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Modernism, Post-Modernism and Afrocentrism:
Meanings for Ethiopia
Ghelawdewos Araia
The
recent articles entitled Gebrehiwot Biakedagn
and Eurocentrism by Dr. Messay Kebede and From
Eurocentrism to Ethiocentrism by Dr. Maimire
Mennasemay are very interesting, provocative and
educational to say the least. It is these kind of
thoughtful articles that I had in mind when I
wrote Designing Continuum to Enrich Ethiopian
Educational Discourse and Debate Culture in
September 2004 (www.africanidea.org/designing.html).
It is in the latter spirit, and to encourage other
Ethiopian intellectuals to join the club and
“cash in” in the discussion/debate forum, that
I am writing this article.
In
this essay, I will maintain constructive criticism
by highlighting the lines of reasoning of the
above mentioned articles, and in due course I
shall make my own input and critique in an effort
to draw the attention of other Ethiopians who
would be interested in such educational forums.
With
respect to modernization or modernism and in light
of the latter, Messay criticizing Gebrehiwot
writes, “human societies can be defined as
backward or advanced in relation to the various
stages to which they belong. Clearly, both in his
conception of the goal of human life and the mode
of achieving it, Gebrehiwot fully endorses the
basic tenants of the Eurocentric view of
history.”
In
Messay’s contention that I just quoted above,
there are two important component parts that we
need to consider for our discussion. The first is
the concept of ‘modern’ as opposed to
‘backward’ and the second is Gebrehiwot’s
Eurocentric perspective. Regarding our definition
of modern, as I shall elaborate later, Messay’s
observation is on the right track. However,
‘modern’ or ‘modernization’ is
relative and must be examined in a historical
context. If we understand modernization in the
sense of scientific and industrial advancement,
then the capitalist mode of production is more
modern and advanced than a feudal mode of
production, and the latter, in turn, is more
advanced compared to other preceding epochs such
as slavery, nomadic/pastoral, and primitive
communal social settings. Furthermore, if we mean
modern in the context of arts and literature, the
period dating from roughly the 1860s through the
1920s is the modern era. But going back to our
relative definition of ‘modern,’ here is
another example that can reinforce our explanatory
notes. Although until recently the word
‘modern’ was attributed to the
contemporaneous, as per our definition above, all
art, literature, scientific progress etc. are
modern at the time they are made. For instance,
Cennino Cennini, in his Il Libro dell ‘Arte (The
Book of Art, 1437), explains that Giotto made
painting “modern.” By the same token, Giorgio
Vassari, writing in the 16th century
Italy, refers to the art of his own period as
“modern.”
Etymologically,
however, modernism may refer to an infatuation of
modern ideas as was very much sentimentalized by
Gebrehiwot, Tewodros, Yohannes, and Menelik. But
the early harbingers of “modern ideas” cannot
be blamed for Eurocentrism, for they had no other
alternative or telescope to view the world outside
European modernization and vis-à-vis development
and social reform. Even the Ethiopian students of
the 1960s and 1970s, who “were furiously more
westernized,” despite their fervid anti-western
ideas, were unable to escape Eurocentric values,
and in this sense we may want to fairly judge
Gebrehiwot Baikedagn.
One
other important point that Messay has brought to
our attention is “the damages caused by the
infiltration of Eurocentric concepts into the
manner Ethiopians perceive themselves” and how
Gebrehiwot underlined the superiority of northern
[Abyssinian] Ethiopians vis-à-vis Oromos. I
can’t agree more with Messay’s critique of
Gebrehiwot’s denigration of the “Galla”.
However, we should bear in mind that Gebrehiwot,
though very bright and advanced for his time, was
also a by-product of the Ethiopian ruling ideology
that systematically concatenated supremacy with
Abyssinians. We all understand, I gather, that
‘ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling
class,’ and once the latter is internalized,
even the victim, very much like the proverbial
slave who would be traumatized at the behest of
his sick master, will paradoxically appreciate the
goodness of the oppressor or perpetrator. In this
context, Galla Alga Silut Afer, a repugnant
and pejorative maxim, is still entertained by some
Ethiopians, and it is for this apparent reason,
three years ago, that I appealed to my fellow
Ethiopians to drop altogether ‘Galla’ from
their lexicon.
