African Intellectuals: rethinking politics, language, gender and development (review)

This book purports to be an in-depth discussion of African intellectuals and their contribution to the continent, the Diaspora and wider issues pertaining to language, gender and development. It is also an attempt to situate what are deemed ‘intellectuals’ within their wider social and political context. Problematically, there is no clear definition from the editor of what exactly constitutes an ‘intellectual’ and judging from the way the book is set up and from the discussions contained within it, the term could be replaced by the less grandiose term of ‘academics’. Indeed, there is no exploration of what makes an intellectual different or worthy of study. Only Suttner explores the term in any meaningful fashion, deploying Antonio Gramsci’s conceptualization. As such, Suttner’s is one of the more nuanced pieces in the collection.

Gramsci identified two types of intellectuals: ‘traditional’ and ‘organic’. Traditional intellectuals are those who see themselves as independent freethinkers, well-respected by wider society. This is the commonsense term, one that the editor and most of the contributors seem to accept. Yet Gramsci detailed quite clearly how the independence of such scholars was usually a fiction and that they were fundamentally conservative and associated with the ruling elites. The book under review fails to engage with this critique, despite there being glaring examples of quite famous African intellectuals closely fitting this description.

The book details how various academics have sought to portray themselves as ‘anti-imperialists’ and engaged in work that invariably denigrates non-African studies. But there is not much more than this. And to make matters worse, there has been an apparent willingness by many to quickly serve the powers-that-be if and when called upon. The careers of Adebayo Adedeji, Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o and even the editor himself reflect the reality that there has been a great eagerness to receive recognition and remuneration from sources formerly held by these same people to be the epitome of Africa’s problems. Rather than speaking truth to power, there is an eagerness to serve and obtain power. And if that is unavailable, the careers of Mazrui, Zeleza and Ngugi suggests that working within, and being rewarded by the very structures held to be the antagonists of Africa’s progress, is acceptable, if not praiseworthy. Notably, five of the nine contributors ply their trade outside Africa.

Importantly, there is a lack of any engagement with the notion of academic freedom and how this may impinge on such intellectuals. Persecution of academics for expressing views contrary to regimes in power has regrettably been all too frequent. Yet, as Mkandawire mentions in passing, the idea of academic freedom was relatively slow to develop within Africa as new national universities in the 1960s and 1970s were more geared towards ‘national development’ and producing a skilled and educated workforce, than towards ‘abstract’ ideas about intellectual freedom. Indeed, at a conference in Accra in 1972 on ‘Creating the African University’, the Association of African Universities explicitly declared that the university in Africa occupied too critical a position of importance to be left alone to determine its own priorities and thus had to accept the hegemony of government. This was an incredibly strong signal at the time, but it is not mentioned. The Kampala Declaration on Academic Freedom (1990) is mentioned once, despite its being one of the first attempts by academics working in Africa to institute guidelines on academic freedom and institutional autonomy.

My main criticism of this book is that it romanticizes the role of African intellectuals and absolves many of them from their responsibility for the deterioration of Africa’s universities. I am not necessarily talking about the infrastructure of such institutions (although this is of course important), but the intellectual framework and atmosphere. It is not mentioned, for example, that it is very often academics that subvert intellectual freedom and happily serve elite interests. Nor is...