Karl Popper, Tribalism and the Question of Africa’s Development

Abstract

In his Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper defends the enlightenment values of individual freedom against any form of totalitarianism. Popper likens totalitarianism with collectivism. Collectivism denotes a society that is static and intellectually stagnated. In Popper’s view, “tribal” societies approximate this condition. Popper avers that collectivism is apt only of “tribal” “closed” intellectually stagnated societies, and not apt of an open society. However, a tribal closed society that Popper proclaimed are of two significantly distinct connotations: tribe and tribal. The Maori tribe of New Zealand is an example for the former and the Nazi totalitarian European states as the latter. Popper’s target was the latter and distinctly not the former. This distinction is impeccably appropriate as scholars often conflate the two. While the former seems largely applicable to traditional Africa, it is distinctly not applicable the same way to contemporary Africa. Africa today is yearning for development, and this demands openness in Popper’s understanding of it.