CB 3&4-15_Engcopy 3.pmd - CODESRIA

Numbers 3 & 4, 2015 ISSN 0850 - 8712

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The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is an independent organisation whose principal objectives are to facilitate research, promote research-based publishing and create multiple forums geared towards the exchange of views and information among African researchers. All these are aimed at reducing the fragmentation of research in the continent through the creation of thematic research networks that cut across linguistic and regional boundaries.

CODESRIA publishes Africa Development, the longest standing Africa based social science journal; Afrika Zamani, a journal of history; the African Sociological Review; the African Journal of International Affairs; Africa Review of Books and the Journal of Higher Education in Africa. The Council also co-publishes the Africa Media Review; Identity, Culture and Politics: An Afro-Asian Dialogue; The African Anthropologist, Journal of African Tranformation, Method(e)s: African Review of Social Sciences Methodology, and the Afro-Arab Selections for Social Sciences. The results of its research and other activities are also disseminated through its Working Paper Series, Green Book Series, Monograph Series, Book Series, Policy Briefs and the CODESRIA Bulletin. Select CODESRIA publications are also accessible online at www.codesria.org.

CODESRIA would like to express its gratitude to the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA/SAREC), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the Danish Agency for International Development (DANIDA), the French Ministry of Cooperation, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Rockefeller Foundation, FINIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Open Society Foundations (OSFs), TrustAfrica, UN/UNICEF, the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) and the Government of Senegal for supporting its research, training and publication programmes.

© Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa 2015

Director of Publications: Alex Bangirana

Managing Editors: Osime Samuel Mamadou Dramé

Typesetting: Daouda Thiam

Printing: Polykrome, Dakar, Sénégal

Editorial Professor Sam Moyo, a Great Intellectual, and a Great Leader

New Executive Committee Members

Tributes to Professor Sam Moyo

Sam Moyo: Speeches from the Archives

CODESRIA 14th General Assembly Rethinking CODESRIA’s Future, Fatima Harrak

Summary Report of CODESRIA 14th General Assembly, Ibrahim Oanda

Imagining and Creating the CODESRIA of Tomorrow, Fatima Harrak

To talk or not to talk to terrorists, Ken Walibora

Reports Bandung+60 Conference Report, Ebrima Sall

Speech at World Social Science Forum 2015, Dzodzi Tsikata

Declaration of the 3rd World Social Science Forum Honorary Degree for Professor Takyiwaa Manuh Academic Freedom Still Matters! Carlos Cardoso

Debates Trends and Issues in the Social Sciences and Humanities, Ebrima Sall

Black Pain Matters: Down with Rhodes, Francis B. Nyamnjoh

Scars of Memory and Scales of Justice, Babere Kerata Chacha

The Human Project and the Temptations of Religion, Lansana Keita

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Contents

EditorialProfessor Sam Moyo, a Great Intellectual, and a Great Leader 1New Executive Committee Members 3Tributes to Professor Sam Moyo 5Sam Moyo: Speeches from the ArchivesWe are proud that CODERIA has Sustained itself over the Decades 26The Political Economy of Transformation in Zimbabwe: Radicalisation, Structural Change and Resistance

Sam Moyo 28CODESRIA 14th General AssemblyRethinking CODESRIA’s Future: Priorities to Conside

Fatima Harrak 39Summary Report of CODESRIA 14th General Assembly: Creating African Futures in an Era of Global Transformations

Ibrahim Oanda 42Imagining and Creating the CODESRIA of Tomorrow is a Preoccupation for each one of us

Fatima Harrak 59To talk or not to talk to terrorists: That is the question of these unhappy times

Ken Walibora 60ReportsBandung+60 Conference Report

Ebrima Sall 61World Social Science Forum 2015: Transforming Global Relations for a Just World

Dzodzi Tsikata 62Declaration of the 3rd World Social Science Forum 64Sussex University Confers Honorary Degree on Professor Takyiwaa Manuh, Former President of

CODESRIA’ Scientific Committee 65Academic Freedom Still Matters! The Case of Maati Monjib and Nuno Castel-Branco

Carlos Cardoso 66DebatesTrends and Issues in the Social Sciences and Humanities in Africa

Ebrima Sall 69Black Pain Matters: Down with Rhodes

Francis B. Nyamnjoh 74Scars of Memory and Scales of Justice: Rethinking Political Assassinations in Post-colonial Africa

Babere Kerata Chacha 94The Human Project and the Temptations of Religion

Lansana Keita 98

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CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2015 Page 1

Editorial

Professor Sam Moyo,a Great Intellectual, and a Great Leader

Just as we were preparing this bulletin for publication, theextremely sad news of the passing on of CODESRIA’sformer President, Professor Sam Moyo, reached us.

Professor Moyo was in New Delhi, India, to participate in aconference on "Labour Questions in the Global South". Thevehicle in which he was travelling got involved in a crash onFriday, 20 November, and Sam died in the early hours of Sunday22 November 2015.

Professor Moyo has been an active member of CODESRIA sincethe 1970s. He was elected Vice-President of CODESRIA in 1998,and during the 12th General Assembly held in Yaoundé, Cameronin December 2008, was elected President of CODESRIA, aposition he held until December 2011. Sam was a greatintellectual, a great leader, and an institution builder. He wasrenowned for his diligence, commitment to research andscholarship, as well as his immense sense of humour. He wasalso well known as a relentless crusader and untiring advocateof social equality and justice. He will be sorely missed by theentire social science community in Africa and in the Global South.This edition of CODESRIA Bulletin features some tributes in hishonour. Issa Shivji’s poetic tribute captures the sense in whichhis colleagues and compatriots understood the timelessness ofhis contribution to African development:

"I come not to mourn you, Comrade

I’ll shed no tear, my friend

I refuse to say ‘pole’; to say ‘sorry’

Why should I?

I refuse to bury you

How can I?

For you live

You live in me

You live in many across the globe

Who loved you

Whose lives you touched

Whose hearts you cuddled

Whose minds you tickled

I come to celebrate your living, Comrade

I’ll toast to your ideas, my friend

Over a glass of sahara, and a plate of ‘nyama choma’

In Rose Garden, in Sao Paulo, in New Delhi

I’ll sing praises of Sahara, that unites the continent

As you did

I’ll pontificate on Sahara, that embraces civilizations

As you preached and practiced

I know this is not a poem, nor a flowery prose

Porojo it may be

Who cares?

It’s for my friend and comrade

For my compassionate companion

Straight from my heart and soul

Yes, it’s for my friend and comrade

For, he lives"

Indeed, Sam lives on!

In this issue, we also report on CODESRIA’s 14th GeneralAssembly held in Dakar, 8-12 June 2015. The General Assemblywas, as expected, a gathering of a cross section of the CODESRIAmembership, who include some of the best scholars, researchersand respected academics from all over Africa and the Diaspora.The theme of the scientific conference of the General Assemblywas "Creating African Futures in an era of GlobalTransformations." The themes of the scientific conference ofthe triennial CODESRIA General Assembly usually reflected thedominant concerns of the moment. The need for the structuraltransformation of the African and world economies that havebeen built upon and are exacerbating social inequalities andenvironmental problems is now very widely recognized.Thesedays, the concept of "transformation" is, in fact, so widely usedthat it ought to be critically examined. The CODESRIA and theUN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) Journal ofAfrican Transformation launched during the CODESRIAGeneral Assembly has the ambition of becoming the platformfor such debates, many of which are now closely linked todebates about the trajectories of our economies and societies,and about possible and desirable futures. At a time when theAfrican Union (AU) is deploying efforts aimed at building "theAfrica We Want", which is what the AU’s Agenda 2063 is about,and as the United Nations System was actively working towardsthe adoption of a new, post-2015 global development agendawhose aim, it is argued, is to build a "World We Want", theAfrican research community could not have chosen a bettertheme for the scientific conference of its 14th General Assembly.Social science has been, and will continue looking at


Ebrima SallExecutve Secretary

Alex BangiranaHead, Publications

transformations in their complexity, "historicizing the present",but also examining representations of the future. The criticalanalysis of societal projects (of all scales) and of the narrativesand counter-narratives framed around them is indeed part of thenormal business of social science. This issue of the bulletincarries a summary of the presentations, debates and resolutionsemanating from the General Assembly, as well as the profiles ofthe new Executive Committee members elected at the GeneralAssembly, led by the erudite Dzodzi Tsikata as President, whotook over from Professor Fatima Harrak. The election of ProfessorTsikata as the fourth woman (out of the last five Presidents) tobe elected to the position in the last 13 years does say somethingabout gender in the life and work of CODESRIA.

Also in this issue of the bulletin is a report on a commemorativeconference of the Asia-Africa Conference first held in Bandungin April 1955. The Bandung Conference marked the birth of theNon-Aligned Movement, and what has come to be known asthe ‘Bandung Spirit’. The commemorative conferences were heldin Jakarta and Bandung in April 2015 and October 2015.Participants in the October conference included many scholarsand activists from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. CODESRIAwas represented by the Executive Secretary, Ebrima Sall whoattended the conference with Fatima Harrak, immediate pastPresident of CODESRIA.

We return to the theme of transformation. The World SocialScience Forum (WSSF) was this year held in Durban, SouthAfrica, in September 2015 and was as usual organized by theInternational Social Science Council (ISSC) and co-hosted byCODESRIA and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)of South Africa under the patronage of UNESCO. The Forumfocussed on: "The transformation of global relations for a justworld". It was a significant gathering of scholars and policy-oriented intellectuals drawn from all the regions of the worldand across different disciplinary interests in the social sciencesand humanities. The Forum provided "a platform for presentingnew knowledge and insights, re-thinking received wisdom,charting new directions, promoting innovation in the research-policy-action nexus, and nurturing new internationalpartnerships". This bulletin brings you closing remarks byCODESRIA’s President made at the closing ceremony of theconference as well as the Conference Declaration.

The "Debates" section of this edition of the bulletin carriesinteresting debates on some contemporary issues in Africa. Inhis insightful piece on "Trends and Issues in the Social Sciencesand Humanities in Africa" Ebrima Sall looks at key issues toconsider in any serious review of the state of the social sciencesand humanities. He looks at the institutional base for knowledgeproduction in Africa and how it has been evolving. He relatesthe complexity of the institutional landscape in Africa to the "sixCs" identified by Paul Zeleza which include; corporatisation ofmanagement, collectivisation of access, commercialisation oflearning, commodification of knowledge, computerisation ofeducation, and connectivity of institutions. As part of hisconclusion, he makes a strong case for multi-disciplinarity, inter-disciplinarity, and trans-disciplinarity in confronting the variouschallenges on the African continent.

Francis Nyamnjoh’s article "Black Pain Matters: Down withRhodes" looks at issues of race, racism and marginalisation inSouth Africa against the backdrop of organised student protestswhich rocked South Africa universities, unleashing a renewedclamour for transformation in higher education in that country.In "Scars of Memory and Scales of Justice" Babere KerataChacha, draws attention to the menace of political assassinationsin post-colonial Africa and underlines the urgent need for justiceand tolerance as well as an end to impunity by the politicalclass. Lansana Keita’s piece on "The Human Project and theTemptations of Religion" reflects on the relationship betweenscience and religion and raises several interesting issues on thereliance on faith in explaining religious phenomena amongadherents of the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam andJudaism.

We end the tributes to Sam Moyo with some of his papers.

As Nana Busia says in his tribute, "scholars of the stature ofSam never die". Indeed, Sam lives on!

New Executive Committee Members

Slaheddine Ben Frej is a Socio-logist, lecturer and researcher atthe University of Tunisia in Tunis.He is a member of the EditorialBoard of CODESRIA’s journal:African Sociological Review andhas authored several publications.

Rokhaya Fall holds two PhDs inhistory and in the history of BlackAfrica. She is currently Head ofthe Department of History in theFaculty of Arts and Humanities atCheikh Anta Diop University inDakar, Senegal.

SlaheddineBen Frej

Rokhaya Fall

Isabel MariaCasimiro

Kenneth Inyani Simala is alinguist and former Dean, Facultyof Education and Social Science,Masinde Muliro University ofScience And Technology. He isalso the Executive Secretary ofEast African Kiswahili Commis-sion (EAKC).

.

Puleng LenkaBula is a Professorof Ethics. She undertook herundergraduate and graduatestudies in South Africa, Lesothoand Canada. She is Dean ofStudents at the University of SouthAfrica and is active in manyacademic and ecumenical orga-nisations.Kenneth Inyani

Simala Puleng LenkaBula

Khalid Ali El Amin holds a PhDin Political Science; the PoliticalEconomy of Develop-ment fromthe University of Leeds, the UK. Hecurrently works as an associateprofessor at the DevelopmentStudies and Research Institute ofthe University of Khartoum.

Khalid AliEl Amin

Andre MbataMangu

Hassan Remaoun is a sociologistand historian. He is a professor atthe University of Oran. He is alsoa researcher at the National Cen-tre of Research in Social and Cul-tural Anthropology (CRASC) inAlgeria.

Hassan Remaoun

President of CODESRIA

Dzodzi Tsikata is an AssociateResearch Professor at the Instituteof Statistical, Social and EconomicResearch (ISSER) at the Universityof Ghana where she has workedsince 1991. She holds a Ph.D inSocial Science from Leiden Uni-versity in the Netherlands.Dzodzi Tsikata Nkolo Foe

Vice President of CODESRIA

Nkolo Foe is Professor at theEcole Normale Supérieure ofYaoundé 1. He was also formerHead of Department of Philo-sophy, af ter working at theInstitute of Human Scienceswhere he was Head of Research.

Isabel Maria Casimiro is asociologist and lecturer at Centreof African Studies, EduardoMundlane University in Maputo,Mozambique. A feminist andactivist, her areas of specialisationinclude women human rights,feminist movements, developmentand participatory democracy.

Andre Mbata Mangu holds adoctoral (LLD) and a Masters (LLM)degrees in constitutional, publicand international law from the Uni-versity of South Africa (UNISA). Heis currently a Research Professor inthe College of Law at UNISA andProfessor at the Faculty of Law ofUNIKIN.


The Council for the Development ofSocial Science Research in Africa(CODESRIA) deeply regrets and

mourns the passing away of its formerpresident, Professor Sam Moyo. ProfessorMoyo was in New Delhi, India, where he was attending aconference on "Labour Questions in the Global South". Thevehicle in which he was travelling was involved in a seriousaccident in the evening of Thursday, 19 November, andProfessor Moyo died in the early hours of Sunday 22November 2015.

Sam had been an active member ofCODESRIA since the 1970s. He coordi-nated a number of CODESRIA workinggroups and research networks, and was atireless and inexhaustible resource thatCODESRIA heavily relied upon. Several ofhis most important ideas were first carriedin CODESRIA publications. In 1998, he waselected Vice-President of CODESRIA.During the 12th General Assembly held inYaoundé, Cameroon in December 2008, Samwas elected President of CODESRIA, aposition he held until December 2011. Hecontinued to play a vital role in the life andwork of CODESRIA, attending GeneralAssemblies, representing CODESRIA at many events, hostingactivities in Harare, advising on research programmes,contributing to the deepening and broadening of intellectualexchanges across the Global South and providing wise counselto the leadership.

Sam was Africa's leading intellectual voice on land and agrariantransformation. Over long periods when there was little policyinterest in land reforms, he and a few other scholars kept theissues alive through rigorous empirical research and theorizingabout Africa’s land and agrarian questions in the context ofglobalization. Throughout an intellectual career that spanneddecades and produced a massive body of work, he consistentlycham-pioned the rights of Africa's smallholders as well as itslandless and dispossessed communities and chronicled thestruggles of agrarian social movements for equitable landrights. He followed up his research with enga-gements withpolicy makers, civil society organisations, research networkson agrarian issues as well as social move-ments. He was muchin demand in Africa and beyond as a policy advisor on landand agrarian issues.

