Moscow: Institute of Africa, 2000, 298 p.

The importance of analyzing the ideological concepts of independent African States stems at least from the fact that we are talking about more than 50 countries with a population exceeding 600 million people.

The central place in the social thought of Africa at the present stage is occupied by the attitude to democracy. It can be argued that the fascination with the ideas of "national socialisms" that the continent suffered from in the 1960s and 1980s was replaced by an interest in democracy, which became a kind of reaction to the collapse of the socialist system and the bipolar world under strong pressure from the West, especially the United States.

Attempts to introduce the principles of Western democracy to Africa have met with mixed reactions on the continent itself. For some, they caused a kind of euphoria. Thus, according to the authoritative magazine " West Africa "(N 4265, 5.03.2001. P. 5), some politicians believed that in the 1990s Africa entered the era of "democratic revolution". Alassane Ouattara, a prominent figure in Ivory Coast, even proclaimed: "Democracy today "(ibid., N 4251. 12.11.2000. p. 10). Others took a more restrained position, which was reduced to stating the position that in reasoning about democracy "it is not about changing politics, but about changing the person. Democracy and its freedoms can only be realized by people who stand up for its ideals "(ibid. N 4269, 2.04.2001. P. 8).

The question of how much the mentality of the African population, its history and traditions are intertwined with the principles of Western democracy deserves special consideration. If we answer it briefly, we can say that the leading social institution of local society is still the tribe, which is based on the unquestioning submission of its members to the leader and elders. Although the role of the tribe and its norms is certainly diminishing, it will probably be several generations before they can be said to stop influencing the social behavior of the average African. Therefore, today we can talk about the democratization of Africa very conditionally, realizing that this issue will last for many decades.

The authors of the reviewed book, noting some features of the development of democracy and the formation of civil society in Africa, state that this process is at the very beginning and can be attributed in time to the late 1980s and early 1990s (p. 147).

In general, the book under review, as well as the previous work of the Institute of Africa "Nationalism in Modern Africa "(Moscow, 1983), give a fairly complete picture of the state of public thought on the continent at the stage of its independent development: from the analysis of "national socialisms" to the assessment of the possibility of applying the concept of democracy to African reality. The essays, which are rich in factual material, primarily chapters on Egypt and South Africa, make a positive impression; the problems in chapters 4-6 are well covered.

While noting the merits of a peer-reviewed publication, I will make a few comments. Since its authors write mainly about the ideology of nationalism and the attitude to democracy, the review will be devoted to these issues.

This work is designed as a collective monograph. It is divided into chapters, provided with a general introduction and conclusion, and a list of its authors precedes the publication. But, as you know,

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a collective monograph assumes that it is based on a single concept, which is shared by its author's team, and, giving different perspectives of the problem, under the guidance of the responsible editor, it achieves the main task. How is this requirement implemented in this publication? Apparently, there is no responsible editor or head of the author's team. I think this explains the difference in the authors ' positions on some issues.

Thus, considering the issues of the genesis and evolution of the ideology of nationalism, which occupies a leading place in the public thought of Africa, Yu. G. Smertin identifies four directions of nationalism: traditionalist, neotraditionalist, democratic and radical (pp. 23-26). V. S. Mirzekhanov sees three models that "structure the African ideological space": modernization, renaissance, Marxist and their respective approaches. various variants (p. 46).A. E. Gomaa identifies two types of ideological trends - Islamic and liberal, which noticeably pushed back the nationalist and socialist trends (p. 68). L. M. Sadovskaya also takes a similar position, noting two trends in the ideology of nationalism: those aimed at Western-style reforms and those aimed at solving national problems in the spirit of traditionalism (pp. 98-100).

The author of the introduction, N. D. Kosukhin, recalls that in Soviet times there were three main trends in the socio-political thought of Africa: "national-bourgeois reformism, petty-bourgeois socialism and revolutionary (national) democracy". In his opinion, in the colonial period there were such trends of social thought as" feudal nationalism", right - wing bourgeois nationalism, left-wing petty-bourgeois nationalism, national democratic thought, proletarian internationalism. However, he admits that during the Soviet period, studies of ideological problems in Africa "exaggerated the influence of Marxist-Leninist theory on them" (p. 4-5). (One is pleasantly surprised by the peculiar act of repentance of N. D. Kosukhin, who publicly admitted that in his previous publications he was not objective, "being a prisoner of dogmatic thinking.")

The authors of the book also have different positions on such an important issue as the time of formation of the ideology of nationalism. Yu. G. Smertin asserts that "the origin of the ideology of the national movement in British West Africa should be attributed to the mid-30s of the XX century" (p. 20), and a little later writes that "the concept of unity of the peoples of Africa in the struggle against colonialism, for national liberation" existed from the end of the XIX century (p. 30) B. S. Mirzekhanov refers the emergence of evolue ("educated citizens") - carriers of nationalism to the period of the Second World War (p. 40), and the anti-colonial movement to the post-war period (p. 44). Yu. V. Irkhin insists that in Nigeria "only at the end of the 50s The 20th century saw the introduction of bourgeois-democratic forms of government to the Nigerian population" (p. 231).

