From anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles towards essentialist visions and epistemological turns

Abstract

This review presents two central arguments from Kevin Ochieng's book, Red Africa. First, it discusses the importance of the anti-imperialist political and social processes that, from the mid-twentieth century, articulated Black radicalism, Pan-Africanism, and Marxism, identifying imperialism as their main enemy. Second, it examines the theoretical inconsistencies and contradictions of Afropessimism 2.0 and decolonial studies, as expressions that promote conciliation and withdrawal from social struggles. Thus, reclaiming a Marxist-based Black revolutionary politics becomes an urgent task to prepare for the battles of our time.