Th Pan-African 
sented in your two-part 
lectures? 
AM: Well, there is a 
side of Kwame Nkrumah 
that's probably being underplayed, 
and that is Kwame 
Nkrumah as a cultural theoretician. 
So some work needs 
to be done more extensively 
on that. But as my own personal 
guru, his most important 
influence arose out of his 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
in the twenty-first centu 
E have followed your 
lectures over the past 
couple of days. Most of 
our viewers may not 
have been there. Could 
you, perhaps, begin by 
offering some of the essential 
arguments pre- 
ALI MAZRUI was in Ghana in the first week of November 1996 to 
deliver the First Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA) Annual 
Lectures. Originally recorded for the Ghana Television programme, 
African Heritage Series, directed by Doris Kuwornu, this interview 
with Mazrui by Kofi Anyidoho dwells on the substance of the well 
extended PAWA lectures spanning many days. Mazrui is currently 
Albert Schwitzer Professor in the Humanities at the State University 
of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton and director of its Institute of 
Global Cultural Studies. He is also Albert Luthuli Professor-at- 
Large, University of Jos, Nigeria? 
concept of philosophical 
: consciencism about the convergence 
of three civilizations 
on our continent; the convergence 
of our own indigenous 
civilization, the coming of Islam, 
and the impact of the 
West. And his notion that it is 
possible in fact to synthesize, 
that this may not just be an 
accidental convergence, that 
it could be, as a matter of 
Interview by 
Kofi Anyidoho 
policy, regarded as an inheritance 
worthy of synthesis. 
And out of that idea I developed 
my own concept of 
Africa's triple heritage which 
is really just a reformulation 
of his philosophical 
consciencism. And I took it 
into the television waves, if 
Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENPORA.v~ 
you like, with my television 
series'The Africans: A Triple 
Heritage' and I published a 
• book under the same title to 
push the issues further. So 
this particular set of lectures, 
: partly to mark the period 
1966 to 1 996 (sort of the 
African condition since 
: Nkrumah's fall) partly addressed 
themselves to that 
particular dimension of 
: Nkrumah - Nkrumah as a 
cultural theoretician, as someone 
who influenced my own 
perspectives on the African 
condition. 
GR: Well, that is interesting. 
Perhaps those who 
are familiar with your work 
might be surprised that you 
have chosen to celebrate 
Nkrumah in these lectures. In 
particluar, we could recall 
your denunciation of 
Nkrumah in a very famous 
article published in February 
1996, in Transition, under 
the title 'Nkrumah, the Leninist 
Czar.' Now, how do you 
explain this new perspective 
on Nkrumah's life and career? 
AM: Yes, i n my second 
lecture here, in fact, I returned 
to a central theme of my earlier 
article which was that 
Nkrumah was a great Afri-
can but not a great Ghanaian. 
And in my second lecture 
for the Pan-African Writers' 
Association I did remind the 
audience that I thought 
Nkrumah was a great African 
because he reminded us about 
what Africa needed to do to 
recover its dignity and its independence; 
he reminded us 
about the interdependence of 
African freedom and the extent 
to which our prosperity 
required joint efforts. He postulated 
institutions of Pan- 
Africanism, some of which we 
probably have to return to 
time and time again until they 
are realised. So he created a 
paradigm of Africa as one, 
which is probably enduring 
and very important and that's 
why he's so admired. So 
that's Nkrumah the Pan-African 
and, in general, that's 
Nkrumah the great African. 
Why is he not a great Ghanaian? 
Because I believe he left 
Ghana poorer than he found 
it. At the time of independence, 
Ghana was a relatively 
rich country as compared 
with other African countries, 
her per capita income 
was favourably comparable 
to what today are 'tigers' in 
Asia, like South Korea. And 
by the time he left he started 
the rot of economic decomposition 
in Ghana. Secondly, 
Nkrumah started the process 
also of major flaws; this is a 
country which could set the 
model for the rest of Africa 
because it was the first Black 
African Country to win independence. 
So what does it 
do? - it begins to detain political 
opponents without trial, it 
sets up a one-party state and 
provides justification for that. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
VoL 2/No. 1 GLENDORA. 
