NEGRITUDE AND AFRICAN IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN THOUGHT

Résumé

The paper critically discusses the ideology of Negritude as espoused by Leopold Seder Senghor, one of the African public intellectuals and Former President of Senegal. The idea of Negritude was also launched in other to tackle the denigrating way the West looks at Africa; especially the aspect of cultural imperialism which gave birth to slavery and colonialism. Though Negritude sees the place of identity as the basis for development and modernization, its idea of African Identity is essentialist in character. What is essentially African was based on a pristine past. This paper contended with that and argues that African Identity in this contemporary era, can be reconstructed through the critical engagement of those values and attributes that are native to Africans, and harmonize the influences of the other to it through reconciling synthesis. This process of reconciling synthesis will galvanize ideas and transform such into actions, for the development of Africa. Nonetheless, the paper in agreement with the ideology of Negritude maintains that no culture is superior to the other. As such in this paper, we placed Negritude at the heart of African contemporary thought and identity, while indicating the very essence of having a collective identity for Africans through the African idea of personhood. The paper discovers that the construction or reconstruction of African identity for development and modernization can only be enabled through transformative leadership. The implication of this discovery is that Africa needs a new crop of leaders who possess the prerequisite leadership credentials for leading modern people. More so, the paper suggests that for this to happen, Africa needs some housekeeping in the area of leadership orientation, downplaying of inner cultural imperialism and hegemony, and 'silencing the guns'. The paper employed critical analysis.