A critique of African sociology
It is a widely held view that the African continent is the epicenter of every form of unthinkable violent social unrests in the world. Interestingly, the validity of such a notion is fundamentally built on a flawed premise, knowing that there are no guarantees in history if that were the case then the surge in the number of ethno-nationalist groups in the former Soviet Union would not be enjoying a field day, neither would the unfortunate barbaric xenophobic ethnic cleansing campaign be carried out with such explicit precision in Yugoslavia. Yet within this same framework history will be recalled to shed light on the embarrassing racial hostility that plagued the United States in the mid twentieth century. Looked at objectively these events serve as a living reminder that the question of ethnicity cannot b e trivially dismissed on the platform of contemporary theories of modernity or even with the aid of Marxists principles of unrealistic consciousness.
Going by this it is evident that the question of ethnocentrism and social identification is not entirely isolated to the African continent and its people contrary to the widely held erroneous impression circulated around. Research has also proven that in the foreseeable future it will still be a very significant deciding factor in the shaping of the political destinies of the nation state under a number of guises that anthropologists and social scientists will have to contend with. It is in the light of this the that the thrust of this essay will be centered on the monumental scholarly works carried out by two leading social scientist with who demonstrated a vested interest in studying the social developments of the African continent.
Having set the stage for this analysis the paper proceed to look at the work of Mafeje, a native South African scholar who was exiled by the intolerant white supremacy apartheid regime. According to some observers, Mafeje like most of the members of the anti-apartheid movements derived their inspiration from leading left leaning theoreticians like the Marxists. Right from the onset his association with the Unity Movement contributed in nurturing his deep seated suspicion of the state which was expressed in his very critical incisive analysis of the weaknesses in inherent in the Stalinist school of thought. In the same way Van Allen’s “Igbo Women’s War: Ideology, stratification and the invisibility of women,” have very striking similarities in the manner in which the address the sociological questions of our day and age. Also known as the “Aba Riots” it describes an event that took place in the West African former British colony of Nigeria. On the said day, there were widespread public protests by a group of women numbering well over one thousand.
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