Question: Do I understand correctly that you see two fundamentally different approaches here: the first is the formation of a single political entity with a single identity, and the second is the story of African monarchies, which will require a separate identity on the territory of each monarchy? Wouldn’t the second model have to go through a series of conflicts that would bury the formation of a pan-African polity?
Alexander Dugin: I don’t believe these projects are inherently antagonistic. An empire could serve as the highest level of a Pan-African polity. “Pan-African polity” is an excellent term, and it could indeed represent the overarching structure, but it doesn’t have to be limited to monarchies—though sacred monarchies like the Ashanti still exist and could be restored. Other peoples also have kings, but they never sought strict hegemony. An empire could encompass diverse entities within it: monarchies, republics, tribal federations, intertribal alliances. There should be a supreme level of African polity—a council or even an “Emperor of Africa”—but the constituent entities could be collective. They don’t have to be exclusively monarchies, nation-states, republics, or those post-colonial monstrosities that carve up Africa’s living fabric. Many African peoples may reject both monarchy and republicanism altogether, preferring to live as their ancestors did, free from externally imposed socio-political models. Monarchies, for instance, were alien to the Khoikhoi or Pygmies. The Bantu had monarchies; the Zulus even built empires. In contrast, peoples of Central Africa traditionally organized themselves into autonomous communities or loose federations. Africa is far too diverse for a one-size-fits-all solution.
“I have two volumes in “Noomachia” dedicated to this topic. I was myself astonished by the diversity of social models. For instance, the cultural refinement of the Yoruba with their sacred institutions rivals that of Ancient Greece. Nearby, you find the mangrove-swamp civilizations of tribes who barely distinguish between spirits of the dead, gods, and animals. An utterly incredible richness and diversity of political systems too — ranging from hyper-sophisticated and elaborate to the most rudimentary or even nonexistent. All this should, in my view, organically integrate into the framework of that unimaginable future African empire.
I would personally love to witness it, because this could become a truly unprecedented historical experiment — a complete revival of the spiritual wealth of such a varied world, one that the colonial approach simply discarded. This world was effectively reduced to so-called primitive savage forms of life, used to justify enslavement and total subjugation to the colonizers. What I want, instead, is for this cognitive mirage to end — for African civilization to proclaim its staggering grandeur and diversity, to fully overcome even the epistemological frameworks imposed by colonial consciousness.”