Sam showed great courage in his robustengagement with Zimbabwe’s landreforms. He charted a course of indepen-dent research which eschewed sensatio-nalism and illuminated the scale and

significance of land redistribution represented by the FastTrack Land Reform Programme which saw over two hundredthousand Zimbabwean households acquiring land for theirlivelihoods. In spite of the fact that this was for a long time avery lonely undertaking, which incurred the disapproval of

the different sides of the debates onZimbabwe’s land reforms, he was muchrespected and admired not only withinCODESRIA, but in the wider community ofprogressive intellectuals within the GlobalSouth for his consistency and the qualityof the evidence he produced to back hispositions. The growing acceptance ofSam’s positions in the wider land andagrarian studies community sadly failed togive him full credit for his pivotal role inchanging the debate about Zimbabwe’sland reforms.

Sam was full of life and lived life to the full.He was warm, kind hearted, humble andrespectful of every member of staff at

CODESRIA. So was he with the countless numbers of youngerscholars and colleagues he mentored over the years. We willmiss a man of integrity, a committed pan Africanist, a loyalfriend, and a great leader.

Ending his short but extremely productive journey in this worldin India speaks volumes of Sam’s commitment to scholarshipand to the cause of the peoples of the Global South. Thiscommitment was much in evidence in his leadership of theAgrarian South Network, a tri-continental research networkon agrarian issues he co-founded with colleagues from Africa,Asia and Latin America.

On behalf of the Executive and Scientific Committees, and thestaff of CODESRIA, we would like to offer our sincerecondolences to Sam’s partner Beatrice, his mother MadamMavis Moyo, his daughters and his wider family and friends,the staff of the Harare based Africa Institute of AgrarianStudies that he founded and led for many years, and to theentire CODESRIA community, which was his extended family.

Hamba Kahle, Sam. Go well.

23 November 2015

Professor Sam Moyo, a Great Intellectual,and a Man of Integrity

Prof. Dzodzi Tsikata, PresidentDr Ebrima Sall, Executive Secretary

CODESRIA

CODESRIA President 2008-2011

Tributes to Professor Sam Moyo


Researcher and Institutional Builder

In my current state of shock I cannotwrite much by way of an intellectualtribute to Sam Moyo and his rich life.

Such an undertaking will have to wait.

I met Sam in the late 1970s in Dakar at the IDEP library – IDEPwas at the time run by Samir Amin and was a veritable pan-African intellectual magnet. Sam had an uncle who lived inDakar so he spent his holidays from Fourah Bay College (SierraLeone) with him. A few years later we were to meet again inHarare where I had been seconded by CODESRIA to adviseon setting up the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies(ZIDS). Sam be-longed to the band of young, enthusiasticgraduates who had chosen the uncer-tainty of a job with thenew institute over a much more secure job in government.

Sam immediately demonstrated his zest for research and hisprodigious working capacity. His involvement with the Institutewent beyond doing his own research. He took the task ofbuilding the institution very seriously and enthu-siasticallyaccepted any tasks demanded of him. And over many yearsthat combination of serious researcher and dedicatedinstitutional builder was to manifest itself on many occasionsand in many institutions he was associated with, earning himgreat esteem.

One memorable characteristic of Sam was his intellectual tena-city to delve into a subject with all the energy he could muster.The "Land Question" in Zimbabwe took huge amounts of histime and energy. There were four aspects to his preoccupa-tion. The first aspect was a passion for social justice. Thesecond aspect was simply intellectual drive to understandone of the most important social processes in the Third World– the land reform in Zimbabwe – whose signi-ficance wasbeing downplayed by scholars from an amazing range of ideo-logical persuasions for whom the massive transfer of propertywas reduced to something about "Mugabe and his cronies".The third aspect was his insistence on having African voices

heard on critical matters relating to Africaand his belief that this demanded rigorouswork and institutional backing. And finallythere was keenness to link African research

to research elsewhere in the "Global South".

His position on the land question was principled and no threatof withdrawal of funding of his institute bent his intellec-tualintegrity. He was bitter and disap-pointed by the de-campai-gning of the Institute by fellow scholars with close links tofunders.

I once sent him a link to an article in the New York Timesciting his work on land in Zimbabwe. This was no minor thinggiven what had been a systematic effort to blackout the workof his Institute and the financial strangulation it was beingsubjected to. But he took it all in stride. However I do knowfor sure that he took pride from the knowledge that he and histeam had beaten the media blackout. He also knew he hadwon the intellectual battle.

Towards the end of his life he had shifted his interests towardstwo new concerns. One was the productivity of the newlyacquired farms and the other was the emerging socialdifferentiation in the new agrarian dispensations. These aretwo questions that arise after any major land reform such asthe one that Zimbabwe carried out. He had problems raisingfunds for this research programme. It is sad that death hasdenied him the time to pursue research in these areas.

His departure has deprived us not only of a major scholar butalso of one of the outstanding pillars of the African socialsciences institutional architecture.

Sam loved the research community and was generous withhis time as many scholars visiting Harare will testify.

Sam and I became close family friends. Members of my familyand I will miss his humility, care, warmth and kindness.

Thandika Mkandawire

An intellectual Tour de Force

Dear Colleagues

It is with a heavy that l write to inform you of the passing on ofProfessor Sam Moyo early this morning in New Delhi, Indiaafter a tragic car accident on Friday evening. We are all shockedand devasted beyond measure. An intellectual tour de force,source of inspiration and humanist with a big heart has passedon.

Regards.

Walter Chambati


Tributes

I no longer recall when exactly I met Sam.Maybe it was in the late 70s at CODESRIA, or in the early 80s at the Zim-

babwe Institute of Development Studies.The late 1990s, though, was the time we truly got to worktogether, closely and intensely. The two of us were at the helmof CODESRIA’s leadership, as President and Vice President.The next two years were a time of deep and sharp differencesin policy, and it often seemed as if there was no end in sight.

I remember a particularly difficult episode a year down theline. We had an emer-gency meeting in Dakar but Sam said hecould not be there because he was to have a delicate operationin a few days. I explained what was at stake and asked if hecould postpone the operation by a week. He warned me thathe would not be able to sit for long in his current state. But thenext day, he was in Dakar. During the meeting, he kept onshifting the weight of his body from one side to the other, nowleaning on one buttock, then on another. He was obviously ingreat pain, but it never showed on his smiling face.

That was Sam, selfless, committed to a fault, totally reliable.He was the person you would want by your side if you expectedhard times ahead. But no matter how difficult the times, asduring those years, I never saw him turn vindictive againstanyone. Later, we would look back on that period as somethingof a crossroads in the history of CODESRIA. Then, however,it was hard and painful. It was the kind of ordeal that can forgeenduring friendships. Sam was that kind of a friend.

In those years, I also learnt that Sam was a mathematical ge-nius. As soon as we would land in Dakar, he would head forthe Accounts office, take charge of all the books, and gothrough them meticulously. No matter how long it took, 12 or24 hours, Sam would work until he would have a report readyfor discussion between the two of us. Soon, word went aroundthat it would be foolhardy for anyone to try and pull a fast oneon Sam.

Students and scholars came to CODESRIA for differentreasons, some for the thrill of travel, others to be part of a Pan-African conversation on issues of the day, and yet others toaccess otherwise scarce resources for research. Sam sharedall those motives but, above all, he was among the few whounfailingly gave more than he received. When it came to facingtemptation or intimidation, his was a towering presence. Samstood for integ-rity and steadfastness, a calm intelligence anda cool deliberation, a level head in a crisis situation, and a freespirit in a party that was sure to follow every difficult episode.

Sam was one of the few who presented a seamless blend ofthis capacity for sobriety, integrity and joy that marked theCODESRIA crowd – all with a cigarette in one hand no matterthe time of day, and a glass of beer at the end of the day. Theground on which this companionship was nurtured was thecity of Dakar. We came to it from different corners of thecontinent, all marginal in one way or another, all looking forfreedom, most of all the freedom of expression, as if gaspingfor oxygen. Out of that common endeavor were born closeassociations and lasting comradries.

Sam’s major scholarship was in the field ofagrarian studies. Always unassuming, heseldom talked of his own scholarly workunless someone raised it first. For me that

occasion came in 2008 when the London Review of Booksinvited me to write a piece on Zimbabwe. The land reform wasthe big issue at the time. I pulled together whatever studies onthe subject I could lay my hands on. Three sources stoodabove all others as original and reliable: one from the Instituteof Development Studies at Sussex, another from the Universityof Western Cape and then Sam’s work at the African Instituteof Agrarian Studies in Harare. As I read these sources, and thepress reports on their findings, I learnt something about thepolitics of knowledge production and its recognition in thepublic sphere. Two facts were crystal clear to me: one, thatSam had been several steps ahead of the others; and, two,that his work was the last to be recognized. It was almost as ifthe press went by a rule of thumb: when it came to ideas, thechain had to originate in a Western University, and the link gothrough a South African institution, before it came to anAfrican researcher.

I discussed this with Sam. He smiled, as if to say, what’s new?At home, his critics were at pains to paint him as partisan. If heshowed that the land reform had improved the lot of a largenumber of the landless, those in the opposition discounted itas the claim of someone with the regime. But if he refused togive blanket support to the regime, those with it said he musthave hidden links to the opposition. When it came to publicpolicy, Sam took the cue from his research, always fearless,unafraid, and hopeful. He was a voice listened to by all,especially when he was the target of criticism. Whatever theirdisagreement, all knew that Sam was not susceptible tocorruption, and that he would not offer an opinion unless itwas informed by deep research.

The last time I saw Sam was at the CODESRIA General Assem-bly in Dakar in June. Only two months before, we had beentogether in the city of Hangzhou in China at a conferenceorganized by the Inter-Asia School to celebrate the 60th anni-versary of Bandung. The hospitality was overwhelming. Eve-ry meal was like a banquet; every plate on the table wasrenewed before it could be empty; wine and drinks flowed.Sam was relaxed, as he reminisced of our efforts to build CO-DESRIA over the past decades, and reflected about futureplans for the African Institute of Agrarian Studies. I recall thisas if it was yesterday: Sam, smiling, trusting, reassuring, strong,purposeful, and thoughtful, yet again doing what he was bestat, charting a road none had travelled before, but at the sametime taking you along.

This is one journey, dear Sam, that you take alone. You leavethis world as you came into it, alone, but this world is a betterplace, and we are better off, because we had the privilege ofbeing part of your world. The loss is great and the heart isheavy, and it is hard and painful to say good-bye. As wegrieve for our loss, we also celebrate your life.

Selfless, Committed and Totally Reliable

Mahmood Mamdani


I would like to express my deepestcondolences to the family, friends andcolleagues of Professor Samson Moyo.

His untimely passing was a great shock tome and to other South Africans who knewhim. I feel his loss very deeply as he was a friend as well as acollaborator in various projects. He was wrenched from us atthe height of his powers as a leading African intellectual, anactivist and an institution builder.

I knew Sam for many years – from the time of our liberationstruggle against apartheid in the mid-1980s. I met him throughthe SAPES network led by Dr Ibbo Mandaza. He had foughtfor the liberation of Zimbabwe and he was com-mitted to thecause of a free, democratic, independent and prosperous Afri-can continent. His dedication continued throughout his life.

This is demonstrated by all his work and more especially hisintellectual work for the benefit of our continent. Sam washeld in high esteem by the intellectual community in Africaand beyond. He served for many years in CODESRIA, theCouncil for the Development of Social Research in Africa,successively as a Member of the Executive Committee, VicePresident, and finally, from 2009 to 2011 as President

Sam’s specific areas of interest was agrarian studies, inparticular policy regarding agriculture, food, land reform andthe environment. After working in these fields as a professorat the Univer-sity of Zimbabwe and as a government advisor,

he demonstrated his social entre-preneurship and institution-building skillswhen he established the African Instituteof Agrarian Studies.

Sam was a true internationalist. His verypassing in India, on a work assignment far away from his home,is testament to his internationalism and his under-standingthat the challenges that face humanity are universal. His interna-tionalism is also demonstrated by his contributions in SouthAfrica. Several years ago, I decided to establish a NationalInstitute for Humanities and Social Sciences and asked him toassist us and to bring with him his experiences and deepknowledge of social science research across the continent.He accepted my request without hesitation and when theInstitute was formally established two years ago, Sam becamea valued, useful and influential member of its Board.

Despite all his accomplishments, Sam remained modest andunassuming. He was a kind and gentle person and had aneasy way with people. He was the type of individual that youvery quickly felt at ease with.

My grief at his loss is shared by the South African governmentand all South Africans who knew Sam Moyo. Our grief isprofound and sincere; we will do all we can to ensure that thepath that he trod will be followed by others and especially byyounger academics and the youth.

Hamba kahle, Sam, brother and friend..

In Memory of Prof Sam Moyo: A CommittedFreedom Fighter

Dr BE Nzimande, MP, South African Minister ofHigher Education and Training

In deep sorrow we mourn the sudden anduntimely death of Sam Moyo, profoundscholar and progressive activist,

beloved comrade, Member of the ExecutiveCom-mittee of IDEAs. Sam was in New Delhi, India to participatein a conference on "Labour Questions in the Global South"when a car he was travelling in was involved in a terribleaccident. Two other friends and colleagues (Marcelo Rosaand Paris Yeros) were injured but Sam was very critically hurt. After a valiant struggle for survival, he passed away in theearly hours of 22 November 2015.

Sam was much more than a guiding spirit in many of ouractivities. He illuminated our lives and work with his sharpintellect, passionate commitment, exemplary integrity andextraordinary energy. His strong sense of Pan Africanconscious-ness and wider South solidarity enriched his andour academic endeavour and public dissemination. Hisanalytical insights always provided a fresh and penetrating

perspective that enabled us to betterunderstand the complexities of agrarianchange and economic realities in Africa andelsewhere.

His death leaves a void that is impossible to fill. We will misshis warmth, affection, generosity and humour and of coursehis irresistible charm that could disarm the keenest adversary.In particular we will always cherish his ability to live life to thefullest, even in adverse circumstances. Our hearts go out tohis family and his innumerable friends in Zimbabwe and acrossthe world. For many of us, this cannot be farewell. A bit of Samhas enri-ched us forever and will live on inside us.

We hope to have more on Sam Moyo in the days ahead, tohonour him and celebrate his extraordinary life. Please sendyour tributes, memories and other contributions to:

[email protected] and [email protected].

Jayati Ghosh and IDEAs Team

A Pan-Africanist


Tributes

An Erudite Scholar and a FineGentleman

I am deeply saddened by Prof Sam Moyo’s passing on inIndia where he was attending a conference on the LabourQuestion in the Global South. The academic fraternity hasreally been robbed of a giant who was eager to mentor bothseasoned and upcoming scholars. We have been deprived ofan erudite scholar and a fine gentleman. I will never forget theassistance he gave to our CODESRIA CRN Team, the projectculminated in a book which was published in 2015 byCODESRIA titled: Gender, Politics and Land Use inZimbabwe, 1980-2012. The Land and Agrarian Studiesquestion will never be the same without Prof Sam Moyo. Wehave been privileged to know and learn from the prolificProfessor par excellence of our time. Fare thee well Prof SamMoyo, may your soul rest in eternal peace. May your family,the AIAS family, the CODESRIA family and the whole academicfraternity be comforted.

This news of Sam Moyo came as a veritable shock indeed. Samdied on the battlefield of science as he travelled to attend thisconference on issues that were not only an intellectual passionfor him but a social crusade in which he was engaged. Buthow horrible such a death. Let us pray the very good All-kno-wing and Almighty God that He would grant repose to Sam'ssoul in His bosom. We will surely miss his critical insi-ghts, commitment and devotion to the cause that he servedwith us and the entire African social science community. AdieuSam.

A Scholar and Social Crusader

With a lot of sadness and apprehension, during the lastweekend we received the news of the car accident in NewDelhi, your struggle for life and the heavier news that youwere not anymore among us. It was and, still is so hard tobelieve in the new reality of your physical absence!

It is difficult to accept that a fighter for a more equal world, afriend always cheerful and generous, or that an academicalways worried with the reality of our continent has left us.However, we have the joy of knowing that the spread of yourwisdom among different generations of scholars, young peopleand your daughters, will immortalize your life.

To your family, your friends, to CODESRIA to whom you gavean important part of your knowledge, and to the entire academiccommunity, we would like to express our deepest solidarityand our deepest condolences in this difficult moment.

A Luta Continua!

