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Prof Ali Mazrui: Controversial and courageous scholar, philosopher

Saturday October 18 2014
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Prof Mazrui was critical of African socialism and the Ujamaa philosophy, espoused by Julius Nyerere, and had no patience with the Marxist thinking prevalent in East African universities in the 1970s. PHOTO | FILE

A Pan-African intellectual giant, celebrated globally for his fertile mind, Ali Mazrui, born in Mombasa on February 24, 1933, was a courageous and controversial scholar, artist and philosopher. But, sadly, he was hardly recognised at home due to the limited space for free expression and critical thinking.

The resistance to ideas that dominated life in Kenya during the Kanu reign between 1966 and 2002 had the effect of institutionalising corruption, entrenching political ethnicity, undermining intellectualism and delaying the structures necessary for a just and democratic nation.

It is inconceivable that Prof Mazrui could not find a home at the university of Nairobi after his doctoral studies at Oxford University or when Makerere University became uninhabitable due to the excesses of Idi Amin Dada who had taken power in a military coup in January 1971.

How could Kenya allow its son to share knowledge with young minds in far flung nations but never in his homeland?

When I first met Prof Mazrui two decades ago during my graduate school days at Yale University, where he had come to give a talk, I was impressed by his humility and accessibility despite his immense contribution to knowledge. Later, I interacted with him more closely through his nephew and my friend, Prof Alamin Mazrui of Rutgers University.

Prof Mazrui’s deep understanding of global politics and commitment to the ideals of pan-Africanism are only comparable to those of W.E.B Dubois, the most towering intellectual of the black diaspora in the 20th century. Both lived their lives interrogating not only global political economy but also culture and philosophy.

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Disappointingly, the university fraternity in Kenya hardly benefited from this doyen of African politics. He was too controversial and intellectually stimulating to be accommodated by the regimes of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi. 

It is only after the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) government took power in 2002 that Prof. Ali Mazrui was appointed by President Mwai Kibaki chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), where he served between 2003 and 2009, an appointment he valued to his last day.

Prof Mazrui’s rise to global acclaim started in the makuti (palm frond) structure of the Arab Primary School, now Serani Primary, between 1940 and 1949. He then went to Arab Secondary School, now Khamis Secondary School. Always highly driven, he started working at the age of 15 as a clerk at the Mombasa Institute of Muslim Education (MIOME), now Technical University of Mombasa.

While at the MIOME, he impressed the then governor of colonial Kenya, Sir Philip Mitchell, with his eloquence and the governor recommended him for a scholarship to Huddersfield Technical College in England in 1955 and later University of Manchester, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction.

Later, he was awarded a scholarship to undertake a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University, New York, which he completed in 1961. He then proceeded to Oxford University (Nuffield College) where he graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1966. It is at that point that he embarked on an extensive journey of research, teaching and publishing.

His professional career started at Makerere University, where he taught political science, serving as head of the Department of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. 

He wasted no time in ensuring that his fertile intellectual presence was felt, seeking every opportunity to defend free speech and critical inquiry. Prof Mazrui looked for targets that he could bring down with his intellectual power.

Taking a post-colonial liberalism stance, he relished wrestling with ideas and fearlessly contributed to political discussions in the media, pamphlets, journals and lecture halls. 

In the East African Journal, he engaged in debates with fellow academics, civil society and the political elite. He challenged the Ugandan head of state, Milton Obote,  in public and engaged the head of intelligence of Uganda’s security system (Akena Adoko) in town hall meetings.

In the Transition magazine, he questioned narrow nationalism, single-party politics and autocracy and collaborated with Rajat Neogy, to write “Nkrumah, the Leninist Czar,” and “Tanzaphilia.”

He was critical of African socialism and the Ujamaa philosophy, espoused by Julius Nyerere, and had no patience with the Marxist thinking prevalent in East African universities in the 1970s. He took the view that African liberalism could pave the way for the continent’s  transformation. 

He debated with Walter Rodney, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa about nationalism and its tendency to subvert democracy. 

Later, he was to take on Wole Soyinka through Transition magazine, which had moved from Makerere to Harvard University, Boston, especially after Soyinka’s criticism of his widely acclaimed documentary film, The Africans: A Triple Heritage.

Mazrui  openly voiced his opposition to power, even when doing so put him at great risk. When the  military dictator Idi Amin expelled Asians from Uganda, he distributed a signed pamphlet at Makerere University titled “When Spain Expelled Jews.”  

Idi Amin forced him into exile in 1973. In 1974, he joined Michigan University as professor and was later appointed director of the Centre for Afro-American and African Studies (1978-1982). In 1989, he was appointed to the faculty of Binghamton University, State University of New York, as the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and director of  Global Cultural Studies. 

He held concurrent appointments at the university of Jos, Nigeria, and Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. He was a restless and roving academic.

If African governments had invested in publishing for higher education, Prof Mazrui’s books would be available throughout all major bookshops in Nairobi. But alas! Although he has penned over 30 high quality books, only a few are available locally.

His ideas on African politics, international policy culture, political Islam and the relationship between the West and Africa remain unknown to many  in the region. Africa cannot undergo meaningful economic transformation without investing in ideas and neither can its sharp inequalities be resolved without listening to the voices of the continent’s intellectuals.

Mazrui saw the different levels of Pan-Africanism as crucial to the continent’s liberation. But the trans-Saharan-pan-Africanism, which was the basis of the African Union, and sub-regional pan-Africanism, on whose shoulders the Regional Economic Communities  are being configured, are driven by a political elite that may have limited legitimacy in their nation-states.

There is minimal citizen engagement in the building of these institutions. To have effect, as Prof Mazrui has observed in many of his writings, a new leadership fully committed to democracy and economic development is needed.

Writing on leadership in Africa, Prof Mazrui pays tribute the African leaders of liberation. They were courageous and fought against all odds for the liberation of their countries. Think of Samora Machel, Sekou Toure, Kwame Nkrumah, Robert Mugabe, Jomo Kenyatta and Nelson Mandela. But Africa is yet to produce effective leaders of development and democracy.

There are yet to emerge national leaders who will entrench the culture of accountability, inclusion and selfless service to the people. In his last days, Ali Mazrui was searching for national leaders who would steer the economic transformation of Africa, especially within the context of recent discoveries of natural resources.

When will the leaders of pan-Africanism with the fire of Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba light up the African continent?

An interesting concept in the speculative discourse of pan-Africanism supported by Prof Mazrui, is Afrabia. This concept, inspired by the blurring of the boundaries between Africa and the Middle East, would seem to suggest that the two regions are in the process of merging.

The East African Coast seems to be a continuum of parts of the Middle East, especially Oman. In fact, the number of families that speak Kiswahili in Oman is quite impressive and my own Kiswahili teacher, the late  Hilal Bualy, retired toOman. 

So did Mwalimu Tejani, formerly of Kenyatta University College. Whether it is cultural connections or relations of ideology, geography or genealogy, the interaction between Africa and the Middle East is extremely intense.

Moreover,  the concept of Afrabia is not too far-fetched when one considers the impact of global terrorism and the spread of Islam as a cultural and political force.

Inclusive politics

Ali Mazrui was totally committed to inclusive politics.  Writing on language and governance in The Power of Babel, he laments the political dependence on imperial languages.  This dependence excludes the majority of citizens from the governance process. Even more comical is the fact that on days of national significance, citizens are addressed by their leaders, not in the national language, but in a European language.

Furthermore, European languages are the official languages of constitutions in Africa, notwithstanding the fact that the majority of the people who face the courts on a daily basis speak African languages. Without a clear understanding of the purpose of leadership, these contradictions will persist.

As we celebrate the life of Prof Ali Mazrui, the controversial and courageous son of Africa, let us take time to critically read his writings. Let us ask the question: What happens to a soul genuinely wanting to come home, but denied the opportunity to do so by an elite frightened by the power of ideas?
 
Prof Kimani Njogu is the director of Twaweza Communications and chair of the Kenya National Kiswahili Committee  ([email protected])

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