African Humanism in Theory and Practice by Chemli Hamed

African Humanism in Theory and Practice

 Introduction: Africa as a Concept

Few adjectives fall short in describing reality like the term “African”.

This is not about mere geographical facts. Africa, as a continent, is for sure identifiable on a map. The African tectonic plate is also recognizable. The limits between continents are certainly human constructs, as there’s no magical transition that suddenly takes place when you cross mainland Egypt to the Sinai peninsula, but this is true of all continents.

However, when geography mingles with ideals, politics, and culture in general, concepts become more ambiguous.

Neuroscience teaches us that humans are good at making shortcuts, stereotypes, and simple stories. While this had, and still has, evolutionary roots and advantages, it might lead to overgeneralizations and simplification of rather complex realities.

Africa is the most ethnically diverse continent on Earth, as all humans present outside of it are the descendants of small branches of homo sapiens that migrated from the continent and spread around the globe. This explains the sheer richness and diversity of the continent’s inhabitants: Almost 3000 ethnic groups speak more than 2000 languages in 54 countries, without counting the Western Sahara.

Most famously, North Africans tend to relate much more to South West Asians and the Arab component of their identity, rather than to their African geographic location.

Also, the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla and Mayotte cannot be considered politically and culturally parts of Africa despite their location.

In light of such findings, it would be impossible to call anything culture-related as generally “African”, as Africa isn’t a cultural or ethnic monolith.

However, for practical reasons, we’d apply this term in its geographic dimension to cultural trends, ideals and belief systems that emerged or gained influence in different parts of the continent, most importantly Humanism.

 

Humanism on African Soil: Any Legitimacy?

Think about rationalism, free-inquiry, the pursuit of truth, science-based evidence and notions of human rights, and you’d probably picture no sub-Saharan belief system, nor the name of any scientist from one of the 54 countries on the continent!

Any Nigerian name pops up in your mind? Or maybe a school thought that has roots in an Ugandan town that neither Islam nor Christianity managed to uproot?

One might wonder whether the reader even knows of any African scientist or African indigenous belief system.

But this isn’t a ground to blame the reader. Many on the continent ignore such belief systems and names, and that’s not only about North Africans lacking interest in what happens in the Sahara and the sub-Sahara, or sub-Saharans seeing Northerners as complete strangers. This is a universal and systematic vision of looking to the continent.

Because the idea of Africa as one monolith is a fantasized colonial imagination, so are the pictures that come with it.

Africa is at worst, the continent of crises, of fanaticism, of Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab on the Muslim side, of extremely caricaturistic American-funded evangelical groups on the Christian side, as well as poverty, epidemics, civil wars, corruption, authoritarianism, witch hunting, and starvation.

At best, it is a UNICEF poster with children in torn-up clothes and big smiles grabbing books in miserable schools begging you implicitly or explicitly for charity.

Guessing isn’t a scientific method to proceed, and guessing your thoughts would be unjust and reductionist, but I’d dare bet that Africa brings to your mind all that was mentioned above, adding to it people in huts living in the middle of nowhere in the Savannah and women with naked chests holding babies and carrying jars on their heads.

And I don’t blame you. This is the image that was given about the continent and its inhabitants since we decided to apply to the whole of it, one name “Africa”, which, regardless of its debated origins, used to refer to modern-day Tunisia after it turned into a Roman province.

Don’t get me wrong. All these stereotypes and images aren’t necessarily false, but they are reductionist and potentially harmful, because only focusing on them reduces the human potential of the world’s youngest continent and the cradle of humanity to a wilderness of savagery and pain.

However, the intention behind this prologue isn’t mainly to denounce stereotypes, ignorance, or reductionism.

What is needed is less emphasis on the negatives, and a focus on the alternatives, and to ask if, first and foremost, Humanism is conceivable in Africa.

The answer to this is that, not only is Humanism conceivable in Africa, Humanism finds roots in many pre-Abrahamic traditions.

