Archie Mafeje

The Ideology of ‘Tribalism’

Few authors have been able to write on Africa without making constant reference to ‘tribalism’. Could this be the distinguishing feature of the continent? or is it merely a reflection of the system of perceptions of those who write on Africa, and of their African ‘converts’? Objective reality is very difficult to disentangle from subjective perception, almost in the same way as concepts in the social sciences are hard to purify of all ideological connotations. Might not African history, written, not by Europeans, but by Africans themselves, have employed different concepts and told a different story? If so, what would have been the theoretical explanation? Are things what they are called, or do they have an existence which is independent of the nomenclature that attaches to them? When it comes to Africa, answers vary independently of whether the observer is a liberal idealist, a Marxist materialist, or an African ‘convert’.