Ali A. Mazrui (1933-2014)

Mazrui was dominant in the field of African Studies in an academic career that spanned five decades.Born on February 24, 1933, in Mombasa, Kenya, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree, with Distinction, from Manchester University in Great Britain in 1960. He went on to acquire a Masters degree from Colombia University in the United […]

Mazrui was dominant in the field of African Studies in an academic career that spanned five decades.
Born on February 24, 1933, in Mombasa, Kenya, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree, with Distinction, from Manchester University in Great Britain in 1960. He went on to acquire a Masters degree from Colombia University in the United States and a Doctorate from Oxford University.
Upon completion of his course at Oxford, Mazrui joined the staff of Makerere University, Uganda, where he served as Head of Department of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. He was there until 1973, when he went into exile to escape the dictatorship of Uganda’s military ruler at the time, Idi Amin. In 1974, he joined the faculty of the University of Michigan as professor and was later appointed the Director of Afro-American and African Studies.
In 1989, he was appointed to the faculty of Binghamton University, State University of New York as the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and Director of the institute of Global Cultural Studies. A prodigious writer, Mazrio authored and co-authored more than 45 books and hundreds of academic articles. These include Towards a Pax Africana (1967) and The Political Sociology of the English Language (1975), along with a utopian novel, “The Trial of Christopher Okigbo” (1971) anchored on the Nigerian civil war. His research interests ranged from African politics to international political culture and North-South relations, reflected in his works such as Africa’s International Relations (1977), Political Values and the Educated Class in Africa (1978) and, as co-author, The Political Culture of Language: Swahili, Society, and the State, A World Federation of Cultures: An African Perspective (1976); Cultural Forces in World Politics (1990; Islam: Between Globalization and Counterterrorism (co-author). One of his publishers, Goodreads, rates Mazrui’s The Content of Character: Ethical Sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, as his most popular books.
Mazrui created the television series The Africans: A Triple Heritage, jointly produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the US Public Broadcasting Service in association with the Nigerian Television Authority.
Apart from being a great orator, Mazrui was recognised as an innovative thinker who brought recognition to Africa by popularising its ideas and ideals.  Quiet conscious of his African roots, he was eager to identify with the continent.  He was also gender sensitive. In one of his most recent articles, he acknowledged the role of women in nation building and hailed them for coming out and taking leadership positions. He noted that while ethnic checks and balances are necessary to avert the destructiveness of ethnic conflict, the case for gender checks and balances was ultimately to promote androgynous creativity and development.
“The ultimate developmental case for ethnic checks and balances is to avert destruction and the ultimate developmental case for gender checks and balances is to promote innovation and creativity. Of course, gender equity is also an issue of human rights in the moral sphere”, he said.
In addition to his appointments at the institute of Global Cultural Studies, Mazrui also held three concurrent faculty appointments as Albert Luthuli Professor-at-Large in the Humanities and Development Studies at the University of Jos , Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large Emeritus and Senior Scholar in Africana Studies at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York and Chancellor of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya.
In 2005, Ali Mazrui was selected as the 73rd most intellectual person in the world in the list of top 100 individuals determined by a UK-based publication.
A great mind may have fallen silent, but the light that Mazrui threw on some of the knotty issues of intercultural divides will continue to shine on and bridge them. Mazrui was a great man. It is a befitting honour that Makerere University decided to build a statue of the man who bestrode the academia like a colossus and, by it, brought glory and pride to Africa.  We mourn his passing.