights and positions, placed and operating within their respective regional intellectual traditions. According to Oruka, these were rare and special examples of local intellectuals who stood out vis-à-vis a wider and more common group of “folk sages,” those well known for their knowledge of the language, culture, and history of their group - their folk wisdom. As Oruka showed, sage philosophy research could make accessible the relevant thoughts and arguments highlighted and elaborated upon by these sages, also to a wider external audience, by means of textual documentation (of the recorded interviews) in English translation. This sage philosophy approach can be understood—and was understood by Oruka himself—to be mediating between the two main and mutually opposed camps, or approaches, in the debate on African philosophy by then. These were the so-called “ethnophilosophers” (those describing collective thought systems as philosophies) with an emphasis on communal traditions of oral “folk philosophy,” on the one hand, and those whom Oruka called “professional philosophers” (himself included), those accepting the established standards of academic (Western) philosophy and looking for equivalents in Africa. They were usually interested in “written critical discourse.” Between these two, sage philosophy was seen by Oruka himself as a “third alternative” in this debate (1991, 43).2 This book discusses various aspects of sage philosophy with a view to contemporary demands and debates, thereby engaging perspectives and interests from within and beyond the field of African Philosophy and African Studies more widely. The chapters here include an account of women sages, following Oruka’s approach (Gail Presbey); a comparative discussion of sage philosophy and oral literature (Francis Owakah); explorations and discussions of Acholi and Maasai thought within the respective life-worlds, portraying vivid, broad and deep spheres of intellectual engagements with “being human” and “beauty” in society (Odoch Pido; Donna Pido); a comparative discussion of Oruka’s and Gramsci’s approaches to philosophy as an activity within the social community (Benedetta Lanfranchi)3; a critical review of

4

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

method (Reginald Oduor); a comparative critique of Oruka’s sage philosophy, building on postcolonial and decolonial thinkers, with a South African case study (Jared Sacks); and a conceptual reconsideration of the sage philosophy project and its later conception of a “pragmatic sage” (Bruce Janz). From these different and often complementary angles of discussion, the book addresses questions about the ongoing value of the sage philosophy approach in contemporary times, discussing its inspiration and ongoing relevance, and addressing its shortcomings with a view to amendments, improvements, and alternatives. This, one could say, also leads to an extension of the field of sage philosophy that is engaged with, thinking with (and at times even against) Oruka. Overall, the contributions are, from different vantage points, engaging in a critical rethinking process of this project in/for African philosophy in the twenty-first century. This introduction is not exhaustive in its coverage of all aspects of sage philosophy; we do not offer a thorough literature review, nor a comprehensive portrayal of Oruka (for more on this, see especially Gail Presbey’s forthcoming monograph, but also Masolo 2016 and Presbey (n.d.); van Hook 1995; Owakah and Nyarwath 2019; Oduor et  al. 2018; Liyai et  al. 2018; Graness and Kresse 1997; Nyarwath 2009; Mburu 2018). Rather, we pick up on relevant themes and issues that we see sage philosophy contributing to. We give an outlook upon some relevant subfields that come to matter. For us, the implications of the work of “re-thinking” sage philosophy mean to engage and actively think with, and from, a perspective of Oruka’s sage philosophy project, as part of an active, critical, and contributing engagement with recent (often long ongoing) debates in various subfields. Among these are the history of philosophy and intellectual traditions; key concepts and conceptual frameworks in society; biographical sketches of relevant thinkers; approaches to the study of thinkers and intellectuals. For each of these topics, a relevant body of scholarship exists, on African contexts and more generally. Forty years after the beginnings of sage philosophy, questions have been raised about whether Oruka’s project was continuing Western conceptual hegemony (see Mosima 2016, 150, 184; Dikirr 2018; Sacks, this volume). Yet, Western hegemony is something that Oruka himself had set out to overcome, as he argued against the prejudice of philosophy as a “white male” resort, on the opening page of sage philosophy, drawing also from Martin Bernal (1987, 1). Views and positions as to how Western hegemony can be overcome differ widely over the span of these decades. With regard to assessing the relevance of sage philosophy for a decolonizing process, it is important to have other interpretations in view, too. D. A. Masolo, for instance, who offered a critical and contextualizing discussion of sage philosophy in his classic historical account of African philosophy (Masolo 1994), argued for a different line of

Introduction

5

argument more than two decades ago already. He stated that by re-reading Oruka’s sage philosophy project “through the aid” of Ngugi’s (1986) and Mudimbe’s (1988) respective projects of postcolonial critique the possibility arises “of reading Odera’s idea of sage philosophy as part of the rejection of the Eurocentric idea of a comprehensive framework in which philosophical reflection must take place” (Masolo 1997, 236). Here, sage philosophy is especially appealing, Masolo argues, as it “addresses the crucial question of who produces knowledge in the modern hierarchized social formations” (1997, 237). It also demands professional academic philosophers an obligation, to “always” take and keep in view “the problems posed by the sages in the course of their conversations” (ibid.), and thus be more grounded in, or familiar with, contemporary lifeworlds of different African communities. This would also have the envisaged ultimate effect, Masolo argued, of overcoming the clear separation between “opposed spaces of tradition and modernity” (ibid.). We can connect this reading by Masolo to the fundamental current task, recently outlined by Felwine Sarr, of creating and shaping an “Afrotopia” (Sarr 2019a, orig. 2016), an Africa-centered re-conceptualized normative and political vision for Africa’s future that draws from insights into its regional intellectual practices and histories. This goes together with programmatic efforts in “re-writing of the humanities from Africa” (Sarr 2019b) and the global South more widely (Pollock 2017; Diouf 2017). Hereby, within the kinds of reconstructive efforts that need to be undertaken, sage philosophy could play a strong contributing part. And such a part is already indicated by Paulin Hountondji’s much earlier essay on “reason and tradition” (1983), showing that these are two compatible and in no way contradictory terms (neither in Africa nor anywhere else). Indeed, one could say that the sage philosophy project pursues a way of illuminating specific aspects of the kinds of reasoning and critical thought, and their relevance within African lifeworlds that are shaped by different kinds of traditions. As Oruka himself made clear in his early essay “Mythologies as African Philosophy” in 1972, Hountondji’s critique of ethnophilosophy and its assumption of “the myth of spontaneous philosophy” inspired Oruka’s own critique. This fed into the construction of sage philosophy as an approach that could—unlike ethnophilosophy—address adequately the relation between philosophical and mythological thinking (Oruka 1997, 29). Despite being peers and comrades in their critique of ethnophilosophy (and its misconceptions) and in building the field of African Philosophy (through journals, conferences, etc.), together with Kwasi Wiredu and others, Hountondji long appeared to have disputed the possibility of oral philosophy that is central to Oruka’s sage philosophy approach. Yet, in the preface to the second edition

6

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

of African Philosophy: Myth and Reality (1996), he praised and endorsed the validity of Oruka’s project; and Hountondji pursued his own constructive pathway of engaging in collaborative research with African colleagues, on “endogenous knowledge” and distinct traditions of knowledge, science, and literacy in Africa (Hountondji 1997). Kwasi Wiredu, another key figure among the so-called “modernist” or “universalist” professional philosophers, remarked that Oruka had his “unstinting support in his Sage Philosophy Project” (Wiredu 1997, 145). According to him, they both agreed on the need to take stock of traditional philosophy in Africa before working on “a synthesis of the philosophical insights of our own indigenous sources with those obtainable from modern resources of knowledge” (ibid.). In his Introduction to the Companion to African Philosophy, Wiredu flags up sage philosophy’s capacity to show that “among our traditional peoples there are original philosophers from which we may have something to learn” (2004, 8). As we see, there are contrary and opposing readings and interpretations of Oruka’s sage philosophy and its position within African philosophy. We do not see it as our task here to go over all of these competing positions of sage philosophy and its relevance, though we have and express our own understanding of that. For instance, we disagree with some of the representations and critiques of sage philosophy (e.g., in Kalumba 2004; Mosima 2016, esp. ch.6; also Sacks, this volume), but this is not the space to cover such arguments in detail. We are also critical of Oruka himself, for example, with regard to his rather simplistic approach to interviews and their very brief presentation, which made “listening in” and “learning from” the sages rather difficult (keeping contextual information on the thinkers and their communities largely out of view). We also view critically the way in which Oruka upheld a relatively clear-cut division between orality and literacy. This seems much more rigid than in real life, where these two complementary ways of mediating knowledge overlap and intersect—and indeed, even Oruka’s own work illustrates that a number of his sages wrote books and were recognized through them as well. This sense of a vivid overlap between written and oral discourse could have been integrated more into sage philosophy research, in order to show more complex aspects of the sages and their thoughts in context (interviewing those sages who published their writings, for instance). However, more important than listing all contestations of sage philosophy and working them through is the following: to indicate a scope of (existent and possible) readings and to point to the potential promise of a critical engagement with sage philosophy, as constructive for several issues and concerns. This should be taken on board, even if one chooses to critically differ with some of Oruka’s takes, positions, or formulations.

Introduction

7

RETHINKING ORUKA’S SAGE PHILOSOPHY TODAY, FOUR DECADES LATER These days, it seems, the public perception of African philosophy and theory from the so-called global South, has changed when compared to the time when Oruka was building his ideas on sage philosophy. However, strong strands of Eurocentric prejudice persist also in academia (see e.g., van Norden 2014). Oruka was beginning to pursue the sage philosophy project in the 1970s and published the book that laid out the project to a wider academic world, in 1990 (in Leiden, with Brill) and 1991 (in Nairobi—this is the version we use as reference), based on previously published articles. Next to the portrayal of twelve sages (including only one woman) and their translated responses to the interviewer, the book also included chapters of critical appraisal by six international academic colleagues. African philosophy had by then developed as a substantial internal debate among concerned African academics of different kinds—largely philosophers and Christian theologians—often responding to prejudiced and racially biased writings by Western philosophers and missionaries who had dismissed the possibility of African philosophy. Nowadays, the need to engage with ideas, intellectual traditions, and projects of critique from Africa and other regions beyond the Western world is more commonly acknowledged and pressed for. But the terrain of philosophy as a supposedly Western one is no less heatedly contested. Public debates still reflect the same kind of apprehensions and prejudice by a Western, and Western-trained audience (see e.g., van Norden 2014; Park 2013; Dabashi 2015; Chakrabarty 2007). Only recently, the postcolonial thinker Hamid Dabashi still felt the need to use the provocative rhetorical question “Can non-Europeans think?” (2015) as a book title, pushing the point about the currency of the ongoing challenge that Oruka’s project addressed back then. Sage philosophy was at the time developed with the vision of a certain decolonial position in mind, as Oruka laid out in the very first pages of his Introduction to the book. He conceived it “against three negative claims” (1991, 1), representing a paradigm of colonial assumption and prejudice about Africa. These were, he said, the assumption of “unanimism” (the collective character of thought according to language, culture, ethnic group), common to ethnophilosophy; the lack of writing and written sources (seen as a necessary criterion for philosophical thought), and thus the lack of philosophy; and a general assumption of philosophy as an exclusive “white male” domain (ibid.). Decolonization, in conceptual, political, and institutional terms, was a topic that a few outstanding African critics addressed explicitly in programmatic terms, formulating projects and demands from their particular perspectives (like Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Okot p’Bitek, and later V. Y. Mudimbe, Kwasi Wiredu, and others)—a topic that Oruka himself

8

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

was explicitly addressing too, in ways and words that are very different to the younger generation of activists today. He engaged, with colleagues, in waging a principled institutional fight, in this case for the liberation of philosophy as an independent discipline and subject of study at the University of Nairobi (like Ngugi and colleagues did for African languages and literature at the same place). The struggle for a Philosophy Department independent of Religious Studies and removed from the grip of Western Christian missionaries succeeded, and Oruka became its first African Head of Department (see Presbey (n.d.); Masolo, Owakah, and Barasa, this volume). From then on, Oruka was based in autocratically ruled Kenya, a difficult home for a critical academic who also took on the role of a public intellectual, publishing regularly in newspapers and addressing a wider nonacademic audience as well as an academic one. At times, he raised explicit critiques of autocratic, repressive, and violent forms of rule in postcolonial Africa (Oruka 1985, 1997b), which was risky for him during the time of Moi’s rule in Kenya. As a returnee from graduate studies in Sweden and the United States, he stayed in Kenya, and conducted research at the University of Nairobi as a base, attracting students to pursue projects along the lines of related interest. Sage philosophy proved to be an appealing topic for graduate students, and a number of MA and at least two PhD dissertations (Oseghare 1985; Ochieng’Odhiambo 1994) were completed in the 1980s and 1990s. Oruka referred to ten graduate theses being written in this field, in October 1993 (Kresse and Oruka 1996, 26; also in appendix). Next to building and shaping an independent Department of Philosophy, free of “Religious Studies”—though the two were institutionally reunified again from above, by the University administration in 2005—Oruka was able to build his base in Nairobi as a node and platform for international academic exchange. Active in worldwide networks like the International Federation of the Study of Philosophy, the Afro-Asia Philosophy Association, and the World Future Studies Federation, and with a particular interest in South-South exchanges and collaborations, he organized the World Philosophy Congress in Nairobi in 1991 (on ecology and humannature relations), and many other meetings and conferences (see e.g., Oruka and Masolo 1983; Oruka 1994). All the while international scholars from Africa, North America, and Europe traveled to meet him, seeking exchange and advice. In some ways, as an intellectual mediator operating in different ways on global, continental, and national levels, Oruka himself shows the features of a kind of public postcolonial sage, handling the many conceptual tensions and political pressures in his particular African postcolonial setting in Kenya in an admirable way, as an academic and as a public intellectual.4 As researchers, students, teachers, and readers interested in sage philosophy, assembled here now in this imagined community, not all of us are happy

Introduction

9

with all the ways in which Oruka pursued his agenda, in terms of the approach, method, and presentation used for his points and arguments for liberation (and decolonization, as he viewed it). Some may disagree, for instance, with a certain paradigm of “philosophy” that Oruka pushes and thinks with, as too rigid, or too “Western.” Here, like with regard to other critical aspects of his work, we need to keep in mind that Oruka was, like all of us, a child of his times. Also, being educated in a certain Anglophone analytic tradition of philosophy often posed a challenge rather than an asset for some of his interests in the specific experiential dimensions of culture and society. Still, there are important continuities within sage philosophy that lend themselves to the mediation and endorsement of a decolonizing message. Foundational here remains the central focus upon African thinkers (male and female) outside the established networks of publication or academic circles, who are acknowledged within their social communities as wise, and who provide normative advice and intellectual orientation to others. Granting access to their words and insights (in translation) as a matter of principle, and indeed as principle matter, makes it possible for others, insiders and outsiders, to engage with these thoughts. Thus, they become sources and resources to think with, discuss, and pick up on for intellectual or political projects where these thoughts might provide inspiration or orientation. Of course, the thoughts of African sages are not per se decolonial (for some sages, this is not a concern, while for others it is; others again seem to express colonial nostalgia at times); that should not be expected. But the creation of access points to, and patterns of engagement with, insights, reflexive statements, and deep or critical thought by such people, is an invaluable (and perhaps immeasurably invaluable) contribution and a possible pathway to decolonial perspectives either to be found here, or to be developed further on that basis. Indeed, these sages are thinkers who are (were) embedded within the vivid dynamics of living communities in postcolonial Africa; this is something that Oruka’s sage philosophy thematizes but could have brought into focus more. Their thought draws from real-life experience in specific social and cultural contexts. AN ESTABLISHED APPROACH, RECOGNIZED, BUT NOT SPREAD What is also worthwhile to be explored further, we think, is the question of why did sage philosophy not become a more major and common paradigm of study, for research on thinkers and intellectual traditions across the continent, and beyond? Having made a significant contribution to the study of African philosophy, by mediating as a “third alternative” the deadlock between ethnophilosophy and its academic critics, why did ultimately only very few

10

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

projects and scholars take up and use his approach? Indeed, this would have been an easy and straightforward way to follow, as the method of interacting, interviewing, documenting, and analyzing was laid out, and could have been refined and adjusted, in each case, by each particular research project. Just imagine, for a minute, the case of documentation of and critical engagements with insights and statements by male and female thinkers from many African countries across the continent having been conducted, produced, and made accessible for a period of the past forty years or so, since when sage philosophy has been in place. This would have brought about a massive and immeasurably rich archive of statements, of wise and/or critical texts, of the thinkers who produced them, and of the various and diverse regional intellectual traditions that there are/were part of. Sage philosophy lends itself to being applied in various kinds of contexts and regions across the world. So, why was the sage philosophy project never really employed in a systematic collaborative way that could have sought to cover particular regions and/or countries? Was this due just to a lack of resources; lack of support; lack of initiative, or leadership, especially after Oruka’s tragic early demise? Had this been done, and had archives of such extensive work been prepared, of regions and countries across Africa, we would be in a completely different position now.5 Indeed, some smaller research projects working with sage philosophy were pursued in other countries like Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Africa, have been pursued (by Gail Presbey and others; see also Graness, this volume). However, richer archives of past and present thinkers, and of texts in different genres of intellectual traditions, could have long been established, providing, in each case, for the political realities of countries in the African postcolonial context, also the possibility of endogenous resources to think with. These could have been used for the potential creations of alternative political realities to shape and create, for more desirable and agreeable futures, building on Afrophone key terms and related discursive idioms and practices, and drawing on the insights of hundreds of individual thinkers (embedded in their social groups) across Africa. Sage philosophy—while surely in need of a sophistication of its methods (on that, more below)—could have been a role-model approach for an UN- or UNESCO-funded initiative on philosophy, norms, values, and insights in and across African countries, and this could have created the kind of resource just put in view. Our sense is that Oruka may well have been aware of these potential options and possibilities—though we have not found more than a few pointers by him in such a direction. This then may point to one particular way of re-reading the “Sage Philosophy” book (1991), rather as an introductory book to the project, with some consciously abbreviated accounts, for the sake of sample illustrations. As such a kind of “hybrid” book with short accounts, it was able to convey

Introduction

11

an overall impression of the sage philosophy project. Yet, in order to reflect properly on the scope and kind(s) of topics and intellectual engagements (with a view to statements made, arguments given, genres used, and authors at hand), different and more extensive formats for a more thorough presentation and discussion would seem more adequate and promising. Deeper engagements with individual thinkers, and with the variety of aspects and layers of their thinking in context could have been pursued. Indeed, Oruka’s later book on Oginga Odinga (Oruka 1992), which he himself presented as the first full-length book in a prospective series of sage philosophy books in the prelims of that book (also in an interview; Graness and Kresse 1997, 252; see appendix in this volume), gives us illustration and food for thought here. Bruce Janz’s chapter in this volume is insightful and innovative to think along these lines. Janz argues that we see a different, more pragmatic conception of “sages” in play here, at a later period of the project. This is made useful, according to Janz, enabling Oruka to convey a more complex and nuanced picture of the thinker in question—here, one of Kenya’s most important politicians of the anti-colonial and postcolonial phases—than would have been possible following the original sage philosophy format. Might one still be able to find evidence for such a speculative interpretation in Oruka’s posthumous archive? May there still be the chance to clarify some of these points by means of archival investigation or interviews with relatives, former colleagues, or assistants? Pathways for such research may not yet be completely out of reach, and this would constitute a worthwhile endeavor.

“WISDOM,” THE PRACTICAL RELEVANCE OF PHILOSOPHY, AND THE SOCRATIC PARADIGM A concern for “wisdom” within and across different communities and cultural traditions is central to Oruka’s sage philosophy, of course, as the title indicates. This resonates with a vivid and ongoing interest in wisdom, by a wider international audience and particularly a Western, Europhone public. Seeking to collect and reflect upon gems of wisdom as practically meaningful insights into human life, from a variety of different cultural perspectives around the world is valued, also in terms of emphasizing the practical relevance of philosophical thinking itself. Oruka’s interview questions do pursue “wisdom” as one of the particular themes to be laid out (see Janz 1998; also Kresse 2009), and this contributes to a wider field of cross-cultural wisdom literature (e.g., Graness 2018; Garrison 2018; Biebuyck 2013), which can also be understood in an extended way, to include innovative text-focused portrayals of individual figures (e.g., Ricard 2000; Rettova 2013) or anthropological studies built around a focus on local intellectuals, wisdom, knowledge and practice,

12

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

and related terms (e.g., Feierman 1990; Basso 1996; Lambek 1993; Kresse 2007; Kresse and Marchand 2009). For his project, Oruka also repeatedly invoked parallels to Socrates as a sage and oral philosopher, together with the images of the philosopher as a “gadfly” and “midwife” in their community, engaged in critical educational dialogue that is publicly accessible. These references, too, could be pursued further, in an interdisciplinary and comparative discussion. It seems important also to point to a basic affinity of the sage philosophy project to activities of collecting proverbs, sayings, and words of wisdom, beyond the missionary and ethnophilosophical collections that Oruka was critical of. Including the original wordings in African languages, these constitute potential sourcebooks for a serious re-reading, interpretation, and contextualization by contemporary mother-tongue speakers and other specialists. We should not forget how such resources of oral storytelling were seen, and partly collected and reflected upon, as relevant and potentially empowering texts, by critical activist scholars and writers like Okot p’Bitek and Ngugi wa Thiong’o (e.g., Okot 1985; Ngugi 1986), also and especially for the project of mental decolonization, during the time of Oruka’s activities. (Okot p’Bitek was a trained anthropologist as well as a writer, and highly critical of Tempels as well as colonial anthropology; Okot 1970; see Kresse 2002.) Oruka had good reasons for focusing on individuals; nevertheless, the shared basic interest here between Oruka, Okot, and Ngugi, in relevant oral “wisdom literature,” as texts and expressions of deep or foundational insights into life, is remarkable. Wisdom literature was also relevant to a number of Oruka’s academic philosopher peers, such as Kwame Gyekye, K. A. Appiah (both from Ghana), Claude Sumner (from Ethiopia), and others—and Sumner’s work was celebrated, after all, also by Mudimbe, Africa’s classic postcolonial critic (in the appendix to The Invention of Africa, 1988). The shared recognition of the relevance of collecting and engaging with “wise” statements (those considered as meaningful by/for groups and communities) by these thinkers illustrates that the dynamic social processes leading to expressions of wisdom cannot be neatly separated into individual and collective subfields. It also shows that there are some ways of engaging with wisdom, wise people, and wise sayings that are contributing to the wider project of conceptual empowerment and intellectual self-positioning in postcolonial Africa. Oruka himself was committed to the practical dimensions and obligations he saw inherently linked to philosophical activity properly conceived. It is in this sense that he sketched out the image of a desirable “philosophy proper” that would include such a practical commitment that is connected with being a “sage.” In contrast to the “mere philosopher,” who engages in academic intellectual practice devoid of normative interests, the philosophical “sage proper” provides, for Oruka, the paradigm to be endorsed and realized, by individual

Introduction

13

thinkers (whether academic professionals or not) and academic and educational institutions, for the benefit of society on the whole. Neither the “mere philosopher” (lacking normative engagement) nor the “mere sage” (lacking critical conceptual capacity) has the proper capacities needed to work appropriately and with sensitivity, in the service of society’s needs. Seeking to make (and keep) philosophy sagacious, and keep its use of wisdom practically relevant, then, in Oruka’s sense is a foundational task for philosophers within their respective social contexts (Graness and Kresse 1997, 253–256; also in the appendix, this volume)—and, in extension, one might say, for all of us, as engaged critical scientists or citizens. For Oruka, this applies as much to the more traditional sages in their respective communal environments as to academic philosophers at the universities and as public intellectuals. This foundational call to make—and keep—philosophy sagacious and practically relevant, is to be kept in view, as an obligation that Oruka sees as inherent part of philosophy itself. REVIVING SAGE PHILOSOPHY— REVISING SAGE PHILOSOPHY? In a recent publication occasioned by a conference celebrating H. Odera Oruka’s work, one of us (Kresse 2018b) flagged up five points as positive theses about sage philosophy which would justify attempts to revive the project within the current circumstances. The five points were: 1. The ongoing need for documentation of such individuals and practices, in Africa and beyond. 2. The connecting role between academic researchers and traditional sages who are otherwise often kept apart. 3. The inherent translational effort and exercise that accompanies sage philosophy, mediating between the native languages of the sages and the presentation in English (or other language). 4. The inherent facilitation of interdisciplinary work, with a view to the presentation of the sages, their statements, and the interpretation and contextualization of these texts. 5. The wider global appeal that sage philosophy has, as cultures and societies around the world seek engage with their respective specific regional intellectual traditions and show their wider relevance. (Kresse 2018b, 45–47) We stand behind these points, and we believe they should be pursued further for thinking with sage philosophy, to enrich the mutual knowledge that we have about thinkers, intellectual traditions, and their relevant insights.

14

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

Yet, as already stated, we acknowledge that sage philosophy, as practiced by Oruka and his assistants, and as presented in the “Sage Philosophy” volume, has a number of flaws that would, in such a revival, also need to be addressed. While our concern here is not a thorough engagement with all the weaknesses of sage philosophy, in forms of a foundational critique, we list some of them here too, so that we keep in view both the constructive and obstructive aspects in which some of the prospective pathways for “rethinking sage philosophy” may respond or relate to them. Some of them are already common tropes in the discussion of sage philosophy: • The vague, blurred, and at times questionable distinction between “folk sage” and “philosophical sage”; this goes together with an insistence of an understanding of philosophy as foundational discursive critique, which is taken from standard approaches in Western academic philosophy; • The conduct of the interviews with the sages, on which Oruka commented that the questioner acts as “provocateur” (1991, 36) and determines the topics and questions quite independently of the individual to be questioned and the language and social and cultural context concerned; • The brevity of the biographical introduction and contextualization of sages; the more information we would be able to obtain here, the more adequate, complex, and vivid the pictures of the people concerned would become; • The brevity of documentation (of discourses; statements; arguments) of the sages; the folk sages even more so than the philosophical sages (Oruka 1991, Part Two); • The lack of documentation of female sages—only one woman was portrayed in the original book, out of twelve sages on the whole; this needs to be redressed, as Oruka himself was aware (see e.g., Mosima 2018; the work by Gail Presbey, also this volume); • The lack of attention to local and regional genres of philosophical expression (and more generally, of knowledge and critique); due to the prototypical form of the interviews as the only source for analysis and discussion, this focus does not come up or become relevant; • few situational portrayals of the social embeddedness of philosophical conversations, arguments, or debates as they may occur within social settings, as part of lived dynamics of everyday life (in different ways, and through different genres); the lack of “listening in” to discourses and arguments that are taking place as inherent internal debates and discussions within society; • no representation of statements in the respective Afrophone languages used in the interviews (thus showing the reality of philosophical discourse in African languages); as audience, we remain reliant on brief excerpts translated into English, without recourse to the originals.

Introduction

15

With such a list of shortcomings, then, why should one advocate a revival of sage philosophy? We think that most of these shortcomings can be redressed from within, as part of an inherent process of expanding and adjusting sage philosophy. For us, the important thing is to convey a sense and vision of a potential common overarching prospect—with regard to Africa and elsewhere—to use and improve (along the indicated lines) sage philosophy as an established and recognized approach that (in adjusted and improved forms) lends itself to collaborative and cross-cultural research. There is so much more that should be known about thinkers, insights, and intellectual traditions that originate outside the Western institutional frameworks that have been imposed upon societies around the world. Documentations along these lines are, or may represent, valuable, and important sources for rethinking some fundamentals of social theory—“thinking society”—and philosophical anthropology—“being human”—for the project of rewriting, or provincializing, the humanities and social sciences (Sarr 2019b; Chakrabarty 2007; Mitchell 2004), and thus for working on transforming our analytic language(s) as well as academic practice(s), as well as our respective institutions themselves, in their different locations, contexts, and infrastructures. Sage philosophy has been compared and portrayed as complementary to, the recently established “conversational philosophy school” of African philosophy at the University of Calabar, Nigeria—to the extent of calling the latter “a new form of sage philosophy” (Ibanga 2017, 81). This may be stimulating to think with, as the dialogical feature or fundamental pattern is flagged up as a joint or shared element in these two approaches. Yet, stating an identification may be pushing a bit far, as primary engagement with the thought of knowledgeable elders, sages, and representatives of communities may not be central to the self-understanding of the new conversationalists. In our view, the mutual identification of “sage philosophy is conversational philosophy and conversational philosophy is sage philosophy” (Ibanga 2017, 86) is problematic. Nevertheless, it seems fruitful indeed to think further about the kinds and qualities of mutual relations involved here. Certainly, dialogical reflection and the flexible building of arguments with the resources at hand is a shared feature—in academic and nonacademic contexts.

UNDERSTANDING CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS AND REGIONAL INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS Our general point about the overall relevance of a focus on sages for the field of African Philosophy, and for interdisciplinary research on African and other non-Western traditions of knowledge more widely, also relates to earlier arguments made by Kwame Gyekye (1995; first ed. 1987) and

16

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

others. In ways similar to Oruka, Gyekye, as an academic philosopher from Ghana trained within the Western paradigm, embarked upon a conceptual engagement with his own Akan intellectual culture, drawing from a wealth of specific examples of language use in society. Indeed, Oruka included this book in a “given body of writings” that, he said, “can be labelled as ‘SagePhilosophy in Africa’” (Oruka 1991, 33; see footnote 1).6 In the programmatic opening pages of the revised edition of African Philosophical Thought: the Akan Conceptual Scheme, Gyekye flags up the significance of working on sages as key representatives of African thought and intellectual traditions (Gyekye 1995, 1; also 3). Focusing on a variety of sub-aspects of philosophical thought in his own Akan context, his book builds and reconstructs foundational elements of what he calls the “Akan conceptual scheme.” Gyekye insists that for the framing of a vision of intellectually active, vivid, and meaningful tradition of (modern) African philosophy, it is necessary to build on “experience.” This is indeed useful to think with. As he puts it, “a modern African philosophy must be linked to—take its rise from—African cultural and historical experience” (1995, xii). For Gykeye, this is a programmatic leitmotif that he seeks to substantiate throughout the chapters of his book. In the Conclusion, he reiterates the appeal “that modern African philosophers should turn their philosophical gaze on the intellectual foundations of African culture and experience,” in order to enrich and specify its features “on the global philosophical map” (1995, 212; see also p.211 for a similar formulation, highlighting “the basis of African cultural and intellectual experience”). Taking African languages seriously, also as points of departure for studies, he argues that “it is never too late in human history to start from where one should start (or should have started)” (ibid.). Thus, we can see that the sense of a need for conscious and emphatic Afrophone engagement, which is beginning to become more broadly established, decades after the early and ongoing calls by Ngugi wa Thiong’o is visible here (e.g., Ngugi 1986, 2013; also Rettova 2007; Diagne 2008; Kane 2012; Jeffers 2013). Gyekye’s recognition of the “immeasurable value” of some of the earlier anthropological studies on thought systems, personhood, values, and worldviews is also noteworthy (1995, 192). This literature, he argues, provides an opportunity to build comparative perspectives across the African continent and its internal diversity. Such comparative engagement is seen as part of a necessary substantiating process for the study of African philosophical traditions on the whole. For this, interdisciplinary options and resources should be made use of, and all studies that may contribute to a thicker kind of description of African intellectual culture and history should be taken on board—while, of course, reading all sources in a critical way and with a view to the historical and power-relational circumstances that shaped their perspectives.

Introduction

17

Gyekye’s position is of similar age to the sage philosophy project itself— but has, to our knowledge, not been discussed thoroughly in comparison to it, and the same applies to the work by Hallen and Sodipo (1997; orig. 1986) that Oruka seems to have misunderstood,7 and the work by Nigerian philosopher C. S. Momoh, himself inspired also by Paul Radin’s work (see Momoh 1985, 1979).8 Related arguments for interdisciplinary engagement and the recognition of sages in research are also re-cast, with renewed energy and intellectual stimulus, from among a younger generation of African philosophers, like Sanya Osha’s position in his book Postethnophilosophy. “Revisiting the linkages between African philosophy and Africanist anthropology is vital,” argues Osha (2011, 196). According to him, this engagement may lead to encounters with and discussions of sources and resources that “may be profitably be reinscribed into sub-disciplines of African thought as both sources of inspiration and as the basis for critique” (ibid.). Flagging up this dual role of critique and creative engagement at the core of such research is helpful. Osha vocalizes the need for African philosophy to reach beyond itself and its disciplinary limitations, as it needs to come to grips and account for “a multiplicity of themes and problems that pervade everyday contemporary existence” (2011, 197), in the experience of Africans, whose agency is of central concern to him (2011, 196). In the end, all of this, again, feeds into “the ongoing project of decolonization” (ibid.)—a burning issue, as we have seen. The vision here, as we read it, is that joint interdisciplinary efforts and use of resources ultimately may strengthen also the decolonizing impact, in terms of being able to make conceptual resources and reservoirs accessible that enable intellectual liberation and independence. In related terms, Ivan Karp, an anthropologist who dedicated much of his career to the fieldwork-based study of African thought, and the Kenyan philosopher D. A. Masolo, presented a strong case for interdisciplinary collaboration (while also praising Oruka’s sage philosophy). At the center of research that is able to explore the specific nature of critical inquiry and philosophical thinking in African settings in everyday life, they argue, philosophers and anthropologists need to collaborate with each other in order to be able to qualify “what people know and how they express their knowledge as well as how knowing and saying are contested or become authoritative” (Karp and Masolo 2000, 13). There is still much to be explored along these lines for future research. Going consciously beyond philosophy (a step, or a direction, that Oruka also took) and drawing from specific expertise and empirical observations of related disciplines, like anthropology, history, and the study of literature and religion—if coordinated well—can boost the case. Let us provide a few representative pointers to related research, in order also to indicate some constructive pathways and perspectives that we see. Zooming in on core aspects that qualify the “endogenous” character of thought and intellectual tradition

18

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

that Hountondji (1997) has reminded us to keep in focus, we take language (frameworks and use of speech; terms; key concepts; idioms), knowledge and its conceptions, fields, and forms, in social (and historically dynamic) contexts as reference points to substantiate the case for interdisciplinary engagement. Furthermore, a focus on genres, as the kinds of regionally specific discursive forms of mediation of knowledge, embedded in the social and intellectual histories of language, culture, and social interaction, enables (and forces) us to follow the specific modes and pathways of verbal presentation of knowledge that are established as valid and valuable in particular communities, as art of their social and intellectual histories (Barber 2007). Specific to each linguistic community, then, genres shape and mediate reflexive expression received by a wider public. To understand the dynamics and exchange of philosophical discourse in society, one has to follow and work on specific texts in that society’s philosophically relevant genres. Such work is not interview based, but based on fieldwork or archival work, as an exercise in attentive close reading and/or listening and contextualization would complement (or expand) sage philosophy along such important lines. This would also complement and strengthen interest in the history of philosophy in Africa (or elsewhere), given that such a history consists of the (oral and written) philosophical texts within a linguistic group or social community. The more such texts, and knowledge of them, we have, the bigger and more adequate our knowledge of philosophical traditions and regional histories of philosophy. The issue of how such texts is and/or should be presented then become a question too. What kind of rules apply? What kind of possibilities arise, are acceptable and especially appreciated? Related forms of social practice matter, as they shape and fill regional intellectual cultures and histories. Knowledge about the ways in which such texts, and expressions of knowledge and wisdom more generally, are treated and presented, as part of culture- and languagespecific intellectual practice(s) is crucial for the depth and density (or thickness) of accounts and descriptions that we can provide as researchers. This applies whether we conduct research upon our own societies or on others. Specific kinds of “intellectual rituals,” as sociologist Randall Collins (1998) calls them, are part of every culture and society, and we should seek to know how they work. What kind of key concepts are relevant in society, for a (normative) understanding and self-understanding? Oruka’s interview questions often seem to aim at these. To address and explore this, the work lined up for researchers lies in focusing on relevant terms, and engaging in interviews, conversations, and listening/reading exercises. Recommendable interdisciplinary (older and recent) text- and fieldwork-based research that explores this can be found, for instance, on the meanings and usages of ubuntu, a relational normative concept of “being human” in Southern Africa, where it has become iconic as well as highly contested, or its related Swahili/East African cousin, utu; or

Introduction

19

the various concepts (of healing and harming knowledge) of utsawi, uchawi, utsai, and so on, in the Central, Southern, and Eastern African regions. One could build on existing studies and explore further the conceptual and social dimensions of concepts in their multidimensional relevance for social-historical aspects of well-being, knowledge-power, and harming/healing, like also ngoma (Janzen 1992), minkisi (MacGaffey 2000); or of Yoruba concepts for knowing and believing (Hallen and Sodipo 1997), or beauty and goodness iwa/ewa (Hallen 2000; Abiodun 2014). The more discussion and internal debate are on such Afrophone concepts that are deeply meaningful for and in societies, the richer and more complex the insights; and there are many more terms and fields of meaning that need to be worked through. Related research on reasoning aspects of performative healing and harming practices referred to as “spirit possession” and “witchcraft” in the past may build some important bridges for understanding, too (e.g., Lambek 1993; Ciekawy and Bond 2001), or a focus on the literature on “prophets” (e.g., Johnson 1994; Anderson and Johnson 1996) or local “intellectuals” (Feierman 1990) in Africa,9 as these too show overlapping features with Oruka’s sages. A final pointer heads in the direction of the (historical or anthropological) collection of biographies of relevant thinkers in society, and of the texts and discourses themselves, in translation and possibly the original (written; oral; printed; recorded), in any form (e.g., Brenner 2004, orig. 1984; Hallen 2000; Rettova 2013; Biebuyck 2013; Kresse and Mwakimako 2017; Bakari 2019). Brenner’s portrayal of the West African Sufi leader Cerno Bokar, a true (philosophical) sage in Oruka’s sense, provides a particularly illuminating documentation of sages and their relevant sayings (it includes thirty pages of translated discourses by Cerno Bokar). Building a shared and wideranging archive along such lines, one that can then be accessed and used by researchers and the interested public, in Africa and around the world—as a collaborative larger digital project, for instance, would be highly desirable. As we have seen, then, there are a number of possible related approaches and resources that could be building (with) sage philosophy, or combining with it and improving and complementing its efforts—sometimes from positions that are even closer to the thinkers and thoughts presented—are a number of strands and projects of research in African Studies widely conceived, to be explored further along overlapping (inter)disciplinary lines and pathways. RE-THINKING: THINKING WITH (AND AGAINST) SAGE PHILOSOPHY In conclusion, we need to note and acknowledge again that Oruka’s work opened up the academic playing field at a time when the debate on African

20

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

philosophy was characterized by an emphatic stand-off between the so-called “ethno-philosophers” and their critics. The ethno-philosophers were seen by their critics (including Oruka) to perpetuate earlier Western simplifications and reductive stereotypes about “traditional” shared and collective thought in Africa—in contrast to critical individual thought characterizing the “modern” (Western) world and proper philosophical thinking. In extension, such a position continued to deny Africa and Africans the critical agency that was to be at the core of social reform, adequate modernization, and a responsible critical political culture. Oruka insisted that doing “fieldwork” on living African thinkers who are un-academic and thus possibly “out of view” for an audience fixated on academia is a valuable and necessary additional angle to the study of philosophy in Africa.10 Yet, we have also seen that it could and should be more linked up, or couched within, a more appropriate set of research methods and collaborative relationships between the researcher and the sage. These adjusted methods, then, should allow us, researchers, to attune ourselves better to the specific features of the intellectual cultures within which the sages participate and to the discursive fields to which they contribute. Researchers should aim for proper mastery of language, knowledge of the relevant social contexts and historical backgrounds, and sensitivity to the contextual meanings of relevant statements given. Finally, they need to have knowledge about the relevant genres used for the dissemination and teaching of meaningful insights, social critique, or fundamental questions employed in the respective communities. In terms of rethinking, and “thinking with” sage philosophy as a platform or springboard, the project of an “anthropology of philosophy” (Kresse 2007; see also Adamson 2019, and related, Kresse 2018) can also be indicated, which was inspired by sage philosophy and also drew from anthropological studies on knowledge and religion. Conceived as a project of extensive fieldwork within the respective community of interest, anywhere in the world, it combines ethnographic fieldwork with close readings of texts and interviews, to provide chapter-long contextual portrayals of individual thinkers, as case studies of the intellectual life of a community. From this perspective, work on philosophy as a particular socially embedded intellectual practice of reflection upon the fundamentals of our (human being’s) thinking, knowing, and doing—that occurs in very different societies, historical circumstances, and cultural contexts—needs to balance a view on the individuals concerned (with their specific life stories, intellectual profiles, and creative dispositions) with a sense of the existing genres of expression at their disposal. Furthermore, the institutional networks of knowledge, education, and debate, within which they were trained and within which they are locally received (read; listened to; studied) should be in view as well. We think that stepping consciously outside or beyond the disciplinary confines of “African philosophy” and into

Introduction

21

a wider, interdisciplinary context and multi-perspectival research arena is useful for a productive rethinking, or thinking with, sage philosophy—or also against it. This is as true when Oruka first embarked on his project (in such a direction) as it is for us today, coming from diverse disciplines, institutions, and intellectual traditions, and with different goals and different (intellectual and political) agendas in mind. This volume does not seek to preach a preconceived gospel of sage philosophy to a group of insiders while hoping for new converts. Rather, it presents a diverse set of takes and grounded opinions. It seeks to address how we all, for our diverse kinds of interests and academic and practical projects, can draw from, and make use of sage philosophy, find stimulation (and/or orientation) in it, and benefit from engagement with it. We flagged some weaknesses of Oruka’s early version of sage philosophy already (above). One obvious and straightforward way to redress some of them and strengthen the project would be to complement Oruka’s basic idea of the need to do “fieldwork” (and how best to do so). This is especially relevant for those of us who are interested in the study of philosophical traditions and intellectual practice in society, particularly within everyday life. It also requires an openness to befitting related approaches, readings, and methodological suggestions from relevant disciplines and subfields (especially anthropology, the study of literature, history, religion, and politics). Methodological considerations about how research can and should be done need not be entangled in Eurocentric paradigms or inherent colonial visions; but they very well may be (see the visionary but inherently problematic early approach by Paul Radin in 1927, with a foreword by John Dewey). Reference points and paradigms that focus on local actors and their agency, or on local concepts and conceptual frameworks, through the respective terminology and thus an Africa-centered conceptual lens can be found or developed instead. Dialogical research collaborations and relationships—North-South and especially South-South—need to be developed further and pursued more, both on personal and institutional levels (on equal terms that capture the shared common presence in time and space; see e.g., Fabian 1996; also 1983). On his part, Oruka already moved in this direction, by taking the principle to conduct interviews with those who are recognized as wise by their communities as a key guideline for his research. With this, we turn to a concluding look at the chapters to come. Looking at where we are from today, we may not really need to (continue to) emphasize individuality and explicit critical expression as an integral and exclusive part of a universal understanding of philosophy, in the same way as Oruka did, for a number of reasons. For one, how philosophy is expressed and communicated may differ vastly, and fieldwork as an open-ended empirical investigation (with an inclusive focus on texts) is able to explore how it is, specifically, that reflexive discourse is performed and sustained in particular forms of

22

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

social interaction, as part of established patterns of intellectual practice. How is it that we best gain an understanding of shared worldviews and conceptual frameworks common to members of a social community (who speak the same language and have been habituated in the same social environment); how do we thematize their relation to the thought of individuals that Oruka was so interested in? There is no need to disqualify an active interest in the overarching conceptual framing of communally shaped aesthetics, for instance (as Donna Pido pursues in this volume, with a view to the Maasai), as a kind of ethnophilosophy that should be refrained from. Working on the basis of long-term fieldwork and familiarity, and by means of specific anthropological methods, on shaping the contours of the basic conceptual features or categories of Maasai thought on beauty, as Donna Pido does (this volume) is a valuable project. Her understanding of a “collective (sage) philosophy” that she lays out is not equivalent to, and in fact is also critical of, ethnophilosophy’s deterministic and ideologically loaded projection of imposing “unanimism,” collective boundaries of thought upon individual actors and group members (that Oruka and Hontoundji criticized). The research interest in culturally specific conceptual fundamentals—or how we may best like to call it— should be pursued; and in this case, Oruka’s approach of a set of interviews focused on individuals may be of limited help. Along related lines, the exploration of common and shared conceptualizations of what it is that makes humans human, in this case, from an Acholi perspective (Odoch Pido, this volume), may also be a worthwhile endeavor. And like in the example of Donna Pdio’s portrayal of Maasai aesthetics, there is no assumption of deterministic collective thought here, the kind of “unanimism” that we would connect with ethnophilosophy. If the features of what it means to be human, listed in a long sequence of stanzas that indeed constitute the poem discussed here, are shared and agreed upon among Acholi people, this does not mean all Acholi think alike. We find it remarkable that anonymous composition seems to be common among the Acholi, and would like to know more about that. What seems to matter most in Odoch Pido’s presentation here, is the narrative imagery of the poem that conveys the supposed insights, and keeps the poem alive. Here too, we see a legitimate concern about the shared worldview and conceptual framing from within which “being human” in the Acholi context is seen and elaborated upon. Neither of the two chapters, nor the one by Jared Sacks, which also emphasizes a collective approach and focuses on solidarity, sees itself as an integral part of the sage philosophy project but rather in tension with it, presenting their project as “challenge” to (Donna Pido) or a “different kind of understanding of sage philosophy” (Jared Sacks) from Oruka. Yet, what they outline are important questions to be worked through, concerning the shared space of empirically based features of conceptualization by cultural

Introduction

23

and linguistic groups, as a kind of conceptual reservoir. Conceptual spaces, features, and reservoirs, that are shared (and shaped) by groups and communities—whether embedded in material culture or social verbal performances—these are by no means unimportant to understand. Pursuing such research interests along alternative ways of engagement with wisdom in society, different from Oruka’s conceptualization, extends the meanings of, and shapes a different kind of sage philosophy. This then can be understood as complementary to Oruka’s sage philosophy, and not necessarily in contradiction to it. Here, we are in part responding to, and partly disagreeing with, the critical response by Anke Graness to these chapters, in her clear and thoughtful afterword (this volume). All three authors (D. Pido, Sacks, O. Pido), in different ways, express a sense of distance from Oruka’s position and its emphasis on individuals (as they perceive it). Their concern is, in different ways, to lay out a certain vision or provide an account of what they can convey as socially oriented expression and communication of wisdom, based on their respective focus and experience, and with a view to the specific community they are focusing on. These three authors engage with relevant fields of exploration that complement Oruka’s interests. Their chapters extend the scope within which “re-thinking sage philosophy” is covered in this volume, in different directions and along different trajectories, beyond Oruka’s own vision(s). “Re-thinking,” as the task for this volume flagged up in the title, then also includes a kind of “thinking against” (or thinking in tension with) that can be made productive.11 Our sense is that Oruka was, above all, an open-minded and curious intellectual who would have been keen to engage with and understand the specifics of the projects in view here (whether they have a marked focus on individual sages or not). And it is in this spirit that we would like to encourage an ongoing debate about mutual positions of research and their relevance. This also means, in turn, that Oruka himself and his work should also be engaged seriously and critically, but also with an open mind, and a will to understand the challenges and constraints that Oruka faced; and, if possible, with an appreciation of the doors he opened and the bridges he tried to build. We cannot simply dismiss Oruka as being entangled and/or even compliant in Western hegemonic thinking, even if the point in question and specifics about the kinds of entanglements may be discussed further—here we differ with Jared Sacks (this volume). One should note that Oruka advocated the need for an “initial suspension of judgement as to what constitutes philosophy in the strict sense” in order to gain appropriate orientation; and he argued consistently against the “claim that some particular sense of philosophy is the authentic African philosophy while philosophy in any other sense is foreign to Africa” (Oruka 1991, 33).

24

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

OUTLOOK ON CHAPTERS The opening chapter, “Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project: Continuities and Discontinuities in the Research Methodology,” by Reginald Oduor, argues that the sage philosophy project, initiated in 1974, has been for the most part dormant in its Kenyan cradle for over two decades now, despite its vast potential to contribute to inquiry into indigenous African knowledge. Consequently, the author seeks to accomplish three related tasks. First, he undertakes a critical examination of the evolution of Oruka’s conception of an African sage. Second, in the light of the advent of globalization, he presents a portrait of a twenty-first-century African sage from the Luo context, which was also Oruka’s. Third, he proposes several considerations in the design of a model for undertaking research on African sage philosophy appropriately in the twenty-first century. The critical and constructive balance of this assessment, with regard to a particular topical and regional focus, is remarkable, and this text could become a role model for related renewed engagements with sage philosophy from different parts and regions of Africa. Francis Owakah, in his chapter “Exploring Indigenous Knowledge: An Exposition of Sage Philosophy and Oral Literature Projects in Kenya,” argues that only when the wisdom of society is harvested shall society be remodeled against the norms and parameters beneficial to all. He explores the parallels between the sage philosophy project and oral literature, explaining their similarities in method, and possibilities seen for the future. The analysis seeks to achieve two objectives: one, to familiarize the reader with an understanding of both the sage philosophy and oral literature projects as avenues for interpreting African indigenous knowledge; and two, to identify some constraints that practitioners face while using this technique in interpreting reality. Both sage philosophy and the Kenyan oral literature projects make use of oral tradition techniques to interpret knowledge based on traditional epistemic structures and values. The study and appreciation of oral tradition are hereby given more importance for understanding the complexity of human cognition. In many oral cultural settings, in Africa and elsewhere, history and traditions have been conveyed largely through performative recitation rather than writing. The oral transmission of customs and traditions from one generation to the next lies at the heart of culture and memory. Thereby, local languages act as vehicles for the transmission of unique forms of cultural knowledge. Oral traditions that are encoded in these forms of speech can become threatened when elders die or when livelihoods are disrupted. It is within this background that the chapter’s argument is located. The next chapter, by Benedetta Lanfranchi, critically explores the notion and definition of “philosophy” in Oruka’s sage philosophy and Antonio Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis. Both thinkers divide philosophy into two

Introduction

25

orders in their respective approaches entails a dimension of philosophy that is not strictly academic or scholarly, and that lives instead in popular culture and expression, while the second order entails a critical, self-reflective activity. The comparative reading presented here of these two intellectual projects highlights both key similarities as well as crucial differences in the two thinkers’ original notion of philosophy. Lanfranchi argues that both Oruka and Gramsci posit “philosophical fieldwork” as a key methodological tool for accessing that first order of philosophy, which they value as a vital epistemological and moral source for the human community. She also argues that underlying both thinkers’ careful distinction between these two orders, and the way that they relate to one another, lies their notion of philosophy as an emancipatory endeavor. Gail Presbey, who was introduced to sage philosophy by Oruka himself, and accompanied him to interview sages is the only researcher, worldwide over the past three decades, who has actively and consistently worked on and with Oruka’s sage philosophy approach. She conducted interviews with male and female sages in Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, and Ethiopia. Here, Presbey introduces three Kenyan women sages in her chapter “Wisdom from women in Africa.” These are Ntetia Nalamae, a Maasai woman from Olepolos; Julia Ouko, a Luo woman from Kamagambo; and Maria Magdalena Josephine Aoko, also a Luo. The existing literature is surveyed, citing male scholars (Oruka and his immediate students) and African women scholars (some of who are not in “Philosophy” per se, but in related fields) who have interviewed women sages. Furthermore, a look at recent feminist literature worldwide is used to discuss what it means to focus on the philosophical aspect of interviews. Building on this, the author argues that the women sages interviewed here express pronounced and specific female perspectives, based on the respective frames of experience underpinning their thinking. They have original contributions to offer to philosophy, particularly with a view to the widening of feminist perspectives. The interviews with Julia Ouko and Ntetia Nalamae at the basis of this chapter are also included in the appendix section of this volume, and we hope this will attract and invite readers to engage with these unique resources, and to think further, with them. In his chapter, “Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity,” Bruce Janz pursues an argument that seems simple yet fundamental to a reassessment and re-use of sage philosophy. He argues that Odera Oruka’s consecutive book, Oginga Odinga: His Philosophy and Beliefs (1992), models a turning point or new way of thinking about sage philosophy, different from its beginnings in the 1970s and 1980s. The book does not represent a radical break from the past, but rather an evolution of methodology and a mutation in the kinds of questions that sage philosophy is potentially an answer to. The shift we see here opens the door to considering other possible mutations

26

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

in the methodology, as the process of questioning opens up new spaces of thought. This chapter works through Oruka’s book more or less in order, even though the chapters were not written in order (the Introduction was written last, after the interviews). There are two groups of interviews included here, the first set from 1982 and the second from 1991 to 1992. The goal is to show that Oruka modifies his approach to sage philosophy in crucial ways, and in doing so, implicitly introduces a new type of sage, which Janz here calls the “pragmatic sage.” Donna Pido, in her chapter “The Collective Sage: Maasai Philosophy and Resilience” examines and explains the Maasai system of thought as an illustration of what she calls “collective sage philosophy” and a “design for survival.” There are two significant aspects of this examination and explanation. One is to contextualize the Maasai system and its manifestations in its environmental, historical, and political contexts as a tool for survival. The second is to illustrate the importance of concrete, nonverbal, nonalphabetic expressions of ideas and ideals that have been so important in the art and material culture of Africa and elsewhere. The art historical consideration of concrete and graphical expression of ideas and paradigms has not been adequately studied or incorporated by philosophers. This chapter seeks to push for such a reconsideration. It draws from some of the foundationally relevant insights of such a perspectival shift within art history, and places Maasai descriptions and explanations for consideration by philosophers and the field of African Philosophy. Next, presenting an empirically based narrative about a collective group of activists in South Africa as case study, the chapter by Jared Sacks, “Sagacity is relational: No individual owns any story,” seeks to initiate a conversation that takes sage philosophy forward toward a real decolonial turn. Emphasizing thinking as social process, that is, that people think with each other and through their relationships with one another, the author argues that research can only reflect how thinking takes place by understanding that philosophy itself is a social relation. It is both collective discourse and collective practice. The project of sage philosophy, then, should be rethought by asking: How are individual sages situated and implicated within collective philosophies? How do groups of people understand the world, think critically about it, and challenge one another to go beyond already accepted folk wisdom? How is philosophy linked to collective forms of struggle? On a different level, a prevalent methodological focus on individual “advanced” or “philosophical” thinkers, Sacks argues, has enabled vanguardism to creep into the sage philosophy project. By focusing on the philosophical wisdom of certain persons, while ignoring the critical wisdom that every person is capable of and which the collective often embodies, Oruka’s sage philosophy approach is seen to contribute to a politics that lionizes individual thinkers and leaders,

Introduction

27

at the expense of a more radical and egalitarian philosophic project, a vision of which is pushed in the case study. A final implication of this chapter is that we can reimagine sage philosophy as a struggle to break down artificial boundaries between the researcher and the researched, the thinker and those they think about, and the academic and the activist. In conclusion, the argument is made that sage philosophy can be advanced through militant inquiry, and the question is asked, how researchers may become a part of a process of decolonization as a struggle. The final chapter, “On Being Human—Some Acholi thoughts on ‘being human,’” by J. P. Odoch Pido, discusses and analyzes Acholi conceptions of what it means to be human, and it does so by means of an in-depth interpretation of a recent poem whose oral performance was posted on social media in Acholi chat groups. The poem, with the title bedo dano (to be human), whose author is not mentioned (and not known), provides an eighteen-stanza-long rendition of the variety of aspects that constitute the scope of being human, seen and conceptualized from within Acholi cultural tradition and intellectual culture. This poem presents scholarly thoughts on being human that are grounded in indigenous Acholi education, and thereby stresses the value of enduring punishing situations, as this develops a maturity of body and mind that is needed in order to cope with difficult circumstances. Being a full adult, in this perspective, is seen as essentially to be mindful of the welfare of all living and nonliving things. The chapter follows and carves out conceptual dimensions of Acholi aesthetics and practice, in which pairings of opposites reside and complement each other, such as for instance husband and wife. Opposites, complementarity, and contradiction concern being human, and this takes on different forms of social symmetry. Overall, the poem and its discussion here elaborate upon Acholi thoughts and practices that bring multiple aspects of “being human” into view, either as difficult and troublesome, or as easy and pleasurable. As an afterword on the chapters, the engaged and thoughtful critical appraisal of the chapters by Anke Granness, with a view to recent achievements and current debates in the field of African Philosophy, rounds off this section. Drawing from her rich knowledge of the academic field of African Philosophy, and on Oruka and sage philosophy, in particular, she flags up some key issues and arguments that have particular significance for a (re) reading of sage philosophy in a critically engaged and constructive manner. Moreover, she comments on and discusses aspects of a (re)positioning of sage philosophy’s relevance within the wider field of recent research and debate. Her critique of the collectively oriented approaches for a rethinking of sage philosophy seems harsh, maybe too harsh at times, as she presents her critical arguments in defense of what she regards as core elements of Oruka’s approach, defending his cause.

28

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

THE APPENDICES AND THE PROLOGUE, AS RESOURCES Several appendices complement and conclude our collection, all of which are interviews that bring us back to the groundwork of sage philosophy, namely the interviews with sages, and to Oruka’s own assessment of his work. We are extremely grateful for the permission and opportunity given to us by Gail Presbey, to include here sections of two interviews with the female sages on whom she wrote her chapter, in English translation: the interview with the Luo sage Josephine Aoko, followed by a tribute on Aoko, by our colleague, the Luo anthropologist and sociologist Humphrey Ojwang; and the interview with the Maasai sage Ntetia Nalamae, to complement the picture. The appendices also include, as second part, two reprints of interviews with Oruka which Kai Kresse conducted in October 1993 and July 1995, at the University of Nairobi. These are included to give readers a vivid impression of Oruka “in action,” thinking and responding “on his feet.” The inclusion of these kinds of interviews offers unique insights for the readers, into the ways in which interviews with sages were conducted, and the thematic trajectories engaged with, in dialogues with peculiar turns and unique answers. And Oruka, our professorial sage, has the final word. Finally, rather than conclude here, with the end, let us turn to the prologue, which comes next and follows this introduction. A biographical account by Chaungo Barasa, written in vivid language, full of praise of Oruka, and conveying well a sense of the effort and energy needed to start and keep sage philosophy going, opens up the volume. Chaungo Barasa was a long-term research assistant of Oruka in the sage philosophy project, and was himself portrayed as a philosophical sage by Oruka (Oruka 1991, 147–156). This eulogy of Oruka gives readers an insight into important yet mundane aspects of Oruka’s biography and personality, aspects that underpinned and informed his endeavors as an academic philosopher and engaged public intellectual. It was in this latter role in particular, that students and ordinary readers (of his newspaper articles) appreciated Oruka’s critical engagement with social and political challenges faced by Kenyans and Africans more broadly. This text also gives us insight as to how the process of research, from identifying and interviewing sages to publishing the edited accounts, proceeded; Barasa illustrates how the sage philosophy project was embedded in the practical engagements of a committed intellectual who was also an internationally successful academic. A concluding thought: our colleague P. M. Dikirr, who wrote his MA thesis using the sage philosophy approach on Maasai conceptions and ethics concerning death under Oruka’s supervision in 1994, made the following disillusioned statement about discussions in the field, which Barasa also invokes in his prologue: “The discourse on philosophic sagacity has been caught up

Introduction

29

in a wheel that spins continuously on the same axis, but never moves” (2018, 147). We hope that this volume, on the contrary, will combine a lot of movement with a lot of spinning for its readers, as they engage with the diverse kinds of thoughts, discussions, and arguments presented here. All this leads to a bundle of (partly overlapping) open-ended questions, on how we can best (meaning: most productively) think with sage philosophy—drawing from but also going beyond Oruka’s thoughts. NOTES 1. The term “burning issues” here is taken over from the title of the lecture series “Burning Issues in African Philosophy” at the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University, co-organized over several terms from fall 2017 onward, by Jeannie Prais, Drucilla Cornell, S. Bachir Diagne, and Kai Kresse. 2. Visions of a “third way” were important back then, vis-à-vis the mutual opposition of such a “tradition-modernity divide,” as Olusegun Oladipo also made clear when he applied the term to Kwasi Wiredu’s work (2002, 13). We may also argue, against Oruka, that the fieldwork and interview-based research with Yoruba healers (onisegun) that Hallen and Sodipo (1997; orig. 1986) developed, can be seen as another third way. 3. Note that in this regard, a recent book on the Nigerian sociologist Claude Ake as an “organic intellectual” in Gramsci’s sense (Aworosegbe 2018), may be read to points to some similarities between Ake, himself also a decolonial thinker (Ake 1979) and Oruka, in terms of biographical career trajectories, but also social commitment and engagement. 4. Such engagement, however, could also see him associated with heavily politicized and ideological ethnocentric positions, for example, during the public burial dispute over the prominent Luo lawyer S. M. Otieno in the 1980s. Oruka, who was interviewed in court as an expert witness on Luo traditions (based on his knowledge gained through the sage philosophy project) advocated the need for a critical questioning of the common (Western and) overly rationalist stance that was dismissive of customs and traditions altogether. Hereby, he contributed to the legal “win” of the Luo relatives over the Kikuyu widow of the deceased (Oruka 1991, 67–83; see Cohen and Atieno-Odhiambo 1992). 5. Similar questions can be asked about the lack of active reception and application of the ordinary language approach, as developed and exercised through fieldwork by Hallen and Sodipo (1997). Through this different methodological pathway, regional and language-specific epistemologies, and so on, could have been laid out. 6. Other writings included here are Marcel Griaule (1965) on the Dogon sage Ogotemmeli, Claude Sumner’s (1974) collections on Ethiopian philosophy, and Barry Hallen and J. O. Sodipo’s work with Yoruba onisegun healers (1997; orig. 1986). 7. Oruka associates it, like Gyekye’s project too, with ethnophilosophy and sees it caught up in “anthropological fogs” (Oruka 1991, 9), while it is actually focused on applying ordinary language philosophy to the Yoruba context.

30

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

8. Note that Gail Presbey has presented comparative discussions of Oruka and Momoh Presbey, “Oruka and Momoh on techniques of interviewing sages on philosophical topics,” at African Studies Association 60th Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 2017; “The philosophical value of sages” insights: the views of Odera Oruka and C. S. Momoh, Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos, September 2016. 9. See also the ongoing series on “local intellectuals” that was (re)initiated by Karin Barber as regular part of the journal Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. 10. The point about the relevance of fieldwork for African philosophy was made earlier already, but with a different methodological thrust, by Hallen and Sodipo (1997, 6). 11. One could argue, for instance, that Jared Sacks presents us with an alternative vision of what sage philosophy could look like, when not defined by a focus on individuals. The account and vision that he presents is concretely linked to patterns of solidarity, resistance, relationality, and perseverance among a communal group of politically underprivileged in South Africa.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abiodun, Rowland. 2014. Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art. Cambridge University Press. Adamson, Peter. 2019. “Kai Kresse on the Anthropology of Philosophy.” Interview with Kai Kresse, The History of Philosophy Without any Gaps, Africana series #26. https://historyofphilosophy​.net​/anthropology​-philosophy​-kresse Ake, Claude. 1979. Social Science as Imperialism. Ibandan University Press. Anderson, David M. and Douglas H. Johnson, eds. 1995. Revealing Prophets: Prophecy in Eastern African History. London: James Currey. Aworosegbe, Jeremiah. 2018. Claude Ake: The Making of an Organic Intellectual. Pretoria: UNISA Press. ———. 2021. “Academic Freedom, Decolonization and the State in Africa.” InterAsia Cultural Studies 22, no. 3: 275–297. 10.1080/14649373.2021.1962086. Bakari, Mohamed. 2019. The Sage of Moroni: The Intellectual Biography of Sayyid Omar Abdallah, a Forgotten Muslim Public Intellectual. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau. Barber, Karin. 2007. The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics. Cambridge University Press. Basso, Keith. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache. University of New Mexico Press. Bernal, Martin. 1987. Black Athena (The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization). Volume I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Biebuyck, D.P. 2013. Sherungu Muriro: Memories d’un Nyanga. Paris: Geuthner.

Introduction

31

Brenner, Louis. 2004 [1984]. West African Sufi. The Religious Heritage and Spiritual Search of Cerno Bokar Saalif Taal. London: Hurst. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2007 [2000]. Provincializing Europe. Princeton University Press. Ciekawy, D. and G. Bond. 2001. Witchcraft Dialogues: Anthropological & Philosophical Exchanges. Athens: Ohio University Press. Cohen, David William, and E. S. Atieno Odhiambo. 1992. Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power in Africa. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann; London: James Currey. Collins, Randall. 1998. The Sociology of Philosophies. A Global Theory of Intellectual Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Comaroff, Jean and John. 2012. Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa. London: Paradigm. Dabashi, Hamid. 2015. Can Non-Europeans Think?. London: Zed Books. Diagne, S.B. 2008. “Towards an Intellectual History of West Africa: The Meaning of Timbuktu.” In The Meanings of Timbuktu, edited by S. Jeppie and S.B. Diagne. Cape Town: HRSC Press. Diagne, S.B. and J.-L. Amselle. 2020. In Search of Africa(s): Universalism and Decolonial Thought. London: Polity Press. Dikirr, Patrick Maison. 2018. “Philosophic Sagacity: A Re-Colonizing Decolonization?” In Odera Oruka in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Reginald M. J. Oduor, et al., 131–153. Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Diouf, Mamadou. 2017. “Humanities after Apartheid.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 37, no. 1: 117–120. Fabian, Johannes. 1983. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 1996. Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire. Berkeley: University of California Press. Feierman, Steven. 1990. Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Garrison, James. 2018. “The Sage and the Shengren: Confucianism and Henry Odera Oruka’s Sage Philosophy.” In Odera Oruka in the Twenty-first Century, edited by R. Oduor, O. Nyarwath and F. Owakah, 73–98. Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Graness, Anke. 2018. “Intercultural Wisdom Research.” In Odera Oruka in the Twenty-first Century, edited by R. Oduor, O. Nyarwath and F. Owakah, 51–72. Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Graness, A. and K. Kresse, eds. 1997. Sagacious Reasoning: H. Odera Oruka in Memoriam. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Griaule, Marcel. 1965. Conversations with Ogotemmeli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas. Originally Published in 1948 as Dieu d’Eau. Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1975. Première édition, 1948. Grosz-Ngate, Maria. 2020. “Knowledge and Power: Perspectives on the Production and Decolonization of African/ist Knowledges.” African Studies Review 63, no. 4: 689–718.

32

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

Gyekye, Kwame. 1995 [1987]. An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hallen, Barry. 2000. The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful: Discourse about Values in Yoruba Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hallen, Barry and J.O. Sodipo. 1997 [1986]. Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy. Stanford University Press. Hountondji, Paulin. 1983. “Reason and Tradition.” In Philosophy and Cultures, edited by H. Odera Oruka and D. A. Masolo. Nairobi: Bookwise. 132–139. ———. 1990. “Scientific Dependency in Africa Today.” Research in African Literatures 21, no. 3. ———. 1996 [1983]. African Philosophy: Myth and Reality. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. ed. 1997. Endogenous Knowledge. Dakar: CODESRIA. Ibanga, Diana-Abasi. 2017. “Philosophical Sagacity as Conversational Philosophy and Its Significance for the Question of Method in African Philosophy.” Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions (June 2017): 6, no. 1: 69–89. Janz, Bruce. 1998. “Thinking Wisdom: The Hermeneutical Basis of Sage Philosophy.” African Philosophy, 11, no. 1: 57–71. Janzen, John. 1992. Ngoma: Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jeffers, Chike, ed. 2013. Listening to Ourselves: A Multilingual Anthology of African Philosophy. Albany: SUNY University Press. Kalumba, Kibujjo M. 2004. “Sage Philosophy: Its Methodology, Results, Significance, and Future.” In A Companion to African Philosophy, edited by K. Wiredu. New York: Blackwell. 274–281. Kane, Ousmane. 2012. Non-Europhone Intellectuals. Dakar: CODESRIA. Karp, Ivan, and D.A. Masolo, eds. 2000. African Philosophy as Cultural Inquiry. Indiana University Press. Kresse, Kai. 2002. “Towards a Postcolonial Synthesis in African Philosophy: Conceptual Liberation and Reconstructive Self-evaluation in the Work of Okot p’Bitek.” In The Third Way in African Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Kwasi Wiredu, edited by O. Oladipo. Ibadan: Hope Publications. 215–232. ———. 2007. Philosophising in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam and Intellectual Practice on the Swahili Coast. Edinburgh University Press. ———. 2009. “Knowledge and Intellectual Practice in a Swahili Context: ‘Wisdom’ and the Social Dimensions of Knowledge.” In Knowledge in Practice: Expertise and the Transmission of Knowledge, edited by K. Kresse and T. Marchand. Special issue of Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 79, no. 1: 148–169. ———. 2018a [2019]. Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press [Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota]. ———. 2018b. “Reviving Sage Philosophy?.” In Odera Oruka in the Twenty-first Century, edited by R. Oduor, O. Nyarwath and F. Owakah, 41–50. Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.