Sam Moyo will live forever!

A Fighter for a more EqualWorld

It was such a shock to hear about Sam’s passing.Sam was a brother, a friend, a scholar, a dedicated pan-Afri-canist and a person who infected everyone with his great spirit. From our first meeting in Yaounde, Cameroun, where he waselected as President of CODESRIA to working by his side ashis deputy for three years, Sam Moyo always had about him apassionate dignity that made him an inspiring leader and agreat human being to be around. Energy, commitment, integrityare all words that captured the moral fiber of this man.In addition to his renowned scholarly contribution to the studyof peasant social movements, agrarian reform and land strugglein Africa and his exceptional leadership abilities, Sam wasalso a caring, generous and selfless person who loved life andbelieved in the goodness of people. I experienced his kindnessas I succeeded him at the head of CODESRIA when he offeredhis unconditional support and advice.Sam was one of a kind and will be sorely missed as a colleague,scholar and friend but never will he be forgotten by those whowere fortunate enough to have known him!

A Tribute to our Colleague andFriend, Sam Moyo

Teresa Cruz e SilvaFormer President of CODESRIA

Centro de Estudos AfricanosUniversidade Eduardo Mondlane

Une grande perte pour l’Afrique

Cher(e)s collègues

Je tiens à m’associer à votre peine et apporter tout mon soutienà ses proches et à ses amis en ces durs moments que la vienous impose. L’Afrique vient de perdre l’un de ses plus grands chercheurs en sciences sociales. Veuillez accepter mes plus sincères condoléances.

Emmanuel Yenshu VuboEnna Sukutai Gudhlanga (Zimbabwe)

B. ElmorchidMarrakech University

Fatima Harrak


Tributes

My gratitude to Tendai and Fred, for reminding us, warmingus, with these difficult summations of Sam in a time whenthinking much less writing is so very difficult to do. Surelythe flood of warm memories will cohere as we gather every-where to celebrate Sam’s inestimable gifts to us and ourunimaginable loss. What Fred, Tendai and others highlightwas really a key source of Sam’s gentle, persistent greatness:his deep, unrivaled commitment to an independent Africanintellectual life and community, and his correspondingeschewing of the easy slide into the traducing hands of thosewho possess intellectual, much less state, inducements andrewards. May his example continue to inspire us in our weakermoments – and the next generation.

An Independent Intellectual

William Martin (Bill)

Tendai MurisaExecutive Director,TrustAfrica

This is so sad and obviously very tragic. We have lost acommitted Pan-African intellectual. He was bigger thanZimbabwe.

Sam's reach was global but he remained very grounded andengaged in local debates.

For some of us who have been his students he was alwaysavailable to mentor, read our various versions/drafts of thesis,direct us to new debates and helped in the process tounderstand his very dense work. I will miss him so much.

We only take comfort in two things – he has left us with agreat heritage of scholarship and rigor and he also perishedwhilst still engaged – he did not for whatever reason abandonthe struggle despite the many opportunities for cooptation bythe state. I am sure you are also aware that he turned down anumber of top regional positions in many donor organizationsbecause he chose to remain true to his intellectual callingdespite the every day challenges of donor politics etc.

We are poorer without Sam.

A Committed Pan-Africanist

Dear Fellow members of CODESRIA,

Please accept my condolences for the loss of our ProfessorSam Moyo. I am writing the word 'loss' unwillingly. It is sohard to accept the news. I had turned to land studies becauseof his great passion and commitment at the first Pan-African land grab conference in 2013 in Addis, because of hiswritings, those of Prof Tsikata, Prof Olukoshi and Prof Amanor.It is because of him that I later focused most of my research atSOAS on land, proud to quote his brilliant analysis of the"African Land Question". And it is because of him that I amnow doing my PhD on "land grabbing in Senegal"

I met him again at the third PanAfrican land conference inHarare in September 2015!

The last day of the conference, I was sitting with Prof Moyolistening to his advice, preaching the need to have a GlobalSouth approach. I can still hear him telling me to be Qondi'sold sister in London, at SOAS when I return.

I was supposed to see him again in January 2016 at the AIASSummit and was working towards finalising my paper.

So soon!! We have lost a GIANT. May God console us andwelcome him in Paradise. May his soul rest in Perfect peace.

We need to keep reading him, engage with his work, furtheringit (a difficult venture!) but the best way to pay a tribute to hisrigor!

A luta continua

An Inspiration

Rama Salla DiengMember of CODESRIA

SOAS-University of London

C’est une grande perte pour l’Afrique et le monde intellectuel.

Paix à son âme.

Que le Seigneur l’accueille dans son paradis !

L‘Afrique et le mondeintellectuel en deuil

Baba MaalArtiste / Musicien


An unimaginable loss has happened.Our phenomenal intellectual panAfrican giant on land issues,

Professor Sam Moyo, has died following injuries sustainedduring a terrible car accident in New Delhi, India. We are indisbelief. We are waiting for him to come home. We feel rippedapart with pain.

We grew up following you in our townships. We nicknamedyou Sekuru 'Chimusoro', the one with the very big head. Allour parents wanted us to be exactly like you. At the end ofevery school term, you would come home with a report cardfull of number ones. Your arms would be laden with trophiesand certificates for best student in this subject; outstandingrecord in that.

Your mother, Gogo Mavis Moyo's face would beam withenough joy to light up the whole continent. She was a womanof her own accolades, a pioneer black female broadcaster at atime when radio was segregated by racism. But somehow yourachievements made her glow in the way that only a mothercan do.

We always marveled at the shiny silver cups with your nameon them. Playfully, you would fill them with cherry plum juiceand serve us to drink along with candy cakes. The pink icingwould crease between our fingers. Domestic chores, servingthose around you, never bothered you. You had such a deepsense of the hospitality of food, and the power of sharingdrinks with those you loved, that we always felt welcome toyour side. Our great tree that bore so much fruit. Yes we wouldlaugh, but you would steer us to talk about the thing thatmattered most to you; and even if we did not know it then, tous. How to fully reclaim the land that was stolen by the colonialforces.

Throughout your life, you carried your intellectual smarts withso much ease. In your later years, when your trophies hadturned to degrees, you would seek us out so we could sit inyour seminars. At that time I think you were at the ZimbabweInstitute of Development Studies (ZIDS). Later on you movedto SAPES and taught the SARIPS Masters Programme withradical feminists like Dr Patricia Macfadden you made our brainssweat. In the beginning we would all look at each other unableto write down some of the big words and theories you used. And yet you persisted. Sharing your know-ledge with us,crafting an epistemology around land and agrarian rights.Together you showed us why land was a critical resource forwomen to have ownership and control over.

When we tried to call you Prof, you would smile and say,'vafana vangu, ndinonzi Sam - my youngsters, I am just Sam.'It didn't matter that you had 'eaten many books' as the sayingused to go. You would listen to our elementary theories, nurtureus with love and suggest, 'let's write a policy brief on thissubject. That's how we will change the world'.

You lent your brilliance to the environ-mental think tank Zero, pulled us into theSenegal based CODESRIA and intro-duced

us to people who wore Dashiki shirts as a form of politicalexpression. People whose papers you had photo-copied forus to read. This was before computers. It was the time of type-writers. Your scrawl was impossible to decipher, but we knewthat if we didn't figure out your handwriting, there would betrouble. You could not abide intellectual laziness.

On Boodle Road, in Harare's Eastlea suburb you set up theAfrican Institute of Agrarian Studies (AIAS). It was nothingshort of a bold move. This was Zimbabwe in the early 2000swhen land invasions were at their apex. Nothing could deteryou. Not physical threats, nor slurs to your name. And whocan forget the raid of your home office in Borrowdale. You putyour ubiquitous cigarette to your mouth and shock your head.'Why did they have to mess my papers up? I had order here'.I would look at the piles and piles of papers you had andwonder what kind of order you meant. Your office was a projectfor a neat freak.

Last year, we danced until dawn in your front garden. Yourlawn groaned underfoot of our stampede. It was your 60thbirthday party. Food, music, friends and land politics. Thedelicious chocolate cake was a creative meme of your desk.Cellphone, books on land with the spine carrying your name.And of course your friends from all over the world filled youryard. Or skype feed.

By your side was your sweetheart and partner, the top humanrights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa. We marveled at how possibleit was for two wonderful, strong and brilliant human beings tolove each other so much. It made us feel good to see youdancing. It was as if no one else was around as you smiled ateach other and twirled each other to Hugh Masekela's trumpet.Power couples that publicly show each other affection andvalidation are so very rare in our activist civil society worlds.We were hoping for a huge international African wedding andhad decided we were going to be in the bridal party. I don'tknow how we will comfort you Beatrice. I don't know how wewill comfort Gogo Moyo. What will we do for Sibongile andher sisters?

On the days I forgot to call to check on you, you would ring.And demand our company. 'Is Nancy (Kachingwe) around?Where is Saru? Let me make you Oxtail. Bring your friendsover'. You always offered your home to us, whether you werethere or not.

Thank you for giving us so much of you Sekuru Chimusoro.

Siyabonga Moyondizvo. We will forever carry you in ourhearts. Broken as they are by your untimely and devastatinglypainful death. Alone, so far away from the homeland you foughtso hard for.

Bella Matambanadzo

An Ode in Memory of Chimusoro Sam Moyo


Tributes

A jamais dans mes travaux et dans ma mémoire

Je suis profondément choqué par la nouvelle de la disparitiondu Pr SAM MOYO.

Il a forgé en moi une méthodologie spécifique aux étudesfoncières, après ma participation à l'Institut sur le genre 2014.

En rentrant à Yaoundé dans l'avion, j'ai dévoré passion-némentson ouvrage qui a fait de moi un chercheur du foncier.

C'est ce que je retiens de lui, bien que je ne l'aie pas ren-contréune seule fois.

Je vais le citer dans mes travaux sur le foncier.

Au CODESRIA, ma proposition: imprimons son portrait surfond de la dernière des couvertures des ouvrages quenousproduirons et sur nos badges ; ceci pendant le nombre dejours prochains qui sera égal à l'âge auquel il est décédé.

Tu es à jamais dans mes travaux et dans ma mémoire.

Crual Death

It was tragic to receive the news of Prof. Moyo’s passing. Icannot come to terms with the fact that the same sage withwhom we attended the CODESRIA General Assembly this pastJune in Dakar, Senegal is no more. We also attended the SouthAfrican Association of Political Sciences Colloquium at theUniversity of Johannesburg in August. How can death be socruel?

May His Soul Rest in Peace!Regards.

A wonderfull Generous Friend

The sense of utter desolation that one feels at the news of theloss of Sam is beyond words. Sam was a wonderful andgenerous friend, an inspiring colleague, an immensely activeand courageous scholar, and a remarkably dedicated memberof CODESRIA and one of its leading lights.

Fighting for Equality and Justice

Dear comrade, activist of several struggles in Zimbabwe,African continent and the world I am still in shock, not wantingto believe. We know we all die. But even so it is always hard todeal with death, and of someone so committed with land andso many other issues that divide human beings.

We met in Harare long ago, in the 90's at the Hivos AdvisoryGroup (HAG) and then with the Sapem activities, board,conferences.

And we met at CODESRIA.

We will go on fighting for equality and justice!

Condolences to the family!See you Sam.

A luta continua!

Sam Moyo nos acompañarásiempre en las luchas por un

mundo más, humano e igualitario

Queridos amigos y amigas,

Recibimos la triste noticia de la prematura muerte de Sam Moyo,miembro del Comité Ejecutivo de IDEAs y ex presidente delConsejo para el Desarrollo de la Investigación en CienciasSociales (CODESRIA), la institución hermana de CLACSO enÁfrica.

Sam fue un destacado estudioso de la economía política enZimbabwe. Se encontraba en Nueva Delhi, India, paraparticipar en una conferencia sobre "Cuestiones laborales enel Sur g lobal", cuando el auto en el que viajaba sufrió ungrave accidente. Luchó hasta ultimo momento por la vida,pero falleció ayer, 22 de noviembre de 2015.

Sus temas de estudio fueron la ecología política, las nuevasruralidades, las organizaciones no gubernamentales y losmovimientos sociales. Publicó varios artículos, capítulos delibros y los siguientes libros (como autor, co-autor o co-editor):La cuestión agraria en Zimbabwe; El proceso de adquisiciónde tierras en Zimbabwe 1997/8: impactos Socio-Económicosy Políticos; La Reforma Agraria bajo el ajuste estructural enZimbabwe; Las ONG, el Estado y la política en Zimbabwe;Política Energética y Planificación en el Sur de África;Seguridad Ambiental en el Sur de África; Organizacionescampesinas y democratización en África; La recuperaciónde la Nación: El retorno de la cuestión nacional en África,Asia y América; entre otros.

Solani NgobeniDirector: Publications

Human Sciences Research Council

Jimi Adesina

Ahmat HessanaMembre du CODESRIA

Pablo GentiliCLACSO / Secretario Ejecutivo

Isabel Casimiro


Tributes

Sam fue un activo colaborador del Programa Sur-Sur deCLACSO y CODESRIA. Su obra: Recuperando la tierra. Elresurgimiento de movimientos rurales en África, Asia yAmérica Latina fue publicada por nuestras instituciones yestá disponible para descargar completa en nuestra LibreríaLatinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales.

(http://www.clacso.org.ar/libreria-latinoamericana/buscar_libro_detalle.php?id_libro=69&campo=autor&texto=moyo)

Su fuerte sentido del panafricanismo y su solidaridad con lospueblos del Sur nos han enriquecido permanentemente y nosacompañarán siempre.

CLACSO despide a nuestro querido y admirado Sam Moyo,sabiendo que esté donde esté, nos acompañará siempre en lasluchas por un mundo más justo, humano e igualitario.

Respected Intellectual

Greetings, with tragic news from Ebrima, whom you rememberis the secretary of the Council for the Development of SocialScience Research in Africa:

We just received this evening the sad news of the passingaway of Professor Sam Moyo, former President ofCODESRIA. Sam was in India for a conference and gotcaught up in a bad car accident and got seriously injured.We’ve been getting regular updates about his condition allday from our colleagues in Delhi. Unfortunately he didn’tsurvive the serious injuries he sustained. May his soulrest in peace.

Sam was from a peasant background and rose to become oneof Zimbabwe's - and Africa's - most respected intellectuals.You will all remember him from Hong Kong and Chongqing/Chengdu video in commemoration of Vinod:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJoDhMGTtkA&feature=youtu.be

At 10:30 in this wonderful video tribute to Vinod, you findSam, briefly expressing gratitude for the experience. The skillfulfilm-maker found him in several other places which bring backsuch warm memories.At our Centre for Civil Society here in Durban, Sam playedsuch a wonderful role, especially since he started visiting in2012 and co-supervising our PhD students in 2014. He wasone of our Honorary Professors, and there is some informationabout his career here:

http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?10,86,8,164

It was the trip to Chongqing that allowed us to arrange thatposition, one of many reasons I always look back four years,with such admiration for our hosts.

I was last with Sam in Harare in August, at an excellent talk hegave about Zimbabwe's agricultural sector: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Y6iBl3BOE and this is a greatexplanation of his theory of the tri-modal land structure inAfrica: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5--ZntJGh4

In June, he was awarded for his enormous contributions toMarxian political economy at the World Association for Politi-cal Economy conference in Johannesburg; he was also madea vice-chairperson of that organisation.

For those interested, see attached for a list of Google-Scholarcitations of his most popular works and more YouTube links.Below is the beginning of what I think is the last article hepublished, and his last interview. If you would like more of hispublished work, at least some of his articles and a book that Ican send as files, just let me know.

This is all very rough, just a chance to say that we are losingan exceptionally important intellectual and comrade thisweekend, and we owe it to ourselves and our tradition – andto all who struggle to fuse knowledge and social progress,wherever we may be – to keep reminding ourselves of Sam'slegacy. And his generosity of spirit. We will be posting furthermemorial statements about his work and remarkable life at http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za this weekSadly.

Irreparable Loss

Dear Ebrima

So long without getting in contact with you. I hope you areboth well

I am writting to you this time just to share my regrets andsorrow for the demise of our friend Sam Moyo.