Long before Judaism, Christianity and Islam set foot on the continent, the concept of Ubuntu meaning “humanity to others” or “I am because we are” was an upheld philosophy.

In Burundi’s Kirundi language, Rwanda’s Kinyarwanda, Zimbabwe’s Shona, South Africa’s Bantu, Ubuntu refers to humanity or human generosity.The concept was so popular that it was incorporated in South African English.

One of the core principles of Ubuntu is “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” meaning  “a person is a person through others”.

This philosophy is still present in the life and subconscious of many sub-Saharan Africans whether they be Muslims, Christians, Animists, or Humanists, and it resisted perishing despite colonialism and extra-African belief systems that infiltrated the continent. It emphasizes the importance of communalism, caring for others, and the centrality of the human person, regardless of who they are.

This philosophy is so important to African humanists that some African Humanist organizations enshrined it in its core values, like the South African Secular Society, seeing communality not as a synonym to collectivism, nor individuality as synonymous to individualism. This can be seen as a source of wisdom which can help heal the modern world from the impacts of egoistic individualism, such as the climate cataclysm, wars, infinite profit and alienation, without undermining the creativity and autonomy of the individual.

 

Humanism in African Practice

 Humanists International has, today, 19 member and associate organizations in Africa, with a high concentration in both Kenya and Uganda.

The first African humanist  conference was held in Ibadan, Nigeria in 2001, which is huge for a country where Muslims and Christians make the absolute majority, and where some northern states even apply sharia law.

Uganda had been the first African country to have a registered humanist organization since the mid-90s with chapters extending all over it. Uganda Humanist Schools Trust was registered as a charity in 2008 and has opened 6 humanist schools till now. It helps Ugandan Humanists foster a secular, science-based education, particularly for needy children. It abides by humanist principles, values, and 10 humanist commitments.

The Uganda Humanist Association famously hosted IHEU’s General Assembly in 2004, which reflects a deep trust in the commitment of African Humanists in advancing secularism, free inquiry and skepticism.

However, till now, South Africa is the only country in the continent where Humanist marriages are recognized. The grip of religion is still very firm and humanists have a lot of work to do.

In particular, witch hunting is concerning, so much so that Nigerian humanists had to create the Advocacy for Alleged Witches, an organization which “uses a secular, humanist, skeptical and human rights approach to examine witchcraft narratives and address related abuses.”

Also, the persecution of humanists is common currency. It was only this year that Mubarak Bala, former President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was released from his 5-year detention, condemned by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention as arbitrary.

Yet, there are causes for hope. Few days ago, Atheists in Kenya Society‘s President Harrison Mumia delivered an Oral Statement in the name of his organization and of Humanist International during the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council (September 8th-October 8th), in the General Debate on the Follow Up and Implementation of the Durban Declaration and its Program of Action.

Both documents were adopted in 2001 during the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, and mention religion among possible grounds for unlawful discrimination and intolerance.

Atheists in Kenya Society’s President emphasized, in the name of humanists and non-religious people, that almost a quarter century after the adoption of these texts, Kenya didn’t take the necessary legal and practical measures to counter religion’s undue interference in the public sphere nor religious extremism, which had dramatic consequences on freedom of religion or belief.

Nowadays, more and more Africans are ‘out’ about being humanists, and many African humanists are leading at the forefront of the movement. Roslyn Mould, President of Accra Atheists, is nowadays the Vice President of Humanists International. Leo Igwe, the founder of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, is also a Board Member for another term.

In the African Diaspora, organizations like the Association of Black Humanists, which was established in 2012, and the Black Humanist Studies Associations founded in 2024, are active outside the continent and explore the complexity of the intersection between ethnicity, skin color, tradition, and secularism.

There are reasons for hope, and humanists all over the continent must unite as firmly as their peers in Europe, and lobby the African Union and African States for a wider protection for Humanists, science, and human dignity.