Prominent scholar Paul Zeleza failed to reflect the intellectual who challenged conventional wisdom
Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.“The Kenyan political thinker who was unafraid to confront contentious issues.” “The African political scientist who sparked controversy.
We might classify Zeleza’s sins into two parts: sins of commission and sins of omission. Sins of commission are largely misinterpretations or distortions of what Mazrui has written, while sins of omission are fundamental facts that are overlooked. Zeleza links Nkrumah’s ideas on pan-Africanism and neo-colonialism to Mazrui’s, but fails to interrogate the Kenyan scholar’s most contentious debate, which was centred on Nkrumah.
Mazrui, in stark contrast, consistently blamed historical and contemporary external forces for most of Africa’s problems, without ignoring domestic autocracy. In 2000, Mazrui scathingly critiqued Gates’ six-part documentary Wonders of the African World for portraying ancient Egyptians as racist; ignoring Swahili experts; overplaying Muslim atrocities in Zanzibar; and under-playing Jewish commercial involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.
Zeleza has thus omitted individuals who would have to form an integral part of any serious discussion of Mazrui’s scholarship. Zeleza’s list appears arbitrary, and even he himself concedes that it is based on “impressionistic selectivity” . Many of these scholars and statesmen, we think, are perhaps those that Zeleza himself admires. They are not the ones that were major influences on, and disciples of, Mazrui.
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