Although we have not met for a long time, since I had to leaveCLACSO, I have the best remembrances of the old timestogether. My sincere and profound condolences for this irreparable loss.

Toujours le même

Cher Ebrima,

C’est avec grande stupéfaction que je viens d’apprendre ledécès accidentel de notre ami le Professeur Sam Moyo. Jevoudrais vous présenter à toi, Bayo, Francine, l’ensemble dupersonnel du Codesria et à la famille de Sam mes condoléancesles plus attristées.

Ce que je retiens surtout de Sam c’est de le trouver à chaquerencontre avec toujours son calme, la bonne humeur et unpetit sourire à l’endroit de tous. Une grande perte pour leCodesria. Que le bon dieu l’accueille dans son paradis.

Reçois toutes mes amitiés.

Patrick Bond

Gladys Lechini

El Hadj SANEHuman Resources Director

atlantic.sn


Tributes

Astute Intellectual

Dear Claudio and colleagues,

What a loss… I think these are the words I can humbly sharewith you now. It is really a sad situation to lose a colleaguewho was full of life, loved his work and was intellectuallyastute with a broad footprint in many disciplines andparticularly on the land questions and agrarian issues, in verydetailed way… I am saddened by the loss. May his soul rest inpeace.

Kindest regards.

Giant of a Scholar

I am still trying to get to terms with this devastating piece ofnews. The loss of Professor Sam Moyo has really shocked meand reminded me that life is too short. We have really lost onegiant of a scholar. Very sad for the CODESRIA family.

Friend and Comrade

Dear all,

This is a so hard news... so sad to hear it...

Sam was a so wonderful friend-comrade-brother.

We will all continue his struggle, together.

Fraternité,

Simplicity Without Ambiguity

The death of Sam is a great loss to Africa in particular and thegenerality of the Global South.

The few times I had one-on-one discussions with him, I wasgreatly humbled by his simplicity cum humility void of anyambiguity.

The important lesson we all should learn from him is that 'it ishonorable to pursue a course we believe in to the very end.

This did Sam.

As they will say in the military, he died in the very activeservice better.

Adieu, our beloved Sam

He impacted our Humanity

Colleagues,

Big Brother Sam Moyo touched us and impacted our humanity,and influenced our intellectual growth in a profound way. Ialign myself with the sentiments that seek to honour him. Keepthinking on the best way how, and I will convene a meeting inJanuary to chart the way forward. I am also thinking about afestschrift. Sis Thoko Didiza has some suggestions as well.

In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall tothose who show their good qualities in action (Aristotle).

Regards.

In Memory of Sam Moyo

It is hard to think of Sam in the past tense. It is deeplysaddening to come to terms with the loss of this illustriousacademic and son of Africa. The last time I saw Sam was at

the CODESRIA General Assembly in June 2015, in Dakar. Samwas his usual warm and generous self. Clear in hiscommitments, perceptive in his observations, and gentle inmaking his point. We spent many a moment slipping out of thesessions to have a cigarette outside the hotel. Sam, a seasonedsmoker; I, a serial quitter. Those were moments of chit-chat,comparing notes, exchanging views, and generally enjoyingeach other’s company. I will forever miss the warmth andfriendship of this kind soul.

Sam was also a profound academic. He invited me once toteach at the Summer School in Agrarian Studies that hisinstitute in Zimbabwe organized. He assembled academics fromBrazil, India, and different parts of Africa at Rhodes Universityin Grahamstown, South Africa. I learnt so much at thisgathering that I was supposed to be teaching in! Sam’spersonal work on Zimbabwe’s multi-faceted land reformprocess is a study in academic courage, integrity, and commi-tment. He trusted himself, stuck to the truth as he saw it, anddirtied his hands in doing difficult fieldwork. He was

Prof Puleng LenkaBula

Jessie Kabwila Ph. D.Department English, ChancellorCollege, University of Malawi

Rémy Herrera

Evans Osabuohien

Lesiba Teffo

Abdul Raufu Mustapha,University of Oxford, England


Tributescharacteristically generous to others when they finally sawthe light and came over to his way of seeing the issues.

Sam was also a Pan-Africanist of the highest calibre. His Pan-Africanism was not shown in bombastic phrases, but inpractical, real-life, ways. He never failed to answer any questionone had about goings-on in Zimbabwe. He stuck to the keyissues; I don’t ever remember Sam having a bad word to sayabout anybody. Occasionally he would make a point, followedby a chuckle. His commitment was to the long sufferingpeasantry of Zimbabwe. He was also frequently refreshing hisknowledge of Nigeria by seizing the opportunity of ourinfrequent meetings to ask questions about friends, people,and events. Now and again, he would switch to Nigerianpidgin-English to relish a point. He might have left Nigeriamany years ago, but he never let go of the country. In his heartand concerns, Sam remained one of us. Above all, Sam’s Pan-Africanism shone brightly in the invaluable duty he did forAfrican academia by helping to steer the ship of CODESRIAat a very critical period in the life of this important institution.

I will sorely miss you Sam – courageous academic, and selflessscholar in the cause of Africa. Above all, I will miss a friend Ihave come to trust and respect. Our meetings will never be thesame without you.

My deepest condolences to his family, especially his mother,his children, and his close relations. May you all, and hiscolleagues at the Agrarian Institute, carry on the work whereSam left off.

Riche et impressionante productionscientifique

Chers amis,

C'est une bien triste nouvelle que celle de la disparition tragiquedu Professeur Sam Moyo, chercheur et spécialiste desquestions agraires et économiques de notre continent. C'estune perte que la communauté des chercheurs engagés dansles luttes libératrices de leurs peuples ne peut que ressentir.Personnellement, sans avoir eu l'honneur de le connaitre, j'aipu en prendre l'immense mesure en prenant connaissance desa riche et impressionnante production scientifique. Et c'estdans la continuation de ce combat d'idées pour l'émancipationnationale et sociale des peuples, je pense, que le meilleurhommage peut lui être rendu. Merci à vous tous de Our GlobalUniversity de m'avoir permis de partager cet hommage.All the best !

Researcher and EnlightenedPolitical Analyst

Dear friends,

The tragic accident that took the life of Professor Sam Moyohas deprived us of a great researcher and enlightened politicalanalyst on the agrarian question in Africa that has contributedsignificantly to the orientation of liberation struggles. I havenot been lucky enough to know him personally, but readinghis books and his many articles helped me a lot to know andspread in my country, Ecuador, and in several forums in LatinAmerica, social unrest and political conflicts in several Africancountries.Sam has undertaken a great flight, but his departure is onlyphysical because his thoughts and expectations ofemancipatory political transformation will remain an essentialreference in all continents.

An Intellectual not a Farmer;An Academic not a Politician

The news of Sam's death reached me on my arrival in Johan-nesburg yesterday morning. While it was not unexpected,given the extent of his injuries, I still hoped that he wouldsomehow survive. Just before I boarded the plane in Delhi onSaturday night, Praveen sent me an sms saying, "Sam is sinkingfurther"

I feel bereft beyond words by his untimely departure and byhow very close he was to us in the Guest House when theaccident happened. On our way to Praveen's house for dinner,we saw the damaged car of his fatal accident. Since the newswe received about the extent of the injuries was understandablyunclear at the time, it did not immediately appear that this wasserious because they were actually taken to the hospital in afamous Delhi three-wheeler. But, when I saw the car, and howdamaged it was I became inwardly worried and jittery.

My last memory of Sam, a very appropriate one at that, was inthe car on our way to the conference on Friday morning, whenhe announced that Prvaeen had stocked his fridge with a trayof beers which he invited us to share that Friday night. Wewill never ever have the joy of sharing a drink with him againand there are so many other never evers, that I just can't thinkstraight today, in the knowledge that he is not with us anymore.

Abdelatif Rebah

Victor Hugo JijonMovement Pachakutik from Ecuador

Fred HendricksRhodes University

Grahamstown, South Africa


Tributes

I met Sam about 30 years ago at a conference and we've beenin touch ever since because our research interest coincided. Most recently he was a key member in our SANPAD projectwhich produced the book, "The Promise of Land". Our pathsalso crossed in the Committee designed to prepare the way forthe establishment of the National Institute for the Humanitiesand Social Sciences and of course in the Agrarian SouthNetwork as well as in CODESRIA.

There are two aspects of Sam that impressed me most abouthis integrity: (i) He was offered a farm as part of the Fast TrackLand reform Programme, which he refused saying that he wasan intellectual not a farmer. (ii) He was also offered a ministerialjob, which he refused saying he was an academic not apolitician. These are rare and admirable qualities.

Let us honour the memory of his life and work in appropriateways across the world.

With deeply felt sadness.

Tireless and Unwavering

To mourn Sam is impossibly difficult for me. It seems like amost cruel and twisted nightmare. Nightmare is not even theright word – as nightmares end but this will not.

As some of you know, for well over a decade I was fortunateto be very close to him, both professionally and personally.Along with a network of comrades from different parts of theworld, particularly the Global South, Sam was tireless andunwavering in his quest for a humane and just social order.One of the institutional expressions of our shared dreams,journeys and at times hunting together has been the AgrarianSouth Network. He was not only the cementing force of it butalso its heart. The heart has been wrenched away and wegasping for breath.

I can speak forever for the great scholar, activist and everythingelse about Sam that has been shared in the massive outpouringof grief from all over the world. But I am speechless at the lossof my brother Sam. Let me hide behind a few words from aNeruda poem titled "So Many Different Lengths of Time" whichhave been haunting me since the early horrible hours of 22November 2015.

" So how long does a man live, finally?And how much does he live while he lives?We fret, and ask so many questions-then when it comes to usthe answer is so simpleA man lives for as long as we carry him inside usfor as long as we carry the harvest of his dreamsfor as long as we ourselves live

holding memories in common, a man lives.His lover will carry his man’s scent, his touchHis children will carry the weight of his loveOne friend will carry his argumentsAnother will hum favourite tunesAnother will share his terrorsAnd the days will pass will baffled facesFinally a day comes when he will haveceased to be separated by deathSo how long does a man live after all?A man lives for many different lengths of time."

I only wish the longest possible life for Sam, through his hugs,touches, arguments, inspiration and his inexorable quest for aprogressive social order, that many of us experienced in ourinteractions with him. We will never give up on you Brother Sam.

If the metaphor of ‘Gods Own Good Man’ is an apposite one –it certainly holds for Sam.

For Inter-Asia School: In memoryof Professor Sam Moyo (1954-2015)

My last contact with Prof. Sam Moyo was on September 18,2015. The e-mail exchanges were about concrete steps to openchannels of intellectual interaction between Africa and Asiaafter the Hangzhou (China) Forum on "Bandung/Third World60 Years". Like always, Sam responded quickly andenthusiastically, listing a series of possible programs such astranslation of essays and books, summer school and exchangefor postgraduate students, and biannual intellectual forum.Now, with his sudden departure from us, I am not certain towhat extent we will be able to implement and continue what hehas suggested but will have to try our best to continue his"will to organize".

Sam was a new friend. Most of us involved in the Inter-AsiaSchool project only met him very recently in the Hangzhougathering in April 2015. But Sam has immediately become anold friend once we were with him. His warm personality, open-endedness, honesty, ability to act on the spot, and of courselove of beer and cigarette have won friendship and respectfrom anyone around him. I wonder whether he always travelslightly with a carry on bag; once landed in Hangzhou, withhuge jet lag, he began to work and tune in smoothly. Over thedining tables and post conference tour to the tea field andWest Lake, we all further learned about his erudite knowledge,infinite curiosity of popular life, and immense sense of humor.

Before Sam left Hangzhou for home, he proactively initiatedthe idea for some of us from Asia to join CODESRIA’s Assem-bly to happen in June. Two months later, Ikegami Yushihikoand I (representing the Inter-Asia School) landed in Dakar.For this reunion, Sam became the host of Africa to welcome

Praveen JhaCentre for Economic Studies and

Planning Jawaharlal Nehru UniversityPr. Kuan-Hsing Chen,

National Chiao Tung UniversityHsinch, Taiwan


Tributesthe two first time visitors from Asia. In his hotel room, beforethe Assembly started, we did a long and engaging interviewwith Sam on the formation of CODESRIA from the 1970sonwards. He generously shared with us his reflexive analysisand introduced us to several core members of the organiza-tion to talk to in the following days to come. During this mostintense meeting ever, from morning till evening every day forfive days, we as outsiders began to have a sense of greatachievement this African circle of thought, which has nurtu-red and produced brilliant scholars like Sam, and in turn Samand others has contributed to build a community of trust forthe next generations to grow. In the past 40 some years, CO-DESRIA’s Pan-Africanism is able to construct a solid modernintellectual tradition capable of analyzing difficult issues andtroublesome problems from a continental perspective, brea-king down the barriers of the nation-state boundary, and indialogue with global community of knowledge. Sam’s kindinvitation created a precious occasion for us to see what weneed to learn from the African intellectual community and whatis absent in Asia and beyond, though we understand the for-mation of CODESRIA has had its own unique conditions. Prof.Sam Moyo has left us with the friendship of a genuine humanbeing for us, living in Asia and having the privilege to workwith him as a comrade, to treasure for rest of our life, but, mostimportantly, a legacy of his tri-continental work, to which hehas been committed and we will need to uphold. Sam will alwaysbe with us if we will continue the incomplete intellectual pro-ject of Africa, Asia and Latin-America links.

A Poem for Sam Moyo

There was this thing about Sam Moyo:A forever sparkle in his eyesA certain gliding motion in his walkA heart the size of Love

forever trembling with care and tendernessA voice that soothes even in rage-

amidst CODESRIA’s countless argumentshis voice comes home with a soothing balm

A mind the pointed sharpness of laser beamsA Soul firmly Rooted in Ancestral Agrarian Soils

And oh! even the Smoke from his Serial CigarettesCurls into a Slender PrayerReaching out to God.

Accra, Ghana. Nov. 25, 2015

I come not to Mourn you

I come not to mourn you, ComradeI’ll shed no tear, my friendI refuse to say ‘pole’; to say ‘sorry’Why should I?I refuse to bury youHow can I?For you liveYou live in meYou live in many across the globeWho loved youWhose lives you touchedWhose hearts you cuddledWhose minds you tickledI come to celebrate your living, ComradeI’ll toast to your ideas, my friendOver a glass of sahara, and a plate of ‘nyama choma’In Rose Garden, in Sao Paulo, in New DelhiI’ll sing praises of Sahara, that unites the continentAs you didI’ll pontificate on Sahara, that embraces civilizationsAs you preached and practicedI know this is not a poem, nor a flowery prosePorojo it may beWho cares?It’s for my friend and comradeFor my compassionate companionStraight from my heart and soulYes, it’s for my friend and comradeFor, he lives

Thank you Sam Moyo

Like many I feel a tremendous sense of personal and collectiveloss at Sam's passing. There is so much to thank him for: themodel he built at the African Institute for Agrarian Studies forpolitically engaged, nationally based serious academic researchin Southern Africa; explaining the complexity of what was goingon in Zimbabwe even as mainstream media (and academia)polarised the debate into you are either with Mugabe or youare against him; for his energising contributions to keepingthe project of land reform in Southern Africa on the fire; andfor his indomitable humanism and empathy. My condolencesto his family, his colleagues, his comrades and to us all.

Issa ShivjiUniversity of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Kofi Anyidoho

Bridget O'Laughlin


Tributes

I Will Miss Sam

Dear Ebrima,

I received your message while in Nigeria. I read it once andimmediately shut down my computer. It was so brutal. I was inshock. I was supposed to have a Skype conversation withSam on the following Wednesday and he had called my officein my absence to confirm he had received the documentationand would be back in Harare by Wednesday.

And then this! For a week at unexpected moments my thoughtswould drift towards him and the injustice (the way I felt it) of itall. I came across Sam early after Zimbabwe independence inHarare. I was then at IDRC in Nairobi and my organisation wasdetermined to accompany the research community of nascentZimbabwe. He was at ZIDS with Tandika and was inseparablefrom his mate Tom Shoppo who also had an untimely death.Since the early 80s we have kept in touch despite leaving farapart. I enjoyed his company so much. I will miss him.

