What Center holds for Contemporary
African Intellectuals?
Chambi Chachage
I didn’t expect Bwesigye bwa
Mwesigire’s Open
Letter to Contemporary African Intellectuals to go viral. I thought it would
simply be dismissed as a recycling of exhausted critiques and criticisms. Yet I
shared it online enthusiastically.
The letter hardly generated a debate in a listserv that
boasts a number of African intellectuals, moderated by none other than the celebrated
Nigerian Professor, Toyin Falola. It is as if these seasoned debaters felt they
had been there before. In Wanazuoni, once
promoting itself as a listserv of young Tanzania’s intellectuals, the letter
almost passed unnoticed. Yet some responded to Mwesigire’s and he has now issued
a rejoinder.
One thing in particular has raised my eyebrows. He
writes: “The relevant intellectual centres contemporary Africa in their
thinking.” For him, “the contemporaneous intellectual considers Africa’s
contemporary needs and centres their ideas around satisfying these.” His
definition is centered on contrasting this so-called contemporary intellectual
with the “Afrocentric intellectual”, who allegedly “holds up the bygone African
as the ideal”, and the “mimic intellectual” who apparently “exalts European
modernism as the ideal, the developed.”
In this regard
Mwesigire’s “contemporaneous intellectual is keen to consider the current
African reality independent of fantasies of Europe and the African past.”
He/She is not only into solving his/her (African) problems, but also into
defining them in their own (African) right. “Contemporaneousness”, in his
terms, “has no room for authenticity as
a static idea, nor modernity as a Europe-manufactured product” for the “African
has the agency to solve their problems while centring their needs, and not by
the standards set by Euro-America modernity or ancient African ancestors.”
By way of digressing it is interesting to note that
Mwesigire’s compatriot, Mahmood Mamdani, has been busy teaching students of
Africa about defining a problem before solving it. This
is how he puts in one context: “How you define the problem shapes the
solution. So ‘definition’ is crucial. ‘Definition’ tells you what the problem
is…. Every doctor knows that diagnosis is at the heart of medicine; not
prescription. Wrong diagnosis, wrong prescription, and the patient will die.
The heart of medicine lies in the analysis.”
In another
context Mamdani puts it this way: “Consultants presume that research is all
about finding answers to problems defined by a client. They think of research
as finding answers, not as formulating a problem…. The old model looked for
answers outside the problem. It was utopian because it imposed externally
formulated answers. A new model must look for answers within the parameters of
the problem. This is why the starting point must go beyond an understanding of
the problem, to identifying initiatives that seek to cope with the problem…One,
key to research is the formulation of the problem of research. Two, the
definition of the research problem should stem from a dual engagement: on the
one hand, a critical engagement with the society at large and, on the other, a
critical grasp of disciplinary literature, world-wide, so as to identify key
debates within the literature and locate specific queries within those debates.”
However, as we all know, most of these problems did
not start today. Many of them hardly started yesterday. It is thus myopic to
ignore the centrality of what Mwesigire refers to “Ancient African ancestors”
and the “standards” they set. I, for one, am not a fan of “Afrocentric
romanticism.” Like Frantz Fanon, I am wary of “tom-toms”. Yet I
appreciate applicable attempts to show why it is important to center ancient
Africa in our contemporary reality and daily analysis.
Recently
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba aptly explained such centrality in his public lectures,
which should be published and circulated far and wide in the African world,
this way: “When you read any scientific book, by the Western scientists
especially, terms used to name certain objects or elements refer to ancient
Latin or Greek; the Indian scientists sometime refer their concepts to ancient
Sanskrit. Those who studied some African languages found that many basic words
have ancient KMTian [Kemet-ian] roots. For purpose of unity in the African research,
through African languages, why not make the study of the Ancient Egyptian
necessary?”
Wamba
thus responds to that rhetorical question: “This would also enhance the development
of African languages. We saw that in terms of social philosophy, solidarity is
the mark of African traditional cultures. Despite the pressure of peripheral
capitalism on societies, the extended family is not disappearing. Expectations
for social happiness, for a sacred leadership above corruption, above the
desire to accumulate and promotes sharing, which is against lies and mediocrity
are still alive in our societies. One has just to go through the African proverbs
to be convinced of this. To some extent, we may say that there are still
remnants of the KMT social paradigm. Why not formalize this as part of the
basic compass in our African societies?”
He
also remind us that: “The foundation of African scientific research is still
based on a philosophy of returning to the Western sources, not having our own
sources and borrowing and learning from other sources as well as other people
do. Did Plato go to Greece to look for data and go to Egypt to write his
thesis? He studied and learned what he could and went back home and wrote in
his language. We find it difficult to do the same because we have neglected our
languages and have adopted other people’s languages and call them ‘languages of
culture’ as if ours are culturally barren.”
To
prove that he is not simply romanticizing the African past, Wamba thus shares
his own experience: “I have been involved in the translation of Ancient
Egyptian texts into African languages and I have been finding those texts very
enlightening and awakening. Some of them touch on crucial issues we have been
struggling with: spirituality, morality, leadership, unity, solidarity, etc.”
As
if he is directly speaking to Mwesigire, Wamba adds this disclaimer: “We are
not advocating a return to the KMT sources, we are advocating a recourse to
those sources as a basis of our education system.”
Then
comes my favorite passage from Wamba: “I was at Harvard University when the
Chinese President spoke there explaining why China decided to open again to the
outside world. It was a historical
speech, summarizing a history of more than one thousand years, explaining when
China closed to itself and why and when it opened to the outside world and why.
It was very instructive. I wondered then whether an African president could
have spoken basing his/her speech on one thousand years. What we often hear
does not even go as far as the colonial period! And this is due to the kind of
education system we have—the one left by colonialists with some patches of
modernity.”
While
the scramblers of Africa are busy defining themselves in terms of what they
consider to be their celebrated past that stretches to the distant past, in
general we are busy truncating our history to the ‘postcolony’. No wonder
Wamba’s erstwhile colleague, Mamdani
made this related poignant observation: “The principal contestants for
Africa’s resources – China and the US – are busy defining Africa’s problem from
their vantage point. Each would like to provide the solution to Africa’s
problems.”
Mamdani also raises these important questions and
recommendations: “These days we do not get tired talking of the need for ‘African
solutions to African problems.’ What do we mean by this? Is this mantra
meant to justify the same militarized solutions so long as these are implemented
by Africans? Or is it a call for cultivating an independent mindset, one
that is African because it is shaped by African experiences. Our primary need,
I suggest, is to formulate a narrative that will make sense of our experience.”
The ancient past is contemporarily present. Hence path
dependency continues to shape Africa’s trajectory. African intellectuals can
make sense of our experiences and formulate sensible narratives and practical
solutions to our problems by looking back and forth.
Things don’t have to fall apart. Our African center
can indeed hold. Pan-Africanism.