Widely imitated right, leftand 
centre including in, of course, 
my own country Kenya which 
4 had a one-party state under 
Kenyatta de facto and Moi it 
became by law. So Nkrumah 
set the grand precedent for 
one-party states and the idea 
of the judiciary as just an 
extension of the executive, 
Nkrumah set the precedent 
with the dismissal of the Chief 
Justice because he disagreed 
with the ruling of the judiciary. 
So, you know, the eyes 
of the world were upon him, 
he was governing Ghana, 
which was regarded as the 
first post-colonial state (south 
of the Sahara, at any rate). 
His ideas about the continent 
were superb and very often 
prophetic, his primary constituency 
was this country 
called Ghana and in his primary 
constituency, he was 
not a great Ghanaian. 
GR: Well, I'm sure that 
there will be disagreement on I 
that but essentially then, you 
celebrate Nkrumah as a cul- I 
tural hero, more or less, but 
maintain your reservations 
about him as a statesman. 
But the problem is the com- I 
plex context of what you yourself 
have called 'the African 
condition.' Can we really 
drawalinebetweenthestates- | 
man and the cultural hero? 
AM: I think your formu- I 
lation that I celebrate him as a 
cultural theoretician is prob- • 
ably incorrect as a rendering 
of where I stand, because his 
role about Africa definitely 
includes statesman so he was 
a great statesman, and he 
was the first major African 
figure to claim the right to 
have a say in disputes (that 
were not?) not directly connected 
with Africa. All the I remains that it has taken us a 
time the rest of the world claims 
the right to have a say in our 
disputes but we seldom demand 
to have a say when 1 need to put some of these in 
other people are quarrelling. I perspective. 
But Nkrumah...China and India 
are quarrelling and I 
Nkrumah tells off Harold 
Macmillan for sending arms 
to one of them, you see? So , 
he claims the right to have a I 
say in quarrels elsewhere and I 
| of course that commitment to I 
try and have a say over the 
American war in Vietnam 
which took him to China and 
then to his overthrow. So I 
admire that...that part of the 
statesman I admire. It's I 
Nkrumah's rule over Ghana 
I that I don't admire. So I 
: Nkrumah as international I 
statesman, I have no problem 
with that. And then Nkrumah I 
• as cultural hero, as a cultural I cently here in Ghana, Ayi 
Kwei Armah argued that only theoretician, had a more dithinking 
and how I view Africa; 
my paradigm of the African 
condition has felt the impact 
of some of his ideas. 
GR: I'm sure that you I 
mayberightinacertainsense I 
by claiming that he left Ghana 
poorer, that is if you define the 
question of the nation's wealth 
in terms of per capita income 
and some of the other indices 
that are often used by social }. 
scientists. But the real fact of 
the matter is that I as a person 
> rect impact on me, on my 1 a comprehensive cultural 
movement can rescue global 
Africa from its current condition 
of fragmentation and 
oppression. In some ways, at 
least by implication, your own 
presentations seem to be 
pointing somewhat in the 
same direction. Except that 
we have this problem that if 
there is any one area which 
contemporary African society 
is least willing to make 
any major investment in, it is 
the area of culture. How do 
we make a start? 
sitting before you now can 
understand why Ghana became 
poorer. My parents 
had no money to send me to 
school and some of the wealth 
disappeared into providing 
people like me, and many 
others across this country, free 
education. And the fact also 
long time to revive some of 
the infrastructure which was 
put in place so maybe we 
AM: Yes, and of course 
I just said he started the rot 
but obviously the rot did not 
get worse under his watch; it 
got much worse afterwards 
so I said he was cast by 
history to have approximately 
a decade in power. It is a 
critical decade. It's arguable 
that it could have been a 
decade in the direction of 
changes which could have 
led to prosperity for Ghana. 
But he didn't grasp that decade 
creatively is my point. 
