Tavengwa Gwekwerere

Literary-critical discourse on the Black Zimbabwean novel constitutes one of several platforms on which the self-other dialectic in Zimbabwe finds expression. This is especially the case at the level of literary-critical theory where the tendency is to advance arguments that frame Afrocentric and Eurocentric literary-critical theories as mutually exclusive. In this article, I explore the scholarship of Flora Veit-Wild and Ranka Primorac on the Black Zimbabwean novel with a view to discoursing the ways in which it can be argued that in their discussion of the corpus, the two scholars are anchored in the Eurocentric framework. In pursuing this objective, I focus on the critics' reliance on Eurocentric literary-critical theories and apparent discomfiture with Afrocentric benchmarks in their criticism of the Black Zimbabwean novel. Thus, I argue in this article that while the version of critical discourse discussed here speaks to the complex and contradictory ways in which cultures find places of translation and dialogic engagement where history is made, the overall impression created by Veit-Wild and Primorac in their criticism of the Black Zimbabwean novel is that Eurocentric perspectives are universal, normative, and indispensable.

The human worth of any given people is best appreciated in terms of their confidence in their history and culture as the embodiments of the life-affirming values and examples on the basis of which they can empower themselves and develop their communities. Without such confidence, it is impossible for any given people to be taken seriously by other members of the human family. This article sets out to outline the rubrics of " the Afrotriumphalist perspective " (Gwekwerere and Mheta:2012) in the study of phenomena relating to Africa, in addition to demonstrating its African cultural grounding and historical provenance against the backdrop of the need for African scholars to actively participate in the development of such Africa-centered critical perspectives as would furnish a brand of consciousness that expedites the appreciation of African people as capable of transcending their existential challenges. The emphasis on " the African cultural grounding " and " historical provenance " of the Afrotriumphalist perspective in this article is best understood in the light of the realization that African culture and history do in fact embody the life-affirming consciousness that should inform African thought and behaviour in the unfolding of the African Renaissance agenda.

The contemporary African condition is at once a mortifying enigma and an invitation to embrace and actualize life-affirming agency. Decades after the attainment of the right to fly national flags and sing national anthems, African people once again find themselves at the crossroads. A multiplicity of alternatives stand beckoning, among them the need to rethink and redefine the African struggle for life, authentic freedom and human dignity within the context of the possibilities and limitations spawned and imposed by the global hegemonic order in which Africa continues to function as peripheral and insignificant. Rethinking and redefining the African struggle for life, authentic freedom and human dignity involves posing new questions for old answers and crafting new answers for old questions (Niyi Osundare: 2002). That this is the best path towards a genuine global African future is largely beyond question: what needs addressing is the vantage point from which to raise new questions and craft new answers with a view to forging the most expansive and sustainable future that has escaped Africa for almost a thousand years now. In an intellectual, political and economic matrix where alternative pedestals such as postcoloniality, neo-liberalism and global villagization avail supposedly easy, reasonable and smart alternatives in the quest to rethink and redefine Africa's future, the question of perspective and/or location in any discussion on Africa becomes critical especially given that in any undertaking, perspective and outcome are inextricably intertwined. Against the backdrop of the foregoing, Afrocentricity International (Zimbabwe) invites papers and presentations for a symposium on " Pan-Africanism, Afrocentricity and the African Renaissance ". The papers and presentations should engage the various aspects of Pan-Africanism and Afrocentricity and the ways in which they expedite or delay the advent of an authentic African Renaissance. We also invite papers and presentations that spell out the aspects of an authentic African Renaissance and

The desperate Eurocentric intellectual undertaking to undermine the Afrocentric conception of reality is not a recent development. It originated the moment Europeans awoke from the slumber of their Dark Ages to find themselves lagging far behind in the march of the world's civilizations. The subsequent expro-priation of principles and standards from ancient African civilization, the brazen European abduction of African people into slavery, and the unpardon-able colonization, exploitation and dehumanization of African people all con-catenate to drive European scholars into adopting an aggressive stance toward ideas that expose them in their cultural, social, political, economic and intellectual nudity. The Eurocentric prerogative to subvert the Afrocentric conception of reality is therefore a struggle for European survival and is inspired by the desire to keep the world misinformed in order that Europeans may escape their inferiority and crimes. This exegesis identifies the disappearance of the slave that Afrocentricity facilitates and the sordid nature of Europe's transactions with non-European peoples in history as the major reasons behind European intellectual discomfiture with Afrocentric principles. The Black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations.