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Tag: Ali Mazrui

  • Ali Mazrui: An academic who lived for humanity

    Ali Mazrui: An academic who lived for humanity

    Ali Mazrui, one of Africa’s most firebrand and revered scholars and critics, died during the week in his residence in New York, USA, aged 81.  Edozie Udeze takes a look at the man, who, through his many incisive and profound works, attacked African leaders whom he blamed for the economic and social retardation of the continent, among other issues he focused his attention on.

    The death, last week, at 81, of one of Africa’s most celebrated and outstanding scholars, critics, teachers, authors and political historians, has yet depleted the rank.  Professor Ali Mazrui, author of over 30 books, 2000 monographs and academic papers in different journals of the world, was a Kenyan citizen.  He was more or less a world citizen, someone who did not limit his gaze or attention to the continent of Africa, but used his wide and global connections to champion laudable programmes and ideals for the good of Blacks at home and in the Diaspora.

    Born in Mombasa, Kenya on February 24, 1933, he was educated at the famous Makerere University, Uganda where he graduated with a first class distinction in Political Science.  In 1960, he did his Master’s  degree at Manchester University in Great Britain and his Doctorate in Philosophy at the Oxford University (Nuffield College) in 1966.  Upon completion of his studies, he returned to Makerere University Kampala, Uganda, where he served as head of the Department of Political Science and later Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

    Exile

    In 1973, he was forced into exile by Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada, the defacto head of state of Uganda at that time.  Amin, who had followed Mazrui’s academic progression and his keen observation of the deeds of most East African leaders, said he did not find it comfortable with Mazrui so close to his regime.  From that moment on, Mazrui remained in exile until his demise a few days ago.

    He had lampooned African leaders as iron-fisted people whose roles could not help Africa to move forward.  Once he was driven out of Uganda, Mazrui headed to the University of Michigan, USA, as a Professor of Political Science where he was later appointed the Director of the Centre for Afro American and African Studies.  A restless and incisive scholar, with a big heart to create his own ideals for the sake of humanity, in 1989 he moved to the University of Binghamton, the state of New York as the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies.  This was a position he maintained till death.

    However, Mazrui’s research interests centred more on how to improve the lot of Africa and Africans.  In serving on the editorial boards of more than twenty international scholarly journals, he was offered the opportunity to breathe down on despotic leaders in Africa.  He never spared them for being the architects of the retrogression of the African peoples.  Even when he was widely sought after to help in fashioning new ideals by most of the heads of states and governments in Africa on political strategies and alternative thoughts, Mazrui never lost the chance to tell them the truth.

    Writings

    An Uganda-born Professor of History and International Human Rights, Amii Otunu, who teaches at the University of Connecticut, USA, described him as a great Pan-Africanist.  “Yes, Mazrui turned his life into a great Pan-Africanist in the mould of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.  He was a great African, one of the most prolific and controversial African writers.  Indeed, he was one of the most revered Pan-Africanist of the century.”  He was an innovative thinker, someone who put Africa on the world map of popular African ideals.

    Otunu further stated that he used biography and juxtaposition of ideals to explain Africa in a way no one else could have done it.  He did so especially with his 1986 Africa: A Triple Heritage documentary which was jointly produced by the BBC and the Public Broadcasting Service in Washington in association with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).  That film exposed the innate social and political and economic potential of Africa and then zeroed down on how some of these are being daily siphoned by the cabal to deprive the youths of their own golden chances.

    Professor Tunde Babawale of the University of Lagos who had close contacts with Mazrui described his death as a big loss to scholarship in Africa.  “He was indeed one of the foremost African intellectuals of this century.  His commitment to Africa’s autochthonous development is unequalled.  He was a powerful advocate of African cultures as a tool for independent development.  He also dealt extensively with the positive role Islam and Islamisation has played in African politics.  Mazrui has become one of the loudest voices in the need to democratise the continent as well as the need to have a more politically oriented leadership for the continent.”

    Mazrui, whose second wife, Pauline Uti, is a Nigerian, attracted the ire of most sensitive Nigerian leaders when he suggested that the Muslim North are meant to rule Nigeria in perpetuity.  A great advocate of Sharia and the rule of law, he held vehemently that Sharia should form part of a democratised society.  This was a stand for which he received hard and several knocks from many world and African leaders, yet Mazrui did not budge.

