Quite interesting. Enjoy.
Madiba.
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POST EXPRESS
Category: Editorial
Date of Article: 07/02/2000
Topic: Ali Mazrui in Contradiction
Author: Aja Agwu
Full Text of Article:
Kenyan-born Ali Al'Amin Mazrui is a grand intellectual. He is a Ph.D. in
political science, and an academic with works of great erudition and
originality to his credit. But above all these, he is a professor. It is a
testimony to his sparkling learning that he was made an Albert Schweitzer
professor of humanities; and now, the Director of the Institute of Global
Cultural Studies, Binghamton University, New York, the United States. As a
professor, Ali Mazrui has a unique calling. This is because, a professorial
calling is a philosophical calling. And it is in the nature of philosophy to
transcend the emotional. For the philosopher, as Douglas Lackey would say,
emotionalism in whatever guise possible (whether in patriotism,
partisanship, or religious sentiments), "has its place, but like everything
else, it must be subjected to philosophical criticism." The implication of
this is that an intellectual of a professorial standing, like the
philosopher that he implicitly is, must be above board as far as
emotionalism is concerned. And to the credit of Lackey once more, he must be
a citizen of the world, an international statesman. His approach to issues
must be statesmanlike, for the rules of statesmanship abhor partisanship.
Over the years, professor Ali Mazrui has been known to be a distinguished
personage in this philosophical calling, but I doubt that his outing in
Nigeria last Monday has not heralded his descent from this hallowed
standard. Professor Mazrui was in Lagos for the public lectures organised by
the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC) which took
place at the National Theatre, Iganmu. In his post-lecture chat with the
press, professor Mazrui was reported to have said that he supports the
introduction of sharia law in the northern states of Nigeria, for "it is a
promise of great developments for Nigeria." After reading that newspaper
report, I puckered up my brow, wiped my face and starred unbelievably at the
name - Ali Mazrui - to reassure myself that it was actually this revered
professor that was being quoted and credited with a statement so obnoxious
and subversive as that making a case for sharia law in Nigeria (northern
Nigeria).
What has come upon professor Ali Mazrui?, I asked myself in disbelieve. I
have read many of Mazrui's works, but have particularly found his BBC Reith
Lectures - The African Condition - intriguing because of its bold and
unambiguous flagellation of the lack of aboriginal identity for Africans,
which has caused enormous ambivalence and confusion for the continent. How
come that at a time Africans should be talking about generating this
autochthonous identity that would give them some uniqueness and reduce the
ambivalence and confusion that have impeded them for so long, professor
Mazrui of all people, is advocating sharia for a strategic African country
like Nigeria, an Islamization and Arabization project that would only
intensify the ambivalence and confusion for Nigeria - Africa? Professor
Mazrui was said to have argued that the introduction of the sharia would be
promising because "westernization has gone too far," thus, compelling the
need "to brake on it," for the introduction of the sharia would be a
"commendable form of indigenization." I find Mazrui's argument here wholly
disagreeable because the paradox of substituting westernization with
Arabization is an explicit contradiction. His reported verdict that the
introduction of the sharia would have the imprimatur of an indigenization
because the Hausa Islam is a combination of Hausa indigenous values is not
convincing enough. No Hausa value prescribes the amputation of limbs as a
form of Justice.
I shudder with disbelief that an emiretus professor like Mazrui could,
because of religious sentiments (he is a moslem) permit a chink in his
intellectual armour by allowing himself to descend into the contradiction of
disavowing all that is foreign, especially westernism, and at the same time,
approving of islamization. Is Islam not foreign, an Arab culture and, thus,
an Arabization? I remember that the late Kwame Nkurumah proclaimed being
both Christian and Marxist, and that Mazuri is one of those that frown at
that contradiction.
The late Nkurumah was more of a politician than an intellectual comparable
to Mazuri's standing. That was why he could be permitted for permitting
himself many more contradictions, as in his "Consciencism ", for which Dr.
Chuba Okadigbo has since posted him a scathing rejoinder . But for whatever
it is worth, Professor Ali Mazuri should not have allowed himself this
costly contradiction in his advocate of the sharia for Nigeria.
In advocating the sharia for northern Nigeria, I marvel at the fact that
professor Mazuri did not realise that the Nigeria of today is not
reminiscent of his Africa of the past that hadn't a " high religious
culture", but only "folk or tribal religions" without zealots, and which
could be challenged with impunity without backlash from zealots. On the
contrary, Africa, Nigeria, has a glut of Mazrui's "high religious culture,"
which has incubated and hatched varied militants on both sides (Islam and
Christianity). The Kaduna Mayhem is illustrative. What then is professor
Mazuri prescribing for Nigeria in his Sharia in the north if not total
anarchy? What with the fact that Mazuri himself is also cognisant that the
Christianity of today has undergone a "re-masculation . a readiness to
invoke the macho values of militant combat in defence of justice". This
"re-masculated" Christianity is opposed to "the submissive version, the
version of obedience and turning the other Cheek" of Mazuri's ancient past.
What does professor Ali Mazuri wish Nigeria in championing the introduction
of the Sharia when it is obvious to him that Christianity has come to don
the toga of combat (like Islam has been over the ages) and can violently
resist it? Mazuri's prescription of Sharia for Nigeria even nullifies the
logic of his paper in those lectures, reportedly entitled "The African
Renaissance ." for there is no how Nigeria, with a crisis-prone policy of
Sharia, can partake in the renaissance. Also of great curiosity is that
professor Mazuri was reported to have said in his paper that African women
must be allowed to have a shot at leadership. The northern Nigerian woman
need not be told here that she is not within Mazuri's calculation because
the Sharia we know cages her in pudah. Why for goodness sake should our
venerable professor Mazuri be this so unkind to the northern Nigerian woman?
I'm yet to come to term with this reality that despite professor Mazuri's
dizzy intellectual height, he is yet to appreciate the fact that religion is
not worth dying for. Think of it, despite the pretensions of religion to
being of spiritual relevance, it is still colluding with temporal powers it
even sometimes appears to be denouncing. Islam and Christianity condemn the
state for its "oppressive" ways; yet, when an individual rebels against the
state by breaking some of its "oppressive" laws, these religions stigmatise
him or her as a sinner and connive with the same state they denounce to seek
for a pound of flesh. Islam will amputate limbs and sometimes behead, while
ecclesiastical authorities will administer the last sacrament to the "rebel"
at the stake before the agents of the state snuff life out of him with their
volley. What would the Almighty these two religions subscribe to, and who
ostensibly does not endorse the oppressive laws of the state, say about all
of this? Has professor Mazuri ever given thought to this irony before laying
down his credibility for religion? Why is the mighty falling? Tell it not in
Gath!!
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