Why are we here? Existentialism in local Malawian lore

Abstract

The relationship between Africa and China is certainly gaining traction at the moment, and with this development it becomes imperative to examine the various facets that constitute what may arguably be Africa’s most important relationship of the 21st Century. One facet among the many is that of inter-racialism. China’s largescale direct contact with Blacks is a relatively recent occurrence, certainly not long enough for the Chinese to have formed their own definitive independent opinion of the Black race. However, as a result of China’s increasing exposure to the Western world, this exposure comes with the baggage of centuries of Western denigration of Blacks through various kinds of media – satellite tv, social media, magazines, newspapers, etc. that seek to exclude Blacks from the polity of human civilisations. According to Western measures of civilisation, the trajectory of civilisation has been the progression from pre-modernism (uncivilised), through modernism (Enlightenment), to post-modernism, this last being widely viewed as civilisation’s apogee. A definitive precursor to the post-modern condition, and which also came to define its fervour and texture, is a branch of philosophy called “Existentialism”. Adopting a post-colonial stance, and taking up the West on their offer of the trajectory of human civilisation, though clearly not the only one, what forms the core argument of the paper is that, as demonstrated by analyses of the local lores themselves, since time immemorial, Blacks, generally, and Malawians, in particular, have been capable of achieving such vaunted forms of introspection – and more.