Decolonization of minds in Subsaharan Africa : identity and social recognition

Abstract

Present facts such, as «failing States», civil and regional wars of ethnic origin or obstacles to the advancement of African unity are indicators of the complexity of the process of building identity and identities in postcolonial Black Africa. The building of the new national and panafricanist identities after decolonization has taken place in a framework that cannot be separated from their. native legacy and contact experiences with the Western-European civilization that would lead to colonization in the second half of the nineteenth century. The road to building new identities and the weight of western world are present not only in the political and economical spheres but also at cultural and intellectual levels. Decolonization and the search of signs of identity and the rewriting of its history therefore needs to overcome cultural and intellectual dependence from the Western world.