Afrocentricity can be defined in many ways. Generally, it is intended to allow the Black to lift his head and gain the respect of other races. Its appearance can be traced back to the efforts of African Americans as W. E. du Bois or even Martin Robinson Delany who in the 19th century ushered in a vision of the past, which included a tradition of Black/African historiography incorporating Egypt in its epistemological concerns.

Therefore, since its inception, Afrocentricity relied primarily on a review of the past to assert the great contributions of the Black to the progress of humanity; because Western scientists as far tended to attribute these contributions to other races. Mabika writes in his book la Mystification fondamentale: “the mystifying ideology that supports for two millennia the thesis of zero contribution of the black man has maintained a true ethnocide in the heart of the entire continent, Africa.”[1] Afrocentricity aims to put an end to this false claim of “zero contribution”.

It occurred to me during my doctoral researches that the original African thinking is primarily a thinking centered on the divine. John Mbiti agrees because he writes: “It is well known that Africans are religious beings; each nation has its own system which consists of a set of beliefs and practices. Religion penetrates so much all the areas of life that it is not easy or even possible sometimes to isolate it. That is why a study of these religious systems is ultimately a study of men themselves in my entire complexity of their traditional and modern existence both.”[2]

Theology should therefore play a major role in raising the dignity of Black/African and in a greater involvement and effectiveness of his/her contribution to the progress of humanity.

My Afrocentricity is not intransigent; it does not indiscriminately reject the White’s religious contributions, although it rejects scholastic Christianity, i.e., Western Christianity as influenced by Grecian philosophy. My Afrocentricity rejects also materialistic rationalism. This position is justified by the fact that starting from the data of the Kongo religious culture, I show a convergence between theological doctrines of the Bantu monotheism (which is of Egyptian origin) and true biblical Christianity, demonstrating a common origin for these two religions which should not be other than ancient Egyptian.

In epistemological terms, i.e. in terms of the philosophy of how to acquire knowledge, two ways of thinking are used by humanity to reach to the understanding and the mastery of nature:

The lunar thinking, it’s Western thinking; a thinking centered on materialism and where the supremacy is given to reason over intuition.

Solar thinking: it’s Black/African thinking, a thinking centered on the divine, in which reality is perceived as being outside of physical realm, as being spiritual.

The Black has always evolved in the solar thinking. But, since he lives in the spiritual and cultural domination of the West and the East, the African evolves outside his epistemological and spiritual natural setting. Having abandoned his own epistemological base, the Black only ogles the culture of the West.

The entire Western culture is based on a Hegelian vision of reason as an internal contradiction of knowledge and ignorance in the same brain. While pre-colonial African defined reason as an external contradiction in which the revelations from illuminated ancestors correct the errors inherent to mortal mind. This vision of the old African can be read in his answer to any difficult question: “Let’s sleep and let the head has a dream.”

My afrocentricity is first of all pragmatic, so it seeks presently to solve the essential spiritual and epistemological problems that undermine the dignity and status of the African, to prepare the Black for the advent of the solar thinking. Thus pragmatic afrocentricity seeks to:

Equip Africans to solve problems of:

The fight against witchcraft. Speaking of the blockades that hinder the spiritual development of Africans, Oles Amba says: “One of the obstacles is precisely the belief in witchcraft.”[3]

The restoration of the link between African and his ancestors, an essential element of his epistemological approach.

The definition of the African epistemology, the solar epistemology, an epistemology centered on the external contradiction, as explained above.

Demonstrate the superior nature of African traditional religion by establishing its scientific nature thanks to its convergence with the systematic natural theology. This will enable us to reject efficiently the assertion that the Black spirituality is essentially animistic.

Demonstrate the limits of the lunar thinking, especially as it is based on the non-demonstrable supposition that reality is material.

Establish by a prospective study the imminence of the advent of the preponderance the solar thinking (the original thinking of the Black) over the lunar one.

My afrocentricity aims to equip the Black by enabling him/her to face the future in an approach indigenous to his/her own black culture. This is an Afrocentricity which purports to help the Africans address science, politics, religion, philosophy, etc., in a solar approach. I.e., in an approach of external contradiction and not in the approach of inner contradiction as is currently the case.

Among the tools pragmatic Afrocentricity already offers the Black in his/her migration to a future of solar approach there are:

The animicism, as an epistemological and metaphysical philosophy which is consistent with the Black/African worldview. Animicism, placing God above everything, says that reality is metaphysical and that reason is a series of direct and/or indirect revelations thanks to which one arrives at the solution sought. So this philosophy establishes the external contradiction as the starting point of purely African conceptions.

The kemetic cosmological argument, as a means of confirmation of the Black/African hierarchical monotheistic theology by way of natural theology. Therefore the kemetic cosmological argument not merely establishes existence of God, but it states all the essential doctrines of Bukôngo, the Kôngo religion, by deductive logic alone.

The kemetic big-bang cosmology as a means to prove the convergence between science and religion, a convergence which is the brand of the solar thinking.

The pragmatic afrocentricity has a long tradition in the Kongo nation. A tradition that includes figures such as:

Kimpa Vita (Ndona Beatrice), whose pragmatism not only aimed to bring her people back to their true spirituality, but also to restore the unity of the Kongo Kingdom.

Paul Panda Farnana, the first Congolese to graduate from a university in the Belgian-Congo, the young nationalist who campaigned for the creation of non-denominational schools for the benefit of the Congolese. Panda fought also for the participation of his brothers of race in decision-making bodies of the Congo.

Simon Kimbangu; his pragmatism included also, among others, the fight against the infamous practice of witchcraft and the liberation of the Black from the Western political, spiritual and economic yokes.

Pragmatic afrocentricity does not turn its back to the efforts of our predecessors: Cheik Anta Diop, Molefi K. Assante, Théophile Obenga, etc., since it gives a confirmation of their theories on the basis of a rereading of the facts of the original spirituality of the Bantu and their vision of the universe; because this rereading demonstrates a convergence between Kongo theology and Osirian one.

References:

[1] Mabika Nkata, J., la Mystification fondamentale, Lubumbashi, Presse universitaire, 2002, p. 167.

[2] Mbiti, J., Philosophie et religions africaines, Yaoundé, Clé, 1972, p.9.

[3]Oles a Mbâ, Qui m’en veut, Kinshasa, 2003, p.5.