An insight into the dilemma of african modernity and a theoretical response

Abstract

This work sets out to articulate the different challenges, contradictions and dilemmas implied by what it means to be modern in the African instance and to explore different ways in which this dilemma can be resolved. The Africa implied is black Africa or what is also known as sub-Saharan Africa and by modernity I mean the worldview that has come about through forms of knowledge that arise from and are agreeable to human nature and has harboured a universal potential for freedom, for humanism, and ultimately, for progress. The paper will defend the claim that modernity in Africa is in a dilemma and will attempt to explain the root and nature of the dilemma. It will go forward to articulate the forms under which modernity in Africa will yield its desired dividend with the view that there is a need for what it calls “the African agency” (interpreted to mean constructing modernity in Africa with Africa’s intellectual and cultural capital) through a fresh knowledge base for modernization to come through the cultural geography of African experience in line with the principles of freedom and rationality which are the cardinal principles of modernity.