GR: In delivering the 
1996 Nkrumah-DuBois- 
Padmore Lectures very re- 
AM: Yes, that really 
calls for lamentation. It is true 
that there is a tendency to 
grossly underestimate the relevance 
of culture for our development 
and for our move
some extent, before you can 
become sufficiently empowered 
to make the grand leaps 
of invention and performance 
and social creativity. And 
none of our governments are 
especially interested in language 
reform, language writing, 
except rhetorically So if 
you start from a quasi-linguistic 
determinist position that 
cultural revolution must begin 
with considerable attention to 
the problem of language, and 
then move towards how to 
make those languages receptive 
in the schools, in the media, 
and howthatcanbeused 
to great advantage in promoting 
art, culture, science and 
technology, then you might 
have a major transformation 
in science as well as in the 
arts. But I agree with you 
entirely that there is no sign at 
the moment of much of a commitment 
in that direction and 
not much of an interest in it. 
And the other thing is, where 
there is an interest in culture, 
it's interest in the foreign culture. 
I am a product of that, as 
you know; I grew up in a 
colonial setting so I entered 
adulthood while Kenya was 
still under colonial rule and I 
went to a school which was 
still patterned after colonial 
'A Shape Of Things tO Come' Geoge Rodger, Kordohn, Southern Sudan 
education systems and then I 
wentto England.... Well, you 
see, it is unfortunately one of 
the facts of life that we take 
interest in cultures, disproportionately 
in a foreign culture, 
in the culture of our former guage of science and tech- forward. And in some re- j| languages and making them I 
I imperial powers. So it isn't nology is totally derivative, if spects I'm a bit of a linguistic j| capable of developmental, I 
it does its science entirely in that there is a total cultural 
determinant (in that) I think s technological, scientific and 
a foreign language, that you void, it's just that there's a kind 
there are areas of perfor- Jj artistic leaps. And I remain 
mance which will elude us if Ǥ v e r y convinced that no counwe 
don't pay some attention || fry ever becomes a first-rate I 
really have to move in the | of cultural displacement and it 
direction of scientificating' I started, to some extent, with 
the language of the people to | my generation and the gen- to the problem of indigenous technological power if its lan- 
Ajrican Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENDORA,
eration immediately before 
me, because we were steeped 
in colonial institutions and 
we became,to some extent, 
cultural imitators of the West. 
And those of us who, in addition, 
were educated in the 
West became almost the 
worst cases of that cultural 
displacement, because there 
is a process of substantial dis- 
Africanization which takes 
place. So the question is, can 
we engage in cultural re- 
Africanization of our educational 
institutions, of our methods 
of formulating the aspirations 
of our young people, 
and of how we use our media. 
Is there an agenda of 
Africanization that is achievable 
at the cultural level and 
I would like to believe there is 
and we could attempt to do it. 
GR: Now, your first 
point anticipates my next 
question, that is the question 
of language and of course, 
rightly so, you do hold our 
governments responsible for 
lack of initiative on this. But 
it is important for us to keep in 
mind that our writers who use 
language as their primary 
tool, many of them seem to 
be quite unconvinced about 
this. You recall our round- \ 
table when at least two or 
three of our major writers I 
expressed very deep reservations 
about the need for African 
languages as a vehicle 
of expression. So if the people 
who are to lead this cultural 3 
revolution themselves, so far, 
remain so unconvinced, can 
we legitimately keep blaming 
our governments for lack 
of action in this direction? 
AM: That's a pointwell-
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENDORA 
taken because many of us are 
supposed to be cultural vanguards 
and some of us, because 
of the cultural displacement 
I mentioned, have invested 
a lot in the imperial 
languages - you and I have 
spent a lot of time using the 
English language for our work, 
etc. Some of us, inspite of 
investing such a lot of time in 
the imperial languages, can 
still step back and say, 'OK, 
maybe I personally am a lost 
cause but I would like the 
Africa of tomorrow to have a 
chance of, at least, partial re- 
Africanization' and that the 
linguistic roots towards re- 
Africanization is indispensable. 
So I count myself out 
although I am myself part of 
thatculturaldisplacement. On 
the other hand, there are many 
other writers who can't take a 
step back, having invested 
years into perfecting their command 
of the imperial language. 