    While rejecting violence and terrorism in its entirety, he equally gave vent to some of the anti-imperialist and capitalist sentiments that play important roles in modern Islamic fundamentalism.  At the same time, he was a prominent critic of the current world order.  To him, the composition of the current capitalist tendency is deeply and unfortunately exploitative of Africa.  What the West does to Africa, he contended, was merely and could be conveniently described as global apartheid.  He was opposed to the Western interventions in whatever forms in the developing world.  His attention was particularly directed at the Iraq war which he insisted couldn’t have happened if the West did not meddle in  Iraqi internal affairs.

    He didn’t quite toe the line of the Israeli government in settling the political quagmire in the middle East.  To him, most of  Israeli policies were totally anti-Islam and therefore should be opposed and discountenanced for the sake of peace and progress in the region.  He, in fact, linked the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli government to the Apartheid situation in South Africa.  This was one sentiment that also earned him doses of attacks from most world leaders.

    Trial of Christopher Okigbo

    In one of his prose fictions dedicated to the late Nigerian poet, Christopher Okigbo, he lamented the sudden death of this great son of Africa.  A book that was supposed to be a fiction somewhat passed on other comments that invoked undue nostalgia and ill-feelings.  In his own comment on the death of Mazrui, Chijioke Uwasomba of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife, Osun State made specific reference to Mazrui’s demeaning of Okigbo, even though as a great man, Mazrui, himself lived a total life dedicated to scholarship.

    Uwasomba said: “In spite of his demeaning work, The Trial of Christopher Okigbo, he was a damn good African historian, politically-engaged intellectual, a resounding voice for the African and a source of inspiration to the upcoming African and Africanist scholars.  No doubt, he was in the class of Samir Amin, Walter Rodney, Aye Kwei Armah and other well-meaning scholars who through their intellectual exertions wrote back to imperialism and empire builders.”

    Mombasa

    Even though Mazrui left East Africa, his birth place in 1973 and never went back to live there, he has requested that his body be taken home to Mombasa, Kenya, for burial.  Known to have died of natural causes in his Vestal home, in New York city, Mazrui is said to have come from one of the most renowned and famous families in Fort Jesus, Mombasa, the city of his birth.  The family cemetery was where his parents and other late family members have been interred over the years.

    As at the moment, the Kenyan government is not opposed to this request.  Even Mazrui’s children are ever eager to take his body home for burial to end an era riddled with the nostalgic fears of exile.  To them, it is now time for their sage, a man who brought the family to global limelight to have his final rest where no more exiles or despotic and erratic leaders will haunt and hunt him.

     

  • Ali Mazrui (1933 – 2014)

    Ali Mazrui (1933 – 2014)

    •A towering African intellectual sometimes tinctured with by a vision founded on his identity as an African Arab

    In the visual age, perhaps what may be considered as strikingly illustrative of the enduring intellectual interest of Prof Ali Mazrui, who died on October 13 in the United States at the age of 81, is his celebrated 1980s television documentary series The Africans- A Triple Heritage, which was a joint production of the BBC and the Public Broadcasting Service (WETA, Washington) in partnership with the Nigerian Television Authority. It is noteworthy that a book by the same title was also published, which underlined the significance of the subject.

    Mazrui created the attention-grabbing series and was the narrator of the story focused on modern Africa as the product of three defining influences, an indigenous heritage, Western culture, and Islamic culture. For much of his extensive career as a scholar and creative thinker, he was preoccupied with the unfolding consequences of these legacies. He was well-decorated, and in 2005 he was listed among the world’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals by the US journal Foreign Policy and British journal Prospect.

    A Kenyan-born African Arab, this apparently complicated identity mirrored the tensions and complexities that he grappled with using his liberal intellectual resources. As a researcher, he was also drawn to African politics, international political culture, Islamic politics and North-South relations. He wrote numerous books as well as hundreds of academic essays published in major journals and strongly expressed opinions published in the media.

    Particularly relevant to his lifelong interests are his books, Christianity and Islam in Africa’s Political Experience: Piety, Passion and Power, Africanity Redefined and Africa and other Civilizations: Conquest and Counter-Conquest. It is a testimony to his academic stature that until his death he was the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies (IGCS) at Binghamton University in New York, a position he attained in 1989.

    His global perspective on political and cultural issues was further demonstrated in a speech in 2000 at an event hosted by the Royal African Society and the BBC in London. Bemoaning what he perceived as the expanding and domineering influence of the West on societies across the world, Mazrui said: “Even the very vices of Western culture are acquiring worldwide prestige. Muslim societies which once refrained from alcohol are now manifesting increasing alcoholism.” He added: “Chinese elites are capitulating to Kentucky Fried Chicken and MacDonald hamburgers. And Mahatma Ghandi’s country has decided to go nuclear.”

    Mazrui’s reputation as an informed and influential Africanist remained intact, undiminished by critical claims that his sympathies tended to lie with Islam, which was his religion. Even before his well-known television series, in 1979 he was considered a fitting mind to deliver the BBC’s prestigious Reith Lecture entitled “The African Condition.”  It is interesting to note that in 1991 he delivered the eighth Anniversary Lecture of The Guardian of Nigeria, entitled “The Black Woman and The Problem of Gender: Her Trials, Triumphs and Challenges.”

    His academic career was based on a solid foundation, having earned a doctorate from Oxford University in 1966, following an M.A. from Columbia University in New York in 1961 and a B.A. with Distinction from Manchester University in Great Britain in 1960. It is a reflection of his effective role as a public intellectual that he irritated the dictatorial military regime of Uganda’s Idi Amin well enough to earn himself a forced exile from his teaching position at Makerere University in Kampala in 1973.

    Toward the end of his life, he became prominent as a commentator on Islam and Islamism, and attracted controversy on account of his perspective that modern Islamic fundamentalism is an anti-imperialist response, although he rejected violence and terrorism. He also held the contentious view that Sharia law is not undemocratic.

    Indeed, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta who led tributes to him was correct in describing Mazrui as a “towering” academic whose “intellectual contributions played a major role in shaping African scholarship”.

  • Ali Mazrui: A tribute

    I first met the late renowned Kenyan scholar, Professor Ali Alamin Mazrui while I was still an undergraduate at the University of Jos in 1991; he was Albert Luthuli Professor-at-Large in the department of political science. He passed away last Monday morning in Binghamton, New York, in the United States at the age of 81. He delivered a thought provoking lecture on the political economy of Africa after which I left with a positive lasting impression of his depth of knowledge and scholarship. He was a towering academician whose intellectual contributions played a major role in shaping contemporary African scholarship.

    Prior to that lecture – and series of other lectures he delivered whenever he was in Nigeria – I had followed his popular 1986 television documentary: “The Africans: A Triple Heritage,” on the British Broadcasting Service (BBC) in cooperation with Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). He was the author and narrator of the programme which chronicled African history in a simple straight forward way. The series succeeded in shedding light on some widely held myth and misconception about Africa.

    Up until his death, he was Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies (IGCS) at Binghamton University, State University of New York. In addition to his appointments as the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities, Professor in Political Science, African Studies, Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture and the Director of the IGCS, Mazrui also holds two concurrent faculty appointments as Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large Emeritus and Senior Scholar in African Studies at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York and Chancellor of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya.

    In 1999, he retired as the inaugural Walter Rodney Professor at the University of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, The University of Chicago, Colgate University, McGill University, National University of Singapore, Oxford University, Harvard University, Bridgewater State College, Ohio State University, and at other institutions in Cairo, Australia, Leeds, Nairobi, Teheran, Denver, London, Baghdad, and Sussex, amongst others.

    As his stature grew, he was selected as the 73rd topmost intellectual person in the world on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals by Prospect Magazine (UK) and Foreign Policy (United States) in 2005.

    The late Prof. Mazrui’s research interests included African politics, international political culture, political Islam and North-South relations. He is author or co-author of close to thirty books in addition to hundreds of articles in major scholastic journals and some public media. He also served on the editorial boards of more than twenty international scholarly journals. The eminent scholar was widely consulted by heads of states and governments, international media and research institutions for political strategies and alternative thoughts.

    He was a critic of some of the accepted orthodoxies of African intellectual circles of the 1960s and 1970s like African socialism and all strains of Marxism. He argued that communism was a Western import just as unsuited for the African condition as the earlier colonial attempts to install European type governments. He held the view that a revised liberalism could help the continent and described himself as a proponent of a unique ideology of African liberalism.

    Beyond this, he was also critical of the current world order believing that the capitalist system – which most African countries practice in varying forms – was deeply exploitative of Africa, and that the West rarely, if ever, lived up to their liberal ideals which could be described as global apartheid. He opposed Western interventions in the developing world, such as the Iraq War. He was opposed to many of the policies of Israel, being one of the first to try to link the treatment of Palestinians with South Africa’s apartheid.

    As what later came to be known as political Islam gained ground, Mazrui became a well-known commentator on the phenomenon. While rejecting violence and terrorism, he praised some of the anti-imperialist sentiment that plays an important role in modern Islamic fundamentalism. He also argued – controversially though – that sharia law is not incompatible with democracy.

