马兹鲁伊的非洲“三重遗产”思想及其在非洲学界引发的争论

Mazrui’s Ideology of the African‘Triple Heritage’and the Corresponding Controversies in the African Academia

如何理解非洲人对自我身份的认同是研究非洲史最基础的问题。肯尼亚学者马兹鲁伊提出了非洲“三重遗产”的观点,认为非洲是在本土、伊斯兰和西方三重文化下不断融合形成的,这三者之间既有竞争性,也有互补性。马兹鲁伊的这一思想具有批判意义,他以伊斯兰文化作为切入点阐述非洲所具有的三重身份。随后,该思想在非洲学界引起争议。这种争议的背后是在以非洲为核心的世界观下,非洲中心主义者与多元文化主义者的论战,争论的焦点在于伊斯兰文化是否属于非洲范畴和对抗西方中心主义的方式。这场论战所折射出的问题不仅体现出非洲人对待非洲文化态度的差异,更重要的是反映出部分非洲学者回避非洲存在多元文化的事实。对中国学者来说,客观且扬弃地看待“三重遗产”思想,对于如何理解“非洲”这一多元文化集合的概念具有重要意义。

How to understand the African self-identification is the most fundamental question in the study of the African history.A Kenyan scholar,Ali A.Mazrui,proposed an ideology of the African‘Triple Heritage’,arguing that Africa has been formed by a triple fusion of indigenous,Islamic,and Western cultures,whereas the competitive and complementary relationships among these three cultures existed simultaneously.His ideology is of critical.He used the Islamic culture to trigger further elaboration of the triple feature of the African identity,arousing controversies in the African academia subsequent to his argumentation.The underlying reason relating to this polemic was a clash between Afrocentricity and Multiculturalism under an Afrocentric worldview.The controversies focused on whether the Islamic culture belonged to the African sphere and how to counter the Western centrism.This reflects not only the differences in the attitudes of the Africans towards the African culture,but also the fact that some African scholars shunned the cultural diversity existing in Africa.For the Chinese scholars,an objective and critical view of the ideology of‘Triple Heritage’is essential for understanding the concept of‘Africa’as a multicultural combination.