That's a major leap 
into the unknown, a kind of 
sacrifice, for all that they have 
done, and they have become 
very possessive of the imperial 
instrument that they have 
acquired, the linguistic instruments. 
So it's true, there's a lot 
of work to be done to convince 
not just our governments, 
but our writers that we're not 
saying that people should no 
longer write in English and 
French and Portuguese, we're 
simply saying that, in addition, 
we should promote indigenous 
languages much 
more than has been the case 
before.
GR: OK, thank you for 
that. If we can change the 
direction a little bit...You have 
a well-earned reputation for 
provoking controversy and I 
am aware that one of the 
current positions thatyou take 
on the fragmented political 
situation of Africa is perhaps 
a call for what some might 
describe as an internal 
colonialisation programme, a 
programme in which larger 
African countries could swallow 
up the smaller ones and 
make them much more viable 
entities. Could you please 
speak briefly on this for us? 
AM: Yes. Well, the 
central idea really is not just 
: to swallow up any smaller 
country but a country that is 
really collapsing so it's really 
a measure to be evoked in 
cases of desperation. So that 
when the state system is breaking 
down in Liberia or Burundi 
or Rwanda or Somalia, etc., 
we should work out a kind of 
Pan-African trusteeship system 
which will enable stronger 
countries to be entrusted with 
weaker ones and restore them 
to their feet. But we should 
ha ve a system of accou ntabi Ity 
to Africa for that role. So it 
will be comparable to the old 
system of trusteeship of the 
United Nations which put, 
let's say, Great Britain in 
charge of, let's say, 
Tanganyika but it still had to 
be accountable to the United 
Nations as a trusteeship 
power over Tanganyika. But 
in this case, what I was recommending 
isthat they should 
be accountable to a more 
strengthened Organisation of 
African Unity and submit reports 
under that trusteeship 
system. And secondly, the 
idea is we can't just keep on 
waiting for the French to do it, 
I which is happening rightnow, 
I the French are taking the initiative 
and trying to bully their 
J Western compatriots to do 
1 something in Zaire and we 
t can't wait to see what the 
I President of the United States 
.will do, which has tended to 
I be our mentality: 'Who's 
I going to save us?' and look- 
It ing to Paris or to Washington 
g or less frequently to London 
(the British are less likely to 
come to the rescue, but the 
~ French and the Americans 
might do so, the British may 
| contribute money to such an 
I effort). So all I'm saying is that 
we must get out of this colossi, 
sal dependency, especially in 
I situations of extreme political 
collapse. Devise institutions 
I of Pan-African trusteeship sys- 
I tern — which I call 'selfcolonialisation'
— and do it 
properly. And I have distinctions 
within it: there's benevolent 
inter-African 
colonialisation, when it is done 
purely to help the weaker country 
and it is possible to find 
precedent. I think, for example, 
Tanzania's invasion 
of Uganda in 1 979 and the 
ousting of Idi Amin can be 
regarded as benevolent intervention, 
and the temporary 
establishment of a military 
occupation in Uganda, benevolent 
intervention, primarily 
helped Uganda rather than 
Tanzania. Then there's 
Tanzania's absorption of Zanzibar 
to form the United Republic 
of Tanzania. Nobody 
consulted the people of Zanzibar, 
there was no plebescite, 
or referendum or elections to 
find out whether they wanted 
to lose their sovereignty and 
their seats in the United Na-
tions or their flag...this was a 
decision made between the 
dictator and Julius Nyerere. 
So there's clearly a case of 
inter-African colonialisation 
but I would regard it as benign. 
Benign is different from 
benevolent; benevolent is 
when the weaker country is 
absolutely the net beneficiary, 
benign is when the balance is 
more or less even between 
the two and in this case the 
balance was even because 
although Zanzibar was forcibly 
married to Tanzania, the 
terms of the marriage were 
very generous and so that 
worked out well. And the 
third one is malignant 
colonialisation and this would 
be Emperor Haile Selassie 
absorbing Eritrea at the beginning 
of the 1960's. That 
was definitely malignant and 
it's arguable that any attempt 
by Morocco to swallow up 
. Western Sahara without having 
a referundum or an election 
will be malignant. So I'm 
only adding, in addition, an 
issue of accountability between 
a Pan-African body in 
order to have it more beneficial. 
