The Regime of Time in Black Africa
Abstract
Against time experienced as decline, African societies value ageing as the accumulation and transmission of wisdom—an ethic with political consequences.
Philosophy, society and governance · Full reading edition
Two experiences of time
Time is neither conceived nor lived in the same way everywhere. A powerful Western tradition, associated with Saint Augustine, imagines human existence as a continuous fall beginning with original sin. Each stage of life appears as a further step into decline rather than the recovery of an earlier happiness.
This idea of radical evil passes through Western philosophy and literature. Chateaubriand’s statement that four years of misfortune had aged him expresses a familiar equation: passing years diminish the person.
The Western struggle against ageing
Old age is frequently hidden, confined and treated as the opposite of reason, productivity and beauty. The search for eternal youth and the effort to conceal age reveal a conception of time as loss.
Lamartine’s Le Lac gives poetic form to this desire to stop the flight of time. Happiness disappears as quickly as suffering, the present cannot anchor itself and the future seems to lead towards absence.
Ageing as fulfilment
Many African societies display and value the effects of time rather than hiding them. Wisdom, temperance, justice and old age are associated, whereas modern economic culture often identifies youth with reason, flexibility, invention and efficiency.
This contrast does not mean that every African society is identical or that age automatically confers virtue. It identifies a temporal ideal in which maturity is an achievement and elders hold obligations as well as authority.
Time as inheritance and transmission
Valuing elders does not condemn society to immobility or allow the past to confiscate the present. Yesterday’s children become today’s adults and are educated to become tomorrow’s wise people. Wisdom is therefore placed in the future.
Time is an inheritance accumulated with the help of previous generations and intended for others. Elders must transmit what they have received and eventually make way for the generation that follows.
The political contradiction
When leaders refuse to hand over responsibility, they abandon this African ethic of time. They imitate the Western attempt to turn the present into permanence while using respect for age to justify the confiscation of power.
The longevity of political leadership in Central Africa therefore represents a change of temporal paradigm. Returning to an African conception of time means accepting succession, transmission and the moral duty to pass the baton.
Discussion about the article
This space is dedicated to scholarly discussion. Reasoned disagreement and criticism are welcome. Insults, personal attacks, humiliating, discriminatory or threatening remarks are not permitted.
No contributions yet.