For having so often been deceived by the white man, the African should assume the perils of direct experience of the world.

It would be wrong to reproach Africans for having a fantastical conception of their past, because the present always refers to something that is beyond itself, far away, and yet just behind. (Merleau-Ponty, Le Visible et l'Invisible, Gallimard, Paris, 1964, p. 246).

Since the transcendence of the present is what enables human beings to tell their own story, it goes without saying that no one can tell their story without relying on something that has already been stated, on a history that began before them, which is already there - not on a history based on an absolute beginning - the kind of dawn of humanity offered by German Romantic philosophy, for example, which helped to pollute the image of Africa in Western thought (Herder, Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Humanity, trans. Edgar Quinet, Strasbourg, 1834)

In truth, every individual always speaks with the words that precede them, that can only be used after what others have said, even to modulate the elements of that cultural heritage to their taste or their way of seeing the world. Which means that the past has to be there for the individual to connect the present to it. And as Benjamin puts it, "articulating the past historically does not mean recognising it 'as it originally was'. It means seizing a memory, or a presence, when it flashes up at a moment of danger[1].

It is urgent to know how to summon the experience of Africa's past, especially at a time when this past is in danger of disappearing forever from memory. But what does this mean? What does the word 'experience' mean?

Experience is not simply an accumulation of memories of events. Nor can we conceive of the experienced individual as endowed with a capacity for ubiquity that would enable him to navigate between the past and the present, bringing back to the present what he had experienced in the past. Experience is, as Merleau-Ponty puts it, an ontic activity that is at the origin of all truth. It is, as he says the : "opening up to the world, beyond the constructs and idealisations of science, in order to reactivate, criticise, rectify and refound the fundamental meanings that… govern our understanding of being and even access to our own being. But while it is the foundation of all being and all truth, it is not immediate. It must be reconquered through work comparable to that of an archaeologist, because it is buried under the sediments of subsequent knowledge". (The Visible and the Invisible)

Far from excluding themselves from all contact with the outside world, Africans are simply demanding the freedom to experiment with this archaeology, to access the truth buried under the sediment of foreign knowledge, by taking their own paths - even if some, out of condescension, claim that these paths lead nowhere.

We should heed Cheick Anta Diop's exhortation to young Africans when he says that "there is only one salvation, and that is direct knowledge. Educate yourselves, arm yourselves with science to the teeth and tear off your cultural heritage... there is no other way."

This exhortation is not exclusionary. It is a call to a way of thinking that is "worldly", that returns home to take root there without seeking permission from any outside culture, convinced that more past does not automatically lead to less future.?Firstly, because there isn't enough past in Africa's school curricula, and secondly, because the excessive number of memories of the past that are attributed to Africa cannot occupy all the space reserved for imagining its future. Experience shows that it is not the priority given to knowledge of the past that automatically leads to the collapse of visions of the future, but the growing strength of the individualism lurking behind the theories that Africans are asked to apply. It is the priority given to this growth of individualism by globalisation that is leading to the erosion of the power to mobilise the masses and the weakening of belief in progress.