GR: It seems to me | 
though thatthatcould become 
very complicated in the case I 
of bigger states: Let's assume 
that Nigeria was collapsing. J 
Who can absorb Nigeria? 
AM: That's very true. I 
Or even more immediale is 
Zaire because Zaire may be I 
collapsing. Whocandothat? 
There may be occasions when I 
it can't be done on an inter- I 
African basis, but it has to be I 
done at the United Nations | 
level. So I haven't ruled out 
Ali A. Mazrui 
the United Nations, I just 
regard it as excessively controlled 
by the United States, 
a country which pays dues 
to the world body but claims 
disproportionate power in 
running the organisation. 
So I think one day the United 
Nations will become a more 
even-handed body than it is 
now but I think it is worth 
preserving for weaker countries 
in the world. And there 
will be occasions as I said, 
like the present one in Zaire, 
everyone is afraid the 
present situation could lead 
to the disintergration of 
Zaire, so if it does, who is to 
stop it? So it's unlikely to be 
other African countries; it 
has to be what was attempted 
in 1960-61 when 
the Congo was on the verge 
of disintergration and that 
took United Nations action. 
GR: Maybe in thisconriection, 
it is interesting to 
note that you have, in your 
lectures, repeated 
Nkrumah's call for an African 
high-command. As he 
described it, you describe it 
as a multi-national African 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENDORA. 
m i I i t a r y f o r c e . 
Could we say then 
that the need for 
such a force is even 
more urgent now 
than it was when 
Nkrumah first proposed 
it? Then how 
do we go about 
setting it up? Could 
ECOMOG perhaps 
be a starting 
point?
AM: Yes...I 
think, first of all, it's 
important to say 
that Nkrumah's 
idea was very 
good except the 
purposes he had in 
mind are very different 
perhaps 
from the issues at 
stake today, be- 
• cause he still regarded 
the u Iti mate 
enemy as an enemy 
from without. 
So he was still influenced 
by preserving 
Africa's ind 
e p e n d e n c e . 
Whereas now really we're 
saving each other from each 
other. So we need a Pan- 
African emergency force in 
situations of political collapse 
within Africa, not against 
Portugese colonialism or 
apartheid or the return of the 
colonial rulers but Hutu, Tutsi 
or whatever is the situation at 
stake. So the purpose of the 
force has qualitatively 
changed from what Nkrumah 
had in mind. Secondly, it's a 
force that the United States 
now recommends that Africa 
should create, but the United 
States wants to put it under 
UN control and the UN is
itself in turn controlled by the 
United States. Well, I think 
that's not good enough; it 
should be a Pan-African emergency 
force that is accountable 
to Africans themselves, 
preferably through a reformed 
Organisation of African 
Unity and should be used 
in situations of extreme difficulty 
and desperation, either 
where there is political collapse 
or there is a major crisis 
of saving refugees from starvation 
and disease, etc. So 
the germ of the Nkrumah idea 
is there and we should go 
with it but the target of the 
problem has changed in the 
last thirty years. 
GR: So far we have 
been concentrating on Africa, 
that is continental Africa, but 
thinking about global Africa, 
what would you say are some 
of the prospects for a new 
agenda for Pan-Africanism in 
the twenty-first century? I'm 
thinking, for instance, of the 
role of people like yourself 
who are now part of what 
you yourself have described 
as the diaspora of colonialism. 
And then of course there 
is the older diaspora out of 
slavery. How do we make 
that ultimate reconnection? 
AM: Yes, the diaspora 
of colonialism is an important 
part of the chain connecting 
Africa with the diaspora of 
slavery, which is the older 
one and for viewers who are 
not familiar with what I'm 
referring to, the diaspora of 
slavery or enslavement is familiar 
enough - (it's) those of 
African ancestry who are in 
the diaspora because of the 
slave trade. So most African- 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
GLENDORA i.... Vol. 2/No. 1 
Americans are part of the 
diaspora, of slavery. The 
diaspora of colonialism 
those of us who are in the 
diaspora because of the disruptions 
and the disturbances 
following colonialism, the aftermath 
of colonialism. And 
we're distributed in many parts 
ofthe world, in Europe, in the 
Americas and elsewhere. 
