Professor Ali Mazrui had an alluringly magnetic presence and aura. You wanted to hang around him and listen to him talk. To see the sparkle in his eyes as he conversed about the most serious issues with genuine affability struck a listener as uncommon. In his characteristic congeniality, Professor Mazrui would crack jokes while sharing profound thoughts that would occupy your mind for days, months, and even years after an encounter. Such thoughts would often pop up in your most meditative moments.
Born and raised in Kenya, Dr Mazrui was for many years a professor at Binghamton University in the United States and in 2005 was named one of the top 100 public intellectuals alive by the Foreign Policy Journal and the British Journal. When Professor Mazrui died in 2014 at the age of 81, it felt as if a huge chunk of Africa’s intellectual exercise was going to be suspended forever. Yet Mazrui lives on in his writings, speeches, and documentaries, which are deemed controversial by some, provocative by others, and interesting or thought-provoking and even discipline-shaping by many.
Although characterised by fearlessness in speaking truth to a global regime that consigned Africa’s knowledge to the periphery, Mazrui’s message was communicated with civility. Professor Mazrui’s truth was devoid of the bitterness that can so often crop up when the oppressed respond to the parasitic or predatory interactions that characterise their relationship with the oppressor.
In numerous books and scholarly writings, Professor Ali Mazrui explored Africa from lenses that were scarce in his generation. From the levers of much of his thought swung some of the paradigms that undergird the understanding of contemporary Africa. Mazrui’s thoughts veered into uncharted trajectories and were expressed with such vibrancy that they seemed like age-old wisdom. It was in this boldness that many found the strength to fathom Africa differently.
And it was his truth that he spoke, not anyone else’s. Mazrui sparked consternation with his assertion that Africa should revert to some form of internally structured colonialism, with Ethiopia colonising East Africa, Nigeria colonising West Africa and South Africa colonising the southern part of the continent. He was silent about North Africa. He used a scholarly apparatus to defend his convictions, vigorously earning a great deal of criticism from scholars, the media, and popular opinion. He was equally critiqued for his penchant to downplay the magnitude of Arab enslavement of Africans while magnifying the achievements of Arabic and, by extension, Islamic civilization. He actively advocated for a well-armed African continent that could achieve a balance of power in international politics, declaring at one time that he wanted “Africa to have the bomb to frighten the system as a whole.”
Professor Mazrui declared a new Africa: an Africa that is no longer, and never will be, “traditional” again; nor will this Africa be “modern” in the Eurocentric sense. However, this new Africa aspires to be “modern” on its own terms. But this aspiration, unlike the organically generated “modern” societies of the West, is fraught with deep-seated and festering challenges unique to the continent. No international consultant, expert, or anything of that sort can understand the continent from afar, let alone proffer solutions.
In a documentary entitled “The Africans: A Triple Heritage,” Professor Mazrui chronicles the impact of an admixture of traditional African society and Western and Arabic influences. He used the lenses of Christianity and Islam to reflect on the fact that Africa does not fit into any Western-oriented ideological box, but is a continent that has uniquely evolved, deserving of a novel paradigm of analysis.
Professor Mazrui could speak authoritatively about the realities of Africa, which differed from the way Africa was studied in academia or portrayed in the media. He was raised in Kenya in a Muslim family and grew up speaking Swahili, although he attended an English-speaking school. “My three worlds overlapped,” he said in an interview with The Times. It is this overlap of Professor Mazrui’s three worlds—indigenous African, Arab/Islamic, and European/Christian—that he famously called “Africa’s triple heritage.”
As a strong proponent of Pan-Africanism, Mazrui pushed for a unity-in-diversity approach to policy action across the region. He advocated the recognition and celebration of Africa’s diverse cultures. He emphasised that Africa is not a monolithic entity but rather a rich collection of different ethnicities, languages, and traditions, the knowledge of which is crucial to the continued survival of the human species. He emphasised the need for an African-centered approach to education, advocating curricula that reflect African histories, philosophies, and knowledge systems rather than merely adopting Western models. He explored the effects of globalisation on Africa’s diverse societies, arguing that while globalisation presents challenges, it can also offer opportunities for African cultures to influence and engage with the global community.
Mazrui was interested in the political economy of Africa’s relationship with its former colonisers, specifically in the context of post-colonial global governance. He highlighted the importance of African agency and self-determination, which would see the continent claim its rightful place as a natural resource-rich region, and become a politically and geographically relevant player in global affairs. In this regard, Mazrui delved into the role of the media and how media representation affects perceptions of Africa both locally and globally. He argued for the importance of African voices in shaping narratives about the continent. One wonders what Mazrui’s thoughts would be in an age of an increasingly decentralised world where many Africans have access to social media and are a force that cannot be easily dismissed.
Professor Mazrui left an enduring intellectual mark on the understanding of Africa. Ten years after he joined the ancestors, the continent, both within and outside academia, has built solidly on many of his ideas. One can only wonder what trajectory his thoughts would have taken in the face of the fundamental changes that now characterise the continent. Perhaps he would have been pleasantly surprised by the increasing visibility of Africa on the global stage, heralded by social media.