    In addition to his published works, Mazrui was also a media celebrity – if I’m allowed to use that word. He featured in the 2009 film, Motherland, directed by Owen Alik Shahadah which features key academics from around the continent of Africa. He was the main African consultant and on-screen respondent on “A History Denied” the 1996 NBC and Time-Life television series on Lost Civilizations.

    Other works worthy of mention include: “The Bondage of Boundaries: Towards Redefining Africa,” article in the 150th anniversary issue of The Economist London (September 1993) Vol. 328, No. 7828, 1993. Author and broadcaster, “The African Condition,” BBC Reith Radio Lectures, 1979, with book of the same title (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Advisor to the award-winning, PBS-broadcast documentary “Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet” (2002).

    It’s worthy to mention that the IGCS at Binghamton University was founded by Mazrui in 1991. The Institute’s primary purpose is to develop new multi-disciplinary approaches to the study of culture and cultural influences across societies in the contemporary world. IGCS promotes the study of these cultural forces through research, publications, teaching, academic conferences, and mass media educational programs. It is particularly interested in the role of culture in the context of global forces.

    Current research foci of IGCS which has made impact worldwide include: Development and democratization; Religion and its political and social implications; Race, ethnicity, and nationalism; Language as a political force; Comparative gender studies; North-South relations; Comparative philosophy and comparative social thought.

    Mazrui wrote many scholarly works, however, “The Trial of Christopher Okigbo” remains his only work of fiction. Okigbo was a young Nigerian who volunteered and fought for Biafra during Nigeria’s civil war of 1067-1970. Unfortunately, he was killed on the war front; he was only 35 years old.

    The dichotomous figure of Okigbo was an ideal one for Mazrui’s unusual fiction. One half he was abstract poet, the other half committed fighter – willing to sacrifice his life for his political convictions. Okigbo personifies questions that have been popular for ages, particularly regarding the responsibilities and duties of the artist in society.

    Okigbo – a legendary, larger than life figure – was a good character for a novel, but Mazrui wisely chooses to go only so far: Okigbo, though at the center of events, is barely a presence in the novel. Okigbo is on trial, but it is Okigbo as abstraction – hardly the flesh and blood figure.

    I will conclude this well-deserved tribute to one of Africa’s best known intellectual and scholar with a short tribute written by Prof Samuel Ebow Quainoo of East Stroudsburg University during Mazrui’s 80th birthday celebration last year titled “Ali A. Mazrui: Always Fighting For The Little Guy.” He recounted how he got a letter from Mazrui – who he had never met – in 1991 offering him the opportunity of an Albert Schweitzer Graduate Assistantship to study at Binghamton University for a doctorate degree in Political Science and work under him as his Graduate Assistant.

    Quainoo was in a quandary exactly three days after his resignation at Liverpool City Council when another letter came through from the Political Science Department of Binghamton University, withdrawing the Albert Schweitzer Assistantship. “One could imagine my confusion and immediate depression at this rather abrupt change in my fortunes. I spent the next two days brooding over what was going on and what my next step should be. I sadly decided to go back to Liverpool City Council to plead for my job back. And then, I received a second letter from Prof. Ali A. Mazrui, reinstating my Assistantship and expressing his interest to work with me as his Graduate Assistant.

    “My four years at the Institute showed me the side of Prof. Mazrui that most people do not get to see; fighting consistently for the little guys… graduate assistants, junior staff, students, etc. I found out my case was not an isolated one and that Prof. Mazrui had come through on several occasions for people like me in similar situations. My graduate student colleagues would on several occasions sit back and compare similar stories and experiences and marvel at how this big guy would quietly fight on behalf of people like us without even offering to tell us what he goes through to make it possible for us to pursue our ambitions.”

    That is the legacy Ali Alamin Mazrui is leaving behind; fighting for the little as well as the big guys.

  • Top Kenyan academic Ali Mazrui dies at 81

    Top Kenyan academic Ali Mazrui dies at 81

    Prominent Kenyan academic, Ali Mazrui, is dead.

    BBC reports that the scholar died in the United States after a prolonged illness.

    He was 81.

    Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said Africa had been robbed of one of its greatest scholars.

    The late Mazrui had been a “towering academic whose intellectual contributions played a major role in shaping African scholarship,” he added.

    He was a professor at Binghamton University in New York at the time of his death.

    The Chairman of Kenya’s Muslims for Human Rights group, Khelef Khalifa, said his body will be flown to Kenya for burial.

    The deceased is survived by his wife and six children.