6

Dusk was approaching. I took a pensive walk along the streets. I was oblivious of the rowdy and congested traffic. The teeming crowd in its hustle and bustle did not exist except as a myriad of ants busy in their serene silence of food gathering. “Brother”, I heard a call behind me. It awakened me from my walking slumber. At that time, I was a political refugee hosted in one of the rich Northern countries. I was soaked in varied and wide experience of condescending and humiliating paternalism of the vast populace of the rich countries of the North determined to insist upon the claim that some human beings are so only by appearance but not in reality. The only real human beings, according to this claim, are the bearers of a white skin colour; the metaphor for ontological superiority over all other human beings, especially blacks; the symbol of ontological inferiority. So, who really could call me “brother”? With hesitation, I turned back to find the caller. It was Paulin Hountondji, a black African male from Cotonou, Benin. He was, like me, a participant in the FISP World Congress of Philosophy held in Brighton, United Kingdom in 1988.