Finally,
I would be remiss if I fail to extend credit to
Messay for his cogent and lucid concluding remark:
“Like many of us, intellectuals of the ‘60s
and ‘70s, he [Gebrehiwot] saw Ethiopia more
through the eyes of the Western anthropologist
than through those of a native scholar.”
The
question now is how does the native Ethiopian
scholar begin to interpret history through his/her
own prism? This brings us to Maimire’s
“Ethiocentrism” and although I espoused
Afrocentric thought for the last two decades, I
would not mind welcoming and embracing
Ethiocentrism as well. Before I carry on with
Maimire’s thesis, however, I like to make
crystal clear to the reader that the Afrocnetric
methodology that I have used for scholarly
purposes and explication of intricate historical
phenomena and the subtle nuances in the social
sciences, is fundamentally different from the
Temple University or Molefi Asante Group. The
latter coined the term ‘Afrocentric’ but did
not invent ‘Africanity’ and/or the
interpretation of history from the African point
of view. Long before Asante, there were statesmen
and intellectuals like Marcus Garvey, CLR James,
Walter Rodney, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Sheikh Anta
Diop, Aime Cesaire and many others, who fostered
‘Africanity.’ However, while that of Garvey,
James, Rodney, and Diop were essentially
interdisciplinary in their approach, those of
Senghor and the Temple Group were culture-specific
and biased in favor of the preponderance of the
African perspective.
There
is no doubt that the Temple Group have immensely
contributed to the rediscovery of African
heritage, but their approach could not effectively
and meaningfully explain the African and Diaspora
experience without including politics, history,
and political economy as part of its methodology.
Maimire’s
contention that our emancipation can be realized
“through our reflective engagement with our
success, failures, and aspirations embedded in our
history” is absolutely crucial and acceptable to
me. There is no doubt that the more we explore the
vast repertoire of our history, the more
emancipated we would be, and as a result we would
no longer “mimic the western experience of
development in order to solve our problems” as
aptly put by Maimire. Nevertheless, Miamire’s
argument, “the west itself has not developed by
mimicking others; rather it did through an
internal understanding of its conditions and of
the adversities it has to overcome” is
fallacious. Firstly, no society, however dynamic,
could develop on its own and in isolation without
any external influence; secondly, such kind of
reasoning could inadvertently but dangerously
ensnare the relatively sophisticated and
emancipating “ethiocentric” paradigm in a
Eurocentric trap; thirdly, there is ample
historical and verifiable evidence with respect to
the civilizing of Europe by Africa. The latter
assertion could sound bizarre or may be labeled
‘Afrocentrism gone awry,’ but wait till I
substantiate my argument below.
There
were two major historical events that took place
where Africans civilized Europeans. The first was
during classical antiquity when ancient Greece
literally borrowed Egyptian/African civilization;
the second period refers to the Golden Ages of the
Moors (711-1492) where ‘Spain shone like a moon
borrowed from an African Sun.’
In
1996, a televised debate entitled Africa and
Greece conducted by the New York Public Access
TV featured two panelists, an African scholar
(myself) and a European scholar. Here are some of
the points I forwarded to authenticate not only
the historical connection between Africa and
Greece but also the civilizing of the latter by
the former as summarized below.
Thanks
to historiography, science actually began with the
ancient Egyptians and my arguments can be
supported with hard facts. The pyramids were
constructed on the basis of science and
mathematics. The Egyptians invented pi (22/7 or
3.1416) as a consonant and determined the slopes
of the pyramids by Pesu as well as Pythagorean
theorem (a2+b2=c2)
and now we know that Pythagoras was educated in
Egypt. Other famous Greek scientists who were
educated in Egypt include Thales, Eudoxos, Solon,
Democritos, Plato, Erathosthenes, Euclid,
Appolonius, Archimedes, Hipparcus, and Sosigenes
etc. Plato was tutored and supervised by an
Egyptian philosopher named Sechnuphis of
Heliopolis (Anu) and it is no wonder that most of
his ideas and the central theme of his book The
Republic was drawn from Egyptian (Pythagorean)
doctrine; Aristotle was a student of Plato but he
was also tutored by Eudoxos in the Academia;
Sosigenes is responsible for the revision of
Egyptian calendar that later became Gregorian
calendar; Erathosthenes is criticized by Isaac
Newton for not preserving the exact mathematical
formula of the Egyptians, and since Newton was a
man of integrity he admits in his Principa
Mathematica that he heavily depended on the
Egyptian science and mathematics in formulating
his gravitational theory.