Introduction

33

Kresse, K. and T. Marchand, eds. 2009. “Knowledge in Practice: Expertise and the Transmission of Knowledge. Special Issue of Africa.” Special issue of Journal of the International African Institute 79, no. 1. Kresse, K. and H. Mwakimako. 2017. Translation of Guidance (Uwongozi) by Sheikh al-Amin Mazrui, Selections from the First Swahili Islamic Newspaper. Edited by K. Kresse. Leiden: Brill. Kresse, K. and H.O. Oruka. 1996. “Interview with Prof. Henry Odera Oruka.” QUEST: Journal for African Philosophy ix, no. 2, vol. x, no. 1: 22–31. (also: appendix in this volume) Kresse, K. and H. Odera Oruka. “Philosophy Must be Made Sagacious.” Interview with Prof. Henry Odera Oruka, Nairobi, 16 August 1995. In Sagacious Reasoning: Henry Odera Oruka in Memoriam, edited by A. Graness and K. Kresse. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. (also appendix in this volume) Lambek, Michael. 1993. Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte. Toronto University Press. Liyai, H.A., O. Nyarwath and F. Owakah. 2018. “Henry Odera Oruka: ‘A Bio-Bibliography’.” In Odera Oruka in the Twenty-first Century, edited by R. Oduor, O. Nyarwath and F. Owakah, 9–28. Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. MacGaffey, Wyatt. 2000. Kongo Political Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Masolo, D.A. 1994. African Philosophy in Search of Identity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 1997. “Decentering the Academy: In Memory of a Friend.” In Sagacious Reasoning: H. Odera Oruka in Memoriam, edited by A. Graness and K. Kresse. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. 223–240. ———. 2016. “African Sage Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. February 22, 2017. https://plato​.stanford​.edu​/entries​/african​-sage/ Mburu, Michael. 2018. “H. Odera Oruka and ‘The Right to a HUMAN Minimum’: A Sagacious Quest for Global Justice.” PhD dissertation, Philosophy, Pittsburgh University. Mitchell, Timothy. 2004. “The Middle East in the Past and Future of Social Science.” In The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines, edited by D. Szanton. Berkely: University of California Press. Momoh, Campbell S. 1979. “An African Conception of Being and the Traditional Problem of Freedom and Determinism.” PhD dissertation, Indiana University. ———. 1985, “African Philosophy: Does It Exist?.” Diogenes 33: 73. Mosima, Pius. 2016. “Philosophic Sagacity and Intercultural Philosophy: Beyond Henry Odera Oruka S.I.” PhD dissertation, University of Tilburg. ———. 2018. “Henry Odera Oruka and the Female Sage.” In African Philosophy and the Epistemic Marginalization of Women, edited by J.O. Chimakonam and L. du Toit. London: Routledge. 22–41. Mudimbe, V.Y. 1988. The Invention of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

34

Kai Kresse and Oriare Nyarwath

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S.J. 2018. Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization (1st ed.). London; New York: Routledge. Ngugi wa Thiong’o. 1986. Decolonising the Mind. London: East African educational Publishers. ———. 2013. “Tongue and Pen: A Challenge to Philosophers from Africa.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 25, no. 2: 158–163. Nyarwath, Oriare. 2009. “An Exposition and Critique of H. Odera Oruka’s Philosophy.” PhD dissertation in Philosophy, University of Nairobi. Ochieng’-Odhiambo, F. 1994. “The Significance of Philosophic Sagacity in African Philosophy.” PhD dissertation, University of Nairobi. Oduor, R., O. Nyarwath and F. Owakah, eds. 2018. Odera Oruka in the Twenty-first Century. Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 2018. Okot p’Bitek. 1970. African Religions in Western Scholarship. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau. ———. 1985. Acholi Proverbs. Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya. ———. 1986. Artist the Ruler: Essays on Art, Culture and Values. Nairobi: Heinemann. Oladipo, Olusegunv, ed. 2002. The Third Way in African Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Kwasi Wiredu. Ibadan: Hope Publications. Oruka, H. Odera. 1985 [1st ed. 1976]. Punishment and Terrorism in Africa. Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau. ———. 1991 [1990]. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy. Nairobi: ACTS Press 1991 [orig. Leiden: Brill 1990]. ———. 1992. Oginga Odinga: His Philosophy and Beliefs. Nairobi: Initiatives. ———. ed. 1994. Philosophy, Humanity and Ecology: Philosophy of Nature and Environmental Earth Ethics. Nairobi: ACTS Press. ———. 1997a [1972]. “Mythologies as African Philosophy.” In Sagacious Reasoning: H. Odera Oruka in Memoriam, edited by A. Graness and K. Kresse. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang [orig. East Africa Journal 1972]. 23–34. ———. 1997b “Philosophy and Humanism in Africa.” In Practical Philosophy: In Search of an Ethical Minimum, edited by H. O. Oruka. Nairobi: East African educational Publishers. 138–145. Oruka, H. Odera, and D. A. Masolo, eds. 1983. In Philosophy and Cultures. Nairobi: Bookwise. Oseghare, Anthony. 1985. “The Relevance of Sagacious Reasoning in African Philosophy.” PhD dissertation, University of Nairobi. Osha, Sanya. 2011. Postethnophilosophy. Amsterdam: Rodopi, Value Inquiry Book Series. Owakah, F. and O. Nyarwath. 2019. “The Future of Sage Philosophy in Africa.” In The Role of Philosophy in the African Context: Traditions, Challenges and Perspectives, edited by S. Okello, 111–125. Rome: Urbania University Press. Park, Peter K. 2013. Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press. Pollock, Sheldon. 2017. “The Columbia Global Humanities Project.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 37, no. 1: 113–116.

Introduction

35

Presbey, Gail. (n.d.). “African Sage Philosophy.” Internet Encyclopedia for Philosophy. https://iep​.utm​.edu​/afr​-sage/ Radin, Paul. 1957 [1927]. Primitive Man as Philosopher. London; New York: D. Appleton and Company. Rettova, Alena. 2007. Afrophone Philosophies: Myth or Reality. Zdenek Susa: Prague. ———. 2013. Chanter L’existence – La poésie de Sando Marteau et ses horizons philosophiques. Cologne: Ruediger Koeppe Verlag. Ricard, Alain. 2000. Ebrahim Hussein: Swahili Theatre and Individualism. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota. Sarr, Felwine, 2019a [2016]. Afrotopia. Berlin: Matthes&Seitz [orig. University of Minnesota Press]. ———. 2019b. “Rewriting the Humanities from Africa: Toward an Ecology of Knowledge.” First annual Berlin Southern Theory Lecture, organized by LeibnizZentrum Moderner Orient and the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universitaet Berlin. Delivered at Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, December 11, 2019. https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=eU3U4ExAsdI. Schielke, Samuli and Mukhtar Saad Shehata. 2021. Shared Margins: An Ethnography with Writers in Alexandria after the Revolution. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. Sumner, Claude. 1974, 1978–80, 1983. Ethiopian Philosophy, vol. 1–5. Addis Ababa University. Van Binsbergen, Wim. 2003. Intercultural Encounters: African and Anthropological Lessons Towards a Philosophy of Interculturality. Berlin: Lit-Verlag. Van Hook, Jay. 1995. “Kenyan Sage Philosophy: A Review and Critique.” Philosophical Forum xxvvii, no. 1: 54–65. Van Norden. 2014. Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto. New York: Columbia University Press. Wiredu, Kwasi. 1996. “The Need for Conceptual Decolonization in African Philosophy.” In Cultural Universals and Particulars: AN African Perspective, edited by K. Wiredu. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 136–144. ———. 1997. “Remembering Oruka.” In Sagacious Reasoning: H. Odera Oruka in Memoriam, edited by A. Graness and K. Kresse. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1997. 139–147. ———. 2004. “Introduction.” In A Companion to African Philosophy, edited by Kwasi Wiredu. London: Blackwell. 1–27.

Chapter 1

Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project Continuities and Discontinuities in the Research Methodology Reginald M. J. Oduor

In 1974, the late University of Nairobi Professor H. Odera Oruka started a research project titled “Thought of Traditional Kenyan Sages,” with the aim of identifying individuals from various ethnic groups in Kenya who were wise in the philosophic, didactic sense, and to write their thought on paper as proof of the existence of authentic African philosophy in the academic sense of the word (Ochieng’-Odhiambo 1997, 97). The project evolved into what is today commonly termed as “sage philosophy.” The history of this project is relatively short, but it has yielded controversies of its own that are addressed by scholars such as Masolo (1994), Ochieng’-Odhiambo (2002, 2006), Azenabor (2009), Graness (2018), Okombo (2018), Dikirr (2018), and Presbey (n.d.). However, the sage philosophy project has been, for the most part, dormant in Kenya for over two decades now, despite its vast potential to contribute to inquiry into indigenous African knowledge. Furthermore, accelerated globalization has resulted in a situation in which it is virtually impossible to meet the kind of philosophic sage originally described by Oruka, namely, one who has not been “polluted” by Western culture. As a result, the task of gathering and distilling authentic indigenous African critical thought through the project is now exponentially more challenging than it was in 1974. Consequently, in this chapter, I seek to accomplish three related tasks. First, I undertake a critical examination of the evolution of Odera Oruka’s conception of an African sage. Second, in the light of the advent of globalization, I present a portrait of a twenty-first-century African sage. Third, I propose several considerations in the design of a model for undertaking research on African sage philosophy in the twenty-first century. 37

38

Reginald M. J. Oduor

THE EVOLUTION OF ORUKA’S CONCEPTION OF AN AFRICAN SAGE Masolo observes: Oruka’s concern with the preservation of indigenous thought suggests that he desired to keep the professional school of philosophers separate from that of the philosophic sages to ensure the preservation of the intellectual integrity, not only of the sages, but of the African heritage as a whole. He was concerned that the language of African professional philosophers was too dependent on the Western conceptual lexicon and that its unchecked imposition on indigenous conceptual schemes might finally contribute to the demise of the latter. (Masolo 2016)

The accuracy of Masolo’s assessment is borne out by Oruka in the following assertions: (. . . ) in a strict sense, a sage has at least two abilities, insight and ethical inspiration. So, a sage is wise; he has insight, but he employs this for the ethical betterment of the community. A philosopher may be a sage and vice versa. But many philosophers do lack the ethical commitment and inspiration found in the sage. . . . Indeed, Pythagoras’ definition of a philosopher as “the lover of wisdom” should have been reserved for a sage. . . . Socrates was wrongly labeled, “philosopher”; he was first and foremost a sage. Socrates used philosophy only as a means to advance his sagacity and expose the hypocrisies of his time. But when all this is said, one must still emphasize that sagacity and philosophy are not incompatible. (Oruka 1991, 9–10)

In what follows below, I seek to show that Oruka’s strategy for maintaining the distinction between the African sage and the professional African philosopher while enhancing cooperation between the two changed over time, as his emphasis on tradition receded and gave way to a concern for the need to address the challenges of living in contemporary globalized societies. Oruka’s Initial Conception of the African Sage as a Person Rooted in Tradition Central to Oruka’s original conception of a sage were the ideas of “traditionality” and “indigeneity.” One of his clearest statements of this conception is found in his famous 1978 essay, later reprinted in his Trends in Contemporary African Philosophy (1990), titled “Four Trends in Current African Philosophy,” in which he wrote: One may maintain that African philosophy in its pure traditional form does not begin and end in the folk thought and consensus: that Africans even without

Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project

39

outside influence are not innocent of logical and dialectical critical inquiry; that literacy is not a necessary condition for philosophical reflection and exposition. On these assumptions one has the possibility to seek for and find a philosophy in traditional Africa without falling into the pitfall of ethno-philosophy. Among the various African peoples one is likely to find rigorous indigenous thinkers. These are men and women (sages) many of whom have not had the benefit of modern education. But they are, nevertheless, critical, independent thinkers who guide their thoughts and judgments by the power of reason and inborn insight rather than by the authority of the communal consensus. They are capable of taking a problem or a concept and offering a rigorous philosophical analysis of it, making clear rationally where they accept or reject the established or communal judgment on the matter. (Oruka 1990, 16)

However, a careful consideration of the excerpt above reveals that Oruka writes as though “traditionality” and “indigeneity” are synonyms, contrary to the facts. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “tradition” as “an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (such as a religious practice or a social custom).” It defines “indigenous” as “produced, growing, living, or occurring naturally in a particular region or environment.” Thus, not every traditional society is indigenous. Indeed, the idea of indigeneity is controversial, because it is very difficult to establish the earliest inhabitants of a territory. In the case of Kenya, for example, all the major ethnic groups are relatively recent migrants, having found smaller communities such as the Ogiek already settled in the area. Elsewhere, Oruka defined “traditional Kenya” as “a Kenya in which life is dominated by beliefs and practices that are not guided by written literature and advanced technology. (. . . ) Traditional Kenya here means most of rural Kenya and some sections of urban Kenya” (Oruka 1991, 58). Consequently, he spelled out his conceptualization of the sage philosophy project at its inception thus: in Kenya at least, most tribal cultures and thought remained intact even after colonialism. There were people whose education and view of life were wholly or mostly rooted in this. It was decided to select a sample from among the people considered wise by their own communities and who were at the same time free from the effect of Western scholarship. Most of them were, therefore, illiterate. [. . .] Such people were genuine representatives of traditional Africa in a modern setting. (Oruka 1991, 18)

Oruka’s cause would have been greatly helped if he had used the term “orate” rather than “illiterate” to describe the evidently highly informed African men and women without Western formal education and the attendant skills of reading and writing. Indeed, “illiteracy” is one more of those Eurocentric concepts, for its users assume that at the core of knowledge is the possession

40

Reginald M. J. Oduor

of the skills of reading and writing characteristic of Western cultures. While “illiteracy” has a pejorative association, “oracy” affirms that it is possible for one who is part of a culture without the practice of reading and writing to be well informed. Thus, Oruka could have pursued his idea, cited above, of a life dominated by beliefs and practices that are not guided by written literature and advanced technology (Oruka 1991, 58), for it acknowledges the possibility of “unwritten literature,” which, to address the contradiction inherent in the phrase, African scholars have often referred to as “orature.” While Oruka claimed that the community was the best judge as to who was a sage, he went on to require the professional philosopher to assess the persons so identified, dismissing anyone who got on the list through the inadequate judgment of the community (Oruka 1991, 3). More significantly, it seems to me that Oruka’s idea of sages as persons who were not significantly influenced by foreign ideas was unrealistic from the beginning. The interaction between the inhabitants of the East African coast and Arab slave traders had been ongoing for more than a millennium before the inception of Oruka’s project. This interaction had a considerable impact on the hinterland which served as the source of the human beings who were thus commoditized. For example, the Kamba of Eastern Kenya, the Kikuyu of Murang’a in central Kenya, and the Wanga of Western Kenya had all interacted with the Arab slave traders. Each of those peoples must have passed on to their neighbors some of the ideas they acquired from such interactions through ordinary exchanges such as intermarriage, trade, and war. Thus, the Wanga and the Luo of Ugenya, Oruka’s people, had many intermarriages. In addition, Western domination over Africa began more than five centuries before Oruka’s sage philosophy project: first through the slave trade, then through colonialism, and by the time of the sage philosophy project, through neocolonialism (Rodney 1973). With Kenya’s political independence in 1963, the government embarked on projects to enhance the colonial government’s endeavors to bring Western modes of public administration, education, commerce, transport, and communication to rural areas. As a result, the impact of long-distance travel, postal mail, the telephone and telegram, the radio and television, the school, and the provincial administration, among others, was greatly felt in rural Kenya. Indeed, while Oruka himself claimed that the sages were free from any significant Western influence, he went on to reluctantly admit to such influence in several portions of his writing. For example, he wrote that “views of the sages on the subject of God oscillate between three parameters: the Christian conception of God, the common cultural idea of God, and personal reflective sagacious thought” (Oruka 1991, 4). However, quite strangely, a few lines later, he stated that “it is clear that foreign values, derived from Christianity and colonial culture, did not have significant influences on the sages” (Oruka 1991, 4).

Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project

41

According to Okoth Okombo, one of the challenges that Oruka ignored was that of verifying the originality of the ideas attributed to the recognized sages. In this regard, he gives the following example: when one of the sages, Ker Paul Mbuya Akoko [. . .], who had grown up as a Christian and later served as a top administrator in the South Nyanza District administration of colonial Kenya, and who attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in the 1950s, talks about religion, it is extremely difficult to determine what may be regarded as his own ideas, and what he might have internalized from his learning experiences, both formal and informal, as a Christian and a highly Westernized Luo man, who is known to have spoken his mother tongue (Dholuo) with a European accent, according to my late father, Okombo Owuato’s testimony. (Okombo 2018, 120)

Indeed, Oruka himself informs us that Paul Mbuya Akoko served as Paramount Chief and also as a member of the East African Legislative Assembly, and that he believed in both Christianity and Luo traditional religion. In 1938, he published Luo Kitgi gi Timbegi (The Nature and Customs of the Luo) (Oruka 1991, 134). On what basis would such a person be considered not to have been significantly influenced by Western thought? Another sage of interest, with regard to significant foreign influence, is Oruka Rang’inya, father to Odera Oruka himself, who Odera Oruka informs us taught himself how to read and write. Oruka Rang’inya offers a rationale for death in words that are strikingly similar to Thomas Hobbes’ description of the state of nature, with Hobbes’ use of “brutish,” “short,” and “nasty,” featuring in it: Now, consider what the resulting situation would have looked like if certain of the original residents [of Rang’inya’s neighborhood] had not been removed by death. Chaos, absolute chaos. I should not wonder that chaos would have been the order of the day with people against each other in perpetual struggle for possession and therefore existence. Life would have been brutish and probably much shorter than it is presently. But death has somehow magnanimously saved humanity from this nasty possibility by the removal of some so that those left may enjoy fuller and more beneficent lives. (Oruka Rang’inya in Oruka 1991, 127; italics mine; see Hobbes 1904)

Nevertheless, some scholars of sage philosophy continued to hold on to Oruka’s original conception of the African sage as a person free from foreign influence decades after Oruka presented it. For instance, as late as 1997, Ochieng’-Odhiambo, one of Oruka’s students, wrote that “unlike the professional school [of African philosophy], philosophic sagacity is an exposition of the beliefs and wisdom of individuals who have not been ‘spoiled’ by the Western educational system” (Ochieng’-Odhiambo 1997, 99). Yet,

42

Reginald M. J. Oduor

Ochieng’-Odhiambo informs us that even James Oluoch, one of the sages who he (Ochieng’-Odhiambo) interviewed in mid-1993, had no formal education, but spoke English relatively well, having learned it when he was serving in the Kenya police force between 1941 and 1950 (Ochieng’-Odhiambo 1997, 111– 115 and Notes 25 and 26). Yet, Ochieng’-Odhiambo does not seem to take cognizance of the fact that one of the most powerful carriers of conceptual culture is language, so that a person who speaks a language cannot be said to be free from significant influence from the culture expressed in that language. From a Reactive to a Proactive Conception of the African Sage In due course, Oruka repeatedly sought to clarify that lack of literacy was not a prerequisite for a person to be regarded as a sage. For example, he wrote: In Africa, people have looked for sages among the non-literate masses. This is not to demonstrate that sagacity is possible only in an illiterate culture. It is mostly because it was not of immediate interest to contact sages from among the Africans endowed with the achievements of Western education. However, sages exist in all cultures and classes. (Oruka 1991, 3; see also Oruka 1991, 37)

He went on to claim that a sage could even be a person with a PhD degree (Oruka 1997, 181). Indeed, Oruka got very close to admitting that his initial emphasis on sages without Western schooling was reactive rather than proactive, as it was meant to counter Eurocentrism rather than to simply advance African intellectual discourse: In carrying out research on sage philosophy, we selected those persons who had never been to modern formal schools, otherwise critics would have attributed this borrowing [sic] from Europeans—from England, France and white America. But when people who have had no modern education produce a philosophy, this philosophy is easier to defend as authentic African philosophy. (Oruka 1997, 182)

This exposes him to a criticism similar to the objection of Hountondji (1983, 34) to ethnophilosophy, namely, that it was written about Africa, but that its authors had a non-African audience in mind. Oruka’s Cosmopolitan Conception of the African Sage As Oruka refined his proactive conception of the African sage, he gradually moved away from an emphasis on tradition to a focus on the culturally

Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project

43

plural character of African societies toward the end of the twentieth century. He now thought of a sage as someone not only well grounded in his or her cultural heritage, but also well acquainted with the current affairs of his or her postcolonial society in particular, and of the global community in general. Thus, he contended that, “all societies use their sages or at least the ideas of their sages to defend and maintain their existence in the world of intersocietal conflict and exploitation. It does not matter that such sages bear the names ‘philosophers’, ‘statesmen’ or ‘warriors’” (Oruka 1991, 3; see also Oruka 1997, 185). He further wrote: A person is a sage in the philosophic sense only to the extent that he is consistently concerned with the fundamental ethical and empirical issues and questions relevant to the society and his ability to offer insightful solutions to some of those issues. (Oruka 1991, 3)

Thus, Oruka now presented a portrait of a sage that could be viewed as cosmopolitan, acknowledging the enduring importance of the African heritage, but transcending the traditional versus modern dichotomy of the earlier years of the sage philosophy project. This revised framework could accommodate the views of sages such as Paul Mbuya Akoko and Oruka Rang’inya, as outlined earlier in this work, far better than Oruka’s original traditionalist conception. Furthermore, a thinker such as Oginga Odinga, the first vice president of Kenya and a man who had a Diploma in Education from Makerere College in Uganda (and who had probably even taken a course in the philosophy of education while there), could be comfortably categorized as a philosophic sage in this framework (see Oruka 1992). The cosmopolitan conception of sage philosophy correctly took cognizance of the interplay between traditional African cultures and Western culture. With regard to the repeated failure of liberal democracy in Africa, Chweya (2002) points out that the African situation is a complex outcome of the confluence of Africa’s indigenous systems of government (many of which are still embedded in the fabric of African societies) and of the colonial social and political order, whose relics continue to have a strong presence in society (see also Eleazu 1977, 31). Portrait of a Twenty-First-Century Luo Sage In order for us to conduct meaningful research into sage philosophy in the twenty-first century, we need to have a clear picture of who it is we would be seeking to interview, or to engage with in participatory observation, or in whatever other way we deem appropriate for our investigations. As I indicated in the previous section, Oruka was emphatic that a sage operates

44

Reginald M. J. Oduor

in a specific sociocultural context. It is therefore crucial that we understand the kind of societies that shape the thinking of contemporary African sages. Nevertheless, generalizations would be most unhelpful in this regard, because what we call Africa is not a monolith, but rather a place of multifaceted plurality—religious, social, and political, among others. Consequently, in the succeeding paragraphs of this section, I focus on the twenty-first-century sociocultural context of the Luo of Kenya. I first outline some of the forces shaping this context, after which I present an intellectual sketch of the sage whose outlook has been significantly molded by this context. My explication is based on my personal experience as a Luo over the past fifty-nine years, thirty-eight of which have been enriched by my formal philosophical studies. Anthropologists might therefore say that my presentation is based on participatory observation. Together with the foreign influences outlined in the previous section (Arab and Western European slave trade, Western European colonialism and neocolonialism introducing Western modes of public administration, education, commerce, transport, and communication in rural areas), Twenty-first century Luo people have grappled with influences from a number of forces, most, if not all, of which can be subsumed under globalization. Globalization in turn has, in large part, been driven by the advent of the information age. First, while in the mid-1960s many African countries became one-party dictatorships, the winds of change from the mid-1980s culminated in a return to multiparty systems of governance. Although in many cases the autocratic regimes have adapted to the new reality by skewing electoral processes in their favor, the robust public debate that has accompanied party pluralism in many countries has greatly increased the stocks in the market of ideas. As such, the gerontocratic nature of precolonial African societies, manipulated by oneparty postcolonial regimes to sustain themselves in power, has been receding at an unprecedented rate. From colonial times to the present, the Luo have contributed significantly to the trajectory of Kenyan politics. At the height of the Cold War, they were led by two charismatic but antagonistic politicians, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and Thomas Joseph Mboya, with communist and capitalist leanings, respectively. At present, being led by Raila Odinga (the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga), James Orengo, Anyang’ Nyong’o, and a host of other politicians, the Luo are actively engaged in the country’s politics. They are trying to come to terms with the events of the controversial 2017 and 2022 election cycles in which they did not manage to capture political power. With all the changes that have taken place in Luo society since the advent of colonialism—accelerated by globalization—many of the Luo today are much more aware of contemporary Kenyan politics than they are of precolonial Luo political thought and practice. Consequently, if we do not learn quickly from the

Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project

45

dwindling number of elderly Luo, who are aware of that heritage, we shall soon lose most of it. Second, Western formal education has continued to spread in Luoland, as the government has endeavored to provide universal access to elementary education, and is now even venturing into universal high-school education. Besides, from the eve of Kenya’s political independence to the 1990s, many young Luos traveled overseas, to Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and various Asian countries in pursuit of higher education: Oruka himself studied, both in Sweden and the United States. They came back having been considerably exposed not only to the foreign ideas associated with the courses they studied, but also with a greater awareness of the cultures of the countries in which they studied. Furthermore, the commercialization of higher education in Kenya from the late 1990s has resulted in the proliferation of public and private universities, enabling many Kenyans who missed out on university education immediately after high school in the 1960s to the late 1990s to register for degree courses. Thus, grandparents, as well as parents and their young adult offspring, are pursuing a university education. While this has lowered the quality of higher education, it has resulted in many more Luos being exposed to ideas from various parts of the world. Third, spiraling urbanization as high-school and college graduates look for employment, coupled with the influx of foreign workers and foreign tourists both in urban and rural areas, has meant that an increasing number of Luos have had significant degrees of interaction with people from other countries and their attendant cultures. Fourth, the proliferation of the personal computer and access to the Internet contributed significantly to exposing the Luo to ideas way beyond their ancestral land. About twelve years ago, I went to my ancestral home with a laptop, confident that very few people would know anything about it. One of the gentlemen who was assisting us with farm work, and who could not speak English, wanted me to share some Luo music with him from my laptop. As we continued to converse about it, he took me aback when he used the term “USB!” In the first decade of this century, cyber cafés sprang up in areas of Luoland where I would never have imagined that they would have patrons. In addition, schools began to invest in computer labs, where students who would otherwise have no experience with computing explored the Internet. Fifth, the exponential increase of mobile phones in Luoland has enabled many people to now communicate with the outside world with relative ease. For more than a decade now, farmers have received information about market trends through their mobile phones. Many people in Luoland regularly hold telephone conversations with their relatives and friends in other parts of Kenya, and in other countries inside and outside Africa.

46

Reginald M. J. Oduor

Sixth, and most importantly, the advent of relatively low-cost smartphones has enabled many Luos to access the Internet much more easily than they did in the heyday of the desktop and laptop computers. They are regularly updating their status on various social media platforms, watching video clips from lands afar, receiving news about their favorite foreign soccer teams, and closely monitoring elections in countries far away. For example, during the two U.S. presidential elections in which Barak Obama was a candidate, many of his Luo co-ethnics in Kenya, and many other Africans across the continent, closely followed the campaigns, debated the issues, and ecstatically watched the celebrations following his victories. The Luo also organized mock U.S. elections prior to the real elections in the United States. All the forces identified above have contributed significantly to the further erosion of traditional Luo culture. This erosion is perhaps most evident in the way in which an increasing number of Luos, both in the rural and urban areas, are unable to speak their language with ease. I have been shocked to find young people in my rural area of Ugenya, not far from Oruka’s birthplace, conversing with one another, and even with their parents, in Kiswahili rather than in Dholuo. As I noted earlier, language is one of the most important carriers of conceptual culture. Therefore, the receding of a language is the receding of the handing down of the conceptual culture of the owners of that language. In light of the foregoing outline of sources of the influence of foreign ideas on contemporary Luo society, the Luo sage of the twenty-first century is likely to have at least three characteristics that must be taken into consideration in the design of the revived sage philosophy project: 1. Having been an adolescent in the 1950s or 1960s, and therefore having been brought up by parents who were themselves raised in a social milieu that was considerably much closer to the precolonial Luo cultural heritage, he or she is likely to have a communalistic intellectual orientation. 2. While he or she is likely to acknowledge the need to preserve traditional Luo culture, the massive penetration of Western culture has made him or her much less aware of the details of precolonial Luo culture than did the sages of the 1970s and 1980s. 3. His or her mode of communication is now much closer to that of the professional philosopher interviewer than was the case with the sages that Oruka and his colleagues interviewed in the 1970s and 1980s. This has the benefit of making it much easier for the interviewer to stimulate the dialogue into pursuing a philosophical issue to greater depth than it was with earlier sages. However, in light of the information age in which the sage now lives, it has the disadvantage of making it more difficult to ascertain the originality of his or her thought, and thereby to distinguish the folk sage from the philosophic one.

Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project

47

Elements of a Research Method for the Revived African Sage Philosophy Project By virtue of the nature of philosophic inquiry, the question of method will continue to be debated for the foreseeable future. Anthony Oseghare emphasized the variety of research methods in philosophy, but also highlighted the constraints on the researcher’s choices among them: If the view that philosophy is not concerned with agreement or consensus of opinion is accepted, then there must exist a diversity of research types and methods. Although the choice of research type and method is a matter for the researcher’s own individual judgment, the nature of the work itself must play the role of a determining factor in the choice. . . . For example, in trying to help explicate the reasonings [sic] of some wise person, there ought to be a combination of theoretical orientation with systematic empirical research methods. (Oseghare 1991, 239)

As part of the continuing struggle for the total liberation of formerly colonized African peoples, African and Africanist philosophers have increasingly challenged the hegemony of Western philosophy. For example, D. A. Masolo correctly observed that African philosophy must have the latitude to determine its own form, content and approach: There is no justifiable reason, [. . .] why one individual or group should try to tailor-make African philosophy by prescribing what ought to be its content, method of reasoning and standards of truth. Like other philosophical systems and traditions, African philosophy must [. . .] be born out of its own peculiar cultural circumstances combined with a living and constructive zeal amongst individual African intellectuals to understand and explain the world around them. (Masolo 1994, 51)

Oruka’s sage philosophy project was a significant contribution to the endeavor to free African philosophy from the clutches of Western philosophical orthodoxy, and to place it on the platform of intercultural dialogue, or, more accurately, polylogue. However, to continue undertaking research in this important field exactly as he left it would be to treat him as the leader of a pseudo-religious cult rather than a trailblazer of an important trend in contemporary African philosophy. I therefore cannot see a better way of honoring his seminal contribution than to identify ways of making the sage philosophy project much more incisive than he left it by refining its research method. Consequently, in this section, I highlight five elements that I consider to be central to the research method of a revived sage philosophy project, namely: the centrality of reflection, the crucial place of indigenous

48

Reginald M. J. Oduor

African languages, the cautious use of interdisciplinary research, the need to refine Oruka’s approach to empirical inquiry, and the need to refrain from subjecting sage philosophy to insularity. The Centrality of Reflection In my view, philosophy is characterized by a methodology that is summed up in the word “reflection,” which literally means “thinking again.” When one is engaged in reflection, one is reconsidering a belief or a judgment which one may have previously accepted without question, or without serious interrogation. Whereas most people simply make judgments about concepts such as “right” and “wrong,” “beauty” and “ugliness,” “justice” and “injustice,” and “truth” and “falsehood,” philosophers seek to understand the meaning and justification of such concepts (Njoroge and Bennaars 1986, 23–27). This is why it has often been said that the sole business of philosophers is the finding of problems that most people take for granted (de Crespigny and Minogue 1976, xiv–xv). In this regard, Bertrand Russell noted that people ask themselves many questions to which science cannot yield an answer. Nor will those who try to think for themselves be willing to trust the ready answers given by people who claim to know. Russell further noted that it is the task of philosophy to explore such questions, and sometimes, to dispose of them (Russell 1959, 8). Reflection finds a variety of expressions, among which are the phenomenological, prescriptive, speculative, analytical, rational, and critical techniques of philosophic inquiry (Oduor 2010).1 It is also important to note that while the method of philosophy is reflection, various cultures have their own distinctive ways of communicating the products of their reflection. Thus, while Western philosophy habitually expresses such products in written prose in the form of books, journal articles, and conference papers, non-Western cultures express them through narrative, poetry, or song. Furthermore, even within a single culture, philosophic products are expressed through a variety of genres. For example, the existentialist school, which is Western through and through, has sometimes expressed its thoughts through aphorisms, dialogues, and plays. Oruka’s insistence that a thinker does not have to go through formal Western education in order to display the ability to engage with issues philosophically is a powerful affirmation of the need to acknowledge the variety of cultural expressions of philosophical thought. At the risk of committing a truism, I must emphasize that sage philosophy is primarily “philosophy,” and secondarily “sage.” If we lose sight of the reflective character of philosophy, we are likely to inquire into the communal consensus of various African peoples (“ethnophilosophy”) in the name

Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project

49

of undertaking research in sage philosophy. As such, the research method employed in sage philosophy must meet the criteria of philosophic inquiry. This is why from a research perspective, Gail Presbey’s definition of sage philosophy is helpful: “[. . .] at the heart of this approach to African philosophy lies the emphasis on academically-trained philosophy students and professors interviewing non-academic wise persons whom Oruka called ‘sages’, and then engaging philosophically with the interview material” (Presbey n.d.). The Crucial Place of Indigenous African Languages In seeking to formulate a research method for sage philosophy, the question of language is inevitable, because ideas are, necessarily, formulated and expressed through language. Kwasi Wiredu’s observations, regarding African philosophy in general, are relevant in this regard: If you learn philosophy in a given language, that is the language in which you naturally philosophize, not just during the learning period but also, all things being equal, for life. But a language, most assuredly, is not conceptually neutral; syntax and vocabulary are apt to suggest definite modes of conceptualization. [. . .] It does not matter if the philosophy learned was African philosophy. If that philosophy was academically formulated in English and articulated therein, the message was already substantially westernized, unless there was a conscious effort toward cross-cultural filtration. (Wiredu 1998, n.p.)

Wiredu goes on to assert that in order to disentangle the conceptual impositions that have historically been made upon African thought forms, a close understanding of the indigenous languages concerned is crucial. For Wiredu, emphasis should be laid on in-depth studies of the traditional philosophies of specific African peoples by researchers who know the languages involved well. He hastens to clarify that this is a policy of emphasis rather than one of exclusion (Wiredu 1998, n.p.). Wiredu emphasizes the importance of asking whether concepts such as Person, Afterlife, God, Spirit, and Morality, which have been the focus of several works in African philosophy in relation to specific African peoples, have unproblematic counterparts in the language and thought of the peoples concerned. Besides, Wiredu asks “how do the African concepts that one has in mind compare and contrast with these concepts as they occur in Western thought or, more strictly, in various brands of Western thought?” (Wiredu 1998, n.p.). Nevertheless, Barry Hallen distinguishes Wiredu’s approach to language in the context of philosophy from that of philosophers such as Theophilus Okere, who, following Hans Gadamer, view language as part and parcel of culture, and therefore seek to understand the meaning of linguistic communication

50

Reginald M. J. Oduor

in the context of the totality of a culture. Hallen refers to the approach of Wiredu, Oruka, and others as “analytic,” while that of the latter he terms “hermeneutic.” Hallen explains that to Gadamer, language is like a living thing—in process and constantly adapting or being adapted to express new ideas, new understandings—rather than an object that can be regarded as if on display in a museum case (Gadamer 1975, 345, cited in Hallen 2002, 60). Hallen further explains that for Gadamer, the language that lives in speech, which takes in all understanding, including that of the textual interpreter, is so much bound up with thinking and interpretation that we have little left if we ignore the actual content of what languages hand down to us and consider only language as a form (Gadamer 1975, 366; cited in Hallen 2002, 60). Hallen goes on to assert: One important concern analytic and hermeneutic philosophers share is the determination to come to terms with the damage done to Africa by the era of colonialism and Western intellectual imperialism. African hermeneutic philosophers appear to be more outspoken in this regard, but there is no question that it is also an underlying and formative influence to the development of African analytic philosophy. (Hallen 2002, 70)

He concludes: The important thing, as far as Africa’s overall philosophical future is concerned, is that analytic and hermeneutic philosophers interact and communicate with one another on the professional or intellectual level. In the Western academy this is not the case, and the split between them is sometimes viewed as irreparable. But with reference to Africa, the two share some concerns and interests that should be explored, hopefully to the mutual benefit of both approaches. (Hallen 2002, 71).

Oruka seems not to have made the distinction between the analytic and hermeneutic schools, for he saw works such as those of Victor Ocaya’s on “Logic within the Acholi language” (see Ocaya 2004) and Kwasi Wiredu’s study of the concept of mind utilizing the Akan language (Wiredu 1995) as constituting what he viewed as “the philosophical study of individual African languages,” and evidence of the early stages of the growth of the hermeneutic school in African philosophy (Oruka 1991, 31). Nevertheless, while African and Africanist philosophers might benefit from the conceptual distinctions associated with the analytic-hermeneutic dichotomy, they have no good reason to approach them in the polarized manner in which they are understood in the West. As Masolo observes, “(. . .) the use of narrative, as the [African] communalistic method, defies and transcends the [Euro-American] analyticcontinental demarcation, thus indicating, even to the Euro-American field

Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project

51

itself, that these two intellectual heritages do not have to be regarded by their heirs as inimically unbridgeable” (Masolo 2009, 59–60). Cautious Use of Interdisciplinary Inquiry Nowadays, an increasing number of scholars are advocating for interdisciplinary research. Some of them are aware of the fact that the fragmentation in scholarship that gained momentum with the advent of Western modernity has resulted in the distortion of knowledge. Oruka was among the advocates of an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship. For example, he saw the potential for cooperation between philosophy and anthropology: There need not be an iron curtain between philosophy and anthropology. Indeed, one way to search for African philosophy is to pass through anthropology. A collaboration between philosophers and anthropologists can be very useful especially if the two groups are conscious of what they know and do not know about each other. (Oruka 1991, 10)

However, interdisciplinary research into sage philosophy is easier spoken about than done. For such an approach to bear fruit, there is a need for deep appreciation among all disciplines concerned with the equality of disciplines, coupled with respect for the diversity of approaches to research represented by these disciplines. While genuine interdisciplinary research might yield useful insights for all involved, false interdisciplinarity is a pretext for the unjustified exaltation of some disciplines above others (Oduor 2016, 12–13). As Austin et  al. (1996, 276) correctly observed, where “interdisciplinary” refers to substantive collaboration among various specialized fields, it requires the investigators to honor the assumptions, history, methods, and the current multiplicity of each discipline. In this age of interdisciplinary collaboration, traditional distinctions between the humanities and the social sciences are in danger of being blurred, as the humanities such as philosophy, fine art, and literature, underfunded and disparaged, are put under pressure to operate with the empirical methodology of the social sciences. Given that subject matter often cuts across disciplines, the most effective strategy for the preservation of the identity of a discipline is the protection of the distinct characteristics of its methodology (Oduor 2010; 2016). Nevertheless, I am convinced that interdisciplinary research into sage philosophy can bear precious fruit. Nevertheless this will happen only if it is preceded by incisive deliberations among scholars from the disciplines represented, with a view to ensuring that they are all aware of what each of them will contribute, and how they will benefit from the venture both individually and collectively.

52

Reginald M. J. Oduor

The Need to Refine Oruka’s Approach to Empirical Inquiry Research into sage philosophy necessarily implies empirical inquiry. This is due to the fact that the only way to access the thoughts of the sages is to interact with them, preferably in their own cultural contexts. However, the researcher into sage philosophy must undertake at least three preparatory tasks before going into the field. First: the researcher into sage philosophy must distinguish the focus of his or her inquiry (reflection) from the kind of inquiries undertaken by the social sciences: my outline in the first subsection of this section, of the central place of reflection in philosophic inquiry, is relevant in this regard. The researcher in sage philosophy ought to focus on capturing discourses that manifest the restlessness, borne by the curiosity that is the driving force of all secondorder inquiries. He or she must avoid the pitfall of being contented with what sounds like informed responses, but which are actually devoid of a critical evaluation of the issues raised. An examination of Oruka’s interviews with various sages reveals that he did not always manage to avoid this very pitfall (see Oruka 1991). Second: the centrality, earlier highlighted, of indigenous African languages to the African sage philosophy project, implies an arduous preparatory phase, in which the researcher, or group of researchers, undertake(s) the kind of evaluation of language associated with both the analytic and hermeneutic schools of African philosophy (see the second subsection in this section above). This would reduce the probability of fieldwork on Western concepts being masqueraded as indigenous African ones. Third: there would be the need to determine whether or not a proposed study on sage philosophy requires an interdisciplinary approach, as outlined in the previous subsection. At the very minimum, this would involve clarification of the concepts intended to serve as a basis for interaction with the sages, and a determination of the adequacy of the research tools chosen to stimulate incisive dialogues with the sages, or the practicability of a plan for a fruitful program of participant observation. The Need to Refrain from Insularity In reaction against the purported universality of the Western academic orthodoxy, the temptation to create an “African corner” is very powerful. Besides, within the “African corner,” scholars of sage philosophy will easily be tempted to view their field as distinct from all others. Yet, falling into these two temptations is a sure way of stunting, if not killing, scholarship on African cultures in general, and on sage philosophy in particular. This is due to the fact that scholarship progresses through “cross-pollination”—a process

Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project

53

through which academics with a variety of experiences enrich each other’s inquiries by interrogating them from a wide range of perspectives. Indeed, it seems to me that part of the reason why sage philosophy has not accomplished as much as it could have is that it has been viewed as just one more aspect of African philosophy, with the result that there has been minimal discussion of its findings in the philosophical literature on logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and axiology. Besides, in view of the almost hegemonic status of Western philosophy with its vast body of literature, a dichotomous frame of mind, which thinks in terms of either “mainstream philosophy” or “sage philosophy,” is bound to perpetuate the gross marginalization of sage philosophy. For example, there is no reason why a dissertation on political philosophy cannot deploy both library research into political theory and empirical inquiry into the thought of sages: the findings of such a study are likely to be significantly enriched by the diverse perspectives considered.

CONCLUSION Despite its largely dormant status in its Kenyan cradle for more than two decades now, the sage philosophy project continues to hold vast potential for research into a largely untapped source of indigenous African knowledge, with special reference to the critical, didactic thought of individuals in various African cultures (see Masolo 2003). While globalization has put African cultures under unprecedented pressure to conform to the Western epistemic orthodoxy, a creative approach to the notion of indigeneity can still ensure that African cultures make their unique contribution to the global discourse on various challenges facing humanity today.

NOTE 1. Some writers, such as Njoroge and Bennaars (1986), refer to these techniques as “methods of philosophical inquiry.” However, I take the view that the philosophical method is one, namely, reflection, and that reflection manifests in various ways, each of which is a technique of philosophic inquiry.

REFERENCES Austin, T. R., A. Rauch, H. Blau, G. Yudice, S. van Den Berg, L. S. Robinson, J. Henkel, T. Murray, M. Schoenfield, V. Traub and M. de Marco Torgovnick. 1996.

54

Reginald M. J. Oduor

“Defining Interdisciplinarity.” PMLA 111, no. 2: 271–282. http://www​.jstor​.org​/ stable​/463106 Azenabor, G. 2009. “Odera Oruka’s Philosophic Sagacity: Problems and Challenges of Conversation Method in African Philosophy.” Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya 1, no. 1: 69–86. https://www​.ajol​.info​/ index​.php​/tp​/article​/view​/46307 Chweya, L. 2002. “Western Modernity, African Indigene, and Political Order: Interrogating the Liberal Democratic Orthodoxy.” In Electoral Politics in Kenya, edited by L. Chweya. Nairobi: Claripress Ltd. De Crespigny, A. and K. Minogue (eds). 1976. Contemporary Political Philosophers. London: Methuen and Co. Dikirr, P. M. 2018. “Philosophic Sagacity: A Re-colonizing De-colonization?” In Odera Oruka in the Twenty-first Century, edited by R. M. J. Oduor, O. Nyarwath and F. E. A. Owakah. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. www​.crvp​.org Eleazu, U. O. 1977. Federalism and Nation-building: The Nigerian Experience 1954–1964. Devon: Arthur H. Stockwell Ltd. Graness, A. 2018. “Inter-cultural Wisdom Research.” In Odera Oruka in the Twentyfirst Century, edited by R. M. J. Oduor, O. Nyarwath and F. E. A. Owakah. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. www​.crvp​.org Hallen, B. 2002. A Short History of African Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hobbes, T. 1904. Leviathan: Or, the Matter, Forme & Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civill. Edited by A. R. Waller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hountondji, P. J. 1983. African Philosophy: Myth and Reality. London: Hutchinson and Co. Ltd. Masolo, D. A. 1994. African Philosophy in Search of Identity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 2003. “Philosophy and Indigenous Knowledge: An African Perspective.” Africa Today 50, no. 2: 21–38. https://www​.jstor​.org​/stable​/4187570 ———. 2009. “Narrative and Experience of Community as Philosophy of Culture: Community as Method and Principle of Thought.” Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya 1, no. 1: 43–68. http://ajol​.info​/index​ .php​/tp ———. 2016. “African Sage Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato​.stanford​.edu​/entries​/african​-sage/ Njoroge, R. J. and G. A. Bennaars. 1986. Philosophy and Education in Africa. Nairobi: Transafrica Press. Ocaya, V. 2004. “Logic within the Acholi Language.” In A Companion to African Philosophy, edited by K. Wiredu. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Ochieng’-Odhiambo, F. 1997. African Philosophy: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Nairobi: Consolata Institute of Philosophy. ———. 2002. “The Evolution of Sagacity: The Three Stages of Odera Oruka’s Philosophy.” Philosophia Africana 5, no. 1: 19–32.

Reviving the African Sage Philosophy Project

55

———. 2006. “The Tripartite in Sagacity.” Philosophia Africana 9, no. 1: 17–34. Oduor, R. M. J. 2010. “Research Methodology in Philosophy within an Interdisciplinary and Commercialised African Context: Guarding against Undue Influence from the Social Sciences.” Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) 2, no. 1: 87–118. http://ajol​.info​/index​.php​/tp ———. 2016. “Concrete Data and Abstract Notions In the Philosophical study of Indigenous African Thought: The Struggle for Identity in the Era of Hegemonic Natural and Social Sciences.” Paper presented at the workshop on “Thinking through Concepts/Thinking through Data: Processes of Mediation and Pitfalls in Academic Dealings with African Lifeworlds” organized by Benedetta Lanfranchi and Benedikt Pontzen at Bayreuth University, Germany, October 21–23, 2016. Okombo, O. 2018. “The Semantics of Sagacity and its Implications for Odera Oruka’s Sage Philosophy.” In Odera Oruka in the Twenty-first Century, edited by R. M. J. Oduor, O. Nyarwath and F. E. A. Owakah. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. www​.crvp​.org Oruka, H. O. 1990. Trends in Contemporary African Philosophy. Nairobi: Shirikon Publishers. ———. 1991 [1990]. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy. Edited by H. O. Oruka. Nairobi: ACTS Press [orig. Leiden: Brill 1990]. ———. 1992. Oginga Odinga: His Philosophy and Beliefs. Nairobi: Initiatives. ———. 1997. “Sage Philosophy Revisited.” In Practical Philosophy: In Search of an Ethical Minimum, edited by H. O. Oruka. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Oseghare, A. S. 1991. “Sage Philosophy: A New Orientation.” In Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy, edited by H. O. Oruka. Nairobi: Acts Press. [Leiden: Brill 1990]. Presbey, G. M. (n.d.) “African Sage Philosophy.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Fieser, J. and B. Dowden. http://www​.iep​.utm​.edu​/afr​-sage/ Rodney, W. 1973. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Dar-Es-Salaam: Tanzanian Publishing House. Russell, B. 1959. Wisdom of the West: A Historical Survey of Western Philosophy in its Social and Political Setting. London: McDonald. Wiredu, K. 1995. “The Concept of Mind.” In Readings in African Philosophy: An Akan Collection, edited by Kwame, S. N.P.: University Press of America. ———. 1998. “Toward Decolonizing African Philosophy and Religion.” African Studies Quarterly: The Online Journal for African Studies 1, no. 4. http://web​ .africa​.ufl​.edu​/asq​/v1​/4​/3​.htm (NB. Link no longer valid).

Chapter 2

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge An Exposition of Sage Philosophy and Oral Literature Projects in Kenya Francis Owakah

For some time now, indigenous knowledge has been the focus of new knowledge frontiers. Mining of this knowledge has continued to challenge producers and users of knowledge alike. In this chapter, I argue that only when the wisdom of society is harvested, shall we remodel society against the norms and parameters beneficial to all. I explore the parallels between the sage philosophy project and oral literature, explaining their similarities of methodology, successes, and possibilities for the future. In this analysis, I seek to achieve two objectives: one, to familiarize the reader with an understanding of sage philosophy (Oruka 1991, 4) and oral literature (Finnegan 2012) projects as avenues for interpreting African indigenous knowledge; and two, to identify some constraints that practitioners face while using this technique in interpreting reality, especially in Africa. Both sage philosophy and the Kenyan oral literature projects make use of the oral tradition technique to interpret knowledge based on traditional epistemic structures and values.1 The study and appreciation of oral tradition are hereby given more importance in understanding the complexity of human cognition. In Africa, as in many other oral cultures, history and traditions have been conveyed largely through rather than in writing. The oral transmission of customs and traditions from one generation to the next lies at the heart of culture and memory. Very often, local languages act as vehicles for the transmission of unique forms of cultural knowledge. Oral traditions that are encoded in these forms of speech can become threatened when elders die or when livelihoods are disrupted (Owakah and Nyarwath 2019, 125). It is within this background that the chapter’s argument is located.

57

58

Francis Owakah

According to Oruka, sage philosophy “consists of expressed thoughts of wise men and women in any given community and it is a way of thinking and explaining the world that fluctuates between popular wisdom and didactic wisdom” (Oruka 1991, 33). Sage philosophy is thus used in African philosophical discourse to refer to the body of thought produced by persons considered wise in African communities. Specifically, sage philosophers are men and women who seek a rational foundation for ideas and concepts used to view, describe, and explain the world by critically examining the justification of those ideas and concepts. The idea of sage philosophy within African philosophical discourse has its origin in the work of the Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka2 whose primary aim was to establish, with evidence, that critical reflection upon themes of fundamental importance has always been the concern of a select few in African societies. These themes involve questions regarding the nature of the Supreme Being, the concept of the person, the meaning of freedom, equality, death, and the belief in the afterlife (Oruka 1991, 2–4). The evidence from this project is contained in Oruka’s seminal work, Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy (Odera 1991).

RATIONALE FOR INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE Throughout history, there have been attempts to portray African literary tradition as purely oral (see Horton and Finnegan 1973; Jan Vansina 1985). There is historical evidence of a written tradition prior to the coming of the printing press.3 This means that for some time now, Africa has been in possession of both written and unwritten traditions, with the former having been relatively unknown until the emergence of writings in European languages. The oral tradition, though dominant, is far less widely known and appreciated. One reason for this is that oral forms of knowledge do not fit neatly into the Western epistemic categories of literate cultures. Second, this knowledge presents difficulties in preserving records, and, to a casual observer, it is easier to overlook than the corresponding written tradition. This makes the concept of an oral tradition unfamiliar to most people brought up in cultures that rely on the written word, which in turn emphasizes the idea of literacy and writing. Contemporary Africa4 finds itself in this dilemma: on the one hand, oral tradition is appreciated, while on the other hand, written tradition is actively promoted (Mazrui 1990, 4–6; Freund 1984, 143ff). Our sons and daughters in Africa look at oral tradition as mired in mystery, crude, and with artistically undeveloped formulations. There are certain definite characteristics of this form of tradition that arise from its oral nature. At the outset, it is important to point to the implications of these characteristics,

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge

59

and how they form a usable past for Africa (Jewsiewicki 1989, 3) by providing a framework for defining indigenous knowledge and technology. A Note on the Features of Oral Traditions Notwithstanding their diversity, oral traditions across cultures share certain characteristics. The most notable one is that oral traditions are rule governed. They use special languages and performance arenas while employing flexible patterns and structures that aid composition, retention, and performance. Significantly, oral traditions make it possible for a society to pass knowledge across generations without having to write. An oral tradition allows people to make sense of the world by employing local techniques that are embedded in their culture, not to mention the fact that it helps people build experience from the past, as well as encouraging people to appreciate different kinds of races or ethnic groups across cultures. The demand to understand African knowledge from an African perspective provided the context within which the 1970s oral literature and sage philosophy projects in Kenya were founded. The Quest for Africanizing Knowledge The 1970s saw African intellectuals grapple with the big question of how to “Africanize” knowledge (Bert 1975, 51–59; Tyler 1969, 171). In 1945, the Belgium priest, Fr Placide Tempels had “discovered” a philosophy among Africans (Okafor 1982, 83–100). The publication in 1945 of his book La Philosophie Bantoue (Tempels 1945, the English translation was published in 1959 as Bantu Philosophy) marked an important moment in African Studies. In this book, Tempels doubts the validity of the various eighteenth-/ nineteenth-century Western definitions and interpretations of the African world. According to Tempels, all Bantu customs and traditions, which conveyed and gave effect to these definitions widely used in the twentieth century (animism, magic, sorcery, dynamism, ancestor worship, etc.), depended upon a single principle, the knowledge of the innermost nature of beings, their ontological principle (Tempels 1959, 3). What is interesting in this finding, was that African thought was not identifiable by any individual in particular. This called for a need to reexamine the assumptions in the Western definition of “Africa” (Oruka 1990, iv–v). There was a growing feeling that Africa was an experimental ground for Western epistemologies and, by extension, their values systems that informed all other institutions, including technologies, politics, religion, literature, and morality. Disciplines were reshaped to reflect African epistemologies and realities under the guidance of men and women trained in Western knowledge. Among these are Paulin Hountondji,5 who moved from France to Zaire before settling at the National

60

Francis Owakah

University of Benin in Cotonou, in 1974, Kwasi Wiredu,6 Odera Oruka (Liyai et al. 2018, 9ff; Nyarwath 2012, iii–v), and Okot p’Bitek,7 to name but a few. The setting up of Western-type Universities in Africa on the eve of independence marked a turning point in which African scholars became aware of the need to recover an African initiative in interpreting reality. New faculties were established with a full commitment to the Africanization of learning through an African faculty trained in Europe and the United States. This training was made possible by individuals with a background in colonial or missionary ideologies. Prior to this, the aim of European missionaries was not only to spread Christianity but to use Christianity as a vehicle for spreading Western values. This was to prepare Africa for the eventual imperialist occupation. Missionaries thus identified this, as their duty to civilize Africans. This duty became known as “the White Man's Burden” (see Kodila-Tedika et al. 2016, 3), used in reference to the alleged duty of white colonizers to care for nonwhite indigenous subjects in their colonial possessions. Remember in history, we learn of French’s “noblesse oblige,” which loosely translates to the unwritten obligation of people from a noble ancestry to act honorably and generously to others. Between 1880 and 1935, the African continent experienced the onset of European colonialism resulting in the almost complete partition of the continent. By around 1914, with the exceptions of Liberia and Ethiopia, the entire African continent was under the colonial influence as colonial powers had artificially divided the continent without recourse to cultural considerations. Thus, many Africans were educated in this new knowledge that was Western in content and actively participated in independence movements that were characterized by concrete strategies and increasingly active resistance to the same knowledge systems they were trained in. Ironically, it is this faculty that assumed leadership positions in African universities, established in various African countries. To a greater degree, they assumed the alleged duty to care for the uneducated and uncivilized subjects in their newly independent countries. The duty to act honorably and generously to others became theirs. To others, this knowledge had to be resisted, or at worst Africanized. In Nigeria, Professor Peter Oluwambe Bodunrin moved from Grinnel College Iowa,8 USA, in 1974 to become the first Head of Department at the Philosophy University of Ibadan in the 1974/75 academic period.9 In Ghana, after graduating from the University of Ghana Legon in 1958, Kwasi Wiredu proceeded to the University College, Oxford where he read for his bachelor’s in philosophy. Upon graduating in 1960, he was appointed to a teaching post at the University College of North Staffordshire where he stayed for a year. He returned to Ghana, where he accepted a teaching post in philosophy at the University of Ghana Legon in 1961, where he stayed for twenty-three

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge

61

years, during which time he became the first Head of the Department and the professor.10 In East Africa, the year 1970 is important. In this year, the University of East Africa was split into three independent universities: the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the University of Nairobi in Kenya, and Makerere University, in Uganda.11 In Tanzania at Dar es Salaam University, the idea of an Africanization of knowledge was guided by Ujamaa, the Socialist ideology adopted by Julius Nyerere at independence (See Nyerere 1968; Mohiddin 1981). At the forefront were the Department of History and Political Science, in which African historiography and African studies were given prominence (Brizuela-García 2006, 85–10). In Kenya, the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies was established in 1969. In its earlier years, the composition of the academic staff was predominantly expatriate, but since the 1980s, a strong and successful program of Africanization has been implemented.12 The first African-trained philosophers in the department were Henry Odera Oruka and Joseph Nyasani who joined the department1970 (Nyarwath 2009, 13). In 1980, the two disciplines separated into the Department of Philosophy under Odera Oruka, and the Department of Religious Studies. This allowed the discipline of philosophy to diversify and flourish (Liyai et al. 2018, 11). Under the leadership of priests and lay theologians, the department had little time for African-based knowledge (African Philosophy), because of the assumption that Africans did not have the capacity to think logically and rationally [sic]. Oruka writes “Neil,” the then chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, “had little time for African Philosophy, and harbored doubt about the ability of Africans to think logically” (Oruka 1990, 126–127). “Once in 1971,” Oruka continues, Neil “had inquired about the number of students I had in my Introductory Logic class . . . not so many. . . . There is a belief among students that here that Logic is a difficult subject, so quiet a number steer off” “Neil responded with vigor . . . the belief is well founded and I completely agree with them [students]” (Oruka 1990, 126–127). This was unfounded but was a wake-up call for the need to focus on African knowledge. The University of Nairobi, being the only institution of higher learning in Kenya, embarked on a program of Africanizing knowledge. The Department of History began teaching African history as opposed to European history in Africa. Under the leadership of Bethwell Allan Ogot, the department sought “to tell the story of a past so as to portray an inevitable destiny is, for humankind, a need as universal as tool-making. To that extent, we may say that a human being is, by nature, historicus” (Ogot 2005, 1). In the former Department of English, at the University of Nairobi now renamed as the Department of Literature, a revolution was in the offing.

62

Francis Owakah

Between 1967 and 1977, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was promoted to senior lecturer and became the chairman, Department of Literature. This period ushered in a revolution of the literature curriculum at the university stemming from a document that rarely makes history, a departmental memo (Sicherman 1998, 129–148). Dated October 24, 1968, and headed “On the Abolition of the English Department,” the memo was written as a rebellion against the cultural arrogance of the West and demanded nothing less than a “total inversion of colonial literary values” (Sicherman 1998, 1). The author was Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo. The newly formed Department of Literature began teaching literature based on the assumption of pluralism of cultures and literature. The renamed department proposed a curriculum based on the premise “that knowing oneself and one’s environment was the correct basis of absorbing the world” (Ngũgĩ 1992, 9). East African literature and orature13 became the primary focus of studies and this gave meaning and significance to local symbolisms and events.14 Beginning in 1977, under the leadership of Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo,15 the department embarked on a project that sought to liberate the genre of theatre and its creative production process from what was seen to be “the general bourgeois education system” (Ngũgĩ 1994, 57–59), by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances. His project sought to “demystify” the theatrical process, and to avoid the “process of alienation [that] produces a gallery of active stars and an undifferentiated mass of grateful admirers” (Ibid), which, according to Ngũgĩ, encourages passivity in “ordinary people” (Ibid). Religion is a very emotive aspect of human life. Mbiti in Africans Religions and Philosophy John (Mbiti 1969) argues that Africans are notoriously religious since spirituality and relations with spirits are an integral part of everyday life (Mbiti 1969, 1). Perhaps, the sphere of African culture that required urgent rectification was the religion. The cultural crises that had visited Africa did spare African Traditional Religion (ATR).16 It was portrayed as primitive, and Africans as pagans, desirous of civilization, particularly the Christian version propagated through Western missionary activities. From this perspective, for the assumed African religious backwardness, Christ was the answer! In short, ATR was, just like other historically characteristic aspects of Africa, mistreated and misrepresented in Western scholarship (p’Bitek 1970, 25–30; p’Bitek 1986, 56ff, 103ff). The Department of Religious Studies thus introduced the Africanization process by seeking to expose and explain traditional African religious experiences and how these could be used in interpreting Christianity in Africa, as well as the impact of ATR on the liberation of Africa (p’Bitek 1986, 40ff). In the 1970s sage philosophy project, Odera Oruka was walking a path that had begun from earlier efforts. This project which Oruka used as a vehicle for Africanizing knowledge and philosophy, in particular, stood in

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge

63

contradistinction against three negative claims: the claim of Africa’s philosophical unanimity; the claim that philosophy must be written; and, the claim that African sages can be anything but philosophical (Oruka 1991, 1). This is what has come to be known as African sage philosophy, one among the six trends or theories that seek to explain philosophy in Africa (Oruka 1990, 13; Oruka 1991, 15–17, 33; Owakah and Nyarwath 2019, 115–117). Thus, sage philosophy in African philosophical discourse is the name given to the body of thoughts produced by persons considered wise in African communities, but more specifically those who seek a rational foundation for ideas and concepts used to describe and view the world by critically examining the justification of those. Oruka defines sage philosophy as “the expressed thoughts of wise men and women in any given community and a way of thinking and explaining the world that fluctuates between popular wisdom and didactic wisdom” (Oruka 1991, 33). This was and continues to be important for Africanizing knowledge for two reasons: first, it relies on individuals whose thinking and interpretations were not crucially shaped by Western education and Christianity, and, second, it relies entirely on the community knowledge to advance a philosophy for Africa (Oruka 1991, 33; Owakah 2002, 1243–1265)17 Thus, sage philosophy functions to expose and interrogate knowledge that is attributable to wise men and women based within vivid social communities, and at the same time regarded to be philosophically significant for both its content and its critical approach to the sustenance and growth of knowledge at the communal level. The general goal of this project was to liberate African philosophy from ethnological and racial prejudices that were dominant at the time, and to provide a clear differentiation between philosophy and myth, proverbs or folk wisdom, among others. The Search for a Method The greatest challenge however was methodological. For instance, history in the West was based on written documents, and these were, at the time, seen to exist only in form of the outcomes of external (largely: European) activities in Africa. Philosophy was based on a historical account of the departure of Ancient Greeks from mythology, in search of the rare gem they found as wisdom. In religious studies, there were no uniting features of a history of deities, officials, and rituals in traditional Africa as there were laid down in the Bible and Quran. In this context, the greatest break came with the acceptance and refinement of the methodology of oral traditions as a means of capturing African voices from the past. This was made possible through the influence of Jan Vansina’s book Oral Traditions as History (Vansina 1959, English ed. 1965).

64

Francis Owakah

This method treated traditions as narratives which were then later refined by scholars who defined, classified, and compared them to both primary written documents, and as well, as representations of secondary interpretations. According to Oruka, the strict dichotomy between the written and the unwritten should not overburden the African philosopher in their efforts of building philosophy in Africa. After all, “thought can be expressed in writing or as unwritten and arguments associated with some individuals” (Oruka 1991). Thus, what is written can be expressed orally, and what is oral can be expressed in writing. What was of concern to Oruka, however, was the distinction between the philosophic sage and the folk sage. For Oruka, research in sage philosophy should move from the assumption “that there are, in almost every society, certain statements which are wise . . . while others are common place assertions” (Oruka 1991, 35). Of importance here is the fact that when seeking philosophy in the community, it should be remembered that what is ordinarily referred to as “communally wise statements” are initially attributable to individuals. For Oruka, the second step is to distinguish between three types of statements: wise statements, statements that express commonplace beliefs, and, foolish statements (Oruka 1991, 35). This led Oruka to solving and resting the question of method in the project of Africanizing knowledge. His proposal was to understand the role of the folk sage and philosophic sage in knowledge production. The folk sage, who was well informed and with very educative thoughts, fails to go beyond the celebrated (or at least commonly accepted) folk wisdom. This remains the knowledge of a community historian. The philosophic sage however requires not only the knowledge of the folk sage, but goes beyond it, by making independent assessments, reflecting on, and rationalizing, what everyone in the community takes for granted (Oruka 1991, 35). This discovery and distinction became the launching pad for independent projects on how indigenous knowledge can be infused into understanding and interpreting reality in Africa and anywhere in the world. We argue that the various expositions provided by science, philosophy, and religion are but the works of social geniuses referred to as sages. In philosophy, this was sage philosophy. In literature, this was called oral literature but carried out through the Kenya Oral Literature project.18 Whereas the process of Africanization fronted through ATR was aimed at an exposition of African traditional religious experiences, it ended up negotiating a place for Christianity within African culture or, as Okot p’Bitek calls it, Africanizing Christianity (p’Bitek 1970, 40–41). To these scholars, Christianity had to be accommodated in Africa. It is in this wake that we take note of D. A Masolo’s observation: by the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies, Anglophone Africa was .  .  . basking in the positive reception of Mbiti’s African Religions and

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge

65

Philosophy (Mbiti 1969) of the then five-year old translation of Marcel Griaule’s Conversations with Ogottomemli (Griaule 1965), and Placide Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy. (Tempels 1959)

Masolo is pointing out, that these texts were based on the extraction of knowledge from indigenous communities and the communities’ view of the cosmos. He is making the additional observation, that the authors’ interpretations seemed very popular but for diverse reasons. One, this popularity was based on the skeptical position the West had about African’s capacity to think outside the purview of the community. Two, and more importantly, was that these texts converged on the claim that “Africa’s mode of thought was grounded on their mythical representation of reality” (Masolo 1997, 2). For Oruka, such thinking was the trigger to his work on the sage philosophy project. Without abstract thinking, it is difficult if not impossible to craft an architecture of myth that justifies the concrete in a manner that can communicate the link between “the idea” and reality as we perceive that which we relate to concretely. Introducing Sage Philosophy In Africa, sage philosophy focuses on the views of indigenous men and women who exhibit some level of independent thinking that transcends the social knowledge resource. Oruka’s assumption here has been that if well harnessed, knowledge from these individuals can be used to explain the fundamentals of cultural values, social ideals, institutions, and technologies. This thinking has controversially drawn in protagonists who support the use of indigenous knowledge as a springboard to development, and those who hold the opinion that African indigenous knowledge is outdated and should be let go. Henry Odera Oruka sought to demonstrate the former. Oruka does not just stop at the definition of sage philosophy (Oruka 1991, 23). He goes on to isolate and create a distinction between what he refers to as popular wisdom which includes “well known communal maxims, aphorisms, and general common sense truths” (Oruka 1991, 33, 44). He also brackets didactic wisdom as the “expounded wisdom, and rational thoughts of some given individuals within a community” (Oruka 1991, 33) This in essence means that a community, at any stage in its evolution not only develops and defines its forms of knowledge structures and techniques for validation but that it also defines social processes, technology, and human existential conditions. We return to this later. The gist of the sage philosophy project lies in the claim that though there may not have been professional thinkers in the academic sense (Presbey 2002, 76–88), traditional Africa had men and women of wisdom who

66

Francis Owakah

fulfilled both the professional and social functions associated with philosophy. In this, I include the prescriptive and analytic functions of philosophy. Here my mind has taken me to my graduate classes with Professor Odera Oruka, and he loved emphasizing both the theoretical and practical nature of philosophy. That, in general, philosophy in speculative form attempts to find coherence in the realm of thought and experiences. But, whereas prescriptive philosophy seeks to establish standards for assessing values, and appraising aesthetical good, analytic philosophy makes use of logical techniques to attain conceptual clarity. Prescriptive philosophy thus seeks to explain how the world is. Founded on metaphysical principles, it rejects sensory evidence and instead seeks to use pure reason to say how the world should logically look like. The takeaway here is that philosophers should not shun science and that philosophy should be consistent with the success of modern science (Oruka 1990, 4–5). Since sagacity derives from the word “sage” (a profoundly wise person or famous for, or venerated (at times feared) for the possession of wisdom and judgment), the absence of a professional discipline called “philosophy” in the non-Westernized traditional African societies should not as such be used as a hindrance and basis of denying the title philosopher to the individuals known in native African cultures. Remember, they are not just venerated for the possession of wisdom, but also fulfill the equivalent of “professional” and social functions comparable to those performed by philosophers as seen in the history of the discipline. Understanding this will help in our comparative efforts. The reason being that just like the oral literature project, sage philosophy aimed at, and focused on, African knowledge in its indigenous form, where it hoped to harness wisdom both at the individual and social level. This was done through the well-known aims as explained by Odera Oruka. Aims of Sage Philosophy In pioneering a project to Africanize knowledge, Oruka had in mind a number of aims. The overall goal of this project was to assert the rational nature of Africans, namely, that Africans are capable of producing knowledge that is critical, reflective, and following logical inquiry (Oruka 1990, 18). This was emphasized in response and opposition to the long-standing claim that Africa was a place of philosophical unanimity (Tempels 1959, 24), the claim that philosophy must be written (Tempels 1959, 24; Hegel 1970, 91–99; Oruka 1991, 8; Hountondji 1983, 47–49), and the claim that African sages can be anything but philosophical (Oruka 1990, 16). Specifically, Oruka aimed at seeking out and identifying individuals in Kenya (and in the whole of Africa), who are wise in the didactic sense, and thereafter he put their thoughts into writing. This was to demonstrate the

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge

67

existence of didactic-thinking individuals in society who make valuable statements that are worth the attention of philosophy (Oruka 1991, xvii, 36). These sages not only “know the cardinal beliefs and wisdoms of the community” (Oruka 1991, 34) but also offer “independent and critical assessment to what the people in the community know and take for granted” (emphases mine) (Ibid). It is important to understand that the primary task of the sage philosophy project at this level was that through field interviews and research, the researcher was able to access information from individuals who are renowned for their wisdom in society. This would then form a basis for further reflection, either by professional philosophers or users of technology (Ibid xvii). The second aim of sage philosophy was to mediate between communally bound ethnophilosophy on the one hand, and academic (and largely Western) professional philosophy, on the other. Oruka was highly conscious of the vicious war between professional philosophers in Africa and proponents of ethnophilosophy (Hountondji 1983, 48–50). This war, he feared, if not managed well, would destroy all efforts made in building philosophy in Africa. This he acknowledges when he cautions that the concerns of sage philosophy “are not really to claim that sagacity is by definition philosophy, but to look for philosophy or traces of philosophy in traditional Africa” (Oruka 1991, 41). Gail Presbey amplifies this point while quoting Oruka. She points out that sage philosophy will be of no or little scientific and philosophical value in the modern sense. And this is not because African traditions in particular offer no contribution to science or philosophy in the modern sense, but because ethnological beliefs in any society are not much of a contribution to the current level of scientific and philosophical thoughts. (Presbey 1997, 2)

Overall, this function creates a confluence where the sage and professional philosopher can interact without mutual suspicion, because it lessens the tensions between the two and allows for tolerance toward the other. Oruka’s third aim was to record the views of various sages with the intention of coming up with a systematized internal analysis of Kenyan national culture. Once identified and analyzed, these cultural fundamentals could be replicated through the same methodology across Africa, leading to the vision of a systematized analysis of African culture. The idea of an overarching African culture is controversial and has been questioned by many (e.g., Wiredu 1980, i–iv; Fanon 1961, 167ff). What is clear, and not in dispute, is that African cultures are diverse and rich. They not only vary from one country to another but also vary within countries. The culture of each ethnic group centers on family and can be found in each group’s art, music, and oral literature. Throughout Africa, the people speak a variety of languages, practice numerous religions, reside in various types of dwellings, and have

68

Francis Owakah

different occupations and commercial activities all these are dictated by the unique environment they find themselves in (Fanon 1961, 174). Strangely, what is common to most African cultures and expressed in most African languages, is the expression of “the community” as a defining standard for the individual: that a person is a person through other people/persons. In Kiswahili, this is rendered as “mtu ni watu.” In Kiluyia, omundu nabandu. In Xhosa, “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.” In Dholuo ndano en gi. Loosely translated across all the languages, Luluyia, isiZulu, and Dholuo languages the basic message is: “I am because we are, and, since we are, therefore, I am.” In the absence of cultural fundamentals that spread across cultures in Kenya, and Africa for that matter, this idea of having a meaning that gives significance to the definition and relates the individual to the group would be lost. Finally, through this project, Oruka sought to assist African intellectuals in researching on, and in understanding, tabulating, and exposing African culture as it is, without distortions occasioned by Western epistemological schemes. There are two points to note here: First, it is Western scholars and interpreters who first brought into academic discourse the nature of African culture. In doing this there was no available alternative epistemic scheme by which this culture could be understood, described, and evaluated, save Western epistemology. Second, this created a dilemma for African intellectuals: either to accept these interpretations or reject and erect an alternative scheme of interpretation. By proposing that research on African knowledge be commissioned through sage philosophy, Oruka sought to avail this knowledge to bear on the creation of meaning and significance by the newly trained African intellectuals some of whom were by virtue of their training detached from African culture. Sagacious thought would thus allow these African intellectuals to think and reflect on the demands of the socioeconomic requirements within the community especially with regard to social conditions of poverty, hygiene, illiteracy, famine, and development, among others. Sagacity’s role here is to demonstrate that genuine development must be pursued in the light of the concrete circumstances of the community, especially in the process of designing and implementing development policies and programs. This needs a context and an explanation. Is Oruka saying that these intellectuals should be philosophers or are wise? Of course not! This role is confined to exposition. For Oruka “wisdom . . . is a quality which enables a person to utilize knowledge of his [sic] traditions and human nature in general for the purpose of making mature and objective judgment about life and human relations” (Oruka 1990, 61–62). For Oruka, because the sages understood their people’s culture and the nature of their problems this would benefit the intellectual in appreciating African culture by avoiding the pitfalls of their acquired knowledge and skills to benchmark their interpretation of African cultures.

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge

69

Reflections on the Project Sage Philosophy Many will agree that in Oruka’s mind, a sage is a person who is exceptionally wise. So what is the context of this wisdom? A philosophical sage (not a “folk sage”) should by any means possible play the role of the philosopher. They should be evaluating and formulating normative visions of conditions under which people should live; the kind of institutions that make life bearable; the kind of values that one would wish would last forever; and the kind of leadership desirable for the society that make the realization of a people’s goals possible (Oruka 1990, xvii–xviii). In addition to exceptional wisdom, Henry Odera Oruka suggested a second criterion for sagacity. A true sage, he argues, must habitually use the gift of wisdom for the ethical betterment of his or her community (Graness and Kresse 1997, 11–18). Consequently, he or she has to be consistently concerned with the ethical and empirical problems arising in his or her community with the intention of finding insightful solutions to them. In Oruka’s view, the second criterion is what distinguishes a sage from sophists. I agree. This is the point at which sage philosophy meets the oral literature project. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS The importance of oral culture and tradition in Africa and the recent dominance of European languages through colonialism, among other factors, have led to the misconception that the languages of Africa have either no written form or have been put to writing only very recently. The history of Africa has thus tended to rely on written evidence. There is evidence that Africans had their own particular systems of recording past events, situations, and traditions before Europeans started writing about it. Consequently, non-African historians used written documentation to unfairly chart the history of the continent. Thus, the claim that Africa did not have a tradition of writing is not entirely true. There are claims that Africa has the world’s oldest and largest collection of ancient writing systems (See Hayward and Hassan 1981, 551; Woodward and Lewis 1998; Unseth 2011, 23–32).19 The evidence dates to prehistoric times and can be found in multiple regions of the continent. There are various other writing systems native to West Africa and Central Africa. The Bamum system of pictographic writing was invented in the late nineteenth century by Sultan Njoya Ibrahim, for writing the Bamun language, in what is now Cameroon. It quickly developed into a syllabary (DeLancey et al. 2010, 286; Delancey 2012, 177; Mathew 2012, 6, 92). It is thus not in dispute that Africa possesses some form of written and unwritten traditions. The former was relatively less used, and hence more unfamiliar to

70

Francis Owakah

commentators on Africa. The unwritten forms, however, are widely known and appreciated. Such forms do not fit neatly into the familiar categories of literate cultures. They are harder to record and present, and, for a superficial observer, they are easier to overlook than the corresponding written material. In Kenya, just like the sage philosophy project and partly in parallel to it, the Department of Literature at the University of Nairobi initiated a project in the 1970s known as Kenya Oral Literature (KOLA) (Oruka 1990, 126–127). It served the purpose of harnessing the unwritten materials in a bid to reconstruct an African episteme. These materials are found in both tangible20 and intangible cultures.21 Eventually, this should be documented for posterity to appreciate this knowledge, skills, and practices, their symbolisms, significance, implication, and justification. This knowledge should be appreciated and find a residence in the mind of the people, both young and old. An exploration of indigenous knowledge systems reveals many gains in attempts to systematically Africanize knowledge. Much has been documented, and concepts with social relevance analyzed. However, much remains to be done. I propose here that there is a need to cover a wider scope than originally envisaged, by bringing more disciplines on board for interdisciplinary cooperation. This will probably raise the credibility threshold, in that the result could be more acceptable in other genres not covered by the original projects. Literature can concentrate on the analysis of meaning and the implications of oral narratives, songs, and stories, in terms of dominant themes. This could include an understanding of what these narratives tell us about what people know and how this knowledge is being utilized. Philosophy could seek how best to harness the knowledge system in a manner that will influence issues in society by generating further concepts for analysis. One could for example look at the meaning and extent of the application of the various concepts generated from the African knowledge system and their validation. This validation could entail seeking conditions for human happiness; the analysis of and application of concepts to life. But one could also be interested in the logical relationships between the concepts and various social institutions. Religious studies could bring on board ways of conceiving the deity and the meaning of the sacred. One could then use this to engage and find out where the sacred meets the profane. The resultant conversation could then give insights into the possibilities of comparing religious experiences across world culture. Subsequently then, one would be able to identify convergent beliefs and practices, separate from those that are culture specific. Political science could concern itself with indigenous institutions of governance and how these could feed into (and underpin, or transform) the current colonially installed modern systems and institutions of governance in Africa.

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge

71

This could include the question of how power relates to authority and the concept of rights. Finally, the discipline of history could play the role of linking the present to the future, by drawing and evaluating lessons learned: through the sociological history of a people, the use of concepts and their historical experiences, relevance, and significance. The sage philosophy and oral literature projects have one basic assumption in common: that there is indigenous knowledge in Africa, which, if harnessed, would go a long way in influencing the lives of the people in every facet. This knowledge lies in the custody of men and women who could produce interpretations that surpass the common perceptions and interpretations. Finally, the future for Africa’s participation in the global community lies in exploiting this knowledge resource, which enhances understanding of the African lifeworlds and their relationships and relevance to global epistemologies. Understanding this notion of relevance takes into account that people throughout the world may find African historical experiences illuminating and enriching. From this perspective, we should aim at producing an epistemic paradigm that recognizes and incorporates African history, by promoting understandings of the past that stimulate self-discovery among different societies throughout the globe.

NOTES 1. By this is meant the structure of knowledge and justification in which value is attached to cognitive processes such as true beliefs, justified beliefs, knowledge, and understanding. The context here is informed by foundational epistemology that looks at knowledge in a “scientific” endeavor. The concern here is limited to the cognitive successes and true beliefs concerning claims within local geography that help in achieving progress; defining medicine; determining weather patterns among others. 2. Henry Odera Oruka (1944–1995) is a Kenyan philosopher best known for introducing the idea of sage philosophy within African philosophical discourse, a project started in the 1970s with the purpose of seeking out, identifying, and recording the ideas of the indigenous thinkers in traditional African communities with the aim of to preserving indigenous knowledge. 3. Around the thirteenth century, the earliest written literary work of Ethiopia was composed in the Ge’ez language. The Kebra nagast (Glory of Kings), written from 1314 to 1322, relates to the birth of Menelik, the son of Solomon. 4. Postcolonial Africa is one in which Western culture, science, and technology has largely influenced the manner of living and acting. Here, westernization is equaled to modernization. This provides the context for philosophical commentaries about Africa and her peoples.

72

Francis Owakah

5. Paulin Hountondji began his academic career in France, teaching at the University of Besançon from 1967 to 1970. His fundamental concern, however, was not merely to teach philosophy but to introduce to Africa an understanding of philosophy appropriate to problems of development. He thus returned to Africa, first teaching in Zaire at the National University in Lubumbashi before moving to the National University of Benin in Cotonou in 1974. 6. From as early as the 1970s, Kwasi Wiredu has been involved in a project he terms “Conceptual Decolonization” in contemporary African system of thought. In this project, Wiredu advocates a reexamination of current African epistemic formations for two reasons; first, to subvert unsavory aspects of tribal culture embedded in modern African thought, so as to make that thought more viable. Second, to dislodge unnecessary Western epistemologies that are to be found in African philosophical practices. 7. Okot p’Bitek was born in Gulu in the grasslands of North Uganda. His father Jebedayo Opi was a school teacher. His mother was a schoolteacher, and a traditional singer, storyteller and dancer mother. Okot attended Gulu High School and King’s College, Budo, Okot to Britain where he obtained his Bachelor of Education degree before moving to the University of Wales, Aberystwyth for his law degree, after which he took Bachelor of Letters degree in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. After this, Okot lost his commitment to Christianity—a move that influenced his scholarship greatly and turned him into a scholar of African tradition. He lost favor with the Ugandan government that sent him on teaching missions outside Uganda. He took up teaching position in Kenya at the then newly founded Institute of African Studies (IAS) at the University of Nairobi, among other activities. 8. https://blerf​.org​/index​.php​/biography​/bodunrin​-professor​-peter​-oluwambe/ 9. http://www​.facultyofartsui​.org​/department​/philosophy 10. https://en​.wikipedia​.org​/wiki​/Kwasi​_Wiredu https://www​.ug​.edu​.gh​/phcl/ 11. University of Nairobi, Academic calendar and Almanac 2013–2014, p. 54. 12. https://philosophy​.uonbi​.ac​.ke​/About​-COllege​-of​-Humanities​-and​-Social​ -Sciences 13. Defined in the departmental syllabus as that which is communicated orally rather than in writing or simply the oral equivalent of literature in form of collection of traditional folk songs, stories, among others. 14. In 1972, Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o successfully pushed for renaming the Department of English at the University of Nairobi to Department of Literature becoming its first chairman. 15. Ngugi’s collaborators were Henry Owuor-Anyumba (one of the earliest leading proponents and researcher in oral literatures in Kenyan. Owuor-Anyumba was Ngũgĩ’s colleague and lecturer in the Department of Literature at the University of Nairobi) and Taban Lo Liyong (a famous Acholi writer from Uganda), both of the Institute of Development Studies. 16. In a personal interview with Professor Jesse N. K. Mugambi (a renowned professor of religion and pioneer student in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, I learned that the concept African Traditional Religion (ATR) is a generic concept just like Christianity and Islam among others. During the reworking of the

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge

73

curriculum on the content of religious studies in Kenya, African scholars on the panel negotiated with missionaries to have ATR have the same status as Christianity so that in studying Christianity, it would be clear when reference is made to the JudeoRoman Christianity as opposed to African Christianity; Islam as opposed to African Islam among others. This is the time African Traditional Religions acquired this special status it has today in African scholarship (Nairobi, August 15, 2020). 17. As we make this assertion, we are aware of the numerous questions that have been raised with regard to its methodology. And Oruka himself was consciously aware of this as well. 18. This project started in 1968 but culminated in the 1972 efforts by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, who successfully pushed for renaming the Department of English at the University of Nairobi to Department of Literature, consequently becoming its first chairman. East African literature and orature became the primary focus of studies and this gave meaning and significance to local symbolisms and events. The promoters of the project besides Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo were Henry Owuor-Anyumba and Taban Lo Liyong, both of the Institute of Development Studies. 19. Perhaps the most famous African writing system is ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. These developed later into forms known as Hieratic, Demotic and, through Phoenician and Greek, Coptic. Other dialects include Sahidic, Akhmimic, Lycopolitan, Fayyumic, and so on. 20. These include but not limited to graves, pottery, carvings, architecture, food, and commercial activities 21. These include but not limited to oral narratives, superstitions, proverbs, belief systems, and language use.

REFERENCES Bert, Adams N. 1975. “Africanizing the African University.” In Africa Today, July–September 1975, Vol. 22, No. 3, Mozambique: Free at Last (July–September 1975): 51–59. Brizuela-García, Esperanza. 2006. “The History of Africanization and the Africanization of History.” History in Africa 33: 85–10. DeLancey, Mark Dike, 2012. “The Spread of the Sooro Symbols of Power in the Sokoto Caliphate.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 71, no. 2: 68–185. DeLancey, Mark Dike, Neh Mbuh, Rebecca and Mark W. Delancey, 2010. Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon, 4th ed. Scarecrow. Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. “Our History.” https://philosophy​ .uonbi​.ac​.ke​/About​-COllege​-of​-Humanities​-and​-Social​-Sciences. Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan. “Philosophy Department Details.” https://www​ .facultyofartsui​.org​/department​/philosophy. Fanon, Frantz. 1961 [2005]. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Books.

74

Francis Owakah

Finnegan, Ruth. 2012. Oral Literature in Africa. Cambridge, UK: Open Book. First published 1970. Accessed on July 18, 2020, www​.jstor​.org​/stable​/j​.ctt5vjsmr. Fomine, Forka Leypey Mathew. 2012. “A Concise Historical Survey of the Bamum Dynasty and the Influence of Islam in Foumban, Camerouon, 1939–Present.” The African Anthropologist 16: 92. Freund, Bill. 1984. The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society since 1800. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. Granness, Anke and Kai Kresse, eds. 1997, 1999. Sagacious Reasoning Henry Odera Oruka in Memoriam. Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 1997; Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Hayward, R. J. and Mohammed Hassan. 1981. “The Ormo Orthography of Shaykh Bakri Sapalo.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 44, no. 3: 550–566. Hegel, G. W. F. 1970. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horton, Robin and Ruth Finnegan, ed. 1973. Modes of Thought: Essays on Thinking in Western and Non-Western Societies. London: Faber and Faber. Hountondji, Paulin. 1983. African Philosophy: Myth and Reality. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Jewsiewicki, Bogumil, 1989. “African Historical Studies Academic Knowledge as ‘Usable Past’ and Radical Scholarship.” African Studies Review 32, no. 3: 1–76. Kodila-Tedika, Oasis, Simplice Asongu and Matthias Cinyabuguma. 2016. “The White Man’s Burden: On the Effect of African Resistance to European Domination.” MPRA 74228, University Library of Munich, Germany. Accessed on August 14, 2020, https://ideas​.repec​.org​/p​/pra​/mprapa​/74228​.html. Lillis, Kevin M. 1986. “Africanizing the school literature curriculum in Kenya: A case‐study in curriculum dependency.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 18, no. 1 (Jan–Mar): 63–84. Liyai, Hudson, Oriare Nyarwath and Francis Owakah. 2018. “Henry Odera Oruka: A Bio-Bibliography.” In Odera Oruka in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Reginald Oduor, Oriare Nyarwath and Francis Owakah. Washington: CRVP, 9–28. Masolo, D. A. 1997. African Philosophy in Search of Identity. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Mazrui, Ali. 1990. Cultural Forces in World Politics. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Mbiti, John S. 1969. Africans Religions and Philosophy. Nairobi: Heinemann. Mohiddin, Ahmed. 1981. African Socialism in Two Countries. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1981. Ngugi wa Thiong’o. 1992. Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. Nairobi and Oxford: James Currey Publishers & East African Educational Publisher. Ngugi wa Thiong’o. 1994. Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Nairobi: Heinemann. Nyarwath, Oriare. 2009. “History and Status of African Philosophy at the University of Nairobi.” Horizon: A Journal of Philosophy 1, no. 1: 12–21.

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge

75

Nyerere, Julius K. 1968. Ujamaa, Essays on Socialism, Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press. Ochieng-Odhiambo, F. 1990. “Forward.” In Trends in Contemporary African Philosophy, edited by H. Odera Oruka. Nairobi: Shirikon Publishers. Ogot, Bethwell Allan. 2005. History as Destiny and History as Knowledge: Being Reflections on the Problems of Historicity and Historiography. Kisumu: Anyange Press. Okafor, O. Stephen. 1982. “Bantu Philosophy: Placide Tempels Revisited.” Journal of Religion in Africa 13, no. 2: 83–100. Okot, p’Bitek. 1970. African Religions in Western Scholarship. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau. Okot, p’Bitek. 1986. Artist the Ruler. Nairobi: Heinemann. Oriare, Nyarwath. 2012. “H. Odera Oruka: A Biographical Sketch.” Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) New Series, 4, no. 2, December: 3–5. Oruka, H. Odera. 1990. 1991. 2013. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy (Reprint, PAK, 2013): Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990 Nairobi, 1991, ACTS Press. Oruka, H. Odera. 1990. Trends in Contemporary African Philosophy. Nairobi: Shirikon Publishers. Oruka, H. Odera. 1997. Practical Philosophy: In Search of an Ethical Minimum. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Osso, Nyaknno. “Bounrin, Prof. Peter Oluwambe.” Biographical Legacy & Research Foundation Nigeria. 2022. https://blerf​.org​/index​.php​/biography​/bodunrin​-professor​-peter​-oluwambe/ Owakah, Francis. 2002. “The Practice of Sage Philosophy: Challenges and Prospects.” In Thought and Practice in African Philosophy, edited by Presbey Gail, Daniel Smith, Pamela Abuya and Oriare Nyarwath. Nairobi: Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Owakah, Francis and Oriare Nyarwath. 2019. “The Future of Sage Philosophy in Africa.” In The Role of Philosophy in the African Context: Traditions, Challenges and Perspectives, edited by Stephen Okello. Rome: Urbaniana University Press, 111–125. Presbey, Gail. 1997. “Who Counts as a Sage? Problems in the Further Implementation of Sage Philosophy” Quest: Philosophical Discussion 11, no. 1–2: 53–65. Sicherman, Carol. 1998. “Revolutionizing the Literature Curriculum at the University of East Africa: Literature and the Soul of the Nation.” Research in African Literatures 29, no. 3 (Autumn): 129–148. Tempels, P. 1959. Bantu Philosophy. Translated by Rev. Colin King. Paris: Presence Africaine. Tempels, P. 1945. La Philosophie Bantoue. Lovania, Elizabethville: Presence Africaine. Tyler, J. W. 1969. “Education and national identity.” In Tradition and Transition in East Africa: Studies of the Tribal Element in the Modern Era, edited by P. H. Gulliver. London: Taylor and Francis Group, 147–174.

76

Francis Owakah

University of Ghana. “Department Philosophy and Classics.” https://www​.ug​.edu​.gh​ /phcl/. Unseth, Peter. 2011. “Invention of Scripts in West Africa for Ethnic Revitalization.” In The Success-Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts, edited by Joshua A. Fishman and Ofelia García. New York: Oxford University Press, 23–32. Vansina, Jan. 1985. Oral Tradition as History. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Wiredu, Kwasi. 1980. Philosophy and an African Culture. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Wiredu, Kwasi. 1995. Conceptual Decolonization in African Philosophy: Four Essays by Kwasi Wiredu. Introduced and edited by Olusegun Oladipo. Ibadan: Hope Publications. Woodward, David and G. Malcolm Lewis (eds.). 1998. The History of Cartography. Volume Two, Book Three: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chapter 3

“Does this mean that there is philosophy in everything?” A Comparative Reading of Henry Odera Oruka’s and Antonio Gramsci’s First- and Second-Order Philosophy Benedetta Lanfranchi

The inspiration for a comparative reading of the thought of Henry Odera Oruka (1944–1995) and Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) is the striking similarity with which both thinkers delineate two realms of philosophy: first and second order (Oruka 1991; 1990a; Gramsci 1975), where the first order entails a dimension of philosophy that is not strictly academic or scholarly, and that lives instead in popular culture and expression, while the second order entails a critical, self-reflective activity. This similarity in the two thinkers’ notion of philosophy is particularly striking given the fact that there is no reason to believe that Oruka was familiar with the work of Gramsci, as he never cites the Italian intellectual in his writings. In this chapter, I argue that the distinction between the two orders of philosophy and the way they relate to each other is a crucial aspect of each thinker’s broader intellectual projects: Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis, as contained in his Prison Notebooks1 and Oruka’s sage philosophy, as elucidated in Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy (1990). With his philosophy of praxis, Gramsci wanted to overcome the monistic dualism of matter and spirit, subject and object, which he saw as perpetuated both by idealist and materialist philosophical approaches (Frosini 2004). Against these purist positions that dominated the European philosophical landscape, Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis rethinks the very notion of historicity from the standpoint of praxis as characterized by “impure acts,” and 77

78

Benedetta Lanfranchi

mainly as acts of labor, which are always necessarily also implicated in social relations. According to Gramsci’s historical materialist approach, human histories can only be understood in terms of a mapping of the ensemble of social relations over time, characterized by evolving power hierarchies and class conflicts (Ibid). Oruka undertook his sage philosophy project soon after being hired by the University of Nairobi’s Philosophy Department in the early 1970s (Presbey, “African Sage Philosophy”). The project aimed at collecting “the sagacious and philosophical thinking of indigenous Africans whose lives are rooted in the cultural milieu of traditional Africa” (Oruka 1991, 1). Though geared toward different ends, the expansion of philosophy beyond a strictly erudite understanding of the discipline is central for both thinkers. Gramsci’s main concern was using philosophy as a tool to help bridge the gap that divides “the intellectuals” and “the simple”2 in his own Sardinian and Italian context, as well as in the broader context of unequal class relations perpetuated by capitalism. Oruka’s main concern was to expand philosophy’s reach beyond Eurocentric canons in his own Kenyan and African context, to help rectify the legacy of destruction and/or subordination of endogenous knowledge systems perpetuated by colonialism, which were contributing to maintaining Africans in a condition of material and spiritual underdevelopment.3 In this sense, Oruka’s sage philosophy project can be linked to the more recent theoretical movements of decoloniality—or decolonial theory—which emerged in the late 1990s/early 2000s in Latin America. Decolonial scholars4 coined this term to demarcate an epistemic, material, and existential condition that though rooted in colonialism, survives it in “books, in the criteria for academic performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of self, and so many other aspects of our modern experience” (Maldonado-Torres 2007, 243). One of the focuses of decolonial theory is that of epistemicide, a concept that has been popularized by Boaventura de Sousa Santos in his book Epistemologies of the South. Justice Against Epistemicide (2014), where he denounces the debasement and destruction of non-Western knowledge as one of the long-lasting effects of colonialism. Though concepts such as decoloniality and epistemicide were not available to Oruka, his project of sage philosophy is clearly invested with an agenda of reclaiming African intellectual heritage for African emancipation. Despite the different geographical and temporal locations of Gramsci and Oruka, as well as their different social and political orientation and engagement, they share the important notion that philosophy is not and cannot be confined to its scholarly, written expression, as has emerged in the Western tradition. Their countering of such a restrictive notion of philosophy is inscribed in different projects of human emancipation, where philosophy is

“Does this Mean that there is Philosophy in Everything?”

79

to play a central role. Philosophy’s emancipatory potential profoundly implicates the relationship between the disciplines of philosophy and anthropology, a relationship that interested both thinkers deeply, as they both identified a certain school of anthropology—namely, the functionalist school—with projects of sociopolitical oppression and colonialism. In rejecting a certain use of ethnography and a certain tradition of anthropology, I argue that Oruka and Gramsci call instead for a type of engagement with popular knowledge generation that in this chapter I term “philosophical fieldwork,” which grants access to that first-order philosophy, without which philosophy can never be emancipatory. Oruka’s “decolonial” stance and Gramsci’s socialist stance can thus be read as containing wider claims about philosophy as a discipline. In their inclusion of orally transmitted and popular worldviews in the realm of the philosophical, they can be linked to another recent intellectual movement, which is that of world philosophies, a movement that decolonial philosopher Enrique Dussel termed as “A new age in the history of philosophy” characterized by: “Our recognition and acceptance of the meaning, value and history of all regional philosophical traditions of the planet” (Dussel 2009, 499–500). Despite the important differences that motivate these two thinkers’ intellectual projects, they are similar in developing an original notion of philosophy, one that is both skeptical of a certain tradition of anthropology that in their view leads to an objectification of the “other,” as well as of an elitist tradition of philosophy that confines the discipline to the study of erudite texts. Although their positions and their terminology5 must be subjected to serious critique if they are to remain relevant for present-day emancipatory goals, their orientation toward philosophy may be regarded as foregrounding important debates that have only recently started entering the academy.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE “ETHNO” DEBATE FOR PHILOSOPHY The relationship between ethnography and philosophy has been a contentious issue in the delineation of African philosophy as an academic discipline since the 1970s, when a number of prominent African scholars—such as Paulin Hountondji, Henry Odera Oruka, Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye, D.A. Masolo, among others—strongly denounced what they considered a secondclass philosophical discourse for Africa, which they labeled “ethnophilosophy.” Though the origin of this term is not certain,6 its widespread use in the African philosophy and intellectual culture debate must be attributed to Beninois philosopher Paulin Hountondji who in African Philosophy Myth and

80

Benedetta Lanfranchi

Reality (1983 [1976]),7 used it to critique the academic practice of presenting ethnographic, collective traits of Africans—gathered from their proverbs, myths, folk-tales, sayings, and beliefs—as expressions of philosophy. Hountondji’s critique of ethnophilosophy resonated with the above mentioned as well as other African intellectuals’ concern that an exclusively ethnographic approach to African philosophy not only maintained the colonial trend of excluding African intellectual discourses and traditions from accounts of African lifeworlds but also continued to presuppose an undesirable difference—or double standard—between African and Western thought. Hountondji believed that the ideas of unanimity, anonymity, unconsciousness, inarticulateness, and ethnic determination contained in ethnophilosophy were detrimental to African development and argued instead that African philosophy must be a theoretical discipline that “can develop only in the form of literature” (Hountondji 1983, 67). At around the same time that Hountondji was articulating his ethnophilosophy critique, Oruka began categorizing African philosophy into trends, at first as ethnophilosophy, philosophical sagacity, nationalist-ideological philosophy, and professional philosophy (Oruka 1981) and later adding on the two trends of hermeneutic and artistic/literary philosophy (Oruka 1990b; 1991). Oruka shared Hountondji’s skepticism toward ethnophilosophy and classified it as a folk philosophy which “forms a sharp contrast with philosophy developed by reason and logic” (Oruka 1990b, 35). Appreciating the different manner in which African intellectuals of the time positioned themselves toward ethnophilosophy is crucial to understanding what was at stake in the debate on defining African philosophy. Getting the definition of philosophy “right” was vital in order to avoid adopting colonial frameworks which would start internally categorizing certain African cultures with long-standing, written, scholarly traditions as “superior.” Africa had been denied an intellectual history by the colonizing powers precisely on the basis that it could not flaunt a body of knowledge that matched that of the West, and that denial had also been used to deny African people’s recognition as human beings and as citizens. One of the central characteristics of this body of knowledge was its academic nature, and because in many African regions the concept of academic knowledge was introduced through colonialism and at the demise of indigenous knowledges, there is a call for African intellectual traditions in particular to be approached with a gaze “beyond the academy” (Masolo 1997; Murungi 2013). For this reason, maintaining the oral traditions of the continent in the fold of philosophy was a key aspect of the early debate around African philosophy. At the same time, Hountondji for one was worried that if African philosophy gazed too far beyond the academy, it could risk losing credibility and it would remain marginalized. While there was a desire to avoid replicating the definition of philosophy that

“Does this Mean that there is Philosophy in Everything?”

81

is dominant in the West, of an exclusively learned, written, and individually authored intellectual tradition—which would inevitably exclude many African intellectual traditions—there was also a desire to avoid creating double standards. The creation of double standards was seen as potentially backfiring against African philosophy, removing it from a shared universal definition of the discipline in which equal dialogue between intellectual traditions could take place. Hountondji’s own fear was that African intellectual traditions would end up being treated only in terms of “third world folklorism” (Hountondji 1983, 67). Hountondji immediately faced heavy criticism. His harshest critics at the time were Koffi Niamkey, Abdou Toure, Olabiyi B. Yai, and Pathe Diagne, who accused him of elitism and Occidentalism, that is, of embracing a Western, professional definition of philosophy that carried contempt for popular thought as well as for African intellectual traditions and modes of transmission. Against what they viewed as Hountondji’s elitist stance, his critics reaffirmed the intellectual importance of African “folklore.”8 Hountondji took these critiques seriously, and devoted much time to answering them thoroughly, both in a 1989 article in Quest entitled “Occidentalism, Elitism: Answer to Two Critiques,” as well as in his later book “A Struggle for Meaning” (2002). Hountondji’s careful replies to his critics are illustrative of the complexity of the argument he was advancing. The intellectual debate that ensued was highly polarized, pitting the philosophers of the time in two opposing camps as summarized by Oruka: There is today, therefore, two views that are in sharp conflict on the question of African philosophy. One is that African philosophy is only “a folk philosophy.” The other is that folk philosophy is not philosophy proper and that African philosophy cannot escape the requirement that it must be a written, critical, reflective discourse. (Oruka 1991, 42–43)

Reflecting back on the terms of that debate and the positions of his critics in A Struggle for Meaning, Hountondji writes that: Niamkey was, in a way, correct. The distinction between worldview and philosophy, or between a rigorous and a vulgar meaning of the word “philosophy,” could conceal, if one is not careful, a “contempt” by professional philosophers for so-called popular thought, a “fascination” for philosophy wrongly considered as the queen of sciences [. . .]. Drawing here heavily on Gramsci—the victim, be it said in passing, of some distortions—our critics see in the opposition between true and false philosophy the expression of a “struggle between official and subaltern ideas, with the former dominant and the latter dominated,” and a way for traditional intellectuals—in this case Towa and Hountondji—to lend their support openly to hegemony and class domination. (Hountondji 2002, 171)

82

Benedetta Lanfranchi

The polarization of the debate undoubtedly mystified some of Hountondji’s important claims on the subject of ethnophilosophy, curiously attacking him from a Gramscian standpoint, without fully appreciating the deep connection that runs between his and the early twentieth-century Italian political activist/ theorists’ reflections on philosophy, as has been pointed out by Gramscian scholar Cosimo Zene.9 In “Occidentalism, Elitism: Answer to Two Critiques,” Hountondji extended appreciation to his critics for raising a vivacious debate around his notion of ethnophilosophy, which in fact opened a greater and crucial debate around the very definition of philosophy and: [. . .] has forced ethnophilosophy to “double” itself by a theoretical defence of ethnophilosophy, by an attempted grounding, conceptual justification of that particular form of philosophical practice and an energetic counter-attack on the criticisms which put it in question. The direction of the discussion has thus changed considerably. The problem is less the existence or non-existence of an African philosophy, than the nature, the meaning, the conditions of the possibility of philosophy in general. At stake are consequently the tasks of today’s African philosopher, since the critic of ethnophilosophy is accused of employing a European idea of philosophy which is elitist, aristocratic, idealist etc. . . . In order to justify the practice of ethnophilosophy, the practitioners of ethnophilosophy try to promote an alternative idea of philosophy. Whatever the issue of this new discussion, I consider it one of the most positive effects of the critique of philosophy to have imposed on it the need for a discussion on the meaning of ethnophilosophy. A discussion, that is, amongst the adepts of an intellectual practice which had up to that moment never been forced to present its theoretical credentials. (Hountondji 1989, 4; emphasis in original)

Still, while Hountondji expresses appreciation to his critics for having stirred an important debate, he ultimately holds them responsible for misreading his characterization of ethnophilosophy, meant to stand as a warning against a banal glorification of African culture and tradition, which in his opinion was leading to “a flattening, to a particularly simplistic and impoverished version of African thinking” (ibid., 8). He also criticizes his opponents of distorting Gramsci, in their very attempt at advancing a Gramscian perspective on the matter. In fact, Hountondji profoundly understood the Gramscian differentiation and layering between the distinct, albeit communicating, realms of folklore; common sense, good sense, culture philosophy, and critical philosophy, as spelled out in “Notebook 11” of the Prison Notebooks, dedicated to reflections on philosophy. It is precisely because of his profound understanding of the importance that these distinctions played in Gramsci’s wider project of political emancipation for the masses, that Hountondji could boldly counter

“Does this Mean that there is Philosophy in Everything?”

83

his critics’ eagerness of defining African philosophy in terms of “the spontaneous philosophy of the masses”: The fact that he [Gramsci] took folklore and the popular modes of thinking seriously, has never led the Italian thinker to their blind and demagogical validation. It led him, in a much more lucid way, to a project of critical study, destined to show, among other things, what in those cultural forms must be overcome in view of the real emancipation of the people. (Hountondji 1989, 20)

Hountondji mobilizes those distinctions for the African case, illustrating his profound preoccupation with salvaging African traditions of thought from simplistic and basic characterizations, which would end up playing into the colonial discourse even in its attempt to counter it. Hountondji attributes this risk to an “unconsidered imposition of the word ‘philosophy’” (Hountondji 1989, 8) on African traditions of thought that would end up giving them “a unanimistic and idealistic interpretation, by emptying them of their real dynamism and complexity, by isolating them from the economic, social and political context which gives them meaning” (ibid, 9). The need for Hountondji to differentiate folklore—from philosophy, is not driven by the desire to claim a seat at the table of “philosophy proper” for a distinct elite of Western-educated African scholars. Quite the contrary, Hountondji warns against such scholars’ attempts at filling their mouths with “the philosophy of the people,” thus elevating themselves as the spokespeople of “the African masses”: By qualifying a certain concept of African philosophy as “vulgar,” we have never claimed that African thinking is itself vulgar. [.  .  .]The vulgarity here does not refer to the “traditional” thinker, nor to what are commonly called, by a elitist term if there ever was one, the “popular masses.” It is the vulgarity of the intellectual who theorizes without shame about the “masses,” at their expense and behind their backs, designating himself as the latter’s spokesman and as the authorized interpreter of their “philosophy,” with the secret hope that they will never have the means and the opportunity to contradict him. The vulgarity belongs to a concept or, more exactly, to an ideological notion resulting from the application of an eminently equivocal word to Africa in its widest—and therefore most trivial—meaning, while at the same time applying it to Europe in its narrowest meaning. The vulgarity is to make two weights, two measures. To tamper the cultural realities of Europe with a given norm, and while pretending to apply that same norm, to slacken it secretly, to tamper with it, with the aim of being able to apply it to another continent. (Hountondji 1989, 16–17)

Hountondji’s notion of vulgarity as making “two weights, two measures,” has also importantly been addressed by Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu

84

Benedetta Lanfranchi

in a piece entitled “How Not to Compare African Traditional Thought with Western Thought” (1980) where he highlights the reading of Western specialist knowledge against African popular thought as the problem of Western comparativism. This does not lead Wiredu to conclude that one must abandon comparative readings altogether, but that improper comparisons will end up impeding “really interesting cross-cultural comparisons of modes of thought” (Wiredu 1980, 39). Against Robert Horton’s suggestion that “this failure of understanding is partly attributable to the fact that many Western anthropologists ‘have been unfamiliar with the theoretical thinking of their own culture,’” Wiredu instead suggests that “a very much more crucial reason is that they have also apparently been unfamiliar with the folk thought of their own culture” (ibid., 38). Another crucial reason for the lack of proper comparisons between African and Western intellectual traditions and the over-reliance on ethnographic data when it comes to “studying Africa” is, of course, due to the legacy of colonialism and the continent’s systematic subjection to prejudice of being devoid of an intellectual past tout court. Colonial scholarship largely failed to acknowledge African intellectual traditions, preferring to maintain the prejudice of the “dark continent” as devoid of any meaningful cultural and theoretical advancement. This position was maintained even in the presence of written, scholarly traditions, which were largely ignored, as highlighted by Diagne, who writes that “the notion that sub-Saharan Africa is the continent of orality is the premise, still largely unquestioned, upon which colonial and postcolonial literature on African societies and cultures has been built” (Diagne 2017, 229). Just like for Hountondji, for Oruka, philosophy consists of “a criticalreflexive thought process, characterized by logical consistency and always tied to individual thinkers” (Graness 2012, 10). Yet, unlike Hountondji, Oruka challenges the primacy of writing as a prerequisite for philosophy, which inevitably deprives numerous African cultures—based on orally transmitted intellectual traditions—of the possibility of any philosophical content. In his own classification of ethnophilosophy, Oruka described it as “impersonal, i.e. it is not identified with any particular individual(s)” and “at best a form of religion [that] would in other cases function perfectly like a taboo and superstition” (Oruka 1990b, 35). What is most important in Oruka’s classification, is that ethnophilosophy cannot be regarded as philosophy proper but only as philosophy in a debased sense. As argued from different angles by Hountondji, Oruka, and Wiredu, the careful distinctions between the realms of folk culture, popular philosophy, critical philosophy, and professional philosophy are central in teasing out the definition of philosophical discourse in a said culture. They also are to be central to advancing honest and interesting cross-cultural philosophical analysis

“Does this Mean that there is Philosophy in Everything?”

85

that is not dictated by contempt for popular worldviews and a glorification of specialist knowledge, but rather by an appreciation of philosophy as an emancipatory activity. For this emancipatory project, philosophy is needed specifically, as a distinct intellectual endeavor from the type of research produced by anthropology. In the context of the African philosophy debate, this need was dictated both because in Africa anthropology was “regarded with suspicion, because of its historical links with the colonial system” (Kresse 2007, 17), and because it was not bent on providing that “second order philosophy,” which implies “the critical evaluation” (Oruka) and “awareness and criticism” (Gramsci) of popular, communally held, unconsciously practiced worldviews or folk traditions. The ability to differentiate between folk-thought and theoretical thinking, popular and specialized knowledge, seems to lie at the heart of a definition of philosophy that is neither elitist nor populist, neither simplistic nor exclusive, but rather an emancipatory activity aimed at embracing diverse knowledge domains and enhancing communication and understanding between the knowledge possessors that inhabit these diverse domains. FIRST- AND SECOND-ORDER PHILOSOPHY Oruka stratifies philosophy into different layers: 1. Folk philosophy 2. Written critical discourse 3. Sage philosophy, which he further subdivides into: i. Folk sagacity (popular wisdom) ii. Philosophic sagacity (didactic wisdom) Oruka’s layering of the different realms of philosophy ultimately hinges on the basic distinction that he draws between first- and second-order philosophy, where first-order philosophy is a person’s or a peoples’ general outlook on life, while second-order philosophy is the critical evaluation of such outlooks (Oruka 1991). Oruka’s distinction between first- and secondorder philosophy resonates powerfully with Antonio Gramsci’s distinction between philosophy and senso comune, which hinges around the awareness and criticism of the first, and the unconscious character of the second (Gramsci 1975). For both Gramsci and Oruka, philosophy is therefore something which “every reasonable person is conversant with” (Oruka 1990a, 44) or “proper to everybody”10 (Gramsci 1999, 626). Gramsci displaces the notion that philosophy is an intellectual activity “of a particular category of specialists or

86

Benedetta Lanfranchi

professionals” (ibid., 626), and advocates instead for the idea that “[everyone]11 is a philosopher,” since “it is not a question of introducing from scratch a scientific form of thought into everyone’s individual life, but of renovating and making critical an already existing activity” (ibid., 637). This connects to his other important claim that: Each man, finally, outside his professional activity, carries on some form of intellectual activity, that is, he is a “philosopher,” an artist, a man of taste, he participates in a particular conception of the world, has a conscious line of moral conduct, and therefore contributes to sustain a conception of the world or to modify it, that is, to bring into being new modes of thought. (ibid, 140–141)

For Gramsci, philosophy is found as an already existing activity mainly in the three realms of: 1. Language itself, which is the totality of determined notions and concepts and not just of words grammatically devoid of content; 2. “Common sense” and “good sense”;12 3. Popular religion, and, therefore, also the entire system of belief, superstitions, opinions, ways of seeing and acting, which surface collectively under the name “folklore.” (ibid., 626)

For Oruka, first-order philosophy amounts to culture philosophy, which he sees as “absolute in its ideas and truth claims and has an ideological war with anything to the contrary” (Oruka 1991, 49). The culture philosophy specialists may be poets, herbalists, medicine men, musicians, or fortune tellers whose “explanations or thought do not go beyond the premises and conclusions given by the prevailing culture” (ibid.). Similarly, for Gramsci, the unconscious, “mechanically imposed” conception of the world may be found in the intellectual activities of local priests, aging patriarchs or “the little old woman who has inherited the lore of witches” (Gramsci 1999, 627), while a conscious critical conception of the world means: “To criticize one’s own conception of the world [.  .  .] to make it a coherent unity and to raise it to the level reached by the most advanced thought in the world” (Ibid). What is crucial for the understanding of Gramsci’s idea of second-order philosophy is that for one to be able to be critical of one’s own conceptions and to gain a coherent unity in thinking, criticism of “all previous philosophy” is necessary, “in so far as this has stratified deposits in popular philosophy” (ibid). Furthermore, this critical process is deeply linked to a self-critical process that Gramsci defines as the “knowing thyself,” which is “a product of the historical process to date which has deposited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory,” so that “the first thing to do is to make such an inventory” (Gramsci 1999, 627–628). The process toward second-order philosophy is, to an

“Does this Mean that there is Philosophy in Everything?”

87

important degree, an individual process, whereby one has to become one’s own intellectual guide, separating oneself from the “man-in-the-mass or collective man” (ibid, 627). Further, for Gramsci, it is a process that can only be carried out through a national language and that can never be carried out in a dialect. For Oruka, the differentiation between culture and philosophy is tied to the thinker’s ability to be self-critical. However, compared to Gramsci, Oruka further nuances the two levels by introducing that of sagacity (with its further subdivisions), which is neither a first-level nor a second-level, professional philosophy: “Between the folk philosophy and the written critical discourse, sage philosophy comes as the third alternative: it demonstrates the fact that traditional Africa had both folk wisdom and critical personalized philosophical discourse” (Oruka 1991, 42–34). Oruka envisioned sage philosophy as a new area for African philosophy, one that could elude the trap of ethnophilosophy without collapsing the distinction between collective, popular beliefs, and critical reasoning. Oruka thus came up with the notion of sage philosophy to account for: The expressed thoughts of wise men and women in any given community and is a way of thinking and explaining the world that fluctuates between popular wisdom (well-known communal maxims, aphorisms and general common sense and truths) and didactic wisdom (an expounded wisdom and rational thought of some given individuals within a community). (Oruka 1991, 33)

Oruka further distinguishes between the folk sage and the philosophical sage, where the folk sage’s thought, “though well informed and deductive, fails to go beyond the celebrated folk wisdom” and is therefore at best “a master of popular wisdom,” while the philosophical sage “is an expert in didactic wisdom” (Oruka 1991, 34). The folk sage sticks to established narratives, while a philosophic sage is: a person of traditional African culture, capable of the critical, second-order type of thinking about the various problems of human life and nature: persons, that is, who subject beliefs that are traditionally taken for granted to independent rational reexamination and who are inclined to accept or reject such beliefs on the authority of reason rather than on the basis of communal or religious consensus. (Oruka 1991, 5–6)

Though first-order philosophy is often referred to pejoratively with adjectives such as “uncritical,” “incoherent,” or “simple,” both Oruka and Gramsci maintain that without the first order, philosophy gets severed from its nonelitist knowledge base, losing its emancipatory potential. Both thinkers hold a view of philosophy not as a strictly theoretical, scholarly activity practiced by

88

Benedetta Lanfranchi

academically trained intellectuals, but as an endeavor meant to resolve human problems. This is explained well by Gramsci when he asks: Is a philosophical movement properly so called when it is devoted to creating a specialized culture among restricted intellectual groups, or rather only when, in the process of elaborating a form of thought superior to “common sense” and coherent on a scientific plane, it never forgets to remain in contact with the “simple” and indeed finds this contact the source of the problems it sets out to study and to resolve? Only by this contact does a philosophy become “historical,” purify itself of intellectualistic elements of an individual character and become “life.” (Gramsci 1999, 637)

Only in this continuous and mutual tapping into one another of first- and second-order philosophy, can philosophy be that life force aimed at resolving human problems, as worded by Kresse in the 1995 interview with Oruka: “For Oruka it is the sage—and not the philosopher—who has at heart the ‘ethical betterment of the community that he lives in’” (Graness and Kresse 1999, 254). It is for this reason that first- and second-order philosophy must remain in contact, to guarantee the “ethical obligation for philosophy as a whole in regard to the well-being of society and humanity at large” (Graness and Kresse 1999, 251). FIELDWORK FOR EMANCIPATORY PHILOSOPHY Both Oruka and Gramsci attribute the exclusion of the lifeworlds of firstorder philosophy from contemporary intellectual history to the inherent positivism of early anthropology, which was fixed on describing popular thought and action as a historical, cultural, and social phenomenon that is objectively given, and to be gathered as data. For Oruka, African philosophy had to be distanced from anthropology because it had to be engaged in incorporating critical awareness of cultural practices or worldviews, a prerogative that “colonial anthropology” had co-opted from Africans altogether, reserving it for Western academia: Levy-Bruhl and the anthropologists of his kind left no such hope: for them, the situation was that of un-philosophy rather than pre-philosophy. What they claimed to have established in Africa were the impossibility for a philosophical dialogue and an obvious non-existence of a tradition of organized philosophical systems. (Oruka 1991, 45)

As an Italian intellectual, Gramsci was particularly critical of the Italian anthropologists of his time, intent on describing the poor, the

“Does this Mean that there is Philosophy in Everything?”

89

underprivileged—as well as criminal offenders—in a manner that locked them in a subaltern condition of cultural, physical, and moral inferiority. As highlighted by Ciavolella, Gramsci was instead interested in approaching the knowledge base and folklore of “the populace” not as natural objects of a positivist science, but rather as the cultural expressions of historical subjects (Ciavolella 2017). Gramsci’s philosophy is praxis oriented, as his greater concern is the historical consciousness of the subalterns13 for political emancipation. This for Gramsci can only be obtained if the subalterns make a critical inventory of their knowledge base, which is mostly folklore. Without undergoing this process of critical inventory, folklore too often and too easily ends up at the hands of a political establishment that roots its hold on power precisely through the manipulation of sentiments contained in popular beliefs, mobilizing them to further its own gains. Ciavolella writes how Gramsci, against such demagogical instrumentalizations that rest precisely on the reification of “traditional culture,” envisioned instead an organic relationship between the intellectual and the masses (Ciavolella 2017, 177). The way that the politicized instrumentalization Gramsci warns against has played out in Africa’s colonial context has been importantly highlighted in Mamdani’s critique of the British system of indirect rule, whereby African customs and traditions were seized and recreated by the colonial state as an efficient tool for the administration of the colony through what Mamdani calls a system of decentralized despotism, featuring as the “hallmark of the colonial state in Africa” (Mamdani 1996, 39). This system was efficiently propagated through the salvaging of “the widespread and time-honored practice [.  .  .] of a decentralized exercise of power” but by freeing that power completely of the “restraint of peers and people” (ibid) that had characterized most precolonial African polities. It was a form of political rule aimed at the entrenchment of colonial interests that was made to pass as being in line with the customary values of the colonized. Such deviated uses of “the customary” arising from the colonial experience were also denounced, for example, by Italian anthropologist Ernesto De Martino in his critique of the functionalist anthropology school founded in England by Bronislaw Malinowski: The functionalist school deliberately refuses to look at history [. . .] it conceives the culture of a people as a functional complex determined by the physiology of individuals that make up society and it hands over to ethnology the task of instructing colonial administrators and functionaries [. . .] with the help of local chiefs and social institutions and traditional customs it is much easier to govern the indigenous populations. It is left only to clarify the functions of these customs and institutions and then put them at [the colonial government’s] services. [My translation]. (De Martino 1949, 414)

90

Benedetta Lanfranchi

De Martino was critical of the way “traditional culture” was studied in European anthropological circles, which for him reflected a deeply bourgeois culture. He critiques the obsession of some anthropologists with collecting infinite amount of raw data on so-called “primitive life worlds” and classifying it without a real investigation into the deep meanings of traditional institutions so that these remain cloaked in mystery. For De Martino, to unlock the meanings of these lifeworlds, and to make them accessible to a wider audience, what is necessary is not the minute and detailed descriptions of phenomena observed, but rather: “to comprehend a human fact, to see it in the same significant transparency with which the declaration of human rights appears to us” [my translation] (De Martino 1949, 412). As beautifully explained by Ciavolella, in order to do this De Martino developed an anthropological approach for which: fieldwork could come to embody the Gramscian aspiration of producing a sentimental connection, an organic link between the intellectual and the people, in the measure in which “the field” could constitute the occasion for a transmission from knowledge to comprehension, to feeling and viceversa. [My translation] (Ciavolella 2017, 193)

It is important here to note that anthropology has since come a long way as anthropologists developed their own critiques toward the many problematic aspects of the discipline and its political implication in the project of Western colonialism and imperialism. In fact, the critique of anthropology’s first beginnings and how to overcome the discipline’s historical fallacies, make up some of the most interesting debates in anthropology.14 Both Gramsci, Oruka, and the other intellectuals cited in this chapter who partook in the debates on the relationship between anthropology and philosophy, both in the Italian and African contexts, were all writing at a time when anthropology had yet to develop the core of its self-critique, which is why they sound, at times, so uncompromisingly condemning of the discipline. Further, what is important to highlight is that despite both Oruka’s and Gramsci’s strong critiques of anthropology, they also identify ethnography as the methodological source for accessing that first-order philosophy without which philosophy cannot live out its emancipatory potential. This potential is thus seen as realized through a collaboration between anthropology and philosophy. Gramsci attributed to structural anthropology the merit of relating theoretical reflection with empirical studies, providing for a broader and more democratic understanding of culture than the worldview of the dominant elite, and Oruka thought that: there need not be an iron curtain between philosophy and anthropology [.  .  .] indeed, one way to search for African philosophy is to pass through

“Does this Mean that there is Philosophy in Everything?”

91

anthropology. A collaboration between philosophers and anthropologists can be very useful especially if the two groups are conscious of what they know and do not know about each other. (Oruka 1991, 10)

Similarly, despite the strong stance against ethnophilosophy that has hailed from many African philosophy scholars, the majority of them not only continue pursuing ethnographic research in their own work, but they also advocate for an understanding of African philosophy that is not purely academic/ scholarly and that is contained in the communally and orally transmitted intellectual traditions of the continent. Wiredu himself tells us that “there is good reason why the African philosopher should pay more attention to folk-thought than others” (Wiredu 1980, 49). Masolo includes ethnographic aspects in his research on Luo philosophical traditions (Masolo 2010), just like Wiredu and Gyekye did for Akan traditions (Wiredu (1980) and Gkyekye 1995 [1987])), or Hallen and Sodipo did for Yoruba traditions (1986), which continue to feature as pioneering works in the contemporary African philosophy landscape.15 The African scholars who actively took part in the ethnophilosophy debate, from Hountondji, to Oruka, Wiredu, Gyekye, and Masolo, like Gramsci, have a nuanced understanding of what tapping into a nonprofessional or nonacademic knowledge base means. For none of these scholars, it means glorifying or romanticizing popular knowledge and dismissing the importance of academically trained philosophers. Rather, it means that the philosopher must study culture with a vision for social and political emancipation. However, the question of the power relations involved in this exchange remains open to criticism in the writings of both Oruka and Gramsci. Though in the Introduction I linked their intellectual projects to the contemporary movements of decolonial theory and world philosophies, there are also aspects in both thinkers that inevitably come across as problematic in our present-day context, such as the strict demarcation between learned/academic and popular knowledge that does not really allow for a critical reappraisal of these domains and that maintains a clear hierarchy between the two. I believe that Bruce Janz’s critique to the sage philosophy project here is essential: Oruka’s attitude toward the sage is ambiguous [.  .  .]. It seems on the surface that the sage is to be honoured and the conversation is allowed to proceed along the lines that the sage deems appropriate. However, Oruka also seems to think that the sage’s rationality may well be latent, and needs the mediating influence of the professional researcher to become manifest. [. . .] Is there really a peer relationship here? What constitutes equality in this relationship? It is “equal but different?” (Janz 1998, 59–60)

92

Benedetta Lanfranchi

Masolo already highlighted the serious methodological challenge facing African philosophers ever since in The Invention of Africa Mudimbe denounced that: “Until now, Western interpreters as well as African analysts have been using categories and conceptual systems which depend on a Western epistemological order” (Mudimbe 1988, x). In African Philosophy in Search of Identity, Masolo writes that Mudimbe never offered a solution to this problem, since he “does not even slightly indicate what he envisages as the relationship between the stylish, scholarly, and elegant deconstructionist method and the idioms of everyday life which embody the methodological (epistemological?) schemes of ‘traditional’ discourse” (Masolo 1994, 186). Masolo’s elegant wording here perfectly summarizes the tension that Oruka highlights between first- and second-order philosophy, as well as the difficulty entailed in virtuously resolving it. Important steps in trying to resolve the Mudimbian impasse have been taken Kresse who in Philosophizing in Mombasa crafted an innovative methodology called an anthropology of philosophy, to provide “insights and information about traditions of knowledge and intellectual practice elsewhere in the world, in social contexts very different from our own” (Kresse 2007, 11). Central aspects of Kresse’s anthropology of philosophy—which he applies in particular to the study of philosophical discourse in Old Mombasa Town— are the use of an African language, the reference to literature as a source of philosophy and an overall contextual approach to philosophical discourse that places an emphasis “on the philosophically relevant themes as they appear in the discourse under investigation” (Rettová 2007, 36). Further, what is fascinating about Kresse’s own approach is that it also draws inspiration from Immanuel Kant’s two conceptions of philosophy as “wordly” (Philosophie im Weltbegriff) and as “scholarly” (Philosophie im Schulbegriff), which form the whole of philosophy precisely in their interrelation (Kresse 2007, 20). Another key text that takes an ethnographic approach to trace philosophical discourse is Steven Feierman’s Peasant Intellectuals, which analyzes political dialogue among peasant intellectuals in northeastern Tanzania (Feierman 1990). Feierman’s work is particularly interesting to reflect on in the context of this chapter, as he openly disagrees with Gramsci in his Introduction, and more specifically with Gramsci’s position that the peasantry is unable to generate its own intellectuals and that it remains dependent on “the working class, through its organic link with the Communist Party, to challenge the hegemony of dominant groups” (ibid, 18). His research in Tanzania brings to light peasants’ own counter-discourse, leading him to reject Gramsci’s faith in centralism and to focus instead on discourse and its context as a “vantage point from which to view resistance” (ibid, 39). Both Oruka’s and Gramsci’s division of first- and second-order philosophy ultimately seems to uphold the idea that exposure to Western philosophy (and

“Does this Mean that there is Philosophy in Everything?”

93

in the case of Gramsci, knowledge of a national language) is necessary to produce the rational and historical coherence needed for real emancipatory processes to take place (which, it should be mentioned here in passing, for Gramsci means a change of hegemony; a point that also needs to be elaborated in response to Feireman’s focus on discourse rather than (successful) action as the locus from which to view resistance). What are we to make of such a position today? How do we understand it and critique it? Does this layering of philosophy in these two orders still carry meaning in our contemporary social, political, and cultural landscapes? Or is it too tainted with patronizing references, that ultimately maintain a derogatory connotation over first-order philosophy that ends up defeating the very project of emancipatory philosophy that is sought by the two thinkers? Is the demarcation of these distinct knowledge domains really a prerogative for an understanding of philosophy that is geared to changing the world in the direction of greater social equality? It is my belief that both Gramsci and Oruka were interested in providing an idea of philosophy as a living force that could lead to greater equality, which is why I call their notion of philosophy emancipatory. Still, their opposition to first- and second-order philosophy must be subjected to careful scrutiny and severe criticism, both in relation to its time, as well as in the current context if we are to “rethink sage philosophy” in the present day and if we are still to ask (and answer) with the same confidence as Oruka: Does this mean that there is philosophy in everything? Yes, [. . .] but if so, are professional philosophers not redundant? They are not, for they are the best equipped to help explicate the philosophical underpinnings in the texts and sayings of the non-professional philosophers. Plato was professional; Socrates was not. And Plato helped to make Socrates explicit. Professional philosophers are to philosophy as linguists are to language. (Oruka 1990a, 5)

This chapter has focused on proving a historical perspective of these two thinkers’ ideas of philosophy in a comparative perspective, which has not been done before. It has not engaged in a detailed, critical reappraisal of their work, which remains a project to be undertaken in future work. Such reappraisal entails a much more thorough engagement with the living figures of the intellectuals in Gramsci (whom he divides into organic and traditional intellectuals) and the sages in Oruka, which could not be covered extensively in this chapter focused primarily on philosophy in its disciplinary and historical context. CONCLUSION In this chapter, I have offered a comparative reading of Henry Odera Oruka’s sage philosophy and Antonio Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis, both

94

Benedetta Lanfranchi

of which entail a dimension of philosophy that is not strictly academic or scholarly. Both Gramsci and Oruka strongly maintain that the philosophy of the nonprofessional philosophers (that is, the first-order philosophy) necessitates the professional philosopher to become emancipatory. At the same time, they believe that the professional philosopher fixated with the secondorder philosophy and severed from the first level also cannot produce an emancipatory thought. Though both thinkers advance an important critique to the discipline of anthropology, with projects of sociopolitical hegemony and colonialism, they also identify ethnography as a key methodological tool for accessing that first-order philosophy that gives it its emancipatory meaning. I contend that the sociopolitical motivations for these two intellectual projects are different in the two thinkers, their intellectual projects are joined by a unique notion of philosophy as an emancipatory activity.

NOTES 1. Gramsci wrote the Notebooks between 1929 and 1935 during his incarceration by Italy’s fascist regime. The first partial published edition of the Notebooks appeared between 1948 and 1951, under the editorial direction of Felice Platone, followed in 1975 by Valentino Gerrattana’s edition. A complete English translation of the Notebooks is not yet available. The only complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci’s seminal writings in English is Joseph A. Buttigieg’s three-volume edition, which contains translations of notebooks 1–8 (out of a total of thirty-three notebooks, counting the four translation notebooks which are not included in Gerrattana’s twenty-nine notebooks edition, but which are being included in the new national edition of the Notebooks currently under the editorship of Gianni Francioni, Giuseppe Cospito and Fabio Frosini) (Francioni 2019; Cospito 2011). The other major—though also partial—English translations of Gramsci’s work are Selections from the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (1971); Selections from the Cultural Writings, translated by William Boelhower and edited by David Forgacs and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (1985); Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks, translated and edited by Derek Boothman (1995). 2. This is the term used by Gramsci and does not reflect my own language choice. For a more nuanced and critical understanding of Gramsci’s use of this term, see Green 2018. 3. For further reading on the relationship between endogenous knowledges and underdevelopment and on the reasons for referring to endogenous rather than indigenous knowledges, see Hountondji (1995;1997). 4. Among the most prominent Latin America decolonial theorists are Walter Mignolo, Anibal Quijano, Enrique Dussel, Maria Lugones, Nelson Maldonado-Torres. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni has written extensively on decoloniality in the African context (see for example his recent book Epistemic Freedom in Africa, 2018).

“Does this Mean that there is Philosophy in Everything?”

95

5. As much as Oruka and Gramsci advocate for the inclusion of first-order philosophy, it constantly gets referred to as “acritical,” “uncritical,” “vulgar,” “simple,” “limited,” “provincial”—this use of negative terminology to refer to first-order philosophy is more pronounced in Gramsci than in Oruka. However, it is important to note that Gramsci applies the notion of vulgarity also to the so-called “high culture,” for example, when talking about intellectuals in society: “The traditional and vulgarised type of the intellectual is given by the man of letters, the philosopher, the artist. Therefore journalists, who claim to be men of letters, philosophers, artists, also regard themselves as the ‘true’ intellectuals.” (Gramsci 1999: 141) The adjective “vulgar” thus seems to be more directed toward the content of a certain thought as disappointing, rather than to the “order” that the thought is coming from. This is because the differentiation between different producers of orders of knowledge is a social fact in Gramsci: “When one distinguishes between intellectuals and non-intellectuals, one is referring in reality only to the immediate social function of the professional category of the intellectuals” which is why he affirms that “All men are intellectuals, one could therefore say: but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals” (Ibid: 140). 6. Some sources maintain that the originator of the term “ethnophilosophy” is Kwame Nkrumah, who used it as early as three decades before Hountondji in his never-completed doctoral thesis at the University of Pennsylvania. See, for example, Lajul 2013. 7. Though this is the work that popularized the term, Hountondji first used it in a 1970 essay entitled “Comments of Contemporary African Philosophy” (see Hallen 2010). 8. For full bibliographic references of these critiques, see Hountondji 1989. 9. See Cosimo Zene. “All Men [and Women] are Philosophers (Gramsci): Some Considerations and Current Developments for African Philosophy.” Presentation at “Asixoxe—Let’s Talk!” SOAS Conference on African Philosophy, April 28–29, 2016. 10. The Italian original reads that this “spontaneous philosophy” is proper to the “whole world.” 11. Gramsci’s famous phrase is that “all men are philosophers” which I have omitted in this chapter because of its gender bias opting instead for “everyone” as a gender-neutral term. 12. As explained by Hoare and Smith in a footnote to their edition of Selections from the Prison Notebooks, for Gramsci “common sense” (senso comune in Italian) means the incoherent set of generally held assumptions and beliefs common to any given society, while “good sense” (buon senso) means practical empirical common sense in the English sense of the term’ (Gramsci 1999: 626). 13. The notion of subaltern is a complex one, and has been used widely and extensively beyond Gramsci’s original coinage of the term. Green defines Gramsci’s characterization of subaltern groups as those that are subordinate to a ruling group’s policies and initiatives, among whom Gramsci identified slaves, peasants, religious groups, women, different races, and the proletariat (Green 2002: 2). 14. For a concise and interesting history of these debates, see for example Marcus and Fischer (1999 [1986]).

96

Benedetta Lanfranchi

15. Another African scholar who has used ethnography in a truly philosophical manner is Ugandan intellectual Okot p’Bitek, who has is not discussed here as he did not partake directly in these debates, but whose work actually translated into practice many of the theoretical considerations expounded here, offering profound philosophical elaborations of Luo cultural practices both in Religion of the Central Luo (1971) and African Religions in Western Scholarship (1970).

REFERENCES Bodunrin, P. 1981. “Which Kind of Philosophy for Africa.” In Symposium on ‘Philosophy in the Present Situation of Africa’, edited by A. Diemer [Wednesday, August 30, 1978]. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Ciavolella, R. 2017. “Alla ricerca del soggetto politico popolare. Gramsci, l’antropologia politica e la questione della rappresentazione.” International Gramsci Journal 2, no. 3: 174–207. Cospito, G. 2011. “Verso l’edizione critica integrale dei quaderni del carcere.” Studi Storici 52, no. 4: 881–904. De Martino, E. 1949. “Intorno a una storia del mondo popolare subalterno.” Societa 5, no. 3: 441–435. Diagne, S. B. 2017. “Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa  by Ousmane Oumar Kane” and  “Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition of West African Islam  by Lamin Sanneh” (reviews). African Studies 60, no. 1: 228–232. ———. 2008. “Toward an Intellectual History of West Africa: The Meaning of Timbuktu.” In The Meanings of Timbuktu, edited by S. Jeppie and S. B. Diagne. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 19–27. Diemer, A. 1978. Symposium on ‘Philosophy in the Present Situation of Africa’. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Dussel, E. 2009. “A New Age in the History of Philosophy. The World Dialogue between Philosophical Traditions.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 35, no. 5: 499–516. Eze, E. C. (ed.) 1998. African Philosophy. An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell Publishers. Feierman, S. 1990. Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania. London: The University of Wisconsin Press. Francioni, G. 2019. “I Quaderni.” In Egemonia e Modernita’. Gramsci in Italia e nella Cultura Internazionale, edited by F. Frosini and F. Giasi. Rome: Viella. Frosini, F. 2004. “Filosofia della prassi.” In Le Parole di Gramsci, edited by F. Frosini and G. Liguori. Rome: Carrocci Editore. Graness, A. 2012. “From Socrates to Odera Oruka: Wisdom and Ethical Commitment.” Special Issue Odera Oruka Seventeen Years On Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) New Series 4, no. 20: 1–22. ———. 2011. Prison Notebooks Volumes 1, 2 & 3. Edited and translated by Joseph A. Buttigieg with Antonio Callari. New York: Columbia University Press.

“Does this Mean that there is Philosophy in Everything?”

97

———. 1999 [1971]. Selections from The Prison Notebooks. Translated and edited by Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: ElecBook. ———. 1995. Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Translated and edited by Dereck Boothman. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 1985. Selections from Cultural Writings. Translated by William Boelhower ad edited by David Forgacs and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 1975. Quaderni del carcere. Edited by Valentino Gerratana. Turin: Einaudi. Graness, A. and K. Kresse (eds.). 1997. Sagacious Reasoning: Henry Odera Oruka in Memoriam. New York: Peter Lang. Green, M. 2018. “Gramsci’s Concept of the ‘Simple’: Religion, Common Sense, and the Philosophy of Praxis.” Rethinking Marxism 30, no. 4: 525–545. ———. 2002. “Gramsci Cannot Speak: Presentation and Interpretations of Gramsci’s Concept of the Subaltern.” Rethinking Marxism 14, no. 3: 1–24. Gyekye, K. 1995 [1987]. African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Philosophical Scheme. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hallen, B. 2010. “Ethnophilosophy Redefined.” Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association on Kenya (PAK) 2, no. 1: 73–85. ———. 2002. A Short History of African Philosophy. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Hallen, B. and J. O. Sodipo. 1986. Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hountondji, P. 2002. The Struggle for Meaning: Reflections on Philosophy, Culture and Democracy in Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press. ———. (ed). 1997. Endogenous Knowledge. Research Trails. Oxford: CODESRIA. ———. (ed). 1995. “Producing Knowledge in Africa Today the Second Bashorun M. K. O. Abiola Distinguished Lecture.” African Studies Review 38, no. 3: 1–10. ———. 1989. “Occidentalism, Elitism: Answers to Two Critiques.” Quest: Philosophical Discussions 3, no. 2: 3–30. ———. 1983 [1976]. African Philosophy: Myth and Reality. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kresse, K. 2018. Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 2007. Philosophizing in Mombasa, Islam and Intellectual Practice on the Swahili Coast. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Maldonado-Torres, N. 2007. “On the Coloniality of Being.” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2–3: 240–270. Mamdani, M. 1996. Citizen and Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Marcus, G. E. and M. M. J. Fischer. 1999 [1986]. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Masolo, D. A. 2016. “African Sage Philosophy.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato​.stanford​.edu​/archives​/spr2016​/entries​/african​-sage/. ———. 2010. Self and Community in a Changing World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

98

Benedetta Lanfranchi

———. 2009. “Narrative and Experience of Community as Philosophy of Culture.” Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) 1, no. 1: 43–68. ———. 1997. “Decentering the Academy: In Memory of a Friend.” In Sagacious Reasoning: H. Odera Oruka in memoriam, edited by A. Graness and K. Kresse. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. ———. 1994. African Philosophy in Search of Identity. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Murungi, J. 2013. An Introduction to African Legal Philosophy. Lanham: Lexington Books. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. 2018. Epistemic Freedom in Africa Deprovincialization and Decolonization. London and New York: Routledge. Oruka, H. O. (ed.) 1991. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy. Nairobi: ACTS Press. ———. (ed.). 1990a. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy. Leiden: E. J. Brill. ———. 1990b. Trends in African Philosophy. Nairobi: Shirikon Publishers. ———. 1981. “Four Trends in Current African Philosophy.” In Symposium on ‘Philosophy in the Present Situation of Africa, edited by Diemer, A. [Wednesday, August 30, 1978]. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Oruka, H. O. and D. A. Masolo (eds.) 1993. Philosophy and Culture. Nairobi: Bookwise. ———. 1983. Philosophy and Cultures: Proceedings of the Second Afro-Asian Philosophy Conference, October/November 1981. Nairobi: Bookwise. p’Bitek, O. 1971. Religion of the Central Luo. Kampala, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam: East African Literature Bureau. ———. 1970. African Religions in Western Scholarship. Kampala, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam: East African Literature Bureau. Presbey, G. “African Sage Philosophy.”  The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161–0002, https://iep​.utm​.edu/, February 25, 2022. Rettovà, A. 2007. Afrophone Philosophies: Reality and Challenge. Stredokluky: Zdenek Susa. Santos, B. de S. 2016. Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide London and New York: Routledge. Wiredu, K. (ed.). 2004. A Companion to African Philosophy. Malden, Oxford, and Victoria: Blackwell Publishing. ———. 1996. Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 1980. Philosophy and an African Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zene, C. 2016. “All Men [and Women] are Philosophers (Gramsci): Some Considerations and Current Developments for African Philosophy.” Presentation at ‘Asixoxe – Let’s Talk!’ SOAS Conference on African Philosophy, 28–29 April 2016.

Chapter 4

Wisdom from Women in Kenya Gail M. Presbey

INTRODUCTION I was encouraged by the volume editors to share the insights I gained from interviewing women in Kenya as part of H. Odera Oruka’s sage philosophy project. The story of how I began my research on the sage philosophy project is perhaps well known by now. I was introduced to H. Odera Oruka and his sage philosophy project by Lucius Outlaw, who met Odera Oruka when the latter hosted the World Congress of Philosophy in Nairobi in 1991. My first trip to Kenya was in 1993, where I was able to meet with Odera Oruka in person. He encouraged me to come back to Kenya to engage in his sage philosophy project first hand. I did so in 1995 and was able to interview sages with him, and then with others who had worked with him. I did not interview any woman sages with Oruka. An earlier article of mine explored how sage philosophy work, up to that point, had focused on interviewing men (see Presbey 2012a). Oruka had agreed that he “should” interview more women sages, and we even tried our best to track down a particular woman sage in Kisumu, but we could not find her at her home or at the Kisumu market (that was in November of 1995). However, of the many interviews I held from 1995 to 2002, just over a dozen of them were with women. The women I interviewed were from Maasai, Maragoli, Luo, and some other ethnic heritages. I acknowledge all the help I was given by others who helped to set up these interviews for me, and to translate, both during the interview itself and afterward, working with tapes and transcripts. Without this kind of help from Kenyans, I could never have engaged in this project.1 I will share some of the highlights of these interviews with you. Some of my earlier articles have already discussed some of my interviews with Ghanaian women (2000, 2001), as well as Kenyan women. For example, I discussed 99

100

Gail M. Presbey

my interview with Jones Makindu of Maragoli (see Presbey 1999, 95–96, 101–02; 2000, 235, 238), as well as her friends Rose Vugusa Masadia (Presbey 1999, 96; 2000, 235; 2004, 13) and Ellyshaba Majinga (2000, 241–42).2 John Otieno Ouko analyzed Makindu, based on my account of our interview, arguing that Makindu had articulated an ethical principle of equal consideration of interests. Using an existential ethics, as he calls it, Makindu was able to see that in a certain historical circumstance, recent refugees who had come to Maragoli were in need, and so she and others had an obligation to care for them since they had the greatest needs (Ouko 2005, 198–99). In this chapter, I want to introduce you to three women sages: Ntetia Nalamae, a Maasai woman from Olepolos; Julia Ouko, a Luo woman from Kamagambo; and Maria Magdalena Josephine Aoko, a Luo woman of Rongo, South Nyanza. Before diving into the details of the interviews, there are a few other topics I want to cover preliminarily. I want to survey the existing literature, citing the male scholars (Oruka and his immediate students) and African women scholars (some of who are not in “Philosophy” per se, but in related fields) who have interviewed women sages. And, I want to look at the feminist literature worldwide, to discuss what it means to focus on the philosophical aspect of interviews. I will then argue that the women sages I interviewed have contributions to make to philosophy, both using the parameters of the sage philosophy project itself, and in a broader sense of philosophy.

SURVEY OF COVERAGE OF WOMEN SAGES IN THE WORKS OF ORUKA AND OTHER MALE PHILOSOPHERS ENGAGED IN ORUKA’S PROJECT I have not been the only person to cover women sages. I want to survey the literature regarding women sages and philosophers and to address some of the theoretical questions regarding the inclusion of women sages in the category of philosophers. Because of the context of this chapter, I am going to presume a general familiarity of the reader with the basics of Odera Oruka’s Sage Philosophy project. (If the background is needed, I suggest you consult my earlier writings such as 2002, 2007, 2014, 2017). Odera Oruka himself, as well as his graduate students and fellow faculty at the University of Nairobi, interviewed women sages right from the start of their projects. The problem is that they did not interview very many of them. Oruka’s 1990 book on sage philosophy includes eighteen interviews, but only one is with a woman.3 F. Ochieng’-Odhiambo and Patrick Dikirr also include one woman in their interviews. I am going to pay special attention to each of these three interviews with women, and then add some analysis of my own interviews with women of those same ethnic communities.

