## The post-colonial imperative and new epistemology  
Some 60 years after the wave of independence of African countries, it was possible to pause and think. The Bretton Woods institutions - the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and, more recently, the World Trade Organization - set the rules and imposed liberal capitalism as the economic norm. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the ensuing collapse of  
the Soviet empire, some authors wrote about the 'end of history' (Fukuyama, 1989, 1992) and 'clash of civilizations' (Huntington, 1993, 1996). By way of an introduction to his 1992 book, Fukuyama wrote:
'In it, I argued that a remarkable consensus concerning the legitimacy of liberal democracy as a system of government had emerged throughout the world over the past few years, as it conquered rival ideologies like hereditary monarchy, fascism, and most recently communism. More than that, however, I argued that liberal democracy may constitute the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution" and the "final form of human government," and as such constituted the "end of history" (https://www. marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/fukuyama.htm).  
Imposed structural adjustments, deregulation, privatization and laissez-faire have proven to be double-edged swords. The consequences were disastrous for most, if not all, African countries. What is the place of former colonies, caught in the neo-colonial net of their former colonizers - the CFA franc being an emblematic case of neo-colonial domination - in such an international system?