African Philosophy… Identity Issues and Liberation Prospects

Abstract:
The African Philosophy is a subject of wider seek to reconstruct the African identity. In order to achieve this aim, several attempts have been extended to originate the concept and to attribute it to African traditions and civilizations. These efforts are ranging from an wrongly-based conciliative approach to merge the African religious thinking with the Christian one in order to producing a new "Afro-Christian philosophy", to a revolutionary approach tended to considering that Africa has its totally unique type of philosophy. It was common that every party has based its approach on their own ideological beliefs, regardless the true bases of the philosophical thinking, notably the continuing interactions within the world civilizations and the uniqueness of the whole human experiences, including the African one.  
By 1970's, African scholars and philosophers tended to provide a much clearer and complex critique to the abovementioned efforts, while, in the same time, avoiding dogmatic perceptions and misinterpreted ideas within the bulk of philosophical writings. In doing so, scholars had paid intense attention to deconstruct a group of well-established themes, such as Negritude and African Personality, to reach a reliable understanding to those themes' historical contexts, then to put them in their right places. 
However, the issue of establishing an original "African Philosophy" needs new approaches that are based on, for example, reconsidering wide range of philosophical resources across the continent's various parts, overcoming the perceived borders of African cultures (notably the Arab one and its varied manifestations in West Africa and East Africa regions).