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

101

Peris Njuhi Muthoni, a Kĩkũyũ woman from Nyeri, is included in Oruka’s book. Oruka notes that she is “a knowing old woman whose sufferings in the world have sharpened her vision” (Oruka 1990, 106). This focus on discernment in times of trouble and perseverance in adversity is a theme that Mary Njeri Kinyanji develops in her interviews with Kĩkũyũ women, that she calls “Sweet sobs” or feminist “utu” humanism (2019). In my earlier article (Presbey 2007, 143), I had noted that Peris Njuhi Muthoni was categorized as only a folk sage by Oruka, although she held several critiques of her own Luo culture. For example, she notes that she is pleased that traditions of female circumcision are dying out because as she notes, the practice can create problems for women during childbirth, and it also interferes with sexual pleasure (Oruka 1991, 107). She does, however, insist that marriage and children are necessities in life. Don’t refuse to get married, she counsels. But she insists that men and women are equal. They have a different set of duties, but from her perspective that does not result in inequality. Her insistence on equality is a bit undermined, perhaps, when she describes the wife’s role as a “deputy” to her husband (ibid., 108). But this dual tension between equality and hierarchy is found in Betty Wambui’s recent article on gender in Kĩkũyũ society. Wambui notes, for example, that both men and women are equally required morally and socially to marry and have children. Neither man nor woman could be considered complete without having accomplished these social duties. While this aspect focuses on their equal responsibilities, other aspects of Kĩkũyũ society can seem to treat women like an asset, like wealth or livestock (Wambui 2013). Pius Mosima, in a recent book chapter (2018) draws on my critique of Oruka’s interview with Muthoni, and further reflects on the interview to insist that Oruka (or his assistants) did not show Muthoni the same respect as was shown to the male sages in their line of questioning. He also criticized the way that Oruka summarized her life before quoting from the interview, focusing on family and ignoring other important aspects of success in life, in a way that he thought would be done particularly for women, “as she is underestimated in stereotypical and even limited reproductive roles as a wife and mother” (Mosima 2018, 31, 34). Mosima goes so far as to suggest that when Oruka classifies her as a folk sage, “is this not a subtle way of strengthening the very hegemony he sets out to challenge?” (p. 32). While only one interview with a woman sage is published by Odera Oruka, we know that he interviewed other women (whose transcripts seem to be lost), because he mentions this fact during his testimony at the famous S. M. Otieno burial trial. There he says that he interviewed “a wise lady, Abiero Nyar Miyere, wife of Owidh Kohene and another lady, Randiga Nyar Ogut, wife of Ohomo of Ndere Clan, East Ugenya” (Odera Oruka 1991, 83; Presbey 2012a, 117).

102

Gail M. Presbey

F. Ochieng’-Odhiambo interviews one woman sage in his 1994 dissertation, Rose Odhiambo. He discusses her interview in a subsequent article. Among various topics, Rose Odhiambo mentions the ways in which men find themselves socially compelled to continue, if they can, the domination of women, saying, “One who had only one wife was seen as someone who was dominated over by the wife,” pointing out that implicitly men would know that in some households women often were the decision-makers, but this couldn’t be admitted or tolerated (Ochieng’-Odhiambo 1994, 266). But the main topic that Ochieng’-Odhiambo pursued with Rose Odhiambo was the topic that had earlier “pre-occupied the pre-Socratics,” that is, the question of change and permanence. Rose explained that both change and permanence are real and that it is difficult to decide which predominates. In her own case, she thinks she has changed more than stayed the same. But in any existing thing, there is always a part of it that stays the same, having some inherent characteristics. She also notes that if permanence were the only reality, we could not be able to understand how any existing thing ever came into being in the first place (Ochieng’-Odhiambo 1997, 175). Commenting on the interview, Ochieng’-Odhiambo explains, Rose Odhiambo gives logical arguments. . . . Odhiambo’s reasoning is similar to that of Parmenides. She even invokes two of the three basic laws of thought, namely the principles of identity and excluded middle. The third law, the principle of contradiction is implied in her thought. (177)

He earlier explained that if an African, or Kenyan, sage thinks in a way that is similar to the Pre-Socratics—since the Pre-Socratics’ status as philosophical thinkers are never doubted—we could conclude that the Kenyan sage “should also be granted the prestige of being philosophical” (ibid., 174; italics in the original). In his 1994 Master’s thesis, Patrick Maison Dikirr interviewed a Maasai woman named Kinyikita Enole Salaon when she was ninety-three years old. Dikirr said of her: “Her ability to rationalize and postulate insights cannot be underrated. She is indeed a philosophic sage per se.” (Dikirr 1994, 72). She had been in charge of most ceremonies that involved women (“intorosi”). She explained that from a Maasai perspective, one cannot be a person unless one is married and has cattle and children. She defended the necessity of cattle for personhood, saying that “without cattle there will be no food (or, at least, insufficient nourishment)” (Dikirr 1994, 72–73). Dikirr goes on to describe her thoughts: Marriage and children are essential because family members depend upon each other. For example, in old age children will look after you. Children will also provide you with riches, but more importantly, they are the source of immortality, so that one’s name “does not die upon dissolution of the body.” (ibid.,74)

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

103

Dikirr argues that the only part of the person to survive death is the “personality” which is then perpetuated by one’s children (ibid., 78). Kinyikita Enole Salaon also described to Dikirr the subtleties of the ideas of the soul, from the Maasai perspective. She explains that people exist due to God’s grace (Enkai ake Kinchuyie). If God withdraws this support, people “cease to exist” (ibid., 75). God is in the air and everywhere around us. The “Oltau” or heart is a living organ that enables a person to live, while “a person on the other hand is the physical part of the ‘Oltau’ (known as Osesen)” (ibid., 74). She was the only woman interviewed by Dikirr to be included in his thesis, but the other five men interviewed corroborate much of what she said. Both Ochieng’-Odhiambo and Patrick Dikirr were students (and colleagues) of Odera Oruka. He was the mentor of their master’s and PhD theses, respectively. But there was also a next generation of student-scholars in Nairobi. Oriare Nyarwath wrote his master’s degree on the topic of “taboos” that was mentored by Odera Oruka and wrote his PhD dissertation on Oruka (after Oruka’s passing). He then taught a master’s course on Sage Philosophy at Tangaza College in Nairobi, in the Maryknoll Institute of African Studies of St. Mary’s University (MIASMU). There, students engaged in their own sage philosophy projects, interviewing sages and/or Kenyans in general on the topic of sages. The Tangaza College MIASMU library has bound collections of the student’s papers available for study. There one can find a term paper like Rita Njaũ’s, discussing “The effects of gender roles on the development of Agĩkũyũ women sages.” She interviewed sixteen Agĩkũyũ sages, seven women, and nine men, on the topic of wisdom in general, with follow-up questions on women’s roles in society, and whether women can be wise and whether they gain recognition for their wisdom. Her general report is followed by an appendix with the names and summaries of each of her interviews. She also writes her own testimony as a Mugĩkũyũ/ Kĩkũyũ woman. A variety of perspectives are shared by her interviewees. First of all, their definitions of wisdom are interesting and helpful. While Josephine N. focused on “the ability to make sound judgments and decisions,” Hilda K. emphasized “justice and mercy,” and Emma highlighted the continuous need to explore and reconsider issues of importance to individuals and the community (Njaũ 5, 15). Beatrice W. (fifty-seven years old) describes wise people as “persons of integrity, who apply honesty and fair reasoning as they interact with others” (Njaũ, 15). Beatrice goes on to insist that women demonstrate wisdom in the way that they manage their homes with minimal resources, and the society recognizes they are wise since they entrust women with the raising of young children. She thinks women are not well known in the public sphere because they are overwhelmed by all of their work in the home. These points of hers were reiterated by Mzee Ngugi M. (seventyfive years old), who noted that while women are not seen in positions of

104

Gail M. Presbey

leadership, that doesn’t mean they are not heard. He thinks society recognizes women’s wisdom and “subtle” leadership (Njaũ, 17). Njaũ herself, while appreciating the insights of her informants, decided that they were all “folk sages” who did not want to critically engage their traditions. She also made critical comments about a couple of the males she interviewed, who, she felt, reinforced the mistaken notion that wisdom is not for women (Njaũ, 5). As for herself, she seems to think there needs to be more change. She noted that for Hilda, “the woman who ensured that all her family members never went hungry, that all elderly people were well looked after and that her family remained in good health, demonstrated good resource distribution and management, and was thus defined as wise,” and that in addition to all of this hard work, the evening was a time for women to share folk tales, riddles, and proverbs with their children. All of this qualified women to be considered sages (6). But as a young woman, Njaũ thought that all of this work in the home was preventing women from reaching their potential, and she wished that more women would criticize or rebel against this scenario, but she found them instead reluctant to go against the ways of the ancestors (Njaũ, 7). I find these themes of Njaũ’s (questions regarding deference to tradition or criticism of tradition) intriguing and I intend to follow up on these themes as I describe my own interviews with Kenyan women sages. Other graduate students in the Sage Philosophy class at Tangaza College critically commented on how the male sages in Odera Oruka’s Sage Philosophy book suggested that the genders were unequal. One student, Stephanie Chan, specifically interviewed youths rather than elders, and cataloged “wise sayings of the youth on gender,” such as, “All girls and boys should be educated equally. Family property should be divided to both boy and girl” (Eileen); “I will give my vote to a lady candidate if she is more capable to be a minister in the government” (Tony); “If both genders share their experience and points of view can help to enrich the knowledge of one another” (Calvince) (Chan, 6,7). She therefore concluded that these youths were being critically reflective about their lives, engaging in didactic wisdom as do philosophical sages (7). In this way, she challenged both gender and age categories prevalent in sage philosophy research up to that time.

A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE WRITTEN BY WOMEN SCHOLARS ON AFRICAN WOMEN SAGES Some East African women, not necessarily a part of the sage philosophy project started by Oruka, nevertheless argued that women should be studied as wise persons and philosophers. I will give some examples. Anytime one leaves the corridors of academic philosophy there is always the question of

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

105

whether philosophy will be recognized when it is lived in life rather than written or orally argued in an academic context. Do academics define philosophy in too narrow a sense, often Eurocentrically, but also drawing firm lines between the philosophical and non-philosophical? This was one of the key themes of Mary Midgley’s book (in which she criticized the “Oxbridge” approach to philosophy), Wisdom, Information and Wonder: What Is Knowledge For? (1991). In the book, she notes the frustration that people have with academic philosophers who refuse to answer searching questions about the meaning of life, and who try to dissolve people’s problems instead of answering them; or who choose to answer all questions with an “offense is defense” strategy, always asking them: “What do you mean by that?,” as if the key role of the philosopher were just to encourage people to define their terms. Most of us have serious questions of meaning in our lives or have problems of particular life dilemmas, and philosophy has been the discipline that historically addressed these issues. Some feminist philosophers have also emphasized a “narrative” approach to philosophy as an alternative to the didactic approach. And, as Anna Gotlib (2014) explains, “Theorists engaged in narratively-based moral scholarship take stories to be foundational for how we view the world and our place in it, arguing that they are the means through which we can make ourselves morally intelligible to ourselves and to others.” Promoted by feminist scholars like Margaret Walker, the narrative approach brings into moral discourse the moral decisions of women and minorities in “non-ideal” environments, in contrast to mainstream moral philosophizing which, as Gotlib points out, has a focus on impartiality, distance, and universalizability that presumes a male positioning. Given the existence and at least partial embracing of this narrative approach to ethics, it seems to me that interviews with women sages could be promoted and evaluated in this methodological context. Related to narrative ethics, Bagele Chilisa noted in her book on Indigenous Research Methodologies (2012) that some women interviewed for studies wanted to be visible and known as the authors of their interviews, in situations where foreign researchers had wanted to anonymize them. She refers to the 2009 study of Gabo Ntseane in Botswana. The women Ntseane interviewed stated that since they did not know how to write or document their own stories, telling their stories to Ntseane could help their wisdom be carried to the community and preserved for future generations, something that was valuable to them. This leads Chilisa to claim that a postcolonial indigenous paradigm favors using the names of everyone who participates in the research, if they permit it [. . .]. For a postcolonial indigenous perspective, information or stories told by participants lose their power if the storyteller is not known. (Chilisa 2012, 207)

106

Gail M. Presbey

Chilisa also directly addresses the role of “philosophic sagacity” in the interview method, agreeing that elders should be interviewed so as to benefit from their wisdom and to learn more about postcolonial indigenous thought systems (ibid., 211). One thing I could not help but notice when interviewing elder Kenyan women (and men) is that they often interpret their life experiences using religious terminology. Now, when it comes to definitions of religious experience, some authors have argued that it is perhaps a misnomer to think, that there is a strong demarcation between the “sacred” and “profane,” or daily life and religious experience, and instead that there may be a religious pole of interpretation for our daily experience. These are times in our life when what has happened makes us gravitate toward a religious interpretation and understanding of an event, that others may regard as natural. For example, theologian John E. Smith (1995, chapter 2) talked about times of life such as the birth of a new child, or the death of a loved one, when we might feel a profound sense of closeness to God. That is what one of the women I interviewed stated about her own experience. Many of the Kenyan women I interviewed had explicit interpretations of their experiences as religious. Not only at the time of their birthing new babies, but even when birthing a new idea, they were quick to give all credit to God. Religion is a widespread interpretive scheme for understanding experience, both in Africa and elsewhere. But clearly, there is some overlap between religion and philosophy. A profound philosophical insight, or what we might call a philosophical attitude or response to life’s unfolding, may not always be explicitly religious. Those of us trained in the Western philosophical tradition all know that we are told that philosophy begins with wondering. Nevertheless, the average philosophy class does not spend much time wondering. But some schools of philosophy are better known for focusing on attitudes toward, or ways of life. The Stoics and Epicureans fostered a certain attitude toward life, which was focused on the mental state but impacted one’s emotions too. The Pythagoreans constituted a community with a certain routine, diet, and do’s and don’ts (such as vegetarianism and pacifism) that expressed their general philosophy of the soul’s immortality and kinship and equality of all souls in concrete ways. Let me suggest that many of the women I encountered and interviewed lived philosophy in that kind of way, in a daily lifestyle connected to their values. These values included, broadly similar to the Pythagoreans, a critique of materialism and competition, and a commitment to the humane treatment of others (Mark 2019).4 Elinami Vareli Swai wrote a book on African women in which she suggested that the women she knew from Tanzania were philosophical. She focused on a community of women who came up with the pithy sayings on “kangas” (large pieces of decorated cloth with printed sayings worn by

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

107

women in East Africa), saying these women had a philosophical practice, which they summed up verbally and wrote about on their kangas. She also highlighted other women who were visual artists and talked about the philosophies expressed in their artworks. That’s a model for me as I look for the philosophies of women in Kenya, who are not academics but nevertheless articulate precious philosophical insights about their lives. Mary Njeri Kinyanjui in her recent book interviews eight Kenyan women on a topic with philosophical themes, that is—“anthropain”—a term which she says means “pain that is caused by human beings to fellow human beings” (Kinyanjui 2019, 1). Much of the pain is physical (abuse, and being treated as a “beast of burden”), and some of it is social (accusations of witchcraft, shunning) (ibid., 2). But the common theme she saw in the interviews had to do with resilience in the face of these harms and to find creative ways to engage with the problems. Kinyanjui describes herself as being from Ngethy village in Kiambu County, where Jomo Kenyatta had been born. She names all of her interview subjects: Phylis wa Njeri, Njunguru wa Githere, Rebecca Njeri wa Ndugo, Nyokabi wa Muema, Magdalene Wanjiru, Ndiko, Wairimu wa Titi, and Njeri wa Ngomi. Kinyanjui said that she admired women like her own step-grandmother who modeled a different kind of feminism than one found in Western textbooks. The step-grandmother was described as nurturing and creative, strong in agency, acting in solidarity with others, offering a shoulder to lean on, and guided by a servant spirit (ibid., 7). From her firsthand experience, she notes that “feminine utu” responds to harm and injury by caring for and soothing each other while insisting that “two wrongs do not make a right.” Abusers of women also need healing, re-education, and reform, realizing that male rapists, killers, and thieves are products of a heartless, competitive capitalist world. Kinyanjui develops her idea of feminine utu or “humanness” as advocating a project of minimizing anthropain “through human-centred solutions based on the fact that we are inextricably connected to each other” (ibid., 14). As Kai Kresse explains, “utu” is a key philosophical concept found in East Africa. The word “utu” means humanity or goodness. As is the case with the English word humanity, utu has both descriptive and normative dimensions. Descriptively, it refers to what makes us human, that is, the essence of human beings. Normatively, it refers to what makes us humane. A philosophy of “utu” would realize that humans are essentially moral and rational beings. This humanity and morality are expressed in our actions and behavior. Recognizing the value of every human being encourages us to show respect to all (Kresse 2007, 139–75). Kinyanjui is drawing upon this concept to describe the feminine utu she found in Kenyan women. As Kresse notes, there are levels of degree of moral goodness which shows in persons through their actions (ibid., 148). So Kinyanjui is suggesting that the women she met and interviewed exhibited

108

Gail M. Presbey

remarkable levels of utu. Mary Njeri Kinyanjui considers the women she interviewed as practicing a humanistic philosophy called “utu.” It is not a philosophy created by one person, it is rather a philosophical attitude and/or set of ideas embraced by a community. We can recognize their cultivation of certain attitudes toward life as a philosophical approach to life. Just like the Stoics and Epicureans had a certain philosophy about how to respond to pleasure and pain, so these women put forth their philosophy. I am not saying that they come to the same conclusions as Stoics and Epicureans did earlier. I am just saying that cultivating a certain attitude to life’s circumstances can be an expression of philosophy. There have been several studies published that include in-depth interviews of particular Kenyan women. These works focus on women’s struggles through life and their resilience, but they do not go the further step of attributing a humanistic philosophy of “utu” to them, as Kinyanjui does. Judith Abwunza interviewed over 400 Logoli women in Maragoli, Western Kenya, and included names, photos, and substantive quotes from those transcripts in her 1997 work, Women’s Voices, Women’s Power: Dialogues of Resistance from East Africa. She wanted to help readers understand the challenges of life for women in that patriarchal, economically poor, and crowded area of Kenya, including what the women themselves saw as criticisms of traditions, strengths of traditions, and their own plans of action to improve their lot. Jean Davidson’s Voices from Mutira: Lives of Rural Gĩkũyũ Women was an early attempt to convey the stories of Kenyan women, from their own perspective, to readers (1989). Taking into consideration nearby Tanzania, Pat Kaplan, in her book African Voices, African Lives, drew extensively on transcripts of three family members from Mafia Island in Tanzania, that is, Mohammad, the father, his wife Mwahadia, and their daughter Subira. Based on interviews over decades, she tried to convey to readers the perspectives of her interviewees regarding their beliefs in spirit possession and their way of understanding the poverty and pain they faced in their lives. The interest in women’s lives and their expressed philosophies has therefore been long lasting, and I only hope to contribute to this project, already started in part by many who have come before me.

RELATIONAL AUTONOMY The women I interviewed as part of a sage philosophy project in Kenya were wise elder sages. They shared insights into God and spirituality, birth and mortality, love and relations with family and animals. They also pinpointed various stresses and crises between men and women in their society and pointed to solutions. These clear examples show that one does not have to

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

109

go to Europe or the United States when looking for examples of feminist perspectives on relearning to be human. I want to focus on the tension between the twin conception of autonomy and community. Feminists have criticized conceptions of “autonomy” as being unrealistic. The Western male point of view in philosophy is more likely to emphasize the idea that we are free, self-made individuals. Feminist theorists have walked a fine line criticizing this theory, which downplays our social interdependence and often erases social debts we have to women caregivers, as well as state institutions. Yet, feminists are also often wary of communitarian views that seem to trap women in traditions that stifle their independence. What is a good feminist position to take on this topic? Stoljar (2015) promotes the use of the concept of “relational autonomy,” which, as a compromise between two stark positions, explains that we come to assert our personal identities and responsibilities as members of communities that help (or hinder) us to be who we become. From Sirkku Hellsten’s perspective, communitarianism is sometimes helpful and sometimes hurtful to women, depending on the community values. She explains that we are justified in considering communitarianism within a patriarchal community as being oppressive towards women. However, in a culture in which families and communities are democratic and caring units of social cooperation, sharing responsibility in time of trouble may contribute to women’s global empowerment. [.  .  .] Similarly, sometimes in an extremely individualist society the lack of social support leads women into a solitary competition against men. (Hellsten 2010, 51)

A recent book by Penelope Andrews, From Cape Town to Kabul: Rethinking Strategies for Pursuing Women’s Human Rights (2012) argues that if we really want to promote women’s human rights, we need to develop a new approach for which she coins the term “conditional interdependence” (Andrews 2012, 5). Her term conveys the important insight that interdependence can help women to achieve their goals. Many women live in social contexts where local people come to the aid of each other. By accessing these social networks, women can have increased resources. Andrews intends to challenge men to be part of the project of women’s rights, and she even says that men must be “conscripted as agents of transformation” (ibid., 34). Communities have an important role to play in protecting women and defending their rights as well as redressing violations. It would be a tactical error, therefore, to emphasize autonomy and/or mere legal or governmental approaches without engaging the community as it functions through local networks. Andrews did most of her research in South Africa and Afghanistan where she noticed a large chasm between the rhetoric of the calls for

110

Gail M. Presbey

women’s equality and that of the social and governmental practices (ibid., 7, 19–20). So, taking this more nuanced idea of “relational autonomy” as our touchstone, I would like to turn my attention to my examples, to see how the women I interviewed are concrete examples of what Stoljar is suggesting, that is, assertions of autonomy in the context of acknowledged relationality. I will also pay attention to what both Hellsten and Andrews have noticed, that is, the way in which other members of society can help women, and the way in which some of a society’s values may be called upon to better defend women’s rights. NTETIA NALAMAE While in Kenya, I had a chance to interview two women who were co-wives of the same man, Rumpe ole Kereya, in Olepolos, Kajaido County (formerly Rift Valley Province). I was also able to interview Rumpe himself and his son. But here I want to focus on the interview with his first co-wife, Ntetia. Now, Maasai society is structured patriarchally, and women are not allowed to own cattle (the main source of wealth), except, when they marry, they are “given” cows which they hold or care for to give later to their sons. Men can marry many wives while women can only have one husband. However, some researchers, like von Mitzlaff have noted ways in which Maasai women can have relative sexual freedom, in side relationships kept secret through women’s solidarity (see von Mitzlaff 1988, 139–45). While women surely suffer some hardships, and one might also say they have diminished status compared to men, they nevertheless are aware of certain advantages that they have. For example, co-wives, like these two women, can become very close, as they share life together and work to help each other. This closeness between co-wives can be a richer source of emotional intimacy than a relationship they may have with their husband. Co-wives are not necessarily competitors, and they often cooperate to help each other. When it comes to dealing with problems of infertility, women also cooperate on a community level through their Olamal or “fertility” ceremony (see Llelewyn-Davies 1985; Talle 2003). As I explained in an earlier article of mine: One should not presume that Maasai systems of patriarchy are the same as Western systems. While men own the cattle, and have rights to keep children in case of any separation with the mother of the children, Maasai women have rights, and can play some roles, that women do not play in Western European and American traditions. For example, if a Maasai woman does not bear a son,

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

111

but has a daughter, her daughter can remain in the home, unmarried (while having lovers), and her progeny will continue the family line (patriline) just as a son’s progeny would have done. (Presbey 2012b, 5; in Mitzlaff 1988, 118)

One aspect of the interview with Ntetia Nalamae stands out is her experience as a nomadic herder. Her name, “Nalamae” means one who has come from a long distance. She explains what happened after having given birth to her first child near Enkapi: We shifted from Masiany to Enkasurai where I gave birth to my second and third born. My fourth born is Olaiguanani (traditional chief). His name is Pelela. This was at Iig’arojj. We went back to ‘Enkapi’ and I gave birth to my fifth born. From there we went to Lenyamu where I gave birth to my sixth born. We shifted from there to ‘Olepolos’ where I gave birth to Simantoi and Ntina and Ntina is my last born. (Nalamae 1999)

She explained that she loved shifting from one place to another, because doing so allowed them to remain close to their cattle, and they loved their cattle, as she described, “right from the bottom of my heart.” She was therefore very enthusiastic about her and her family’s nomadic herding way of life. By the time she reached old age, when I met her, she was living in a more stable house on a particular piece of land. Ntetia explains that she prayed to Enkai (God), asking God to give her children, grandchildren, and cattle. “Enkai” is a feminine gendered noun, used for God (if a masculine term was used, it would have been “Orkai”). She said she felt closest to God during the birth of her children. She also explains that her life became easier when, after the birth of her fifth child, her husband married a second wife, and that second wife could help her with the chores of the household. Reflecting on how God is so powerful that God gives children, and that God is feminine (Enkai), she goes further to state: “We have power. If it were not for a woman, children and other wealth would not have been acquired.” Ntetia explained that she always considered women to be equal to men, and she would make this point to her husband. She said, When our husband confronts us I always let his tempers go down, and I would ask him, why should he confront us always while we are also human-beings like him? He would re-think the matter and admit that he was in the wrong.

She also raised her concern about contemporary trends of men caning women, which she blamed on the increased consumption of alcohol that was not part of the Maasai tradition. In this way, she sorted out the difference between traditional

112

Gail M. Presbey

ideas of men’s authority in the home from current abuses of their authority roles, and she also specifically noted that a certain technology, that is, beer bottling, gave rise to a new problem. In earlier times, beer (or other alcoholic drinks) were created by communities for special events. Drunkenness at an important social festival was not seen as harmful. But with the sale of bottled beer men would squander cash, possibly on a daily basis, and regularly return home quarrelsome. This was a social evil that women like Ntetia were speaking out against and trying to help each other to curtail this behavior of their husbands. Looking over the interview again, I can see how Ntetia was very courageous. She traveled everywhere with her cattle. She was close to God, Enkai, during her many childbirths. She would defend herself verbally against her husband and insisted on women’s equality. While she was clearly in a network of mutual aid that helped her thrive (including her husband, co-wife and cattle), she still reflected on her life and her values from her own perspective, and she was not a conformist or subservient. I therefore think of her situation as illustrating the benign tension in the concepts of “conditional interdependence” and “relational autonomy,” that is, terms that emphasize the importance of expressing autonomy in an acknowledged community context. And, while she accepts and enthusiastically supports many Maasai traditions and traditional values, she is also a social critic. While this is not the place to discuss my interviews with male sages at length, I do want to say that some Maasai men that I interviewed were very supportive of women in general, and their wives and girls specifically. Ngaimarish ole Mulo, for example, had one wife and seven girls. He told me that he intended to raise funds to ensure that all seven girls went to school. He even said he would postpone getting a second wife until all his seven girl children were educated (Ngaimarish, November 1998). He also intervened in a case where a girl was being married off by her father to a man she did not want to marry. He engaged with other elders in long discussions to have that arranged marriage annulled so that she could marry the man she loved instead. He would also involve himself in de-escalating tensions between married couples (Ngaimarish 2001). Ngaimarish also reiterates the point that for the Maasai, God is considered a woman. He told the story of how the Maasai received cattle. God’s hand came down from heaven, and all saw that it was a woman’s hand. He also noted that in addition to “Enkai,” God is also known as “Pasaje,” and both are feminine names. It is interesting to me that cattle, so central to Maasai identity, are received from a female God (but then, on earth are exclusively owned by men) (Ngaimarish, December 1998). Various gender roles and practices of the Maasai are numerous and quite interesting, and Ngaimarish had much more to say on these topics, but I will leave this topic for now, to turn to my next female sage.

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

113

JULIA OUKO Julia Ouko was born in Karachuonyo Kogweno in 1938, and she was married in 1954. I interviewed her, with the help of Humphrey Ojwang in Kamagambo, Migori County (former Nyanza Province). She spoke at length about what Luo society had been like, during the time she was growing up and first married, and how society is so different nowadays. She clearly preferred the way society had been before. She does not appreciate the influence of money on society. When she was younger, people would pitch in on common work projects and be fed by each other, a tradition called sigalagala. Nowadays, with money people buy superfluous things, and then sometimes there is not enough food. And, life had been less pressured earlier. Money also brought new problems like stealing and prostitution, which were not there earlier. Julia described a relationship between husbands and wives, for whom respect was a priority. She explains, In Luo tradition, women were expected to be obedient to their husbands, to treat them with respect. When the husband comes home from the shamba or from watching cattle, the wife would give him a drink. She had to show him deep regard. That is not there today, due to modern influences. Traditionally, a man had his hut or office, called an abila, where he was served with food. Today, it is nonexistent. That kind of respect was, however, not expected of a man. The wife was like a worker and helper to the husband. The wife’s good works earn her a smile from the husband. In the context of the Luo polygamous unions, the homestead was run according to rules. As head of the family, the man sets rules to be obeyed. He rated his wives according to their good works. (Ouko 1999)

While it is clear that she notes the inequality in the relationship between husband and wife, she still defends this tradition, because she thinks that it is better than contemporary relationships. She said that in the old practices of marriage there were no quarrels. Her husband, who was a chief, never hit her. There was a practice of women massaging their husbands, and this helped them to be close (she notes, however, that if a woman wanted a massage, she would ask her grandchildren, not her husband). She also notes, that in traditions of courting for marriage, no presents would be given to the girl during the courtship. If they liked each other, he would arrange to have her “pulled” to his home, and then she would be declared his wife. The family would receive cows, and there would be a feast after the marriage. Luo couples did not traditionally kiss or show affection in public. She also clarifies that the Luo tradition is for couples to mate only when it is time for procreation and that a wife with a small child would live apart in an “Abila” (separate house). Men were expected to save their energy for war, or for hunting, so they could not have sex with their wives often.

114

Gail M. Presbey

Promiscuity was also rare back then, she asserted. As Julia described these Luo traditions, she also clarified that she knew that Whites had different traditions, that they were affectionate in public, and that they expected close intimacy in marriage. But she still preferred Luo traditions for herself and her community. And she preferred the earlier days of mutual respect and the Luo family planning methods (which still resulted in large families, e.g., fifteen children was typical, she asserted). Contemporary practices of promiscuity and cheating are harmful to both men and women. Julia also thought that women’s changing roles in education and the workplace were not signs of progress. She noted that women who had jobs in an office still had to do all the housework and cooking at home in addition to her job. She asserted, “In fact, the burden for women, especially working class women, has increased in modern times.” She also said that if a woman ever told her husband she would not do these chores or that he had to help her to do them, “that’s the time when fists will talk!” It is clear that Julia is a critic of her own society insofar as she is critical of recent developments, which she attributes to outside influences like money, materialism, changing values, and morality. Also, she considers the earlier time frame (including obedience on the part of wives) as better for herself in particular and women in general, because she thinks of stable and clear roles in marriage, for example, as leading to peace, moral virtue, and order. Being a religious person, she also insisted that in life, “God should come before everything else.” She concluded by insisting that “what I have said is the truth and we very much long to have them recorded, but we’ve never found anybody interested in our knowledge and eager to write it down.” Her concluding comments showed some internal tension because while she thought that a book filled with the great ideas of sages like herself would benefit future generations, she also worried that nowadays, “Nobody actually bothers about these teachings even with all the importance that they have.” While Julia put up a spirited defense of traditional marriage roles among the Luo, we can also note that her life conformed to this ideal. She was married at age sixteen to Jaduong’ Shem Ouko Mbewa, who was at the time a civil servant in the British government, for the Southern Nyanza region. Her husband became a chief. She raised seven children. As explained in her eulogy by Humphrey Ojwang, Senior Chief Shem Ouko Mbewa was a wealthy man married many wives before and after Julia Auma Ouko. These wives hailed from different clans in Southern Nyanza including Kasipul-Kabondo; Karachuonyo-Kanyaluo; Nyakach-Agoro; and Asego-Kanyada. It was indeed a large African polygamous family working in harmony; each woman was assigned portions of the land for cultivation and food production. (Ojwang 2020)

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

115

The whole family ran a large and well-kept farm. Ojwang goes on to say that she was known to all as “Nyolago.” He notes that she had the moral courage to leave the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which was the main denomination in Kamagambo where she lived, to join instead the Power of Jesus Around the World Church in Rongo, which had been founded by Archbishop Dr. Washington Ogonyo Ngede of Kano. Ojwang explains that she was a “seeker of spiritual knowledge about the divine” and that she exhibited “expanded psychic and spiritual awareness,” paying attention to the Holy Spirit and the messages in visions and dreams (Ojwang 2020). She believed in giving to others altruistically. While her husband had died, she did not talk about any new husband but presented herself as a widow. She was very close friends with other women leaders like Japuonj Yucabed Obuya Otieno (Ojwang’s mother) and Mama Phoebe Aluoch-Polo from Oriang’-Kasbong’ in Karachuonyo. She herself died on August 15, 2020, at age eighty-two. The next woman sage whose interview I will share with you had a very different life and a very different calling.

MARIA MAGDALENA JOSEPHINE AOKO Maria Magdalena Josephine Aoko, also known as “Mother,” and also known as “Nyo – Otieno” or Daughter of Otieno, was born in Wawaga, in Sakwa Kadera in 1924. I was able to interview her in Rongo (Migori County, formerly Nyanza Province) where she has been living with her grandson. As she explained, “I gave birth to nine children out of which eight died, so I remained with one child, a girl.” This one daughter has given her seven grandchildren. In 1964, God gave her a special blessing to be able to heal people with herbs. She found this out because others who had received a message from the Holy Spirit on this topic told her so. At the time her husband had died, and she was living with her brother-in-law who had inherited her as a wife, as is the Luo custom. She was working in the tea plantations in Kericho. While she had been a Catholic, the Catholic Church did not approve of Luo practices of widow inheritance, and so, she joined Legio Maria in 1963. (This is a syncretic religion, close to Catholicism but also with African traditional religions as an influence; unlike the Catholics, they would baptize all members of a polygamous family). At first, she was part of a group healing people with the holy water from Chamgondae River delta. She also helped barren women to be able to give birth, and she helped women with difficulties in childbirth, as well as women and children who had stomach/abdominal ailments (“ori”). In all of these activities, she was guided by the Holy Spirit, who also gave her the gift of prophecy. She received messages in dreams that helped her to identify herbs that could help people with their ailments. She described the

116

Gail M. Presbey

experience as seeing the herbs on a screen as if it were on television. And she was told how the various herbs would cure a particular condition. She began to have the reputation of a healer, and people would travel from “as far as Siaya and Kisumu, Tanzania, Awasi, Kisii” to receive treatment. During our interview with her, she spoke in tongues and then interpreted the utterance herself, which she said had meant: “God is all knowing, omnipotent, and nowhere can you find God absent.” She also explained that through Legio Maria, she came to realize that her eight children had died due to evil spirits, and the people of Legio Maria were able to exorcise that evil spirit, after which time she has been filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, to lose eight children and one’s husband is clearly a difficult thing. Since she seemed so certain that God had a plan for her, I asked her in the interview why, in the earlier part of her life, God had first let eight of her children die, before giving her the healing mission? She replied: That’s the work of God; it is Him who knows why. Didn’t the disciples of Jesus Christ get their healing powers from Him? Once you believe in Jesus then He goes ahead to apportion his work for you and you go ahead to do it; if you fail to do it properly then it may be withdrawn. But I cannot tell exactly why he chose me but he knows why. He also knows why He took away my children. (Aoko 1999)

She pondered that perhaps God was testing her as he tested Job (Ayub) in the Bible, and in that way preparing her for her healing mission. She explained that the most important attribute is not intelligence but reliance on God’s revelation. She told the biblical story of Massellus, who encountered a small child (who was really an angel of God), putting the water of the sea into pots. When Massellus was wondering why the child was doing this, the child answered, “Oh, Massellus, you’re a great and wise teacher but just like I cannot finish this water, the same way, with all your intelligence you will never come to know who I am.” The point of the story is that it is not due to intelligence that God gives her any healing abilities that she has. Clearly, in her understanding, human beings needed proper humility to realize God’s greatness in comparison to human limitation and fallibility. (I want to add that a young woman, present at the interview, testified to me that Aoko had healed her when she suffered from a difficult pregnancy). On other topics, Maria Magdalena remembered when Luos practiced the form of marriage (that Julia had already mentioned), in which women are being “pulled” into marriage by suitors. Some women would wrestle with the men, and if they won a wrestling match with a suitor, they would not marry the person. (As John Ogola, my translator, explained, if a woman won the match it showed that she was stronger than the proposed husband, so in that case, “such a man could not marry such a woman”). Young people would

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

117

visit the “obanda” or “wrestling grounds,” or perhaps this would happen at the marketplace. The man would pull a woman away, and parents would find out afterward that she was married, that is, “kioko” (out of the home). As she explained, even if a dowry had already been paid by another suitor, the woman could nevertheless be “abducted and taken for marriage by a different man altogether.” While I was quite concerned about the idea of being “abducted,” Maria Magdalena assured me that at the time, for the participants, they enjoyed it. You can meet someone at a social function, enjoy each other’s company, and then just decide to go. She assured me that this practice was among mature people. She thought that nowadays girls were getting married earlier, like in eighth or ninth grade, but before, when she was younger, that would be considered too young to be married. However, on the topic of wife battering, she thinks that the problem was more prevalent in earlier times. Men would beat their wives brutally and frequently, even on “very frivolous grounds.” For example, she would be beaten if while she was busy preparing a meal, a calf would run to its mother when its mother, after grazing, first re-entered the yard in the evening (thus depriving the family of milk). She would be beaten for not stopping the calf. While there were these various pretexts for beatings, they were sometimes done for no reason at all. Back then, if a woman was beaten she would scream for help. She thinks that nowadays a person may be beaten privately in her house without neighbors knowing. Despite this possibility, she has the overall impression that beatings are not as prevalent these days as they had been in the past, which is a good thing. In her life, she created peace between herself and her co-wife. When her co-wife died, she had to help to raise her co-wife’s son, even ensuring he received schooling. Now she has great grandchildren. She suggests, that “if you want to live a better life, seek peace, first in your home before you can proceed to the larger society if possible. (. . .) Harmonious living eliminates jealousy.” The grandchild she lives with also has two wives and she testifies that they also live in peace. She thinks, however, that there is too much greed and jealousy in the larger community for the peace (like the peace in her own family) to extend across the nation and between ethnic groups. However, she hopes that the younger generation will be able to overcome the problem of interethnic strife. She sees the use of different languages as exacerbating the divisions. There are also many different religions, some of whose members “truly love each other.” Some are richer or more developed than others; determination and unity are the key factors for any community or religion’s success. While she is happy in her religious community, which she thinks is doing well, she did not particularly want to convert people from one religion to another, because she said that all churches are the same, and God is one, and that is the most important thing. She therefore asserts, “for

118

Gail M. Presbey

unity and peace to exist, as I said, you need selfless individuals to champion that cause, and when people start seeing sense in it, they will join you to fight for the cause.” In summary, Maria Magdalena seemed satisfied with Luo practices, such as wives being “pulled” by husbands, and practices like polygamy and widow inheritance were helpful to her. She felt close to her co-wife and promotes peace and mutual care over competition and jealousy. She did not know why God allowed an evil spirit to cause the death of so many of her children, but she was grateful that her daughter survived, and that she lives with a grandson. She was quite critical of past practices of wife beating; she counsels families to practice peacefulness and eliminate jealousy, and she hopes that in the future, peace will be practiced on a wider scale. She is dedicated to following and practicing God’s will and to healing, especially those who have not been helped by hospitals and other forms of medicine, through the use of herbs as her special calling, since God’s revelation gives her the information she needs to help others.

IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION In conclusion, we can see that women sages in Kenya are reflective. They are partly critical but often supportive of the main aspects of their community’s traditions regarding marriage and morality. Perhaps their support of tradition is partly due to their age. As we saw earlier, younger Kenyan women like Njaũ may not be making the same decisions and value judgments as these women from earlier generations. What would be a proper and constructive feminist response that avoided condescending judgments about the sage women’s decisions, since support for polygamy as well as male ownership of land and/or cattle could be considered an “adaptive preference” that may be harmful to women’s potential? Here, it is important to draw on Serene Khader’s analysis, since she suggests that activists should work with local women to explore what changes would help their flourishing (Khader 2011, 6). While my analysis shows that these women did make detailed and nuanced analyses of their own societies, they most likely could further their critiques or possibly even change their positions, for example, in dialogue with Kenyan women of the younger generation, or possibly even with “crosscultural feminist interventions” as Khader describes them (ibid., 7). But such changes would depend on whether that dialogue is done with respect and openness rather than defensiveness or dismissiveness. Khader argues that behind efforts of nongovernmental organizations to “improve” women’s lives there is often a presumption that women from the global South are part of an inferior culture (7–8). Therefore, I argue that showing the rich intellectual life

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

119

and the insightful philosophical perspectives of Kenyan women can counteract those presumptions, making sage philosophy interviews part of the necessary education of NGO workers. After dispelling presumptions of inferiority, cross-cultural communication and sharing could be mutual and more helpful. Khader notes that feminists have often considered women who have as their life goals mothering children and devotional religiosity to be constrained by narrow cultural opportunities. But they often neglect what women say is valuable for themselves in these traditions (12). The women I interviewed felt great support from their co-wives and other women. They also each professed a profound religiosity and dedication to God. They also display their “relational autonomy,” that is, each one asserts herself in her context, within community constraints but nevertheless unafraid to challenge certain constrictions of her situation. For example, while Maria Magdalena was not accepted into Catholicism due to her being in a polygamous marriage (after she was inherited), she was accepted into Legio Maria, another religion. This does not turn into bitterness for her; she asserts that all religions are good, because they worship God and God is one. While very familiar with the past, the women sages are also all keen judges of their contemporary world, noticing and calling out destructive current trends (such as early marriage or wife beating). Their reflections, in narrative form, convey their values, and explain to us, the listeners, and themselves, who they are, the choices they made, and the values they hold. Through the stories of their perseverance—through difficulty—we learn about their practice of “utu” or humanness. Despite their own difficulties they reach out to those in need, whether those are children who have lost their parents, animals that need tending, or those who are sick and in need of healing. By listening to their stories, we learn about their philosophies, and even if we find ourselves in a different cultural context, we may be influenced by them in some way that would change our philosophies and our way of living.

NOTES 1. Special thanks to John Ogola, Humphrey Ojwang, and Daniel Sasine, who arranged my interviews with the three women sages, and translated on site. 2. I also interviewed a refugee woman at Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, and published excerpts of her interview and an analysis which are in a book chapter (Presbey 2011: 337, 339–40), but I had to change her name in the publication due to her status as a refugee. I interviewed her as part of a study on conflict resolution sponsored by Care International—Kenya. 3. The Kenyan edition published in 1991 has some slight text variations in the opening chapters but includes the same people as interlocutors.

120

Gail M. Presbey

4. I myself don’t think that it is necessary to compare sages to the Pre-Socratics in order to ensure the sages’ status as philosophers, since such a procedure bows to Eurocentrism. But since both Odera Oruka (1991: 1, 8) and F. Ochieng’-Odhiambo (1997: 174) thought this was a necessary, and hopefully successful way to convince skeptics who clung to a narrow definition of philosophy, I include the reference to Pythagoras to show that the Pre-Socratics themselves, by their diversity, describe and define philosophy more broadly than some scholars do today.

REFERENCES Abunzwa, J. M. 1997. Women’s Voices, Women’s Power. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press. Andrews, P. 2012. From Cape Town to Kabul: Rethinking Strategies for Pursuing Women’s Human Rights. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Aoko, M. M. J. 1999. Interview by Gail Presbey. Translated on site by John Ogola, Transcribed and translated by Robert Vincent Okungu, Rongo, Migori County (former Nyanza Province), May 4, 1999. Caplan, P. 1997. African Voices, African Lives: Personal Narratives from a Swahili Village. New York: Routledge. Chan, S. 2006. “Wisdom and the Youth.” Sage Philosophy Term Paper, Tangaza College Library/ MIASMU. Chilisa, B. 2012. Indigenous Research Methodologies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Davidson, J. 1989. Voices from Mutira: Lives of Rural Gĩkũyũ Women. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Dikirr, P. M. 1994. “The Philosophy and Ethics Concerning Death and Disposal of the Dead among the Maasai.” MA Thesis, University of Nairobi. Gotlib, A. 2014. “Feminist Ethics and Narrative Ethics.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://www​.iep​.utm​.edu​/fem​-e​-n/ Hellsten, S. K. 2010. “Empowering the Invisible: Women, Local Culture and Global Human Rights Protection.” Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) New Series 2, no. 1: 37–57. Khader, Serene J. 2011. Adaptive Preferences and Women’s Empowerment. Oxford University Press. Kinyanjui, M. N. 2019. The Sweet Sobs of Women in Response to Anthropain. Cambridge Scholars Press. Kresse, K. 2007. Philosophising in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam and Intellectual Practice on the Swahili Coast. London: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute. Llelewyn-Davies, M. 1985. “The Woman’s Olamal: The Organization of a Maasai Fertility Ceremony.” BBC Video. 114 min. 1984. Mark, J. J. 2019. “Pythagoras.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. https://www​.ancient​ .eu​/Pythagoras/

Wisdom from Women in Kenya

121

Mosima, P. 2018. “Henry Odera Oruka and the female sage: Re-evaluating the nature of sagacity.” In African Philosophy and the Epistemic Marginalization of Women, edited by J. O. Chimakonam and L. du Toit. New York: Routledge, 22–41. Midgley, M. 1991. Wisdom, Information and Wonder: What Is Knowledge For? Taylor & Francis Group. Nalamae, N. 1999. Interview with Gail Presbey. Translated by Daniel Sasine. Olepolos, Kajiado County (former Rift Valley Province), Kenya, April 25, 1999. Njaũ, R. 2006. “The Effects of Gender Roles on the Development of Agĩkũyũ Women Sages.” Sage Philosophy Term Paper, Tangaza College Library/ MIASMU. Ochieng’-Odhiambo, F. 1994. “The Significance Of Philosophic Sagacity In African Philosophy.” PhD diss., University of Nairobi. ———. 1997. “Philosophic Sagacity Revisited.” In Sagacious Reasoning: Henry Odera Oruka in Memoriam, edited by K. Kresse and A. Graness. New York: Peter Lang, 171–180. Ojwang, H. J. 2020. “The Life History of Mama Julia Auma Ouko: A Tribute to an African Woman Sage.” Eulogy written on the occasion of her death (August 14, 2020) and burial (Aug. 20, 2020). In appendix of this volume. Oruka, H. O. 1990. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and the Modern Debate in African Philosophy. Leiden: E. J. Brill [republished in 1991 (Nairobi: ACTS Press)]. Ole Mulo, Ngaimarish 1998, 1999, 2001. Interview by Gail Presbey. Translated by Daniel Sasine. Migori County, Kenya. First interview, Nov. 30, 1998, Olepolos; Second interview, December 13, 1998; Third interview, Feb. 6, 1999, Olepolos; Fourth interview, Olshoibor, Kenya, August 26, 2001. Ouko, J. O. 2005. “Sage Philosophy as African Existentialism: The Relevance of Sage Philosophy to some of the African Problems.” In African Philosophy at the Threshold of the New Millennium, edited by B. Gutema and D. Smith. Addis Ababa University Printing Press, 195–204. Ouko, J. A. 1999. Interview with Julia Auma Ouko by Gail Presbey. Translation on site by Humphrey Ojwang, Transcription and translation by Robert Vincent Okungu. Kamagambo, Southern Nyanza, Kenya, 3 May 1999. Presbey, G. 1999. “The Wisdom of African Sages.” New Political Science 21, no. 1: 89–102. ———. 2000. “Contemporary African Sages and Queen Mothers: Their Leadership Roles in Conflict Resolution.” In Peacemaking: Lessons from the Past, Visions for the Future, edited by J. Presler and S. Scholz. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 231–245. ———. 2001. “Akan Chiefs and Queen Mothers in Contemporary Ghana: Examples of Democracy, or Accountable Authority?” International Journal of African Studies 3, no. 1: 63–83. ———. 2002. “African Sage Philosophy and Socrates: Midwifery and Method.” International Philosophical Quarterly 42, no. 2: 177–192. ———. 2004. “Sage Philosophy and Critical Thinking: Creatively Coping with Negative Emotions.” International Journal of Philosophical Practice 2, no. 1: 1–20. http://npcassoc​.org​/journal​/table​-of​-contents​/vol​-2​-no-1

122

Gail M. Presbey

———. 2007. “Sage Philosophy: Criteria that Distinguish it from Ethnophilosophy and Make It a Unique Approach within African Philosophy.” Philosophia Africana 10, no. 2: 127–60. ———. 2011. “Security through Mutual Understanding and Coexistence or Military Might? Somali and U.S. Military Perspectives.” In Seeds Bearing Fruit: PanAfrican Peace Action for the Twenty-first Century, edited by E. Ndura-Ouédraogo, M. Meyer and J. Atiri. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 323–351. ———. 2012a. “Kenyan Sages on Equality of Sexes.” Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) Special Issue: Odera Oruka Seventeen Years On. New Series 4. no. 2: 111–45. http://www​.ajol​.info​/index​.php​/ tp or http://www​.ajol​.info​/index​.php​/tp​/article​/viewFile​/88142​/77779 ———. 2012b. “Teaching ‘Philosophy of Feminism’ from a Global Perspective.” APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy 12, no. 1: 4–9. ———. 2014. “Sage Philosophy” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www​ .iep​.utm​.edu​/afr​-sage/ ———. 2017. “Oruka and Sage Philosophy: New Insights in Sagacious Reasoning.” In Handbook of African Philosophy, edited by T. Falola and A. Afolayan. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 75–96. Smith, J. E. 1995. Experience and God. New York: Fordham University Press. Stoljar, N. 2015. “Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy.”  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  https://plato​.stanford​.edu​/archives​/fall2015​/entries​/feminism​ -autonomy/ Swai, E. V. 2010. Beyond Women’s Empowerment in Africa: Exploring Dislocation and Agency. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Talle, A. 2003. “Maasai.” In Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Men and Women in the World’s Cultures, edited by C. R. Ember and M. Ember. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers. von Mitzlaff, U. 1994 [1988]. Maasai Women: Life in a Patriarchal Society; Field Research among the Parakuyo of Tanzania. Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House [Munich: Trickster Verlag]). Wambui, B. 2013. “Kũgeria Mĩaro: Atumia, Ciana, Mbũri, Mĩgũnda / Conversations: Women, Children, Goats, Land.” In Listening to Ourselves: A Multilingual Anthology of African Philosophy, edited by C. Jeffers. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Chapter 5

Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity Bruce B. Janz

The goal of this chapter is simple: I want to argue that Odera Oruka’s final book, Oginga Odinga: His Philosophy and Beliefs (Oruka 1992), models a new way of thinking about sage philosophy. It does not represent a radical break from the past, but rather an evolution of the methodology and a mutation in the kinds of questions that sage philosophy can potentially pose and answer. The shift we see here opens the door to considering other possible mutations in the methodology, as the process of questioning opens up new spaces of thought. This chapter will work through Oruka’s book more or less in order, even though the chapters were not written in order (the introduction was written last, after the interviews). There are two groups of interviews included here, the first set from 1982 and the second from 1991 to 1992. The goal will be to show that Oruka modifies his approach to sage philosophy in crucial ways, and in doing so implicitly introduces a new form of sage, which I am calling the “pragmatic sage.” The subject of these interviews should have a brief introduction, despite being a major figure in Kenyan politics since the 1950s. Jaramogi Ajuma Oginga Odinga (1911–1994) was a nationalist Kenyan politician of Luo ethnicity. He was the first vice president of Kenya under Jomo Kenyatta after independence from Britain, but parted ways with the ruling party Kenya African National Union and Kenyatta three years later and left the party. Throughout his life, he was friendly with leaders of communist and socialist countries, unlike the majority of other Kenyan politicians who were closer to Western leaders (and Western economic systems). He was also an advocate of multiparty politics, unlike both Kenyatta and the second president of Kenya, Daniel arap Moi, and his attempts to establish rival parties were usually thwarted by the government. In 1991, he was a key player in the founding of Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD), a rival party that 123

124

Bruce B. Janz

played a part in changing Kenya into a multiparty state. FORD splintered, and Odinga’s group, FORD-Kenya, came in fourth in the elections in 1992. He died of a heart attack in Kisumu on January 20, 1994. “A NAME IN HISTORY”: OVERVIEW OF ODINGA Following Bertrand Russell, Oruka identifies three things that governed Oginga Odinga’s life: 1. the love of truth 2. the will for independence, and 3. the deepest sympathy with the suffering masses (the “common man”) (Oruka 1992, 3) For Odinga, Oruka says, the love of truth means, among other things, “breaking up the Platonic lie” (4), which mostly means questioning the structure in the Republic that justifies having a philosopher-king. Leadership is a “gift from the led, and power is power of the people (or the followers), not of the ‘leaders.’” Prioritizing truth, then, will not be on a Platonic model, but it still matters. Oruka’s example comes from early in Odinga’s career, when he recognized Jomo Kenyatta as the authentic leader of Kenya. “Everybody and everything averse to this position was treated by Oginga as illusion. Fate proved him right.” Of course, for Plato, fate is not required as a justification of the truth of something. There was, rather, something closer to a will to bring about a particular end, rather than a Platonic sense of truth. In Oruka’s account, Odinga was the reason that Kenyatta became so prominent in Kenya. He would not have been president without him. Someone else would have ended up as president, and Odinga would have taken on a role such as ambassador “in a country like Lesotho or Lebanon.” Odinga’s role while Kenyatta was in prison was to rally the country to see him as the only viable candidate for president. While his support might have initially been a ploy to outmaneuver Tom Mboya, who had leadership ambitions of his own, it became clear to everyone including Mboya that Kenyatta was the only person who could bring the country together to bring about a peaceful transition out of British colonial rule (Kyle 1999, 86–88). The truth that Odinga saw about Kenyatta was, in Oruka’s account, a fragile one. “Men are generally greater in myth than in real life. Once Kenyatta was out of jail and had to present to us and practice his own political sociology, the myth exploded” (5). In Oruka’s telling, each historical turn shows Odinga to have taken the most reasonable path. Even “the Mombasa Fiasco,”

Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity

125

a speech Odinga gave in 1981 which angered many important political figures, was framed by Oruka as “a speech consistent with one whose life is guided by the love of truth, the will for independence and unbearable sympathy with the common man” (11). Is this, then, just a hagiography? That would be too harsh an assessment. Oruka does point out in places that Odinga made miscalculations (e.g., in his assessment of Tom Mboya, 7). Odinga was “a traditionalist of the first order,” not necessarily a good or useful thing in the newly independent Kenya. If read superficially, the book comes across as a highly sympathetic discussion with Odinga by someone who was not going to push him very hard, but that is only if we take the purpose here to be reportage or biography. Oruka is instead focused on Odinga as a sage, but of a different kind than we have seen to this point in the development of sage philosophy. That difference becomes more apparent as we see how Oruka handles sage philosophy in the next introductory chapter. “A CHAPTER IN SAGE PHILOSOPHY”: ORUKA MUTATES SAGE PHILOSOPHY METHODOLOGY Odinga is relevant to sage philosophy, Oruka thinks, because he has been mischaracterized by many, and that just diminishes the Africanness of his thought (20). To demonstrate this, he turns to Luo conceptions of wisdom (22ff). This is presented as the basis for Odinga’s wisdom (an example of Odinga being “an embodiment of the totality of traditional African wisdom”). It is not, in other words, that Odinga talks about these (as is the case with most other sages), but that he embodies them. This seems like a shift in how we think about sage philosophers, one which applies to those who embody a philosophy rather than explain it in propositional form. Oruka is unlikely to want to make this a general principle of sage philosophy (that is, throw out previous work on sage philosophy and make this the new standard approach) since philosophers need to be reflective and conceptual, and there is indeed a lot of sage philosophy that is or can be formulated by the sage in propositional terms. One might think that this is just something used for Odinga since he was a politician and a person of action rather than an academic or reflective person. I think, though, that this is a new direction Oruka wanted to go, a mutation in the method which connects together more closely how one lives and how one thinks. It is not, in other words, an approach specific only to Odinga. The example Oruka uses from the Luo tradition is of different kinds of leadership figures: Jahulo: a prophet whose role was to inform the community about the happenings of the future (22).

126

Bruce B. Janz

Ogaye: a “dignified, prosperous and generous individual. While not necessarily a leader, his or her opinion could not be ignored by the leaders” (22–23). Japaro (jang’ad rieko): This was “a sage, literally japaro means ‘a thinker’. Joparo were people consulted on various complicated and delicate matters that affected the natural and conventional life of the community” (23). Jabura: These were councillors. “In matters of deep thinking, jobura were less capable than joparo” (23). Ruoth and ker: Ruoth is a “leader, a chief or a king.” A ker is “the ultimate moral and spiritual leader and has a very different role from the ruoth. Ruoth is a kind of head of government and has soldiers to enforce his will. A ker was also a japaro who has been elevated to the status of Ramogi, the Moses of the Luo” (23–24). Thuon: A thuon was a fighter, a warrior (jalweny) who had earned distinction through the battles he had won (24–25). The totality of traditional Luo wisdom was exemplified by the combination of the sayings and experience of johulo, ogache, joparo, ker, and thuondi. All these were the jotelo (singular, Jatelo)—jotelo literally means “leaders.” The sayings and experiences of the jotelo gave the direction of communal life. (24)

What is interesting about this section is that Oruka focuses on the role that a person plays within the community, rather than the beliefs they hold. Odinga is a sage because he holds these roles and embodies the wisdom that such recognition assumes, and not because of any particular beliefs he has. Whatever else we might say about sage philosophy, this clearly broadens the scope of how it is understood. Oruka’s earlier work was almost completely focused on the beliefs someone held and how they were able to explain or justify them. These beliefs often represented the community as a whole, although the philosophical sages in particular deviated from widely accepted wisdom on occasion. Their deviation, though, was still at the level of propositions. It is worth remembering how he describes sage philosophy in earlier formulations: Sage philosophy consists of the expressed thoughts of wise men and women in any given community and is a way of thinking and explaining the world that fluctuates between popular wisdom (well-known communal maxims, aphorisms and general common sense truths) and didactic wisdom (an expounded wisdom and a rational thought of some given individuals within a community). (Oruka 1991, 33)

What we see in this earlier definition is a focus on “a way of thinking and explaining,” that is, philosophy as expressed in propositions. In the book on Odinga, though, we have a different kind of sagacity, one rooted in character and in the honor accorded by a community to one of its members. Odinga

Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity

127

was without question a prominent member of the Luo community and Kenya. The question, though, is how Oruka interviews and analyzes what Odinga says and does. If we are not dealing with ahistorical propositions and their defenses or critiques here, but with the actions of a human within a historical setting, and how those actions exhibited wisdom (which is essentially what Oruka argues here), then we need an expansion of how sage philosophy is conceived. Perhaps we can speak of “pragmatic sages,” in addition to folk sages and philosophical sages, that is, sages who are not so much focused on defending propositions or concepts, but who exhibit wisdom and are recognized for that. Other sages, particularly philosophical ones, might also exhibit wisdom through their actions, but it always comes with propositional content, and Oruka seems to suggest that wise actions come from wise ideas. With the folk sage, those wise ideas are part of cultural wisdom, while with the philosophical sage there might be a disagreement or refinement of that traditional wisdom on the part of the sage, but the point, in either case, is to establish the idea, the proposition, as the location of wisdom, which will then lead to laudable action. With the pragmatic sage, though, there seems to be a more reciprocal relationship between actions and ideas. Actions sometimes come from principles, but principles sometimes come from actions. Oruka, for the first time in his writings, does not downplay lived experience as he interviews Odinga but instead treats it as the space in which wisdom emerges. Pragmatic sagacity might seem like it focuses on the person rather than the idea or concept, and to some extent that is likely true. What is interesting, though, is what comes along with this move. It is a move toward creativity—the wise person is not just one who has done wise things in the past, but who can be trusted to continue to do wise things. And, it might also be that something can seem ill-advised or even foolish in the short term, but might turn out to be wise in the long term. Why should we take the chance that this might happen? Because we believe in the person who has already earned this trust. The wise person might do wise things through an ability to read and respond to culture, even when the actions are not immediately recognizable as wise by others. It is also a move toward recognizing a more profound kind of community basis for wisdom. Oruka had always recognized that wisdom was rooted in the community—the sage always was one recognized by the community as a sage, which is how he often found them in the first place. But this is more than recognition. It points to a person who has been given responsibility based on that wisdom. If Odinga is someone who draws from all these kinds of wisdom as a leader, we can see that his actions, even when they might not be well understood by those he leads, are nevertheless wise. Finally, this is a move toward a more robust role in history. We will see this played out throughout this book—Odinga demonstrates his wisdom

128

Bruce B. Janz

through his decisions, speeches, and opinions of other significant figures in Kenya and beyond. Even when he ends up getting sidelined from national politics (as he does from about the time of his house arrest in 1982 when he was suspected of financing a coup and when he tried to register an opposition party, the Kenya African Socialist Alliance (Kyle1999, 201) to 1990 when he unsuccessfully tried to register another opposition party, the National Democratic Party[NDP]), this does not diminish his status as a wise person. The only way we can see this is by understanding his actions, his reasons for his actions at the time, and his reflections after the fact on what happened. Each action is embedded within a historical context, understandable not in the abstract but as responses to nuanced and changing events. This is why I am calling this “pragmatic” wisdom. I mean this in a sense close to pragmatism as we use the term more broadly in philosophy—not simply as some abstract principle applied to concrete cases, but as something in which knowledge happens within action, within historical, social, and cultural context, and it cannot be extricated from that and made into an abstract propositional content and judged in those terms (for more see Janz 2022). This is a shift for Oruka because the wisdom he searched for in many of his other interviews very much had that quality to it. If he asked a sage “what is truth?,” the answer he expected was a fairly abstract one. There might have been examples given, but the point was to arrive at a philosophy in a particular analytical sense, that is, a set of propositions articulated and defended by the same methods used to articulate and defend any other propositions, perhaps aligning with the wider culture and perhaps deviating from it, but still framed as abstractions which would then, once worked out, be applicable to concrete situations. Little of that remains in the interviews with Odinga. He periodically does ask definitional questions, but the conversation quickly moves back to how wisdom showed itself in history through the actions of Odinga, as framed by Oruka. While Oruka focuses on the pragmatic aspects of Odinga’s life, this does not mean that he doesn’t think there is a coherent philosophy. He sees this as located in what he calls Odinga’s “national philosophy.” This term might be familiar to readers of Oruka—one of the “trends” in his influential “Trends in African Philosophy” was the “nationalist trend.” But Odinga seems to take a step further than others Oruka typically talks about in this context. Like Nkrumah, he has a vision for national life (and it is worth noting that Nkrumah wrote the forward for Odinga’s Not Yet Uhuru in 1967). But this was not an arid political theory—it was politics “with a human and moral face” (26). Odinga did not, in Oruka’s account, simply put an African sheen on some political philosophy such as communism, which was the common charge against him. Odinga was not an ideologue; however, “ideological interests, when they grow too large in a nation, are likely to eject national

Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity

129

philosophy from the stage” (26–27). It is an open question as to how ideological Kenya actually was (as opposed to, say, caught up with competing ethnic and class interests), but Oruka’s point is clear: Odinga’s national philosophy was a real philosophy, rooted in African wisdom and traditional philosophy, but it was not and could not be recognized as such because of ideological forces at the national level, and so his concern for the people was miscast and misunderstood as just another foreign philosophy being foisted upon Africans. Oruka goes on to describe aspects of Odinga’s character (27ff), in particular in political life. He focuses on courage, frankness, and persistence. What is noteworthy here is not so much the description of these aspects of character (which read a little like “Odinga’s problem was that he had too much integrity”), and more Oruka’s qualification of what virtue actually is. He backs away from seeing virtue as “intrinsic and universalizable” (28). He says: I shy away from such a rigid conception of virtue. I take virtues in this context as instrumental goods; goods which we use as means to help us solve problems in a given historical human situation. And the game of politics is always a historical human situation. In politics, our aim is never really for the summum bonum (the maximum good) but to minimize the summum malum (the maximum evil). Among the central concerns of politics is to help the citizens avoid suffering, oppression, isolation, poverty, discrimination, etc. a courageous, frank and persistent politician is much more likely to help his or her people avoid such evils than a politician who is unreliable and timid. (1992, 28)

There is much to unpack in this short paragraph. First, it is worth noting that other figures that Oruka interviewed who had various roles within the community were generally not taken in these terms. He still asked them abstract questions, looking for a philosophy that could be defended at the level of the proposition. Second, it is difficult to think of a previous case in which Oruka would have shied away from what he calls here a “rigid conception of virtue,” but what elsewhere might simply be seen as the definition of virtue. After all, the difficulty of enacting virtue within the messy human world should not detract from the philosopher’s ability to define what it is. But Oruka’s interest here is different. Oruka considers Odinga a sage, but in order for that to make sense, the approach to sagacity itself has to change. The imperative of defining things first and then seeing how well those concepts appear in the human world gives way to the recognition that there is a reciprocity between thought and action. One does not have ideas first, and then apply them in the messy world; instead, thought and action have a reciprocal relationship, which means that thoughts can arise from the context of action, rather than

130

Bruce B. Janz

always driving it, and this is of philosophical interest, not simply of psychological or historical interest. Third, Oruka explicitly introduces historical context here as the arena in which Odinga’s sagacity plays out. Being a sage in politics means engaging in a given historical human situation. This is very different from the search for timeless wisdom as expressed in philosophical propositions. Furthermore, sagacity, as it appears in this space, is not about reaching for the optimal state or the pure sense of a concept (he rules out the pursuit of the summum bonum), but rather to realize some very human concerns: the avoidance of suffering, oppression, and so forth. Why are these cast as just avoiding the summum malum, the maximum evil? They need not be maximum to be real concerns of philosophy. One might suffer, after all, without that suffering being ultimate suffering. One might live a life that is not great, but far from the worst possible life. That middling state might exist precisely because of structural and political issues, or issues brought about by colonialism— inequitable distribution of wealth, for instance, or lack of opportunity for advancement in society. But Oruka’s depiction here of Odinga is accurate—he did indeed strive to ameliorate the conditions that kept people back. His central critique in Not Yet Uhuru was that the structural and political freedom that Kenya seemed to have earned at independence had not translated into a widespread freedom for all citizens. And so his life could in fact be seen in very much the manner that Oruka suggests, as someone who used the wisdom both of experience and of his culture to try to address these social issues. So, the problem here is not in Oruka’s depiction of Odinga, but in the classic understanding of sage philosophy. If we accept all this, it is not the description of Odinga that must change, but our sense of what sage philosophy is and could be. Sagacity is made manifest through action in history. But as much as it introduces history as a component to sagacity, it also introduces historicity. The difference is that history is the space in which concepts are expressed and understood. Historicity is the effect of historical context on those concepts. In the first, concepts might be unchanging, and just expressed in concrete form within historical action; in the second, at least some concepts are changed by their engagement within historical contingency. This is a surprising turn for Oruka. For his entire life, his commitment had been to a universalist sense of the nature of concepts. These concepts were found within cultural spaces, which is why he could ask his sages about what they thought about truth. The idea was, though, that these were contributions to the great conversation about the nature of truth, which included already existing philosophical beliefs about its nature from other cultures. Ideally, all these would be put in dialogue, and we would all be better off for having a broader sense of what truth might be. Human partiality and limitation

Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity

131

could be overcome through this dialogue (and for a critique of this model of dialogue, see Janz 2015, 2018), and Africa could take its rightful place as an important source of philosophy, not just a beneficiary of philosophy developed elsewhere. There seems to be something else going on in the conversations with Odinga, though. While there is a consistency about how Odinga (and Oruka) understand the already-mentioned “three main things” that governed his life (the love of truth, the will for independence, and the deepest sympathy with the suffering masses, or the common man (3)), there is also some adaptation in these. The pragmatics of Odinga’s sagacity means that these very general values are also highly interpretive and context dependent. These three things are not so many virtues as affects, that is, ways of facing the world which afford particular kinds of understanding. Odinga was not just interested in saying true things or in having other people say them, or in assigning truth properties to propositions. He was interested in something more basic—a trueness that showed through actions, an alignment of what is said and what is right: in other words, integrity. The same is true for the will for independence and the sympathy for the masses—these could mean a lot of different things if we think of them as virtues, but as affects they allow for a space of thought and action. Elsewhere Oruka lists other affects that drove Odinga. “If there are three qualities which distinctly mark Oginga Odinga’s long political life, they are courage, frankness and persistence” (27). These are not yet virtues, because Oruka asks how these qualities can become virtues (28). As we saw earlier, he wants to have a nonrigid conception of virtue, but it is perhaps closer to see him as searching for something like an affect or a way of facing reality that is extensible, that is, which can be held both by an individual and also by many at the same time, and which can lead to concrete political positions. One can, after all, have courage, frankness, and persistence in the service of many different kinds of politics, including dubious or even brutal political regimes, but when we realize that Odinga’s love of truth, will for independence and sympathy for the suffering masses are the moral orientation for this nonrigid conception of virtue, we can see that Odinga is not imagining a philosopher’s utopia in which abstract principles come first and action flows from them, but a world in which there is openness and opportunity for deliberative and deeply rooted politics. This is what Oruka sees in Odinga. Oruka ends his revision of sage philosophy, in a section titled “Dawn of the Future,” by making the case that this book is “simply a sage philosophy of a world-historical individual, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.” The section then defends his world-historical status, which here means that Oruka makes the case for why Odinga is important enough to warrant a book. Again, we see a deviation from the previous sage philosophy method—Oruka never before

132

Bruce B. Janz

felt the need to defend his research in this manner. He previously simply relied on the community opinion that someone was a sage, and there is plenty of support for that with Odinga without further defense. But Oruka is here defending not only that Odinga is important enough on a national and international scale to warrant this attention, but he is also making a case for his revised sage philosophy method. Odinga, in Oruka’s account, is historical because he recognized Kenyatta as a historical figure (and this is just implied, but he recognized this even when many others did not, or when they wanted to sideline him because he was in prison). But his vision goes further than that—he is also historical because he parted ways with Kenyatta when it became a decision between Kenyatta and the nation of Kenya. Odinga was the one who, perhaps more than any other, made it possible for Kenyatta to be released from prison and become president of Kenya, but in his autobiography Not Yet Uhuru, Odinga alludes to “forces . . . at work trying to drive a wedge between Kenyatta and myself” (Odinga 1967, 275; see also Oruka 1992, 73ff). In the final chapter of that book, “Obstacles to Uhuru,” Odinga also rebuts the charges that he was communist by arguing that Kenyatta was too inclined to align himself with capitalist countries, which was a major barrier to actual freedom in Kenya. His resignation and subsequent attempt to form the Kenya People’s Union (Odinga 1967, 300ff) was evidence of Oruka’s third reason for seeing him as historical, which was that his life “comprised the love and practice of truth, moral courage and power with honour” (31). These are Oruka’s reasons for seeing Odinga as a world-historical figure, but it is clear from the next paragraph that they are also the reasons for seeing Odinga as a sage. “Although Odinga is a sage, he is also a politician.” This transitional sentence allows Oruka to talk about Odinga’s struggles for power, the power of “a wise father and of a ker.” He explicitly contrasts Odinga’s moral use of power with that of Idi Amin in Uganda, which was sheer ambition and brutality. This section establishes this new vision of a sage, one who is focused on an ideal but whose expressions are in the political arena. This sage is one whose sagacity can only be understood as a narrative, as a series of events over time that unfold that vision and give us a concrete sense of what it means to be free. The lines are blurred between philosopher and politician here, but this figure is still fully a sage. Oruka’s overview in chapter two was written after all the interviews had been completed, in 1992 (ix). It is, in other words, a way of making sense of the discussion he had already had with Odinga. The shift in his characterization of sagacity can be seen as a rethinking based on new evidence, and a response to a set of conversations with a figure he is certain is a sage. Oruka allows his views on sagacity to evolve based on dialogue, in other words,

Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity

133

not just on abstract thought or a perceived imperative to respond to charges about ethnophilosophy leveled by Hountondji and others (which is arguably one reason for the genesis of sage philosophy in the first place). We should not, in other words, see this evolution as a weakness but a strength of sage philosophy. It can adapt and become richer. With this overview addressed, we can turn to the interviews themselves. In them, we can see why Oruka allowed sagacity to evolve, and we can see how and why he introduces the pragmatics and historicity which, I believe, would have become more prominent had he lived long enough to do more extended research projects like this one.

