This book addresses the very important question of the constitution of the public sphere from the perspective of La palabre. As Bidima makes clear, the task of interrogating the political and legal resources embedded in the practice of palabre is made explicit by the paradox that ‘the very people who overemphasized law are returning to practices of informal mediation, while those who spontaneously practiced the latter want to codify everything according to a rigid legal model’ (p. 15).
In analysing the public space of palabre (Chapter 1), Bidima begins with an exploration of the meaning of the concept. Palabre, he says, designates ‘not just an exchange of words, but also a social drama, a procedure, and a series of human interactions’ (p. 17). Being an act of ‘staging’ of the word, this form of discourse takes place in a structured space. Its relations to law, the forbidden, the subject, nature and time are tied to its main goal – the restoration of human relationships (p. 21).
Having reconstructed the meaning and use of the concept, Bidima turns to the articulation of a political paradigm (Chapter 2). Here, he attempts to recapture the tactic of collective life inherent in the practice of palabre and what it makes possible. Bringing the resources of palabre to bear on the internal dimensions of conflict and consensus, Bidima attempts to show its contributions to the quest for solutions to contemporary political problems.
In Chapter 3, we find a thorough analysis of palabre as a means of structuring disagreement. Here, Bidima carefully unpacks the ‘primary competitors’ to palabre and their metaphysical foundations. By pointing to different forms of repressive consensus which occlude palabre, Bidima demonstrates their artificiality and negative effects.
The goal of Chapter 4 is to conceptualise the place of palabre within political mechanisms in Africa. Here, palabre comes into contact with Pan-Africanism, African Socialisms (Ujamaa and Negritude) and evangelisation – the discourse and practice of enculturation. In all these instances, the engagement with palabre is fraught with a lot of shortcomings. And this leads Bidima to point out their limitations and underscore what palabre could have done for them (p. 57).
The other essays in the book deal with various dimensions of the public sphere in Africa. In the first essay (‘Rationalities and Legal Processes in Africa’), the focus is on what happens in the encounter of different rationalities. Specifically, Bidima analyses the encounter of different legal rationalities in Africa in order to make sense of the image of the law thereafter. For Bidima, the meeting of rationalities is ‘a matter of interrogating socio-politico-religious structures to discover how systems of meaning are built up’ (p. 86).
In the next essay (‘Strategies for ‘Constructing Belief’ in the African Public Sphere’), Bidima approaches the analysis of African politics from the ‘angle of the imaginary’ (p. 89). Here, he investigates the relationship between politics and desire in order to put into perspective different means by which the life-world is colonised in this context.
The next essay on African cultural diversity and the media articulates the underlying notions of ‘the bond’ and the ‘common world’. Bidima's goal here is to present an explanation of how the plurality of media and cultural diversity impact the basis of unity, or, as he puts it, the common world, for Africans.
The essay on ‘Books between African Memory and Anticipation’ deals with the dwindling faith in knowledge in Africa and the rising investment of this virtue in religion, money and power. Here, Bidima raises questions about non-religious relationship with faith vis-à-vis the intricate relationship between the power that books confer on people and the deployment of this power in the public sphere in Africa.
The last essay takes up the complexities arising from the introduction of the internet in different African spaces. Bidima presents in this essay the perceptions of the power embedded in Western science and technology and the masks of the triumphant model of science offered in Africa (p. 146). In this context, he interrogates the supposed benefits of the internet accruing to Africa in order to make clear their impacts on time, social bond and public space.
After reading the book, one cannot but recall the words of the author regarding whether or not the book is a symphony or cacophony (p. ix). The most important question which would strike anyone reading this book today is the potentials of palabre in an era of violent refusal of any dialogue. If we understand palabre as a ‘staging’ of the word and conceive it as a means of structuring conflicts, what becomes of collective life and its foundations (social bond) in the face of the various forms of silent, or even dumb, violence we are experiencing today in the name of terrorism? In fairness to Bidima, however, palabre cannot be called upon to provide solutions to all of Africa's problems. This notwithstanding, it still seems there is something unique embedded in palabre that makes it a good candidate for this sort of endeavour, especially when examined in the context of the constitution of the public sphere.
To conclude, it is pertinent to underscore that Bidima's study broadens our understanding of the public sphere due to his originality and capacity to synthesise different strands of thought. This notwithstanding, the reader is still left in the end with questions about the relationship of theory and praxis. Since palabre is a non-violent means of structuring conflicts, how should we conceive its application in contemporary international politics that is challenged by silent/ non-dialogical violence? How is the practice of palabre possible where people do not share the same initial presupposition – that violence or conflicts can be structured through a ‘staging’ of the word? In all, it must be conceded that Bidima has done a very important work here which deserves the critical attention of philosophers, political theorists, legal scholars as well the general public.
