Ali A. Mazrui: Intellectual and Romantic

I am a great admirer of Dr. Ali A. Mazrui, and have been so since I first became familiar with him when I was a university student in the 1980s. Dr. Mazrui came onto the American scene through the PBS series The Africans: A Triple Heritage produced by the BBC and shown on the Public Broadcasting System here in the states. Alex Haley’s Roots got Americans both black and white thinking about our collective heritage here in the US. Ali A. Mazrui’s The Africans showed the world, especially we Americans who have little or no knowledge of the outside world and who have long held a profound fear of “Darkest Africa” that Africa has many little known and positive aspects. In my encounters with Africans over the years, I have marveled at the differences between their drive and ambition and the often lack of drive and ambition which too many African Americans display, especially in the younger generation whose credo has become “under achievement, mediocrity, indifference, and having a good time.” When I was Peace Corps I met Africans who were pained by what they saw as too many African Americans focusing far too much on racism and not on using the opportunities which at lay at hand in the most prosperous nation in the world. They wished with all their hearts that their countries offered opportunities like America

Getting back to Ali A. Mazrui. He was born in Mombasa, Kenya and is Swahili and Sunni Muslim. Dr. Mazrui received his doctorate from Oxford University. He has taught in Africa, Europe, and the US and is one of the world’s top intellectuals. His series The Africans: A Triple Heritage also has a companion book. Dr. Mazrui is a liberal Muslim who has written a number of books and hundreds of articles about Africa and how capitalism as it is now practiced exploits and cripples Africa. He is a critic of the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis and compares what is happening in Israel to the apartheid system which once reigned over black South Africans. Also he is a critic of fundamentalist Islam, but praises aspects of it which is anti-imperialistic. In his opinion, Islamic sharia law is not compatible with a modern democratically structured society. I do not agree with all of Dr. Mazrui’s views, but we do have much common ground which is shared. Here is a very thought provoking article by him written over 10 years ago called Islamic and Western Values.

In recent years Dr. Mazrui has been targeted by a neoconservative student group here in the US and has been labelled as a left wing extremist and an anti-Semite because of some of his comments. Also he has been targeted by the Department of Homeland Security and the US State Department, not for any links to terrorism, but for allegations of corruption.

I think Dr. Mazrui might be the victim of the paranoid and fearful climate that developed after September 11th. The climate has abated to a degree and the intense fear mongering that was driving everything has been toned down especially since so many supporters of President Bush and his star chamber has lost most of its’ public support.

I also have long thought that Ali A. Mazrui looks very much like my late uncle Robert, which everyone called “Rag.”

Dr. Ali A. Mazrui, a world class and classy, exotic intellectual, scholar, an African and a Romantic.