Result of a work dedicated to thinking about the conditions of a humanism born from the plurality of the world, Souleymane Bachir Diagne’s essay Universalize (Albin Michel, 180 pages, 19.90 euros) seeks to maintain the possibility of the universal – and therefore of a common humanity – despite the threats of imperialism and the retreats towards identity. Creating humanity together, against all odds, is the meaning of the term Bantu ubuntu. The Senegalese philosopher chose this word that guides him as the title of his conversation with the historian Françoise Blum (Ubuntu. Interview with Françoise BlumEditions de l’EHESS, 128 pages, 9.50 euros), which reviews his career and his philosophical aspirations.
You have written a lot about the universal, but for the first time you talk about it in the form of a verb, “universalize.” So that ?
I am often identified with the concept of “lateral universal” [où toutes les cultures sont placées sur le même plan]which I borrowed from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, but what is a lateral universal that would replace the protruding universal? It seems to me that the question is best posed with the verb “universalize”, which reminds us that we are dealing with a practice, a process that aims to invent together a common humanity, and not a universal given once and for all. .
The challenge, you say, is to be able to recognize singularities without falling into identitarianism. Is it not also the fear of anti-Wokists who denounce a threat of “separatism”?
Unlike me, anti-Wokists are on a defensive line. At the risk of communitarianism and confinement within tribes, they oppose the old universalism that ignores the plural of the world. However, the universal to be invented together must be done from the plural of the world, and not despite it. It is a universal that can only really begin now, in a phase of decolonization.
What do you mean by the expression you use “creating humanity through humanity”?
When Nelson Mandela used the term Bantu in the 1950subuntu – which can be translated as “make humanity together” –To think of a non-racial South Africa, he decided to renounce violence. This is what it means to advance toward humanity through humanity: to choose means that resemble the end sought. For Jean Jaurès, author of the formula, this means that each difference should not be closed in on itself, but rather feel part of the humanity that must be built. This is what led him to become anti-colonial, although he was close to the colonialist position of Jules Ferry.
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