Mazrui: Epitome of intellectual tolerance

19 Oct, 2014 - 06:10 0 Views
Mazrui: Epitome of intellectual tolerance PROF ALI MAZRUI-KENYA

The Sunday Mail

From Sifelani Tsiko in NAIROBI, Kenya

Mazrui was a prolific imaginative writer, producing history books and essays that evoked, in a range of voices, the trials of Africa’s pre-colonial and colonial history, and its post-independence battles.

PROF ALI MAZRUI-KENYA

PROF ALI MAZRUI-KENYA

The life of Ali Mazrui, a renowned Kenyan and Pan-African scholar, has elicited glowing praise from various corners of the world, with many paying tribute to a man whose intellect was an exemplary service to humanity.

Many hail the great power of his mind in articulating African issues with authority, candidness and frankness that created friends and foes for him as he traversed the world presenting essays and lectures, interviews and staging acts of protest against those who sought to annihilate the history of his continent’s peoples.

His writings at times left the reader in the full emotional grip of the many dimensions of contemporary issues facing the African continent.

Mazrui wore the badge of Pan-African universality and using the great power of his mind built a global network that strove to generate debate and open discourse on a broad range of issues about the African continent.

When talking about his life with a cross-section of people in Nairobi, many remember how he easily and freely interacted with all; while recalling the tension and uneasy relations he had with former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi who later exiled him.

“He was one of the best political minds Africa ever had,” recounts Otula Owuor, a veteran Kenyan science journalist. “He was brave and he spoke his mind out. The Moi regime even banned him because of his strong views against corruption and bad governance.

“His views and observations will be missed. Mazrui understood Africa very well and his frankness created enemies for him. The Moi government was hostile to him because he had a terrific mind that frightened his government.”

Another veteran Kenyan writer, Daniel Aghan, says Mazrui was one of the best wasomi (Kiswahili for intellectual) Africa ever produced.

“During the difficult Moi regime days, he was not afraid to tell the truth. He was brave and never shied away from telling the truth.”

His writing prowess and television documentaries created a permanent place for his works in the world’s literary canon.

Mazrui was a prolific imaginative writer, producing history books and essays that evoked, in a range of voices, the trials of Africa’s pre-colonial and colonial history, and its post-independence battles.

His public lectures at Makerere University and many others across the world were explosive, generating ardent debate and igniting discourse.

Mazrui was overwhelmed by the request for lectures and contributions to journals and association pamphlets from universities and institutions.

Political scientist Prof Okello Oculi, in a tribute, recalls Mazrui’s “explosions” like “Nkrumah the Leninist Czar” and “Makerere, Tom Mboya and I”, which he says excited young minds at the time.

He also recalls how Mazrui’s neo-colonial hurricane was countered by the eloquence of Dr Walter Rodney, a Guyanese revolutionary scholar teaching History at the University of Dar es Salaam.

“A Great Debate pitted the eloquence of a revolutionary scholar against that of a conservative,” reminisces Prof Oculi of the stormy debates of the ’60s and ’70s.

“Mazrui defined his role as that of explaining Africa to Europe and Europe to Africa. I attended the lectures and regularly challenged his lines of argument.

“I often accused him of cheating by excluding inconvenient data from his argumentation. He showed no irritation. In this, he taught and built a vital culture of intellectual tolerance.”

Many Kenyans and Africans alike speak glowingly of Mazrui’s culture of intellectual tolerance despite the huge criticism that he was pro-Western in the global battle of ideas.

“In 2009 in his hotel room in Abuja, he boasted to me that with the collapse of the USSR, I had ended up on the losing side,” says Prof Oculi.

Some speak of Mazrui as a man who rose above petty religious and tribal politics.

“Kenyan scholars preaching tribalism have a lot to learn from Prof Mazrui,” adds Benard Amaya of Nairobi. “He defined national and global intellectualism by standing up for the rights of the disadvantaged wherever they were on the globe.

“Our national discourse was enriched by the professor’s insightful and informative works. When his contemporaries were busy advancing shallow ethnic causes, Mazrui pursued a global perspective.”

The number and quality of scholarly works by Mazrui, Amaya says, is unmatched by his contemporaries in Africa.

“He never tired of penning his opinion on topical issues affecting the African continent and its people,” he says.

“From media articles to books and journals, Prof Mazrui raised the bar in intellectual writing, always placing issues in proper context.

“Africa is all the poorer without its giant defender. May his spirit inspire a new crop of Pan Africanist scholars.”

Dr Fred Mwirigi, a director at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, believes Mazrui was one of the most celebrated professors of African and Islamic studies.

“This was a man who had it all, yet remained purposeful, selfless and humble,” he writes in a tribute. “He did not at any point of his illustrious academic career allow the great power of his mind, the wide and important global networks he had built or even the great history of his family to dictate how he related with the world.

“He remained one with the people and used these great strengths to serve everyone. Whether you were a black African or an Arabic African, European or American, Muslim or Christian, Prof Mazrui was able to find time for you. He wanted the best for humanity across the world.”

Mazrui held a number of positions at universities and other global networks where he served as the mentor, patron, and presenter-to-the-world of so many issues on Africa and the world.

Many of his works and service to learning institutions carried the stamp of excellence that drew readers everywhere to his essential works spanning five continents.

He was the epitome of intellectual tolerance.

“He taught us to belong to religions but to love those who belonged to other religions as well, to belong to tribes, but to respect those who belonged to other tribes and to belong to nations but to serve humanity regardless of their nationality,” says Dr Mwirigi.

“He taught us to be unique but diverse. As we lay him to rest, may this lesson resonate with each one of us.”

Prof Anyang’ Nyongo, in his tribute, says: “With the demise of Ali the curtain has fallen on a generation of African social science that he dominated with his global approach to social analysis, philosophical insight into social phenomena and the use of the English language that was uniquely Mazruic.”

Zimbabwean scholars have a lot to learn about intellectual tolerance. Critics and scholars in Zimbabwe have torn each other apart to the extent that they are blurred when it comes to the country’s national and global discourse.

Scholars no longer see eye to eye.

It’s no longer easy for opposing scholars to debate in a mutually respectable way without booing or heckling.

The result is malnourished debate that weakens the country’s intellectual culture.

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