Egyptian
architecture was extremely advanced and so was
their medicine, not to mention their written
culture, astronomy, geometry, calendar,
irrigation, papyrus, ink etc. One recent
revelation indicates that the ancient Egyptians
were the first to come up with the science of
aeronautics. In fact, they were responsible for
the invention of the first model glider found in
Sakkara in 1898.
Unlike
present-day Eurocentrists, the ancient Greeks and
the Europeans of the Renaissance were honest to
admit that their knowledge of science and
philosophy was transmitted from the Egyptians. For
instance, the learned Greek philosophers including
Isokrates, Athenian orator in the 4th
century BC, considered Egypt as the “birth place
of philosophy,” and Aristotle, in line with his
fellow philosophers, said “in Egypt mathematical
sciences first commenced, for there the nation of
priests had leisure.” Europeans of the
Renaissance had a similar belief and they have
extended their gratitude to the African
protagonists. This fact is testified by the
translation of Hieroglyphica (an ancient
Egyptian document) in 1419 in Italy in an effort
to trace back, not just to classical Greece but
also to Egypt of antiquity. Thus, even the giants
of the Renaissance have depended heavily on
Egyptian science and mathematics and other body of
knowledge.
The
second period of the civilizing of Europe, as
mentioned above, took place on either side of the
Mediterranean. Following the death of the Prophet
Mohammed in 632 AD, the Moors (an Afro-Arab
people) carried on a brisk of scientific and
intellectual knowledge of Egyptian legacy that, in
turn, became the foundation for the civilizing of
Spain. The Moors first introduced the silk
industry into Spain. Rice, sugarcane, strawberry,
lemons, cotton, and dates were also introduced by
them. But the most significant contribution of the
Moors was in the fields of science and education.
Ibin al Awam was a leading scientist who published
Treatise on Agriculture, which became the
official manual for Spanish farmers. Ibin Kaldun,
another great Moorish scientist, was the first to
come up with the theory of prices and nature of
capital (not Adam Smith, David Ricardo, or Karl
Marx). He is also the earliest rationalist thinker
in the African context. Mohammed Ben Musa,
inspired by the decimal points of the Hindus,
introduced the Zero numerical, and he was the
first to formulate the systematic treatise on
Algebra, and ultimately he devised a formula for
the solution of quadratic equations. Most
importantly, Ben Musa authored a book entitled Treatise
on Spherical Trigonometry. Al Quarizmi was a
contemporary of Ben Musa, after whose name we have
Logarithm.
Long
before Magellan circumnavigated the earth
(1517-1522), sometime in the middle of the 12th
century, a brilliant Moorish scientist by the name
El Idrisi theorized that our planet is “round as
a sphere of which the waters are adherent and
maintained upon its surface by natural
equilibrium.”
Of
all the above-mentioned Moors who contributed to
the civilizing of Spain, the one that stands out,
encyclopedic, and jack-of-all-trades was Ibin Sina
(wrongly known in European history as Avicenna)
who was a geologist, physician, and philosopher.
He wrote The Utility and Advantage of Science,
Health and Remedies, Cannons of Physic,
Mathematical Theorems, An Abridgement of Euclid,
Physics and Metaphysics.
Southern
Italy and Sicily also enjoyed Moorish
enlightenment and development. The Moors founded a
medical school and a university in Salerno in
1150; by 1234 the university was chartered by
Frederick II and ideas of science and modern
agriculture spread all over Europe. Beginning
1450, Europe had shown early capitalist
development thanks to the Moorish civilization
that indeed laid the foundation and cornerstone
for the rise of a new Europe and subsequent
western hegemony. This, in brief, is how Europe
got its civilization.
After
the rise of capitalism in Europe, world history
was transformed completely in favor of Europeans
and against Africans. A long history of
subjugation, brutality and oppression of the
African people, followed by centuries of
enslavement and colonization ensued. With the
exception of few of us in the Continent who did
not experience the horrors of slavery and
colonization, the majority of Africans were
drastically affected by European onslaught and
subsequent abduction from their homes. And during
the heyday of the Holocaust of Enslavement, the
African slaves who would later constitute the
Diaspora, would be systematically disconnected
from their roots. Alex Haley’s Roots is a
good portrayal of this experience, and William
Lynch’s manual Lets Make A Slave
(1712) would become the guideline for white
slave masters to employ techniques to
systematically subdue their recalcitrant slaves.
