Afrofuturism & the Freedom Principle

Africa World Now Project

Today, we will listen to a thinking session I had with students last year, where we engaged ideas around an argument I presented, that suggested Afrofuturism is an ancient idea that expresses itself as an African/a freedom principle. It is an articulation of a constellation of deep African/a ideas and practices of what I called Africa’s Ancient Future [a nod to Wayne Chandler’s Ancient Future].

Through historical and ancestral memories of magic; use of spiritual technologies; intentional philosophies of life; heretical temporality; creative nonlinear knowledge production; and a symbiotic connection with nature and the universe, Africa’s Ancient Future is articulated through a freedom principle, which implies a constant struggle to delink one’s collective self from now moments, reconciling past moments, in order to create future moments that allow the full expression of one’s humanity.

What was of specific importance to our interrogation of the time concept, was its arrested expression as a Western European construct. The temporal ticks used to mark the flow of human phenomenon/a are mapped from distorted perceptions of a limited reality, perceptions that were born from a historical and ancestrally specific cultural worldview…then forced upon the world through enslavement, colonialism, imperialism, language, and religious violence.

Therefore, to clearly outline the argument I am making, I do so now in order for you to follow the conversation you are about to hear, all while provoking and inviting you to think with me. Think beyond me. Think around me. Think over me. Think through me. But think, nonetheless.

The argument as presented, then and today, suggests that in order to understand Afrofuturism/African Futures as an intellectual/theoretical frame or lens through which to understand the place of Africa in a future as a very ancient idea. I argued that we must map its provocations at various moments to be extracted from the deep cultural fabric of African/a people, an interdependent relationship between the material and spiritual, a way of life to its development as an epistemic frame through which we can see all African/a ways of knowing reassert itself on a global stage as the progenitor of all human knowledge.

Communities, the peoples that inhabit the geographical spaces referred to as continental Africa have always been acutely aware of the future…the cultural practices in current religious forms and functions are rooted in a deep African spiritual understanding/worldview. This is not a profound acknowledgement. However, the future, the concept of the unseen, a moment that is to come, is prevalent and vital to highlight. The relationship to land, the universe, and ancestors are centered around an understanding of the seamless interconnectedness of past, present and future…and we have a duty and responsibility to maintain it in balance…which is and can be important to apply as a sociopolitical organizing principle [this is another point and foundation for another program altogether]. But important to highlight, nonetheless. Especially if we situate this argument in discourse around sociopolitical and economic relations will then highlight the limits of rights discourse, which are currently rooted in individualist notions where duty and responsibility can be negated by the rule of law birthed in the [re]conceptualization of the human as a justification for the maintenance of private property.

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native, indigenous, African, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people.

Image: Madonna - by MANZEL BOWMAN (@artxman; support here: https://manzel.biz/ & https://society6.com/manzelbowman)