Attacks on Universalism

The term 'Universalism' is exclusive, it includes the whole world. The term Universalism refers to European parochialism, European writers always emphasized universality in their writing. They believe that the writer has to cover all the issues in general or the writer has to speak for all. They judge African text from this angle; they argued that the African text is not universal because it does not speak about the universal issue. It speaks only African voices, therefore their text is invalid. They are not able to write about the whole universe. The two problems with Universalism, according to Achebe are, first that the presumed universality that critics find, is merely a synonym for the "narrow self-serving parochialism of Europe" and second, that every literature must "speak of a particular place; evolve out of the necessities of its history, past and current and the aspirations and destiny of its people." It means that every text comes out of a specific time space and people. Therefore, every text is related to space specific and people-specific. African people have experienced racism. Therefore, they can write about racism deliberately. Africans might have made many mistakes, but they didn't bring racism into the world. Therefore, they would write about it, which is African specific situation that is pervaded in Africa. Achebe sustained the idea that "the term universalism must have vanished."