It is no wonder, therefore, that present-day
Ethiopians are “trapped in a vortex of loss of
meaning and alienation,” as Maimire correctly
puts it, and the fact that we have become
“consumers of western knowledge” should be
examined in light of the Above African experience.
The degree of subjugation and hence loss of
identity was not as great among Ethiopians as was
in other African and Diaspora brothers and
sisters, but due to overall European domination,
Ethiopians also encountered the brunt of the Black
experience.
In
order to counter Eurocentrism and foster
Afrocentrism, therefore, we need to seriously
consider the decolonizing of the African mind a
la Nguigi Wa Thiongo and pedagogy of
liberation al la Paulo Freire. This
paradigm shift would enable us to rediscover our
history, which in itself is a process of
emancipation, and we can attain this agenda not
through mere reflection of disjoined, haphazard,
and superficial analysis of our past experience,
but through deeply rooted extrapolation of our
collective consciousness, and simultaneously
providing concrete solutions to the problem under
discussion.
We
can begin rediscovering ourselves by literally
digging into our past and reading the vernacular
texts that contain the vast array of our rich
history, tradition, and mythology. In due course,
we will not only enjoy a niche in our endeavor but
we will also truly liberate ourselves. At this
juncture, contrary to some pontificating and
condescending attitudes, we must admit that we are
not liberators in spite of our intellectual
prowess, but we can definitely make a difference
in the whole gamut of the emancipating enterprise.
The precondition for our success in this kind of
project would be to form grassroots organizations
and speak and write in the local language so that
we can directly employ the affective domain in the
educational process. For instance, I have tried to
communicate in my essays not only in English but
also in Amharic and Tigrigna (e.g. Ya Ethiopia
Hizb Chewanet, Ya Ethiopiawyan Mehala, Ayzokum
Tembien, La Ethiopia Lu’ulawinet’na Andinet La
Mitagelu Hayloch Medegf Tarikawi Halafinetachin
Naw). On top of this, I have produced some
articles entitled The Magnificence of African
Written Culture & Why We Must Adopt Geez Fidel
for Ethiopian Languages (www.africanidea.org/magnificence.html)
and Designing Continuum… that is
mentioned above.
The local vernacular is the
best medium in communicating with the local
people, but even other languages including English
and French could serve the intended goal if they
have Afrocentric tone. A good example of
Africanity written in non-African language are Chinua Achebe’s literary works; they are written in
English but they strongly authenticate African
history, politics and culture. Other Africans of
the Diaspora have also made great stride in
rediscovering the African heritage. A good example
of this endeavor would be Dr. Maulana Karanga’s
Nguzo Saba (The Seven Principles, in Swahili), a
reaffirmation and restoration of African identity
and heritage.
One
other important point in Maimire’s essay, that
can strengthen the question of modernity vis-à-vis
belief systems, is his analysis of Confucianism
and the rapid development of East Asian countries.
To be sure most of the Asian countries including
Japan, the Tigers, China have managed to retain
their culture despite infiltration of Western
ideas and technology in their respective
societies.
Ethiopian
intellectuals, as a whole, were unable to clearly
dissect the intricate relationship of religion and
the larger society and as a result the psyche,
mores, and belief systems of the people were not
given due attention. Relevant to this reality was
Abiye Tekelemariam’s essay entitled The
Orthodox Church and Famine (www.ethiopiafirst.com/news2002/Dec/The_Orthodox_Church_and_Famine.html)
In that article, Abiye correctly argued that our
analysis “subscribe to a version of economic
determinism,” but most importantly he claimed
that his essay “echoes Max Weber’s celebrated
argument that the emergence of capitalist
economies owed much to Protestantism which taught
its followers to put a high value on worldly
success.” In this regard, Weber’s The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
is a seminal work and major contribution in the
sociology of religions.