RIP

A sip, a Laugh, a Legacy:Prof Sam Moyo

We sat down for a drink and to catch-up on work. Weargued and discussed different projects Sam wasbusy with at the time. I ordered my usual gin and

tonic and he asked for a savanna light; then as if to make itlighter, went on to dilute it with water. We looked at himperplexed and asked why on earth anyone would add water tosavanna and his response was: ‘I am trying to watch my drink’.Without much debate this was understood by all who sat atthe table that night. The subject was closed and we moved onto other pressing and exciting matters. The land question,agrarian reform in Zimbabwe, political transition and the landgrabs dogging the continent.

What is but a small blot to a man’s image, especially one who-se ideas had shaped your thinking for as far you could remem-ber? Studying sociology I had become curious about the landquestion in Africa. In a conversation with my father, I hadasked him about this. We are told the San are the oldest inha-bitants of Southern Africa and yet in Gantsi my mother’s homearea most of the San settlements were to be found on theoutskirts of the budding town, on the fringes of national parks,the biggest cattle ranches in the country and so forth. And myfather had said the San villages encircle the Gantsi Town, theyare observing the movements of the new occupants of theirland and one day they will reclaim what is theirs. There a

curiosity was born; I wanted to understand how disposses-sion of this magnitude takes place and what leads to a statewhere injustice is really a normalisation of the abnormal. Un-der the guidance of my mentor and supervisor Dr OnalennaSelowane, I went about reading what I could get my hands onto learn about land, rights, politics, identity and social justice– and right up there were the works of Prof Sam Moyo.

You see Sam was a great thinker and fearless scholar. A politicaleconomist of note. At the height of the political crisis inZimbabwe and the Fast Track Land Reform Programme orinvasions if you wish, Sam was amongst the few scholars whoacknowledged that land reform in Zimbabwe had benefittedsmall scale farmers, the rural poor. In his various writings heargued that the popular assumption about failed land reformin Zimbabwe was wrong. Instead, land reform programmesdespite benefiting the elite had been redistributive. The poorhad gained more than others and the extent of such benefithad been wide enough to trigger significant progressivechanges in the agrarian structure.

To quote Prof Moyo writing about the land reform discoursein the early 2000s this is what he had to say; ‘the debate hasfocused on the immediate political motives of the FTLRP,selectively highlighting its aspects of ‘violence’, ‘disorder’,and ‘chaos’, claiming that the ruling Zanu PF elite and thestate instrumentalised the FTLRP for electoral support andthat only Zanu PF cronies benefited. By neglecting to examinethe character and scale of redistribution of the FTLRP, and notlooking at it from a longer historical perspective, the literatureon Zimbabwe’s agrarian reform is deprived of a crucialviewpoint.1

Prof Moyo drawing over three decades of research went aboutto set the record straight. This was a highly unpopular viewbut he stuck to it. Sadly enough it is the work of Ian Scoonesthat is often cited to tell the story of the success of the landreform in Zimbabwe and its impact on the lives of small-scalefarmers. The New York Times even ran a story back in 2012about the new black tobacco farmers, beneficiaries of the fasttrack land reform process – the title was ‘In Zimbabwe LandTakeover, a Golden Lining’2 Sam Moyo did not glorify the fasttrack land programme though he also critiqued the land reformprocess and pointed out its flaws, acknowledging the unevendistribution of land among beneficiaries of the land reformprogramme. He acknowledged that some especially the politicalelite had received larger allocations than others. This in turninfluenced skewed access to farming services andinfrastructure. But that said, the bottom line was the peasantshad benefitted. While the article in the NYT was celebrated,Scoones widely quoted, Prof Moyo received wide criticismfor the same views. We don’t acknowledge and celebrateAfrican scholarship enough. We second guess our own andoften we are quick to label and discredit them.

The Agrarian Institute was born and Prof SamMoyo’s legacy lives onBut that was Sam’s work on Zimbabwe. He dedicated hisscholarship to other parts of the continent too. He was a Pan-Africanist of note. He served as the President of the Councilfor the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA)from 2009–2011). He was a research professor at the ZimbabweInstitute of Development Studies, and taught at the Universities

Pierre Sane

Masego Madzwamuse


Tributesof Calabar in Nigeria as well as Zimbabwe and served on theboards of many organisations.

With most of his achievements what stood out for me was theAfrican Institute of Agrarian Studies. Prof Moyo set up theInstitute in late 2002. The main objective of taking on such abold step was to influence land and agrarian reform policiesthrough multidisciplinary social science research, policydialogues, training and information. Sam never lost sight ofone thing he was passionate about. This would not be aninstitute that would do research for the sake of it. He ultimatelywanted to mobilise scholars to provide advice and mediate inthe policy making processes so as to improve rural livelihoods.He often lamented the limited relevant knowledge and trainingprogrammes to tackle the contemporary agrarian crisis that isemerging in the continent. The low agricultural productivity,food insecurity, unemployment, poverty, and unsustainablenatural resources utilisation, while redressing the growing lossof rights to land, food and a clean environment. To respondto this challenge, Prof Moyo argued that a critical mass ofanalysts and civil society advocates needs to be built toinfluence shifts in the policy environment. This should alsopromote civil society organisations to better support theadvocacy of those whose rights are infringed upon. Hisargument was the current knowledge production and policyanalysis institutions have, due to their limited disciplinarycurricula failed to fill this gap. They serve too few potentialagrarian analysts and focus on limited market and businessmodels. Their learning processes cater for a narrow range ofviews and exclude the perspectives of those who use politicaleconomy and rights-based approaches to policy making andadvocacy.

Out of this critique, the Agrarian Institute was born and itsflagship programme the Agrarian Summer School waslaunched. The Summer School contributes to filling this gapby providing training to postgraduate students and civil societyactivists in Africa, and promoting research relevant tounderstanding and addressing agrarian justice and inequitableresource rights on the continent. This programme was areflection of Sam’s commitment to building skills for criticalthinking and mentoring young scholars. He drew on his socialcapital to bring together some of the best brains in the fieldwho spent days of their time teaching young scholars andproviding them with feedback on their research. Guest lecturershave included the likes of Prof Paris Yeros University Federaldo ABC Brazil, Prof Dzodzi Tsikaka University of Ghana andcurrent President of Codesria, Praveen Jha and JawaharlalNehru University, New Delhi among others. Partners in theAgrarian Consortium that emerged out of these efforts includethe Rhodes University, Haki Ardhi, University of Dar es Salaam(Tanzania) and Civil Society Organizations, HAKIARDHI TheLand Rights Research & Resources Institute (Tanzania), andTrust for Community Outreach and Education (South Africa)and other in research and training of postgraduate students,with the support of key research institutions in Brasil (FederalUniversities of ABC and Brasilia) and in India (Jahwaral NehruUniversity Centre for Economic Studies and Planning). TheAgrarian Summer School is widely recognised in the regionand internationally, there is growing demand within the GlobalSouth for participation in it. Many who have been through hishands have gone off to do great things.

The last time I saw Sam was in August and over a glass ofwine, lots of laughter and this time nothing was diluted, weplunged straight into another heated debate over a highlypolitical and controversial issue. That of Cecil the lion. Thatevening many questions were asked, whose narrative is it?What was the impact of the international campaign on thelivelihoods of rural communities who rely on tourism andsustainable use of wildlife resources for their local economies?Where was the voice of the African scholars and practitionersin the conservation field? What do communities have to say,where is the platform? The questions went on and on. Thatwas Sam; there was laughter, sipping and critical thinking.

Sam you are one of whom it can be said that " akekho ofananawe" (there is none like you). Rest in eternal peace dearbrother, colleague, mentor and comrade!!! You planted manyideas and these will live on!

Notes1. See Moyo, S. Three decades of agrarian reform in Zimbabwe. 2011.

In Journal of Peasant Studies. Vol. 38, No. 3, July 2011, 493–531

2. See Lydia Polgreen, 2012. In Zimbabwe Land Take Over, a GoldenLining.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/world/africa/in-zimbabwe-land-takeover...

An Intellectual and an Activist

The singular life that was Sam Moyo has left a legacythat is as sprawling as his labor. As an intellectual andan activist, Sam was identified with multiple causes

and movements, in and out of Zimbabwe and Africa. Mostconspicuously, though, in the public arena he was associatedwith the land question. For exactly a century and anotherquarter this year, the year of Sam’s passing, since the cursedimplantation in 1890 of British colonialism, land has been thesingle most persistent theme in the politics, economy andsociety of Southern Rhodesia turned Rhodesia turnedZimbabwe. All serious students (and even some not-so-seriousones) of Zimbabwe, then and now, whether employing thenonfictional or fictional form, have had to confront in one wayor another the land question, or its multiple relations, which isto say every other serious social question. No scholar ofZimbabwe, barring none, writing in whatever field, in whateverera, of whatever political stripe, has matched Sam in dedication,perception and rigor on the land question. More than anyone,too, he globalized the Zimbabwean land question, ensuringits inclusion on the agenda of masses and movementsstruggling over land anywhere and everywhere in the world.He did so, again, in the face of great odds, his pen arrayedagainst princes and powers near and far, in and out ofZimbabwe, from state houses to mass media to cloisteredacademy. His life, labor and legacy stand tall and erect, amonument to scholarship and struggle alike.

Michael West


Tributes

The Pan-African World has beenRobbed of one of its Finest and

Progressive Scholars: A Tribute toSam Moyo

Once again Africa has lost one of its finest andprogressive towering intellectuals to an accident; yetanother robbery.

When the sad and painful news of the death of a brother,comrade, and teacher like Professor Sam Moyo occurs, thereis a high temptation of getting into a conspiracy theory moodof some sort. One such theory is the possibility of an invisiblehand behind a cleanly hatched plot to take away from us thefew Africans who are dedicated to our perennial and protractedstruggle. Such conspiracy theories are lent credence by thetiming of these incidents; when such dedicated intellectualsare needed the most.

Examples of incidents that make sense only within the contextof a conspiracy theory abound in our political history. At thepolitical revolutionary front, no serious observer of the Africanpolitical landscape is naïve to waste time to debate the issueof whether or not there is a conspiracy and a hidden handwhen we lost, as it were, the Samora Machels, ThomasSankaras, John Garang, Chris Hani et al to "accidents" orseemingly home grown assassinations. Those questions, toall intents and purposes, are settled in the minds ofprogressives however mysterious they are still made to appear.

But to lose some of our best and finest intellectuals/activistsof the likes of Claude Ake, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, SamMoyo, et al, to accidents makes it appear as if these accidentsare also planned to rob us of our progressive intellectualswho are carrying out revolution by other means: activistscholarship directed at delivering the desired social justice.

In the midst of the contemporary scramble for land in Africaby trans-national companies under the pretext of extractivesector led growth in the southern African region as whole andSouth Africa in particular, Africa can ill afford to lose a preciousgem like Sam Moyo, our beloved learned guru and passionatescholar of the political economy of land of our time.

Sam Moyo, affectionately called Sam by friends andcolleagues, like all great scholars of his stature, you meet andknow them before you meet them in person. In other words, I,like many others, read some of his writings and met him severaltimes in footnotes in the usual academic citations: "see Moyo,S.," and also saw his writings quoted copiously by academics,students, and policy makers.

Even though I am not a student of agrarian studies in theformal sense, my interests in all matters pan-Africanist, drewme to his passionate and incisive scholarship in regard tosuch issues. This "Damascus moment" followed a book I read

as a student in 1989 which I found to be an original thinking inunderstanding the different typologies of state systems inAfrica, especially the peculiarity of state systems in thesouthern African context. This book was entitled: Zimbabwe:The Political Economy of Transition, edited by Ibbo Mandazaand published by CODESRIA, 1987.

This book, in my humble view, built up on an earlier seminalwork by Hamza Alavi, "The State in Post-Colonial Societies,New Left Review, 1972. The thesis developed by Hamza Alaviunarguably equipped academics and practitioners with a goodconceptual framework for analysing and understanding thecharacteristics of the post-colonial state and even predictingcertain scenarios of the same.

In the said book, Political Economy of Transition, Mandaza,Moyo et al, persuasively distinguished post white settlercolony from the "normal" post -colonial societies. Specifically,they provided a sound paradigm in explaining the politicaleconomy of post white settler countries like Rhodesia–Zimbabwe, South West Africa–Namibia, and South Africa.

Sam Moyo’s chapter in the book dealt with his favourite themeof his celebrated expertise, the ‘Land Question’. It gave thereader a very profound and penetrating analysis of the difficultquestion of land ownership and its redistribution in a postwhite settler colony and how the same processes do impactclass structure of post independent Zimbabwe and productionin the agricultural sector of its economy. This was my ownbaptism of the land politics in southern Africa and how thatspills over into issues of human rights.

The Southern African Regional Institute for Policy Studies(SARIPS) was established during this same period, mid-1980s,and Sam was one of its founding researchers. Informed by theexperiences of the region, the Institute produced numeroushigh quality publications on race, class and gender. Thosewere the days when one waited for the monthly publication,the SAPEM. Sam wrote numerous articles on land reform andrelated it to complex issues of development, democracy, andhuman rights. They were so well written that even "laypersons", like myself, felt we were experts of the land questionin southern Africa. Small wonder then that Sam made enormouscontribution to the Zimbabwean land reform by headingtechnical teams that advised the president.

The more I read Sam, the more I respected him as not justacademic qua academic but a scholar with a clear sense ofmission and vision: social justice in Africa. He was against thepolitics of dominance. Sam believed, as was stated by one ofAfrica’s great thinkers, Thandika Mkandawire, that Africa’ssovereignty should be extended to the "realm of scientificmastery of the continent’s reality and destiny".

Truly, most of Sam’s works exposed mythologies of conceptsand notions of land in Africa by "external", especially neo-liberal scholars. He deconstructed a lot of held theories onland as they related to peasants, state intervention, role of themarket, who really were the producers food crops and cashcrops in post white settler Zimbabwe. He was never shy ofdebating and exposing contradictions, paradoxes and ironiesin arguments by advocates of the status quo on land issues inAfrica. Above all, he was an empiricist who sustained all hisarguments with well researched data.

Nana K. A. Busia, Jr*


TributesEncountering Sam MoyoIn 2004 when I was appointed by the United Nations (UN) asa Senior Legal & Policy Advisor to Zimbabwe, effectively Iwas the advisor on international human rights law in thecountry. Barely a week after my arrival in the country, I askedmy driver to take me to SAPES to try and see Ibbo Mandaza,and Sam Moyo in person having met them only in "books"until then. When I got there, luckily I met Ibbo who was atpost. After introducing myself and exchanging pleasantries Iwas given a visitors book to write in. I stated my admirationfor the progressive scholarship as championed by Ibbo andSam Moyo and wrote about how I met them when I read theirbook on political economy of transition especially the theoryof post white settler colony and the land question. I inquiredabout Sam, but he had left and a two month effort to track himwas in vain.

In August of that year, 2004, the government had proposed aBill to regulate the activities of NGOs. On the face of it, thisshould have been treated like any other proposed Bill of alegislature. But not in post 2000 Zimbabwe, after the landreform. It was a highly polarized society, with several levels ofcleavages but mainly between the government, Africanmissions, especially SADC countries on one hand, and theopposition MDC, donors, and some NGOs on the other hand.

According to the government, the Bill was the best thing thatever happened since it was going to, in its view, regulate theactivities of NGOs which were covertly involved in partisanparty politics. To the other group, it was a draconian piece oflegislation at aimed undermining freedom of association andexpression in the country, and therefore a human rights issue.I had the unfortunate task of analysing and advising the UNon the proper line to take on the Bill in line with internationaland regional human rights standards. I presented the UN’sposition which was balanced and seen as fair; a win-winsituation for all actors.

Consequently, President Mugabe made it known to theParliament that he was persuaded by the UN argument andwill not sign the Bill into law. This situation brought me intocontact with a spectrum of the national and international actorsin the country, including one Sam Moyo whom I was told,wanted to see me about the NGO Bill. I wondered if it was thesame Sam Moyo, whose works I had read and hadunsuccessfully tried to track down. It happened to be him! Atour meeting, his first reaction was that the legal analysis I haddone was contextual, fair and balanced. I told him how pleasedI was to meet him in person, an encounter which led to ussigning a covenant of brotherhood in our hearts and re-affirming our mutual belief in the pan-Africanism.

