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Marxist thought has fostered, within the African intelligentsia, the dream of a world that is free from exploitation of man by man and discrimination. To this end, over the last century, many African activists, scholars and political leaders have tried to reconcile some Marxist assumptions with African cultural traditions. This was the case with the doctrinal syntheses carried out by leaders such as Nkrumah (Consciencism), Nyerere (Ujamaa) or Senghor (African socialism), to mention but a few. The struggle for the emancipation of countries like Angola and Mozambique had as an ideological stake, in addition to the emancipation itself, the geographic expansion (or restriction) of Marxist ideology on the African continent. Expression of East-West tension or better the manifestation of cold war in Africa, these struggles also embodied the seeds of criticism of Marxist-inspired regimes. The mistakes of the Tanzanian experiment of socialism (Ujamaa), for example, have fueled this criticism. From a theoretical point of view, Achille Mbembe can be viewed as one of the main African critiques of this thought.

Albert Kasanda: Research Fellow of the Centre of Global Studies at the Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.