It
is important to acknowledge the Weberian mantra of
religion/development nexus in rationalist
analysis, but it is more important for our present
discussion to rediscover our own rationalist
thinkers such as Zara Yacob. Contrary to the basic
tenets and doctrine of the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church, Zara Yacob, sometime in the late 16th
century and early 17th century,
advanced the idea of “God as reason” and hence
“faith is rational and not an irrational and
dogmatic assertion.” Celibacy and monastic life
were unreasonable and lent is not meant to be
God’s wish. The most fascinating aspect of Zara
Yacob’s philosophy that comes very close to our
20th/21st centuries
‘citizen rights advocacy’ is his challenge to
the status quo in this respect. He argued,
“citizens who are morally/rationally formed need
not be silenced and intimidated by an
authoritarian or manipulative sovereign…and men
should be accountable for their actions.”
Credit
is due accorded to Professor Claude Sumner for
authoring The Treatise of Zara Yacob, the
Source of African Philosophy: The Ethiopian
Philosophy of Man. But because most Ethiopian
philosophers were educated in European curriculum,
they knew more about Rene Descartes than they did
about Zara Yacob. Upon transcending Eurocentrism
and rediscovering Zara Yacob, the Ethiopian
philosopher would have the opportunity to witness
notions such as meditation, discourse of method,
rules of direction of the mind, and hyperbolic
doubt promoted by Descartes (“father of modern
philosophy”), also incorporated in the corpus of
Zara Yacob’s philosophy.
Modernity,
as has been defined above and as correctly
explicated by Maimire, could have different phases
and faces. For the sake of clarity and firm grasp
of the concept, however, I like to elaborate
further.
The
word ‘modernism’ as commonly applied in
literature, architecture, and the performing arts,
refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and
cultural sensibilities evident in the post-World
War One period. The First World War (WWI)
presented a profoundly pessimistic picture of a
culture in disarray, which, in turn, was perceived
as a product of modernization. This pessimism,
though a backlash to modernism, was quickly picked
up by the rising fascists in Germany and Italy,
and paradoxically many of the chief modernists
like T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yates, and
Knut Hansen, far from playing an emancipating
role, were either flirting with fascism or openly
advocating for it.
Therefore,
just because someone has espoused modernist
thinking does not mean he or she will play a
constructive and positive role in social
transformation that could bring about social
welfare and justice for citizens. Similarly,
modernization may entail scientific advancement,
technical know-how, remarkable success in
medicine, and revolution in agriculture, but it
could also mean pollution, toxic waste,
environmental degradation, weapons of mass
destruction etc.
The
curse and blessing of modernization may ultimately
compel us to figure out other options,
alternatives, and paradigms. Perhaps we can
embrace post-modernism as a viable outlet from the
ills of modernism, but this concept too is
problematic. For one thing, since modernism is
Western in its orientation, post-modernism,
however elegant and antithetical to modernism, may
not provide the necessary tools for our
Afrocentric values. In any event, we may have some
loopholes in the post-modernist thinking
especially if we carefully diagnose its component
parts: Deconstructive and Constructive
post-modernism.
Deconstructive
post-modernism “deconstructs” the ideas and
values of modernism and claims that such modernist
ideas as “equality” and “liberty” are
neither natural nor true to humankind but are
ideals and intellectual constructs. Based on the
pessimism associated with World War II,
post-modernism rejects the doctrine of the
supremacy of man and any attempt to create a
better and/or a perfect society is considered
futile.
Constructive
post-modernism, on the other hand, serves as an
alternative understanding of phenomena and offers
a new unity of scientific, ethical, aesthetic, and
religious institutions. It seems to me we need to
amalgamate constructive post-modernism with
Afrocentrism and utilize our new paradigm to
promote the transformation of the Ethiopian
society for the better. Just as we like to adopt
appropriate western technology for development, we
may want to infuse the positive elements of
constructive post-modernism to further reinforce
and polish our Afrocentric values. But the problem
is not going to end soon. In fact, we are
confronted by a resurgence of fundamentalism!
Contrary
to the Weberian postulates that we have touched
upon earlier, the new wave of fundamentalism has
virtually resurrected Martin Luther’s ideas of
reason vs. faith. The present-day fundamentalists
agree with Luther in their conception of “reason
is the greatest enemy that faith has; it struggles
against the divine world, treating with contempt
all that emanates from God.” Are we on the verge
of witnessing the end of rationality? Will the 21st
century push reason to a cul-de-sac and manipulate
science and government for imperial hegemony? Or,
is this new fundamentalism a political game and
evanescent?
