Page 75 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 4
P. 75
TRUE AFRIKAN LEADERS TRUE AFRIKAN LEADERS
of the masses, which can then be
used to bring about positive so-
cial transformation of our present
plight.
As a new decade dawns, we are
living in dangerous times. All
over the world today, political
leaders and citizens alike are
developing thick skin by routine-
ly rationalizing cruelty, exclusion
and by engaging in habits that in-
culcate the systemic suppression
of ‘others’. These are dangerous
times because individuals are
becoming smart and slick when
it comes to disguising instances
of dispossession, making it look
normal. These are dangerous
times because we are counting
massive accumulation by a few
as the solution to the massive
dispossession of many especially
Confronting here in Africa.
Across the waters in America,
so bad is the situation that the
the Cognitive respected American economist
Paul Krugman has recently pon-
dered in the New York Times
Prison: whether the US could also be
classified as a failed state. Pro-
fessor Krugman points out that
A Critical Reflection on Julius Nyerere’s political scholars, who would nor-
mally study American democra-
Political Thought cy in splendid isolation, are now
paying new attention to Africa
and Latin America. They probably
By: Ronald Elly Wanda want to understand what happens
when tyrants like Kagame, Mu-
seveni or Nkurunziza of Rwanda,
lo, Bitek, Mudimbe and others
begin this brief deliberation on
I have made similar pleas in the ly ‘win’ elections and democra-
Uganda and Burundi respective-
the political thought of Mwalimu
Julius Nyerere in a manner
recent past that African schol-
cy morphs into something else.
ars must pursue knowledge
most unoriginal - by pointing a
In 2019 alone, the US is said
finger at the academic community production that can renovate Af-
to have withdrawn from several
in Africa at large. I want to shout rican culture, defend the African multilateral agreements and has
out loud from the onset that we people’s dignity and civilisation- recast itself to resemble the per-
must come to terms with the in- al achievements and contribute sonality of its current president, a
escapable violence that contin- afresh to a new global agenda
self-centered racist who appears
ues to characterise the political that can push us out of the po-
to lack a trace of the idealistic in-
intercourse of Europe and Africa. litical crisis of modernity as pro- ternationalism that had been one
I am certainly not the first writer moted by the European enlight- component of US’s international
to express this frustration and un- enment. Such knowledge, for character for more than a centu-
doubtedly won’t be the last. Think- instance, as demonstrated by
ry. As I write, impeachment pro-
ers such as Nabudere, Anta Diop, Nyerere through Ujamaa, must
ceedings have been formalized
Shivji, Ramose, Mutunga, Maso- be relevant to the current needs against the incumbent Republi-
74 | heal . restore . rebirth . Afrika www.msingiafrikamagazine.com heal . restore . rebirth . Afrika | 75