1982 CONVERSATIONS With this introduction of the new figure of a sage, Oruka enters into the conversations he had with Odinga. These occurred in two periods, first in 1982 and second in 1991. These were very different times in Kenya, and different times for both Oruka and Odinga. Oruka’s discussions with Odinga in 1982 come at a time of change and upheaval, both in the country and personally for Odinga. Odinga’s “­ Mombasa Fiasco” (as Oruka calls it, Oruka 1992, 11) had happened in 1981, and his aspirations to be president waned after that. The scandal of that speech, which occurred on April 5, 1981, was that Odinga questioned the received wisdom about and the halo around Kenyatta by saying that “Kenyatta was a land grabber; he tried to recruit me but I refused” (Oruka 1992, 11). The real issue, though, was not simply personal enrichment, but an increasingly autocratic governing style that Odinga felt Kenyatta had exhibited. President Moi removed Odinga from his position after that. In August 1982, there was an attempted coup against President Daniel arap Moi’s government, which hampered the first set of conversations with Oruka (vii) due to Odinga’s house arrest. He was accused of having financed the rebels, a charge that was never proven. He was under house arrest for a year, but out of official Kenyan politics for much longer. The 1982 interviews come in two forms. In chapter 3, Oruka edits out his own questions, presenting the text as a statement by Odinga of his past and his beliefs. It is safe to assume that Oruka asked similar questions in this section to the ones he had for other sages—what do you believe about religion, what is truth, what is courage, and so forth. Oruka returns to the question of truth in chapter 4, and the format changes to a dialogue. Here, we see Oruka stay the closest to his classic sage philosophy methodology of any part of these interviews. Odinga expands his ideas on the nature of truth, power, courage, and other issues related to what we might see as political philosophy. If this

134

Bruce B. Janz

was all we had of the interviews with Odinga, we would conclude that sage philosophy’s method remained the same. But then, in chapter 5, we have an abrupt change of tone and method. The text returns to the monologue format, without interjections or questions by Oruka, and we see a series of reactions by Odinga to political contemporaries of his. These capsule biographies and back-room memoirs cover some of the same ground as the previous chapter—Odinga is still interested in truth, courage, and other ideas like this—but here we see them in concrete form, in these figures but also Odinga’s reaction to and analysis of them. Nkrumah was ahead of his time, and the problems in Ghana stem from attempts to sweep Nkrumahism aside. Nyerere is the “Nkrumah of today,” with only the weakness that he was not a great debater (though he was a powerful speaker). Obote is too Western, and the people distrust him because of that. Kenyatta was “a poor organizer and a man indifferent to new ideas” (58). Odinga goes through many figures, both within Kenya and beyond (including a few non-Africans). His assessment of these men (and they are all men) is interesting, but what is most useful is the cumulative sense we get from him about how he thinks about the relationship between ideals and the pragmatics of politics. He continually returns to the question of the good that power will do for the overall state of people in Kenya. He criticizes some of his contemporaries for pursuing power for its own sake (about Tom Mboya, for instance: “I never took Mboya seriously. . . . He was, like most politicians, ambitious for power. But I never understood what Mboya wanted to do with power” (62)). His assessment of figures had to do more with what they did than what they said (about Kruschev: “In the West, Kruschev was often seen as a dictator and warmonger. But it is Kruschev, rather than John Kennedy, who saved the world from a possible nuclear exchange during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962” (65). We might disagree with who actually “saved the world,” but the point here is that for Odinga, actions were the important thing. They were a kind of inscription on the world, a meaningful statement, and Oruka took those statements as Odinga’s real philosophical engagement.

1991–1992 CONVERSATIONS This set of conversations also came at a significant time in Odinga’s life. In 1990, he had tried, unsuccessfully, to register a new political party, the NDP. In 1991, he cofounded and was the chair of a new party, the FORD. FORD split before the 1992 elections, and Odinga was the chair of one of those subsequent factions, FORD-Kenya (the other was FORD-Asili, led by Kenneth Matiba).

Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity

135

The interviews here appear, for the most part, in dialogue form (that is, Oruka does not edit out his questions, but presents these as a real conversation). The conversation is very different from a sage philosophy interview of the sort we see elsewhere in Oruka’s research. By this point there are a few questions of the form “What is X?,” and where we do see them they quickly take a different direction than would have happened in previous sage philosophy interviews (as we will see below). Instead, we see a nuanced exploration of events from Odinga’s life, with an emphasis on why he did what he did and what his impressions were of others’ actions at the time. He would have been around eighty at the time of the interviews, and so there is a feeling of looking back over a long career. At the same time, as is already apparent from his involvement in the political moves in Kenya to a multiparty system, he was far from retired. He was in fact still fully engaged in political life. We should, in other words, see these interviews as much about his present at the time as they are about his past. Odinga takes us back to his early days with Jomo Kenyatta, his early admiration and then the reasons for their falling out. What is interesting from our point of view is not his account of his actions at the time, but Oruka’s questions. Many of them are “what happened next?” kinds of questions, designed to keep Odinga’s narrative going. Some elicit Odinga’s opinions of other people. Others probe Odinga’s inner rationale for his actions—“what do you regret?” (81). And some draw him into generalizing on his experience, to think about ideals that lay behind action. He asks Odinga about his heroes (91)—they are, perhaps surprisingly, Kenyatta (even after detailing his limitations earlier in the discussion), along with Nyerere, Nkrumah, Mandela, Abdel Nasser, and Jawaharlal Nehru. He includes Churchill and Nixon as well, the latter because of his efforts to engage China. Apart from attention to historical contingencies and actions, which has already been raised, Oruka could be seen here as co-authoring a text with Odinga, about his life. The actions and experiences were Odinga’s, but Oruka turns it into a narrative. It is in fact part of the literature, not just of political life in Kenya but also of philosophical life. In a sense, the encounter that happens within sage philosophy is the text of sage philosophy, not simply the report that a subject makes to an interviewer on a body of wisdom. That becomes particularly apparent in the conversation with Odinga—Oruka tries to draw this political veteran as close as possible to his philosophical underpinnings, and in doing so adds to the literature of African political philosophy. I say “tries to,” because Oruka often is limited by his own mode of questioning and sense of what constitutes philosophy. One example of this near the end of Oginga Odinga, where he asks Odinga a more metaphysical question: “What is the nature of a human being?” (117) Odinga’s answer comes in the form of a story told to him by a wise man from his clan, about “dhano”

136

Bruce B. Janz

(a human animal). “Dhano is the most cruel, clever, cunning and complicated of all animals. You can easily learn and understand other animals, but cannot fully understand dhano. . . . So Oginga, be careful about dhano” (117). Oruka rephrases this to mean that “humans are very complicated and we cannot rightly be able to comprehend and fully describe them,” an assessment that Odinga agrees with. What is noteworthy here is that this is an opening that Oruka does not walk through. Odinga has just given extensive interviews in which he is summing people up, providing trenchant insights, and generally showing that he does in fact have a very finely tuned understanding of dhano. What about this contradiction? Does the knowledge gained by experience give us any kind of glimpse into this more metaphysical question? It might have, but we will not find that out, since the opportunity was not taken at the time. Oruka has found a door, in other words, and it would have been an interesting one, had he been willing to walk through it. He does, in other words, give us a model of how sage philosophy might be a collaborative effort between interviewer and subject, but he does not always live up to that ideal himself. As has already been mentioned, the tone, feel, and structure of this Oginga Odinga set of interviews is very different from the earlier sage philosophy. And as I have just argued, the sage philosophy text lies between Odinga and Oruka, as something constructed that neither of them alone would have accomplished. Oruka does not entirely abandon some of the style of his earlier interviews, though, and we can see that in some of the leading questions he asks in these interviews. He still asks about the nature of democracy (“What is in the nature of human beings which makes democracy a necessity in their government?” (105)). He asks about justice (“What is the nature of justice and how should it be practiced in society?” (105)). He returns to freedom (“What does freedom mean to you?” (107)) and truth (although in this case it is less a request for a definition and more a request to understand how truth can be realized in a complex society: “You have a strong belief that truth should often be expressed. But in politics compromises seem inevitable, and in such compromises on also compromises truth. Do you ever compromise in politics?” (115)). He even asks what looks like very abstract and metaphysical questions (“What is the nature of a human being?” (117)). What is important to recognize here is not just that this is, in fact, simply the old sage philosophy method after all. What is important is what comes after these questions. In each case, the question is not directly answered the way a professional philosopher would answer, but rather it is answered in concrete terms, using examples, and leads to further exploration of what these concepts actually mean within an African place. These are not just African concepts that are now ready to contribute to the sum total of world concepts. These are spaces of thought, opened up by asking a question but not

Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity

137

exhausted by a specific answer. There is no “here’s what my people believe,” or even “here’s what my people believe and how I disagree with them.” There is, rather, “here’s the space of thinking that a question opens up.” Odinga was not a trained philosopher, and so when Oruka asked him a directly philosophical question he tended to not answer with definitional or propositional answers, but instead with analogies, examples, and memories. But he was a sage, and so his answers were directed toward building a coherent society. And, they were answers that someone could disagree with if they wished. In other words, they were not just personal opinions that someone might think that everyone is entitled to, and which amounts to personal truth. They were answers which could be the basis of public debate, for which evidence could be proffered, and which could be tested. This is the space that the pragmatic sage makes available.

THE FUTURE OF SAGE PHILOSOPHY? As I have argued through this chapter, I see Oginga Odinga: His Philosophy and Beliefs as a turning point in sage philosophy methodology. It introduces what I am calling the “pragmatic” sage, which is a departure from Oruka’s previous categorization of sages into folk and philosophical sages. It opens the door to the expression of sagacity to be decisions made in a complex space (in this case, the space of national and international politics). It introduces both history and historicity. And, it is a more obvious textualization of the sage, rendering it a cooperative project between the subject and the interviewer to produce something that neither would have produced by themselves. If we can see this shift happen in how sagacity is conceived, we could imagine other changes as well. This change comes about as the space of thought of sage philosophy itself shifts, based on changing one of the motivating factors. Paulin Hountondji argued that African philosophy should not be ethnophilosophy, that is, a philosophy that is simply embedded in cultures, anonymously and uncritically held, and the basis for folkways and practices. Sage philosophy’s response is to look for real philosophy embedded in traditional culture but held by individuals, who subject the ideas to critical thought. If that can be found, then one implication of Hountondji’s opposition to ethnophilosophy, that the history of thought in Africa is largely irrelevant to African philosophy, would have an answer. Oruka’s formulation of sage philosophy had to therefore be philosophy in propositional form because it had to be a version of philosophy clearly able to be held by individuals and subjected to critical thought. Sage philosophy was sometimes mistaken for a version of ethnophilosophy, and it could be argued that one of the effects of Oruka’s influential Trends in Contemporary African

138

Bruce B. Janz

Philosophy (Oruka 1990) was to separate out sage philosophy from ethnophilosophy. Had other taxonomies taken hold, it is likely that sage philosophy would have been subsumed under ethnophilosophy (for more on this specific argument, see Janz 2009, 99ff. For more on sage philosophy in general, see Graness and Kresse 1997; Presbey n.d.). Thinking about a new category like pragmatic sagacity would violate this initial impetus for the development of sage philosophy. After all, Odinga is less likely to clearly hold propositions and does not come with clear answers to philosophical questions. He comes with a lifetime of political experience, what Aristotle would call phronesis. Oruka is crystal clear that Odinga is a sage, which means that Oruka is implicitly moving away from one of the original reasons for sage philosophy’s development as a methodology. Or, more to the point, the method is evolving and mutating to deal with a reality that is more complex than the initial methodology could handle. If we only thought in terms of folk and philosophical sages, we would not be able to recognize the deeply rooted emergent African wisdom that Odinga embodied, and the truth that he expressed, not in propositions but in action. So that raises the question: if the method can evolve like this, in what other ways might it evolve? What other assumptions might be questioned and mutated in order for the method to more adequately deal with African reality? And, what would it mean to deal with African reality anyway? One other element to question would be the historicity of African philosophy. As I argued, this did not exist in the original sage philosophy method. It does come to exist with Odinga. But the orientation is still toward the past. Odinga exhibits one way of being wise, by drawing on his deep understanding and embodiment of African tradition. That’s good, but what does it mean to look toward the future? Is there a sage philosophy that could be about the creation of new concepts within an African milieu, instead of simply deducing or deriving from concepts already there? Nothing comes from nothing, of course, so how would we relate the past to the future? Is it, for instance, possible that this could be part of an African hermeneutic, a recognition that part of understanding is re-presentation or the creation of the new? Is it possible that the introduction of the possibility that we do not just establish ideas first and then actions come out of those, but rather these exist in a reciprocal relationship, could introduce a sense that philosophy in Africa need not simply be a rationalistic or system-building effort, but could be a more grounded affair which both recognizes the contingencies of history and the potentialities of the future? Another question for sage philosophy, that further mutations might address: Odinga continually talked about the pragmatics of political life, which involved compromise and deal-making as well as holding principles and being steadfast. Oruka tended to focus on the ways in which Odinga

Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity

139

had a clear character and set of principles that he lived by, and that was an important way of thinking of him as a sage. But how far might we see wisdom extend, in the complex details of real life? Do we only know wisdom after the fact, after we see something work out? Clearly not: Oruka sees Odinga as wise despite not becoming president, despite setbacks and opposition, even despite mistakes he made. It is not just about outcomes. But then, what does it mean to be wise? Is it the general recognition of one’s community? Clearly, that could be bought with enough wealth, or otherwise brought into being. And, one might remain wise even if the community disagreed or, worse, regarded someone as irrelevant to the current times. So, there is a question of self-definition of sagacity that might be addressed with further mutations in the sage philosophical method. And as that self-definition works itself out, we will no doubt find that sage philosophy will come face to face with other ways of doing African philosophy, and it might find other concepts that can be created but which cannot be predicted at this point. The important thing here is that Oruka’s method mutates in Oginga Odinga. This is not a bad thing. This is what living philosophies do—they recognize that their initial formation showed forth some aspects of their object of analysis, but fine-tuning is needed too as we recognize that reality is more complex and more changeable than we might have hoped at the beginning. A method allows questions to be asked, and changes in that method can allow newer, sometimes better questions to be asked. This is the direction Oruka points us in his final book. It is a shame that he did not live to produce more work in this direction; I have no doubt that we would have seen further mutations, and further fruitful engagement with African lived experience. It is worth noting, finally, that Oruka’s mutation of his sage philosophical method into what I am calling pragmatic sagacity could be applied to many other African figures than just Odinga. There are some figures such as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, or Steve Biko who were political figures and activists on the one hand and clear reflective thinkers on the other, and who we have compelling texts from which could be seen as having philosophical content. There are others, though, who did little of this, but who, like Odinga, might be seen as embodying a kind of wisdom in their decisions, and who with a sage philosophy researcher might be seen as a good subject for similar treatment to Odinga. Patrice Lumumba, for instance, might have been such a figure. We have his speeches and some small writings like letters and telegrams (introduced by Sartre), but these were all occasional pieces, and not a developed philosophy (Lumumba 1972). Sage philosophy interviews with a figure like that would have been illuminating, and I suspect much like the Odinga interviews. The figures who would be most amenable to this kind of study would be those who would either be least ideological or most able to subject ideology

140

Bruce B. Janz

to a reasoned critique or critical conversation. What we might find, perhaps ironically, would be a re-invigoration of what Oruka in the Trends in Contemporary African Philosophy called “nationalist philosophy,” At the time of the Trends, nationalist philosophy was practical in the sense of being directed at solving problems. It may be that Oruka at the end of his life might see these figures as practical in the sense outlined here, as emplaced wisdom earned through experience. Such wisdom might not be like that of the folk sage, who can voice the tradition, or the philosophical sage, who can articulate the propositions and concepts underlying the tradition, but it is no less wisdom for the practical space in which it operates. REFERENCES Graness, Anke and Kai Kresse, eds. 1997. Sagacious Reasoning: Henry Odera Oruka in Memorium. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Publishers. Janz, Bruce. 2009. Philosophy in an African Place. Lexington Books. ———. 2015. “Philosophy-in-Place and the Provenance of Dialogue.” South African Journal of Philosophy 34, no. 4: 480–490. ———. 2018. “Dialogue and Listening.” Dialogues in Human Geography 8, no. 2: 124–127. ———. African Philosophy and Enactivist. Cognition: The Space of Thought. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022. Kyle, Keith. 1999. The Politics of the Independence of Kenya. Houndsmills: Palgrave. Lumumba, Patrice. 1972. Lumumba Speaks: The Speeches and Writings of Patrice Lumumba, 1958-1961. Edited by Jean Van Lierde. Translated from the French by Helen R. Lane. Introduced by Jean-Paul Sartre. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Odera Oruka, H. 1990. Trends in Contemporary African Philosophy. Nairobi: Shirikon Publishers. ———. ed. 1991 [1990]. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate in African Philosophy. Nairobi: ACTS Press [orig. Leiden: Brill 1990]. ———. 1992. Oginga Odinga: His Philosophy and Beliefs. Nairobi: Initiatives Publishers. Odinga, Oginga. 1967. Not Yet Uhuru: An Autobiography. London: Heinemann. Presbey, Gail. 1998. “Who Counts as a Sage? Problems in the Further Implementation of Sage Philosophy.” The Paideia Project Online. http://www​.bu​.edu​/wcp​/ Papers​/Afri​/AfriPres​.htm Accessed December 5, 2017. ———. “African Sage Philosophy.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d., http:// www​.iep​.utm​.edu​/afr​-sage​/Accessed December 5, 2017.

Chapter 6

The Collective Sage Maasai Philosophy and Resilience Donna Pido

Odera Oruka’s contribution to philosophy through his sage philosopher project is undeniable in no small part because he brought African philosophy to wider attention. He also provided us with a teaching moment in which we can reexamine the categorization of thought under precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial epistemological models (Odera Oruka 1991). In this effort, we cannot help but notice that Oruka’s work places a non-African template onto African thought and that this template is remarkably similar to that applied to thought and thinkers in the long-recorded history of “Western Civilization” (Pido et al. 2019). In the bigger picture of global history, literate people have forgotten that the technology of writing isolates us from one another and forces us to identify single authors of ideas. As slaves of the written word, we labor under a terminological and classificatory burden that appears to relegate African thought to a status that is different, if not lesser, than the thought of the literate world with its deep historical record and very extensive spread of ideas through persuasion, force, and the concrete document. One such term is “ethnophilosophy.” The prefix “ethno,” at least since the 1960s has long been the subject of jokes by anthropologists (even though some use it) because it sets the subject apart from the accepted category and marks it as something of “the other.” This is a legacy of colonialism and social Darwinism that needs to be eliminated as thought systems of the nonliterate, nonindustrialized people of the world take an equal place on a level playing field with the rest. As part of the exercise to decolonize and equalize, we can challenge the notion of the sage philosopher as an individual with exceptional knowledge and insight, as will be seen below. Sometimes an outsider’s perspective can be helpful to the insiders, in a discipline or school of thought. As an anthropologist who specializes in material culture and design, my perspective may be disturbing if not downright 141

142

Donna Pido

offensive to some philosophers ‑ namely those who are reluctant to open up to the idea of proper recognition of different philosophical traditions and intellectual histories from elsewhere. Considering various groupings of humans by professional commitment as “tribes,” I suggest we can identify the design tribe, the anthropology tribe, and the philosophy tribe as entities in need of one another, often without realizing their interdependence. Design is about making novel connections to solve concrete and abstract problems. Designers believe they have the right to rearrange everybody else’s paradigms. Anthropology, in my view, fundamentally is the study of design, though few of us ever notice that. Philosophy, in contrast, is the contemplation and discussion of design. Philosophers tend to cling to ancient paradigms and individuals, at the sacrifice of clarity in the present. Evolution, and macro- and micro-changes in the thought systems and significant ideas of all three disciplines constitute what I suggest to call intellectual fashions. All three are connected to the hegemony of writing and also the colonial intellectual past that has brought us all together in this collection of articles on the fashion called “Sage Philosophy.” In this chapter, I examine and explain the Maasai system of thought as an illustration of what I call “collective sage philosophy” and “design for survival.” There are two significant aspects of this examination and explanation. One is to contextualize the Maasai system and its manifestations in its environmental, historical, and political contexts as a tool for survival. The second is to illustrate the importance of concrete, nonverbal, nonalphabetic expressions of ideas and ideals that have been so important in the art and material culture of sub-Saharan Africa and, elsewhere. Even the art history tribe began, in the mid-twentieth century, to recognize and verbalize the lessons of African art (Klumpp/Pido11987; Fernandez 1973; Fraser 1978; Houlberg 1973). Somehow, the art historical consideration of concrete and graphical expression of ideas and paradigms has not been adequately studied or incorporated by philosophers since Douglas Fraser’s work received a lukewarm reception in 1976 (Fraser 1978). As one who is unqualified to comment in a trained and qualified disciplinary manner on the philosophical context, I must bow out in favor of those philosophers who will, hopefully, be able to place my description and explanations into the accepted and innovative frameworks of their own discipline. If there is another aspect of this study, it is to illustrate the Narnia Principle—you only find “it” (in this case, the Maasai thought system) when you’re not looking for it (Lewis 1950–56). THE BACKGROUND In 1970, I coincidentally came to recognize the fundamental relevance of Maasai thought and its philosophical system thanks to a big mistake and

The Collective Sage

143

two twelve-year-old boys. While working for the Department of Community Development of the Kenya Government, my assignment was to identify traditional crafts that were suitable for international markets and to make minor design modifications as needed. Maasai beaded jewelry was interesting but the colors seemed thrown together and were far too bright for European markets. So, I went to Ngong’ Town to order an all-white choker from a Maasai bead worker. Isaya Kanithi and Amos Ole Pello, my two young assistants, explained to her that I wanted the choker to be entirely white. She said that was impossible and threatened to vomit if I persisted in my demand. The boys, a Kikuyu and Maasai, took me aside and explained that all Maasai ornaments had to include green, red, white, blue, and orange. That opened my eyes to the universality of the five-color set in Maasailand called Muain Sidain, meaning “the beautiful colors” in the OlMaa language. The boys further explained that the five colors had to be complemented by black/blue, red, and white. Thirty years later, a Catholic nun named Nalamai was working with Maasai bead workers for the Archdiocese of Ngong’ and the Mennonite Central Committee, when she received an order from Canada for 2000 all-white bangles. The ladies refused to make them. The purity of anything is anathema in Maasai thought, belief, and its basic philosophical system. In his 1965 PhD thesis “The Traditional Political System of the Pastoral Maasai,” Alan Jacobs showed that the Maasai political structure consisting of sections and age sets, and crosscut by clans, is a response to their highly variable and unpredictable environment. He used a great deal of data from observation, informants, and archives to demonstrate that the Maasai system is deliberately designed to pool or minimize risk while guaranteeing access to the resources needed by all. He also explained that it had been designed to enable various groups of OlMaa speakers to go their separate ways until they needed support and assistance from one another. Clearly, the system of sections, clans, and age sets ensured that all Maasai would be able to access water, grass, and mineral resources by calling up social obligations and commonalties among themselves, despite boundaries and differences. He described the variations and locations of these resources in great detail and connected them to the need for dry and wet season pasturage and refuge during droughts, epidemics, and epizootics. If Jacobs’ (1965) work seems dated, it is important to understand that it was and remains foundational for understanding Maasai society in relation to an underlying thought system. It was also the catalyst for my own work, as described above. However, as his thesis was never published, it did not become influential, and only those seeking it out have been able to integrate his findings in their own, more recent analyses. The same is true of two other doctoral theses on Maasai culture, John Galaty’s (1977), and my own (Pido/ Klumpp 1987). In the theoretical setting of 1950s anthropology, Jacobs was

144

Donna Pido

a maverick in the negative sense of that word, and, much later, my focus on beadwork was seen as frivolous. It was only by linking beadwork to economic gender roles that I was able to gain research funding. Even John Galaty, in his 1977 thesis “The Symbolic Dynamics of Maasai Identity” paid only a little attention to Jacobs’ work and made no mention of beadwork at all. Much of the more recent literature takes account of the connection between the social structure and the environment without citing Jacobs (Aktipis et  al. 2011; Galvin et al. 2004; Homewood et al. 2006). Around 1980, having learned all I could about the Maasai color system, I decided to write about the ornaments in an art history term paper. I wrote out a list of the rules for color organization in ornaments and then looked through Alan Jacobs’ dissertation (Jacobs 1965). In it, he had listed the rules for human social organization. The two lists were identical. Maasai women organized the colors in their beadwork in the same way that people organized themselves socially and politically. Armed with that insight and some fellowship money, I returned to Maasailand in 1982 to flesh out my meager knowledge and try to show that ornamental beadwork is very important in Maasai culture. I had already presented a paper on East African women as innovators and keepers of tradition, and another on the bedrock of Maasai design and its minimal regional and temporal variations (Klumpp/Pido 1981a). It would soon become clear that my knowledge was but the tip of an iceberg. By 1982, having studied Maasai material in a number of private collections and about a dozen museums in America and Europe, I knew that the color system of the early 1970s had appeared in the early 1900s, well before World War II. This color system, then, can be seen to have remained intact in the long term as a definitive measure or qualifying identifier of Maasainess. In the field, I learned the rudiments of ornament construction and discovered that very few Maasai could verbalize the rules either for color or social organization. What they could verbalize, and with great clarity and detail, was the connection between the history of Maasai age sets, and small but very significant adjustments in beadwork. They could, and did, tell me of the stylistic changes set by warriors and their lovers over the late 1800s and the entire twentieth century to date. As of 2022, the minor stylistic changes continue while the bedrock stays firmly intact. In 1983, while conducting my doctoral field research on Maasai art, I was co-opted to serve on a team from the Institute of African Studies at the University of Nairobi, where I was affiliated. The research project was in preparation for the Kajiado District Socio-Cultural Profile (Klumpp/Pido 1986), and was part of a series of profiles that had been commissioned by USAID in order to gather information for their own operations and to provide a set of standardized social scientific summaries or outlines of each District in Kenya. We traveled to Ngong, Kajiado and Namanga, and each team member

The Collective Sage

145

produced a chapter on our assigned topics. Mine was the chapter entitled “Sagacity,” which at the time was a standard chapter title in all the volumes of the series. That document formed a part of my doctoral thesis. At the time, I knew just enough about the foundational structure of thought that identifies the Maasai people and enables them to survive and thrive in their marginal environments. In the many years that have passed since then, I have come to understand and observe nuances of the system and the many ways in which the philosophical bedrock endures and enables the Maaspeaking community to meet any and all challenges. I have also been able to observe first hand, the dismissive attitude of both international and local scholars who are bound and shackled by their devotion to the written word, scientific method, gender hierarchy and to non-African notions of what “art” and “philosophy” are. I have been writing about this system since the early 1980s and have linked it to issues of “development” in Maasailand (Pido 1989). I have also found allusions to it in other authors’ work. But none of them has explicitly linked the expression of Maasai ideals and resiliency to color codes. Is this because beads have a low status? Is it because beadwork is one of the many feminized art forms and thus beneath the dignity of male social scientists? When Cory Kratz and I submitted a paper outline to two eminent historians for inclusion in their edited volume on Maasai history and culture, they rejected it explaining that they were not interested in beadwork. When we sent the full draft they were able to discover that changes in beadwork styles and color arrangements define the periods of Maasai history (Klumpp and Kratz 1993). Stylistic preferences made by warriors and their lovers determine the time periods, and small wars have been fought over changes in bead shapes and colors. Of special note was the PumpwiLopon War of the early 1970s, a conflict among warrior sets that brought the 5 × 8 mm olive bead called Ol Pumpwi into ascendency over its 4 × 9 mm predecessor Ol Lopon (Klumpp/Pido 1987). Using all the historical, ethnographic, archaeological and material evidence available up until the 1990s, it became clear that, at some point in time Maasai, had developed a philosophical system that had been deliberately designed to do exactly what Jacobs had described—protect and preserve the grassland savannah and its loving inhabitants, the Maasai. I dubbed this thought system “Maasai Philosophy,” not knowing that the professional and academic philosophers would not consider it philosophical. In spite of its ubiquity, the graphic representation of the system—through beadwork—was overlooked by scholars and researchers, until my fieldwork in the 1980s, for a number of reasons. First, the few anthropologists in Maa­ sailand were mostly male and looking at male-dominated social, economic and political structures. They did not take beadwork seriously, possibly because it is “women’s work.” Second, it is ornamental, which, for many

146

Donna Pido

people, means “frivolous.” Third, within the field of Art History, beadwork is excluded from being “art” (Bill Siegman PC, 2001), and East Africa has been excluded from the serious study because its art forms are outside the great sculptural traditions of West and Central Africa. The only author to have given serious attention to beaded ornaments before me was a German army officer named Merker who devoted one and a half pages to the subject in his 1904 book “Die Masai” (Merker 1904). In recent years, there has been a spate of good work done on change and resilience in Maasai society without linking it to any of our preliminary work (Kotowicz 2013; McCabe et al. 2014; Galvin et al. 2004; Homewood et  al. 2006). Only very recently, through my affiliation with the Archaeology Department of the National Museums of Kenya, I have learned that we are looking back at a cavernous history of micro and macro adjustments and close survival calls of peoples who, over several millennia, moved through Eastern Ethiopia to the South and West, into what is now Kenya (Wright 2005; Chritz et  al. 2019; Goldstein et  al. 2019; Janzen et  al. 2019; Penina 2019; Prendergast et al. 2008). The Setting The Pastoral Maasai and their cousins, the Samburu, Il Chamusi (Njemps, an anglicized mispronunciation/spelling of the Ol Maa word Il Chamusi often appears in the Anglophone literature about these communities) and other related groups have been both exalted and demonized by governments and in popular literature for well over a century. They have been mythologized and assigned the triple roles of the super sexy noble savage, fearsome military predators and icons of backwardness and refusal to change. Until the late twentieth century, the Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania lived a dominantly pastoralist life herding cattle, goats and sheep in the vast s­avannah grasslands of Kenya and Tanzania. They possess an aesthetic, culturally specific philosophic design system, which has been developed collectively and continues to be expressed in social structure, religion, and in actions for the preservation of the many microenvironments of the grassland savannah and the survival of the Maa-speaking peoples. Maasai men, women, and children have stored this knowledge and the paradigm of what it means to be “Maasai” or the state of being Maasai, tacitly, in their hearts and minds. They enact and perform it in their daily lives as personal behavior, religious observation and social organization, but they seldom articulate it. Prior to the 1880s and the beginning of the colonial period, the Maasai could express their aesthetic ideals freely and concretely in their clothing, ornaments, and utensils, but only in simple ways. Then came the Germans in Tanganyika and a steady stream of the British into Kenya.

The Collective Sage

147

The Arabs and Swahili before them had brought in trade goods that included cloth, iron implements and a trickle of glass beads. It was not until the Europeans arrived with their Italian and Czech glass beads (Thompson 1885), that Maasai women were able to express in bead designs what they already knew, using color and composition. For clarity’s sake, I shall begin my account with descriptions of the system as it is manifested through cosmology and religion, and then turn to matters of social organization and finally to color patterns. The Belief System The Maasai paradigm of thinking is binary. Most of the pairs in the cosmology and social system are symbolized by or associated with either redness, blackness, or whiteness (black and white or black and red) and/or with right and left hands. Each is also associated with relative strength or weakness, black being stronger than white, right stronger than left. All are mutually exclusive, alternating opposites. Examples are left and right, male and female, warrior and elder, day and night, grass and water, domestic and wild animals, Maasai and non-Maasai, heaven and earth. But, for right and left there is the center, for male and female there is child, for warrior and elder there is the transitional male, for day and night there are dawn and dusk, for grass and water, there is salt, for Maasai and non-Maasai there are the polluted Maasai and for heaven and earth there is the sea. By dividing everything into pairs with the possibility of a third member to each pair, both rigid adherence to a set of rules is created while recognizing an additional component or possibility at the same time. Thus, infinite flexibility is introduced, and this is what enables the Maasai to accept otherwise repugnant alternatives when needed in order to survive. There are two aspects of God, one Black in heaven (Enkai Narok) and the other Red in the Earth (Enkai Nanyuki). Enkai Narok is cool, gentle, loves the Maasai, and brings rain. Enkai Nanyuki is hot, harsh, dislikes the Maasai and complains when rain falls. There are two kinds of people, the perfect, cattleowning Maasai and all the rest. In the very beginning, according to tradition, Enkai Narok, the Black aspect of God in Heaven, stretched a strip of skin from heaven to the earth and sent down cattle for the Maasai. In gratitude, the Maasai agreed to always orient toward the heavens and shun the things of the earth. This covenant prevented them from cultivating, digging graves or wells, entering caves, and eating animals of the earth including birds. Ultimately, it protected the integrity of the complex grassland savannah ecosystem. The dustbowl that formed in the 1930s in the southern plains of North America stands as an example of what happens to people who break the surface of the soil in a grassland. Eurofolk had been growing food crops on the land for a mere thirty years when a disastrous drought hit, and their topsoil

148

Donna Pido

was blown away. The Maasai time frame for research and understanding of grasslands and the development of protective strategies was many centuries longer, both in their present space and the long path that brought them there. In reality, survival in the savannah on the ground meant that the Maasai must remain chauvinistically devoted to the pastoral subsistence mode while recognizing and accepting the painful necessity of adopting alternatives made repugnant by their original covenant with God. The concept of pollution is a factor in mitigating the status of Maasai who have had to resort to farming or fishing or who have lost all their cattle and resorted to hunting and gathering. When there is a severe drought and famine, people can farm their children out to the agricultural communities in order to save their lives. The evidence of this is in the report from Kikuyu, Luhya, and Kamba people who have Maasai names and are able to tell us that their great grandfather or mother were adoptees from the Maasai during hard times. Pollution is but one of the caveats of this thought system. Nothing can be pure. Mitigation is assumed, from the cutting of pouring milk, to the circumcision seasons, to the separation of colors in beadwork. Mixing is also of major importance, especially the genetic mixing of livestock and humans. However, mixing must be in good proportions, neither too much nor too little of any component. Social and Spatial Organization Sometime earlier than three centuries ago, when the Maasai were forming themselves into the community we know today, they made a collective, consensual decision to create territorial continuity, to spread risk over the entire community, and to prevent centralization of authority or domination by a single individual or family. They already had the covenant with Enkai Narok that forced them to protect the savannah (Jacobs 1965; Klumpp/Pido 1987). Whoever did the thinking and planning, divided the original Maasailand, before the colonial incursion, into grazing areas called Iloshon (Plateaux) or “sections” in English. These were and still are geographically determined but were considered in two groups: Hot and dry lowlands of the East and South (OlKaputiei) and the cooler, wetter highlands of the West and North (Enaiposha). The cool wet highlands are climatically advantaged over the hot dry lowlands. Thus, the two formed a pair of mutually exclusive alternating opposites with Enaiposha the stronger, and OlKaputiei the weaker. Their alternation came to be represented in color with Enaiposha representing black and OlKaputiei representing white, a color pair that is manifest in their respective cattle color preferences. Each Olosho is a politically independent unit but a member of one of the two coalitions of sections—hot dry (white) and cool wet (black). Even today some

The Collective Sage

149

of the sections are hostile to one another in various ways and some are still belligerent to one another. So, while a section can be considered as a corporate political entity, there is a constant tension between territoriality and mutual dependence. The two coalitions are required to come together for mutual support, for major ceremonies and when one is in danger as in the more frequent droughts in Ol Kaputiei. In order to prevent the sections from establishing themselves as completely independent and to enable interaction, the thinkers divided all the Maasai into five kinship-based clans. Unlike many other environmentally marginal or stressed communities, notably the peninsular Arabs and the Somali, they deliberately made these clans exogamous to promote mixing and they distributed each clan over all the sections. This arrangement guaranteed the establishment of interclan ties through marriage and provided points of commonality everywhere for everyone. This becomes extremely important when we consider the unreliability of the bimodal rainfall pattern and the interdigitation2 of microenvironments that characterize Maasailand. Three of the clans are associated with black cattle, left hand, and two with red oxen, right hand. In order to provide a sound education, administration, and protection for any unit, males were divided by age into grades, consisting of junior and senior warriors and junior and senior elders. The earliest recorded Maasai age set, according to Father Mol’s research was Irratanya who were warriors in the 1750s (Mol 1980). He gathered this information by a report from elders. The presence of a named set at that time strongly suggests that the system of forming sets to pass through the grades was already in place at that time. The flow of males through these age grades is in age sets demarcated by points in time when circumcision begins, ends, and then reopens and closes again. Two consecutive periods of circumcision form the right and left hands of an age set. The two hands are ceremonially joined and named as a single corporate unit when they graduate into junior elderhood. Likewise, elder sets are designated as junior and senior and retired as they grow older. In this way, each new age set is supervised by a set of elders who train and deploy them. The alternating timing of the transitions triggered by circumcision is such that there are almost always junior warriors, senior warriors, and both junior and senior elders of alternating right and left-hand sets. Each set supervises the second set down the age ladder from them, thus creating moieties of alternating cohorts, who owe allegiance and loyalty to their entire alternation. So, the warriors in place today owe their allegiance to the second ascending generation of elders who are their supervisors as well as to the fourth and sixth ascending set if any of them are still alive. Il Merues and Il Meshuki owe allegiance to Il Kitoip and before them Il Nyankusi and any Il Terito, who may still be living (Klumpp/Pido 1987). All of these subdivisions and alternations contribute to risk dispersal by providing every Maasai man and his wives and children with a range of

150

Donna Pido

people near and far who can be called upon for support in times of need and to whom support is owed in times of plenty. By spreading the clans over all the sections, the Maasai enabled themselves to establish ties outside their limited geographical areas. No matter where a Maasai goes, he has clansmen, in-laws, and age mates. If one cannot or is unwilling to help, he can marshal one of the other linkages to press for support from distant strangers, as long as they are Maasai. A small anecdotal experience of mine may illustrate this: I was sent by the Kajiado County Council to conduct a beadwork workshop in an enkang beyond the eastern border of Amboseli Park. The people there were of the IlKisonko Section in the OlKaputiei and they did not recognize my Purko section ornaments from far away in Enaiposha. Explaining that I was from the Purko section elicited frowns—different section, different coalition. So, the ladies asked for my clan affiliation. They burst into cheers on learning that my clan is Molelian. By sheer luck, that enkang’ had only one non-Molelian family in it, so I was warmly welcomed as a fellow clanswoman. The Color System Beginning in the late 1800s, East Africans began receiving a shower of multicolored glass beads from Europe. The Kenya Uganda Railway was completed in 1902, known to Maasai as “the year that many beads fell into the land.” From that year on, the shower took on flood proportions, thus enabling all the color-starved peoples of East Africa to express themselves with greater choice and refinement by deploying the new resource according to their aesthetic paradigms. Each community chose what to do with their beads. Some communities marked historical moments in symbols. Others portrayed their young men and women dancing (Klumpp/Pido 1981b). The Maasai women took over control of their personal ornaments from the blacksmiths and deployed their new range of colors to express variations and patterns of the binary Maasai thought system in color and pattern code. These expressions, I argue, should be seen as aesthetically pleasing and socially meaningful—yet non-discursive—philosophical statements on Maasai society. Ornament production became feminized because stringing, wiring, and stitching beads are female occupations. Glass beads also became a feminine caricature of cattle, owned exclusively by men (Klumpp/Pido 1987). However, throughout the nineteenth century, the colors of glass beads that the Czechs and Italians distributed worldwide were designed for the low light regions outside the tropics and looked ugly in the tropical light. The palette consisted of brick red, navy blue, lemon yellow, dark turquoise, white, dusty pink, raspberry red and forest green. Jablonec nad Nisou, where the bulk of glass seed beads was made, was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so the Germans had good access to multicolored seed beads and other small shapes

The Collective Sage

151

including olive and tablet beads of various sizes. We can see these beads in museum collections, especially in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Dresden, which houses a collection of beaded objects that were clearly made for sale to German colonial officials in the 1880s. Around the end of World War I, chromium replaced gold as the main pigment for red seed beads thus yielding a pure true Vermillion, scarlet and crimson glass. The range of greens expanded to include a light leafy green, and opaque, saturated yellows and oranges arrived. Recovery from World War I and the Great Depression curtailed the supply of glass beads flowing into East Africa, leaving the early twentieth-century warriors and girls with a limited range. By the late 1920s and moving forward to the present, the Maasai color system was intact, and by the end of World War II, it was full blown. We can see it in black and white photographs and in paintings that were made from those photos (Adamson 1967). What was already in Maasai heads and hearts became manifested in form and color, and is still intact today. The system is still expressed and displayed on the bodies of Maa-speaking peoples. It still advertises the Maa speakers’ ability to “roll with the punches” of their climate, environment, invasions, epidemics, epizootics, land alienation, social and political change and diversification of options. There are two basic color sets. The first is Narok consisting of black/blue, red and white representing God in Heaven. The second is Muain Sidain (the Beautiful Colors) green/red, white, and blue/orange, in which green and red, blue and orange are pairs of mutually exclusive alternating opposites. Red and blue are strong while green and orange are weak. Black and white are opposites as are orange and blue, and red and green, as on the color wheel used by artists and in the physics of reflected light. Prior to the refinement and saturation of bead colors in the early twentieth century, this set was not possible using the color resources available. Narok stands for Black and Muain Sidain stands for White in ornament compositions and placement on the body. They must alternate in single ornament compositions and also in the placement of ornaments of the body. The third set is the one that each warrior set designates for itself. It follows the rules but with slight variation and is easily recognizable as the set of its particular generation. At the opening of each hand of each age set, the warriors and their lovers decide what their color set will be, and that set identifies them forever. Each ornament has to have a balance between Narok and Muain Sidain. Though Muain Sidain usually dominates the ornamental space, the proportions of black and white can vary as long as both are present. The age set color set is added in very small proportion to identify the ornament with its warriors (Klumpp/Pido 1987). The color codes remained firmly intact until the mid-1990s when the Il Merues warrior set, under severe pressure from

152

Donna Pido

land alienation, started adding sky blue to their color array. As part of their deliberate generational change, Il Merues also started keeping bees, an animal of the earth that had always been forbidden.

DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS As stated above, the Maasai aesthetic and philosophically grounded design system, manifested in cosmology, religion, thought, ornamental art, settlement patterns and individual behavior is binary with accommodation of the third element and others as needed. This is manifested as the anomalous duality of mutually exclusive alternating opposites, in which a third element usually lurks on the sidelines. The dyads must be both contrasting and complementary. Two members of a pair cannot be identical but should represent alternation. Symmetry is usually alternating with the age sets and ornament compositions. Concepts of proportion, mixing, and mitigation or cutting also contribute to the bedrock of Maa speakers’ philosophical guidelines in life. Maasai people wear the belief system that grounds and expresses all those characteristics on their bodies every day. They also organize their society and actions in keeping with these rules. Maasai architecture and settlement patterns conform to the same rules. From here, we can see that Maasai philosophy is not the product of a single thinker, whose name is either known or lost to history. It is based on the collective accumulation and expression of experiences, through observation and participation, in environmental fluctuations and catastrophes, in a range of marginal savannah habitats and climatic micro-environments (Klumpp/ Pido 1987). The archaeologists and geologists have told us just how far back the experience goes (Sutton 1993; Wright 2005; Chritz et al. 2019; Goldstein et al. 2019; Janzen et al. 2019; Penina 2019; Prendergast et al. 2019). The system is codified symbolically in religion, art and action, and is applied in ways that have proven both practical and effective in the grassland savannah and far beyond. Its roots are in collective decision-making for practical solutions to practical problems that have confronted the Maa speakers and their predecessors for millennia as they became Maasai and moved into their present territory. Along the very long way from Eastern Ethiopia to the present Kenya/Tanzania border area, they dealt not just with geography but also with other communities and the colonial and postindependence onslaughts (Wright 2005). Taking the complexity of tropical grassland savannah ecosystems into account, biologists, botanists, zoologists, and climate scientists should be able to make a persuasive case for a body of accumulated, experience-based, empirical knowledge having been put into place long before the present inhabitants migrated into Maasailand. Survival in the East African

The Collective Sage

153

grassland savannah depends on minimizing risk and percentage of loss. That means maximizing herd numbers and keeping the animals alive by harvesting blood and milk while consuming meat very economically. Any sustained effort to produce or acquire vegetable foods in the grassland savannah can only result in disaster and death. Did the people we now know as the Maasai learn this from experience, or from their predecessors? Did they absorb those predecessors? Were they absorbed by them? Did the predecessors die out because they failed to develop the resilience that the Maasai had? Or are the Maasai their predecessors who morphed into something new just as did (apparently) the Anasazi of the American Southwest and the Sirikwa of Kenya who became the Kipsigis? These are intriguing, open questions. From a purely evolutionary natural selection standpoint, we must assume that the peoples on the ground today are the survivors of many centuries of exigent climate, because they did some things, or indeed many things, right. Their ancestors, who did not act in survival mode, did not leave descendants. Herodotus, in the 500s BC, tells us of the King of the “Ethiopians” who was convinced that the Egyptians were feeble because they ate grain and vegetables instead of only boiled meat (Herodotus 1975). In the 800s CE, a Chinese maritime historian named Tuan Ch’eng Shih, described traveling inland from the East African Coast and meeting a people who did not eat any of the five grains, but they pierced the necks of their cattle and drank the blood (Freeman Grenville 1975). This encounter would have predated the Maasai arrival by several hundred years if other historians are reliable. In the literature describing the Maasai migratory path and arrival in the territory presently known as Kenya and Tanzania (Spear and Waller 1993), one feature of history that is rarely mentioned is the encounters between Maasai and the peoples already in place along the way and in situ. We know, only folklorically, of the Il Ogoolala, the people of big teeth who the Maasai fought and displaced from the Was Inkishu plateau as they were moving into the Western Rift and its highlands in Kenya. We also know of the terror inflicted by “Maasai” on people of the Kenya/Tanzania Coast, who Jacobs claims were not pastoral Maasai but rather polluted agricultural Maasai called Wakuavi by Bantu speakers (Jacobs 1965 and PC). The Maasai word for Wakwavi is Iloikop, meaning people of the Land. As mentioned above, there are people with Maasai names in many other communities. Some of these mean “from the Maasai” in the local languages. Examples are Nyokabi, Wakaba, and Mukabi. CONCLUSION As I have shown here, in Maasailand we have a material, historical record of the nonverbal, nonalphabetic expressions of Maasai collective sage

154

Donna Pido

philosophy. Because this material record has been, and still is, generated by women, it has been overlooked by scholars of all kinds, African and nonAfrican and by philosophers, anthropologists, political scientists, development workers and religious activists alike. It stands as a glaring example of how gender hierarchy has coalesced with colonialist hierarchy in diminishing the Maasai (Pido et  al. 2019). This examination of the Maasai system of thought and the ways it plays itself out in history, cosmology, religion, social organization and art, has been intended to raise questions about scholarly classification and ranking of philosophical pursuit and to point to the need to decolonize our scholarly efforts. The Maasai system is deliberately structured to promote resilience and is known to all who have been raised by Maasai mothers. It is rarely articulated outside the social scientific literature, and only a few authors’ work on this subject matter (Pido 1987; Jacobs 1965; Galaty 1976). Because its most declarative statement is in the beaded ornaments that Maasai wear, and because that art form is seldom recognized as such, even by art historians and perhaps never by philosophers, it usually goes unremarked in spite of being ubiquitous to the point of visual assault (Pido/Klumpp 1987). The system cannot have been the product of a single mind in a single lifetime. Regardless of who came up with this system and entrenched it in culture, it clearly functions to maximize survival among its practitioners. Can we imagine that there were only one or a few people who, several centuries ago, figured all this out? Did one or a few traverse the entirety of Maasailand and note over a period of many centuries that there was no place where climatic conditions were consistent in any predictable way? The Maasai philosophy, as I have laid out and covered it here, has to have been a product of long-term, widespread knowledge gathering through observation and experience pooled and honed for the purposes it now serves. No one person can have figured it all out and persuaded all members of the Maa-speaking community to adopt and adhere to this single system of thought. It becomes even more wondrous when we note that writing was never used widely among the Maasai until the twentieth century. Still more amazing is that the resilience it has conferred on the Maasai is enabling them to absorb the shocks of the demise of the cattle-based economy and to land on their feet in a world that defines them negatively (Wijngarden 2010). Non-African philosophy, especially that originating in Europe, shows us the strong tendency among peoples of European origin to identify, name, and revere originators of works of art, thought, innovation, or invention. Westerners are still hanging onto every word of a number of Greek and Roman thinkers, who either transmitted their ideas through students or wrote them down themselves. Academic philosophers and political scientists still rely very heavily on the model of the single thinker whose thoughts are worthy of

The Collective Sage

155

widespread use and acceptance and upon which other systems and thoughts should be based. For several centuries, Muslim thinkers, especially in the Iberian Peninsula were major contributors to this tradition. We know most of their names along with the Greeks and Romans, later the British, Germans, and French. But we know nothing of the men and women who gave the Maa speakers the bedrock of their thought system and its applications to the hardships and uncertainties of life on the grassland savannah, and in the face of a threat to the Maa community from outside forces that could not have been predicted until very recently. In defining themselves as Maasai, it is clear that sometime before the 1700s CE, they made a cohesive set of conscious, wellinformed, and consensual decisions which they ensconced in cosmology, social organization, praxis, and sanction. The system is rigid, but with built-in provision for the circumvention of its own rigidity. Considering culture as “aesthetic preference writ large” (Fernandez 1973, 1977), Maasai aesthetics begin within a supernatural model of the universe and humans’ relationship with deity, while laying down rules of social and political organization and of individual and group conduct. These conform with the binary model of anomalous duality, high contrast, and alternation, along with recognition of additional elements. This enables infinite recombination and the incorporation of whatever happens to come along. This is the key to the Maasai cohesion, and the Maasai’s commitment to ideals that are demonstrably unattainable when circumstances change for the long or short term. The problem for African scholars is compounded by their having adopted the tools and structures of patriarchy and the colonial West, and they must now use them to argue for more equal consideration of African thought. It is only through the written word that we have been able to come this far. Yet, those who rely entirely on writing lose touch with other modes of expression, especially nonalphabetic symbols. Writing and reading are alienating activities because they are done by one person at a time and require mental isolation from others—this is a fundamental point already advocated emphatically by my teacher, Melvin Alexenberg, in his lectures in the late 1970s. Some symbols are unitary such as the Yin Yang symbol, which stands on its own, and triggers the understanding of a complex belief system. Color is a different kind of symbol because it is multivocalic and often dependent for meaning on the form it enhances. You can alter or modify thought processes and “Africanize” them, but you have to find, identify, and describe them first. This is what South African scholars are now struggling with, in the wake of 300 years of epistemicide. Yes, African thinkers have adopted the tools of patriarchy and colonialism, but how else can these evils be revealed, analyzed, and defeated? How can you fight them if you don’t know the details, history, and methods of the weapons used against you?

156

Donna Pido

There is a sad parallel between the African struggle to overcome the legacies of colonialism and the global female struggle to overcome the insidious and active patriarchy. Both of these struggles can be illustrated with an examination of Maasai philosophy. No one has been talking about what the women are doing just outside the enkang’ sitting under the tree, “gossiping” while they make beaded ornaments for themselves, their families, and tourists. Enkitagata, the place where groups of women sit, is inaccessible to males because of gender pollution. But it is where philosophy is discussed in simple terms and incorporated graphically, symbolically, and non-alphabetically into Maasai life. Need we make an explicit parallel between Enkitagata and the Grove of Academe? The major difference is that the men of the grove were not making beaded ornaments while they talked, at least not that we know of. We are burdened with the Western penchant for identifying individuals and positioning them in space and time. This has been done with the Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers and scientists. The Eurofolk even make images of their famous people in sculpture, paintings, and photographs. The history of Western philosophy focuses on the intellectual work of single individuals and small groups of brilliant people who are outspoken about their thoughts. Take the example of Imhotep, whose works we still have along with stories of how everybody hung on his every word though he didn’t write anything. Then there was Ptah Hotep, his contemporary, who wrote his ideas down. We have the Step Pyramid and many carved images of Imhotep but Ptah Hotep survives only through his words. We would know Socrates only as a rumor, were it not for his student Plato who wrote down what he said. In Africa it is impossible, looking back to before the advent of writing south of the Sahara, to identify, and name individual thinkers who have contributed to the lived philosophies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There is an acute need to de-rank philosophic systems in Africa, and to move away from the non-African obsession with identifying one person by name. There is also a need to include nonliterate forms of expression to include both the de jure and de facto participants. Odera Oruka acted in the best of faith in pioneering a new category of thinkers for scholars to consider, recognize and study. Having lost him all too soon, we can only speculate on how his own thinking and writing would have evolved as his paradigm was gulped, chewed, swallowed, and digested by the scholarly community including himself. The Akamba have a proverb that goes “The man who has not travelled thinks his mother is the best cook.” People, especially academics and scholarly writers who confine themselves to the boundaries of their own disciplines, risk missing out on fruitful interaction across disciplines. Anyone who thinks he or she is “upto-date” in their field needs only to wait a year or so for the next paradigm shift to happen. They can cause it, develop it, follow it, get bored with it and

The Collective Sage

157

ultimately abandon it. In the meantime, they can proselytize, debate, discuss and, in some cases, take on a highly invested position in defense of their chosen paradigm. In this chapter, I have tried to explain that any effort to find individual “sage philosophers” in at least one historical and contemporary African ethnic community can result in the exclusion of an entire community. If the “sage philosopher” has to be an individual then all too many African communities will be left out of the fashionable quarters of academic thinking and relegated to both the sexist and colonialist realms of “almost but not quite.” No one can undo the history of European hegemony in academia. What scholars can do now is to level the playing field and eliminate the unnecessary and distorting ranking of thought systems by treating all, whether individually or collectively generated, as equal. This will mean freeing ourselves from the hegemony of writing, and focusing a continuously critical eye on the scholarly literature that deliberately or inadvertently ranks thought systems. I would like to end this chapter with the night sky as a metaphor for philosophy. We can see the scatter of many stars, each with its own name. Maasai philosophy brings them all together in the Milky Way.

NOTES 1. Note that both these surnames refer to me, the author, and my published work before and after marriage. Having shed my maiden name for the more euphonic Pido, I will eventually cite myself only as Pido. 2. Interdigitation describes both the spatial changes in most of the Maasai environment and compares this feature with the parallel interlocking of fingers of the human hands.

REFERENCES Adamson, J. 1967. The Peoples of Kenya. New York: Harcourt Brace and World. Aktipis, A., L. Cronk and R. de Aguiar. 2011. Risk-Pooling and Herd Survival: An Agent-Based Model of a Maasai Gift-Giving System. Springer Science+Business Media. Chritz, K., T. Cerling, S. Goldstein, A. Janzen, P. Kiura, E. Ndiema, M. Prendergast, E. Sawchuk, and E. Hildebrand. 2008. “Human Environment Interactions Throughout the Holocene in Kenya.” A Paper Presented to the Conference of the East African Association for Paleoanthropology and Paleontology (EAAPP) /August 1–4 The National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi. Fernandez, J. 1973. “The Exposition and Imposition of Order.” In The Traditional Artist in African Societies, edited by Warren D’Azevedo. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

158

Donna Pido

———. 1977. “Fang Architectonics.” Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Papers in Anthropology. Number 3. Philadelphia. Fraser, D. 1976. African Art as Philosophy. New York: Interbook. Freeman, G. 1975. The East African Coast. London: Rex Collings. Galaty, J. 1977. “In the Pastoral Image; The Symbolic Dynamics of Maasai Identity.” PhD diss., University of Chicago. ———. 1993. “Maasai Expansion and the New East African Pastoralism.” In Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa, edited by T. Spear and R. Waller. London: James Currey. Galvin, K. A., P. K. Thornton, R. B. Boone and J. Sunderland. 2004. “Climate Variabiity and Impacts on East African Livestock herders.” African Journal of Range and Forage Science 21, no. 3 [accessed on Academia​.e​du 01 January 2020]. Goldstein, S., E. Hildebrand, M. Storozum, E. Sawchuk, K. Chritz and L. Robbins. “Excavations at Lothagam-Lokam, West Turkana, Kenya: New Perspectives on Human-Environmental Interactions During the Early Holocene.” A Paper Presented to the Conference of the East African Association for Paleoanthropology and Paleontology (EAAPP) /August 1–4 The National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi. Herodotus. 1975. The Histories. London: Penguin Books. Homewood, K., E. Coast, S. Kiruswa, S. Semeels, M. Thompson and R. Trench. 2006. “Maasai Pastoralists: Diversification and Poverty.” LSE Research Online: Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction Conference ILRI 27–28. [Accessed 01 January 2020] Houlberg, M. 1973. “Ibeji Images of the Yoruba.” African Arts 7, no. 1. Jacobs, A. 1965. “The Traditional Political System of the Pastoral Maasai.” PhD thesis, Oxford University, Nuffield College. Janzen, A., S. H. Ambrose, M. Balasse, P. Le Roux, and P. Roberts. “Strontium Isotope Evidence of Pastoral Movement Across Southern Kenya.” A Paper Presented to the Conference of the East African Association for Paleoanthropology and Paleontology (EAAPP) /August 1–4 The National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi. July 2019NPN Klumpp/Pido, D. 1981a. “Women as Innovators and Keepers of Tradition.” Paper Presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Bloomington Indiana. ———. 1981b “Jewelry as Identity Marker in East Africa.” Paper Presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Bloomington Indiana. ———. 1986 “Sagacity.” In The Kajiado District Socio Cultural Profile, Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi and The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Nairobi. ———. 1987. “Maasai Art and Society: Age and Sex, Time and Space, Cash and Cattle.” PhD diss., Columbia University, New York. Koisabba, B. 2012. “Globalization and Its Impact on Indigenous People in Kenya.” ———. 2013. “Effects of Globalization in the Maasai Family.” International Human Rights Law. Kotowicz, A. M. 2013. “Maasai Identity in the 21st Century.” MA Thesis, The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Lewis, C. S. 1950–56. The Chronicles of Narnia. The United Kingdom: Geoffrey Bels.

The Collective Sage

159

McCabe, T., N. M. Smith, P. W. Leslie and A. L. Telligman. 2004. “Livelihood Diversification through Migration among a Pastoral People: Contrasting Case Studies of Maasai in Northern Tanzania.” Human Organization 73, no. 4: 189–310. Merker, M. 1904. Die Masai. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. Mol, F. 1980. Maa. Nairobi: Marketing and Publishing Ltd. Oruka, H. O. (ed.) 1991. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy. Nairobi: ACTS Press. Penina, E. K. 2019. “Who Were the Makers of Engaruka Techno-Cultural Complex? Testing the Sonjo Hypothesis.” A Paper Presented to the Conference of the East African Association for Paleoanthropology and Paleontology (EAAPP) /August 1–4 The National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi. Pido, D. 1989a. “Maasai Aesthetics and Development.” A Paper Presented at the Conference on the Future of Maasai Pastoralists in Kajiado District, Kenya, 28–31 May. Brackenhurst Liimuru, Stichting Nederlandse Vriwilligers, ASAL Programme. ———. 1989b. “Ethnic Identity and Color Code: The Maasai Center and Periphery.” A Paper Presented to the Eighth Triennial Symposium on African Art, Washington, DC, 15–17 June. ———. 2002. “Beadwork and the Environment.” In African Pastoralists, edited by van der Stappen, X. Brussels: Culture and Communication. NPN Pido, D. (Klumpp) and C. Kratz. 1993. “Aesthetics, Expertise and Ethnicity.” In Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa, edited by T. Spear and R. Waller. London: James Currey. 195–221. ———. 2002. “Esthetics, Production and Gender: Analysis of a Maasai Women’s Art Form.” In Rethinking Pastoralism, edited by D. Hodgson. Oxford: James Currey Publishers. 43–71. Pido, D., M. Khamala and O. Pido. 2019. “Decolonizing ‘Technology’ in Kenyan Higher Education.” In A New Kind of Development in Africa, edited by M. N. Amutabi. Nairobi: Center for Democracy. Research and Development. 1–10. Prendergast, M., E. Sawchuk, M. Lipson, C. Ogola, E. Ndiema, F. K. Manthi and D. Riech. 2019. “Ancient DNA Reveals a Multi-Step Spread of Food Production into Eastern Africa.” A Paper Presented to the Conference of the East African Association for Paleoanthropology and Paleontology (EAAPP) /August 1–4 The National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi. Spear, T. and R. Waller (eds.) 1993. Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa. London: James Currey. Sutton, J. E. G. 1993. “Becoming Maasailand.” In Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa, edited by T. Spear and R. Waller. London: James Currey. 98–125. Thompson, J. 1885. Through Masai Land. London: Sampson Low. Wijngarden, V. 2010. “Cosmopolitan Savages: The Challenging Art of Selling African Culture to Tourists.” Etnofoor 22, no. 2. Wright, D. K. 2005. “Environment, Chronology and Resource Exploitation of the Pastoral Neolithic in Tsavo, Kenya.” PhD diss., University of Chicago.

Chapter 7

Sagacity is Relational No Individual Owns Any Story Jared Sacks

LET US BEGIN WITH A COLLECTIVE STORY.1 “They walk together to the taxi rank in the middle of the settlement. As usual, Toloki is the centre of attraction. Heads peer inquisitively from the small doors of shanties. Passers-by gawk at them” (Mda 1995, 96).⁠ Toloki is the awkward protagonist of Ways of Dying, Zakes Mda’s magical novel about a social outcast who is seen by others as a beggar and yet insists he is a professional mourner hired to grieve at local funerals. Toloki is also a philosophical sage, I argue, even if he is not recognized as such by the community of this unnamed South African port city. He refuses to beg, asserting its “better to steal” (1995, 60); he notices how “women are never still,” doing most of the work while men spend their time in the clouds coming up with empty theories (1995, 175–176); and he challenges police who single him out for showering at the beach in his underwear rather than a bathing suit (1995, 99–100). In all these instances, Toloki seems to interrogate popular wisdom, employing a form of didactic reason that goes against the grain. He is a loner who is socially ostracized (as Odera Oruka warns many sage philosophers become), not only because of his peculiar way of life but also because he thinks in ways that go against communal conventions (Kresse and Graness 1999, 253). This is most evident in how he describes his unusual profession as concerning the interaction of life and death. To describe the dialogical relationship between the two, he notes: “Death lives with us every day. Indeed our ways of dying are our ways of living. Or should I say our ways of living are our ways of dying?” (1995, 98). In so many ways, this fictional character of magical realism exemplifies Oruka’s definition of a philosophic sage. That is: A wise person in a community who uses didactic wisdom to make “an independent critical assessment” 161

162

Jared Sacks

(written or oral) of what people in that given community generally take for granted (Oruka 1999b, 61–62). When we are forced through the narrative to see things from his perspective, we see Toloki as thoroughly rational and methodologically logical in his mode of thought. But he embodies all these characteristics of a philosophical thinker without professional training. The story itself is also a rejection of ethnophilosophy; it challenges the claim that there are traditional maxims and truths that identify with the totality of a social or ethnic group (Oruka 1983, 383). Mda does this by using Toloki and his “homegirl” Noria as counterpoints to such assumptions of philosophical conformity. Toloki and Noria exemplify the diversity of thought within the collective. Stopping here, however, would do a disservice to the intellectual accomplishment of Mda’s novel. For Ways of Dying is not just a narrative about an individual, but a treatise on the power of collective philosophy as told through story. A few pages into the novel he provides the reader with this counter framework: We are the all-seeing eye of the village gossip. When in our orature the storyteller begins the story, “They say it once happened,” we are the “they.” No individual owns any story. The community is the owner of the story, and it can tell it the way it deems it fit. (1995, 12)2

While at first glance this proclamation sounds akin to the conformity that custom and folklore are said to impose on the individual, Mda provides an explicit critique of this type of communal submission in the experience of violence that Toloki and Noria have to navigate within the community. Mda’s collective storyteller is critical of a kind of communalism that does not think critically and is in opposition to established norms; the collective storyteller rejects conformity in favor of intellectual contestation. The tension between the individual and the collective that we see embodied in Toloki and Noria’s relationship with their local shack settlement offers us a different kind of understanding of sage philosophy: one that rejects rigid, essentialized, and unchanging notions of culture and helps us catch a glimpse into how a living ideology3 might evolve through a collective struggle for a better life. Decolonization Much has been made of academe’s “decolonial turn” since South African students at the University of Cape Town rose to tear down the statue of Cecil John Rhodes that acted as the campus’ central spatial anchor. Yet, as Grosfoguel points out, decolonization as a concept and practice has existed since 1415/1492 when Portuguese and Spanish imperialism first spread out

Sagacity is Relational

163

to Africa and the Americas (IHRCtv 2014). Decolonization is not merely an academic fad. As such, we need to keep in mind that the much-heralded idea of a “decolonial turn” is one that specifically refers to recent developments among professional philosophers/intellectuals, particularly within the academy. In this context, we can delineate two general forms that theorization around decolonization takes: (1) Decolonization as institutionalization and (2) decolonization through struggle. Decolonization as institutionalization What I refer to as decolonization as institutionalization is the method of decolonial thought—or shall we say, the strategy of decolonial thinkers— that seeks to institutionalize or incorporate indigenous and non-Western concepts, practices, and people within existing Western social structures. This can be exemplified by a number of liberal academic projects, including calls to incorporate texts written by people of the Global South into existing curricula, the hiring of more diverse faculty, the teaching of indigenous and non-Western languages, etc. Yet, anti-colonial nationalist arguments tend toward a similar method of institutionalization. While rejecting what they deem to be liberal approaches that seek out “diversity” and “transformation,” their assertion of an essentialized indigenous, Black, or otherwise non-Western cultural framework often works to uphold a mirror image of existing Western institutions. As such, they often propose an indigenous academy that mirrors forms of management, domination, and control typically found in the Western university. In the discipline of philosophy, many have argued, following Sartre’s Black Orpheus (1976), that this intellectual tradition is exemplified by Léopold Senghor’s iteration of Négritude. Senghor’s exhortation for Négritude to embrace the precolonial past (Kelley 1999) in its political strategy of nationalist anti-colonialism was, according to Sartre, a form of “anti-racist racism” (Diagne 2014). Though I accept Souleymane Bachir Diagne’s rethinking of Senghor’s Négritude as non-essentialist, especially in its later years (2014, 2018),4 in terms of decolonization the question of essentialism is beside the point. Rather, what is more relevant to the practice of decolonization, is how we engage with the institution as part of a movement’s strategy of change. From this perspective, Senghor can be understood as embracing a form of decolonization as institutionalization. He, for instance, saw little contradiction in his wholehearted embrace of a European language (French), a European artistic movement (Surrealism), and of French culture in general, as well as how this compromised the philosophical and institutional autonomy of the Négritude

164

Jared Sacks

movement (Soyinka 1999, 135). But to see how deeply the question of institutionalization is clung to by Senghor, we cannot only take into account his writings and poetry; we must also take a look at how these ideas played out politically as Senghor assumed the presidency of postcolonial Senegal. In order to build the new Senegalese state, Senghor maintained close relationships with France and other Western nations and refused to dismantle the existing colonial governance structures—preferring continuity with institutions of colonialism. He maintained a currency linked to the franc and he also insisted on French as the official language of this “decolonized” African state (Hiddleston 2014, 38–70). In other words, despite its radical theoretical foundation, Senghor’s Négritude, in practice, was a form of decolonization that maintained existing colonial institutions. Linking back to the discussion of sage philosophy, Oruka’s critique of ethnophilosophy should also be understood in this context. While critiquing Senghor and the Belgian missionary Placide Tempels, as two sides of the same coin of an ethnophilosophy that assumed forms of cultural essentialism,5 Oruka fails to transcend the Western institution that has laid the basis of the sage philosophy project. In searching for the universal humanism in philosophy (Kresse 2013; Oruka 1997), Oruka is still operating within a structured binary that became dominant during the European Enlightenment. Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí makes a similar point in her important book, The Invention of Women: African thought6 (from Blyden to Senghor; through Kagame, Mbiti, and Idowu; to Irele, Hountondji, Bodurin, Oruka, and Wiredu), whether nativist or antinativist, has always focused not on difference from the West but on sameness with the West. It is precisely because African intellectuals accept and identify so much with European thinking that they have created African versions of Western things. (1997, 19)

Oruka’s discussion of an African Republic of Inhumanity and Death is a case in point; the juxtaposition of humanism with the lack thereof in Africa can only be done by accepting the West as the arbiter of this very binary. The debate, which places essentialism opposite to universalism and enforces the practice of philosophy as a choice between the one or the other (rather than transcending this binary), is tantamount to maintaining the colonial institution itself.7 Decolonization through struggle I propose a deviation from decolonization as institutionalization, not to create a new binary, but rather to deconstruct an existing binary that many postcolonial and decolonial theorists8 espouse when juxtaposing their work with that

Sagacity is Relational

165

of their liberal counterparts. If institutionalization is common to both a liberal neocolonial framework as well as sections of postcolonial and decolonial theory, then it is useful to understand the two dialectically. In order to transcend this binary, contra the Hegelian approach to dialectics (1968) we must look at ways of decolonizing/disrupting this false narrative (Ciccariello-Maher 2017; Cleaver 2017). Decolonization through struggle helps us achieve this. Because this distinction is not a binary, we must acknowledge that institutionalization is, in itself, a form of struggle, and, that various forms of institutionalization can birth new forms of struggle. This is analogous to the old Marxist debate regarding revolution versus reform versus revolutionary reforms (Luxemburg 2012). If institutionalization contains within it the potential to go beyond itself, struggle reformulates it in terms of process. Likewise, all forms of disruption have elements or tendencies toward a certain institutionalization. Employing Holloway’s (2002) formulation, for instance, “power-to” will over time congeal into a more rigid counter-power or a “power-over” others. The seed of all struggle contains new ways in which that very movement (its language and its methods) can be incorporated into currently existing structures. Taking this into account, decolonization through struggle can be thought of in terms of Frantz Fanon’s engagement with Négritude, first in Black Skin, White Masks (2008) and later in Wretched of the Earth (2004).9 In the former, Fanon writes of his attempt to assert his Blackness, reclaiming his Négritude, which is then snatched away by the sympathetic yet violent logic of his friend Jean-Paul Sartre. In declaring Négritude as merely transitional philosophy on the path to universalism, Fanon claims that Sartre undermines the foundation on which Black people have asserted their humanity. There must be a way, then, to go beyond a reliance on history and culture as a method. Fanon’s solution is, according to Lewis Gordon, a “radical rejection of the presupposed method” of philosophical thought (Gordon 2015, 72). It is neither necessary to embrace Europe and whiteness to become human, nor counter that framework with Négritude as a strategy toward achieving the universal. Rather, for Fanon, the foundation of one’s politics must be the immediate assertion of equality. He explains: We are convinced that it would be of enormous interest to discover a black literature or architecture from the third century before Christ. We would be overjoyed to learn of the existence of a correspondence between some black philosopher and Plato. But we can absolutely not see how this fact would change the lives of eight-year-old kids working in the cane fields of Martinique or Guadeloupe. . . . The density of History determines none of my acts. I am my own foundation. And it is by going beyond the historical and instrumental given that I initiate my cycle of freedom. (2008, 205)

166

Jared Sacks

In other words, his empathetic and strategic engagement with Négritude notwithstanding, Fanon rejects it as a foundation of his humanity. Damned, his final book, takes this to its logical conclusion. Critiquing Senghor’s project of decolonization as institutionalization in Senegal (his project to “Africanize the Europeans”), Fanon presents a truly disruptive alternative drawn from below and outside the postcolonial institution itself: “(. . .) The colonized can see right away if decolonization is taking place or not: The minimum demand is that the last become the first” (2004, 10). In other words, decolonization is not simply the replacement of a European elite with an indigenous one, nor the return to a petrified understanding of history and culture. For Fanon, decolonization is also not the ossification of national consciousness in the institution of the nation-state, as has happened in many “post-colonial” states. Rather, “decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is clearly an agenda for total disorder” (2004, 2). It goes beyond decolonization as institutionalization. When Fanon says that “the ‘thing’ colonized becomes a man through the very process of liberation” (2004, 2), he is talking about the need to rupture the relationship between two opposing forces. It is only through this struggle to dismantle the state, and existing institutions of the colonial order, that the people can build a new way forward. Africans Are Philosophers Too What does this mean? Quite simply this: when an Antillean with a degree in philosophy says he is not sitting for the agrégation because of his color, my response is that philosophy never saved anybody. When another desperately tries to prove to me that the black man is as intelligent as any white man, my response is that neither did intelligence save anybody, for if equality among men is proclaimed in the name of intelligence and philosophy, it is also true that these concepts have been used to justify the extermination of man. (Fanon 2008, 12)

Although Oruka distinguishes his project from Senghor’s Négritude—lumping the latter into a more general category of ethnophilosophy—there is an important overlap between the two in terms of the way they deal with decolonization. Both approaches define philosophical thought and therefore intelligence in terms of exclusionary standards. Neither accept Fanon’s core premise in rejecting such standards in favor of the immediate self-assertion that all people are already capable of such thinking. The driving force behind Oruka’s project of African philosophic sagacity is the political commitment to proving a culture of philosophical thought that is derived, not from a professional Western genealogy, but from one that is

Sagacity is Relational

167

non-professionalized and indigenous. He refers to professional philosophy as a metaphilosophy, which uses techniques that are commonly understood to be Western (even if they are not10). This trend “arrogantly” claims that philosophical thought must be written and scientific—defined as such according to Western metrics (Oruka 1983). Oruka’s approach is an important rebuke of the claim that philosophy should be limited to these professional methods and techniques. Not only is philosophy also an oral practice, but it need not rely on “smuggling western techniques into African philosophy” (1983, 384). Oruka’s project is, therefore, an expansion of the “Western” definition of what constitutes philosophy. Sage philosophy, in his view, is defined more broadly than it is defined by Western orthodoxy. It embraces all forms of didactic wisdom that go beyond popular wisdom, including communal maxims and aphorisms. In short, Oruka sees it as a form of rational thought that at times contradicts folk wisdom (1999b, 62). However, the complication with this definition of “real” philosophic thought is the question of rationality itself: Who gets to define what is rational? Is it possible that what is perceived as mythological by some11 is understood as critical and scientific by others? In other words, the dichotomy between the rational and the irrational has generally been defined according to the exercise of power; historically, for the past few hundred years beginning with the European Enlightenment, it has been the hegemonic Western philosophers and Western academics who have exerted this power, thereby defining their own thought as reasoned and that of the colonized as incapable of reason. Oruka’s method tries to get around this exercise of power by designating the role of the person interviewing a potential sage to be that of a provocateur, “to help the sage give birth to his full views on the subject under consideration” (1999b, 63). This facilitative role is meant to ensure that the interviewer’s power to define the philosophic frame is limited; in other words, to allow the potential sage to direct the philosophic conversation. Still, despite the methodological attempts to flatten the power differentials at play—in a similar way to Paulo Freire’s approach to critical pedagogy—the facilitative role remains one of arbiter. Within Oruka’s methodology, therefore, it remains prerogative of the professional interviewer/academic/philosopher, by virtue of their structural positionality, to exercise the power of defining what is “second-order philosophy,” and what is reason-based philosophical sagacity. Put differently, it is true that Oruka’s work challenges, transforms, and opens up a standardized definition of philosophy toward something more inclusive. What is being considered rational is expanded. Yet, this process of transformation is limited by its maintenance of the rational/irrational frame, rather than its transcendence. Oyěwùmí makes precisely this assertion about

168

Jared Sacks

remaining stuck within colonial frames of reference when referring to the question of gender. She quotes Kathy Ferguson as saying: The questions we can ask about the world are enabled, and other questions disabled, by the frame that orders the questioning. When we are busy arguing about the questions that appear within a certain frame, the frame itself becomes invisible; we become enframed within it. (1997, 13).

