Yurugu

“We see each other through the inner eyes with which we look with our physical eyes upon reality”. – Slyvia Wynter ‘No Humans Allowed.”

My whole life there seems to have always been some form of violence, injustice, and exploitation experienced and resisted by Black/Indigenous/Afro-Indigenous peoples in the U.S. This led me to question the philosophy of the West and its influence on the dominant culture of the colonized world. When attempting to answer these questions I was presented with a book titled “Yurugu” by Marimba Ani. 

Ani clearly and extensively analyzed what I was coming to realize all along - that how we come to understand what it means to be human has everything to do with old and new settler-colonial forces reinscribing thought systems and behavior through culture, religion, and politics. With this in mind, Ani provides a thorough analysis and critique of European cultural thought. She maps Its influence on the world by looking specifically at how the cultural philosophy of Europe dominates much of what we understand as “modernity”. And it is at the very start of the first chapter that I was able to pull much of her insight and critique together.

Yurugu is defined by Ani as “A being in Dogon mythology which is responsible for the disorder in the universe. This is a being conceived in denial of the natural order, which then acts to initiate and promote disharmony in the universe. In African cosmology, such a being is deficient in spiritual sensibility, is perpetually in conflict, is limited cognitively, and is threatening to the well-being of humanity.” The Dogon myth of Yurugu provides much foresight and context to the way European culture has influenced a worldwide culture of greed — rooted in disorder through violence, economic profit, hyper-extraction, and exploitation — where we see billionaires and corporations ruling the world, violating the earth, and exploiting humanity.

Concepts of who we are and the world around us are directly related to the culture deployed by the western world. Inevitably racist and settler-colonial ideas dominate much of what we come to understand about ourselves and the world around us. We see the result of this deeply entrenched in our education system — where the overwhelming majority are lied to about the racist and violent reality of European history and colonialism. It is here that the horrors of white supremacist thought systems are perpetuated,and praised, and the history of the world is fragmented.

In the section Exploring Dichotomization and the Notion of Harmony, Ani takes a close look at how Greek and Platonic epistemology does this. She notes that within Greek epistemology, theories of fragmentation, themes of confrontation, and modes of control are fundamental. Here we are introduced to how the “modern” human being is created and dichotomized into separate parts, where one seeks to always dominate the other. She presents the research of Page duBois, who lays out the origin behind concepts like the theory of fragmentation: 

“duBois points out, the “Greek male human” defined himself very much in terms of opposition to what he was “not” – a “barbarian female animal”...The Greek male struggled against imaginary barbarism, bestiality, and effemination.” 

This is super important to understand because this is the same process of othering that we get taught to function out of today. This idea of femininity as being weak, illogical, or incapable is just one example. Instead of femininity being understood as a complementary energy it is now turned into an enemy of masculinity and something in need of domination. So much so, that misogynistic ideas lead to violence towards women and femme energy just as we see violence towards the earth. 

Seeing someone who is of a different gender, sexuality, or culture is now assumed to be your enemy. And it is from here that we see how racism, sexism, and downright xenophobia towards people and cultures begin.

Understanding the tendency to create a contrast and hierarchy between human differences is crucial to understanding our world and how NOT to be if we are serious about decolonization and revolution.

How we interact with our human differences is important to how we progress as a society. Things that are meant to complement and coexist can’t be seen as enemies. Assumed superiority has to cease and the colonial world culture has to be divested from and resisted actively Ani pointing to how this superiority complex lives through the teachings of Plato (a prominent Greek philosopher)—We see how the predecessor to Socrates (one of the founders of Western philosophy) has influenced the fundamentals of the Euro-American state. 

Platonic philosophy goes on to teach that humans are innately evil, and one must learn to dominate the innately bad parts of their soul to truly achieve self-mastery.

Plato states

“....in the human there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of self...the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse- in this case, he is blamed and called the slave of self and unprincipled...look at our newly created state, and there you will find one of these two conditions realized; for the words “temperance” and “self-mastery” truly express the rule of better over the worst”. (the connection this philosophy has to modern interpretations of christianity and the Bible is very clear)

Here we must interrogate this need to dominate our “innately worse” self through being in partnership with the state. Why is self-mastery dependent upon the state? and better yet, why is self-mastery and harmony dependent upon domination? If you are in the process of dominating something or someone, harmony is nullified. Furthermore, this idea that humans are innately evil created out of sin, and overwhelmed by their worse is a completely European idea and concept. It is indeed violent and a foundational reason African and indigenous people are murdered, opressed, and enslaved.

Contributing to Ani’s analysis, Eric Havelock ushers our attention to Greece before Plato. It is here that we see a shift away from poetic expression in Ancient Greece because it is associated too much with “old traditions” or too interrelated to emotion. Ani states that according to Plato's new epistemology, one must become completely independent i.e. uninvolved, detached, and remote from themselves and the community to think critically. This leads to a complete disassociation from what the Indigenous peoples of the world understand as harmony, community, spirit, and connection.

From state-sanctioned violence experienced by African descendants all over the world to state-sanctioned violence experienced by Palestinians in Palestine, there is a war against the oppressed peoples of the world, a war against humanity, and it is deeply associated with the violent theories of fragmentation and control rooted in Eurocentric cultural thought. The theory of fragmentation seen in Greek philosophy can thus be seen (in Western society) as the root of:

Misogyny – where the feminine is deemed inferior.

Imperialism – where the indigenous (“emotional”) need to be saved by imperialist (“reasonable”)

Race and Racism – where basic human differences are made biological and stereotypes are mapped onto the body.

Spirituality or religion as being completely separate from matters of the intellect.

Emotions being deemed illogical and in need of reason (bringing us back to misogyny)

The contrast between knowledge and opinion – where statements of value by Europeans are used to devalue or “validate” different forms of knowledge and cultural thought.

The effects are many and it boils down to what Ani calls “The splits”. Where the dichotomies that we have mentioned are worked out in such a way that they deny and prevent our true humanity and community to exist. And it is through people, that these splits move into our social interactions where our culture, worldview, and behavior begin to be heavily influenced. Especially with racial capitalism as its driving force.

Modern society is rooted in racist settler-colonial ideas around what/who is considered human and is fueled by environmental degradation. And because of how deeply entrenched colonization is in the psyche of humanity we're now at a crucial point in human history. Will we address where we get our values from and rely on Indigenous knowledge systems? Or will we continue to participate in the Western world's agency of domination, dehumanization, and violence for profit? 

“THE EUROPEAN CONQUEST OF THE MIND OF MOST OF THE PEOPLE OF AFRICA AND ASIA IS THEIR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT” -John Henrik Clarke