Zimbabwe was never the same for me as he became my propand guided me through a lot of political landmines. Sam wasintellectually honest and had made it a point to be on the sideof justice. In the polarized Zimbabwe of that time, each grouptook an absolute position with no room for grey areas. A scholarlike Sam would not simplistically and blindly follow any group.He took a fundamental position that land reform was toempower poor peasants and ordinary folks that each groupfelt he was not on their side.

Sam knew when invocation of human rights was really aboutthe rights of people and when certain national strategic

interests were wrapped up and presented as human rights. Helamented the appropriation of international law and humanrights for hegemonic politics in peripheral societies bydominant actors in the global system.

I learnt a lot from Sam. I eventually contracted him as aconsultant to develop a framework for a dialogue betweenNGOs and the government on the difficult and politicised issueof civil society’s relationship with the government. To thisday, I have not come across any such comprehensive studythat presents different typologies of civil society organizationsin the country and the complex interface with government,donors and how these factors play themselves out in CSOswork in the country. It was hailed as a masterpiece and blueprint which guided our work in the UN then.

With Sam the Professional, Political were alsoPersonalFeminist scholars in their deconstruction of held notions bypatriarchy have taught us many things. To them, no assumptionis God/Allah given or natural. One such a case is the dividebetween the public and the private. For instance, ininternational human rights law, they concede that there is aprivate sphere and public realm, but rights are better protectedwhen these separate spheres exist in an organic relationship.Feminist scholars therefore enjoin us to analyse progressiveson personal level to test their consistency. To all intents andpurposes, Sam passed that test with flying colours.

In recent years, the donor factor has resulted in some Africanstates, civil society, and even academic actors all playing gamesto survive including shielding scientific truths that in theirmind a donor may not like to hear. Sam would have none ofthis dilemma. Sam as a scholar was first and foremost a scientistwho incessantly searched for the truth employing conceptsand dispassionate methodologies.

However, his value position was the quest for social justice.Throughout the years that I knew him, he never apologizedfor that. This explains the principled position he took in favourof land reform in Zimbabwe and his disagreement with themarket-driven argument that any state intervention in the landwould distort the market. He was always looking out for thepoor and the disenfranchised in our societies. I rememberengaging him on Goran Hyden’s theory of uncapturedpeasants and the experience of Ujama in Tanzania as anexperiment that died at birth because land should not be madeavailable to any poor peasant to "waste" as Goran Hyden et alargued.

This engagement was a deliberate provocation to get hisinsights about the status quo in South Africa and the media-driven sensational discourse on Zimbabwe post 2000 landreform. His answers were always analytical, nuanced anddispassionate. He always arrived at conclusions that had socialjustice and human rights as the end state and showing thatthese goals are not inhibitive to efficient agriculturalproduction.

He never, like Amicar Cabral, romanticised the peasants andtheir abilities and limitations. On the private personal level,Sam was the same; very nice and just person, who took friends,


Tributes

brothers and sisters seriously. His house in Harare became ahome and a rendezvous for comrades and brothers, and wasvery good at entertaining. I was always invited to his house inHarare for an event. And he saw to it that every guest wasvery happy chez lui.

Each time I got visitors such as Tajudeen visiting me inZimbabwe, I knew the first guest would be Sam. We coulddiscuss intellectual issues until dawn. He was very good withhis beers with Taju as I watched on as an amateur. Later, in2008, when I had to go to Sierra Leone to take up anotherassignment with the UN, I made sure I advised the UN to gethim over to help with land issues in that country, and between2009 and 2010 he did a brilliant job for the government withpolicy papers on land reform in that country some of whichhave already informed new legislation and repeal of others.

Whenever he visited, he stayed with me for some time and asalways, his company was joyous with incredible high sense

of humour and satire. I will forever miss Sam’s giggles andteases of Africans. Nothing amused him most than pretentiouspetty bourgeois life style of some of the political classes.

Sam will Live Long After his DeathMy personal consolation at this painful hour is that scholarsof the stature of Sam never die, for generations to come, nostudent, serious academic, and policy maker can produce anycredible study or policy document on complex issues of landin Africa, without ploughing through the numerous workshanded down by Professor Sam Moyo. He did a lot of goodfor the pan-African world. We will all sorely miss Sam! VivaSam!

* Fellow/Guest Lecturer, International Law, School of Advanced Study,ICWS, University of London & Member of the Inner Temple, Innsof Court of England & Wales. Former Senior Legal and PolicyAdvisor of the UN in Zimbabwe, 2004-2007.

Professor Sam Moyo’s funeral Today was an incredible day. Zimbabweans came to mourn a beloved son, and were impressed by all the outpourings fromaround the world. Praveen Jha’s tribute had a beautiful Pablo Neruda poem in his tribute which was read at the burialservice as was Shivji’s poem to Sam. Also read was Madam Zuma’s letter. Mourners came from far and near and includedmembers of government in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The academics present were asked to be pallbearers, so we all wentand carried Sam’s coffin to the hearse. There was a lot of high emotion at different points, but the most difficult was whenQuondisile spoke so movingly about her father’s love for his daughters.The music was sublime and very comforting.

After the service, we drove to Glen forest, a new private cemetry to bury Sam. Those who wanted to, were invited to puta single white rose in the grave. There was a CODESRIA delegation of eight – myself, the current Executive Secretary, twoformer executive secretaries, one executive committee member and one former executive committee member, one staffmember and a former staff member.

Now we have laid Sam to rest, may the healing process begin and may we begin to work in different ways to be true to hislegacy.

Dzodzi Tsikata


Tribute

Sam’s Children were the Light ofhis Life

One of the amazing things about Sam Moyo is thatthough he led a thoroughly professorial life, writingpapers, attending conferences and publishing books

and articles, Sam always had time for people. He loved peoplein the greatest sense and that love was returned in equalmeasure, as shown by the outpouring of emotions since hisfatal accident two weeks ago.

From the start of our marriage in 1992, it was apparent thatfamily life was very important to Sam. Every Sunday we visitedGogo (Sam’s mother, Mavis Moyo) and some of his siblings inHarare, Lindiwe and Phahla, or Rhey and Julie, or Mabhenaand Winnie. Outside Harare, Sam always looked foropportunities to visit Nkosana in London, John and Sharon inLusaka, and Mike in Gweru, or Josh Nyoni who was practicallya brother. Other regular family visits were to Gogo Khethiweand Khulu Liberty Mhlanga, or to Auntie Sheila, or to theMubis and Munyatis. Among other close friends who werelike family members, Sam considered Chloe Paul as a kindredspirit.

Sam’s children were the light of his life. Sibongile, Thabisile,Samantha, Qondisile and Zandile brought him such joy andinspired him to build and keep building for the future. Becauseof his busy travel schedule, Sam could not attend every schoolevent of his children, but he made time to mentor them. Whenthey were young his mentoring was about monitoring theirbehaviour and inculcating decent values. As they grew older,it was about their education and professional development.Sam loved going on trips wi amily and regularly took the girlsto Victoria Falls or to places like Bulawayo, Great Zimbabwe,Lake Kariba, Hwange National Park, South Africa, Beira andChobe National Park.

Equal to Sam’s love for people was his love of ideas. By pullingtogether people and ideas, Sam created great value in the world.He was an institution builder who drew people to his cause.With Yemi Katerere, he had set up the Zimbabwe EnvironmentResearch Organisation (ZERO) while on the staff of theZimbabwe Institute of Development Studies of the Universityof Zimbabwe. After the SAPES years with Ibbo Mandaza, Samcreated the African Institute of Agrarian Studies and a recentgreat innovation was the establishment of Agrarian Southjournal. Sam’s engagement with Codesria was always pivotaland he valued deeply his relationship with scholars such asThandika Mkandawire and Adebayo Olukoshi, not to mentionthe numerous South African scholars whom he visited andwas visited by frequently. Among feminist scholars with whomSam engaged during the 1990s, Elinor Batezat Sisulu, PatriciaMcFadden, Micere Mugo and Ama Ata Aidoo were importantfigures. From his youthful days as a student in Sierra Leoneduring the Rhodesian era and later as a teacher in Nigeria, Sam

continued to nurture relationships with like-mindedintellectuals he had connected with outside his homeenvironment, such as with the Trinidadian scholar DavidJohnson.

Sam’s talent for adding value put those who lived or workedwith him under great pressure. Anyone who stepped into hishome office would be put to work, researching issues, editingdocuments, staying up till 3am to ensure work would besubmitted on time because Sam was always very professionalabout meeting his deadlines.

Sam’s kindness was legendary. He always extended a helpinghand and would never reject any plea for assistance. Therewere weekend invitations for almost everyone he met and atChristmas he would invite development partners who had notbeen able to make it home. His kindness and his dynamismensured that there were always people in our home, includingmany enduring friends who are mourning this week all overthe world.

Sam and I enjoyed a fruitful marital and intellectualcollaboration for many years. Though our marriage ranaground in the 2000s, we remained great friends, regularly intouch over our mutual interests, primarily the children andalso, inevitably, the inexhaustible topic of the political economyof Africa.

Sam Moyo; Our Colleague,Mentor, and Friend

Finally, we rested Sam Moyo; our colleague, mentor, andfriend; our inspiration on how to conduct research andmake your conclusion irrespective of what political

persuasion one wants to pigeon-hole you into. Sam's bodywas interned at Glen Forest Cemetery, very close to his home.Tears have a way of deciding when to flow liberally and theydid today. What can we say, who will we rely on for refinedtheoretical and conceptual analysis that was located in soundempirical data? It certainly is a tough question to ask; difficultto answer and of course the Daily Nation did not help muchwith its misplaced title to my column. But at least, at a personallevel, I was blessed to walk with a titan when I served on theCODESRIA Executive Committee. Life has afforded me rareprivileges in the academy; it continues to afford me thoseprivileges. I can only be grateful. My colleagues BhekinkosiMoyo, Pinkie Mekgwe, Tendai Muriso and Adebayo Olukoshi;my sister Thoko Didiza were present and we were sittingtogether. There were many others including Ebrima Sall,LenkaBula Puleng, and Mzee Thandika Mkandawire.

Dede Amanor-Wilks

Godwin Murunga


Tribute

A la Mémoire de Sam Moyo

Samir Amin etBernard Founou-Tchuigoua

Forum du Tiers Monde et ForumMondial des Alternatives

The Grim Reaper came too earlyfor my brother, Sam

Sam and I met through Codesria two decades ago, andCODESRIA made possible much of our subsequentcamaraderie and even collaboration. There was a special

affinity we shared, but I truly admired how he had strivedpatiently over so many years to advance his nuanced analysisof the Zimbabwe agrarian reforms against the dominantWestern narrative of it being an unmitigated disaster. Even hiseventual international vindication was due to the Westernpublication of a UK collaborator’s study rather than toappropriate acknow-ledgement of his own pioneering findings.But as others have noted, Sam put this in perspective and wasappreciative of the vindication and did not begrudge the othersfor a moment.

At the risk of sounding like an unoriginal cliché, Sam trulysought not only to interpret the world, but also to change it.The world has changed and all of us with it.

When I joined the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)in mid-2012, there were few people I could turn to, who hadretained serious interest in agrarian challenges in the face ofthe changing fads of the last few decades. Thus, as myattention returned to agrarian issues in recent years, I came torely on his counsel ever more. Consequently, I saw more ofSam than almost any other collaborator.

Years before, we had surveyed the self-destructive trajectoryof the major better Western academic journals on agrarianproblems, but it was Sam who acted on this analysis with his

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

La disparition brutale de Sam Moyo nous a laissé sansvoix. Sam était un ami personnel très cher.

Sam comptait parmi les fondateurs des activités que nousanimons depuis plusieurs dizaines d’années dans le cadre duForum du Tiers Monde et du Forum Mondial des Alternatives.D’emblée, lorsque nous nous sommes rencontrés, nous avonscompris qu’il était, au-delà de ses qualités de chercheurscientifique cultivé et intelligent, un militant courageux etdéterminé de la cause des peuples et des nations, de la sienne(le Zimbabwe) et de celles de l’Afrique et du Grand Sud. Notrecollaboration étroite n’a donc jamais cessé de nous rapprocherchaque jour davantage.Les travaux majeurs de Sam s’organisaient autour de laquestion agraire. Sam avait compris que le déploiement de lastratégie de l’impérialisme ne pouvait rien produire d’autreque la destruction sauvage et tragique des mondes ruraux etpaysans en Afrique et en Asie.Sam avait pris toute la mesure de la mise en œuvre systématiquede cette politique criminelle à partir de l’expérience de sonpropre pays : des millions de paysans expropriés pour donnerles terres de leurs ancêtres à quelque milliers de colons. Il enavait saisi le sens dramatique et de ce fait pris résolument partipour la réforme agraire entreprise par Mugabe, quelles qu’ensoient les limites que Sam mesurait, et dénoncé l’hypocrisiede la Grande Bretagne qui se refuse toujours à honorer sesengagements dans ce domaine.Sam ne se contentait pas d’analyser la réalité et d’en dénoncerla tragédie. Il a apporté une contribution majeure à la formulationde l’alternative humaine en réponse au défi ; et dans cet espritprécisé ce que pourrait être un projet souverain de dévelop-pement authentiquement national et populaire, porteurd’avancées démocratiques et, dans son cadre, d’un projet derenouveau de la production paysanne. Il savait situer lecombat pour l’avancée de cette alternative dans son cadrepolitique national et international ; il savait que ce combatétait indissociable de la lutte des peuples contre l’impérialismed’hier et d’aujourd’hui. Il avait le courage d’en analyser lestenants et aboutissants et de confronter les propositions qu’ilen déduisait aux mauvais arguments des défenseurs duprétendu néolibéralisme.Sam était devenu un pilier de nos groupes de réflexion sur laquestion agraire en Afrique et dans le Sud. A ce titre il avaitorganisé de magnifiques tables rondes – entre autre àl’occasion de nos interventions dans les Forums SociauxAfricains et Mondiaux – permettant aux meilleurs desspécialistes des trois continents, engagés dans les luttes avecleurs peuples et leurs paysans, d’examiner ensemble ce qu’il yavait de particulier à chacune de leur expérience et ce qui lesréunissait dans un combat commun pour l’émancipation socialeet politique de toutes les nations concernées. Sam était le Vice

Président du Forum Mondial des Alternatives pour l’Afriqueaustrale. Il était le directeur de l’African Institute for AgrarianStudies ; et cette institution majeure comptait elle-même parmiles membres les plus actifs du « réseau de réseaux » queconstituent le Forum du Tiers monde et le Forum Mondial desAlternatives.

Les travaux de Sam et de ses collègues ont fait l’objet denombreuses publications remarquées. Deux ouvragescollectifs parus quelques mois seulement avant la mort tragiquede Sam portent l’empreinte de sa magnifique contribution :The struggle for food sovereignty, Alternative Developmentand the Renewal of Peasant Society today ed by Remy Herreraand Kin Chi Lau (Publication du Forum Mondial desAlternatives, Pluto Press, London 2015).Réponses radicales aux crises agraires et rurales africaines,sous la direction de Bernard Founou-Tchuigoua etAbdourahmane Ndiaye (Publication CODESRIA, Dakar 2014).L’un des auteurs de ce dernier ouvrage, notre ami IssakaBagayogo est lui également disparu en 2015.

Les textes produits par Sam sont et resteront au centre despréoccupations de tous ceux qui poursuivent son combat pourl’Afrique et ses paysans.


Tribute

Goodbye Sam: Brother, Comrade,Fighter and Friend

Kotoka International Airport, Accra, was the last placeI ran into Sam, seated in the departure lounge after aworkshop on the land questions that he devoted his

intellectual life to. We shared a beer, talked with intimacy abouthis life and mine, how both are inflected with the disparateancestral and present-day contradictions that typify ourgeneration, and discussed how these might inform bothintellectual endeavours and activism. On this occasion, Samreflected on the early days he spent in Calabar, Nigeria, andhow the very different organization of land that he found InWest Africa transformed his hitherto Southern Africanthinking. We reminisced too, recalling earlier visions of whatthe African scholarly community could become. A favouritewe shared is the often-discussed dream of an ‘African Bellagio’(which we would name differently, of course), possibly on theshores of Lake Malawi, where African scholars and researcherscould overcome the vagaries of our variously precariousconditions, coming together to concentrate our best energiesand skills, to re-inspire and re-connect, and to pursue theredistributive transformations that lie ahead, that we knowmust happen.