Before
the recent resurgence of fundamentalism,
Eurocentric professors Bernard Lewis (of Arab
origin) of Princeton and Samuel Huntington of
Harvard wrote on Muslim fundamentalism. Lewis
wrote an essay entitled Roots of Muslim Rage
in 1990 in which he used the term “clash of
civilizations.” Soon after Huntington picked up
the term, and he even wrote a book called The
Clash of Civilizations. The main thesis of
Huntington’s book boils down to Islamic and
Chinese Civilizations clashing with the
Judeo-Christian civilization. He did not include
African civilization because Huntington could not
be sure of such thing as African civilization.
Later on, Tarik Ali, the Pakistani editor of the
New Left Review writes The Clash of
Fundamentalism: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity
in contradistinction to Lewis and Huntington. For
Ali, the clash of civilization is fundamentally
political and economic although he acknowledges
the clash between ‘retrogressive and
retrograde” fundamentalists and American
imperial fundamentalism.
I
am seriously opposed to all forms of
fundamentalism and especially to ultra-religious
fundamentalism, for the latter have nothing to
offer to civilization. What we need, of course, is
some kind of civilization that undergirds the
Ethiopian ethos and overarching culture. While we
employ the Afrocentric and constructive
post-modernist paradigm, we may want to pigeonhole
into the corpus of our methodology holistic and
humanistic values. This harmonious blending should
serve as lynchpin to a systematically designed
curriculum matrix in our schools that seriously
underscore multicultural education as opposed to
monocultural focus. The multicultural education
will enable our students to regain their
collective, communal, reciprocal consciousness and
shared values of emotional vitality and
interdependence. In brief, they will rediscover
the philosophy of African togetherness reflected
in “I am because we are, and since we are
therefore I am.” At this stage, our students may
not claim to be full-fledged Afrocentrists, but
they could definitely become consummate
professionals toward fulfilling the goal of a more
humane and collective tradition.
Ethiopian
intellectuals, learned men and women, have a
special historical duty (in fact, a calling) to
aggressively address the issues surrounding the
curriculum matrix suggested above. It is going to
be an arduous and protracted mission, but I have
no doubt that it will guarantee the bright future
of Ethiopia in terms of renewal and renaissance of
the Ethiopian experience. If we lead the way, our
students and the larger society will follow. In
our endeavor, we must make sure that the
psychological integrity of our students is
maintained. By this, of course, I mean that we
help them develop self-esteem, African/Ethiopian
pride and begin to interpret history from their
own standpoint—African-centered perspective. We
must enable them to appreciate the centrality of
spirit or spiritualism (this does not necessarily
mean religiosity) as opposed to ontological
corporeality, a Eurocentric material obsession or
belief in material reality. The latter concept
entails, and this is evident in western psychology
and sociology, the reduction of complex human
behavior and social order to statistical
quantification. Moreover, in the European context
(Eurocentrism), the yardstick for modern and
postmodern scholarly discourse has been
‘verificationist empiricism’ which considers
the materialist interpretation of history as the
only authentic methodology. This, however, is
useless if employed to analyze African societies
that prioritize spiritual as opposed to material,
collective as opposed to individual, cooperation
as opposed to competition. In a nutshell, as cited
in The Hero with an African Face by Clyde
W. Ford, to control the mundane, Europeans
sacrificed the sacred and to hold on to the sacred
Africans sacrificed the mundane. There is indeed
‘clash of civilizations’ in this context.
In
this essay an attempt was made to analyze
contemporary issues in light of modernism,
postmodernism, Afrocentrism and the pertinent
controversial concepts that enabled us to
galvanize the intricate theories and assumptions
that we have discussed above. It is not by any
means the end of our discussion and I would not
claim that we will achieve paradigmatic coherence,
theoretical consistency, and methodological
conciseness at this juncture, but I believe we
have laid the cornerstone to overhaul and enrich
the Ethiopian discussion and debate forums. So
that the tradition continues, if I may, I like to
provoke my fellow Ethiopians to respond to and
write on the following question: in light of
globalization, how can we reconcile the worldview
with Afrocentrism without undermining the
Ethiopian values anchored in culturally derived
epistemologies?
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