As such, Oruka’s sage philosophy faces the same problem as Senghor’s (and to a certain extent Césaire’s) Négritude. Whereas the latter had defined reason as Hellenic and emotion as Negro (Césaire 1990; Oruka 1983, 390), the former defines reason as individual and the irrational as traditional/communal. Oruka, then, in his quest to prove that Africans are philosophers too, is doing so under structural conditions that remain defined by the West and its established binaries. In order words, Oruka’s more inclusive standards remain exactly that: standards or conditions for what constitutes philosophical thought, what constitutes intelligence, and, likewise, what constitutes the human. In failing to go beyond decolonization as institutionalization, Oruka remains trapped in the paradox that Fanon describes in Black Skin, White Masks, where Blacks are compelled to prove their humanity to whites. Oruka’s attempt to prove that Africans are philosophers too is insufficient as it is tantamount to trying to prove that Africans have the capacity for critical thought. This does not make the project itself meaningless.12 However, as Fanon made clear, the assertion of equality itself does not need empirical proof, it does not need any sort of standard, it only needs self-recognition. Going beyond Oruka’s project, by acknowledging that the immediate self-assertion of equality is enough implies that the action-oriented decolonization through struggle is a more compelling means to get there. On the Impossibility of the Individual Philosopher “An isolated individual can resist understanding an issue, but the group, the village, grasps it with disconcerting speed” (Fanon 2004, 130). At the core of Oruka’s project is the foregrounding of the individual sage as a thinker in their13 own right. In juxtaposing communal thought with philosophic sagacity, rationality is only deemed possible through “individual critical reflection” (1983, 385). The sage achieves didactic wisdom by thinking outside and separate from the community, by making “an independent, critical assessment to what the people take for granted” (1999b, 62, my emphasis). This is a clear reassertion of cartesian dualism, not simply a rejection of ethnophilosophy.

Sagacity is Relational

169

Still, is it even possible to claim that philosophy can ever be an individual initiative? Does anyone, even paragons of liberal individuality, ever think in a way that is divorced from the thought of others? Is it possible to say “I think” without also acknowledging that “We think,” or, more precisely, that “I/We think with and in relation to others?” Decolonizing philosophy cannot be as simple as identifying the thought of individual sages living in Africa for the concept of the sage as an individual is in itself derived from Greek philosophy. Besides, as Lewis Gordon points out, Greek philosophy isn’t actually Western or diacritic. Greek philosophers did not operate as individuals in a vacuum but as part of a larger intellectual community that reached into what is now Africa and the Middle East (2008, 2–4).14 What’s more, we must acknowledge that all people (and, whether they admit it or not, all philosophers) are the product of their experiences and intellectual engagement with others. Philosophers draw, not only on the thinking of other recognized philosophers but also on their engagement with parents, siblings, extended family members, and wider territorial and imagined communities. They do not arrive at didactic ways of thinking without the constant influence of (and philosophical engagement with) other people. Tension This does not mean—as many ethnophilosophers would have it—that traditional African societies are defined by communal group thought. Rather, the individual and collective can be much better understood as operating in tension with one another. We can relate this to Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui’s explanation of the Aymara philosophy that acknowledges that something is, and is not, and therefore includes the logic of a third—all existing simultaneously in tension (Cusicanqui 2012, 105). In a similar way, the Southern African philosophy of ubuntu, rather than being an example of some kind of communal ethno-consensus, ascribes precisely to this dialectical way of thinking. Not only that a person is a person through other people,15 but that a person is simultaneously also their collective other both socially and intellectually. This not only means that a person is the product of their communities, but it also implies that there is a dialectical relationship between a person and their collective. Because the individual includes the collective within themselves, they are not just produced by but are also bound up within that social relationship. The same goes for the way a person thinks and theorizes. Thinking is not just produced through experiences with others; rather, thinking itself must be understood as a social relation. The act of thinking takes place simultaneously as and not as another, as and not as the collective. Philosophical engagement with the world is the means by which this tension operates and eventually ruptures. Isayvani Naicker, thus, describes the

170

Jared Sacks

process of ubuntu in this way: “A new person emerges from the lived experience of a society through the constant process of struggle to understand the relations that bind them” (2011, 475). In other words, what ubuntu describes is a concept of a social relationality that engenders philosophical thought by the very struggle embodied in that tension. Reading the above carefully, we can predict where this argument is going: that a dialectical relationship that can no longer sustain itself, that ruptures, is at the same time collective and decolonial. In times of crisis, of violence, when the center can no longer hold—such as Fanon’s revolutionary Algeria—new philosophical patterns emerge that reject folk wisdom. Though intellectual disciplines may represent such a process through the figure of the individual, in actual fact, this means remains collective.16 This is the power that Fanon ascribes to the revolutionary process: When the colonized intellectual touches base again with his people, the artificial sentinel is smashed to smithereens. . . . And first among them is individualism. The colonized intellectual learned from his masters that the individual must assert himself. The colonialist bourgeoisie hammered into the colonized mind the notion of a society of individuals where each is locked in his subjectivity, where wealth lies in thought. But the colonized intellectual who is lucky enough to bunker down with the people during the liberation struggle, will soon discover the falsity of this theory. (2004, 11)

The colonized philosopher is a kind of colonized intellectual. Following Fanon, it is through struggle that we come to realize philosophically that the individual philosopher is a mirage, an abstraction. Under these radical conditions of decolonization, even self-criticism is unmasked as a collective process (Fanon 2004, 12). With this in mind, we can now begin to rethink sage philosophy as a collective project. While acknowledging this dialectic tension, we need to also put aside disciplinary preoccupations about what constitutes “legitimate” philosophy. This management of philosophy, turning it from something living into something reified, has always been defined through the institutional power that “legitimate” philosophers exert over others—and, in particular, that which they exert through Western categories and definitions. To rethink sage philosophy as a collective project, as a “philosophy born of struggle”—to borrow Leonard Harris’ term (2000)—we need to start from the bottom up. Case Study: The Struggle Philosophy of the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers On February 19, 2008, the City of Cape Town evicted about a thousand families who had occupied empty government houses at the instigation of a local

Sagacity is Relational

171

municipal councilor. Many of them had nowhere else to go but the streets. Those who resisted the City’s attempt to relocate them to government-built corrugated shacks—a place nicknamed Blikkiesdorp (or Tin Town)—settled on a major thoroughfare called Symphony Way. For the next twenty months, a group of about 150 families resisted government attempts to move them, blockaded Symphony Way demanding decent housing, and created what some might call a highly politicized “intentional” community. On the eve after their eviction from the N2 Gateway houses which marked the beginning of their occupation, I stood on Symphony Way17 listening to community leader Ashraf Cassiem make an emotional appeal during a community mass meeting about the need to continue their resistance. He then added: “We may be poor, but we are not stupid! We may be poor, but we can still think!” Ashraf, as an experienced co-founder of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, was an organic activist and intellectual (Gramsci 1971). Through his experience fighting the eviction of his mother from a council home in the Cape Flats township of Tafelsig, he was propelled toward seeking out similar struggles in other communities, building the campaign into a wider social movement. For many inside and outside the Symphony Way community, he could also be considered a “philosophic sage” who employed critical reasoning to provide an intellectual basis to the movement’s activism. He was precisely the kind of thinker who Odera Oruka (1999b) would have singled out in his philosophical project. Ashraf was revered by many in the community for his unconventional thinking, which challenged common explanations for the conditions of poverty under which the community lived. People considered him wise, and when he spoke, others listened. He asked questions, reflected, and sought to answer them in unconventional ways. Oruka points out that philosophical sages, who act in contradiction to the dominant culture and its authority, are often treated with hostility. Ashraf was one of these kinds of people. Despite the respect afforded him by movement participants, because he contradicted widely held beliefs in both thought and action, people with an interest in maintaining the status quo often rejected him as an outcast. Government officials, politicians, businessmen, and professional intellectuals in NGOs referred to him as a troublemaker, as a criminal, as bent on violence, or as somewhat unhinged. Yet, while there were some people in the community like Ashraf, Aunty Jane Roberts, and Jerome Daniels—who people looked up to for advice, who they saw as critical thinkers, able to engage intellectually in unpopular reasoning on questions of poverty, oppression, and transformation of society—the struggle of the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers was a collective one in action as well as in thought. Occupiers of “the road” reflected on their situation together, made decisions together, and acted on those decisions

172

Jared Sacks

together. All this was done, not through the propagation of mythology,18 but through extended discussion, critique, deliberation, and the building of a collective consensus on their way forward. Consensus need not be romanticized;19 it was a consensus imbued with the tension between each individual and its collective Other. The practice of consensus (i.e., the practice of community) is always a messy one. The lack of top-down institutional authority in Symphony Way forced everyone to take on active roles as participants and leaders. In this context, conflict was part of the process of living together, the continual rupture of ossified forms of organization and the rejection of the institutional dominance of “power-over” others in favor of the “power-to” create with one another (Holloway 2002). On Symphony Way, no decision, no position, no authority, was set in stone—and this horizontal contestation meant that argument, and therefore collective philosophical thought, were continually being created and renewed. I experienced this multiple times, watching community members spend hours arguing in mass meetings and, in one instance, tearing down the home of an exiled “sell-out.” But, more to the point, Symphony Way exemplified precisely the messiness of community processes—thus making squirm a person’s liberal sensibility—which formed the basis of liberatory action and philosophy. Generative conflict All thought emerges through conflict. Neither “I think, therefore I am” nor its reverse, “I am, therefore I think,”20 is helpful if we aim to theorize radically about the generative order of thinking. The root of thought and therefore the root of any form of philosophical inquiry is not in existence, but, rather, in experience. Our ways of participating in and experiencing the world in relation to others are bound up dialectically with the way we think about it. However, we must make a distinction between the passive absorption of existing knowledge—deposited into a person as if they are a sponge—and the actual production of philosophical thought. The former is an extrapolation of what Paulo Freire calls the “banking concept of education” (2012); it sees the world as static and knowledge as a collection of reified facts and concepts. Experience as a rigid category of being in the world is unable to go beyond this form of knowledge that focuses on quantitative facts on the one hand and abstract interpretations of the world on the other. The production of philosophical thought is quite different: it is dynamic and bound up with a process of struggle. It is expressed through the rupture of the dialectic between empiricism and Understanding. It is not just the closed dialectic based on the primacy of ideas, as Hegel proposed (Hegel 1968; James 1980), nor is it simply a materialist reversal of this dialectic as

Sagacity is Relational

173

Marx reimagined it (Marx 1887, 15). Rather, the production of philosophical thought is best understood as a decolonizing dialectic that ruptures the tension, producing new, emancipatory ways of thinking (Ciccariello-Maher 2017; Cusicanqui 2012). I refer to this rupture as a generative event. From the perspective of normality, it is abnormal; from the perspective of reason, it is irrational; from the perspective of the Enlightenment, it is savagery. Yet, the generative event is actually none of this; it does not fit within any of these established categories of disciplinary discourse. It breaks them apart (a traumatic experience) and creates something new.21 It can include minor and seemingly inconsequential fissures in the established order or embody much larger epochal revolutions. No matter how modest, however, philosophical decolonization is always a violent experience. Fanon has argued that these kinds of events can play an emancipatory function for people who have been physically and psychologically chained. It is precisely the collective intellectual liberation through this disruptive violence that makes the thinking of the anti-colonial peasant and urban slum-dweller different from that of the colonized intellectual (Fanon 2004). On Symphony Way, the community’s foundational generative event was their mass eviction from government houses. This cataclysm shook their lives—simultaneously throwing them directly onto the streets and forcing them to rethink established ideas about how the world works and where they find themselves within its oppressive architecture. Through the praxis that emerged after the event, they forged new cultures of resistance founded on radical forms of critical deliberation; this included nightly communal meetings, informal discussions, popular education, and protest action. The Symphony Way pavement dwellers collectively rethought their long-held ideas of why they lived houseless and in poverty; what emerged, on the road, was their new “struggle philosophy.” Struggle philosophy: family Many Symphony Way residents referred to their linking of critical thought and action as their “struggle philosophy” (The Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers 2011, 79–82). This was a collective philosophy, built from the ground up through intense contestation: Internally within themselves, horizontally with other residents living on the road, and externally primarily through their resistance against state-oriented authority (in particular: government officials, political parties, and the police). While every individual had their own variation of this philosophy, the relationship between each person’s approach to “struggle” tentatively forged a road of cohesion they could march on together. “Preguntando caminamos,”

174

Jared Sacks

the Zapatistas in Mexico declare in a similar vein, “asking we walk” (my emphasis). The allegory fits especially well because the occupation of a road for the purpose of marching en masse opens the space up to everyone to participate together, while at the same time making clear that such cooperation is voluntary and done out of a conscious, critical act of praxis. The Symphony Way pavement dwellers, in fact, had their own way of explaining their collective relationship to one another: “We are one big family,” they would proclaim. What is philosophical, though, about proclaiming a community as a family? It is not, as if, no other community of people has referred to their own grouping as a family. In fact, the idea is not necessarily even a progressive one; it has long been expressed through nationalist, fascist, and religious symbolism such as in terms of brotherhood, fatherland, the patriarch, and so on. What made the pavement dwellers’ idea of family different, was how they ruptured the patriarchal institution and built a new emancipatory family politics in its place. For them, being a family was not an institution; it had nothing to do with ethnicity, race, or blood, nor was it something a person is born into involuntarily. For the residents of Symphony Way, the family was an act of pooling resources. As Florrie Langehoven explained, “That is the humanity of this Symphony Way people. Here I’ve learned to share: I don’t work, but if I’ve got dry bread I first look around if my neighbours have got something to eat before I can eat. It feels like a BIG FAMILY” (2011, 62–63).22 In an extended discussion with Michelle De Jongh, Tashlee-Ann April, and Zuleiga Dyers, I asked them why they viewed Symphony Way as a family. They explained that, to them, family was about making sure that everyone was included no matter circumstance. When Tashlee-Ann arrived on the road to stay with her mother, she was immediately included, not based on any identity, but because, in the act of choosing to stay there, she became a resident, a pavement dweller, a family member. Zuleiga added that, Even if you are dirty, you are welcome there .  .  . you don’t have food, you don’t have a basin even, even to wash in, you have clothes on from last week, we didn’t care. We did see that, umm, from my children’s clothes is fitting you, then I take from my child’s clothes and I gave it to you because you are cousins with each other, because we were brothers and sisters together there on the road (. . .). (Dyers et al. 2017a, 11, 59–13, 55)

But their radical reformulation of the family wasn’t just about sharing resources. It was also about ensuring collective, horizontal authority over the functioning of the community. Decisions that affected everyone were made in open meetings attended by all residents, including the children. As decisions were made by consensus, they often followed hours of disagreement and deliberation. This also meant a collective refusal to rely on outsiders,

Sagacity is Relational

175

especially the authority of police, to solve internal problems. Aunty Badru summarized for me the process of community safety as linked to the familial unity on the road; this included electing residents for night patrol and enacting forms of deliberative community justice to resolve disputes (2011, 43).23 All in all, decolonizing what it means to work together as a family in struggle, creating entirely new social structures out of the remnants of the old patriarchal ones, worked in a concomitant fashion with a decolonial philosophy that directly challenged hegemonic ideas. This collective process laid the foundation for other emancipatory ways of thinking on the road. Struggle philosophy: collective writing Unlike most other poor communities, the struggle presented pavement dwellers with a rare opportunity to put forward their collective philosophies in writing. This initiative turned into a self-written anthology called No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way (The Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers, 2011). While I certainly share Oruka’s critique of how Bodunrin centers writing in the process of moving philosophy forward (1983, 391), the Symphony Way book has given the community an opportunity to broadcast their collective philosophy to other spaces through the medium of civil society.24 When we first discussed the book idea in a mass community meeting one evening inside their “office” (a large shack structure used as a preschool and for meetings),25 there was significant deliberation on whether this was actually a good idea. The initial point of contention concerned who would own the process. A key principle that community members embraced from the beginning of their occupation of Symphony Way was that they should be in control of any narrative about their community. Their critique of the government, the media, the academy, and NGOs foregrounded their experiences of how top-down power worked to disempower poor people’s own struggle narratives. They were aware, not only of how their stories could be appropriated, but also that there was a dominant counter-narrative of elite representation of the poor which they needed to oppose. To this end, they ask me to coordinate the publishing, as long as I would report back on the progress and remain accountable to their final say over the entire process. The other concern that residents had when putting together the anthology, was what academics (in a depoliticized manner) tend to refer to as “the question of translation.” Pavement dwellers were concerned that the book would not accurately reflect their experiences and philosophical wisdom about their struggles. For instance, they contended that their voice could be undermined if the book was written in or edited into “The Queen’s English.” They wanted to ensure that the anthology remained written in their language: either

176

Jared Sacks

Afrikaaps (a local variant slang of Afrikaans) or their local creolized English. Rejecting popular assumptions that speaking “proper” English signifies intelligence, their anti-elitist critique sought to challenge language hegemonies. In other words, they had built up a philosophical theory of how power over language works to subjugate others; through their struggle philosophy, they were challenging this dehumanization of their way of life. The pavement dwellers were affirming their humanity on their own foundation, on their own terms, in their own language—to link to Fanon’s challenge to Sartre (2008, 205). The final concern that residents raised that evening addresses how they sought to creatively resolve the tension between the individual and the collective. Each person who wanted to write a story was encouraged to do so, and they demanded that the publisher could not remove any story from their anthology, regardless of whether it was deemed publishable. This indicated a few important things about their struggle philosophy. First, it affirmed the immediate equality of every individual in the community no matter their level of literacy, their social standing in the community, or whether their views contradicted those of their neighbors. All could participate; no one could be excluded. Second, the method of collecting individual stories and collating them into a collective whole foregrounded how their collective struggle philosophy existed in direct relation to the ideas of people within the collective. What made the anthology powerful in a philosophic sense was precisely the way each story linked to one another to present an ethnographic “thick description”26 of their community and their philosophies. Finally, those who struggled to write their own stories were assisted by other pavement dwellers who had writing literacy and who knew—as their friends/neighbors—how to bring out latent creative spirit. In other words, their immediate assertion of equality did not imply that each individual did not need social cooperation and support to mitigate disadvantage. Their philosophical point was that each individual required community solidarity to grow intellectually. These egalitarian means, therefore, took precedence over the goals of curating the book as a marketable product. Such a collective critique of a capitalist culture marked Symphony Way’s struggle philosophy. Struggle philosophy: solidarity When Shamiela Mullins was much younger, she lived in a formal brick house in the apartheid-designated “coloured” township of Bonteheuwel. She looked down upon shack-dwellers living across the N7 Highway in Joe Slovo, Langa—exactly the prejudice that the apartheid government aimed to inculcate among people it designated as “coloured.” Post-1994, and especially with the rise of Helen Zille’s Democratic Alliance (DA) in the 2000s, politicians in Cape Town sought to stoke ethnic division between “coloureds” (mostly born

Sagacity is Relational

177

around Cape Town) and amaXhosa (many who had migrated from the Eastern Cape after apartheid pass laws were rescinded). This kind of resentment took hold, resulting in Zille’s election as Cape Town mayor. In 2007, thousands of mostly “coloured” residents of Delft and Belhar occupied government houses. The action was instigated by a local DA councilor, Frank Martin, on the basis that amaXhosa should not get housing in a “coloured” area. In her story for the Symphony Way anthology, Shamiela recounts taking these tropes for granted throughout much of her life. It was the kind of folk prejudice she never questioned. When she ended up in a shack occupying the road with hundreds of others, however, her views changed. Her “silver lining,” she said, was that despite the disaster of being rendered houseless, she was able to recognize herself in the Other. Like the rest of the pavement dwellers, her recognition of a shared struggle for housing formed the basis of their philosophy centered around solidarity. Shamiela’s intellectual transformation was shared by most pavement dwellers. Here is what Aunty Badru, another Symphony Way resident, told me when discussing how she rethought her own prejudices: You know what I want to say, ne. When I see people squatting. Putting hokkies [shacks] up. When I used to be younger, I said, this people is crazy man. They’re doing it, on purposely. But when it comes to my turn, God tested me. And he put me through that struggle. And you know what, since then, I knew what that peoples is going through. And I experienced what the struggle is. (Morris et al. 2017a, 11, 00–11, 30)

Here, Badru, like Shamiela, uses personal experience to build a bridge to other people’s situations. With this philosophical wisdom, Symphony Way engendered solidarity with other communities and movements. When shackdwellers from Joe Slovo went en masse by train to the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, dozens of residents from Symphony Way joined them. When Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), the shack dweller’s movement in Durban, put a call out for the creation of the Poor People’s Alliance, Symphony Way traveled there to build solidarity as well. The “philosophical solidarity” described above is the kind of intellectual logic that challenges divisions and degradations built into a liberal capitalist framework; it attempts to build more authentic bridges and connections across differences. This humanizing practice does not assume preexisting universality. It is the practice of solidarity from below—at least in the case of Symphony Way—that sidesteps dichotomies, such as the universal versus the particular, preferring instead to foreground shared praxis through struggle. In other words, the practice and theorization of solidarity is an act of decolonization; it throws out categories imposed by colonial philosophy, aiming to construct entirely new ones through a living struggle.

178

Jared Sacks

The decolonial solidarity, which Symphony Way advocated, challenged the process of institutionalization because its praxis meant the disruption of the colonial structure itself; it meant the creation of new forms of insurgent power against capitalist formations, the state, and their forces of exploitation and control. Of course, I do not claim that entire colonial structures in South Africa were actually dismantled; rather, their struggle embodied practices that aimed for a more piecemeal decolonization. However, this practice did present a counterpoint to maintaining existing colonial structures via decolonization as institutionalization. Implications for the Sage Philosophy Project Tshepo Madlingozi argues that decolonization can only take place through disruption (2019). What, then, is decolonization as institutionalization? Can it actually be considered a form of decolonization at all? When I engaged with #RhodesMustFall (RMF) activists at the University of Cape Town during the height of their mobilization in 2015, they would make a similar distinction between the (necessarily disruptive) “decolonization” that they were fighting for and (institutional) “transformation,” which would leave colonial structures of anti-Blackness intact (Publica[c]tion Collective 2017). They were well aware of the dangers of limiting their movement’s demands to an easily coopted and superficial rhetoric around diversity, expanding the curriculum, and transformation. But the philosophical project(s) put forward by RMF, sometimes referred to as “Fallism,” engaged this tension in all its complexity; it was multidimensional. Key to Fallism—just like the living politics of “ubuhlalism” of the Durban shack dwellers and the “struggle philosophy” of Symphony Way— was also the tension between the individual and the collective. Their struggles were, therefore, not just concerned with academic preoccupations proposing a “new decolonial theory” as a challenge to Western philosophy. As Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui points out, such academic work has used a focus on epistemic thought and discourse to depoliticize the practice of decolonization. This is why the method of investigating philosophers as individual thinkers, who challenge existing canonical discourse and replace it with new “decolonial ones,” can never be sufficient. Coloniality/Colonialism must be disrupted through struggle. “There can be no discourse of decolonization, no theory of decolonization, without a decolonizing practice” (Cusicanqui 2012, 100). What, then, are the implications of the above for Oruka’s sage philosophy project? I would venture a few preliminary thoughts on this matter: Rethinking sage philosophy as a collective project If philosophy not only can be collective but necessarily must be thought of in such terms, we must therefore recognize that it is insufficient to limit the

Sagacity is Relational

179

sage philosophy project to investigating the thought—however profound—of individual sages. This means that, as researchers, we cannot simply go into a given community, conduct interviews with individuals, extract the philosophical bases of their ideas, and then analyze them. What this methodology can achieve is limited. (We already know that all people think, and can think critically and philosophically. As Fanon points out, we must assert this without the compulsion to prove it.) But also, it’s a false epistemology of thought. Thinking is a social process. We think with people and through our relationships with one another. Research can only reflect how thinking takes place by understanding that philosophy itself is a social relation. In other words, it is both collective discourse and collective practice. The project of sage philosophy, then, must be rethought by asking the following questions: How are individual sages situated and implicated within collective philosophies? How do groups of people understand the world, think critically about it, and challenge one another to go beyond already accepted folk wisdom? How is philosophy linked to collective forms of struggle? Anti-vanguardism in philosophy One of the consequences of the traditional Left’s failure to decolonize itself is the way revolutionary Left thinkers27 have embraced Western colonial preoccupations with individualism and hierarchy. Lenin’s adoption of vanguardism is a case in point (Lenin 1961). He argued that only intellectually and politically advanced individuals linked to the proletariat would be able to lead the working class toward communism. A similar methodological focus on individual “advanced” or “philosophical” thinkers has meant that a certain vanguardism has crept into the sage philosophy project. By focusing on certain persons’ philosophical wisdom, while ignoring the critical wisdom that every person is capable of and which the collective often embodies, sage philosophy contributes to a politics that lionizes individual thinkers and leaders at the expense of a more radically powerful anti-vanguardist philosophic project. We can, however, reconceptualize philosophy in anti-vanguardist terms as others have done in other fields.28 This must start with changing our research methods to embrace a collective, anti-vanguardist approach to research. Militant philosophy The third implication of this chapter, which brings the other two together, is that we can reimagine sage philosophy as a struggle to break down artificial boundaries between the researcher and the researched, the thinker and those they think about, and the academic and the militant. Drawing on the militant research methods of Colectivo Situationes (2003, 2010) and Richa Nagar (2014, 2006), I would like us to consider how Oruka’s sage philosophy

180

Jared Sacks

project can be advanced through militant inquiry. How are we implicated and how do we become a part of a process of decolonization as a struggle? If we emphasize how these collective, anti-vanguardist struggles are also a form of philosophical practice, then what place does our own thinking as researchers have when engaged in these struggles? This does not mean we cover up existing power differentials—that the privileged researcher miraculously becomes a revolutionary pavement dweller. We also cannot flatten these power relations through liberal exhortation to civility and dialogue.29 At the same time, unless we assert an anti-vanguardist research practice where we are complicit in the very struggles we are writing about, then our practice of philosophy becomes depoliticized and unable to challenge the oppressive relations we critique. This includes how the discipline of philosophy has historically been, and still remains, part of a Western colonial project. I hope these points can, then, kickstart a conversation that takes sage philosophy forward toward a real decolonial turn. NOTES 1. Like all intellectual endeavors, this chapter is a collective project. No individual owns any idea, copyright notwithstanding. And so I must show my appreciation for those who directly influenced its outcome. The communities and movements thinking in struggle: the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers, Abahlali baseMjondolo, and Rhodes Must Fall. Also, those who read drafts of this chapter including Nikita Ramkissoon, Sitharthan Sriharan, Kai Kresse, and Oriare Nyarwath. 2. Recently, after writing this chapter, I had the chance to re-read Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o celebrated 1977 postcolonial novel Petals of Blood (2018). I realized that Ngũgĩ had, like Mda after him, embraced the collective storyteller to ensure that the village could theorize directly on the question of dispossession through development. 3. Noting Oruka’s differentiation between what he refers to as the “disciplines” of ideology and philosophy, a living ideology offers a counterpoint to the authoritarian nature of disciplines. For more information on this concept, see Abahlali baseMjondolo’s “living politics” (Zikode 2015). 4. Diagne clarifies this point: “It is true without doubt that the language of Négritude is mainly, especially in the early writings of Senghor, Césaire, and Léon-Gontran Damas, essentialist, but it is also true that it is not always so and that the essentializing is very much in the reading of Negritude that was established in the early stage of the movement” (2015, 122). 5. Diagne, while arguing for a much less essentialist reading of Senghor and focusing on the interplay between the essential/particular and the universal, acknowledges Senghor’s embrace of Tempel’s work. “Nothing probably is more indicative of the difference between Léopold Sédar Senghor and his friend Aimé Césaire than their respective reactions to the widely celebrated book by Father Tempels” (2014).

Sagacity is Relational

181

6. Putting the quote in context in order to avoid being misinterpreted, Oyěwùmí is referring not to African thought in general but to the canonical intellectual figures of African Studies. 7. In a later section, I will take this point and interrogate if further in relation to Odera’s work. 8. For an interesting discussion of the difference between postcolonial and decolonial theory, see “An Evening With Ramon Grosfoguel - Postcolonial or Decolonial?” (IHRCtv 2014). 9. Hereafter referred to by the correct translation, Damned of the Earth. 10. See, for instance, Martin Bernal’s (1987) Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. 11. See for instance Oruka’s (1999a) dichotomy between mythology and philosophy. 12. Indeed, just as Fanon finds significant value in Négritude despite its limitations, Oruka’s approach should be considered useful in foregrounding a more inclusive discipline of philosophy. 13. In this instance, and a few others, “their” is used in the singular and is non-gendered. 14. See again Bernal (1987). 15. This overly simplified and abused translation of ubuntu, from a complex social practice to something intelligible to a liberal democratic politics, is often incorrectly considered synonymous with concepts such as “altruism” and “teamwork.” E.g., its uses by Bill Clinton (Clinton Foundation 2007) and by the Boston Celtics basketball team (Jkarlson 2012). 16. Expressed another way, one can affirm that the individual cannot rupture this tension. 17. My presence there as an activist (not an academic), was that of an outsider invited in to participate in that struggle by the leadership of the WCAEC partially because of my ability to provide technical support and access to resources. However, I was also welcomed due to my willingness to act as an “accomplice” (Indigenous Action Media 2014) to their struggles. 18. See Oruka’s critique of “Mythology as African Philosophy” (1999a). 19. Although it bears stating that the romantic is an important part of the struggle for a better world (Kelley 2002). 20. The former statement, of course, comes from Descarte’s Discourse on the Method of Reason (Descartes 2008) while the latter can be said to be a popular quip made as a response. 21. This is not to say that the generative event is necessarily progressive; trauma can generate profoundly reactionary outcomes. 22. The original in Afrikaans/Afrikaaps is as follows: “Dit is die gesindheind van hierdie Symphony Way mense. Hier het ek geleer om te deel: ek werk nie, maar as ek ‘n stukkie droe brood het kyk ek eers om my rond of my buurman/vrou iets het om te eet, voor ek eet. Dit voel soos’ n GROOT FAMILIE.” 23. Despite the radically egalitarian and anti-hegemonic nature of this philosophy, as within any social structure, there were also occasional abuses and excesses. In one

182

Jared Sacks

instance where residents deemed other forms of restorative justice and accountability unfeasible, community members resorted to breaking down someone’s shack and excommunicating him. We should not assume the resident’s praxis was devoid of messiness, even abuse. At the same time, residents defended the person’s excommunication as necessary under those specific circumstances where he “backstabbed” the community and was “spying” for city officials. Perhaps it was; it is not my place to judge. 24. The pavement dwellers deployed a number of other strategies to do this. Without going into detail here, I will note that protest was a key method of making not only their material demands heard, but also conveying their philosophical critique of society. They also did this via media engagement through press statements and interviews. The primary drawback, however, is that often the ideas of prominent leaders in the community acted as a stand-in for the collective. 25. I played a technical role in compiling the forty-five stories into book form, putting together the introduction and preface, and finding a publisher. 26. See anthropological research methodology associated with Geertz (1973). 27. Because a direct genealogical line can be drawn between Hegel and Lenin, Hegel’s Logic (1968) and its focus on stages of thought (from empirics to Understanding to dialectics) is a good example of this. When subverting Hegel’s dialectic, Marx and Lenin unfortunately fall short of challenging this hierarchy. 28. See, for instance, the work of Sylvain Lazarus (2015) whose assertion that “workers think” forms the basis of his anthropological method. 29. My thanks to Steven Salaita for crystalizing this point in a round table during his visit to give the TB Davie lecture at the University of Cape Town (2019).

REFERENCES Bernal, M. 1987. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (Vol I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785–1985). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Césaire, A. 1990. “Poetry and Knowledge.” In Lyric and Dramatic Poetry 1946–82. Translated by Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 17–32. Ciccariello-Maher, G. 2017. Decolonizing Dialectics. Durham: Duke University Press. Cleaver, H. 2017. Rupturing the Dialectic: The Struggle Against Work, Money, and Financialization. Chico: AK Press. Clinton Foundation. 2007. “Bill Clinton: ‘I Am Because You Are’.” YouTube. December 03, 2016. https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=6YswUI​-yqXo. Colectivo Situaciones. 2003. “On the Researcher Militant.” EIPCP: 1–10. September 2003. http://eipcp​.net​/transversal​/0406​/col​ecti​vosi​tuaciones​/en. Cusicanqui, S. R. 2012. “Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization.” South Atlantic Quarterly 111, no. 1: 95–109. https:// doi​.org​/10​.1215​/00382876​-1472612.

Sagacity is Relational

183

Descartes, R. 2008. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences. Project Gutenberg. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​ /59​/59​-h​/59​-h​.htm. Diagne, S. B. 2014 [Spring 2010]. “Négritude.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive. Centre for the Study of Language and Information. https://plato​.stanford​ .edu​/archives​/spr2016​/entries​/negritude/ ———. 2015. “Rereading Aimé Césaire: Negritude as Creolization.” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 19, no. 3: 121–128. https://doi​.org​/10​.1215​ /07990537. ———. 2018. “Négritude as Existence.” Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 42: 10–19. https://doi​.org​/10​.1215​/10757163​-7185701. Fanon, F. 2004. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press. ———. 2008. Black Skin, White Masks. Edited by R. Philcox. New York: Grove Press. Freire, P. 2012. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Geertz, C., eds. 1973. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture.” In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books. Gordon, L. R. 2008. An Introduction to Africana Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi​.org​/10​.1017​/CBO9780511800726 ———. 2015. What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited by Q. Hoare and G. N. Smith. New York: International Publishers. Harris, L. 2000. Philosophy Born of Struggle: Anthology of Afro-American Philosophy from 1917. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing. Hegel, G. W. F. 1968. Logic of Hegel. Edited by W. Wallace (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hiddleston, J. 2014. Decolonising the Intellectual. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Holloway, J. 2002. Change the World Without Taking Power. London: Pluto Press. IHRCtv. 2014. “An Evening with Ramon Grosfoguel - Postcolonial or Decolonial?” YouTube. https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=3WUZTFIkb_4 Indigenous Action Media. 2014. Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex. Indigenous Action Media. James, C. 1980. Notes on Dialectics: Hegel, Marx, Lenin. Westport: Lawrence Hill & Co. Jkarlson. 2012, 24 July. “What Happened to Ubuntu?” SB Nation: Celtics Blog. http:// www​.celticsblog​.com​/2012​/7​/24​/3181011​/what​-happened​-to​-ubuntu Kelley, R. D. G. 1999. “A Poetics of Anticolonialism.” Monthly Review 51, no. 6. http://monthlyreview​.org​/1999​/11​/01​/a​-poetics​-of​-anticolonialism/ ———. 2002. Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Boston: Beacon Press. Kresse, K. 2013. “Building a Humane Society.” Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya 5, no. 1: 25–40.

184

Jared Sacks

Kresse, K., & A. Graness. 1999. “Philosophy Must Be Made Sagacious.” In Sagacious Reasoning: H.O. Oruka in Memoria, edited by Anke Graness and Kai Kresse. Nairobi, Kampala & Dar es Salaam: East African Educational Publishers. LatinAmericaBureau. 2010. “What is the Colectivo Situaciones.” YouTube. https:// www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=4QZ09aM​-E-8 Lazarus, S. 2015. Anthropology of the Name. Edited by G. Walker. London: Seagull Books. Lenin, V. 1961. “What is To Be Done?” In Lenin’s Collective Works. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. Luxemburg, R. 2012. Reform or Revolution and Other Writings. Mineola: Dover Publications. Madlingozi, T. .2019. “Tshepo Madlingozi - Social Movements and the ‘Decolonial Turn’ in Constitutional Theory.” YouTube. https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=u​ _2m1dyrKuE Marx, K. 1887. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume I (First Engl, Vol. I). Moscow: Progress Publishers. https://doi​.org​/10​.1002​/ejoc​.201200111 Mda, Z. 1995. Ways of Dying. New York: Picador. Nagar, R. 2014. Muddying the Waters: Coauthoring Feminisms across Scholarship and Activism. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Naicker, I. 2011. “The Search for Universal Responsibility: The Cosmovision of Ubuntu and the Humanism of Fanon.” Development 54, no. 4: 455–460. https://doi​ .org​/10​.1057​/dev​.2011​.84. Oruka, H. O. 1997. “Philosophy and Humanism in Africa.” In Practical Philosophy: In Search of an Ethical Minimum. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 138–145. ———. 1983. “Sagacity in African Philosophy.” International Philosophical Quarterly 23, no. 4: 383–393. https://doi​.org​/10​.5840​/ipq198323448. ———. 1999a. “Mythology as African Philosophy.” In Sagacious Reasoning: H.O. Oruka in Memoriam, edited by Anke Graness and Kai Kresse. Nairobi, Kampala & Dar es Salaam: East African Educational Publishers. ———. 1999b. “Sage Philosophy: The Basic Questions and Methodology.” In Sagacious reasoning: H.O. Oruka in memoriam, edited by Anke Graness and Kai Kresse. Nairobi, Kampala & Dar es Salaam: East African Educational Publishers. Oyěwùmí, O. 1997. The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Publica[c]tion Collective. 2017. “Publica[c]tion.” Johannesburg, Self-published. Salaita, S. .2019, 07 August. “The Inhumanity of Academic Freedom.” https://stevesalaita​.com​/the​-inhumanity​-of​-academic​-freedom/​?fbclid​=IwAR1MtUk​-YvjzgoGSAa4fgy6​-8L5ozdA​_qxP​onTE​jcV9​qh1G​MzV9​OfwFfqcY Sangtin, W. and R. Nagar. 2006. Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sartre, J.-P. 1976. Black Orpheus. Edited by S. W. Allen. Paris: French & European Publications. Soyinka, W. 1999. The Burden of Memory, The Muse of Forgiveness. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sagacity is Relational

185

The Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers. 2011. No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way. Edited by The Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers. Cape Town, Dakar, Nairobi & Oxford: Pambazuka Press. Thong’o, Ngũgĩ wa. 2018. Petals of Blood. London: Vintage. Zikode, S. 2015. “S’bu Zikode on ‘Living Politics’.” December 20, 2017. abahlali​ .org​/node​/146​61/.

Chapter 8

On Being Human—Bedo Dano Some Acholi Thoughts on “Being Human” J. P. Odoch Pido

The author analyzes an anonymous poem in the Acholi language entitled Bedo Dano, which, in English means “to be human.” Combining Acholi tradition, and digital media, the poem is delivered orally, online, by an unidentified speaker. It articulates a great deal of wisdom about Acholi beliefs on humanity and has been very well received in the Acholi community (Signature TV Filmz). Anonymity is a given in Acholi society. Each person composes his/ her poem or song and then recites or sings it when family and visitors gather around the fire at night or during group events. The audience members can then repeat the song/poem if they like it, and it can become widely known and popular. It can also fall into oblivion if people are unimpressed. In the case of Bedo Dano, the fire is the internet and delivery is spoken. The acces rate is unknown. For this chapter, the book is the fire and delivery is in writing, along with an analysis of the poem’s content and meanings. Data, analysis, conclusions, and, most of all, insights are based on a lifetime of participant observation in Akara, a village of Kitgum District in Northern Uganda. Having lived in other parts of East Africa, the author also draws on extensive exposure to non-Acholi cultures, reading, unstructured research, and professional collaboration in a wide range of pursuits. The conclusion is that the Acholi sense of being human is essentially to be mindful of all living and nonliving things. The goal of this chapter is to add to Odera Oruka’s sage philosophy. In order to achieve the goal, I present a critical inquiry into indigenous Acholi thoughts on bedo dano (being human). No doubt Odera Oruka was a philosopher and a JaLuo while I am a designer and an Acholi. But the Acholi and Luo are closely related linguistically and culturally. In addition, the concept underpinning the sage philosophy project seems similar to the African notion 187

188

J. P. Odoch Pido

of Design that has been driving design in Kenya and beyond. Finally, Odera Oruka’s sage philosophy project and the poem of this chapter seem embedded in everyday experience that I now discuss to reveal Acholi thoughts on being human. Recently, Signature TV Filmz (2017) and Charles Layoo (2018) posted on YouTube a “poem” entitled Bedo Dano (To Be Human). The poem caught my attention because it seemed full of indigenous Acholi thoughts, which I now discuss for purposes of this chapter and the sage philosophy project. Let me start my discussion at bedo and dano, the two words that form the title of the chapter. Literally speaking, bedo means “to sit, reside or be.” Non-literally speaking, however, bedo implies living as in bedo gwok-gwok (living like a dog), bedo ki chan (living with poverty), or bedo awila (life with constant struggles to buy social acceptance). In this chapter, bedo means to be while the word dano means “human,” as set apart from other creatures. Therefore, bedo dano is to be human in body, mind, and spirit, and according to cultural values that make an individual human. I think someone crafted the title of the poem, from lwodo lok, icwiny (pondering, in the liver). Acholis assign deep and passionate thoughts to the liver instead of the heart, head, or young people. One view is that lwodo lok is bad for young people because youths lack the experience required to control passionate thinking and stop before it causes harm. Another view is that incessant and deep reflection can drive one into mental derailment or suicide. This is why Acholi society assigns extensive reflection to elders, socially experienced people who are wise because they constructively use knowledge. I am neither sure who authored the poem nor surprised that nobody is keen on claiming authorship. In the more traditional Acholi practice, people pay more attention to teachings in poems instead of authors and intellectual fame. Therefore, Acholis have not necessarily kept track of particular authors yet they keep, protect and preserve poems and their meanings. They use ideas from the poems to define who they are, what they do, and how they evaluate themselves and those around them. In the past, authors transmitted insights to the public through poems that spread by word of mouth. In our present time, any person can access Acholi cultural presentations on the Internet, which has extended dissemination ad infinitum among us. Acholi children are brought up to listen because verbal communication dominates the transmission of knowledge. By listening to elders, age mates, and junior generations, we children learned that the word Acholi has its origin in Achol (“I am black” in complexion, commitment, and self-assertion). Indeed, Achol is fundamental to this chapter as it plays a significant role in our determination to be human and in sync with others Wan Achel (“we are one” since we share a system of thought, belief and practice). Whether or not the Acholi worldview dovetails with the South African Ubuntu lies outside the scope of

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

189

this chapter. However, it is important to note that the two are similar in that they both concern the “oneness” of all human beings, yet Ubuntu belongs to the Bantu context while Wan Achel is Nilotic and specifically paLuo (a Luo thing). The cultural context of this inquiry is a small place called Muchwini, in Kitgum District of Northern Uganda. The location is where our grandparents taught us lessons on the ideals of being human. As was the practice, many of the lessons indirectly related to their subjects, as is the case with all Acholi proverbs (Okot p’Bitek 1985); our lack of experience and the oblique relationships made learning difficult. However, our grandparents persisted because they believed that kot goyo wan idwee (rain would someday beat us toddlers). This unattributed saying meant that collective and sustained efforts over time would make us human, where being human stems from the belief that properly formed adults are the greatest works of Art (Pido 1987, 87). A few of us were slow learners. The slow learners were warned, woko kweko teri (the universe will open your arse); meaning, life will teach you severe lessons if you don’t get your act together quickly. We learned as much and as quickly as we could yet lessons kept coming, according to our age. On reaching childhood, our parents told us to grow up “toughened,” meaning, physically, emotionally, and mentally well‑toned. In a society where physical violence and emotional abuse were prevalent, growing up “toughened” spoke to us even when we were small. Competent care of goats was the litmus test of “toughened.” Any child who took care of goats without getting into trouble with neighbors was “toughened,” which is a euphemism for “promising to be human.” It was during taking care of livestock, in the grazing ground, when children learned to live according to community ideals such as sharing a meal even as small as a roasted grasshopper. From sharing such small meals, we learned about survival for all instead of for the fittest. I attended school but kept one foot in Acholi traditions, which was a difficult choice because my teachers presented schooling and villaging as dichotomous and mutually exclusive. In the eyes of my teachers, school was the future, civilization, and heaven while the village was Africa sliding into primitivism, backwardness, and hell. In school, we learned about the superiority of the cash economy, “first is best,” and other European ideals that seemed to waste time on irrelevant things. However, we soldiered on because we imagined schooling would help us to prepare for any eventuality, just in case our Acholi future failed. As we shall see later in the chapter, preparation for life ahead is fundamental to being human. In school I learned to write, among other skills; writing is the technology I now use to share my knowledge about being human. Meanwhile, keeping one foot in Acholi traditions is partly why Acholi society may consider me ngat

190

J. P. Odoch Pido

ma ongit (“well-cooked” implying emotionally and intellectually educated, ready to play senior roles in society). In my society, I am a teacher, moderator, and arbitrator of disputes. Whether or not I am a philosopher is a difficult matter because philosophy has no one-word equivalent in Acholi. AN OVERVIEW OF ACHOLI-FOCUSED TEXT European missionaries, colonial administrators and anthropologists probably initiated writing on Acholi land and people (Crazzolara 1938; Malandra 1939; Bell 1906). The more recent scholars, in Museveni’s Uganda, appear more concerned with human rights instead of Acholi rights to be human (Amnesty International 2020; Tripp 2010; International Crisis Group 2004). A casual look at camps for internally displaced people (IDP) can provide evidence that today’s Uganda did deny Acholis the right to be human. Some scholars even say that the internal displacement was aimed at exterminating the Acholis (Kirkpatrick 2013; Wegner 2012). The poem of this chapter probably originated from bedo chanchan (surviving poverty emanating from structural violence in the days of IDP camps). Among the Acholi scholars, Okot p’Bitek is the most well-known for his work on Acholi thought and culture, “Wer pa Lawino” (Song of Lawino) is probably the most popular book he ever wrote (Okot 1966). The piece is popular for diverse reasons; I think it is an interesting discussion on the competition for inexhaustible things. Okot also wrote the novel “Lak Tar” (translated decades later as “White Teeth,” 1989). The book is an interesting presentation on aesthetic interaction between Acholi culture in the village and Europeanstyle culture in Kampala City (Okot 1989). Indeed, Okot wrote many books, “African Religions in Western Scholarship” (Okot 1970) is a strong protest against the ways Western scholars viewed non-European cultures, in general, and African Religion, in particular. JP Ocitti’s works bend toward “Indigenous Education” (Ocitti 1973). He popularized the concept of Wang OO (eye of OO, a fireplace situated in the compound); it symbolizes indigenous Acholi education since it is where children learn through instructions, case studies, and storytelling. Finally, Ocitti was popular for his lachan ma kwo pe kinyero (meaning the living poor is no laughing matter, Ocitti 1960). In an earlier work on personhood, I discussed Acholi views on what it means to be a person (Odoch Pido 2000). In one of my recent works, I wrote on Jaber (a beauty) in which I discussed a JaLuo sense of aesthetics (Odoch Pido 2015). I also wrote a piece on Acholi Mwoch (panegyric poetry), which was essentially a discussion on meanings in a few examples of spoken identity (Odoch Pido 2017). Besides, I presented a paper entitled Wer pa MinOluku (a lyric poem), this work was a critical analysis of a song the late Opira

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

191

Morise posted on YouTube (Odoch Pido and Donna Pido 2019). Let me now leave my earlier works alone and turn to discussions of the poem. Presentation, Analysis, and Discussion of the Poem Verse 1 Bedo Dano Bedo dano tek Bedo dano yot Bedo dano mit Bedo dano lit

To be human To be human is difficult To be human is easy To be human is pleasurable To be human is miserable

Verse one contains pronouncements on contrasting attributes of being human; namely difficult or easy, pleasurable or hurtful. It is important to note that the attributes are opposite pairs; opposition and contradiction reside deep in Acholi sense of what is correct, proper, and truly beautiful. In general, members of the opposite sex make each other complete and look truly beautiful (Donna Pido 2018). This is why they say “dako myero ki laco” (a woman is proper with a man) and is why Acholis try to find a wife for an unmarried man. To see a woman without a husband or a man without a wife is socially disturbing, if not culturally strange and ugly. Efforts to neutralize and correct the ugliness Acholis practice a strong gender binary differentiation. Verse 2 Ka kakare kere boti Bedo dano yot Bedo dano mit Ka wilobo Ogungu ikomi Bedo dano tek Bedo dano lit

If your situation is all smiles To be human is easy To be is sweet When the universe Is bent over you To be human is difficult To be human is miserable

Kere (a gap in the middle of upper teeth) is a symbol of beauty. A smile does not only expose the characteristic beauty but is a sign that all is well; Acholis think good luck is a prerequisite to success in life (Kaufman 2018) and general well-being. In quests for success, people say “ka piny oruu ma dako” (if the universe is female, similar to the Christian “God willing”) for femaleness symbolizes a hassle-free world. Yet, people sometimes view good luck with suspicion. Opota ma tugu (fell to me like a coconut) is God-given luck that can make life pleasurable yet Acholis dislike effortless luck because

192

J. P. Odoch Pido

they think it precedes punishing misfortunes. In order to mitigate such misfortunes, people abuse things that come effortlessly. Wilobo (the universe) is the force of nature that is mysterious and uncontrollably powerful. When the universe acts favorably, luck is in the air, people multiply and are healthy; in this case, to be human is easy and pleasant. However, when the universe “bends over people” when it acts unfavorably; there is bad luck, diseases, death, and other unfavorable things. In this case, being human is nasty and difficult. In an expression of powerlessness against the universe, the Acholis say too wange tek (death is hard-eyed), meaning that death is merciless without forgiveness. Verse 3 Pe imed ki mingo Ka iming Idoko peke Ngec maming En aye tamo Ni en enyang Ogeri bwole kene Ka tamo ni Edoko twongweno Labok ma tamo Ni ka pe ekok Polo pe yabe Pala aye ma juku Ki keko it dano Lut pe bedo lut Kadi orii Ikut pa lut Nen min gweno Tunu kore peke Ento lutino ne Yeng lingling

Do not add foolishness to it When you are foolish, You become nothing Only a foolish monitor lizard Is one that imagines It, too, is a crocodile A finch cheats itself When it thinks that It has become a cock A bishop bird which imagines that If it does not sing The sky will not open Only a knife will stop it From disturbing ears of people A stick never becomes a mudfish Even if resides In deep water of the mudfish Look at mother hen She has no breast of her chest But her chicks Feed well and proper

Whatever fortune or misfortune the universe gives you, do not be foolish because doing so greatly undermines your being human. The expression chan deg ming (poverty hates foolishness) suggests that foolishness worsens an already bad situation and erases tons of wisdom (Snapp 2017). Acholis believe that foolishness by women is too piny (death of the universe, meaning the entire society) and one should not become as foolish as “human feces” (dead foolish). It is dead foolish for a monitor lizard, a finch, or a stick to claim that it is a crocodile, a cockerel, or a mudfish for that will never happen. It is equally foolish for a bishop bird to

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

193

imagine that there will be no daybreak if it does not sing, for daybreak does not depend on the bird. Indeed, anyone is dead foolish to make unrealistic claims. That her chicks eat well, even when the hen has no breasts, illustrates success despite shortcomings. Acholis respect and glorify overcoming disabilities and performing at par with able-bodied persons; success against all odds is generally admirable. “A hen feeds its chick though it has no breasts” is a call to do more than anticipated or go beyond the call of duty. Verse 4 Bedo dano tek Bedo dano yot Pe imed ki miyo wangi Wangi ka imiyo Ajut pok ki ngwe

To be human is hard To be human is easy Don’t you close your eyes Should you close your eyes The tree-stump bruises a toe

Verse four suggests that to be human is harder with “eyes closed,” which can be translated in many ways. In this case, I translate it as insensitivity to sociopolitical surroundings, which can lead to getting hurt as may be seen in the last line of the verse. The last two lines cite a typical village scene that speaks of the bad consequences of being human with your eyes closed. Motorized vehicles, bicycles, and road construction are recent introductions. Before their arrival, people got around by walking everywhere, every time and for miles; this was when feet shaped footpaths. Stumps of tree roots and stems commonly lined footpaths, ready to hurt unsuspecting pedestrians. The expression “ajut pok ki ngwe” (toes receive bruises) arose from the injuries stumps brought to toes; it is a metaphor for severe pains that insensitive ­persons often get as punishment for their insensitivity. Verse 5 Nen nyig chingi Abich weng omego Ento pe gin rom Waromo ribo ka butu Ento leki pat ki mega Anyardwe kwar nono Cwinye chol tino pa ajwaka Okwik chol nono Iye kwar ki remo Pen imi wangi, Nen Dyang kadi chol tiktik Chake tar kok-kok

Look at individual fingers in your hand All five are brothers But they are the same We can share a bed But your dream is different from mine Daughter of the moon is brown in vain Her heart is black as a witchdoctor’s room Though the starling bird is black Its blood is red Don’ close your eyes, See Even when a cow is pitch black Her milk is bright white

194

J. P. Odoch Pido

Relationships between the whole hand and its different parts (fingers) are at the beginning of the verse and are a metaphor for an Acholi family. As brothers often do, the five fingers work together in performing diverse and complex tasks. The fingers of the hand are alike but different like no two brothers are exactly alike and no two people have the same dream. In “daughter of the moon” (an ideal beauty) they say “the beautiful one has smelly eyes,” meaning, there is an ugly side to a beautiful woman. That there is an ugly side to a beautiful woman speaks on contradictions; to be human one must live with contradictions. Lines eight through eleven speak on Acholi color grammar, in which the pairs are metaphors for one object having two sides that are opposites. The starling bird has black feathers but its blood is red; as is the case in the Maasai color grammar, black and red are opposites (Donna Pido 1987). The last line urges one to open one’s eyes to see such complex relationships in real life as opposed to abstract relationships. Verse 6 Bedo dano tek Bedo dano yot Pe imed ki nyapo Ka imedo ki wachkom Dogi pe obed lim Dogi pe obed ki laa

To be human is hard To be human is easy Don’t you add weakness to life as a human Should you add laziness to life as a human You should not have a sweet mouth You should not have a salivary mouth

Verse six advises against possessing two contradictory attributes, doing so can make life un-enjoyable. Essentially one should not be lazy and have a raging appetite for food. They say “one cannot eat laziness,” meaning laziness will take anyone to the grave or bring other people down (Wilson 2019). In addition, if one is already unwilling to work, he should stop lim dog (sweet mouth, loving food always); such contrasting attributes present anybody with a great dilemma. To overcome the dilemma, they say “acam kwoka” (I eat my sweat, meaning I enjoy the fruits of my labor) while frowning at the mentality in “acam doga” (“I eat my mouth,” meaning “I eat from other people’s hands”). Verse 7 Te polo yabe Dog dano yabe, gin loko Ket gen ikom Lachwech Ento mede ki tic Kadi dako mayen

The bottom of the sky opens People’s mouths open, they speak Put trust in the Creator, But continue to work Even when a wife is young

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

Pe iteko boro Ber ne kiken Kadi miti, latin

195

Don’t keep praising Her beauty all the time, Even when she loves you, kiddo

Verse seven speaks on hope and doing righteous things. “The bottom of the sky opens” means daybreak: when the universe awakens and frees people to carry on with daily routines including communication. Daybreak is a symbol of hope while night signifies caution. In the night, danger roams freely and can hurt anybody at will. To avoid such dangers, people minimize their activities. It is good to trust in the Creator (God) but you must also work since trust in God alone does not ensure being human. Finally, you cannot keep honeymooning all your life; doing so is not right. Verse 8 Ceng ka pe owangi Kot ka pe opwodi Kec aye obe neki Bura me mako oyo Pi yomo chwiny rwot ot Kech ii pe iryemo Ki yomo ii lawoti

The sun, if it has not burnt you Rain, if it has not beaten you Hunger is what will kill you A cat does not catch a rat To please the chief of the house To satisfy the hunger of your stomach By pleasing another person

At the heart of verse eight is the view that to be human requires experiencing hot-cold and dry-wet types of extremes gained through working in the hot sun and tropical rainstorms. Anybody without contrasting experiences is considered inexperienced, not yet mature enough to survive hunger as may be seen in line three of the verse. “A cat does not catch a rat to please the owner of the house,” is about the mistakes we often make by doing things to please others or thinking that others do things to make us happy. We should do what pleases us instead of someone else, and we should stop imagining that we are the reason that other people do things. The last two lines teach us the correct use of tools for the right task to solve the right problem in the right place and time. Verse 9 Bedo dano tek Bedo dano yot Pe imed ki chach Ka imedo ki chach Kur chache ne

To be human is difficult To be human is easy Don’t you be impossible-to-satisfy Should you be impossible to satisfy Wait for its buckets of trouble

196

Ka idag mayembe Ma opoto kene Tyeni obed tek ka yito malo Adegi ichayo ni konye peke Pien bur peya okwot iye Iye ni kom kara ber nono Teke bur okwot ii adegi ni Kulu wang ma otwo Ka ki ngeyo ni pire tek

J. P. Odoch Pido

If you do not like mangoes That dropped from the tree Your feet should be adept in climbing up You may dismiss buttocks as useless Until you get a boil stuck in it You will realize a chair is good looks only The moment a boil is lodged in your buttocks Until a river is dry Is only when you will know it has significance

Verse nine teaches against perpetual dissatisfaction and taking things for granted because the two can make being human a bad experience. There are people who are never satisfied with anything yet do nothing to get what they want. A mango that has fallen from the tree is often sweet by any standard; anyone who does not like it is la-chach (an impossible-to-satisfy person). Such a “never satisfied person” should be “adept at climbing mango trees”; meaning, he should get mangoes befitting his desire, which won’t happen because connoisseurs know that the best-quality mango is the one that is so ripe it falls from the tree. It also teaches against taking things for granted; for example, many people take their buttocks for granted. Anyone who does that learns a severe lesson the day a boil swells on his buttock. Similarly, we take for granted the river in our midst until it is dry, that is when we see its significance. In general, Acholis do not like to take things and other people for granted. Acholis equate taking things for granted to belittling supernatural generosity and deliberately, attracting misfortunes. They [Acholis] also think that taking people for granted is dehumanizing, enough to invite big backlashes. Verse 10 Pe itam ni latoo wang Pe tamo Latoo wang bene leko Latoo wang Ma owilo maraya Lanen ber Pe inyer Gwok owilo me achata kono

Don’t you think a blind person Does not think A blind person also dreams A blind person Who buys glasses To see beauty Don’t you laugh Maybe he bought it to sell

Verse ten is against viewing the blind as sub-human. To do so contradicts the Acholi sense of being human since to be human is never to laugh at (and thus despise) anybody including persons living with disabilities. In Acholi, tamo

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

197

(to think critically) suggests comparing and contrasting with similar past or present situations, and weighing the effects and merits of decisions about to be taken, thus giving a considered opinion on the situation. Given this view, it is clear that a blind person can think at the same level as a person with sight. After all, Acholis think in words more than pictures and verbal, not visual, communication dominates human interactions. Verse 11 Bedo dano tek Bedo dano yot Pe imed ki miti mukato lachi Ka inen ibedo liwitwit Peko nongo chok maki Ogwal maro pii Ento pe pii malyet Ogwal winyo pi chai awinya

To be human is hard, To be human is easy Do not add money grubbing to being human If you become a big money grubber Trouble is about to get to you A frog loves water But not hot water A frog only hears about tea

Greed for money is at the heart of verse eleven. Acholis do not like greed because it drives personal benefit without regarding other people’s welfare; it contradicts the Acholi ideal of dyere (personal sacrifice for public good). Since a greedy person has little regard for other people, they say a greedy person cannot “take care of anybody”; yet, taking care of others is cardinal to being human. Liwitwit (viciously busy) depicts a person whose greed drives him around and about searching for more everywhere and all the time. It is believed that bedo liwitwit (to be viciously busy) lands one in trouble eventually; to be human and trouble do not go hand-in-hand. “A frog loves water but not hot water” is a metaphor for loving to remain restlessly busy but hating its troubles. Verse 12 Ryeko ki lonyo Kwach kachel ki romo Ryeko gwoki Ento in aye omyero Igwok lonyo ni Pe ni ka itye ki manok Nongo pe in lalonyo Ngat ma mito mapol En aye lachan

Wisdom and wealth are Leopard and a sheep, in one place Wisdom can protect you But it is very you who ought To protect your wealth A small wealth you may have Does not make you un-wealthy He who wants much Is one who is poor

198

J. P. Odoch Pido

Verse twelve begins by indicating that wisdom–wealth and sheep–leopard relationships are similarly fragile. To avoid catastrophe, both the wealth and the wealthy need the wisdom to protect them. An individual requires wisdom to protect himself from wealth while he requires wisdom to protect his wealth; without wisdom, wealth can destroy whoever owns it and without wisdom, it is easy to lose wealth. Whereas in the past, the community protected the wealth of the individual, it seems today’s practice is that the individual alone protects his wealth. Verse nine also makes a thought-provoking statement on poverty; that it is the desire for wealth, not lack of it, that makes one poor. Verse 13 Kadi mon peke Dyel pe bi temo min labwor Apoli maming en aye tamo Ni omyero emak Larem ki kwach Bedo dano yot Bedo dano tek Pe imed ki bwola Ka imedo ki bwola Kur keme kwede Wan weng olo lubwola Ento wan weng pe lubwolo Pe iwek kibwoli Ni wan weng Watwero myelo bwola

Even if there were no females A billy goat cannot try a lioness Only a foolish antelope imagines That it ought to establish Friendship with a leopard To be human is easy To be human is hard Don’t you add telling lies to being human Should you add telling lies Be ready to face the consequences All of us may be liars But all of us are nincompoops Don’t you let anybody cheat you That we all Can perform the bwola dance

Practically, all of verse thirteen is about trying to do the unthinkable and impossible, yet to be human is to do the thinkable and possible. For obvious reasons, it is unthinkable for a billy goat to try (mount) a lioness or an antelope to befriend a leopard. Like other peoples of the world, Acholis do not like liars since lies undermine the integrity by which people prefer to live as humans. Bwola is an Acholi royal dance to entertain the chief and his council of elders; it is a symbol of being beautiful and human. The inability to perform the bwola dance is a failure to be beautiful and that is not okay just as telling a lie is not okay; harmful and frequent lies undermine the beauty in being human.

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

199

Verse 14 Labwola, ka obwoli kichel Pe ikechi Ka odoko wang aryo Meno bwolo ni Bwola ka odoko gin komi Idoko labwolo Ada bwoli ku Keny ma kigedo iwibwola Piyo ki ket Lim abwola pe nyako nyige

A liar, if he should lie to you once Don’t you get upset If it is done two times That is your stupidity When lies get to be your thing You become a fool Truth does not tell you lies A marriage that is performed on lies Quickly disintegrates Dirty money does not bear fruits

The first four lines of verse fourteen are about the number of times you should accept to be a victim of lies, a conman, or another social evil (Simon 2016). To be conned once is forgivable but twice is unacceptable. It seems twice is too many times, enough to become a “thing of one’s body,” meaning a habit; telling and condoning lies is a bad habit. People do not like lies because they are false. Acholis live by the truth; total commitment to truth is why they say ada bwoli ku (truth does not cheat) and is the foundation of a marriage. In this cultural region, people enter marriage knowing it moko latuk (abbreviation of “lasts long until the ceiling catches soot,” a reference to lasting very many seasons) and couples refer to each other as latona (a partner until death do us part). In lines 9 through 12 of verse fourteen, “hunger of the stomach” refers to the thirst of the intellect (knowledge), heart (love), aesthetics (beauty), and social position (acceptance.) “Stomach” refers to everything inside one’s body including information that another person cannot freely access. Therefore, to please the hunger of another person’s stomach is trying to satisfy the desire of the concerned individual, which is difficult because it is like serving the unknown. The last three lines of the verse speak of the hopelessness in serving personal interest by serving another person or pleasing yourself via pleasing another person. Verse 15 Bedo dano yot Bedo dano tek Pe imed ki chulu kwor Remo pe kilwoko ki remo Ka onongo nene wang Kichulu ki wang, angaa Makono ongongo neno piny Nam

To be human is easy To be human is hard Don’t you add revenge to being Blood is never washed with blood If only an eye Were for an eye, who On earth would be able to see A big mass of water

200

Kadi oneko dano ni Pe iromo Kwonge pe imato pii

J. P. Odoch Pido

Even if it killed your family You can never Swear never to drink water

Kwor means revenge as in washing blood with blood or compensation for harm done. “Blood for blood” or “an eye for an eye” is worthless because it promises blindness for all parties and it is a loss-loss situation. Negative aspects of revenge are reasons why preference is given to compensation together with mato oput (Katshung 2006; Bishop Ocholla 2020) is a timehonored method the Acholis developed and use to resolve conflict. Oput is a tree whose root is the main ingredient in the concoction that the offender and the offended drink in order to symbolize the end of hostilities and the creation of peace. The last three lines underline the need to come to terms with losses as profound as the death of a relative and dwoko maber ikom marach (returning good for bad); doing so is to be human. Verse 16 Bedo dano yot Wek wunu nyapo Diki mit Ki joo mayube pire tin Tute ber, medo kwo anyim Achut ka gilwori Teme pe me too Kwo rom ki nyono lela Pe ichung Wang ma iweko nyono ne

To be human is easy Do not weaken and give-up Tomorrow is joyous For those who prepare for it today Hustling is good, it improves on life Vultures, when they circle you Try not to die Life is like riding a bicycle You don’t come to standstill Until you stop peddling

The main argument of verse sixteen is that to be human is easy if only we keep hustling to make tomorrow a better day. Even when hustling seems unproductive, they say “yele ka pudi ikowo” (hustle as long as you live) meaning, hustling is the better option. Aesop’s fable of the grasshopper and the ant may help illustrate trying to determine tomorrow, today (Wikipedia 2020). “Vultures circling above” means different things to different people; in this poem, it means “do not give up hope even when all appears lost.” Ordinarily, when everything seems hopeless, they say “Lubanga pe wany” (God is never selfish); it is a method of giving hope to those who have lost it and a call to persevere in bad situations. Perseverance is a treasured ideal by the Acholi as it is to be human; this is why giving up is not an option even when one is very sick.

