Page 77 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 4

TRUE AFRIKAN LEADERS TRUE AFRIKAN LEADERS

fully answer the all-important underlie them. earlier, ‘what as members of Af-
political question, ‘what as mem- It is for this reason that I argue that rican communities, are we trying
bers of African communities, are there is a serious problem with to free ourselves from, and what
we trying to free ourselves from, African academics sitting in high are we trying to establish?’ it be-
and what are we trying to estab- towers in Nairobi, Makerere, La- comes necessary to look broadly
lish?’ The answer to this ques- gos, Pretoria or other institutions at the historical phenomena in
tion, in part lies with the Tanza- of higher learning dotted across which African achievements can
nian political philosopher whom the continent, who unashamedly be given proper recognition for
until his sudden death in 1999, continue to perpetuate these the- without such recognition, it will
made significant strides towards ories whose net result has been be difficult for us, as Africans, to
the right direction. to declare Africans as underde- claim the 21st century.
veloped, irrational, stagnant, and
reactionists. Nyerere refuted this
Ujamaa Philosophy vehemently, arguing instead that African Epistemology
despite of its spatio-temporal
Through Nyerere’s political To begin with, I share Nyerere's
constraints, the Western mod-
thought, one sees Africans as intuition that Political theorizing
el seeks to acquire a universal
trying to free themselves from should be rooted in what makes
European categories and the monopoly for itself and disregard sense to people and can guide
other points of view especially
propensity to unwillingly em- them effectively in their public and
those from Africans as parochial
brace a Eurocentric worldview. private lives. As English philoso-
in spite of its own philosophical
In other words, through his polit- pher John Dewey in his book The
and historical limitations.
ical lens captured in his Ujamaa Public and Its Problems (1927)
philosophy, Africans are trying to agreeably asserted, ideals are
recreate a historicity that has a Cognitive Prison intelligible guides to action only
philosophic practice that is both This position has been supported when they extrapolate from the
reflective and reflexive of their by Indian philosopher Shiv Vis- tendencies of existing practices
own lived political experience. vanathan who warns that Africa and carry them to completion.
Nyerere’s Ujamaa gave us a stands to pay a heavy price for In the same vein, although I make
breadth of fresh air as far as polit- failing to develop an organic in- no claim to provide an adequate
ical and development discourses tellectual infrastructure to adapt, account of the origin and devel-
are concerned. For so long now, translate and retool borrowed opment of Nyerere’s political
theories of political and social de- knowledge. He attributes Africa’s thought and ideas, one thing that
velopment have been presented failures not only to the stubborn is certain is that he epitomized
to African community as “scien- postures of current postcolonial what Plato termed as a philoso-
tific” theories extracted from their governments or lack of resourc- pher-king who combined great in-
social and historical conditions es in the continent, but to the tellectual prowess with a healthy
implying that they represent the failure by the academic and po- disdain for material wealth and
only valid paradigm that cannot litical fraternities to diagnose the ostentation; a man who could not
be criticized or refuted. These problem of Africa’s development be bought by money and who
theories have received such a accurately owing to their failure to lived like what Tanzanian writ-
widespread popularity that the perceive the full depth and scope er Jenerali Ulimwengu recently
United Nations has adopted them woven together by the conflu- described as ‘a fakir when the
as its international blueprint for ence of the ideologies of science, lesser mortals of his age hid their
the so called developing coun- law, politics, and development philosophical emptiness and in-
tries mostly found in Africa. A crit- studies that are all pegged on tellectual nakedness behind Rive
ical and close reading of these advancing modernity which in the Gauche suits and Hollywood vil-
theories reveals that they are course of time, has managed to las’.
nothing but a set of ideological create a cognitive prison wall that Nyerere, in effect thought as
premises that reflect the West- has in turn sealed off academic did German philosopher Mar-
ern experience. One common institutions from real African com- tin Heidegger that being deter-
characteristic of these theories is munities. mines epistemology; epistemol-
that they generalize their results By focusing on Nyerere’s political ogy does not determine being.
to the entire world by eliminating thought expressed in his Ujamaa In other words, Nyerere believed
their own specific characteristics philosophy, and in an attempt to that what is, determines method,
and the historical conditions that address the question I’d raised not the other way round. Indeed

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