Now within North America, 
for example, it is possible to 
distinguish between what I 
call American-Africans and African-
Americans. The American-
Africans who will be approximately 
people like me 
who now live there, they're 
basically Africans but their 
location has changed. They 
still have a language other 
than US English, they have 
relatives at home and con- 
Nnue to communicate with 
them, so they are more African 
than they are American. 
So the term 'American' is the 
adjective but the noun is'African.' 
And then you nave 
African-Americans and here, I 
of course, the noun is American 
and thnt's the substance. 
They are much more 
Americanised and most of 
them are of the diaspora of 
enslavement. And in general, 
the American-Africans, 1 
that is people like me, do 
become the connecting chain 
in the diaspora, because we j 
are still very much part of j 
Africa, we still speak the language, 
relatetothecontinent, 
have relatives in the continent 
and can therefore provide the 
basis.-Are we doing the job, 
though? Are we serving as 
the connection with the 
diaspora of enslavement? 
That's a different question altogether. 
Most of us are not; 
most American-Africans are 
not relating especially well 
with African-Americans so 
most people who are of the 
diaspora of colonialism are 
not interacting enough with 
people who are part of the 
diaspora of enslavement. So 
we need to work on that if we 
are to complete the chain of 
solidarity so that it makes 
good sense. At the moment, 
there isn'tenough interaction 
even in the Americas. I try 
my best to be involved but I'm 
part of a minority. (So) last 
month I was giving a lecture 
to raise funds for an 
organisation called Trans-Africa. 
That organisation itself 
is primarily of African-Americans 
but also of Americans- 
African interested in Africa 
and wanting to lobby US 
policy in favour of Africa. So 
they had a luncheon to raise 
funds and they asked me to 
be the keynote speaker for 
that occasion which I gladly 
did. And I've participated in 
their activities before and so 
they've called on me whenever 
they have wanted to. 
And there are a few of us like 
that but most members of the 
diaspora of colonialism interact 
with each other, with 
fellow Africans, but not with 
African-Americans to any 
great extent and I think that's 
not good enough. 
GR: Weil, thank you 
very much for that observation. 
I'm afraid we will have 
to be winding this down but 
not until we return to the writers. 
Yesterday was the Fourth 
International African Writer's 
Day declared by the OAU 
and we would wonder now 
what you can envisage as a 
new role for the writer in the 
twenty-first century. I have at 
the back of my mind your 
earlywork, 'The Trial of Christopher 
Okigbo,' in which you 
put an African poet on trial 
for daring to get himself involved 
in military combat, the 
Civil War of Nigeria, and 
dying as a result of that. And 
the question was did the artist, 
as an artist, have the right 
to squander his gifts on the 
battlefield of tribal warfare, 
as you describe(d) it. Could 
there be new roles that you 
envisage for the writer in the 
twenty-first century, the African 
writer specifically? 
AM: Yes, it's true that i 
did pose the problem that all 
life is sacred but some lives 
are more sacred than others 
If you have particularly gifted 
people like Christopher 
Okigbo, did he have the right 
to risk the extinction of his 
genius in pwsuitof a political 
goal? So that's one of the 
dilemmas I posed in the novel. 
So his life was more sacred 
than average and maybe he 
didn't have the right to go 
fighting for Biafra and getting 
killed. How dare he get 
himself killed?. But in fact I 
will return also to this theme 
of language and writers, because 
while I do not anticipate 
any major shift in the 
early part ofthe century, away 
from the high visibility of 
people using European languages, 
I do expect greater 
emergence of people writing 
in indigenous languages. 
And, as you know, I have 
lamented that the Nobel Prize 
for Literature had (had) to be 
given to a person writing in
English, WoleSoyinka. I don't 
begrude him getting it but it's 
so rare in any other part of the 
world for anybody to get a 
Nobel Prize for writing in a 
language other than their 
own. 
