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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Literary strains of négritude and consciencism in Joseph Brahim Seid: envisioning nation and a new multicultural Chadian identity
Author:Haire, KarenISNI
Year:2008
Periodical:Tydskrif vir letterkunde
Volume:45
Issue:2
Pages:149-160
Language:English
Geographic term:Chad
Subjects:folk tales
national identity
About person:Joseph Brahim SeidISNI
External link:https://doi.org/10.4314/tvl.v45i2.29835
Abstract:This study introduces Joseph Brahim Seid, one of Africa's intellectuals of the first generation of independence, in relation to the ideologization of his contemporaneous counterparts, Léopold Sédar Senghor's négritude and Kwame Nkrumah's consciencism. Two stories from J.B. Seid's 1962 collection, 'Au Tchad sous les Etoiles' (translated as 'Told by Starlight in Chad', 2007) are read as envisioning nation and a new multicultural Chadian identity at the moment of independence. Unpacking literary strains of négritude and consciencism lays bare neglected tensions that thwart reconciliation of the different segments of Chadian society: African/tradition, Arab/Islam, Western/Christianity. One story envisions modernization in the reconciliation between Africa and the West, but in real life modernization does not occur within the context of African communalism, but in the neocolonial context, where it benefits the few. The study argues that Seid, possibly with the intent of building nation, tends to harmonize African-Arab cultures and traditional-Islamic religions, neglecting the tyranny of Islamization and Arabization in the past. In the present, rivalry between Arab and African populations in the Chad region has resurfaced. Superimposing Biblical motifs and understating traditional African beliefs in a story that tends to reconcile Christianity, Islam and traditional society, Seid overlooks the colonial context in which 'civilizing' Christianity is implicated. Double standards result from the higher prestige attached to Islam, associated with literacy, and Christianity, associated with modernization. While Seid's stories elevate the traditional societal value of communalism, in real life it has not transformed itself into a socialism sufficient to build nation and promote the multiculturalism envisioned and desired. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract, edited]
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