Nkolo Ndjodo believes that the proliferation of regional studies institutes in China can contribute to the international promotion of research on Africa. Photo: COURTESY OF LÉON-MARIE NKOLO NDJODO

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In the past decade, a growing number of African scholars across fields such as political economy, development studies, political anthropology, and the natural sciences have turned their attention to the production of knowledge on the continent. Their work seeks to expose Western biases in epistemology, methodology, and ideology, while actively resisting the adverse effects of these influences on African thought. At the same time, they are working to advance the development of a self-sustaining and independent African knowledge system. 

Recently, Léon-Marie Nkolo Ndjodo, an associate professor from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maroua in Cameroon, shared his views with CSST. Nkolo Ndjodo argues that establishing an independent African knowledge system requires a rejection of the premodern subjectivism and pseudoscientific frameworks introduced by the West. In their place, he advocates for the development of a philosophy of African liberation, grounded in an Africanist perspective with Marxism as its ultimate horizon. He also stressed the need to deepen intellectual exchanges and mutual learning between Africa and China, the BRICS nations, and the broader Global South. 

Historical roots of African knowledge 

CSST: In pre-colonial African societies, how was knowledge created, transmitted, and preserved? 

Nkolo Ndjodo: The Philosophy Manual: A South-South Perspective, published in 2014 by UNESCO, highlights two major trends in African systems of thought. The first trend concerns urbanized societies of the Bronze Age, where writing flourished, enabling the acquisition and transmission of knowledge through formal education systems. Hence the existence of numerous literary texts and treatises on mathematics, medicine, ethics, politics, and philosophy. The second trend concerns societies without writing, resulting from the disintegration of large human groups. Here, initiation rites, cosmologies, epics, wisdom tales, proverbs, and strategic games play a crucial role in the construction and dissemination of knowledge. 

Despite these differences, major trends emerge that help define the identity of African thought. In this culture, mysticism and intuition coexist with the rational concern to grasp the regularities and laws that govern phenomena. These observations distance us from the simplifications observed in the approaches of Ethnophilosophy, Afrocentrism, and the so-called New African Thought movement, which are guilty of reducing the status of knowledge to intuition and mysticism, based on methodological and epistemological postulates specific to subjective idealism and empiriocriticism. 

CSST: What role does cosmogony play in the African knowledge system? 

Nkolo Ndjodo: Cosmogonies are considered the ideal transversal frame of reference. Indeed, they provide the explanatory principle for all that exists: the formation of the universe, the genesis of culture and civilization (society, institutions, science, technology, etc.), the place of mental functions, and the mode of organization of thought—more precisely, the relationships between understanding, will, and language. 

More generally, African cosmogonies inform us about the ideological superstructure of Bronze Age social formations, as demonstrated by technomorphic metaphors. Some examples of metaphors are: the Cosmic Blacksmith (to which the Potter’s wife is associated), which symbolizes the Intellect—the active principle that shapes the universe. The blacksmith is the inventor of the principle of knowledge—the Cosmic Copper Egg—the symbol of the world of origins, which explodes to release the various elements that structure reality. 

To summarize, African cosmogonies shed light on ontology, gnoseology, and the civilizing order. In particular, they explain the specificity of the social and political institutions of traditional Africa, where the civilizing function of technological kingship (artisan/farmer king) is emphasized, in contrast to the mounted kingship characteristic of Nordic and Semitic civilizations. 

Grounded in African realities and concerns 

CSST: How do African and Western knowledge systems differ in terms of values, logic, methods, and worldviews? 

Nkolo Ndjodo: African and Western knowledge systems differ in terms of worldview, values, and economic and social regimes. In Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonisation, pan-Africanist and the first president of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah argues that traditional African thought accepts the idea that matter is absolute and independent; matter lives through the tension that exists between opposing forces. 

Cosmogonies also accept the idea of original chaos, which is not nothingness; the world is uncreated and eternal. Foreign influences have perverted this materialist vision and replaced it with the creationist idea of the autogenesis of the world. At the level of values, the ideological superstructure of Afro-Asian formations predominates, with its characteristic features: an agrarian state and social organization; “technological kingship;” a georgic ethos recorded in agrarian myths (the myth of Osiris); and the precedence of law and morality over brute force, with the “logos” subduing the sword. 

Africa shares with China the observance of rites. Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws allows us to measure the distance separating the ideological superstructure of Europe from that of the Afro-Asian social formations. 

CSST: How is African knowledge positioned within global academia? 

Nkolo Ndjodo: A group of important figures played a crucial role in the production and circulation of knowledge during the struggle for African independence. Great figures such as the first president of Senegal and poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet, playwright, and politician Aimé Césaire, American sociologist, author, and activist W. E. B. Du Bois, West Indian psychoanalyst and social philosopher Frantz Fanon, and Kwame Nkrumah marked this era of Negritude and Pan-Africanism. 