Yes, we have to return, 
even when we're discussing 
writers, to the original 
issue we discussed earlier 
about language because in 
the twenty-first century one of 
the issues that are bound to 
arise is whether the bulk of 
the literature will continue to 
be in European languages 
produced south of the Sahara. 
I suspect there will be 
greater emphasis in the decades 
to come on literary figures 
actually writing in indigenous 
languages and, perhaps, 
greater recognition of 
that particular type of genius 
in the years ahead. But as of 
now, one of the points of 
lamentation about the Nobel 
Prize for Literature which went 
to Wole Soyinka was that it 
was given to someone, an 
African, who was, of necessity, 
writing in a European 
language. So his output, his 
creativity was in the language 
originally of his oppression. 
Now normally, Nobel Laureates 
in literature win the prize 
in the language of their culfure, 
where they come from. 
So when Tagore won it in 
1913 in British India, he won 
it for literature written mainly 
in Bengali and even in the 
three prizes we have won in 
Africa since 1986, Naguib 
Mahfouz won it in literature 
written in Arabic, Nadine 
Gordimer won it in literature 
written in her native language, 
in English, and then you have 
Wole, nothing to do with the 
Yoruba language. And then 
you ask yourself, is this going 
to be the case time and time 
again, that whenever we are 
considered at all, as Black 
people, for the Nobel Prize in 
literature, it will be for literature 
written in a language other 
than that emanating from African 
culture? Now I'd like to 
believe that this is the last 
century when that is inevitable, 
that maybe in the twenty-first 
century, we'll begin to have a 
chance where those people 
out there in Sweden discussing 
who is to win the Nobel 
Prize one day will look at 
somebody writing in Hausa, 
or a poet in the Somali language, 
or a novelist in 
Kiswahili and say, 'Hey (Eh), 
this one has really captured 
the human condition properly1 
and then award it the way 
others have been awarded 
the Nobel Prize, even if their 
language is relatively limited 
in distribution in the world. At 
the moment it's not happened 
yet, and it's not likely to happen 
for another decade, but I 
thinkJrwill happen one day in 
the twenty-first century. 
GR: I'm tempted to extend 
the call for this linguistic 
independence for our cultural 
production, I'm tempted to 
project it into the domain of 
politics, economics and other 
things. So when are we going 
to come up with political systems, 
economic systems that 
have their roots in our own 
soil? 
AM: I don't disagree 
with that extension of the call 
really, that the indigenization 
of political and economic systems 
and the domestication 
(which is a slightly different 
concept), that even if the institution 
is foreign, making it 
more relevant to African culture 
and African historical 
continuities. So sometimes 
we actually get an African 
indigenous institution itself - 
that's indigenization - and 
sometimes we domesticate 
what was originally not African, 
like making a university 
more relevant to African 
needs, (as) African universities 
(are) alien to African cultures 
but they can be made to 
serve African needs if they're 
properly domesticated. So 
those twin strategies of 
indigenization and domestication 
will be needed. 
GR: Well, I don't know 
if this is a point of correction 
or just a note: The University 
as an institution of learning 
may, in fact, not be so foreign 
to African society; 
people remind us of the existence 
of what you might call 
ancient institutions, almost like 
Universities, perhaps long before 
these came up in Europe. 
AM: The principle is 
not, but there's no doubt that 
the Universities, as they exist 
today, did not grow out of 
ancient models, out of academies 
in Timbuctoo, they really 
grew out of colonial institutions 
that were organised 
on the basis of experience in 
Europe, you see, and then 
were bequethed to us complete, 
very often, with affiliation 
to European Universities; 
as you know, Legon and 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. i
Makerere were all linked up 
with universities in London for 
a while before they became 
separate Universities So 
while the tradition of academies 
is not alien to Africa, 
these particular Universities 
we have did not grow out of 
that tradition, they grew out 
of a separate European tradition 
and not all Universities 
have tried to even find out 
about the older African tradition 
to see what we could 
learn from that one, we just 
continue to be heavily dependent 
on the European one. 
GR
GLENDORA.V,..