Achille Mbembe engaged with Ruben Um Nyob’s “dream notebooks” as part of his broader intellectual project of understanding African liberation struggles, memory, and the possibilities of a postcolonial future. Mbembe’s interpretation of Um Nyobe’s notebooks reflects his deep concern with the intertwined themes of time, memory, and emancipation. Here’s how Mbembe made sense of Um Nyob’s dream notebooks:
1. The Political as Dream and Poetic Vision
Mbembe sees Um Nyobe’s dreams as a testament to the power of imagination in political struggle. For Um Nyobe, dreams were not mere fantasies but sites where political possibilities could be explored beyond the constraints of colonial reality.
The notebooks reveal how Um Nyobe is imagined a Cameroonian future - free from French colonial rule and structured around indigenous systems of governance and solidarity. Mbembe interprets this as a poetic and utopian effort to reclaim African agency.
2. Memory and Resistance
Mbembe situates Um Nyobe’s dreams within the broader history of resistance to colonial domination. He views the notebooks as archives of a struggle against erasure - an effort to preserve a vision of freedom and dignity in the face of violent suppression by colonial powers.
For Mbembe, the notebooks are a way of writing oneself into history, challenging the colonial narrative that sought to render African leaders like Um Nyobe invisible or insignificant.
3. Temporal Disjunctions
Mbembe often writes about the disruption of time in colonial and postcolonial contexts. He sees Um Nyobe’s dreams as attempts to repair temporal ruptures, connecting precolonial traditions, the colonial present, and a hoped-for liberated future.
The dreams embody a form of temporal multiplicity, where the past is reimagined not as a static tradition but as a resource for inventing the future.
4. Life as a Site of Struggle
In Um Nyobe’s life and writings, Mbembe identifies an existential commitment to the struggle for freedom. The dream notebooks, in Mbembe’s view, highlight how liberation movements are not just political but also deeply personal and spiritual endeavors.
Mbembe interprets the dreams as part of Um Nyobe’s effort to stay human amid the dehumanizing forces of colonial violence. They represent a refusal to let the colonial system dictate the boundaries of imagination or life itself.
5. The Tragic and the Hopeful
Mbembe’s reading of Um Nyobe’s dreams acknowledges the tragedy of his assassination by French forces in 1958 and the subsequent suppression of his vision for Cameroon. However, he also finds in the notebooks a persistent hope - a belief in the possibility of a future where justice and freedom prevail.
Mbembe sees Um Nyobe as embodying a form of necropolitics, where even in the face of death, his life becomes a site of resistance, and his dreams live on as a blueprint for emancipation.
6. Postcolonial Ruins and the Unfinished Work
Mbembe views Um Nyobe’s notebooks as symbols of the unfinished nature of African independence. The dreams highlight what was possible but also what remains unachieved in the postcolonial era.
For Mbembe, Um Nyobe’s vision serves as a call to revisit and rethink African futures, challenging the corruption and neocolonial entanglements that have undermined the continent’s liberation.
7. Dreams as a Political Resource
Mbembe interprets the notebooks as a political resource that continues to inspire contemporary movements for justice and sovereignty. He argues that Um Nyobe’s dreams provide a model for how Africans can imagine alternative futures in the face of globalization, authoritarianism, and neoliberal exploitation.
Mbembe’s Broader Framework
Achille Mbembe’s engagement with Ruben Um Nyobe’s dream notebooks is emblematic of his broader intellectual project. He seeks to reclaim African thinkers, activists, and movements that have been marginalized by both colonial histories and postcolonial power structures. For Mbembe, Um Nyobe’s dreams are an act of defiance - a refusal to accept the colonial world as the final reality - and a call to imagine a different world where African autonomy and humanity can flourish.