After independence, African philosophy experienced a certain decline. It was only with the neoliberal globalization of the 1990s that African philosophy experienced a revival, notably thanks to African thinkers working in major American and European universities. However, there is an ideological dispute between thinkers from the diaspora and those who have remained on the continent. The former, supported by Western scientific and academic circles, seek to impose their philosophical agenda, influenced by postmodernism and postcolonialism. Their doctrines can be characterized as “philosophies of accommodation” or submission to the imperialist order. 

In contrast, African liberation thinkers seek to develop an autonomous African thought, rooted in the realities and concerns of the continent. Although deprived of resources, they succeed in integrating into prestigious international circles and developing an autonomous thought rooted in local realities, with works reflecting the epistemological and methodological concerns of liberation theory. 

CSST: What are the key arguments about the endogenous versus exogenous knowledge systems in Africa, and who are the major stakeholders in this discourse? 

Nkolo Ndjodo: Endogenous knowledge is one aspect of the Deconstruction (Derrida) or French Theory. Foucault defines it as “subjected,” “hierarchically inferior,” and beneath the requisite scientific standard. These “anti-sciences” challenge the “scientific hierarchy of knowledge” and the “institutionalization of scientific discourse” in universities and educational institutions. 

Theorized by Beninese philosopher and politician Paulin Hountondji and Cameroonian political scientist Achille Mbembé, who rehabilitated colonial ethnology, this knowledge belongs to the ideological component of the Washington Consensus, promoted by Western institutions. Ethnology served to manage dominated countries, the goal being to artificially maintain their tribal structures and outdated customs, and to favor the most reactionary aspects of traditional cultures. The goal was to curb social innovation in the name of maintaining the balance of the system. 

The structuralism that underlies endogenous knowledge is incompatible with Marxism, which is the ultimate horizon of the philosophy of liberation, as is the subjective idealism that inclines toward superstition, involving the paranormal, witchcraft, magic, astrology, and animism. 

I teach Chinese philosophy (Confucianism and Maoism in particular) in Cameroonian universities. Mao Zedong Thought opposes all feudal and superstitious ideas and advocates the search for truth based on facts, objective truth, and the unity of theory and practice. This is the path to follow. 

Strengthening exchanges and cooperation 

CSST: What tools, policies, resources, or reforms could empower African scholars and institutions to build autonomous, development-oriented knowledge systems? 

Nkolo Ndjodo: The heavy colonial past and persistent ties of dependency prevent the production of autonomous knowledge focused on development. The World Bank’s educational planning contradicts the main thrusts of the philosophy of liberation, whose objectives were the rationalization of ways of thinking and social structures, the development of productive forces, industrialization—in short, the establishment of a coherent and sovereign productive system to meet the basic needs of the people. 

The failure of the nationalist project has led to the discrediting of the scientific worldview. Hence the hegemony of post-philosophical and post-rational discourse and the promotion of endogenous knowledge and pseudosciences within neocolonial institutions. 

However, structures such as the Kwame Nkrumah Philosophy Club, Cameroon, and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Global South and China Studies, Cameroon, provide a framework for promoting autonomous, development-oriented scholarship, based on the collection of traditions, for a scientific study of the philosophical and technological heritage of traditional Africa. The support of scientific and academic institutions in China, the BRICS, and the Global South will be invaluable. 

CSST: How might African epistemologies enrich global scholarship, particularly in addressing shared challenges like climate change or inequality? 

Nkolo Ndjodo: Alternative epistemologies (epistemologies of the South, plural reason, and endogenous knowledge) are based on a mistaken assumption: the failure of science. Hence their focus on the sensible, intuition, and subjectivity. These epistemologies have led contemporary African philosophy into a major theoretical impasse. This means that postmodernism, postcolonialism, and subjective idealism have weakened African philosophy and social sciences. Their proximity to colonial ethnology denies these approaches access to the rich African philosophical heritage, contained in cosmogonies, wisdom tales, mathematical treatises, moral and political treatises, art, etc. Hence, the need to reconnect with the collection of literary, philosophical, and aesthetic texts for their careful and methodical study. This would allow African epistemologies to contribute to global research and address common challenges, such as climate change and inequality. 

CSST: How can Africa-China exchanges and collaborations contribute to the development of independent knowledge systems in both regions? 

Nkolo Ndjodo: For historical reasons, scientific partnerships have followed a North-South direction, as major scientific, technical, and academic institutions are a legacy of colonization. Since South-South partnerships have been established more recently, African researchers need time to adapt and learn to work with their Chinese, Indian, and Brazilian counterparts. 

Hopes were placed in institutions such as the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) to strengthen partnerships with China. However, as the results were disappointing, the creation of the China-Africa Institute (CAI) was seen as an opportunity to fulfill the long-standing aspiration regarding solidarity between China and Africa in research, science, and education. 

The current urgency is to encourage and support the creation of collaborative research structures such as the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Global South and China-Africa Studies, the Centre for China Studies in Nigeria, and the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University in China, with which I have personally collaborated. They will continue exploring the rich connections between the two worlds of thought, enabling joint research teams to uncover further benefits for our two societies. 

Edited by LIAN ZHIXIAN