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

201

Verse 17 Bedo dano lonyo Waweko wunu chayo tich Ka pe olare tin Labwor mwodo yago Bedo dano ber Waweku wunu yet Lebi ka bit En aye obe nyunu yiti nguti Bedo dano yot, lutino Owiny wunu pwony Ka pe itire ma pudi idyak Pe obe lare ka dong itwo

To be human is wealth Let us not look down on work If it is impossible today A lion will eat the sausage fruit Life is beautiful Let us not be abusive If your tongue is sharp It is one that will cut your throat Life is easy, children Listen to teachings If you do straighten out while you are still young Doing so will be impossible when you are dry

To say that to be human is wealth (line one of the verse) means that to be healthy is wealth like money in the bank or a large herd of cattle. To be healthy, people spend all the money they and their relatives have. Some people go as far as selling their properties to buy health; so-called private medical and sports facilities are essentially about health at a monetary cost. When a task seems impossible to undertake, an Acholi often says “with health it can be done.” This phrase is a form of resolve and prayer for the good health required to tackle difficult tasks. Sometimes plans do not produce the desired results. In such a situation, turning to any available option is the next logical step, meaning, sometimes you take what you can get. The expression “the lion will eat the sausage fruit” (line four of the verse) refers to taking the next best available option. No one should scoff at the best option because doing so is abusive (line six), which is not being human. The last three lines of verse seventeen indicate that the Acholis liken human development to fashioning a stool out of a tree; bending wet wood to shape is easier than bending dry wood. The lesson of this analogy is that it is easier to mold the character of a person in childhood, than in adulthood. Verse 18 Bedo dano yot Ka itamo ni twora rech Ma tamo ni pii kiken romo Onongo lapok Dok poko doge ka cutu goli Ka itamo ni twara gweno

To be human is easy If you imagine fish is better off That imagines only water will do A tilapia would Not open its mouth and take the hook If you imagine chickens are better off

202

Adi ma obango tongi Gweni ma cami tongi ni Pe utam ni loke yomo ii gin Kero gi peke apeka Ka itam ni twara bim Pingo bim pe bunyu Dud gin ma otal ni Pe itam ni yomo ii gin Bedo dano yot Dano tye ical pa Rubanga

J. P. Odoch Pido

How many have eaten their eggs Chickens that eat their eggs Don’t you think they are stupid They simply do not have the power Don’t imagine baboons are better off Why don’t baboons smile The bold in their buttocks Don’t imagine they enjoy it To be human is easy Human is in the image of God

Overall, the above verse concerns the questioning of assumptions as may be seen in ways we make assumptions about fish, chickens, and baboons. A tilapia in water appears contented and we may think it has everything it needs; we are often surprised that it takes a bait that may end its life. That the tilapia taking the bait questions our assumption that it is contented and forces us to realize that the fish engages in everyday demands such as food, sleep, health, and procreation. That some hens eat their own eggs also questions the Acholi assumption that such hens must be stupid. A baboon may appear carefree yet it never smiles, which suggests that it has worries. Since the tilapia, hen, and baboon represent different people, the lesson of the verse is that we need to go beyond assumptions in order to be human. Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations The lyric poem I discussed above presents an Acholi view on being human, when it is pleasant or unpleasant, and what to do or not to do, in order to enjoy being human. In undertaking the discussion, I drew on the knowledge I gained from my Acholi indigenous upbringing, rural school education, and the works of other scholars. I also drew on the poem Bedo Dano, current issues affecting the Acholis, and informally discussed the topic with a number of scholars and informers. My efforts indicate that there is little written on the subject from Acholi perspective. The few existing texts need more explanation before non-Acholi scholars can fully benefit from the thoughts therein—and this was part of my task here. Of course, other scholars have written on being human from other perspectives (Kresse 2011, 246–265) Scholars think Song of Lawino is an epic poem on Okot’s reaction to the colonization of Acholi culture that is now a classic of East African literature. Time will tell whether the poem of this chapter is a classic; nonetheless, it presents scholarly thoughts on being human. Indigenous Acholi education stresses growing up ma ochwiny (lean and tough), never dogodogo (soft and weak). Enduring punishing situations is valued because it facilitates the

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

203

maturity of the body and the mind that is required to be human in difficult circumstances. A full adult lives like a human, which is essentially to be mindful of the welfare of all living and nonliving things. Parts of the poem contain thoughts on Acholi worldview such as everything having negative and positive sides to it. The pairing of opposites resides deep in Acholi aesthetics and practice. A husband and his wife are opposites yet they complement and make each other beautiful. Similar worldviews reside the observations that five fingers of the hand are brothers though no two are the same, a cow may be pitch black yet its milk is brilliant white and a hen has no breasts yet its chicks feed very well. Opposites, complementarity, and contradiction concern being human, with social symmetry that we may describe as perfect, radial, or alternating. I am a person of Chwa origin within the Acholi community. Chwa youths draw from their seniors and peers. At the same time, they learn from their own experiences to become teachers of their community when they become elders. Some elders are better at teaching than others are; the ability to scrutinize and to think critically, dido lok ki lwodo lok (close examination of ­information and critical thinking of the information) are marks of wise elders. The spokesperson has a sharp memory, measured, and good with words. I propose that a sage philosopher is an elder who is a spokesperson, wise, a teacher, and has a following. To add to Odera Oruka’s project, we need to continue inquiry into the depths of indigenous thought in the aesthetics of everyday things, religion, and the arts. Continued engagement along these lines, yet following different perspectives, is likely to strengthen Acholi-style, Greek-style, sage, and other styles of philosophy. We received the word “Philosophy” from the Greeks. Whatever the style, we need not consign sage philosophy as a field of inquiry to a few wise men because Acholi wisdom suggests that philosophy is gin pa lwak (a thing of the public) and that gin pa lwak ber ki lwak (a thing of the public is beautiful with the public). APPENDIX The Poem, “Bedo Dano” in Acholi and English Verse One Bedo Dano Bedo dano tek Bedo dano yot Bedo dano mit Bedo dano lit

To be human To be human is hard To be human is easy To be human is pleasant To be human is miserable

204

J. P. Odoch Pido

Verse Two Ka kakare kere boti Bedo dano yot Bedo dano mit Ka wilobo Ogungu ikomi Bedo dano tek Bedo dano lit

If the situation is good for you To be human is easy To be is pleasant When the universe Is bent over your body To be human is hard To be human is painful

Verse Three Pe imed ki mingo Ka iming Idoko peke Ngec maming En aye tamo Ni en enyang Ogeri bwole kene Ka tamo ni Edoko twongweno Labok ma tamo Ni ka pe ekok Polo pe yabe Pala aye ma juku Ki keko it dano Lut pe bedo lut Kadi orii Ikut pa lut Nen min gweno Tunu kore peke Ento lutino ne Yeng lingling

Do not add foolishness to it. When you are foolish, You become nothing Only a foolish monitor lizard Is one that imagines It, too, is a crocodile A finch cheats itself When it thinks of itself To be a cock A bishop bird that imagines If it does not sing The sky will not open Only a knife will stop it From disturbing ears of people A stick never becomes a mud fish Even if resides In deep water of the mudfish Look at mother hen She has no breast of her chest But her chicks Feed well and proper

Verse Four Bedo dano tek Bedo dano yot Pe imed ki miyo wangi Wangi ka imiyo Ajut pok ki ngwe

To be human is hard To be human is easy Don’t you close your eyes Should you close your eyes The tree-stump bruises a toe

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

205

Verse Five Nen nyig chingi Abich weng omego Ento pe gin rom Waromo ribo ka butu Ento leki pat ki mega Anyardwe kwar nono Cwinye chol tino pa ajwaka Okwik chol nono Iye kwar ki remo

Look at individual fingers in your hand All five are brothers But they are the not same We can share a bed But your dream is different from mine Daughter of the moon is brown in *vain Her heart is black as a witchdoctor’s room Though the starling bird is black Its blood is red

Pen imi wangi, Nen Dyang kadi chol tiktik Chake tar kokok

Don’t close your eyes, See Even when a cow is pitch black Its milk is brilliant white

Verse Six Bedo dano tek Bedo dano yot Pe imed ki nyapo Ka imedo ki wachkom Dogi pe obed lim Dogi pe obed ki laa

To be human is hard To be human is easy Don’t you add weakness to life as human Should you add laziness to life as human You should not have a sweet mouth You should not have a salivary mouth

Verse Seven Te polo yabe Dog dano yabe, Ket gen ikom Lachwech Ento mede ki tic Kadi dako mayen Pe iteko boro Ber ne kiken Kadi miti latin

The bottom of the sky opens People’s mouths open Put trust in the Creator, But continue to work Even when a wife is young Don’t keep praising Her beauty all the time, Even when she loves you, kid

Verse Eight Ceng ka pe owangi Kot ka pe opwodi Kec aye obe neki Bura me mako oyo Pi yomo chwiny rwot ot

The sun, if it has not burnt you Rain, if it has not beaten you Hunger is what will kill you A cat does not catch a rat To please the chief of the house

206

Kech ii pe iryemo Ki yomo ii lawoti

J. P. Odoch Pido

The satisfy the hunger of your stomach By pleasing another person

Verse Nine Bedo dano tek Bedo dano yot Pe imed ki chach Ka imedo ki chach Kur chache ne Ka idag mayembe Ma opoto kene Tyeni obed tek ka yito malo Adegi ichayo konye peke Pien bur peya okwot iye Iye ni kom kara ber nono Teke bur okwot ii adegi ni Kulu wang ma otwo Ka ki ngeyo ni pire tek

To be human is difficult To be human is easy Don’t you add condescension Should you add condescension Wait for its buckets of trouble If you do not like mangoes That have dropped from the tree Your feet should be adept in climbing up You may dismiss buttocks as useless Until you get a boil stuck on it You will realize a chair is good looks only The moment a boil is lodged in your buttocks Until a river is dry Only when you will know it has significance

Verse Ten Pe itam ni latoo wang Pe tamo Latoo wang bene leko Latoo wang Ma owilo maraya Lanen ber Pe inyer Gwok owilo me achata kono

Don’t you think that a blind person Does not think A blind person also dreams A blind person Who buys glasses To see beauty Don’t you laugh Maybe he bought it to sell

Verse Eleven Bedo dano tek Bedo dano yot Pe imed ki miti mukato lachi Ka inen ibedo liwitwit Peko nongo chok maki Ogwal maro pii Ento pe pii malyet Ogwal winyo pi chai awinya

To be human is hard, To be human is easy Don’t you add excess greed to it Should you run around so much Trouble is about to get to you A frog loves water But not hot water A frog only hears about tea

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

207

Verse Twelve Ryeko ki lonyo Kwach kachel ki romo Ryeko gwoki Ento in aye omyero Igwok lonyo ni Pe ni ka itye ki manok Nongo pe in lalonyo Ngat ma mito mapol En aye lachan

Wisdom and wealth are Leopard and a sheep, in one place Wisdom can protect you But it is only you who ought To protect your wealth A small wealth you may have Does not make you un-wealthy He who wants much Is one who is poor

Verse Thirteen Kadi mon peke Dyel pe bi temo min labwor Apoli maming en aye tamo Ni omyero emak Larem ki kwach Bedo dano yot Bedo dano tek Pe imed ki bwola Ka imedo ki bwola Kur keme kwede Wan weng olo lubwola Ento wan weng pe lubwolo Pe iwek kibwoli Ni wan weng Watwero myelo bwola

Even if there were no females A billy goat cannot try a lioness Only a foolish antelope imagines That it ought to establish Friendship with a leopard To be human is easy To be human is hard Don’t you add telling lies to being human Should you add telling lies Be ready to face the consequences All of us may be liars But all of us are nincompoops Don’t you let anybody cheat you That we all Can perform the bwola dance

Verse Fourteen Labwola, ka obwoli kichel Pe ikechi Ka odoko wang aryo Meno bwolo ni Bwola ka odoko gin komi Idoko labwolo Ada bwoli ku Keny ma kigedo iwibwola Piyo ki ket Lim abwola pe nyako nyige

A liar, if he should lie to you once Don’t you get upset If it is done two times That is your stupidity When lies get to be your thing You become a fool Truth does not tell you lies A marriage that is performed on lies Quickly disintegrates Dirty money does not bear fruits

208

J. P. Odoch Pido

Verse Fifteen Bedo dano yot Bedo dano tek Pe imed ki chulu kwor Remo pe kilwoko ki remo Ka onongo nene wang Kichulu ki wang, angaa Makono ongongo neno piny Nam Kadi oneko dano ni Pe iromo Kwonge pe imato pii

To be human is easy To be human is hard Don’t you add revenge to being Blood is never washed with blood If only an eye Were for an eye, who On earth would be able to see A big mass of water Even if it killed your family You can never Swear never to drink water

Verse Sixteen Bedo dano yot Wek wunu nyapo Diki mit Ki joo mayube pire tin Tute ber, medo kwo anyim Achut ka gilwori Teme pe me too Kwo rom ki nyono lela Pe ichung Wang ma iweko nyono ne

To be human is easy Do not weaken and give-up Tomorrow is joyous For those who prepare for it today Hustling is good, it improves on life Vultures, when they circle you Try not to die Life is like riding a bicycle You don’t come to stand still Until you stop peddling

Verse Seventeen Bedo dano lonyo Waweko wunu chayo tich Ka pe olare tin Labwor mwodo yago Bedo dano ber Waweku wunu yet Lebi ka bit En aye obe nyunu yiti nguti Bedo dano yot, lutino Owiny wunu pwony Ka pe itire ma pudi idyak Pe obe lare ka dong itwo

To be human is wealth Let us not look down on work If it is impossible today A lion will eat the sausage fruit Life is beautiful Let us not be abusive If your tongue is sharp It is one that will cut your throat Life is easy, children Listen to teachings If you do straighten while you are still young Doing so will be impossible when you are dry

On Being Human—Bedo Dano

209

Verse Eighteen Bedo dano yot Ka itamo ni twora rech Ma tamo ni pii kiken romo Onongo lapok Dok poko doge ka cutu goli Ka itamo ni twara gweno Adi ma obango tongi Gweni ma cami tongi ni Pe utam ni loke yomo ii gin Kero gi peke apeka Ka itam ni twara bim Pingo bim pe bunyu Dud gin ma otal ni Pe itam ni yomo ii gin Bedo dano yot Dano tye ical pa Rubanga

To be human is easy If you imagine fish is better That imagines only water will do A tilapia would Not open its mouth and take the hook If you imagine chickens are better off How many have eaten their eggs Chickens that eat their eggs Don’t you think they are stupid They simply do not have the power Don’t imagine baboons are better off Why don’ they baboons smile Their bold in their buttocks Don’t imagine they enjoy it To be human is easy Human is in the image of God

REFERENCES Amnesty International. 2020. Uganda: The Full Picture-Uncovering Human Rights Violation by Government Forces in the Northern Uganda War. London/Kampala. https://www​.amnesty​.org, accessed 14 January 2021. Bell, H. 1906. Glimpses of a Governor’s Life. London: Samson Low, Marston. Crazzolara, J. P. 1938. A Study of the Acholi Language. London: Oxford University Press. International Crisis Group. 2004. Northern Uganda: Understanding and Solving the Conflict, Africa Report No 77. Nairobi/Brussels. https://d2071andvip0wj​.cloudfront​.net​/77, accessed 13 December 2020. Katshung, J. Y. 2006. Mato Oput Versus the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Uganda. https://www​.pambazuka​.org, accessed 15 December 2020. Kaufman, S. B. 2018. “Are the Most Successful People in Society just the Luckiest People?” Scientific America 175. https://www​.scientificamerican​.com/, accessed 16 January 2021. Kirkpatrick, M. 2013. Acholi Genocide, Death by IDP Camps. https://youtu​.be​/NRjxE9klffY, accessed 13 December 2020. Kresse, K. 2011. “‘African Humanism’ and a Case Study from the Swahili Coast.” In Humanistic Ethics in the Age of Globality, edited by Claus Dierksmeier et al. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Layoo, C. 2018. Bedo Dano. December 15, 2018. https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​ =DWTIa2cbO44​&t​=18s, accessed 15 December 2020.

210

J. P. Odoch Pido

Malandra, A. 1939. “The Ancestral Shrine of the Acholi.” The Uganda Journal 7: 27–43. Maranz, D. 2001. African Friends and Money Matters: observations from Africa. Dallas: Sil International. Ocholla RB Rt Rev Bishop. 2020. Mato Oput the Reconciliation Process, United Religion Initiative https://uri​.org​/uri​-story, accessed 13 December 2020. Ocitti, J. P. 1960. Lacan ma Kwo pe Kinyero. Kampala: Eagle Press. ———. 1973. African Indigenous Education, as Practised by the Acholi of Uganda. Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau. Odoch, J. P. P. 2000. “Personhood and Art: Social Change and Commentary among the Acholi.” In African Philosophy As Cultural Inquiry, edited by Karp, I. and D. Masolo Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 2015. “Jaber: Reflections on a Luo Aesthetic Expression.” Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya 7, no. 1. http://dx​ .doi​.org​/10​.4314​/tp​.v7i1​.6. ———. 2017. “Indigenous Knowledge in Acholi Nicknames.” Regional Journal of Information and Knowledge Management 2, no. 2. p’ Bitek, O. 1966. Song of Lawino. Nairobi: East African Publishing House. ———. 1970. African Religions in Western Scholarship. Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau. ———. 1985. Acholi Proverbs. Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya. ———. 1989. White Teeth. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Pido, Donna. 1987. “Maasai and Art and Society: Age and Sex, Time and Space, Cash and Cattle.” PhD diss., Columbia University, New York. ———. 2018. Maasai Aesthetics, Academic Lecture to Design Students, the Technical University of Kenya, Nairobi. Pido, J. P. Odoch and Donna K. Pido. 2019. “Wer ka MinOluuku: Song of Mama Oluuku.” In Okot p’Bitek Memorial Symposium, Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda. Signature Tv Filmz. 2017. “Live @ LWOD ACHOLI.” Recorded December 4, 2017. https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=wRvxI5oC​_IU​&t​=55s, accessed 14 January 2021. Simon, G. 2016. “Lies-Are They the Root of all Evils?” https://www​.drgeorgesimon​ .com​/lying​-root​-evil/, accessed 13 January 2021. Snapp, A. 2017. “The Danger of Foolishness.” Grace Community Church. https:// www​.gracecorning​.org​/sermons​/sermon​/2017​-05​-21/ Tesser, M. 2020. “The Rule of Esteem-How Praise Releases Energy.” The Rules of Persuasion, Advanced Social Psychology, New York. https://wes​tsid​etoa​stmasters​ .com, accessed 15 January 2021. Tripp, A. M. 2010. Museveni’s Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Wegner, P. 2012. A Genocide in Northern Uganda? The Protected Camps Policy of 1999 to 2006. https://justiceinconflict​.org​/2012​/04​/09/a, accessed 14 January 2021. Wikipedia. 2020. The Ant and the Grasshopper. en​.wikipedia​.​org › wiki › September 2020, accessed 13 December 2020. Wilson. 2019. “The dangers of Laziness.” Lifestyle. https://jackhillzmedia​.com​/2019​ /01​/14/

Afterword The Future of the Sage Philosophy Project Anke Graness

This volume brings together some excellent chapters that may be seminal for the future of the sage philosophy project, a project that, because of its pioneering approach, has had a major impact on debates about African philosophy since the end of the 1970s. The related promise of having created an influential and formative new methodological approach for discourse on the history and future of philosophy in Africa, if not of world philosophy, has, however, hardly been fulfilled so far. For while sage philosophy has long been counted among the basic trends in twentieth-century African philosophy and has also found its way into online encyclopedias and many survey works on African philosophy, one must agree with Reginald Oduor’s assessment in this volume that the project itself has been in a kind of hibernation for almost three decades: it has been widely commented on, but hardly applied or further developed. For more than thirty years now, the same interviews conducted by Odera Oruka and his team in the 1970s have been discussed, but new ones have rarely been conducted.1 Moreover, in no other African country has a similarly extensive project been established.2 This volume, which offers various suggestions about ways Oruka’s philosophical approach could be revived and further developed in order to generate important contributions to twenty-first-century philosophy—in Africa and beyond—is more than welcome. In the following essay, I would like to point out what I consider to be the most important and promising prospects for further development of the project outlined in this volume, but also draw attention to problems and misunderstandings concerning Oruka’s approach, which are also reflected in some of the contributions to this volume. First of all, what is striking about a number of contributions in this volume is that they suggest a kind of “practical turn” in (sage) philosophy. The dimension of philosophy as a philosophical practice has played a rather 211

212

Anke Graness

subordinate role in African discourse, which has so far focused on linguistic expression, despite some interesting approaches since the 1990s that focus more on the practice of philosophy. These include, among others, Kwasi Wiredu’s proposal of consensual democracy. The concept of ubuntu, which has been the subject of much discussion for some years, could have given rise to a turn to philosophical practice too, since ubuntu is a concept that manifests itself not only in speech, but in the practice of living in a community, of conflict resolution, and of the (ritual) healing of personal or social wounds. Surprisingly, however, current academic philosophical discourse on ubuntu continues to focus on linguistic analysis rather than practice. So far a lot of philosophical potential has been wasted here. The strong focus on philosophy as practice in the majority of contributions to this volume is more gratifying. In his essay, Bruce Janz points to a methodological development of the sage philosophy concept by Oruka himself, which has been largely overlooked so far. Janz argues that Oruka’s interviews with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga (former vice-president of Kenya and presidential candidate) conducted in 1982 and 1992 illustrate a turn or a further development of his methodological approach. Here, Oruka shifts from a focus on philosophy as expressed in propositions to philosophy as life practice, rooted in character and the honor accorded by a community. Janz comments on this turn as follows: “This seems like a shift in how we think about sage philosophers, one which applies to those who embody a philosophy rather than explain it in propositional form” (p. 125). Oruka’s new methodological approach “connects together more closely how one lives and how one thinks” (Ibd.). Janz argues that Oruka focuses on how wisdom showed itself in history through Odinga’s actions. Janz, who calls Odinga a “pragmatic sage,” highlights that this new orientation introduces important dimensions into the sage philosophy project that have been rather ignored so far, namely that there is a reciprocity between thought and action and, thus, emphasizes the importance of the historical context and the historical contingency of philosophical concepts—an approach which is “very different from the search for timeless wisdom as expressed in philosophical propositions” (p. 130). The interviews with Odinga offer a sharp break with the ahistorical approach of ethnophilosophy, which purports to describe “what a certain people believes.” With the abandonment of the search for perennial African concepts, forms of resistance (e.g., against colonialism, neocolonialism, or human rights violations) can now become part of philosophical inquiry. A focus on the importance of philosophical practice is also evident in Benedetta Lanfranchi’s contribution. Starting with a description of the strikingly similar ways that both Oruka and Italian philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci delineate two realms of philosophy, Oruka’s first- and second-order and Gramsci’s first- and second-level philosophy, Lanfranchi

Afterword

213

explores first-order/first-level philosophy, which entails a dimension that is not strictly academic nor scholarly but instead resides in popular culture and expression. For many years, Gail Presbey has been committed (unfortunately almost as a lone fighter) to an equal awareness and valuation of women’s philosophical knowledge within the framework of the sage philosophy project (see e.g. Presbey 1997, 2000, 2001, 2012). Presbey has not only critically addressed the scanty number of women interviewed so far but in the last decades has conducted several interviews with female sages in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa (one example of such an interview is published in the appendix of this volume). One of the causes Presbey identifies for the exclusion of women from (sage) philosophy has also been emphasized in the feminist historiography of philosophy: academics define “philosophy” too narrowly (see Witt/ Shapiro 2020; Ebbersmeyer 2020; Alanen/Witt 2004; O’Neill 1998; Tuana 1992). Presbey argues that the philosophical knowledge of women is often reflected in practical life contexts. With reference to her own field studies, Presbey points out that many of the women she encountered and interviewed in Africa lived philosophy in a daily way of life connected to their values. Here she draws parallels to a number of Greek philosophical schools that focused on the practice of philosophy, as expressed in their way of life, rather than on conceptual work, for example, the Stoics, Epicureans, or the Pythagoreans.3 The latter constituted a community that expressed their general philosophy through a certain daily regimen, diet (vegetarianism), and pacifism. In the African context, Presbey draws on her own as well as further investigations into philosophical practices such as Elinami Vareli Swai’s book on “kangas” and Mary Njeri Kinyanji’s concept of “feminine utu” (Muhonja 2020 could be included in this respect, too). Presbey argues “that cultivating a certain attitude to life’s circumstances can be an expression of philosophy” (p. 108). At this point, her investigation overlaps with the research of “Western” feminist historiographers who demonstrated that in Europe before the nineteenth-century women mainly had to resort to other media of expression than the philosophical treatise due to their exclusion from educational contexts, political and social positions, and so on. This opens up interesting possibilities for connecting the findings and methodological investigations of feminist philosophical historiography with sage philosophy. Second, a number of contributions underline the importance of the historical context of philosophical concepts. As with Janz, this aspect also plays a major role in Kenyan philosopher Reginald Oduor’s article. Odour explicitly asks where in African societies (or elsewhere) wise people should be sought today and what criteria should be applied to qualify a person as “wise.” After a critical discussion of the essential differences between the terms “traditionality” and “indigeneity,” Oduor points convincingly to the

214

Anke Graness

increasing impossibility (if indeed it has ever been possible) of finding “traditional sages” in the sense of persons in a context of “cultural purity” untouched by external influences. In his argument, Oduor underlines an important aspect of knowledge production that is partly overlooked in the sage philosophy approach and completely ignored in ethnophilosophy: its historicity. Knowledge (including philosophical knowledge) always arises in historically concrete situations and responds to the specific challenges of a historically, politically, economically, or otherwise determined situation. Furthermore, Oduor points to the historical entanglement of societies, cultures, and knowledge traditions that characterizes all continents and regions. To regard philosophical concepts as in some sense immutable or having emerged independently of historical circumstances is a problematic approach that also affects broad currents of European and North American philosophy, especially analytic approaches. Let me now turn to some contributions whose way of reading Oruka’s sage philosophy project seems to me problematic, if not outright mistaken. Donna and Odoch Pido’s contributions fall back into the ethnophilosophical paradigm that was strongly criticized by Oruka. Both articles document that one of the basic goals of Oruka’s approach, namely to overcome notions of “communal philosophy,” has not yet been achieved. While anthropologist Donna Pido’s essay draws attention to some important points in respect of the reconstruction of women’s knowledge, especially that it must be sought in diverse forms of expression (including artistic ones) and that it is subject to historical changes, Odoch Pido continues to imply the existence of communal thinking by using such diction as “the Acholi think” this or that, that is, the imputation of a communal, ahistorical thinking. Donna Pido argues that artistic and life practices should be perceived in their philosophical significance, a point also underlined by Gail Presbey in this volume. Vital work in this field has been done in recent decades in the context of the philosophical traditions of Asia, North American First Nations peoples, and New Zealand Māori people, to mention only a few. However, Pido raises the important point that philosophical manifestations in art and design are hardly noticed in the African philosophical discourse, and she asks if this problem is related to gender bias, since everyday design and artworks are executed mostly by women. She describes an intersection of structures of exclusion using the example of the glass beadwork of Maasai women: First, the few anthropologists in Maasailand were mostly male and looking at male-dominated social, economic and political structures. They did not take beadwork seriously, possibly because it is ‘women’s work’. Second, it is ornamental, which, for many people, means ‘frivolous’. Third, within the field of Art History, beadwork is excluded from being ‘art’ [. . .] and East Africa has been

Afterword

215

excluded from the serious study because its art forms are outside the great sculptural traditions of West and Central Africa. (p. 145–146).

Nevertheless, her description of a quasi-unanimous “Maasai system of thought” and “Maasai collective sage philosophy” remains problematic. On the basis of a poem titled Bedo Dano (to be human), Odoch Pido tries to unfold “the Acholi image of man.” His approach is problematic both methodologically and conceptually. First of all, his handling of sources poses a methodological problem. The source of the poem under investigation remains largely unclear. Pido notes: “Recently Signature TV Filmz (2017) and Charles Layoo (2018) posted on YouTube a ‘poem’ entitled Bedo Dano (To Be Human)” (p. 188). Pido claims that authorship played no role among the Acholi, and he states, “I am neither sure who authored the poem nor surprised that nobody is keen on claiming authorship” (Ibd.). As a result, it remains unclear to the reader whether it is a very old poem or a recent one. This handling of the main source of his investigation plainly illustrates that Pido considers the historical dimension, that is, the context of the poem’s origin, negligible. The following sentence further shows the problematic nature of his approach: “The poem caught my attention because it seemed full of indigenous Acholi thoughts” (Ibd.). Such a statement suggests that Pido might have sought out a poem that reinforces his own ideas about indigenous or traditional Acholi thought, for he uses a single source, which strengthens his own conceptions. Methodologically, such an approach is quite questionable. The inclusion of multiple and/or contradictory sources would have been a methodologically sound (and less attackable) approach. Pido’s approach raises the controversial issue of who is entitled to speak for a whole people or a language group; and whether being a member of the group is enough legitimation to represent the philosophy of a whole people. Moreover, we are confronted here with a double standard, for probably no one expects that a single German philosopher or a single treatise can represent all of German philosophy. Thus, a major methodological problem of Pido’s approach consists in the attempt to make general statements about an entire people’s body of (philosophical) knowledge. Conceptually, it is striking that Pido’s approach is purely affirmative and lacks a critical engagement with the material of his investigation. The following passage may be cited as an example: “To see a woman without a husband or a man without a wife is socially disturbing, if not culturally strange and ugly. Efforts to neutralize and correct the ugliness Acholis practice a strong gender binary differentiation” (p. 191). Or: “In general, members of opposite sex make each other complete and look truly beautiful” (Ibd.). Especially in view of the continued discrimination against people with homosexual orientation in many countries in Africa, particularly in Uganda, where all homosexuality

216

Anke Graness

is illegal, such statements are anything but unproblematic. On the contrary, it is precisely such approaches, which seem to refer to an “African tradition” and views shared by an African community, that are still used today to legitimize discriminatory policies. In his approach, Pido perpetuates a binary heteronormative gender conception that negates the diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities and which has been criticized for many years by Ugandan theoreticians and human rights activists like Sylvia Tamale (2006, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2014) and Stella Nyanzi. Not only does Pido not address the work of such scholars and activists, but even more surprisingly, he does not seize a conceptual opportunity to criticize binary concepts that arises from his own description of “Acholi thinking,” namely the concept of an “Acholi logic,” which he describes as a threefold logic. A threefold logic offers particular opportunities to transcend binary gender concepts and the prevailing heteronormativity. This opportunity is missed here. It is precisely the postulated unanimity of a “Bantu” or “Acholi” philosophy, which consequently discriminates against deviations from a postulated norm and makes criticism of prevailing conditions difficult, that was at the heart of Oruka’s critique of ethnophilosophy. In fact, Pido’s article is a testament to how relevant Oruka’s critique still is today. Oruka repeatedly and explicitly distanced himself from the ethnophilosophical approach, starting as early as in “Mythologies as African Philosophy” (1972). In this essay, he pointed out that philosophy, when practiced as ethnophilosophy, does not stop at the description of thought systems or philosophies, but cements them for the sake of preserving an “African essence.” Such an approach does not present ways and possibilities for transforming harmful living conditions (such as poverty) or discriminatory social practices and power relations, which, however, should be exactly the task of philosophy. Today, we encounter ethnophilosophy in different forms and different regions of the world, in some conceptions of, for example, Māori philosophy, Navajo philosophy, and so on. In Africa, criticism of ethnophilosophy began almost simultaneously with its emergence, in its first confrontations with the precursors, for example, the Négritude movement. Among the most prominent critics of the ethnophilosophical approach are Paulin J. Hountondji, Marcien Towa, Peter Bodunrin, Henry Odera Oruka, Kwame A. Appiah, and Frantz Fanon. All these critics doubt the existence of “communal philosophy.” They also point out methodological weaknesses of the ethnophilosophical approach, for example, references to linguistic peculiarities, proverbs, fairy tales, and so on, that fail to subject the material to critical examination. But proverbs and aphorisms especially are extremely ambivalent, since it is not uncommon to find among them contradictory statements on the same topic. For example, proverbs can value women as equal partners or assert their subordinate role; they can call for equal treatment of all people or affirm

Afterword

217

the elevated position of certain groups (e.g., members of a royal family, the village elders, etc.). These ambivalences are rarely considered. Rather, some studies give the impression that exactly those proverbs were selected that fit the respective argument. Moreover, the attempt to define general African values and traditions or to reconstruct the thinking and being of, for example, “the Bantu” leads not only to an ontological understanding of Africa or “the Bantu” but also to the definition of a certain way of thinking and being as a norm. Deviations from this norm can then easily be devalued or even criminalized, as in the accusation of “Westernization” or “un-African” behavior, accusations that can be made, for example, in the context of political opposition, against women’s emancipation, or to justify the criminalization of homosexuality. Oruka’s declared goal was to show the diversity of thought within the collective. His criticism of the notion of “collective thinking” is essentially based on its lack of potential for divergent opinions, which undermines the freedom to criticize and resist. Any norm and the discriminatory practices associated with it can be legitimized with the argument that they are immutable (and thus ahistorical), intrinsic basic beliefs that ultimately have no epistemic but rather an ontological status. Such an approach seems ideologically motivated rather than guided by philosophical epistemic interests. While reference to precolonial knowledge systems, values, and norms is absolutely important—not only as a strategy of decolonization but as an expansion of global knowledge resources for the benefit of humankind—such a reference must at the same time include the dimension of critical reflection, a point underlined by Ghanian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu, who argued in 1980 that traditional modes of thought and folk philosophies should be interpreted, clarified, analyzed, and subjected to critical evaluation and assimilation (Wiredu 1980, x and 20). An uncritical and inadmissibly generalized approach harbors the risk of reproducing stereotypes, which prevent the perception of intra-societal asymmetries and discriminatory practices. The paper by Jared Sacks offers a first attempt at an urgently needed re-reading of Oruka’s sage philosophy from the perspective of the now influential decolonial theory, a relatively recent theoretical framework and movement that was not available to Oruka, whose works appeared beginning in 1970 and ending with his death in 1995. Unfortunately, the criticisms Sacks formulates in this volume mainly miss the point of Oruka’s approach and his sage philosophy project due to an—as it seems to me—inaccurate reading of Oruka’s work. I can only single out two of many points: Sacks’ critique of Oruka’s focus on individual thinkers and his argument that Oruka fails to transcend the “Western institution.” Sacks criticizes Oruka’s focus on the study of individual thinkers and argues that, in contrast, a stronger case should be made for the perception of each individual thinker’s involvement in a communal discourse. This accusation ignores the fact that at the center

218

Anke Graness

of the sage philosophy project are people who distinguished themselves precisely because of their being particularly embedded in the community, both as bearers of handed-down knowledge and as advisers and active agents in the interest of the community’s well-being, and who, for these reasons, are called sages by their own community. The sages interviewed are an excellent example of the embedding of knowledge in a social structure and of agents of communal discourses; they acquired their knowledge by learning transmitted knowledge traditions, standing in a long line of ancestors, and continue to shape their knowledge and that of their respective communities in confrontation with current challenges. And even though a number of sages (those whom Oruka calls philosophic sages) are critical4 of transmitted ideas, norms or rules—and are thus critical of the kind of communalism that fails to examine or oppose established norms—their contestation of and attempts to reform certain views are aimed at bettering the whole community. Or as Sacks puts it in his description of the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers (who are at the center of his investigation), they were “critical thinkers, able to engage intellectually in unpopular reasoning on questions of poverty, oppression and transformation of society” (p. 171). It has been pointed out several times that the authority of the sages rests on their reputation and respect in the community. In view of these facts, the argument that “a certain vanguardism has crept into the sage philosophy project” (p. 179) is a strangely misplaced insinuation, especially since the sage philosophy project has shown no political ambitions. The vanguard of what, one would like to ask at this point. Thus, in his contribution, Sacks fails to grasp the dynamics of the dialectic between individual thinking and collectively shared views, for example, reducing the individual philosopher to “a mirage, an abstraction” (p. 170)5 and its implications for the sage philosophy project. However, he is asking good questions for further exploration. For example, how exactly are individual sages situated and implicated within collective knowledge? How do groups of people understand the world, and how can individuals challenge one another to go beyond already accepted norms and values? How is philosophy linked to collective forms of struggle? Sacks’ reference to Sylvain Lazarus as an example of a scholar who reconceptualizes philosophy in anti-vanguardist terms is problematic as well—precisely in view of decolonization. While Lazarus (like Gramsci) argues for a broad understanding of philosophy in the sense of “everyone is a philosopher” or “workers think,” it still needs to be analyzed whether he also included African workers and peasants in his concept or not. In fact, Oruka goes much further with his sage philosophy project, arguing against all racial prejudice (let’s not forget that his theory originated in the 1970s!) not only that (white) workers in industrialized nations can think and philosophize, but that African and therefore Black workers and peasants from traditional communities can

Afterword

219

philosophize. The revolutionariness of this claim for a discipline like philosophy must not be forgotten at all in its ­anti-racist importance—which is, thus, far more radical than Gramsci or Lazarus. But in order to understand the full radicality and scope of his approach, it is necessary to be aware of the historical context of its origin, which is maybe best described by himself in a paper titled “African philosophy: A Brief Personal History and Current Debate.” Here, Oruka points out that the then-(white) chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Nairobi, Reverend Professor Bishop Stephen C. Neill, “had little time for ‘African Philosophy’, and harboured doubt about the ability of Africans to think logically” (Oruka 1990a, 126–127; see also the article by Francis Owakah in this volume on the context of the emergence of the sage philosophy project). Such was the situation! A critique such as Sacks’, see, for example, his statement “Oruka’s attempt to prove that Africans are philosophers too is insufficient as it is tantamount to trying to prove that Africans have the capacity for critical thought” (p. 168), can only be formulated from the perspective of 2020 with a certain historical naivety about the situation in the 1970s. In those still early postindependence years in Africa (not yet ten years after Kenya’s political independence), Oruka’s contribution to the transformation of the field of philosophy (in teaching—challenging Eurocentric curricula at the university— and research) in Kenya and beyond cannot be underrated. Moreover, Oruka was not in the first place interested in demonstrating to Europe that “Africans can philosophize” (as Sacks suggests), but rather in three things: contributing to the preservation of the intrinsically valuable oral heritage in Kenya; developing a new approach for African historiography of philosophy; and making the knowledge of African sages fruitful for the solution of the problems of the present—precisely in order to avoid dependence on “Western” theories and practical solutions. Ultimately, approaches and projects such as Oruka’s contributed to the restructuring of science and academia and have made possible the emergence of today’s decolonial theories, criticism such as Jared Sacks’, and students’ decolonization movements. It is thanks to Oruka and other African philosophers of his generation that African philosophy started to be a field of research on its own, and has been included in curricula—even beyond the African continent. Even if the approach has shortcomings—some of which have been widely addressed in recent years, such as deficient interview technique6 and the distinction between folk and philosophical sages, among others—the historical and theoretical achievements which have built the basis of today’s discourse should not be forgotten. The following accusation also completely misses Oruka’s intention: Sacks argues that since Oruka fails to transcend the “Western institution” that (according to Sacks) has laid the basis of the sage philosophy project, Oruka therefore remains part of a debate which places essentialism in opposition to

220

Anke Graness

universalism and enforces the practice of philosophy as a choice between the one or the other, rather than transcending this binary. Against this, it must be objected that Oruka always considered the project of the sage philosophy as a kind of “third way” between ethnophilosophy and so-called professional philosophy. Oruka tries to resolve the tension between universalism and particularism in such a way that he starts from a specific attitude of thinking that begins by characterizing philosophy but then examines it under the respective sociocultural conditions of its specific manifestation. At the same time, his attempt aims at strengthening the wisdom dimension of philosophy, which he believes to have been lost in the technical-philosophical language of European philosophers. In his view, academe in particular has distanced itself from the Socratic understanding of philosophy as a way of bettering people and the community. The dimension of wisdom also refers to the historical, cultural, and societal boundedness of philosophy; practical relevance for the community can only be achieved if these circumstances are taken into account. Philosophy understood in this mediating role is both explicitly culture bound and universal. Against this complex approach, Sacks’ critique seems shallow, unspecific, and disappointing. Moreover, Sacks does not seem to be aware that his own claim that philosophical thought always emerges in a process of (decolonial) struggle is itself a universalization (since he claims a single way of philosophizing as the only correct one) that leads to the exclusion of other forms of and approaches to philosophizing. His claim opens up the possibility that many other traditions and forms of philosophizing besides Hegel’s and Marx’s may be considered unphilosophical (p. 172–173), for example, Sufism and meditation, which is a highly individual philosophical experience that is neither practiced in the community nor in the interpersonal struggle. In such an apodictic understanding of philosophy, the diversity of philosophical theories and practices is reduced to the understanding of the author alone, namely that “philosophy is born out of struggle,” a concept which in itself raises a number of questions. For example, in his presentation of his concept of philosophy Sacks does not take into account the problem of the extent to which direct participation and involvement in the political struggles of the time can also obscure a critical view or become an ideology that serves to assert one’s own interests—or leads to a reign of terror (as with the French Revolution). Who or what is the corrective when groupthink develops in an inhuman direction? However, it is time to apply Oruka’s approach, an early contribution to epistemic justice, to decolonial theory. For a decolonial reading of the sage philosophy project, I see the following starting points: as mentioned above, the extension to philosophical practice (including, but not restricted to, practices of resistance and struggle) seems to me a viable approach. Bringing philosophical practice more to the fore not only makes it possible to go

Afterword

221

beyond the previous focus on linguistic forms (especially the text), and thus to discover other forms of expression of philosophy, but also to democratize the prevailing elitist concept of philosophy by including previously excluded people (as well as children, see “Philosophising with Children”). Moreover, sage philosophy can be discussed as an attempt to deconstruct the discipline of the history of philosophy, as well as the prevailing concept of philosophy in general. How must the historiography of philosophy be reconceived and retold in light of oral traditions? How is philosophy to be conceptualized when oral traditions and further practices of philosophy are included? And what consequences does this have for the conception of the discipline in general, and the reconceptualization of teaching and research in concrete terms? What could be the consequences for forms of expression and publication media? How should philosophical ideas now be communicated? Moreover, Oruka’s question is still relevant today: How can indigenous knowledge as well as the knowledge of other marginalized groups of people7 be preserved and, at the same time, be made fruitful for answering today’s burning questions? And last but not least, can sage philosophy as an approach and a method (maybe in a modified way) be applied to contexts in other regions of the world? All these open questions also clearly show that Oruka’s approach is far from being exhausted. It still offers inspiration and guidance for our future research.

NOTES 1. Exceptions include Gail Presbey’s interviews (see this volume) and Kai Kresse’s field studies (2007). However, Kresse’s studies were conducted in Mombasa and, thus, in the context of a written culture. 2. Trial interviews using the sage philosophy project’s methodology were conducted in Ethiopia by Bekele Gutema (unpublished until now) and in Nigeria by Muyiwa Falaiye (2005). 3. This point is also emphasized in Pierre Hadot’s influential works on ancient Greek philosophy as a way of life (1995, 2001). 4. Oruka’s criterion for distinguishing between philosophic and folk sages is the capacity for critical reflection. He does not distinguish between the sages on the basis of terms such as rational/irrational, as Sacks incorrectly claims. 5. Sacks does not take into account the long debate in European philosophy about this issue, not even the famous dispute between Deleuze and Foucault on the status of the intellectual in social struggles (Foucault 1977), which has also been extensively discussed by Gayatri Spivak in her famous essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988). Thus, the debate on the issue extends far beyond Lenin's theory, which Sacks cites here as authoritative. 6. Sacks’ contention that the interview situation was artificial and that the village community or the wise people themselves did not determine what content would

222

Anke Graness

be published, points to such a methodological problem. However, it must be underlined that some of the wise people interviewed by Oruka and his team published books on the knowledge and culture of their respective communities (See Oruka 1990b). 7. Sack’s case study of the “struggle philosophy” of the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers is of particular interest here. Unfortunately, it is not made clear whether the quoted statements come from interviews conducted by the author with representatives of this movement, or were taken exclusively from the publication issued by this movement, or were recorded elsewhere. The method is largely unclear.

REFERENCES Alanen, Lilli, and Charlotte Witt, eds. 2004. Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Ebbersmeyer, Sabrina. 2020. “From a ‘Memorable Place’ to ‘Drops in the Ocean’: On the Marginalization of Women Philosophers in German Historiography of Philosophy.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 28, no. 3: 442–462. DOI: 10.1080/09608788.2019.1677216 Falaiye, Muyiwa. 2005. “Transmitting Philosophic Knowledge without Writing: The Ekiti Yobura Philosophic Sagacity Experience.” Journal of Philosophy and Culture 2, no. 2: 55–74. Foucault, Michel. 1977. “Intellectuals and Power: A Conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze.” In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault, edited by Donald F. Bouchard, 205– 217. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hadot, Pierre. 1995. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Edited by Arnold I. Davidson. Translated by Michael Chase. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Originally published in 1981 as Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes). Hadot, Pierre. 2001. La philosophie comme manière de vivre. Paris: Éditions Albin Michel. Kresse, Kai. 2007. Philosophising in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam, and Intellectual Practice on the Swahili Coast. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute. Muhonja, Bessi Brillian. 2020. Radical Utu: Critical Ideas and Ideals of Wangari Maathai. Athens: Ohio University Press. O’Neill, Eileen. 1998. “Disappearing Ink: Early Modern Women Philosophers and Their Fate in History.” In Philosophy in a Feminist Voice: Critiques and Reconstructions, edited by Janet A. Kourany. 17–62. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Oruka, Henry Odera. 1972. “Mythologies as African Philosophy.” East African Journal 9, no. 10: 5–11. Oruka, Henry Odera. 1990a. Trends in Contemporary African Philosophy. Nairobi: Shirikon Publishers.

Afterword

223

Oruka, Henry Odera, ed. 1990b. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy. Leiden: Brill. Presbey, Gail. 1997. “Who Counts as a Sage? Problems in the Further Implementation of Sage Philosophy.” Quest: Philosophical Discussions 11, nos. 1–2: 55–65. Presbey, Gail. 2000. “H. Odera Oruka on Moral Reasoning.” Journal of Value Inquiry 34, no. 4: 517–528. DOI: 10.1023/a:1004793415638. Presbey, Gail. 2001. “Akan Chiefs and Queen Mothers in Contemporary Ghana: Examples of Democracy, or Accountable Authority?” International Journal of African Studies 3, no. 1: 63–83. Presbey, Gail. 2012. “Kenyan Sages on Equality of the Sexes.” Thought and Practice 4, no. 2: 111–145. Tamale, Sylvia. 2006. “Eroticism, Sensuality, and ‘Women’s Secrets’ Among the Baganda.” IDS Bulletin 37, no. 5: 89–97. DOI: 10.1111/j.1759-5436.2006. tb00308.x Tamale, Sylvia. 2008. “The Right to Culture and the Culture of Rights: A Critical Perspective on Women’s Sexual Rights in Africa.” Feminist Legal Studies 16: 47–69. DOI: 10.1007/s10691-007-9078-6 Tamale, Sylvia, ed. 2011. African Sexualities: A Reader. Cape Town: Pambazuka Press. Tamale, Sylvia. 2013. “Confronting the Politics of Nonconforming Sexualities in Africa.” African Studies Review 56, no. 2: 31–45. DOI: 10.1017/asr.2013.40 Tamale, Sylvia. 2014. “Exploring the Contour of African Sexualities: Religion, Law and Power.” African Human Rights Law Journal 14, no. 1: 150–177. Tuana, Nancy. 1992. Woman and the History of Philosophy. New York: Paragon Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, 271–313. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Wiredu, Kwasi. 1980. Philosophy and an African Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Witt, Charlotte, and Lisa Shapiro. 2020. “Feminist History of Philosophy.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta. https://plato​.stanford​.edu​/archives​/win2020​/entries​/feminism​-femhist/

Appendix 1 The Life History of Mama Julia Auma Ouko: A Tribute to an African Woman Sage Humphrey Jeremiah Ojwang

Mama Julia Auma Ouko was born in 1938. Her father was from Kogweno Clan in Karachuonyo, Homa Bay County in Kenya. Her mother was from Kamageta Clan in North Mara Region, Tanzania. She was a true citizen of the East African Community. Her formal education was basic but her nonformal and informal cultural education through socialization as a Luo girl from infancy to marriage prepared her for motherhood in a typical African family in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She was married to Jaduong’ Shem Ouko Mbewa in 1954 at the youthful age of sixteen years. During those early days, young brides were turned into wives and mothers in their mid-teens: that was the norm since not many of them went beyond four years of basic education. Her husband Shem Ouko Mbewa was a civil servant (Translator-Interpreter) in the British Colonial Administration, and was based at Kisii Town, which was then the headquarters of the greater Southern Nyanza Region. Three years later in 1957, her husband became the chief of Kamagambo location where he served until 1964 when he retired from the independent Kenyan Civil Service. After her husband retired from his job with the Government of Kenya, they embarked on modern farming; the homestead had grade cows and the farm had coffee; sugar cane; millet; maize; fruits; vegetables; and other food crops for subsistence and commercial purposes. The farm had barbed wire fencing all round; there were also protected sections of the farm for grade cows; indeed, the farm was a model many people from Southern Nyanza emulated. Senior Chief Shem Ouko Mbewa was an African leader with great wealth and high social status because of the education and training he acquired during the early years of European missionaries at Kamagambo and the British Colonial Administration in the greater Southern Nyanza Region of Kenya. During the construction of the Kisii-Migori Highway, Jaduong’ Shem Ouko 225

226

Humphrey Jeremiah Ojwang

Mbewa was one of the subcontractors of the Israeli group, Water Resources Development Company. The family owned different vehicles in which the chief and Mama Julia could be chauffeured around. Senior Chief Shem Ouko Mbewa was a wealthy man who married many wives before and after Julia Auma Ouko. These wives hailed from different clans in Southern Nyanza including Kasipul-Kabondo, Karachuonyo-Kanyaluo, Nyakach-Agoro, and Asego-Kanyada. It was indeed a large African polygamous family working in harmony; each woman was assigned portions of the land for cultivation and food production. Food security was the top priority in the family and homestead of Senior Chief Shem Ouko Mbewa of Kamagambo Location; the granaries were always full until the next harvesting season. The children of Mama Julia Auma Ouko (and Senior Chief Shem Ouko Mbewa) according to their birth order were as follows: 1. John Oketch Ouko 2. Josephine Achieng’ Ouko 3. Beatrice Akello Ouko 4. Tom Mboya Ouko 5. Michael Owino Ouko 6. Loice Akoth Ouko 7. Samuel Odoyo Ouko 8. Esther Adongo Ouko (the last two being twins). They were brought up under strict Adventist teachings and beliefs; they also worked on the land and were sent off to school like other children in Kamagambo-Sare Village. The boys were tall and handsome like their father; the girls were as beautiful as their mother Julia Auma Ouko (popularly known by those who were close to her as: Nyolago = Nyar Olago). They were well brought up to respect their elders. They are also a family with spiritual values who believe in the existence of God. After having a powerful spiritual experience of awakening through Divine Providence only known to her, Mama Julia Auma Ouko defected from the locally entrenched Seventh-day Adventist Church and joined the new congregation of Power of Jesus Around the World Church whose founder was Archbishop Dr. Washington Ogonyo Ngede from Kano. She believed in the gifts of the Holy Spirit; she also believed in visions and dreams not just symbolically but also practically. She had profound gifting of expanded psychic and spiritual awareness; she walked not by sight but by faith. This explains why she joined the African Instituted Church which owns a large worship center in Rongo Town next to the Sub-County Commissioner’s Office. Mama Julia Auma Ouko used to worship with this congregation most Sundays. Once in a while, she would join local Adventists in some of their

Appendix 1

227

meetings at Kamagambo-Sare Village. Mama Julia Auma Ouko was a typical seeker of spiritual knowledge about the Divine. She believed that we are all the children of God irrespective of our denominational affiliation. For her to express that kind of philosophy and belief, it required tremendous moral courage and deeper enlightenment in Kamagambo-Sare Village where it is taken for granted that everyone must be a member of the entrenched Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is only a philosophic sage like her who can engage in this kind of critical discourse analysis based on interfaith dialogue. She also respected the traditions and customs of the Luo people and never condemned the practices. She loved singing folk songs and dancing to the clapping of hands which some people might frown upon in some congregations. She was a true African Christian woman who could indulge in critical thinking about contextual religiosity and spirituality. Mama Julia Auma Ouko was a powerful speaker and gifted singer in their religious congregations. She was also a political activist in her own way from the days of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s Kenyan People’s Union (KPU) in the late 1960s to the period of the struggle for the second liberation by Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) before its fragmentation; she supported and identified with the former Member of Parliament for Rongo Constituency, the Hon. John Linus Aluoch-Polo of FORD-Kenya. When there was a research project on African sage philosophy, she was identified as one of the women in Kamagambo who could engage in sagacious reflections on a number of issues affecting humanity. This project enabled her to grant interviews, interact and hold conversations with a social researcher, Professor Gail Presbey of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Detroit-Mercy, United States of America when she visited Kamagambo in the late 1990s for fieldwork. The conversations were held through a translator, of course; she displayed a very high degree of philosophic sagacity though she had very basic formal education. Her epistemological insights as an African woman sage will for a long time confound feminist scholars for many generations to come. Other African women sages interviewed by Professor Gail Presbey included Mama Filida Okayo Oyier; Mama Doris Gwako Arodi; Mama Maria Magdalena Josephine Aoko; and Mama Paulina Otieno Odiaga among others in Southern Nyanza, Kenya. Mama Julia Auma Ouko displayed sophisticated philosophical reasoning by answering difficult questions about spirituality, religion, food, nutrition, health, governance, leadership, culture, marriage and the family, society, political economy, agriculture, livestock, customary law, and interpersonal relations among other issues affecting human society. Her reasoning was quite logical and epistemologically sophisticated. For instance, she said: “In traditional Luo society, respecting other people was held as a high virtue; husbands had respect for their wives; there was reciprocity from the

228

Humphrey Jeremiah Ojwang

wives who were obligated to respect their husbands as well. Everyone was self-disciplined and the institution of marriage was highly regarded in the community.” (Voice of Mama Julia Auma Ouko: Interview by Gail Presbey/ Translation on Site by Humphrey Jeremiah Ojwang at Kamagambo-Sare Village on March 3, 1999.) There are other profound reflections of Mama Julia Auma Ouko which might be of interest to theologians, philosophers, linguists, oral historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and other researchers in the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, some of her ideas might be of great pedagogical value in reclaiming and managing African women’s Indigenous Knowledge Systems. Mama Julia Auma Ouko’s philosophical discourses will continue to engage scholars long after her death since the transcripts of the interviews have been preserved in archives of the sage philosophy project at the University of Detroit-Mercy, United States of America. She believed that when you help someone, do it as unto God Almighty; and do not expect anything in return from the person you are helping. Your reward will come from God in heaven, not human beings on Earth. That kind of philosophy is based on self-sacrificial love known as altruism; not many people can hold such lofty heights of epistemological discourse except an altruistic philosophic sage. She was indeed a contemporary philosophic sage engaged in deep contemplation! Mama Julia Auma Ouko developed a close friendship with other women leaders in Kamagambo, such as my own mother Japuonj Yucabed Obuya Otieno (popularly known as Nyojango = Nyar Ojango) who was also related to her from their kinship network in Karachuonyo-Kogweno. She also developed close ties with Mama Phoebe Aluoch-Polo from Oriang’-Kasbong’ in Karachuonyo. She was very loyal to these women leaders and their children. The death of Mama Julia Auma Ouko at age eighty-two will leave a big gap so difficult to fill; however, her words of wisdom will continue to guide the younger generations who interacted closely with her during her lifetime. God has given; God has taken. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Thu tinda!

Appendix 2 Interview with Julia Auma Ouko, Kamagambo, May 3, 1999 Gail Presbey and Humphrey Ojwang (Transcription and Translation by Robert Vincent Okungu)

Julia Ouko: I was born in 1938 in Karachuonyo Kogweno. I was married in 1954, and I have seven grown children, four boys, and three girls. In this village of Sare, we believe in the virtue of hard work. We use our hands, and toil, and produce food for our family, and sell the surplus. That’s what we consider virtue, to be self-supporting. We don’t encourage asking for help or handouts. We believe in independence. Gail Presbey: What is the source of these values of hard work? Julia Ouko: They come from Luo traditions. Children are socialized into hard work, to raise food from the soil. In Luo society, there’s a communal approach to work. It’s hard to get lazy people here. We have a word, saga, which means to help those who are weaker physically. If a person needed help, he’d slaughter an animal, prepare food, and brew beer, and then invite people for a meal. We speak of sigalagala, to motivate people to work. Then the work would be finished by the end of the day. There’s a cash economy today, which has affected the practice of saga. People don’t want to be paid in food and drink. They want cash. Cash brought evil, for example, when I was young, there was not much money, but food was plentiful. There was no need for modern perfumes, we used ghee traditionally. There were no pressures. Now, the cash economy brings pressures. Money brought evil into society. For example, stealing and sexual immorality such as prostitution, and diseases. These are new problems, one couldn’t peddle one’s flesh before. We don’t know how to stop these evils. In my personal experience, a deep faith in the supernatural power of God, and trust, helps to control fleshly desires and drives, and in this way defeat sin. It is possible to share one’s faith with members of the community, and bring this realization to others. Through the sharing of this faith, the higher power can help people in the community. 229

230

Gail Presbey and Humphrey Ojwang

Married men and women need to show each other mutual respect. In Luo tradition, women were expected to be obedient to their husbands, to treat them with respect. When the husband comes home from the shamba or from watching cattle, the wife would give him a drink. She had to show him deep regard. That is not there today, due to modern influences. Traditionally, a man had his hut or office, called an abila, where he was served with food. Today, it is nonexistent. That kind of respect was, however, not expected of a man. The wife was like a worker and helper to the husband. The wife’s good works earn her a smile from the husband. In the context of the Luo polygamous unions, the homestead was run according to rules. As head of the family, the man sets rules to be obeyed. He rated his wives according to their good works. Love, respect, and attention were won according to how you played your role as a good wife. If you were good, husbands looked at you with awe. Traditional societies were simpler in the organization. Now they are complex. Needs have increased and attitudes have changed. A long time ago, there was the practice of massaging the husband. It was expected of wives. But now they don’t bother. Yes, Western massage parlors learned from Luo society! Now, unfortunately, it’s not practiced anymore. Because of this, feelings have hardened. Before, there would be no need for quarrels. My husband, who was a chief, died without slapping me. Paul Mbuya ruled when there was order. Now, wives shout at their husbands in public, and humiliate them, no matter how many medals they have. Men never massaged their wives. If a woman wanted a massage, she would ask her grandchildren or small girls. There were strict gender roles. Men didn’t show emotions of love. A man could see a beautiful girl at a marketplace, and greet her, and tell her “I’d like to talk to you.” If she consented, the man would hold her hand, and pull her to his home, and declare that she is his wife. If the marriage was consummated, she was his wife. The members of the girl’s family were detectives to find out what had happened to her. They got cows as presents. A woman didn’t expect to get flowers or kisses. Back then, it worked. You’re not supposed to touch a small girl, fourteen to fifteen years old. Women matured later. The girls who were pulled were mature. The abductions were planned. Several men might assist in the pulling. Then the girl would be convinced to stay. She was considered from the “chest” of the husband. Men didn’t give women gifts while courting. But there would be gifts and a feast after the marriage was consummated. Humphrey Ojwang: She’ll be taken back home, she’ll not enter the home, she’ll stop at the gate, where they slaughter a chicken, and cut the beak and then make a string with that beak and hang it around the neck of that girl. That was a sign that this girl is now recognized as married because she was from, directly translated, she was from the “chest of the husband.” I don’t know what “chest of the husband means.” She was from the “chest of the husband,” put

Appendix 2

231

it in quotes. And of course, this sister would cook and members of the family will feed and then, that was a way of welcoming this girl back to her parents. What else is done to her once she is back at her maiden home, or does her going back to the husband also involve certain rituals? Julia Ouko: there was a group of girls from the husband’s side escorting her to her maiden home where celebrations were held in her honor, like partying that follows a wedding. After a period may be within two weeks of her return to the parents, the husband would follow with a cow usually called “chip” (gift) to the family of the girl. After the cow had been sent to the parents of the girl, the beak with the string would be removed from around the girl’s neck then her father would buy her gifts like food, bangles, et cetera. Then she would be released to return to her husband together with other two girls to escort her. That way she was confirmed to be a true wife to the husband, she was confirmed married. Humphrey Ojwang: so after this meal, of course from the husband’s home, she would also have a group escorting her to her own home and Julia Ouko: payment of dowry would still continue. Humphrey Ojwang: and once she was there. They were at the home, of course once it was confirmed that this lady was married to this man, and he would buy her gifts, those gifts you were asking about. You could only buy gifts to someone special, you were sure of, so you didn’t just send gifts to any other woman. It was a commitment. So now you were given bangles and other ornaments. So she’d go to her people and they’d feast and then the husband’s people would send a cow, maybe a bull to the girl’s parents and on that day that string with the beak would be removed, and then the girl’s parents would accept the cow and then release her up to her husband. And of course payment of dowry would continue; she’d be recognized as married. Gail Presbey: ok, I’ve a question: Humphrey Ojwang: she seeks clarification on an issue that she was told by John. John told her that the Luo practiced family not by contraceptives but by refraining from sexual indulgence with his wife who still has a small baby until such a time that the baby could walk on his/her own. If the child could walk on his/ her own then that was a sign that the wife was ready for another child. In other words, Luo men only met with their wives when they thought they were ready to . . . Julia Ouko: ready to conceive? Humphrey Ojwang: yes, only visited their wives when they were ready to conceive according to the men. In essence, is it true that Luo men could not meet their wives any other time except when they thought the wives were ready to bear another child? Julia Ouko: that’s why they built “Abila” so that a husband could not be frequently visiting his wife. One reason was to plan their families. Two, which is

232

Gail Presbey and Humphrey Ojwang

the most important, is that men could not be sleeping with women all the time because of wars, so men needed all the energy to fight the wars. If there was a man who was constantly spending with his wife he got easily killed in war because of lack of energy; he didn’t have enough strength to fight wars. Humphrey Ojwang: she’s confirming what John said that it’s true that a man did not just visit his wife every other time. A man was supposed to visit his wife when the wife was ready to conceive another child, that’s why he was stressing family planning. But there is a second reason she’s giving; that a man would be drained of energy if he was fond of visiting his wife or wives. And those days were the inter-ethnic, or inter-clan wars, and if you were the kind of man who visited his wife every other day, then you’re drained of energy and you couldn’t fight battles, you know, so they believed that for you to have energy, enough energy then you’re not supposed to engage in a lot of sexual intercourse with your wife. That’s why they reserved the act to the time when may be you thought your wife was ready for conception. Gail Presbey: hm! Ok, now I just thought of asking may be a question about interethnic wars. I’m just wondering . . . Humphrey Ojwang: did the wars fought in the past involve a clan against another clan? Julia Ouko: yes. Humphrey Ojwang: they also involve one ethnic group against another may be Luo versus Kalenjins, et cetera? Julia Ouko: the wars mostly involved clans within an ethnic group for example, here Karachuonyo clan fought against the clan of Kagan Magungu . . . Humphrey Ojwang: that’s my grandfather. Julia Ouko: in one such war I had a grandfather who was speared in the abdomen and was seriously injured. Then a traditional surgeon used a piece of calabash to stitch the pierced part. We witnessed this and he showed us the scar that bore the piece of calabash. So in my view battles whether ethnic or clan based, requires energetic people who can run first, and such energetic people don’t sleep with their wives all the time. Energy was also needed in hunting because in the past game meat was vital in the Luo community’s range of food. One who met with women often could not run when hunting, and so he missed the game meat. Humphrey Ojwang: but this was not promiscuity! Julia Ouko: true, she was your wife but still you had no energy, you couldn’t run fast. Humphrey Ojwang: she has drained you of energy! Julia Ouko: yes, you have no energy. Humphrey Ojwang: so she’s saying that about those wars, yes you could find a clan fighting another clan. And even during her youth she witnessed some of those inter-clan wars and she’s giving the example, one of her uncles was speared in the abdomen and a traditional surgeon used pieces of calabash to stitch that part of the abdomen which was pierced with a spear.

Appendix 2

233

So it was believed that for you to be an effective warrior fighting a rival clan or like those days liked going hunting for food or meat, they liked game meat and they relied on game meat, then were supposed to run fast when you were hunting for game. So it was believed that if you liked to be intimate with your wife every other day, every other night, then you were drained of energy and you were not capable of running faster; you’re not capable of fighting effectively and you were just sucked of energy. So you were only supposed to meet your wife at specific times so that you conserve energy, as it were. Gail Presbey: and I have a lot of questions: why was the hunting so great? It was like . . . was it considered avoiding the enemy to try and work for peace and avoid war? Do you have to prove your manhood by being tough and fighting over many wars? Was there no action of saying “let’s avoid this war” let’s reconcile? Was that considered to be cowardly? Humphrey Ojwang: why, she asks, were people fighting; why could they sit and say “let’s avoid war, let’s work for peace?” Was it so necessary that war was waged to an extent that men kept away from their wives? Julia Ouko: since there was no organized government like today’s, each clan had a way of controlling it’s affairs. There were also distinct boundaries of land, so one clan could consider crossing a stream to till fertile land, and this would bring conflict especially when occupants of the other side of the stream belong to a different clan. They would not allow you to cross the river/stream. Then there would be warfare to settle such differences so that the victorious clan would forcefully take land belonging to the losing clan. Humphrey Ojwang: she’s saying that there wasn’t an organized government as we’re having today, so clans organized as clans, and so they fought over boundaries, over territories, and that was the only way they could settle some of their disputes. Otherwise there was no system of government as we know it today. So a lot of things were settled through warfare, and so in that kind of situation, you needed to muster your energy, harness your energy. It was a high priority to help, to prevent rival clans from taking your land-grazing land or farm land. So it was high priority, actually survival for the fittest as it were, so war was indeed virtuous because it had to do with your survival. Gail Presbey: ok, now there is a government, now the context has changed. So far the only thing she said about today is that women now disrespect their husbands; could she give us more details if she had to talk about relationships in Luo society; what are they like today? Are they getting better or worse than they were, in her judgement? Humphrey Ojwang: she asks you that, since there is an organized government in place, sobriety has been restored in the country and among ethnic groups, so in view of this has relationships between men and women improved from what it used to be? Then she asks again that since there are no more clan or ethnic wars, why don’t men show love to their wives? Julia Ouko: The Luo culture is very different from the white man’s culture. For the whites, when a girl is growing she is taught/instructed to love boys, but for

234

Gail Presbey and Humphrey Ojwang

we Luos that is not the case; we have our culture which instructed girls to keep away from boys, the whites have theirs too. Nowadays among the young generation, you could chance upon a couple walking holding hands unembarrassed, and look quite happy, but such a couple would be frowned upon because that’s unAfrican, it’s not Luo-like; that is aping the white man’s culture and people would not take it lightly. Humphrey Ojwang: what about emotionalism? Julia Ouko: that is not part of Luo culture when it comes to relationships among members of the opposite sex. We’re not taught to externally show deeper emotions, it’s not in us, we were not socialized that way. Those Luos who exhibit their emotions publicly are not truly Luos at heart; they are not like the Luos of the past years. Humphrey Ojwang: the past generations of Luos? Julia Ouko: the present generation tend to have fewer children, hardly six while in the past one was supposed to have fifteen children. Humphrey Ojwang: She’s saying that the kind of emotionalism that you see in the West was not seen in Luo society. It was not part and parcel of Luo society. So the people from the west “wazungus” were socialized into exhibiting their feelings openly: holding hands, hugging, kissing, and all those external ways of expressing deeper emotions, but that’s not part of Luo culture. Gail Presbey: still today or she’s talking about the past? Humphrey Ojwang: she’s talking about today. Gail Presbey: even today? Humphrey Ojwang: even today, it’s not part of Luo culture, and if a Luo man holds his wife’s hand or displays publicly by hugging her or even kissing then they will actually be frowned upon and little kids will say, “oh come on see so and so is holding his wife’s hand.” So they don’t express or exhibit feelings that way, so it’s a matter of socialization and it’s a matter of cultural values. Gail Presbey: ok, but does she think it’s good? Is this Luo way better than the Western way? Humphrey Ojwang: do you think it is really good if I don’t exhibit external emotions to my wife like kissing her in public, hugging her, holding her hand, et cetera, the way the Western people do? Is that really good? Julia Ouko: that’s the Western way of expressing love. They were socialized that way, not us. Humphrey Ojwang: she’s saying that’s “mzungu’s” way of expressing love. Julia Ouko: There is a radical cultural distinction here. The white children grow up from childhood seeing their parents kiss, so they grow up knowing that this is the best way to express love, and they do it too to members of the opposite sex. But that’s not the kind of socialization that the Luos get; we have our ways you too have yours, none of which is better than the other. Humphrey Ojwang: she’s saying you’re different; you came from a different cultural background. You were born and you saw your mother kissing your father when you were a little girl. And so when you grew up then you thought “yes,

Appendix 2

235

that’s the way I should treat my man.” So you also probably kissed your man because you had a model, through imitation you learnt it from your parents and from older members of your society. In my society, I didn’t see my mother kiss my father and so I was socialized that way. Therefore I don’t think that it will be fair to me to say that it’s bad not to express this things publicly because in my society we don’t exhibit these things publicly but in the West, you do. Gail Presbey: so she’s not saying it’s bad or good, it’s just different? Is that what she’s saying? Humphrey Ojwang: that’s the point. She’s saying it’s different—the Luos are different from the Westerners. Gail Presbey: alright, she said nowadays women will heckle their husbands even in public. Now, anger is an emotion, why is it that women now express their anger against their husbands but they aren’t expressing their love and hugging the husbands, why is that? Humphrey Ojwang: you said that women nowadays heckle their husbands publicly and they embarrass them in such situations. Now, they act this way when angered by the husbands, so just like love, anger is an emotion but why do women express emotions of anger publicly to their husbands, but do not express emotions of love the same way? Julia Ouko: first, men have two different kinds of love: the love for his wife, and two, the love he expresses for his concubine. Humphrey Ojwang: the kind of love he gives to his other lovers outside marriage? Julia Ouko: yes, that’s there. It is such extramarital affairs that when discovered by the wife bring differences that at times are irreconcilable. This is opposed to the kind of love a woman has. Married women normally have one kind of love dedicated to their husbands only. Humphrey Ojwang: ok, she’s saying that . . . (inaudible on the tape) Julia Ouko: . . . the love for premarital affairs. Humphrey Ojwang: that could even be exhibitionism? Julia Ouko: yes, it is exhibitionism on the part of the man to show the concubine that his love for her is deeper than that for his own wife. Humphrey Ojwang: ok, she’s saying that what she has observed today is that men, some men have two types of love: the love for his wife which is sober and cool, and is not exhibitionist; and there is also the other love—the love for the mistress which she observed in the society today. The love for the mistress (not the wife) or concubine, this is more exhibitionist than the love for the wife. So the man may exhibit what you were talking about more when he’s with his concubine or mistress to show the concubine that she’s more beloved than the actual wife. But as from many wives, Luo wives they have only one type of love: the love they have for their husbands, and that’s the cool and the sober love. That’s a trend which she has witnessed or observed in the society.

