AfricanTribute

PROF. ALI MAZRUI

Prof. Ali Mazrui is arguably one of Kenya's most accomplished scholars, and clearly the pride of Kenya's Coastal Town of Mombasa, long regarded as an academic non-starter, compared to its mainland counterparts. I guess Prof. Mazrui effectively puts an end to this stereotype that has dogged Mombasa for quite some time now. Mombasa is an ancient town that was first settled by Arab traders plying their trade across the Indian Ocean. There is still a very strong Arab influence in the town. Swahili, one of Kenya's national languages, has its roots in this Arab culture, and is the primary language spoken along the Kenyan Coast. In fact, one of the reasons given for low academic standards at the Coast was reluctance by Coastal communities to learn English. Swahili is also widely spoken in neighbouring Tanzania, where former President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere made it the official language of instruction. Its quite easy to be an admirer of Prof. Mazrui, given his extraordinary academic exploits. However, what I find most impressive about this distinguished Kenyan Scholar is the fact that he has never forgotten where he came from. All the things I have seen, heard and read about Prof. Mazrui have always borne the same underlying theme of African Pride. This speaks volumes about the Professor because rarely will you come across an equally educated black man openly brandishing his African roots. This is very commendable of the Professor and its why I remain one of his biggest admirers.

Prof. Mazrui was born on February 24^th 1933, in Mombasa, Kenya. His impressive academic profile indicates that he obtained his B.A. with Distinction from Manchester University in England, his M.A. from Columbia University in New York, and his doctorate from Oxford University in England. However, this does not even begin to explain the exemplary achievements of this Kenyan Professor and the contributions he has made worldwide. One cannot help but feel slighted just looking at Prof. Mazrui's resume, a resume most of us can only wishfully dream of. For ten years he was at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, where he served as head of the Department of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. He once served as Vice-President of the International Political Science Association and has lectured in five continents. Professor Mazrui also served as professor of political science (1974-1991) and as Director of the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies(1978-1981) at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has also been Visiting Scholar at Stanford, Chicago, Colgate, Singapore, Australia, Oxford, Harvard, Bridgewater, Cairo, Leeds, Nairobi, Teheran, Denver, London, Ohio State, Baghdad, McGill, Sussex, Pennsylvania, etc. Dr. Mazrui has also served as Special Advisor to the World Bank. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the American Muslim Council, Washington, D.C., and is chair of the Board of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, Washington, D.C. He is also on the Board of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and is a Fellow of the Institute of Governance and Social Research, Jos, Nigeria.

Some of Prof. Mazrui publications include Towards a Pax Africana (1967), and The Political Sociology of the English Language (1975). He has also published a novel (reprinted a number of times) entitled The Trial of Christopher Okigbo (1971). His research interests include African politics, international political culture, political Islam, and North-South relations. Other books include Africa's International Relations (Heinemann and Westview Press, 1977, reprinted a number of times), Political Values and the Educated Class in Africa (Heinemann Educational Books and University of California Press, 1978, reprinted subsequently), and The Political Culture of Language: Swahili, Society, and the State, co-author Alamin M. Mazrui, (IGCS and James Currey, 1995). His most comprehensive books include A World Federation of Cultures: An African Perspective (published by the Free Press in New York in 1976) and Cultural Forces in World Politics (James Currey and Heinemann, 1990). Among his books on language in society is The Power of Babel: Language and Governance in Africa's Experience (co-author Alamin M. Mazrui) (James Currey and University of Chicago Press, 1998), which was launched in the House of Lords, London, at a historic ceremony.

Prof. Mazrui has also been a contributor to major media outlets worldwide. He has been published in The Times (London), The New York Times, The Sunday Nation (Nairobi), Transition (Kampala and Cambridge, Mass., USA), Al-Ahram (Cairo), The Guardian (London) and (Lagos), The Economist (London) and The Cumhuriyet (Istanbul and Ankara), Yomiuri Shimbun (Tokyo and Osaka), International Herald Tribune (Paris), Elsevier (Amsterdam), Los Angeles Times Syndicate (USA) and Afrique 2000 (Brussels and Paris). Prof. Mazrui has also been published in a wide range of journals worldwide including International Affairs (London), Internationle Politik (Bonn), East African Journal of Peace and Human Rights (Kampala), Kajian Malaysia (Penang), International Journal of the Sociology of Language (Berlin), Islamic Studies (Islamabad), Foreign Affairs (New York), Revue Africaine de Developpement (Abidjan), International Journal of Refugee Law (New York), and International Political Science Journal (Oxford). In addition to this, Prof. Mazrui has also participated in film production, the most famous one being his 1986 hit series The Africans: A Triple Heritage, jointly produced by the BBC and the Public Broadcasting Service (WETA, Washington) in association with the Nigerian Television Authority.

Needless to say, Prof. Mazrui's consultancy services have been sought worldwide given his academic exploits and professional experiences. He is widely consulted on many issues including constitutional change and educational reform. The range is from political engineering in Nigeria, Uganda and Sudan to syllabus review for schools in the State of New York. Prof. Mazrui has been involved in a number of UN projects on matters which have ranged from human rights to nuclear proliferation. He is also internationally consulted on Islamic culture and Muslim history. He is editor of Volume VIII (Africa since 1935) of the UNESCO General History of Africa (1993). He has also served as Expert Advisor to the United Nations Commission on Transnational Corporations. Professor Mazrui has served on the editorial boards of more than twenty international scholarly journals. He won the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award of The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the Distinguished Africanist Award of the African Studies Association of the USA. He is a member of the Royal Commonwealth Trust and the Atheneum Club (London) and the United Kenya Club (Nairobi). Prof. Mazrui's services to the Organization of African Unity include membership of the Group of Eminent Persons appointed in 1992 by the O.A.U. Presidential Summit to explore the issues of African Reparations for Enslavement and Colonization.

In addition to all these, Prof. Mazrui has served on various posts and responsibilities, mostly in a professional capacity, but also ceremonial. Prof. Mazrui was President of the African Studies Association of the United States from November 1978 to November 1979 and Vice-President of the International Congress of African Studies (1979-1991). He is also Vice-President of the Royal African Society in London. Dr. Mazrui has been elected an Honorary Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, and member of the College of Fellows of the International Association of Middle Eastern Studies. In 1979 Prof. Mazrui delivered the prestigious annual Reith Lectures of the British Broadcasting Corporation (named about the founder Director-General of the BBC, Lord Reith). The lectures (entitled The African Condition) have since been repeatedly reprinted by Heinemann and Cambridge University Press (Cambridge has the American rights). Part of Mazrui's work has been translated into other languages. The National University of Lesotho has awarded him a Distinguished Service honor, Nkumba University in Uganda has awarded him a Doctor of Letters, and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, USA, has elected him an Icon of the Twentieth Century. Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, has extended him to the DuBois-Garvey Award for Pan-African Unity. In 1999 he gave the Eric Williams Memorial lecture sponsored by the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago.

He is currently Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He is also Albert Luthuli Professor-at-Large in the Humanities and Development Studies at the University of Jos in Nigeria. He is Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large Emeritus and Senior Scholar in Africana Studies at Cornell University and Ibn Khaldun Professor-at-Large, Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, Leesburg, Virginia. He was Walter Rodney Professor at the University of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana (1997-1998). Prof. Mazrui is clearly among Kenya's and indeed the world's finest brains and his exploits will forever act as a standard for other aspiring black scholars. AfricanTribute on behalf of the entire black diaspora, would like to congratulate you Professor on an extremely illustrious career, that hopefully will inspire our future generations.

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