Despite the fact that ideologists of nationalism invariably emphasize that they express the opinion not of classes, but of the entire nation, most of the authors of this publication are guided in their reasoning by the so-called class approach. There is no explanation of this in either the introduction or the conclusion. This is all the more surprising because the Institute for Africa has published several books that set out a different, in my opinion more balanced and reasoned, position on the key issues raised by the ideology of nationalism. So, in the collective monographs "Nationalism in modern Africa", " History of Sierra Leone in modern and modern times "(Moscow, 1994) and individual monographs "Public Thought of British West Africa in the second half of the XIX century" (Moscow, 1977), "History of Liberia in modern and modern times" (Moscow, 1994). 1999), if we don't go into details, the genesis of nationalism in Africa is said to have originated on different continents - in Europe, America, and Africa. Africans came to Europe and America as slaves, but already at the end of the XVIII century, a movement for returning to their homeland arose among them. As slaves in the recent past, these people have realized that they can only find their human dignity in Africa. They entered into negotiations with the authorities of several countries, worked out the conditions for their return to Africa and became active participants in the re-emigration processes that covered hundreds and thousands of former slaves and led to the formation of Sierra Leone (1787) and Liberia (1822).

In the early 19th century, the fight against the slave trade resulted in tens of thousands of Africans from captured slave ships ending up in camps for displaced persons, mainly in Sierra Leone. There, missionaries successfully worked with them, converting them to Christianity, giving them an educational experience. -

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teaching them to their children and introducing them all to European civilization. These people (I call them representatives of the new elite) they became conduits of commodity-money relations and exponents of social attitudes in African society. And since there were no established states in Tropical Africa in the nineteenth century, they began to talk about the common fate of all the Negroid peoples who suffered the horrors of slavery and the slave trade and became victims of colonialism. The concept of common destinies of the peoples of the Negroid race became the basis for the formation of the ideology of pan-Africanism in the middle of the XIX century, almost at the same time as the ideologies of pan-Germanism and pan-Slavism began to take shape.

Such African thinkers as S. Crowther (1806-1891), W. Blyden (1832-1912), D. A. Horton (1835-1883) passionately discussed the future of African peoples, the meaning and significance of the slogan "Africa for Africans!"in articles, books, and public speeches. These same thinkers have formed the position of two main trends in African nationalism - assimilatory and original. The assimilators ("bourgeois enlighteners") believed that Africa should follow the path of Europe, and that Africans would turn into black Europeans. The followers of distinctive development ("cultural nationalists "or" soil people") proclaimed the exclusivity of the continent's peoples, their difference from others, and believed that Africa would go its own, special way.

These two trends are represented in various versions in the social thought of many peoples (it is enough to recall Westerners and Slavophiles in Russia, liberals and Islamists in Arab countries). As far as Africa is concerned, both trends are most pronounced in the English-speaking countries of the western part of the continent, which have become the leading center for the formation of modern social thought in the region. Opponents of this point of view argue that these ideological concepts were proclaimed by lone individuals, but the essence of the question is not how many people were behind this or that theoretical platform, but that the thoughts expressed by them reflected public sentiment. These ideologues were by no means isolated: they had hundreds and thousands of like-minded people who read their books and spread their views in African newspapers, participated in election campaigns and supported petitions to the authorities.

In the French-speaking colonies of West Africa, the formation of social thought began later, and the assimilation trend was dominant in it. The main reason for this is probably the direct administration of the colonial authorities and their implementation of the principle of equal opportunities for all, regardless of race. That is why the region's leading politician Blaise Dian (1872-1934) proclaimed: "First of all, we are French, and then we are black." His work was a convincing example of the opportunities offered by Evolution: he was repeatedly elected to the French Parliament and was a member of the government of this country. Blaise Diane's position was only challenged in the 1920s, and in the 1930s Leopold Senghor and a number of other figures proclaimed the theory of African exclusivity (negritude).

But even in French West Africa, in particular in Senegal, in the second half of the 19th century, there were so-called full communes, elected municipalities, a General Council and civil rights were respected, and Dogomea enjoyed the reputation of the "Latin Quarter" of West Africa, becoming a center for training officials.

According to the well-known Arabists Z. I. Levin and N. A. Ivanov, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the two main trends in public thought in North African countries were modernist - liberal and Islamophile, which advocated loyalty to traditions. Consequently, the difference between the processes that took place in the countries of North and West Africa was more in terms of terminology than in substance.

As we can see, the authors of the peer-reviewed publication not only do not have a single concept in covering these two problems (whether to follow the path of progress or justify the lag of their peoples with references to identity and exclusivity), but also have serious differences with their predecessors. And, even more seriously, nothing is said about these discrepancies. For these reasons, it is unlikely that a peer-reviewed book can be classified as a collective monograph.

Editorial shortcomings include the presence in the book of such ugly phrases as:" ostracism was rejected "(p.6);" the authorities that hold "(p. 9);" moreover, R. Sklyar disputes incentives "(p. 14);" impose the development of a multi-party system " (p. 14). Not Odin's-

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The sections in Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 9 are well designed. Chapter 9 is called "Africa: Relations with the West", but it is actually about Western Europe.

Depending on the perspective on the future of the continent, African scientists can be divided into optimists and pessimists. The last words of the conclusion of the book under review, written by B. S. Mirzekhanov, are as follows: "In Africa, vengeful cycles of destructive violence are unfolding. Society itself harbors violence that is suicidal for this society" (p. 295). However, another author, N. I. Vysotskaya, believes that with the help of the rest of the world, Africa will overcome the gap (p. 280). I share my optimism about the continent's development prospects, which I hope will be supported by good scientific publications.

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