236

Gail Presbey and Humphrey Ojwang

Gail Presbey: ok, that’s interesting but now I just want to ask why are some women expressing anger to their husbands more openly now than before? Humphrey Ojwang: why is it that women nowadays quarrel with their husbands publicly, but this used not to happen in the past? Is it that they have got some freedom that makes them tell their husbands certain things that they could not do in the past? Why is it that women today can openly express their anger but in the past they tried very much and contained their anger? Julia Ouko: There was a lot of respect for one another; the husband respected the wives, and the wives reciprocated. Everyone was self-disciplined and the institution of marriage was highly respected in the society. So people respected those who were married. Promiscuity was not found; neither men nor women were promiscuous, so there was very little cause for conflicts since the norms governing marriage life was strictly adhered to. The traditional Luo family planning method also discouraged men from being promiscuous because much as they abstained from being intimate with their wives, did they also refrain from any other woman. There was also a norm or a guideline that no one should have an affair with another one’s wife. This norm was adhered to, to the letter, and it enhanced love and respect among couples. But presently promiscuity, cheating in marriage would make either of the spouses very upset and wives normally express their anger publicly against their husbands when they discover cheating in the marriage. Humphrey Ojwang: The only reason why women express their anger publicly at their husbands today is that some men are promiscuous; they have relationships outside the marriage and this brings tensions and conflicts. In traditional society men were not promiscuous, they could be polygamous because it was allowed. But in today’s society, polygamy is almost shunned by modern people, but they keep mistresses or concubines on the sides, and when the wives discover cheating-that cheating is going on in the marriage then they really get angry and they sometimes explode and show open anger to the husbands. So that’s one reason why this trend is taking place. Gail Presbey: could she say some things about . . . Gail Presbey: what does she think about women’s changing roles in education or the work place? Humphrey Ojwang: she would like you to say something about women in terms of education and jobs because they go to school and get jobs today as opposed to the past. Has there been change in terms of women’s roles as a result of them receiving education and getting employment? Julia Ouko: I don’t see any big change at all because even if a woman is working in an office, when she comes back home from work, she heads for the kitchen. She still has to wash her husband’s clothes and iron them; she has to be the first to rise up to prepare breakfast and prepare the children for school. In fact the burden for women especially working class women has increased in modern times . . .

Appendix 2

237

Humphrey Ojwang: there isn’t much change in terms of roles in spite of education and the work place, as she puts it. So if anything, the burden has become heavier because the woman in spite of her education and her employment in an office or wherever, a factory or wherever, still goes back home and she goes to the kitchen straight from work, and she prepares the meals and may be she feeds the family, she prepares the kids for bed, then she goes to bed. And she’ll be the first person to wake up again to prepare—may be warm water for her husband, she wakes up may be at 4.00 O’clock in the morning, prepares breakfast for the husband, prepares the kids to go to school, she leaves the kids at school, she goes to work. So is it just education and employment or just increased the burden for the woman? The working woman is even more burdened than the non-working woman. Gail Presbey: does she . . . this is the last question. Does she think that women in that situation could ever succeed in challenging their husbands to help them with these chores to make it more . . . Humphrey Ojwang: working wives are also housewives when they come back from work-they have to do all sorts of domestic work as already mentioned; can they tell their husbands to help them in the household duties such as washing clothes, ironing, cooking, et cetera, because they are both going to work and return home in the evening? Is it possible, because times have changed, for women to claim equality with their husbands so that they can ask their husbands to help in household chores? Julia Ouko: that’s the time when fists will talk! Humphrey Ojwang: it’s going to be a fist fight. That’s her answer. Gail Presbey: it can be done but it won’t be easy? Humphrey Ojwang: it won’t be easy. Gail Presbey: ok, I would like to thank her very much for this discussion and I would like you to ask her if it’s alright with her if I, you know, make a transcript of this and include it in a future book that I might write. Humphrey Ojwang: she has thanked you profusely for allowing her to involve you in this important discussion, and she now requests you to allow her to make a transcript of the interview which she may later use to write a book so that future generations might have access to the great teachings contained in the book to come. Do you allow her to go ahead? Julia Ouko: there is nothing wrong with that because what I have said is the truth and we very much long to have them recorded, but we’ve never found anybody interested in our knowledge and eager to put them down. So she can take what she regards as good for her and leave what she considers as bad, because I believe you are going to “sieve” whatever I’ve said, is that so? Humphrey Ojwang: yes. Julia Ouko: so you will sieve them and take all the good ideas . . .? Humphrey Ojwang: yes. She’s saying that . . . Julia Ouko: even if she intends to write a book, let us all put faith first, because all depends on God’s will, so God should come before everything else. When

238

Gail Presbey and Humphrey Ojwang

she succeeds in writing her book containing these great ideas, the future generations would benefit a great deal. But, while her efforts are commendable, the world isn’t what it used to be; everything is going to the negative and life is becoming very difficult. Nobody actually bothers about this teachings even with all that importance they have. Humphrey Ojwang: she’s saying things have gone really bad in the society but your effort is commendable in the sense that you’re recording things that they know but were unable to record. So if things like these are recorded and handed down to future generations, then they will beneficially live. So she’s granting you permission that you can “sieve”—she has used the word “sieve”—sieve whatever she has said and if there is anything which is not so good, then you can leave that out, you can edit that out. Whatever you find useful should be sieved and put together for the good of posterity. Gail Presbey: ok, thank you very much. Humphrey Ojwang: she has thanked you for your kindness. Gail Presbey: I would also like to know if I can take her photograph. Humphrey Ojwang: she asks you that is it alright if she takes your photograph so that your picture could also appear on the back of the book she will write, and people will remember you as Lady Julia Ouko from Kamagambo Sare, like, you see, the book on the late Paul Mbuya over there, with his picture on the back of the book? Julia Ouko: It’s not a bad idea. . .

Appendix 3 Interview with Ntetia Nalamae, Olepolos, April 25, 1999 Conducted by Gail Presbey (Translation by Daniel Sasine)

Gail Presbey: I would like to start by knowing your name and why you were named this name. Ntetia Nalamae: I am called Ntetia. I was named when I was at my father’s home. Gail Presbey: Does this name have a meaning? Ntetia Nalamae: I am given this name by my parents. This is the name I used all through until I got married. As soon as I was married I was given another name at the husband’s home. The name is Nalamae. Daniel: Does this have a meaning? Ntetia Nalamae: Nalamae means that I came from a far distance, i.e., from Enkapi to Orkuraru. Gail Presbey: Have you ever gone back since you got married? Ntetia Nalamae: Yes. But my family was not at the exact place (Enkapi). They had shifted to a place called Kimasiany. This is where I gave birth to my first born. Gail Presbey: Did you come to this place after you had the first-born only? Ntetia Nalamae: Not at all. We shifted from Masiany to Enkasurai where I gave birth to my second and third born. My fourth born is Olaiguanani (traditional chief). His name is Pelela. This was at iig’arojj. We went back to Enkapi and I gave birth to my fifth born. From there we went to Lenyamu where I gave birth to my sixth born. We shifted from there to Olepolos where I gave birth to Simantoi and Ntina and Ntina is my last born. From Olepolos we went to a place around Kisames. From there we came to this place, and apart from the first and second born, all the initiation ceremonies of my children were done at this place. Gail Presbey: Are you going to stay here or you will still move to other places? Ntetia Nalamae: We are not going to move to another place. The thing that we might do is to renew the home because it’s old enough. 239

240

Gail Presbey

Gail Presbey: For all these places that you have been moving, do you construct new houses all through? Ntetia Nalamae: Yes I do. Our love for animals (cattle) was beyond reasonable doubt. As we moved we moved with our animals. Gail Presbey: Did you like moving to all these different places or you found it difficult to bear? Ntetia Nalamae: We were young and our love for cattle was great. We therefore enjoyed shifting from one place to another. Gail Presbey: What do you mean exactly if you say “love” for livestock? Ntetia Nalamae: This love for livestock is derived from the husband himself. The husband was the head of the home and his words were and are final. There was no way we could evade being close to the cattle. The husband had the love for livestock and thus we had to emulate him. Gail Presbey: Do you have a physical love for cattle or you have affection for cattle? Ntetia Nalamae: As much as I cherish the physical aspect of cattle I feel that the love for cattle is right from the bottom of my heart. Gail Presbey: Are there cattle that you feel that you love them more or you have a general love for all cattle? Ntetia Nalamae: There are categories of cattle. There are cattle with a good color, that is, an appealing color to one’s eyes, one with much milk compared to the rest while others are cows which will always lead the rest while grazing etc. These factors will always force one to have isolated love for these cattle. Gail Presbey: How do you feel when a cow that you think you love most is slaughtered? Ntetia Nalamae: I feel offended when this happens. But a woman does not always have a right when it comes to policy-making. You have little or nothing to do when this happens. Gail Presbey: Have you ever participated in decision-making and perhaps had an influence in deciding which cow to be slaughtered? Ntetia Nalamae: There’s a time I was in decision-making. Gail Presbey: How did you approach your husband and probably convinced him? Ntetia Nalamae: I called him by his first born’s name. I would explain to him reasons to why this but not that cow could be slaughtered. I gave him an option and he agreed. But these decisions would always go otherwise. Gail Presbey: How often does he accept your decisions? Ntetia Nalamae: He does agree most of the time. Gail Presbey: Are there some areas/topics that you can freely discuss with your husband and others not? Ntetia Nalamae: This will depend on how one is close to her husband. The closer you are to your husband the wider the range of topics for discussion. For a wife who is not close to her husband, it is most probably that the husband turns down the discussion.

Appendix 3

241

Gail Presbey: Do you think that you are close to your husband, hence he agrees to your decisions? Ntetia Nalamae: Yes. Being the first wife, I am more entrusted to many things. The first wife has many responsibilities in a home. My husband is always happy with me because I am the one who gave birth to the very first children. Gail Presbey: How soon did your husband marry the second wife? Ntetia Nalamae: It’s after quite a long time. After the birth of the fifth born. Gail Presbey: How many wives are you all together? Ntetia Nalamae: We are two. Gail Presbey: Did you like the kind of life that the Masaai led, that is, moving from one place to another, looking after cattle? Ntetia Nalamae: It was not a bed of roses. I would prefer the present life because it’s not tiresome. Gail Presbey: Why do you prefer settling other than the previous life? Ntetia Nalamae: I am aged and I am unable to move from place to place. Gail Presbey: I am interested in learning more from old people, the way they view life, their comparison of life today and in the past and their general approach toward life. Ntetia Nalamae: To me life is worthwhile when you are able to bear children that bring life-continuity and to live to see one’s grandchildren. Gail Presbey: What is your approach toward seeing your goals achieved? Ntetia Nalamae: I perform a lot of prayers to God. I pray to Enkai to give me children, grandchildren and livestock. Gail Presbey: How did you come to know Enkai? How was your understanding about Enkai right from your childhood until your present age? Ntetia Nalamae: When we were young we would construct small houses (play) and we requested God to give us female children, and as we grew, up to now, we came to realize the existence of God fully. Gail Presbey: Can you remember exactly when you came to know Enkai? Ntetia Nalamae: As soon as I gave birth to my first born. When I delivered, I called the name of Enkai saying “oh God the sympathizer.” Gail Presbey: Did you have knowledge of Enkai prior to the birth of the first born and later felt closer to Enkai after the first born? Ntetia Nalamae: When one is young one does not know Enkai consciously but as soon as you give birth, you will have full realization. Gail Presbey: Why is it, that it’s after you give birth that you feel closer to Enkai? Ntetia Nalamae: This is due to age. When one is young the knowledge is limited. But as soon as you get the first born it means there’s an increase of knowledge. The child brings totality in one’s life. Gail Presbey: As soon as you started bearing more children did you felt more closer to Enkai? Ntetia Nalamae: You’ll get added knowledge and closer to “Enkai.” Gail Presbey: What is this knowledge (realization) that you get?

242

Gail Presbey

Ntetia Nalamae: After prayers to “Enkai,” Enkai gave me more knowledge to settle peacefully with my husband until the time the second wife came to join me. Things started becoming better after the arrival of the second wife. Gail Presbey: How was life before the second wife? Ntetia Nalamae: Life was not easy before the second wife. There was a lot of work. After her arrival we became three, that is, the husband, me, and the second wife. We were able to share ideas. Gail Presbey: What kind of ideas did you share? Ntetia Nalamae: We shared ideas on how we can have a big family. We were able to live together in harmony. Gail Presbey: How did you resolve conflicts among yourselves? Ntetia Nalamae: When we disagreed we didn’t have a physical confrontation. When this happened one just goes to her house and in the evening we come out and chat to one another. Gail Presbey: What do you do so that come evening you are okay? Ntetia Nalamae: After going to the house I try to figure out the real cause of the conflict and in most cases I would realize that I was on the wrong and go to the second wife and ask for forgiveness and the second wife would always do likewise. Gail Presbey: How do you realize that you are in the wrong when you are alone? Ntetia Nalamae: What would happen if you wronged your mother? Are you not going to realize that you were in the wrong? Gail Presbey: I would certainly know. But I am just imagining that some people cannot admit their faults and continue being angry. I wonder what you do in questioning yourself to admit that you were in the wrong and I wonder because some people might be too proud or unrealistic to sit back and think about the mistake. So how do you go about it? Ntetia Nalamae: I had always thought that the second wife is more or less my daughter since when she first came she was young and therefore I took care of her. I would feel very sorry to see her in trouble. I therefore approached this issue in this perspective. Gail Presbey: Have you ever shared the issue of Enkai’s existence with your children and probably your grandchildren? Ntetia Nalamae: Yes. Gail Presbey: What do you tell them? Ntetia Nalamae: I advise them on being responsible to Enkai and elders. They should also love one another because God provides love. Gail Presbey: Is there a time that you feel that God shows love to you, and at times does not show? Ntetia Nalamae: When God blesses one to have a child and the child grows up, then this is one time when I feel God is so close to me. But if one gets a child and dies then it means that God is not close to you. Gail Presbey: Has this ever happened to you?

Appendix 3

243

Ntetia Nalamae: Yes. Gail Presbey: How do you cope with this situation when it happens? Ntetia Nalamae: You’ll be frightened, and annoyed. But there’s nothing you can do to “Enkai.” Gail Presbey: Why do you think that God is unquestionable? Ntetia Nalamae: When God decides to hate one, he does that. Gail Presbey: Do you think that there are reasons for God to do this? Ntetia Nalamae: There’s no reason because since I grew up I have never offended anybody. Gail Presbey: Do these events take long, or it takes a short duration? Ntetia Nalamae: It takes a short duration. However, memories will always make one to recall the sad past. Gail Presbey: Apart from your description of Enkai that is being supreme and powerful, how do you describe Enkai as in terms of masculine and feminine aspect? Ntetia Nalamae: The nature of Enkai is positive. The children and cattle that I have are due to “Enkai.” Gail Presbey: According to you is Enkai masculine or feminine? Ntetia Nalamae: Enkai is a woman. Gail Presbey: How do you know? Ntetia Nalamae: When God comes in the form of lightning, we say “woman save us.” Gail Presbey: Why do you say that “woman save us?” Ntetia Nalamae: We tell Enkai to save us from killing us. Gail Presbey: How do you relate God being feminine to the average woman? Does the average woman have the same strength as Enkai? Ntetia Nalamae: The woman is powerful because Enkai is powerful. Enkai threatens warriors. When lightning comes the warriors draw their swords and say “let’s fight the woman.” This means that the woman is powerful. Gail Presbey: Does an ordinary woman have the power that Enkai has? Ntetia Nalamae: We have power. If it were not for a woman children and other wealth would not have been acquired. Gail Presbey: Are your powers limited probably because of the presence of men? Ntetia Nalamae: A man takes over immediately the woman bears children and after helping to establish a family. So women have limited powers. Gail Presbey: Do you think this is good? Ntetia Nalamae: This is not good. They should not dominate the whole scenario. There should be equality. Gail Presbey: Have you thought this for long? Ntetia Nalamae: I remember in my heart but there’s nothing I can do. Gail Presbey: Can you give examples of such intimidation, where you feel that men are unfair?

244

Gail Presbey

Ntetia Nalamae: Equality is paramount in the sense that after the couple is aged, they always come together and share both ideas and material things. Gail Presbey: What would happen if an old man marries a young lady? Will the man not be aged and leave the young lady? Ntetia Nalamae: When the old man dies the young wife will be taken care of by the old man’s sons. They will cater for her material needs. This will just be the same. Gail Presbey: Have you ever suggested that women should also be treated equally the same as men? Ntetia Nalamae: Yes I did. When our husband confronts us I always let his tempers go down, and I would ask him, why should he confront us always while we are also human-beings like him? He would re-think the matter and admit that he was on the wrong. Gail Presbey: On this issue of corporal punishment (caning), is it accepted by the Maasai people or can it be opposed? Ntetia Nalamae: In the past, there was no law that said that women should not be caned. But in the modern Maasai society things are changing. Caning is not pronounced as such. There is a new culture saying that women should not be caned. Gail Presbey: Where is this change in caning coming from? Is it from outside influences or within the community itself? Ntetia Nalamae: We are not aware of external influence. I think it’s a general sense of concern. For instance, when a man goes to take alcohol and comes fighting his wife using a sword, I think this is unethical and dangerous. So, this kind of attitude is totally discouraged. Gail Presbey: What can a woman do in case of such an ugly confrontation? Ntetia Nalamae: There is nothing much a woman can do. The woman goes back to her parents. The parents come back and give a caution to their in-law. In case of parents’ death, the brothers will be in charge of their sister. Gail Presbey: About this sword confrontation, has it been there before? Ntetia Nalamae: No it was not there. This thing is a present issue. In the past people were not used to drinking alcohol in the manner it is drank today. There was ordinary and fair caning in the old days. There was big respect between the man and his in-laws, now that respect is no longer there. Gail Presbey: Why do you think that men today are overdrinking hence the dangerous caning? Ntetia Nalamae: Before there was only drinking at special events, ceremonies. Now there are drinking places that sell alcohol anytime, so this increases the opportunities for drinking. Enkai brings changes. Sometimes Enkai is very far away, and sometimes, like when someone conceives and gives birth, Enkai is very close. I was born in the year of Loondug’on, when a certain age group called Illooshoron was just graduating to become junior elders.

Appendix 4 Interview with Professor Henry Odera Oruka, October 27, 1993, University of Nairobi Kai Kresse1

Kai Kresse: Prof. Oruka, you are one of the most famous African philosophers. Could you please give us a short sketch of your philosophical career? H. Odera Oruka: Well, I studied in Kenya beyond the high school and then from there I went abroad. I went to Sweden where I studied (in the beginning) mostly science with philosophy as one of the subjects—I couldn’t get a scholarship to do philosophy during those days but only to do science—but on my own initiative I got into philosophy and I did both subjects at undergraduate level. Then I left Sweden and went to study philosophy in the United States of America (USA). At that time mainstream philosophy in both Scandinavia and USA was mostly logical positivism and linguistic philosophy. But I was more interested coming from science—in philosophy that will be useful in understanding the problems of Africa, for helping to liberate it and also sustain its independence, and for that matter I became naturally interested in ethics, social political and legal philosophy. These constitute what they call in Uppsala “practical philosophy.” My studies were in the sixties and early seventies, so then I got my first degree and PhD from Uppsala, Sweden. While the MA was from Wayne State, USA, I came back to Kenya in the early seventies and started a career here as a lecturer of philosophy. When I came here the department was that of philosophy and religion combined and most of the staff were theologians and priests (mostly foreigners who had no time for African philosophy). I came back here and although I had not necessarily specialized in African philosophy, I started researches in the subject and intensified the struggle to separate the department of philosophy from the department of religion. We succeeded in doing this nine or eight years later and I became the first chairman of the philosophy department. I started with only three lecturers, but today as I

245

246

Henry Odera Oruka et al.

am talking to you we have a teaching staff of up to 14 in the department of philosophy alone. Today, I am former chairman, but I am happy to be in such a position. Kai Kresse: In your concept of “Sage Philosophy” I think you tried to prove that philosophy and thus rationality is traditionally part of African cultures. But this is partly denied by some philosophers even African philosophers. Why is it denied or why is there an opposition against your standpoint, what do you say? H. Odera Oruka: I want to say in fact that rationality or reason is always a part of any culture, no matter whether the people are Chinese, African or whatever. Although we say this, it does not mean that rationality is immediate trait of everybody. In a serious sense, this cannot be so. Only in a loose way you can say that everyone is rational. But in a serious way, every culture has people who specialize in science and in rationality, whether they are Greeks or whether they are whatever. Even in the Greek philosophy, not everyone was philosophical. How many . . . Socrates, Plato, etc., did we have? When the colonialists came to Africa they were interested in the mass of Africans, not in the individual creative persons. If there were such people they were either exterminated or simply ignored, because the colonizers did not want to admit that from a culture, a “primitive” culture as they call the African culture, could come people of creative minds, either in a scientific or in a philosophical abstract sense. So they were ignored. The colonialist went with a mass culture and a mass culture is always a culture which is indifferent to rationality, whether in Europe or in Africa. Kai Kresse: And the opponents of your philosophy, what reasons do they give for denying rationality to Africa? H. Odera Oruka: Even some of them are Africans. The reason they give is a very weird reason. Their reason is that rationality, reason, science, technology, all these are typical Western, typical European legacies. If we try to identify with these it appears they claim as if we are becoming either brainwashed or we are feeling an inferiority complex. They make a scientific philosophical mistake, first: to think that science is Western only, and also that reason is Western or European. That is not true even if you go to the moon. What is true is that Europeans have had a long tradition practicing science and rationality. Kai Kresse: In Sage Philosophy you interview sages, wise men or women in the countryside who grew up traditionally, the professional philosopher is the interviewer, he does the interviews. Is this a real philosophical work or is it not rather just a function, like a prompter in a theatre? What would you say? How can the philosophy be the philosophy of the sage if the interview is directed or led by the professional philosopher as the interviewer? H. Odera Oruka: But that is in fact what happened even among the conventional classical philosophers. They were able to produce their thoughts only because they were led by their fellow philosophers producing questions and answers—as you are now trying to question me. People write books and articles against others who then respond. That is a form of dialogue, you know. Many

Appendix 4

247

philosophers, even the great ones have been able to produce their thoughts only because they were provoked by other philosophers. If they would not have been provoked, they would not have written down these wonderful thoughts. So in our system with the sage, were are trying to provoke the sage—as a midwife— to be able to help him produce what is after all potential in him but which he has no forum generally to practice. That is what were are doing. However, if you say is that really philosophy, well, there is nothing like real philosophy. Philosophy is wider than that. I don’t take the so-called typical Western conception of philosophy by which philosophy must only be a systematical, rigid, logical argument. Philosophy can also be a kind of wisdom, it’s a perspective on life and it can be expressed in many forms it can be expressed even in a literary novel form, it can also be expressed in a dialogue which may outward look philosophically harmless. So there are many philosophical ways, Nietzsche is said to be a philosopher, but when you read Nietzsche and then you read Kant, you can see that Kant is a formal thinker. Nietzsche is Freudian and witty and still he is no less a philosopher. Kresse: Concerning African philosophy and the development of African philosophy, what do you think are the most interesting and and important developments taking place in African philosophy at this time? H. Odera Oruka: Many things. First, is the fact that they are writing it down. That is very important. The texts, discussions, the debates are getting their ways into books and articles which may be preserved. And if they are preserved, that is quite a contribution to African philosophy, for future generations. A problem current people have had is that they were starting from “tabula rasa”: they had no previous texts, to go by and therefore many conclude there is no philosophy. But the future generations will find it easier, they will build on ready thought which is already preserved. So that is one thing. Secondly, they are also communicating with the rest of the World and the rest of the world pays attention to what is going on in Africa. Now some parts of the world have begun to take seriously the fact that there has been African philosophy. Those two points I think are the most important things on the issue of African philosophy today, there may be others. Kai Kresse: And in which fields of philosophy is thorough critical philosophical reflection needed urgently, especially regarding Africa in the state it is in now? H. Odera Oruka: It is needed in all fields. It is not good to say we should restrict to one area, although immediately I would stress that we need some African philosophers to be very good thinkers in the areas of epistemology and logic without apology that these are European matters. I think many of our upcoming students tend to go into the area of African philosophy of culture. And it seems as if doing African philosophy is doing only culture philosophy. I mean

248

Henry Odera Oruka et al.

one could also do epistemology, theory of knowledge, logic, and apply them to Africa. I want some of our upcoming students to do logic, do epistemology, do other areas of philosophy. Many dissertations we get at our universities tend to go in for works like Sage philosophy. I have had as many as ten theses in this country alone—written directly on that kind of area. Fine, but I’m saying that should not appear as the only area. I’m not encouraging them, but I don’t have enough guts to stop all of them, you know. But of course, apart from having said that, Africa is in a lot of social, economic and political problems. We need very good thinkers in the area of political philosophy in the area of social and legal philosophy, really, I mean good ones, not mediocre ones, because they could create something which could help Africa get out of its turmoil. Part of our problem is not only economic problems but also the fact of not having qualitative thinking to help people get out of their quagmire. Kai Kresse: In what way do you think can Africa or African thinkers give an important contribution to world philosophy or to the international philosophical debate? H. Odera Oruka: Through the kind of discussions they are doing already and also through discussing not only specifically African problems but also the problems which are philosophical anywhere. I think African philosophers should discuss other issues, African philosophers should even discuss German philosophy and be sent to contribute to German philosophy, discuss Chinese Philosophy, Indian Philosophy and interact with those philosophers, have debates, have seminars with them. Kai Kresse: I was also thinking of one question of you in that interview in court in an extract of Sage Philosophy where you are asked by the judge: “Do you believe that there are spirits?” and you answer: “I’m still looking for a reason why I should not believe in spirits. Perhaps it would be a service to scholarship and Law if you could provide me with a reason.” I am just quoting this because I think in Europe or in Germany especially philosophers shy away from questions of religious or metaphysical or spiritual quality, so I thought that would be a point where Africans (African philosophers) think differently and maybe they can contribute something to philosophy on the “supernatural” or metaphysics. What do you think? H. Odera Oruka: Yes, I think so, I think they can. There are many European thinkers and American thinkers. . . . I think they shy away from that because they have been spoiled by “over-rationality,” so-called. The use of and the belief in spirits are usually woolly. But in this particular case I think the person questioning me was not honest because they say they don’t believe in spirits because they are civilized and Christian, that was their position, you see? And they do not have reason, a deep scientific philosophical reason for saying that spirits do not exist. I have my reason, I was asked whether I actually believed or not, but I did not answer; I was just throwing the question back to him because I

Appendix 4

249

thought he could not get away with that. Because their position was that when you are educated, when you are a Christian, when you are a person like that you are beyond believing in things like spirits, like taboos, you know—which I think is colonial brain-washing even some of the Christian beliefs are not better than taboo-beliefs. I would say I am looking for reason, that was not really my answer to that question as you can see. Kai Kresse: If we turn over to the field of political philosophy and regarding your book “The Philosophy of Liberty” at the end of the first part you give a sharp critique upon the state African countries are in. You distinguish a ruling and a dominating class. The ruling class which is the ruling class of people on the country itself, and the dominating class mostly coming from the outside, not living in the country but dominating the political and economic life in the country, and you say that the ruling class is used as a “filter” by the dominating class. I think or I felt that you were being quite pessimistic in regard to the possibility of changing the structure of African states because you say that the independence needed for a social revolution is not there. Are you really very pessimistic or in what way do you think something like real social liberty can be achieved in Africa? H. Odera Oruka: I think it can be achieved: I am not ultimately pessimistic. I think it can be achieved. It will take a long time. It will take education but as you see these last two years there have been beginnings of changes. But you see what’s happening now, what’s happening? There is a lot of twaddling again. Like you know Kenya tried to have a multiparty system and people were happy and shouted “there is going to be democracy!,” but what is happening today? We seem to have gone back to square one. In the Philosophy of Liberty what I was saying is that the real social change by which you understand the real social political change in Africa was being contained by the dominating class which was in fact not within Africa. For that matter it can be contained for a long time. If the dominating class would be living in Africa that would be a different matter. Social change can come very easily, it is different in countries like the former Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union, the dominating class was within. So they were dominating and so the social change was meaningful, but in Africa what is immediately possible for us is to change the rulling class but changing the ruling class is just like changing names or persons, you see. Because the dominating class will bring another group. So that’s no social change but some sort of coup d’etat, that’s what I was trying to say. I do not know whether the situation has changed, I don’t think so, even with the coming of democracy. Now the dominating class has even extended because the IMF and the World Bank—which were before not really part of the dominating class—have joined the big governments of the world as part of the dominating class so that countries of the African are now even more squeezed. Social change, if it will come in the immediate future it will have to come with also the support of a part of the dominating class. But they can take a long time to come.

250

Henry Odera Oruka et al.

Kai Kresse: So the prospect is to influence the dominating class outside Africa so that they influence their sponsored rulers to change Africa. H. Odera Oruka: This is happening today, it’s the cause of the so-called multiparty democracy in Africa for the last two or three years. Part of the reason why this has been happening is because there is some influence on the dominating class and you see that they put pressure on the African governments: “You must change to democracy, otherwise will get no aid” etc. You know that, yes? And even in South Africa, you know, part of the change of Apartheid has come from the influence of the outside forces. Kai Kresse: You distinguish between six different levels of liberty. They are called economic liberty, political liberty, cultural liberty, religious, intellectual and sexual liberty. You say that economic freedom is the most fundamental and all the other freedoms are dependent on it. Now if we regard the bad economic hardships in Africa and furthermore take into account that it can not get rid of them itself, must we not lose hope that Africa will be, will ever be free in the sense that you meant when you said “real freedom” that is freedom on all six levels. H. Odera Oruka: Yes. It’s a sad story but it has to be accepted, that if all these other liberties have to be meaningful in Africa, change has to take place on the economic level. Yes but due to the extent that Africa is so dominated economically and that it may not be free for other 30 to 50 to 100 years, it will mean that those other levels will remain superficial. I think the example of South America has shown. South America got “independent” 200 years ago. Most of them have not yet developed to catch up with rest of the so-called “free world.” Why? Because they are economically dominated, they are not independent, not free. And they have been trying, places like Cuba had to go in a kind of suicidal way. They tried to get out. Chile, in 1973 completely got suppressed. So it is a sad position. But it’s possible that can really—with determination—can really get some kind of economic liberty, and then other things will follow. Take for example a place like Libya, Libya is not a poor country, and that’s why it keeps talking big and even standing up to the USA, you know. They can eat and they can function. So comparatively they are more independent than many of us in Africa. Independent does not mean you have to be equal to the USA or the Germans, it may simply mean that you have natural resources, indigenous resources on which you can depend for two or three years when you are at war with other nation(s). But if you cannot feed yourself the moment you begin to quarrel with say, the Germans (within one month) you are strangled, you see. Kai Kresse: One last question about the philosopher in general. Does a philosopher have a social responsibility or an obligation to work upon questions or problems concerning his society or his peers—or does he have total freedom of investigation? H. Odera Oruka: What’s the difference?

Appendix 4

251

Kai Kresse: Well is there something like a social responsibility of a philosopher to contribute to his society? Oruka: The communal well-being? Yes, I think there is as I think there is for all people, for all professionals, isn’t it? A philosopher has this, even in a deeper way than the other professionals. Because a philosopher is supposed really not just to be doing philosophy but to use philosophy to understand the implications of all action in society. And to try to warn his people. So he has an even greater responsibility than just an ordinary professional. Although usually the philosophers are not easily listened to. Very few philosophers are lucky to really get people understand them or read them, you know? Even in Europe, some philosophers became famous, because people read them usually second hand. Take example of Karl Marx: most of the people who talk about him never even have read him really. Even Kant, you know many of the Germans never even have read a page of Kant, but just because of his fame they talk about him. But usually, in their immediate surroundings the philosophers have often very few readers. Because even those who read them find them a bit dry and abstract, you know. You need to be an actor to get people to read you, or an entertaining novelist. But still it does not mean, a philosopher should give up because people do not read him. It is your responsibility as a philosopher to write what you think Kresse: So a philosopher cannot ignore the ethical aspect of his work? H. Odera Oruka: Yes, he/she must not. He must be committed. Even someone like Nietzsche who appeared philosophically reckless, I think he was very ethically committed in a way which we may not immediately understand, so it seems to me.

NOTE 1. First published in Quest: Philosophical Discussions Vol IX No.2, Vol X No.1 (1995–1996), 22–31.

Appendix 5 Philosophy Must Be Made Sagacious Interview with Professor Henry Odera Oruka, August 16, 1995, University of Nairobi Kai Kresse1

Kai Kresse: Prof. Odera Oruka, you have become famous through your concept of sage philosophy and the book of the same title. I think there are three main aspects of the concept of sage-philosophy which are very important: First of all the documentation of an extra academic philosophical activity in Kenya or in Africa as a whole, then the reconstruction and evaluation of traditional philosophical concepts (also in African languages) and their introduction into a wider academic philosophical debate, and thirdly the emphasizing of an ethical obligation for philosophy as a whole in regard to the well-being of society and humanity at large. So I would like to start asking some questions on these points. To the first point: there have been some criticisms on the methods of documentation, one saying that the differentiation between folk sages and philosophical sages is not always clear from the apparent texts or those materials that have been published, another saying that the philosophical sages are not thorough and systematic enough to count as philosophers in the strict sense. Also the problematic point of suggestive questioning by the interviewer (a professional academic philosopher) is raised. Taking these points into account, how is the project of sage philosophy going on? Is it not true that there is a need for more thorough and dense material in the documentation of each individual sage in order to live up to the described criteria for the project of sage philosophy which you yourself give in the first introductory chapters of your book Sage Philosophy? H. Odera Oruka: Let me take up this issue of the distinction between the folk sage and the philosophic sage. That distinction was pedagogically made and it is important that we do that. However, it is not always clear that one individual is completely a philosophic sage and another only a folk sage. In many individuals there is a bit of both. Of course there are some who have more of the philosophic sagacity than of the folk sagacity in them, but the distinction 253

254

Henry Odera Oruka

is still important because those who have more of the folk sagacity in them are not always able to be critical of the customs, of their surroundings and of their environment. They take that for granted and they are able only to describe what those customs are, what the environment is as they were told by their history and their forefathers and by their conventions. However, those who have more philosophic sagacity are able to critic what they see in their environment, to critique what they see as the beliefs of the people, to critique even their own self-beliefs and beliefs of the world. So I think that distinction is important. But, in the book Sage Philosophy I give these as examples, but I think you are right that some of the philosophic sages need longer texts for themselves so that they are able to bring out all that is in their thought. I have tried to do this in some other ways, like in the book on Odinga Oginga (Odinga Oginga—His Philosphy and Beliefs, Nairobi 1992) which is the whole book on an individual thinker where we examine a lot of areas, topics and issues with him. They are around 160 pages on this individual—and he really came out, he came out more as a sage than as a politician. I think as a politician he tried to do several blunders in sometimes posting his ambition to be president and so on. But he was a wise person who examined this society and examined the world. Kai Kresse: So there are plans of presenting other sages in this thorough sense? H. Odera Oruka: Yes, this book of Odinga for example was taken to be the first in a series and there will be more in that series. We are going to pick up more individuals, not necessarily only in Kenya but also in other parts of Africa and develop full length books with them. So that perhaps would satisfy the criticisms that you were referring to, that the first book of Sage Philosophy is only a start and not yet full length documentation. Kai Kresse: By the way, in which language are the interviews done? Is it always in the language of the sage or does that differ from case to case? H. Odera Oruka: It is always in the vernacular of the sage, in his or her own language. Kai Kresse: Then to the second point, on reconstruction and evaluation of the traditional concepts: I think one great achievement of your approach is that it links oral philosophy to the academic discourse, and traditional conceptions to the modern debate, and thus it also prolongs a “decolonization of African thought” that for example Wiredu called for in several essays. This is done because concepts in African languages are used for philosophical criticism or explanation. Now, how far are these different concepts in the different languages (for example Luo, Meru, Gikuyu or Luhya) discussed by the academic philosophy here, how much do they contribute to the current philosophical discussion in Kenya and the University of Nairobi? Is there an active interaction going on? H. Odera Oruka: Yes. You see, the data we obtain from these sages, be they Luo, Gikuyu or Meru, let’s say, here in Kenya, are very useful because they are used as raw material for academic philosophical debate. We take e.g the text of one given sage, folk sage or philosophic sage, then we subject that to analysis,

Appendix 5

255

to investigation and examination, and so they contribute to positions of our own debate. We have been doing this, and e.g this year I gave a course at one college near Nairobi, which was simply called “Sage Philosophy, the roots of African Philosophy and Religion.” There we subjected a number of texts of these sages to critique and analysis between me and the students. It was becoming very interesting because e.g one discussion we had was on the issue of wisdom. And there was a sage who had given a definition of what he sees as wisdom, who is wise and who is not wise. When we were discussing this concept of Stephen Kithanje it was clear that we were not able to go beyond what he had been able to define, what he had projected forward. He was so deep in his thoughts that we had to confess that although we had read all those books from Western thinkers and so on, we had not yet met a thinker who has anything better to give than that philosophic sage on the question on what is wisdom. Even though this sage was an oral sage, I mean he has written a book but he went to school for one year only. This is the kind of thing we do and you can see that some of the propositions that the sages put forward are so profound that they are sometimes not second to some of the great philosophers, like Plato. Kai Kresse: What actual impact do these philosophers have on the process of a reorientation of their communities in these confusing times between a lost confidence in the past and an insecure future, especially for the communities in Africa? H. Odera Oruka: Those philosophical sages if they are lucky, they act like gadfly of their communities, they subject community to critique from time to time and make the people have second thoughts about their beliefs and their practices. If they are not lucky, sometimes the community rebels against them, and then they become very lonely. One of them told us that some of the wise people do not like to reveal their thought because it tends to go against the communal conventions and beliefs and if they do, they might become isolated in their community; so they sometimes hide their real thoughts. Kai Kresse: Now I would like to take the third point, the one of ethical obligation as a sort of guideline through the interview. The position you emphasize in your works on sage philosophy as well as in your philosophical works as a whole may be put under the slogan “philosophy has to be made sagacious,” even and above all academic philosophy, that is to say that it should combine its analytical and critical techniques and methodologies with a wisdom that is ethically committed to the well-being of the community or a society as a whole. In a paper of 1993 you refer to you teacher Ingemar Hagenius as an example of a sagacious philosopher motivating you start your own researches on figures like him in the African context. You refer to him with a sort of optimistic motto that “wisdom summons might.” In your work points of connection for this commitment are to be found on the levels of tribal cultures, common African cultural traits, humanity, and in

256

Henry Odera Oruka

your latest writings even global ecology as a whole. I would now like to focus on some crucial points of the normative role pf philosophy and some of those levels under the central aspect of the project of an intercultural philosophy which, in my eyes, is also actively forwarded in your work. H. Odera Oruka: The normative role is very important. In deed it is this normative aspect of philosophy which differentiates what I would call the sage proper from the mere philosopher. The mere philosopher, one could call him a scientist of the mere thought in a broad sense he looks for thought, he looks for principles that guide nature, for principles that guide society, he looks for knowledge. The mere philosopher looks for pure knowledge and tries to express knowledge, but the sage cares about knowledge, and he adds to knowledge morality, the moral spirit. He aims at the ethical betterment of the community that he lives in. So, to me, the sage has these two policies: he has the science, the knowledge plus ethical obligation for himself, for the community and for the world. Kai Kresse: You once said the philosophy plays an important role for the safeguarding and advancement of a culture, and that as a presupposition to this, intellectual freedom is needed. Elsewhere you state that each culture has philosophical traditions. Is it thus your opinion that each culture offers intellectual freedom? And is there a proportional relationship between the amount of freedom of thought and the influence of philosophy in a culture? H. Odera Oruka: I would not say that every culture offers intellectual freedom. There are such cultures which hinder freedom. But what I would like to stress is that in each culture there are philosophical foundations, even if those foundations are not well thought out, they are there nevertheless. I know for example that the Islamic culture has for a longtime suppressed philosophical thinking. I was in Egypt last year where we were celebrating the 800th anniversary of an Islamic philosopher called Averroes, almost a contemporary of Thomas Aquinus. He suffered a lot and his thought was suppressed. Now, 800 years later, people in Egypt are thinking of him, and they are reviving his thought and so on. And you can realize that for a number of centuries the real great philosophers of Islamic thought were suppressed. I am giving this just as an example for a culture that has suppressed intellectual freedom. Kai Kresse: What about this relationship between freedom of thought in a culture and the influence of philosophy on that culture, does that go hand in hand? H. Odera Oruka: Yes, I think that philosophy grows better if there is some freedom of thought in a culture. We have seen that in the example of the history of Western philosophy and science where the cultures allowed freedom of thought and freedom of science and both philosophy and science progressed better than in other cultures which did not guarantee this freedom. Kai Kresse: In a paper of 1993 you state that the reign of modern Western philosophy has begun to end with the topic of definition of philosophy turning up as a major issue. You refer to the writings of Richard Rorty as an indicator of this state. Your own understanding of this philosophy seems to be an inherently

Appendix 5

257

plural one, as you say that it is “a central perspective on the whole.” You also say that “as a perspective, philosophy is a direct product of intuition.” Intuition, you say, is one of several universal cultural fundamentals in regard to possible knowledge of world (among the others, logic, science, religion and common sense). It is also the significant source of impetus for new orientation in philosophy. Now regarding the concept of “intuition,” is this not a rather unfortunate term, since the possibility of a clear differentiation between philosophy and, e.g., esoteric can be watered down by diffuse connotations? H. Odera Oruka: Why are you taking it as unfortunate? I am explaining intuition as one of the cultural fundamentals for philosophy in an extensional answer to Wiredu. What problems are you having with that? Kai Kresse: Your definition of “intuition” for my understanding seems to be quite clear and near to what Kant called “Urteilskraft,” a role of judgement on the grounds of which hypotheses can be evolved without the secure basis of an empirical knowledge. I take your term to be unfortunate because of the common connotations to the term “intuition” lead into the direction of unprovable statements, esoteric and fictitious stories. H. Odera Oruka: On the usual sense intuition seems indeed to be a concept which is somehow debased, isn’t it? It is as if it is not carefully thought of, rather some kind of guesswork, right? But the way I use it is not that. I use it in a much deeper way. You see, there are certain judgements made which are not logical, in which we draw certain conclusions, but on premises which are not clear so that is not easy to link these premises to the conclusions that have been drawn. Nevertheless, the conclusions seem to be well thought about. And this originates from intuition, and if we are taking philosophy as a perspective in a final analysis, and ultimately I am saying that philosophy is a perspective and thus a product of intuition on where you or your community should go, where to head to. This has a lot to do with intuition. Of course it has also a lot to do with logical thinking, judgment and reflection, and also scientific observations; conglomerate with this is also intuition which plays a very great part. Some of the philosophical announcements of the great philosophers are wonderful but nevertheless you cannot see the clear logico-methodological scientific merit behind them. That is what I mean. Kai Kresse: You also stress on the need to understand the own and the other cultures better, the goal being a global exchange and interaction. For this, a conception of philosophy of all cultures on an equal level is needed. But since the contents of philosophy are also determined by culture and the specific forms of the cultural fundamentals may create obstacles for the dialogue, you say that the cultural origins should either be bracketed on the one hand and to be made transparent on the other, these seem to be contradictory options with very different implications and consequences. H. Odera Oruka: Yes, I think you made it very clear, to be bracketed or to be made transparent. It might perhaps be difficult to bracket the cultural attachments and

258

Henry Odera Oruka

backgrounds. But, it is possible to make them transparent. And if that is done, our dialogue become fair because we can mutually understand the cultural prohibitions of the other. Then we try as much as possible to defend each other. So I think these should be made transparent. Kai Kresse: So the perspective is rather to make transparent and bring the net of cultural surroundings into the dialogue itself? H. Odera Oruka: Yes, you see here we are just coming into a dialogue. I am Odera Oruka, I come from Kenya, I come from Africa, these are my cultural upbringings, attachments, commitments, right? But beside this, I believe that I also should be a philosopher and intellectual who would like to discuss a certain topic with you, but then again you would have to excuse me if my cultural prohibitions might not allow me to be too free in this. And just the same would be true vice versa. Kai Kresse: Right. Now for transcultural dialogue on equal terms that you envisage in a “trans-racial ideological culture” you are calling for a revised conception of history to act as a judge or referee. How could this conception of history look like? H. Odera Oruka: It is not really that history should be revised. What I am saying is that some dialogues are such that we might not be able to say who has won and who has lost, who was on the right and who on the wrong. And then I am saying that in such situation it is possible to refer to history as the judge, which means, we carry on the dialogue but leave it for history to decide upon the outcome of it. So eventually history will judge. Kai Kresse: Then the judgement of “history” would have to be not ideological. H. Odera Oruka: No, not ideological, simply meaning a long-term perspective as to the question who has won. Like for example there has been apartheid in South Africa for a very long time, and some people might possibly have said that apartheid was the truth, you know, because it had been going on too long and established itself. And it could have appeared that those who were anti-apartheid were wrong. But now, apartheid has been removed but again we do not know for how long this change will take place. History is too long. Perhaps the next 1000 years will decide for apartheid the second time, maybe it will come back, we do not know. This is what I mean by the position of a judge. Kai Kresse: The Austrian philosopher Franz M. Wimmer is in a similar position to yours and also with ethical impetus craving for a fertile intercultural exchange of philosophies on a level of equality. To signify the specificity which is a dialogue with a multitude of participants, he has introduced the term “polylogue” into the debate. What do you think about this term? H. Odera Oruka: That sounds very attractive and seems to be alongside what I am trying to say. But the question is: how is the polylogue possible from his point of view, if I understand polylogue correctly as different dialogues from different cultural perspectives on an equal level?

Appendix 5

259

Kai Kresse: His position is that a real intercultural philosophy which takes the philosophies of all the different cultures serious in the same sense has to take the form of polylogue, meaning that participants from all cultures are mutually interacting with the same rights of expression of their philosophical thoughts, in a situation of discussion free of the powerful domination that rule the international political and economic exchanges. H. Odera Oruka: That is indeed attractive. But again, I would like to know how he would make this possible, how to gain it. The practical way to get there, does he suggest that? Kai Kresse: Well, that just seems to be the thing to achieve, a difficult goal but a necessary one. H. Odera Oruka: Yes, so it is an ideal he has projected for which he now can search practical ways to lead us there. Kai Kresse: The call to realize the right to a minimum standard of living for all (which is also part of a UN-declaration) has been raised by you already in your early writings like e.g Punishment and Terrorism in Africa. This call is picked up in your recent proposal of “Parental Earth Ethics” where you evolve a picture of humanity, and in a second version the organic ecosystem as a whole, as one family which is governed with the principle of interdependence and responsibility; this family picture you have taken from Hawaiian cosmology. You derive relatively simple “global ethical laws” built up by (a) the “parentaldebt-principle” and (b) the “individual-luck-principle” The rules inherent in those principles are said to offer enough to deal with any appearing conflict. The leading idea to this approach could be described as “the right to a human minimum of all,” violators of which (e.g., the greedy and the unsocial) would be dispossessed and their possessions redistributed. Your concept which regards the world as “common wealth” of all and take the “interrelatedness” of everything into account is in your own words offering “a motivation both for a global environmental concern and a global redistribution of the wealth of nations.” I find this very attractive, in regard to the main ethical idea but also because it is an intercultural approach in itself. But, how probable do you think is a realization of this concept you call “Parental Earth Ethics?” H. Odera Oruka: For a long time it was not easy at all to see that it should be probable. But now, with the global concern for environment, it is becoming possible to see that it is becoming realizable. Because now a great number of people who are very much concerned about environment, they become trans-national, you know. Of course the problem of environment, you cannot confine it to one nation. If for example someone interferes with environment, let’s say here in Kenya or let it be in Norway or anywhere else in the world, he is not just interfering with that country or specific environment but with global environment and even humanity as a whole. So more and more people are beginning to see that the earth is a type of organic unity. We are living on the earth as human beings and it is a common good to all of us, so it is important that we take good care of it.

260

Henry Odera Oruka

If you do not take good care of it, you will be hurting other people also. And so the earth is not what many people have thought it to be before, you know, so people being born with a certain kind of luck which is said to include a certain kind of legitimacy so that these (richer and more powerful people) have the right to enjoy the earth more than the others who were not born with these contingent qualities, you know. We are seeing that whether or not you are born with certain spatial or racial qualities—I mean, no human being on earth should be more privileged than others. Because your own life, even if you yourself are better off, your own life depends on the lives of others, depends on the activities of the others. If I spoil my part of the earth I also affect the conditions of your life relevantly, whether in Germany or wherever. So, with this local perspective on the environment, it is now easier to see what I have been calling the “parental-debtprinciple” and the “individual-luck-principle.” The parental debt principle combines all of us and it is a higher principle than the “individual-luck-principle.” If, let’s say Germany is better off economically than Kenya, then this has to do with the individual-luck-principle. Then the Germans still have obligations to the rest of the world, even to Kenya, to Rwanda and all the other countries on the basis of the parental debt principle. Kai Kresse: I really find this approach very attractive, but this envisaged humble ethical minimum that you call for, for all, would also mean that quite a couple of richer societies would have to cut down their standard of living. So this humble minimum somehow is contrary to the envisaged maximum of consumption which characterizes “Western” societies. But nevertheless you are optimistic about politics taking the way toward the minimum that you propose? H. Odera Oruka: Yes, in being concerned ecocentrically you also help anthropocentrically, isn’t it? Everything on earth is important, you see. Even some of the small insects that we might think are useless, if you regard the earth as organic unity, then they are not useless. Maybe an earthworm may not look important, less important, e.g., than the German head of state, but maybe there could be no German head of state without the existence of the earthworm. Kai Kresse: My last question refers to the topic of liberty in society and political philosophy. In some early writings and in your The Philosophy of liberty you stress the need to freedom of thought and action, especially in the African context, in order to attain a real social liberty which again guarantees a human society. But you also seem to be skeptical on that. In one article you refer to a fictitious but representative country of ARID (African Republic of Inhumanity and Death) and in your book Punishment and Terrorism in Africa you speak about “Uncivil Republics” and “legal terrorism” carried out by states in Africa. Now, have these circumstances changed meaningfully since the times of your writings? H. Odera Oruka: Yes, I should say something about that. When I wrote ARID, it was a long time ago, I think in 1978. In fact, what I wrote in ARID has in the

Appendix 5

261

meantime been confirmed. When you see things happening in Liberia, or, of course in Rwanda, in Somalia, things have become worse than at that time. I mean a place like Rwanda is a great example of that, so is Somalia and so is Liberia. So I think, I fear that it has been over confirmed. But my wish is that we should eventually, overtime get out of ARID. Kai Kresse: And how are you yourself coping with an authoritarian government in Kenya which is quite opposite to the liberating principle of philosophy? H. Odera Oruka: Well, I do my writing in which there is criticism. I raise criticism about regimes that are inhuman and I do not spare even my own regime, my own government on that. However, of course I write more or less like a philosopher. Perhaps many of my readers do often not see the real seriousness of my criticism due to perhaps philosophical flavor that flow with that. But apart from that I do also write in newspapers. In these articles I also raise criticism against what is happening. For example, one of my last articles this year was on how will the Kenyan in 30 years time think of the Kenyan today. I was trying to see maybe how they would think of Kenya, how they would blame us, how they would blame the current regime and so on. And maybe some of the important people of future Kenya might be some of the parking boys that we can see today. For example in the streets of Nairobi. Kai Kresse: And as a philosopher and writer in this way you feel free in order to write all that you should write? H. Odera Oruka: Yes, I feel free, and from time to time a lot of people when they meet me in the street they say: we like your writings. People have gained from it, they read, and when I stay some months without publishing anything in the papers, they ask: what is happening? Why are you not writing? For example because of this recent conference, I have been very busy for the last half year or so, so I have not been writing for the papers at the weekend. But I will be doing that again soon. Kai Kresse: Prof. Odera Oruka, thank you very much for this interview.

NOTE 1. First published in A. Granness and K. Kresse (eds.), Sagacious Reasoning: H. Odera Oruka in Memorium. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 251–260.

Index

Acholi, 3, 22, 27, 50, 72n15, 187–94, 196–203, 214–16 aesthetics, 22, 27, 146, 150, 152, 155, 190, 199, 203 Africanization, xii, 60–62 African Traditional Religion (ATR), 62, 64, 72n16, 73n16 anthropology, x, xx, 1, 12, 15, 17, 21, 51, 72n7, 79, 85, 88–91, 94, 142, 143; anthropology of philosophy, 15, 17, 20, 92; colonial anthropology, 88 art, 18, 26, 51, 76, 142, 144–46, 152, 154, 189, 214, 215; art history, 142, 144, 146, 214 ATR. See African Traditional Religion

culture, cultural, xvii, xviii, xx, xxi, xxvi, 1, 3, 7, 9, 11, 13–16, 18, 20, 22–27, 37, 39, 40, 42–50, 52–53, 57–60, 62, 64–70, 71n4, 72n6, 77–78, 80, 82– 84, 86–91, 93, 94, 95n5, 101, 109, 118–19, 127, 128, 130, 137, 141–46, 153, 155, 158, 162–66, 171, 173, 176, 187–91, 199, 202, 210, 213–15, 220, 221n1, 222n6, 225, 227, 233, 234, 244, 246, 247, 250, 255–59 Cusicanqui, Silvia Rivera, 169, 173, 178 customs, xvii, xviii, xxi, xxii, xxviin6, 24, 29n4, 39, 57, 59, 89, 115, 162, 227, 254

Barasa, Chaungo, xv, 8, 28 Barber, Karin, 18, 30n9 Biko, Steve, 139 colonial, vii, x, xiii, 2, 7–9, 12, 21, 40, 41, 43, 44, 60, 62, 80, 83–85, 88, 89, 124, 141, 142, 146, 148, 151, 152, 155, 164, 166, 168, 177–80, 190, 225, 249; colonizing, 80; neocolonial, viii, 165 critique, xxv, 1, 4, 5, 7, 14, 17, 20, 27, 79, 80, 82, 89–91, 94, 101, 106, 130, 131, 140, 162, 164, 172, 175, 176, 180, 181n18, 182n24, 216, 217, 219, 220, 249, 254, 255

decolonial, 1, 4, 7, 9, 26, 29n3, 78, 79, 91, 94n4, 162–65, 170, 175, 178, 180, 181n8, 217, 219, 220; anticolonial, 11, 163, 173 Diagne, Souleymane Bachir, 1, 16, 29n1, 84, 163, 180n4 Dikirr, Patrick, M., xxiv, 4, 28, 37, 100, 102, 103 education, educational, vii, xi, xiii, xx, xxi, xxviin1, 2, 12, 13, 20, 27, 39, 40–45, 48, 62, 63, 74, 107, 114, 119, 149, 172, 173, 190, 202, 213, 225, 227, 236, 237, 249 endogenous, 6, 10, 17, 78, 94n3

263

264

Index

ethnography, 79, 90, 94, 96n15 ethnophilosophy, viii, xi, xiii, 5, 7, 9, 17, 22, 29n7, 42, 48, 67, 79, 80, 82, 84, 87, 91, 95n6, 133, 137, 138, 141, 162, 164, 166, 168, 212, 214, 216, 220 Eurocentrism, Eurocentric, xi, 5, 7, 21, 39, 42, 78, 105, 120, 219 Fanon, Frantz, 67, 68, 165, 166, 168, 170, 173, 179, 181n12, 216 feminism, feminist, 25, 100, 101, 105, 107, 109, 118, 119, 213, 227 fieldwork, 2, 17, 18, 20–22, 25, 29n2, 30n10, 52, 79, 88, 90, 145, 227; philosophical, 25, 79 Finnegan, Ruth, 57, 58 gender, 95n11, 101, 103, 104, 111, 112, 144, 145, 154, 156, 168, 181n13, 191, 214–16, 230 God, xviii, xxi, 40, 49, 103, 106, 108, 111, 112, 114–19, 147, 148, 151, 177, 191, 195, 200, 202, 209, 226– 29, 237, 241–243 Gramsci, Antonio, 3, 24, 25, 29n3, 77– 79, 81–83, 85, 94, 94n1, 95n5, 95n9, 95n12, 95n13, 171, 212, 218, 219 Graness, Anke, 4, 11, 13, 23, 37, 69, 84, 88, 138, 161, 211 Griaule, Marcel, 29n6, 56 Gyekye, Kwame, 12, 15–17, 79, 91 Hallen, Barry, ix, x, xxviin9, 17, 19, 29n2, 30n10, 49, 50, 91, 95n7 Harris, Leonard, 170 Hellsten, Sirkku, 109, 110 history, vii, xiii, xx, xxviiin12, 1, 3, 4, 16–18, 21, 24, 26, 37, 51, 57, 58, 60–63, 66, 69, 71, 79, 80, 88, 89, 95n14, 124, 127, 128, 130, 137, 138, 141, 144–146, 152–57, 165, 166, 211, 212, 221, 225, 254, 256, 258; philosophy, 18, 79, 221. See also art, history Horton, Robin, 58, 84

Hountondji, Paulin, 2, 5, 6, 18, 42, 66, 67, 72n5, 79–84, 91, 94n3, 95n6, 133, 137, 164, 216 indigenous, viii, ix, xii, xiv, 2, 6, 24, 27, 37–39, 43, 46, 47, 49, 52, 53, 57–60, 64–66, 70, 71, 71n2, 78, 80, 89, 94n3, 105, 106, 163, 166, 167, 181n17, 187, 188, 190, 202, 203, 215, 221, 228, 250. See also thought, indigenous thought intellectual(s); African, xvi, xxv, xxvi, 47, 59, 68, 80, 164; local, 30n9; organic, 29n3, 93, 171, intellectual tradition, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 13, 15–17, 21, 80, 81, 84, 91, 163 Janz, Bruce, 4, 11, 25, 26, 91, 123, 131, 138, 212, 213 Kagame, Alexis, 164 Kamba, 40, 148, 156 Kenyatta, Jomo, xxviin1, 107, 123, 124, 132–35 Kikuyu, 29n4, 40, 101, 103, 143, 148 knowledge, vii, ix, xiii, xviii, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 13–15, 17–20, 24, 27, 29n4, 37, 39, 51, 53, 57–66, 68, 70, 71, 71n1, 71n2, 78–80, 84, 85, 87, 89–93, 95n3, 95n5, 104, 114, 115, 128, 136, 141, 144, 146, 152, 154, 172, 188, 189, 199, 202, 213–15, 217–19, 221, 222n6, 227, 228, 237, 241, 242, 248, 256, 257 Kresse, Kai, xix, 4, 8, 11–13, 19, 20, 28, 29n1, 69, 85, 88, 92, 107, 138, 161, 164, 180n1, 202, 245–56 Lambek, Michael, 12, 19 Lanfranchi, Benedetta, 3, 24, 25, 77, 212 language(s), vii, xxiii, xxiv, 3, 7, 8, 12–16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 28, 29n5, 29n7, 38, 42, 46, 48–50, 52, 57–59, 67–69, 71n3, 73n21, 86, 87, 92–93, 94n2, 117, 143, 153, 163–65, 175, 176, 180n4, 187, 215, 220, 254

Index

literature, vii, xiii, xvii, 1, 4, 8, 16, 17, 19, 21, 25, 39, 40, 51, 53, 59, 61, 62, 64, 69, 70, 72n13, 72n14, 72n15, 73n18, 80, 84, 92, 100, 104, 135, 144, 146, 153, 154, 157, 165; East African, 62, 73, 202; oral, 3, 24, 57, 59, 64, 66, 67, 69–71; wisdom, 11, 12 Luhya, Luyia, xviii, xxiv, xxviin7, xxviin8, 68, 148, 254 Luo, xviii, xxviin6, 24, 25, 28, 29n4, 40, 41, 43–46, 91, 96n15, 99–101, 113–15, 118, 123, 125–27, 225, 227, 229–36, 254 Maasai, 3, 22, 25, 26, 28, 99, 100, 102, 103, 110–12, 141–57, 194, 214, 215, 244 Masolo, D.A., vii, xxviin10, 4, 5, 8, 17, 37, 38, 47, 50, 51, 53, 64, 65, 79, 80, 91, 92 Mbiti, John, 62, 64, 65, 164 morality, 49, 59, 107, 114, 118, 256; moral, x, 25, 86, 89, 105, 107, 114, 115, 126, 128, 131, 132, 227, 256 Mudimbe, V.Y., 5, 7, 12, 92 Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo, 1, 94 Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 2, 5, 7, 8, 12, 16 Nyarwath, Oriare, 1, 4, 57, 60, 61, 63, 103, 180n1 Nyerere, Julius K., 61, 134, 135, 139 Ochieng’-Odhiambo, Frederick, xxviin10, 8, 37, 41, 42, 100, 102, 103, 120n4 Oduor, Reginald M.J., xxiv, 4, 24, 37, 48, 51, 211, 213, 214 Oginga, J. Odinga, xix, xxvi, 11, 25, 43, 44, 123–39, 212, 227, 254 Ogotemmêli, 29, 31 Okere, Theophilus, 49 Okot p’Bitek, xvi, xvii, 2, 7, 12, 62, 64, 72n7, 96n15, 189, 190 orality, oral, vii, xx, xxviiin12, 3, 5, 6, 12, 18, 19, 24, 27, 57–59, 63, 64,

265

66, 67, 69–71, 72n13, 72n15, 73n21, 80, 84, 162, 167, 219, 221, 228, 254, 255. See also oral literature Otieno, SM, xviii, xxv, xxvii, 29n4, 101 Outlaw, Lucius, 99 Owakah, Francis E.A., 3, 4, 8, 24, 57, 63, 219 philosopher(s), xvi, xvi, xxv, xxviin1, xxvii, 2, 12, 16, 28, 38, 58, 66, 69, 71n2, 79, 83, 86, 88, 95n5, 105, 124, 129, 131, 132, 137, 165, 168, 170, 190, 212, 213, 215, 217, 218, 246, 247, 250, 251, 256, 258, 261; academic, 16, 28, 167, 253; African, 64, 82, 91; professional, 40, 46, 67, 94, 136; sage, 141, 157, 203, 255 philosophy: African, xix, xxii, 1–7, 15–17, 20, 23, 26, 27, 29n1, 30n10, 37, 38, 41, 42, 47, 49–53, 61, 63, 79–83, 87, 88, 90, 91, 128, 137, 139, 141, 154, 167, 169, 211, 219, 247, 255; folk, 3, 80, 81, 85, 87; practical, xv, xxv, xxvi, 245 Pido, Donna, 3, 22, 23, 26, 141–45, 148– 52, 154, 157n1, 189, 191, 197, 214 Pido, Odoch, 3, 22, 23, 27, 141, 154, 187, 190, 191, 214–16 politics, xviii, xxi, xxvi, 21, 26, 44, 59, 123, 128–31, 133, 134, 136, 137, 165, 174, 178, 179, 180n3, 181n15, 260; political, xv, xvi, xvii, xxiv, xxvi, 5, 7–10, 20, 21, 26, 28, 30n11, 40, 43–45, 53, 61, 70, 78, 82, 83, 89–93, 124, 125, 128–35, 138, 139, 142, 145, 148, 149, 151, 154, 155, 163, 164, 166, 173, 179, 213, 214, 217, 219, 220, 227, 245, 248–50, 259, 260 postcolonial, xii, xiii, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7–12, 43, 44, 71n4, 84, 105, 106, 141, 164–66, 180n2, 181n8 Presbey, Gail, xix, xxi, xxv, xxviin10, xxviiin12, 3, 4, 8, 10, 14, 25, 28, 30n8, 37, 49, 67, 78, 99–101, 111, 119, 138, 213, 214, 221, 227–44

266

Index

racism/racist, 163; anti-racist, 163, 219 religion, xviii, xxi, 1, 17, 20, 21, 41, 59, 62, 64, 67, 72n16, 84, 86, 96, 106, 115, 117, 119, 133, 146, 147, 152, 154, 190, 203, 227, 245, 255, 257 Sacks, Jared, 4, 6, 22, 23, 26, 30n11, 161, 217–20, 221nn4–6 sagacity, xi, xx, xxiv, xxxii, 28, 38, 41, 42, 66, 67, 69, 80, 85, 87, 106, 123, 126, 127, 129–33, 137–39, 145, 161, 166–68, 227, 253, 254 sage; folk sage, 3, 14, 46, 64, 69, 87, 101, 104, 127, 140, 221n4, 253, 254; philosophical sage, xi, xiii, 3, 14, 19, 28, 69, 87, 104, 126, 127, 137, 138, 140, 161, 171, 219, 253, 255. See also philosopher(s), sage philosopher; woman sage Sartre, Jean-Paul, 130, 163, 165, 176 Senghor, Leopold, 163, 164, 166, 168, 180 Socrates, 12, 38, 93, 156, 246 Sodipo, J., ix, x, xix, xxviin9, 17, 19, 29n2, 30n10, 91 South Africa/n, 4, 10, 25, 26, 30n11, 109, 155, 161, 162, 178, 188, 250, 258 Soyinka, Wole, 164 Spivak, Gayatri, 221 Sumner, Claude, 12, 29n6 Swahili, Kiswahili, 18, 46, 68, 147 Tempels, Placide, 59, 65, 66, 164, 180n5 thinker(s), viii, ix, xii, xiv, 2–4, 6, 7, 9– 13, 15, 19, 20, 24–27, 29n3, 39, 43, 48, 65, 71n2, 77–79, 83, 84, 87, 91, 93, 94, 102, 126, 139, 141, 149, 152, 154–56, 162, 163, 168, 171, 178, 179, 217, 218, 247, 248, 254, 255; African, vii, 9, 20, 155; Muslim, 155 thought: African, 16, 17, 49, 59, 72n6, 141, 155, 164, 181n6, 254; critical, 5, 9, 37, 137, 168, 173, 219;

indigenous, xii, 38, 106, 187, 188, 203, 215; philosophical, 7, 16, 48, 67, 165, 168, 170, 172; system of, 26, 72n6, 106, 142, 154, 188, 215 Towa, Marcien, 81, 216 tradition, xviii, xxii, xxv, 2–7, 9–11, 13, 15–18, 20, 21, 24, 27, 29n1, 38, 39, 42, 47, 57–59, 63, 64, 67–69, 78–85, 88, 89, 91, 92, 101, 104, 106, 108–14, 118, 119, 125, 137, 138, 140, 144, 146, 147, 155, 163, 187, 189, 213–15, 217, 218, 220, 221, 227, 246, 256; traditional, 6, 13, 20, 24, 37–39, 41, 43, 49, 51, 57, 62, 63, 65–67, 71n2, 72n7, 73n16, 78, 81, 83, 84, 87, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95n5, 111–15, 125–27, 143, 162, 168, 179, 188, 213–15, 217, 218, 227, 229, 230, 232, 236, 239, 246, 253, 254 ubuntu, 18, 169, 170, 181n15, 188, 189, 212 Uganda/n, xvi, xxviin17, 43, 72n7, 96n15, 132, 159, 187, 189, 190, 215, 216 utu, 18, 101, 107, 108, 119, 213 Vansina, Jan, 58, 63 Wiredu, Kwasi, 2, 5–7, 29, 29n2, 49, 50, 60, 67, 72n6, 79, 83, 84, 91, 164, 212, 217, 254, 257 wisdom, xx, xxi, xxv, 3, 11–13, 18, 23–26, 41, 57, 58, 63–69, 85, 87, 96, 99, 103–6, 125–30, 133, 135, 138–40, 161, 167, 168, 170, 175, 177, 179, 187, 192, 197, 198, 203, 207, 212, 220, 228, 247, 255; didactic, 58, 63, 85, 87, 104, 126, 161, 167, 168; folk, xx, 3, 26, 63, 64, 87, 167, 170, 179; popular, 58, 63, 65, 85, 87, 126, 161, 167 woman sage, 99, 101, 102, 115, 225, 227 worldview, xvi, xvii, 16, 22, 79, 81, 83, 85, 88, 90, 188, 203

About the Contributors

Kai Kresse is the author of Philosophising in Mombasa and Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience, co-editor of Sagacious Reasoning: Henry Odera Oruka in Memoriam, Knowledge in Practice: Expertise and the Transmission of Knowledge, Abdilatif Abdalla: Poet in Politics. He is a Professor of Anthropology at Free University Berlin and Vice-Director for Research at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO). Before that, he was an Associate Professor of African and Swahili Studies at MESAAS, Columbia University. Oriare Nyarwath is a senior lecturer of philosophy at the University of Nairobi. He has published widely on topics in African philosophy, especially on Henry Odera Oruka, who was his mentor and on whom he also wrote his PhD. He is the author of Traditional Logic: An Introduction, and co-editor of Odera Oruka in the Twentieth Century among others. Chaungo Barasa is an independent scholar who has conducted sage philosophy research together with H. Odera Oruka, Gail Presbey, and others. He was included by Oruka as one of the sages in the original sage philosophy volume (1990/91), and has published on sage philosophy and other matters. Bruce Janz is a professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Philosophy and Digital Humanities at the University of Central Florida. He has published widely on African philosophy, hermeneutics, space and place, and digital and interdisciplinary approaches and debates in the humanities. He is the author of Philosophy in an African Place and many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.

267

268

About the Contributors

Benedetta Lanfranchi gained her PhD from SOAS, University of London, with a thesis on traditional justice systems in Northern Uganda, where she drew on the philosophy of Hannah Arendt. She has held postdoctoral research and teaching positions at MISR, Makerere University, Uganda, and at the University of Bayreuth, where she is currently based. She is completing a monograph with the World Philosophy Series at Indiana University Press. Reginald Oduor is a senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Nairobi. He has published widely in the field of African philosophy, political philosophy, and has special interests in African philosophy, political philosophy, ethics, and philosophy of religion. He has published journal articles, book reviews, and feature articles, and has co-edited a couple of volumes on African philosophy, among them Odera Oruka in the Twenty-First Century. In addition, he played a pivotal role in establishing the New Series of Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya, in which he served as founding Editor-in-Chief from 2009 to 2015. Humphrey Jeremiah Ojwang is a senior lecturer in linguistics and anthropology at the Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi, Kenya. Dr. Francis E. A. Owakah is a senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Nairobi where he teaches philosophy (since 1992), specializing in practical philosophy and human rights. He is currently the co-coordinator, Human Rights Program at the Centre for Human Rights and Peace (CHRP), University of Nairobi. Dr. Owakah helped in setting up philosophy programs at Dar es Salaam University and in particular setting up the PhD program at the Universidade Pedagogica, Mozambique, where he has supervised pioneering PhD students to completion. He has visited many local and international universities and institutions. His areas of research include logic, philosophy and society, history and politics of human rights, development theory, human rights, African philosophy, moral theory, among others. He has published numerous articles in refereed journals and as book chapters. He is the Africa Editor of Journal of Global Ethics (JGE), executive editor, Nairobi Journal of Human Rights, and associate editor, Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK), besides sitting on many editorial boards of local and international journals. Donna Pido earned her PhD in anthropology from Columbia University, New York, in the 1987. She has lived in Kenya since 1967, has conducted extensive fieldwork, and has worked on art, handicraft, and society among the Maasai. She has published extensively on Maasai design, material culture,

About the Contributors

269

and gender. She is an associate professor of design at The Technical University of Kenya, Nairobi. Odoch Pido is the Eminence Grise of design education in Kenya having taught and influenced Kenyan designers over the past fifty years. His professional work has focused on exhibition, product, and graphic design. He is also a noted voice in the elucidation and analysis of East African culture. Many of his writings are critical looks at his own Acholi culture in the face of war and upheaval. Professor Odoch completed all his degrees at the University of Nairobi where he also taught until 2012. He is now the director of the School of Creative Arts and Media at the Technical University of Kenya. Gail Presbey is a professor of philosophy at the University of Detroit Mercy. She engages in interdisciplinary work that involves philosophy, world history, and political theory, and has covered issues of (in)justice, nonviolent resistance, and feminism in Africa, Latin America, and India. She has conducted substantial research with the sage philosophy approach, which she learned through collaborations with the late Oruka (in 1993 and 1995) and applied with interlocutors in Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, and Ethiopia. She has edited four books, and has published widely on sage philosophy and her other research, and is currently working on a couple of related book projects. Jared Sacks is a doctoral student at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS), Columbia University, New York. In his home country South Africa, he has long been engaged in group research with local communities and decolonial study initiatives and activities.