A complex personal history may go some way to explainingSam’s remarkable, incisive and visionary intellect, and themanner in which this was coupled with all-embracinggenerosity of spirit. The rigorous scholarly work he carriedout in collaboration with so many was driven by Sam’s deepcommitment to serving, and facilitating the liberation ofoppressed and marginalized peoples, across the South. Hisroots in rural Zimbabwe as well as in urban townshipcommunities lent him profound insight into the land-questionsthat continue to stall justice and democratization, but which –properly addressed – would end poverty and inequality inZimbabwe, the rest of Africa, and across the former coloniesof the South. His multiple racial and cultural identificationsmade him a voracious traveller who was able to engage deeplywith people across ideological, cultural, national anddisciplinary borders, to vigorously debate ideas wherever hewent, inspiring and mobilizing across generations.

Few, if any, of us could pass through Harare without beinginvited home, to ‘gist,’ to drink and eat the pots of food hewould produce with abandon. Sam stirred many things beyondbelly-filling food. Chez Sam, we ate well, but most of all wefeasted on the intense intellectual and political debates healso liked to stir up, stretching our minds as well as our bellies.Few of us will forget the winning embrace of his smile or thewarmth of his big brotherly hugs – these earned him theaffection that girded the respect colleagues, friends andcommunity felt for him.

The African Institute for Agrarian Studies, established in 2002was the pioneering initiative that Sam dedicated himself to forthe last thirteen years of his energetic career, a remarkableendeavour that grew to span three continents, bringingtogether people-focused land expertise from African, LatinAmerica and Asia. His death in India, tragic and shocking as itis for us all, occurred when he was doing what he was mostcommitted to, what he most loved. Colleagues and fellowtravellers, we owe it to Sam to continue to pursue his vision,and to collectivise the mission he discovered in the course ofhis brutally foreshortened life, for posterity, for the liberationof the still dispossessed.

Sam was no angel, as the women he has loved in the course ofsix decades of a life fully lived can surely testify. At the sametime, his unadulterated joie de vivre was one of his mostendearing features – even as we worried about his health attimes! We need not have. Death was to take him away from usahead of his old age, and at the prime of his activist-intellectuallife. This tragic end also snatched Sam away from a new chapterin his personal life, with his equally courageous fighter forhuman rights, Beatrice Mtetwa. Beatrice, my heart goes out toyou – your pain must be unimaginable, inconsolable. Knowthat you have the love and support of us all, and a life to live,people to serve.

Sam will surely live on in our hearts, our ideas, in our actions,and in our vision of a liberated and just Africa.

Goodbye Beloved Comrade.

initiative, Agrarian South. Sam’s commitment was also evidentin his efforts over the years, which others can better testify to.

In Ghana last year, while addressing inequality, he articulated– for posterity – a masterly overview of the three main agrariantransformations in Africa with his typical modesty. This year,in Accra again, he sensitized trade union activists in Africa tothe agrarian question. Before that, in Hangzhou, a capital ofChina centuries ago, he spoke to the contemporary relevanceof the historic 1955 Afro-Asian solidarity conference. Inbetween, while in Rome, he took time off with my wife to tourhistoric sites in the eternal city. In Durban in September, weconspired on what we should and would do together next.

El Che spoke of the revolutionary being profoundly inspiredby love. Sam loved his daughters and his partner Beatrice,always speaking of them with great affection and pride. Hewas always loyal to his friends, but also found ways ofacknowledging and addressing differences. As an experiencedpolitical activist, he painstakingly tried to persuade others toseek compromises in the larger interest. Yet, he also knewwhen to act decisively.

A luta continua. I believe Sam would echo Joe Hill in saying,don’t mourn, organize.

Amina Mama


I would like once more to thank all those represented at the12th General Assembly of CODESRIA held in Yaounde, forplacing the confidence in me by electing me the new

President of CODESRIA for the coming three years. Havingbeen involved with CODESRIA over the last 30 years I amextremely honoured to be able to serve CODESRIA in itssupport to the various generations of African scholarship inthe social sciences. I will always remember that it was throughthe CODESRIA that some of us were first able to publish anarticle, under the mentorship of its then leadership, and drawinginspiration from the vitality of the emerging and growingcommunity of African scholarship. I am gratified that many ofour senior scholars are here to witness the broader base ofyounger scholarship that has evolved from their vision ofestablishing CODESRIA.

We are proud that CODESRIA has sustained itself over thedecades, through successive executive leaderships. Inparticular, I want to reiterate my personal gratitude, as well onbehalf of the General Assembly, to the out-going ExecutiveSecretary, Prof. Adebayo Olukushi for his sterling work anddedication to CODESRIA, over the last eight years. His was acomplex challenge, at times highly conflicted, of managing themost recent leadership and organisational transition thatCODESRIA has undergone. For, it was not too long ago thatthe institution faced the threat of division and loss of directionor even collapse!! We recognise his efforts towardsresuscitating the COSEDRIA Secretariat’s tireless service toAfrican scholars whose vision remains to sustain a flourishingsocial science intellectual community, and to develop effectivesystems of promoting knowledge production and disse-.mination on the continent.

I wish also to congratulate the other 9 scholars who wereelected, from Africa’s 5 regions, to the present ExecutiveCommittee of CODESRIA. We thank them all for accepting theonerous but honourable task of serving the social sciencecommunity for next 3 years. Together, the new ExecutiveCommittee is committed to fulfil their primary responsibility ofoverseeing the effective implementation of CODESRIAprogrammes within the framework of the CODESRIA Charter,policies and procedures. Indeed, it has been emphasized herethat we will need to strengthen the accountability ofCODESRIA, not only in terms of the use of its resources, butalso in terms of improving its inclusiveness, reporting to andcommunication with the membership, as well as by mobilisingwider participation in a broader range of programmes.Fortunately, this specific task, as pronounced here byparticipants at this General Assembly, of consolidating thenew de-established governance system, while refining and

streamlining the scope and quality of the planned programmeshas been underway for a few years.

It will however be important in pursuing this task to adapt tothe emerging dynamic context of change. First, there is growinginterest in the work of and knowledge produced throughCODESRIA by a broader base of African scholars and civilsociety activists, as well as by some governments and PanAfrica institutions. Second, there is greater attention beingpaid to the social science research and publications emergingfrom Africa, among scholars and analysts outside of Africa,particularly in the ‘west’, and more recently in the ‘south’ and‘east’. These tendencies place greater demands on CODESRIAto promote the capacity of African scholars not only to meetby the adequate (quantitatively and qualitatively) needs ofthese constituencies, within a focus and direction led by theAfrican scholarship, but also to consolidate the critical Africanperspectives, within the wider hegemonic world of knowledgeproduction.

Third, the material and social circumstances which we live inhave in the last few years been changing dramatically. Theunfolding financial and economic crises, following on the backof the earlier food and energy crises, within the context ofrelentless wars and conflict, are rapidly undermining the socialand political conditions of Africa’s growing poor. Indeed, thestructural changes and the reconfiguration of state andinternational poor relations which are underway, are sosignificant that the very premises of knowledge making andthe nature of knowledge required by African societies and therest of the world, have a per force to be adapted. This willrequire that CODESRIA revisits most of the dominantconceptual frameworks and epistemological perspectives, aswell as the phenomena or issues, that it has focused on overthe last 15 years, and lead the production of alternativeknowledge. Thus, as we redefine and streamline the existingintellectual agenda and programmes, CODESRIA needs toinnovate.

Therefore, the second major task of the Executive Committeeand Executive Secretariat is to design new programmes thatcan consolidate CODESRIA’s position within the socialscience community and in society. Various speakers at the 12th

General Assembly suggested a range of initiatives whichCODESRIA could pursue in response to the above changingcontext, and create the basis for future work. One is thatCODESRIA may need to ensure that African scholars are atthe centre of articulating the nature of the current worldeconomic crisis and its configuration in Africa and, lead theintellectual redefinition and of the developmental agenda and

We are proud that CODERIA has Sustaineditself over the Decades

Acceptance Statement by Sam Moyo after his election as CODESRIA’s President at the 12th General Assembly in Yaounde, 2008

Sam Moyo: Speeches from the Archives


social adaptations required to withstand the crisis, in order tosustainably reproduce African society in the world context.Related to this, CODESRIA may need to more innovativelyaddress the perennial specific socio-economic problems whichaffect Africa. A case in point is the need to resolve Africa’sagrarian questions, vis-à-vis various models of agrarianchange, which have recently been placed on the agenda byexternal actors. In particular, the African food issue, within thefragile context of a deficient world food production, trade andenergy system, and the threat of climate change, requires ourattention, as do other specific issues.

Furthermore, it has been argued here that African socialscientists will need to create adequate fora through which tolead the debates a variety of these ‘ground’ themes. Anotherpressing issue for instance is promoting an understanding ofthe nature and and sources of the conflicts faced by thecontinent, as well as the strategies required to manage these.The idea of regional integration, including the experiences ofPan Africanism and sub-regional economic cooperation, asvehicles for moving the continent out of poverty andunderdevelopment, as well to influence politics at the worldstage, also need to be thoroughly re-examined by scholarsand debated in position.

CODESRIA on the one hand faces the challenges of facilitatingand grooming young social science scholars and of nurturingchange within the academe, while promoting the rebuilding ofthe appropriate institutions responsible for university trainingand basic research. On the other hand, CODESRIA needs tomobilise the whole range of scholars (from the first to thelatest generations) to engage at the world stage in debates onthe major social and political issues facing the continent. Thisrequires promoting more rigorous research and the more

effective organisation of the sound knowledge which is beingaccumulated on and about the continent.

A critical dimension of such innovation will be to find moreeffective and flexible tools, which can be used to attract andmobilise a wider range of middle to senior African scholars onthe continent, as well as abroad, to play a more meaningfulrole in the execution of COSEDRIA’s wider mission. All of thiswill mean deepening the CODESRIA membership, reformingor refining existing tools and widening the instruments usedto implement the programmes.

In addition the Executive Committee and membership ofCODESRIA will need to intensify their support to the Secre-tariat’s efforts to create a stronger basis for the institutionsfinancial and organisational sustainability. This will includestrengthening the Endowment or Development Fund ofCODESRIA on the one hand. On the other hand it requiresserious efforts to re-invigorate CODESRIA’s relationships withrelevant African institutions, particularly through initiativeswhich contribute to promoting the rebuilding of the capacitiesof African universities and related research initiatives.Altogether, the consolidation of CODESRIA as an institutionis necessary not only to ensure its continued relevance andsustainability, but also to engender the creation of strong andindependent African voice.

In conclusion, l wish to commend CODESRIA’s search processfor its appointment of Dr Ebrima Sall as the incoming ExecutiveSecretary. I can not think of a more suitable person for this job,in terms of commitment, diligence and dedication to the idealsof CODESRIA. As a deep repository of the CODESRIA expe-rience and institutional memory the efforts of the ExecutiveCommittee in support of the Secretariat can be expected to beless daunting.

From left: Bonaventure de Santos, Ebrima Sall and Sam Moyo at the General Assembly


The Political Economy of Transformation in Zimbabwe: Radicalisation,Structural Change and Resistance1

Introduction: Radicalisation, Structural Change andReformThe dynamics of the world economic crises at the turn of thiscentury have evoked a new generation of radicalisms acrossthe globe, including the so-called Arab Spring. Notwithstandingtheir distinctive characteristics related to their varied specificconditions, radical movements have been innovative inconfronting universal social and political challenges.Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP), whichofficially began in 2000, is one such experience of radical reformwhich redressed settler-colonial land dispossession andracialised inequalities. Despite the resultant social and structuraltransformation, and the scope for a progressive developmentagenda and democratisation it represents, the land reform waswidely dismissed as a case of African ‘despotism’, and subjectedto ‘regime change’. This was not surprising given thepervasiveness of neoliberal triumphalism, and the persistentdominance of social theories that characterise the Africanexperience with little regard for historical context and theevolving social facts on the ground.

Zimbabwe does not represent an ‘ideal type’ model of reform orone which deserves uncritical emulation. It is not a model ofsocialist revolution, for it did not result in one (Moyo and Yeros2005, 2007a, 2011b). Nor can we teleologically foreclose the long-term socio-political character of the outcome. Rather, it repre-sents one of the rare instances of political and economicradicalisation which resulted in a redistributive outcome due toinnovative socio-political mobilisation processes, interventio-nist state reforms and ongoing resistance, notwithstanding itsattendant social and political contradictions. Yet, little scholarlyattention was paid to the political and economic origins of thesocial crisis that triggered the radicalisation (Moyo 2001; Moyoand Yeros 2005), and to the wider implications of the outcomesof the Zimbabwean reforms for the subcontinent (see Moyoand Yeros 2007a and b).

The roots of the radicalisation in Zimbabwe lie in persistentlocal and national resistances to the racially structured model ofcapitalist accumulation achieved through colonial conquest from1890. Extensive social displacement and territorial segregation,the super-exploitation of local and regional labour, anddiscriminatory agrarian policies, had represented an extremesocial injustice. This condition was not redressed by thedecolonisation pact of Zimbabwe in 1980, while the neoliberaleconomic policies adopted from 1990 exacerbated the situation,which degenerated into social crisis (Moyo 2000). This, in turn,provoked labour protests and galvanised popular landoccupations which fuelled the radical nationalist reforms whichescalated from 1997 (see Moyo 2001).

Radicalisation in Zimbabwe entailed confrontation by an arrayof social forces (classes) with settler-colonial power structures,

capital and imperialism. The process escalated through thecontradictions of a revolutionary situation, including an internalreconfiguration of political mobilisation in the former settlercolony, and against external sanctions and politicaldestabilisation. It entailed experimentation with a new economicstructure with a diversified set of external economic relationshipsand continued resistance through new forms of ruralmobilisation, indigenisation initiatives and a foreign policy basedon positive non-alignment. The anti-colonial land movementblended with contemporary resistance movements in thecontemporary context of primitive accumulation, highlightingthe centrality of the emancipatory dimensions of the agrarianquestion, rather than the economic concerns often associatedwith agrarian reform (see Moyo, Jha and Yeros 2013).

This experience represents an example of resistance emergingout of the social crises generated by neoliberalism within a smallcountry of apparently limited geo-strategic importance, otherthan its integral value as a former settler-colonial beachhead ofimperialism, endowed with extensive mineral resources.Zimbabwe has rowed against the current scramble for Africanland, mineral resources, energy and consumer markets, at a timeof significant material changes at the world system-level. Indeed,new geo-strategic facts are being established on the ground, inrelation to the rising involvement of ‘emerging powers’ incompetition for resource control, as well as the re-militarisationof US strategy in Africa (see Moyo, Jha and Yeros 2012; andYeros forthcoming). While progressive internal reforms inviteaggressive external interventions and polarise politics, theexperience shows that innovative national and regionalresponses can be mobilised effectively in their defence againstWestern aggression and monopoly finance capital. Foreignpolicy was effectively used to mobilise regional solidarity andsupport, capitalising on the room of manoeuvre created by therise of China (Moyo and Yeros 2013).

Intellectual authority over the narrative on Zimbabwe’s landreform remains contested with regard to the causes, the natureand effects of the land reforms. Eurocentric perspectives, whichrely on the ubiquitous organising concept of‘neopatrimonialism’,in which the only relationship that exists in society is betweenrapacious black capitalists and their ethnicised client networks,held sway for a while (Moyo and Chambati 2013). Failing tounderstand the contradictions of Zimbabwe’s radicalisation,such ‘authorities’ only saw a ‘destructive party accumulationproject’ (Raftopoulos 2010:706) and not the radicalisation ofvarious forces, including the semi-proletariat and aspiring blackbourgeoisie, against monopoly capital. Various intellectuals andthe Western media took recourse to racialised discourses of‘corruption’ and ‘orchestration’, and vilified the whole of theland movement (see Johnson 2009), alleging that only the politicalelites benefited from the reforms.

