UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff MMaassssaacchhuusseettttss AAmmhheerrsstt SScchhoollaarrWWoorrkkss@@UUMMaassss AAmmhheerrsstt Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-1973 TThhee ccoonncceepptt ooff aalliieennaattiioonn :: iittss aapppplliiccaattiioonn ttoo eemmeerrggeenntt AAffrriiccaann ssttaatteess.. Benson Kaguongo Wambari University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn Wambari, Benson Kaguongo, "The concept of alienation : its application to emergent African states." (1973). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 2162. https://doi.org/10.7275/zep2-f038 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/2162 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. the concept of alienation* ITS APPLICATION TO EMERGENT AFRICAN STATES A Dissertation Presented By Benson Kaguongo V/arcbari Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts in Partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY June 1973 PHILOSOPHY )) li the concept of alienation, ITS APPLICATION TO EMERGENT AFRICAN STATES A Dissertation By Benson Kaguongo Wambari Approved as to style and content by : ^ 01 esfsor hlix/’-Ovp- pen. /Lye/lm “ froSor V.c.S^n rroi essor Ann FTBrenti'tt^er ^ W,s• ,ni -Icfcerfa., - . Foster June 1973 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to acknowledge my deep appreciation to the members of my Dissertation Committee Professors Felix Oppenheim, Ann Brentlinger and Lawrence Foster. I especially thank Frofessor Oppenheim who, as chairman, laboriously read everything I handed him prompt- ly and made constructive criticisms and suggestions which helped make this dissertation what it now is. Professors Brentlinger and Foster were both very helpful all along and especially in the beginning when I first presented my ideas concerning the topic to them. Without their encouragement I might have given up. Finally, I thank all the members of faculty in the department of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, for getting me started in ray pursuit to better understand myself and the world around me. . Iv THE CONCEPT CF ALIENATION: ITS APPLICATION TO EMERGENT AFRICAN STATES abstract j-he purpose of this dissertation is to analyse a contemporary social situation in emergent African states. I claim that most of the social, political and eco- nomic problems facing the Africans are those of aliena- tion. It is my view that examining these problems from tne point of view of alienation provides not only an insignt into tne proolems but as well embodies an im- plicit moral demand for change. I suggest that national independence political institutions economic structures , , and the culture itself should constitute a means to self-realization and restoration of dignity of the Africans as a people. Chapter one sketches the use of the concept of alienation in the historical writers who have popular- ised it. These areG.W ,F .Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Karl Marx In order to ure alienati on to analyse a social situation, I have first attempted to clarify "aliena- tion" in more precise ways than the historical thinkers V aid. This I do in chapter two defining "alienation" as a feeling of estrangement or separation of one person (or group of persons) from other people, from oneself or from something with whom or which one has previously been (or should be) unified. I contrast this definition to those offered by Erich Fromm. G.Fetrovic', Arnold Kaufman and Lewis Feuer among others. In chapter three, I point out that the colonial era marked in Africa a period of alienation of the Africans from their culture, their land, their religion, from their way of life in general, and worst of all from self-deter- mination. The African struggle for political independence was a struggle for de-alienation. I observe in this chap- ter that political independence, though necessary for over- coming alienation, it is not sufficient. Chapter four points out that a state may be ostenta- tiously politically independent though in fact it is eco- nomically alienated. When the economic system of a state is in the hands of outsiders, the political policy as well will be influenced if not determined outright from outside. Recent happenings in Uganda will be repeated -y other African states fighting economic alienation. Vi In chapter five, I suggest that greed and blind imi- tation of the West, caused by lack of imagination and feeling of inferiority, have much to do with contemporary social and cultural alienation in Africa. The discussion points to the fact that such happenings like the authen- ticity campaign in Zaire, aimed at reviving or creating genuine African culture, are only reactions to feelings of cultural alienation among the Africans, In chapter six, I put forth the view that capital- ist economic system, and the prevalent one party politi- cal system, are the main causes of social and political alienation in Africa to-day. Finally in chapter seven, I suggest that if aliena- tion is to be overcome or minimized, the above causes (among others) must be rooted out. Socially acceptable democratic systems (unlike the one party system) must be adopted to minimize feelings of powerlessness, meaning- lessness, normlessness and social isolation among the , citizens. Democratic socialism as idealized by Yugoslav Workers' Councils, Israeli Kibbutzim and Tanzanian Ujamaa Villages, seems to offer a hopeful promise to combat alienating influences of capitalism and its consequent materialism. vii CONTENTS Chapter I. SONS HISTORICAL REMARKS 1 G.W .? Hegel . Ludwig Feuerbach Karl Marx II. DEFINING T:ixj CONCEPT OF ALIENATION • • 23 Alienation in General Self-alienat ion Can the Concept of Alienation be Operationized? Relevance of the Concept of Alienation III ALIENATION UNDER COLONIALISM 54 IV. ECONOMIC ALIENATION IN INDEPENDENT AFRICA. .66 V. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ALIENATION IN INDEPENDENT AFRICAN STATES 79 African Socialism The African Leader Cultural Conflicts Class Consciousness VI. ALIENATED MAN IN MODERN AFRICAN SOCIETY .... 1 02 VII. OVERCOMING ALIENATION 114 BI3LICGRAPTV 130 i 1 CHAPTER 1 SOME HISTORICAL REMARKS The concept of alienation gained its currency largely from G.W .F. Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx. G.W F.Hegel . Hegel took the concept over from Protestant theology in which alienation is exemplified by worship of idols (idolatry) or eternal separation from God by original sin (in John Calvin). Hegel discusses two levels of alienation. Firstly, he sees nature as a self-alienated form of absolute mind. According to him, whatever is, is in the last analysis Abso- lute Idea (Absolute Mind or God), ‘^he Absolute Mind is a dynamic self engaged in a process of alienation and its negation. The view that nature is a self-alienated form of Absolute Mind may be influenced by Plato's view that the natural world is an imperfect picture of the sublime world of ideas.1 This aspect of Hegel's doctrine of alienation is part and parcel of his idealism. It emanates from nis prior conceptualization of the Absolute Idea, a neuaphyoi— a. cal abstraction of little interest here, since it has no application to social problems. 1See G.Petroyic' "Alienation", F.novclonaei la of Philosophy , I ,p . 7o. ,