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List of contents
Series Foreword
Introduction: Deconstructing Azawad
1. The Plundering of Mali, Past and Present
2. The African Trace
3. The Sahelian Specter
4. The Duty of Violence
5. Nyama, Fratricide, and Reconciliation
6. What Is To Be Done?
Epilogue: Zongo, Sankara, and the Burkinabe Revolution
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Christopher Wise is a Professor in the English Department at Western Washington University, USA. A four-time Fulbright scholar, Professor Wise has lectured in universities and embassies throughout Africa and the Middle East. From 2001 through 2003, Professor Wise taught at the University of Jordan, Amman, developing programs in American Studies and Islamic Studies. Prior to that, he taught on a Fulbright Award at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.
Summary
In this significant new work in African philosophy, Christopher Wise explores deconstruction’s historical indebtedness to Egypto-African civilization and its relevance in Islamicate Africa today. He does so by comparing deconstructive and African thought on the spoken utterance, nothingness, conjuration, the oath or vow, occult sorcery, blood election, violence, circumcision, totemic inscription practices, animal metamorphosis and sacrifice, the Abrahamic, fratricide, and jihad. Situated against the backdrop of the Ansar Dine’s recent jihad in Northern Mali, Sorcery, Totem and Jihad in African Philosophy examines the root causes of the conflict and offers insight into the Sahel’s ancient, complex, and vibrant civilization. This book also demonstrates the relevance of deconstructive thought in the African setting, especially the writing of the Franco-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida.
Foreword
An exciting new approach to exploring to studying Islam in Africa and African philosophy more generally.
Additional text
In this synthesis of philosophy and anthropology, Wise (Western Washington Univ.) explains how many ancient traditions continue to function in contemporary Africa. He focuses on Mali and the Ansar Dine jihadists, and philosophical ideas range from metaphysical questions about self and universe to questions regarding social and political obligation. The main idea Wise seeks to convey is that in Mali Islam incorporated rather than replaced ancient practices. In chapter 1 Wise presents a history of the plundering of Mali, and in the remaining five chapters he discusses the philosophical underpinnings of the challenge posed by the Ansar Dine jihadists. In examining the jihadist ideology, Wise compares Derrida’s deconstructionism with African thought. The struggle, Wise writes, is about freedom, justice, and equality for all Mali citizens under the law. The problem is caste, based on a doctrine of blood-election. Wise reports that this has now reached a point where, in some regions, basic human rights apply only to those who claim to be blood descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. Not an easy read, this book requires a strong background in Continental philosophy and the culture of West Africa. References to philosophers such as Heidegger and Derrida presuppose a familiarity with their work. But Wise very effectively gives priority to African thought. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.
