Decoloniality in Africa: A continuing search for a new world order

Abstract

Decoloniality is re-emerging within a context of crisis of imagination of liberation, freedom, development and the future. The crisis is mainly manifesting itself at the ideological, theoretical and epistemological levels. Ideologically speaking, socialism as a utopic register has failed, and capitalism is battling to emerge from a deep crisis. Epistemologically and theoretically speaking, dominant social science theories (structuralism, post-structuralism, postmodernism and postcolonialism) are experiencing an epistemic limit. In the Global South, decolonisation that was aimed at liberating colonised peoples and deimperialising imperial power, has only succeeded in pushing 'the physical empire' to the background but failed to deal effectively with 'the metaphysical empire.' This article is a historical reflection on genealogies and the ideological basis of decoloniality in Africa in general, and an assessment of its current manifestations in South Africa in particular - the 'little Europe' of Africa and the last outpost of empire in Africa. Broadly speaking, decoloniality as posited in this article is part of the continuing search for a new base by the excluded and subordinated subjectivities from which to launch themselves into a new world order that is humane and inclusive.

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