Keynote Lecture by Sam Moyo at the 13th General Assembly of CODESRIA, Rabat 2011


The fact that the outcome was extensively redistributive,despite the disproportionate gains of some elites and theretention of some large-scale foreign- owned agro-industrialestates and conservancies, was posited earlier on (e.g. Moyoand Yeros 2005; Moyo et al. 2009; Moyo 2010), but this isonly recently being corroborated as a novel outcome(Scoones, et al. 2010; Matondi 2013; Hanlon et al. 2013).Although a full recovery of agricultural output to the 1990slevels (which ought not to be seen as ideal targets) is slowlycoming to fruition, the reforms continue to face various internaland external political and economic constraints (Moyo andNyoni 2013). However, agrarian relations have improvedsubstantially, with agrarian labour relations having beendiversified within the new land tenure relations (Chambati 2013)and the scope for smaller producers on some markets havingbeen opened wide, as popular participation in and benefitsfrom the wider agrarian economy grow (Moyo and Nyoni 2013).

Despite the emerging consensus on some of the basicoutcomes, there remain important differences in ourunderstanding of the political and socio-economicimplications of the reform, and the policies required toprogressively advance popular welfare. Neopatrimonialperspectives which obscure the structural power of monopoly-finance capital, because they reduce all social relations tolocalised and ethnicised categories of domination andresistance, continue to argue for further market liberalisationto counter state interventions. Liberal populist frameworksapplaud the new livelihoods being realised as evidence ofautonomous peasant’ agency vis-a-vis the state (Scoones etal. 2010) obviating the need for enhanced interventions, andhighlight the fact that some black farmers are doing as well asthe previous white farmers without the privileges derived fromstate subsidies (Hanlon et al. 2013). Others persist in theirbelief that the return of private property relations will stimulaterecovery (Matondi 2012), despite the limits imposed by theexternal squeeze on the economy.

The systemic role of monopoly capital and extroverted marketsin shaping the emerging uneven accumulation trajectory andthe absence of credit for food cropping, as the re-insertion ofbig capital into the new agrarian structure ensues, tends to beglossed over (Moyo 2011b; Moyo and Chambati 2013). Thenew market contradictions that have emerged from pricerepression inscribed in the growth of contract farming in thecapitals from the East and West, as well as domestic white andblack capital compete to capture the new landholders’products, suggesting the need for renewed state interven-tionism. Yet, the importance of recent state interventions infavour of small and new producers is being occluded inemerging discourses which argue for competitiveness on worldmarkets (despite their volatility), and decry the ‘evils’ of‘dependence’ on state ‘subsidies’ (USAID 2012). Thus,accumulation from below remains constricted, and new formsof social differentiation increasingly polarise the benefits ofthe reform.

Four aspects of the results of research conducted on theFTLRP since 2000 by a range of scholars, under the rubric ofthe African Institute of Agrarian Studies (see Moyo andChambati 2013), and their implications for reform elsewhere,are discussed namely:

• The coordinated mobilisation of a national landmovement for land reform, beyond the erstwhile marketand bureaucratic framework, through a multi- class,decentralised and anti-bureaucratic formation, united byradical nationalism;

• A process of structural reform that sought, as a matter ofstate policy, the accommodation of various social forcesas concretised in a tri-modal outcome of land distribution,leading to competing modes of agrarian production;

• The re-configuration of agrarian markets through stateintervention to sustain the recovery of production,despite the resurgence of social differentiation andcompeting accumulation strategies; and

• The emergence of new rural movements seekingprogressive agrarian

reforms and indigenous control of natural resources, in therecent context of the scramble for Africa resources.

Historical context of the Fast Track Land ReformTo understand the radicalisation of Zimbabwe after itsneoliberal turn in the 1990s, the nature of capitalist agrarianaccumulation and the character of the decolonisation pactmust be clarified. Racial monopolistic control over land, waterresources, farm subsidies, and public infrastructuralinvestments had by 1930 established about 6000 white settlerson large-scale ‘commercial’ farms based on private propertyrelations. Their accumulation trajectory derived from thesuper-exploitation of migrant labour from the reserves createdat the expense of African peasantries relegated to marginallands (Amin 1972), and discriminatory agrarian markets andsubsidies. From the 1950s, the accumulation trajectory wasaugmented by the creation of large-scale agro-industrialestates, also heavily subsidised by the state (Moyo 2010). By1970, Zimbabwe’s bimodal landholding structure, based onthe incomplete dispossession of peasant lands, had resultednot in creating ‘enclaves’, but a functional dualism whichrepressed labour and peasant farming. Farm output had shiftedfrom peasant food production towards export commoditiesand urban markets, dominated by large farmers in alliance withstate marketing boards and monopoly capital. Thisaccumulation model was in crisis by 1975, following the oilcrisis and the escalating liberation war.

Since decolonisation in Southern Africa was delayed in the1960s, a combination of armed and political struggle led tomilitary victories in the Lusophone territories, and negotiatedtransitions from 1980 in Zimbabwe, 1990 in Namibia, and 1994in South Africa. An integrated, thirty-year regional conflict,involving the destabilisation of the region by the Apartheidregime in South Africa, saw aggression being used as a leverof negotiation, until the whole region succumbed to ageneralised pact in the 1990s, at the close of the cold war(Moyo and Yeros 2013). This entailed peace, independenceand majority rule, in return for property guarantees, andeconomic opening to monopoly and finance capital, such thatdecolonisation and neoliberalism coincided; the one beingconditional on the other (ibid). The Anglo-Americanguarantors of the Zimbabwe negotiations promised financingfor the proposed market-led land redistribution programme,but such support was limited (Moyo 1999).


The pact was always unstable, despite the defeat of previousplans which had sought to retain white political privilegesindefinitely. In Zimbabwe, some in the nationalist movementled by the Patriotic Front parties (ZANU-PF and PF-ZAPU),viewed the pact as a strategic objective-seeking piecemealreforms, and eventually the growth of a black middle class,while others saw the pact as a tactical move, intended toconsolidate political gains and prepare for the next phase ofthe struggle. For imperialism, it was a tactical retreat intendedto cut its losses, and to use economic statecraft to regain itsmonopoly position. This contestation was never fullyresolved as the diverse elements among the security forcesand their political parties sought control of the militaryapparatus and as South African destabilisation seriouslyunsettled the balance. This fuelled the Matabeleland conflictfrom 1982 to 1987, while the generalisation of the pact toNamibia and South Africa, raised false hopes for a regionalpeace and development dividend.

In the 1980s, Zimbabwe had been hailed as a model of politicaltransition for the settler societies of Southern Africa, wherebymajority rule was conditioned on property guarantees. It wasalso lauded for enhancing food security, despite the prevalenceof food insecurity among 30 per cent of its population (Moyo1986), and it was considered a pilot project for market-led landreform despite its failures to redistribute adequate land (Moyo1995). Although white political privileges were phased out,Zimbabwe remained a racially divided society, in which thedefence of ‘human rights’ served mainly to protect whiteproperty and race-based privilege. Neocolonialism inZimbabwe, not only relegated the majority population to apermanent process of semi-proletarianisation and super-exploitation, it also constricted the emergence of a blackmiddle class with roots of its own in the economy. Thestructural violence inherent in this ‘post-white settler’ type ofneocolonialism (Mandaza 1985) was never pacified bypiecemeal reforms, and when the country entered structuraladjustment, even the visible social gains of the prior decadewere reversed (Yeros 2002).

From a longer historical perspective, the accumulation needsof the petty- bourgeoisie could not be realised as the newneoliberal conditions of the 1990s created obstacles toaccumulation and entrenched racial differentiation. The petty-bourgeoisie was soon forced back into a popular, inter-classblack alliance against the status quo dominated by settler andforeign capital. The process was also fuelled by the socialcrisis (wage repression, retrenchments, etc) which generatedgreater labour militancy around 1995 and the escalation ofscattered land occupations from 1996, reviving historic landmovements (Moyo 2001). The sudden emergence of a politicalopposition backed by white farmers, capital, NGOs and westernstates, further entrenched the polarisation of land andelectoral politics. Zimbabwe’s liberal model was thusunravelled as expropriatory land reforms took hold thereafter(Moyo 2001).

At the time Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform took off, anew wave of large-scale land and resource grabbing had beenunderway in Africa from the 1990s, especially in countriessuch as Mozambique and Zambia with land concentration andthe privatisation of landed property creeping in, while theextroversion of agrarian production relations and markets

persisted (Moyo 2008). This escalated in the mid-2000s,following a series of world-wide energy, food and financialcrises. Under degenerating world-systemic conditions, themerchant path2 of smaller scale and scattered landconcentration, which had been emerging in the 1990s in non-settler Africa, was being overtaken by a wider process of large-scale land alienation led by foreign capital itself, often withdomestic allies. This alienation is now installing a new ‘junker’path3 in non-settler Africa, as the accumulation trajectoryrapidly evolves beyond the structures inherited at indepen-dence in the 1960s.

The African agrarian question is increasingly focused on thesocial questions of exclusion, inequality, food insecurity andpoverty, resulting from growing land dispossession, thesuper-exploitation of labour and unequal trade and financialflows (Moyo, Tsikata and Diop 2013). Demands for popularsovereignty over land, minerals, oil and natural resources, nowreferred to as ‘resource nationalism’, place the politicaldimension of land rights ahead of the agrarian question ofreversing ‘backwardness’ through industrial development.The politics of land is most explosive where the inequalitiesfuse class with race, nationality and ethnic differences, as wellas with the gender inequities derived from the pervasivepatriarchal order. Indeed, while the nascent domestic pettybourgoisie, in alliance with transnational capital and donors,is actively involved in the current land grabs, resistance tothis process is a constant feature.

What makes Zimbabwe relatively unique or different now isthat it has proposed new ways of deepening the transition tomajority rule by means of radical land reform, and as happenedelsewhere in Africa after decolonisation, through an‘indigenisation and empowerment’ programme, focused on themining sector. This has challenged the dominant neoliberalorthodoxy, ignited ‘resource nationalism’ to challenge Africa’spotential ‘recolonisation’, and raised expectations for far-reaching land reforms in other former settler colonies.

Radicalised Land Reform Movement:Decentralised, Anti-Bureaucratic AllianceThe land movement was initiated by popular rural and urbanmobilisation under the leadership of liberation war veterans,against the immediate policy of the ruling party and the state.The nationalist leadership stepped in during 1997, when itrisked losing its most critical social bases, the peasantry andthe war veterans, given that the latter permeated the securityforces of the state apparatus. Its purpose was to control andco-opt the land movement, as well as to open a political spacefor the expression of pent up land demands among layers ofthe population, including many land occupations which werenot directly organised by war veterans. Most crucially, thestate accommodated the interests of the aspiring blackbourgeoisie through a bifurcated land redistribution pro-gramme, providing for both peasant and small-scale capitalistfarming. It also spared from redistribution certain farms ownedby foreign capital, the state, and public trusts, ostensibly tomaintain some critical food supplies and agro-industrialcapacity, while promising to indigenise the foreign capital(Moyo 2010).

From the beginning, streamlining the land movement wascritical to the state. It created District Land Committees in all


the provinces, and supported the Committees of Seven oneach farm, while diminishing the powers of local war veteranswho were the vanguard of the land movement. In their place,civil servants, chiefs, and other war veterans, not connecteddirectly to local struggles, were installed, thereby broadeningand diluting the representation and class character of the landmovement. Over the following years, gaining firm control overthe movement was, however, made difficult by the warveterans’ decentralised and anti-bureaucratic character, whoseagency was enabled by historic and organic roots of socialmobilisation developed during the armed struggle, and theirencouragement of pre-existing localised land occupationmovements. This structure of the land movement is the firstdistinctive feature underlying the success of this massmobilisation,4 unlike other representative organisations,including the formally constituted Zimbabwe NationalLiberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA). Unlike massmobilisations elsewhere, in Zimbabwe, this decentralisedstructure was unified by the principle of radical nationalism.

The second distinctive characteristic of Zimbabwe’s radicali-sation was the extensive rural-urban spread of the land move-ment, in terms of active membership and physical participationin the land occupations.5 The leadership of the land move-ment included local peasant leaders, local war veterans, spiri-tual leaders, some chiefs, and various working class activists,intellectuals, and political party leaders, in a cross-class al-liance. Such local leaders played a vanguard role in galvani-sing the mobilisation of long-standing grievances over landand racial inequality. Political parties, farmers’ unions, tradeunions, and NGOs had not only lacked sufficient interest ororganic roots in the land question, they were also structurallyincapable of bridging the rural-urban gap in the interest ofmass mobilisation. The land movement incorporated urbanelements into rural land occupations and promoted land occu-pations in urban areas for residential purposes. This overca-me the occupational corporatism of trade unions and farmers’unions, and the often divisive strategies of political parties, ata time when bureaucratic sclerosis and various sources ofpolitical polarisation had accentuated the rural-urban divide.

The ZCTU was eventually co-opted by foreign donors,6

together with a broad array of liberal, urban-based, middle-class, donor-dependent NGOs, including the NationalConstitutional Assembly (NCA). By the time the ZCTUfounded the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999,the ‘pro-democracy’ forces had been completely overwhelmedby white-settler interests and foreign donors (see also Gwisai2002). Black farmers’ unions representing the peasantry hadalso during the 1990s, distanced themselves from the landreform agenda (Skalnes 1995), as petty-bourgeois interestsprevailed among their ranks, focusing their advocacy onaccess to state subsidies and price-setting. Although theydid not expressly oppose the land reform, they were unable tomobilise a constituency interested in repossessing land. Onthe other hand, the white-settler Commercial Farmers’ Union(CFU), in alliance with GAPWUZ (the farm workers’ tradeunion), mobilised both its membership and internationalpublic opinion against the land reform.

The relationship of the land movement to the nationalistleadership has posed conceptual difficulties since the rulingparty, having succumbed to structural adjustment, changed

course in the late 1990s towards a radical approach, whileseeking to control the land movement. The ‘pro-democracy’alliance, which claimed to be the vanguard of ‘progressive’politics in Zimbabwe, sought credit for the ruling party’sopting for a radical land reform programme (Raftopoulos 2009),as if there was no real political or historical basis for suchradicalisation. With the mounting evidence of extensive landredistribution challenging neopatrimonialist claims ofethnicised elite capture, there is now a veiled acknowledgmentof the vanguard role of the land movement. This role is howeverrendered as a mere component, together with the MDC alliance,of a broader ‘passive revolution’, that has ‘remained largelyunder the control of the state’, and putatively one that has‘largely politically marginalised the majority of the population’(Raftopoulos 2010:707). Such an interpretation obscures thedistinctive features of a rare mass mobilisation, involving arange of forces which confronted the white agrarian monopolyand the imperialist alliance as a whole, to the effect ofbroadening the social base of the economy.

Part of the conceptual difficulties facing those who haveopposed the petty- bourgeoisie outright arises largely becausesome political elites gained more than others through the A2scheme. Masuko (2012) and Sadomba (2012) have argued thatblack capital never really broke ranks with monopoly capitaland that it acted solely on the latter’s behalf to control theland movement. Yet, the process of radicalisation integrateddiverse class interests, including the petty-bourgeoisie andthe semi-proletariat, against the white agrarian faction ofmonopoly capital. The breaking of ranks with monopolycapital is exemplified in the fact that the state redistributedover 5,000 properties, over and above the estimated 1,000properties that were actually occupied by the land movement,and such acquisitions persisted beyond the immediateelection contests (Moyo 2011a). While this radicalisation didnot result in a socialist revolution, or in a generic ‘passiverevolution’, the white agrarian establishment was essentiallyliquidated at farm level both economically and politically.

The role of the petty-bourgeoisie and the nationalistleadership, their use of the state, and their relationship withthe movement can best be understood in terms of the characterand function of the ‘radicalised state’. By 2000, the stateunderwent a peculiar transformation, through a suspensionof its bureaucratic coherence (its ‘bureaucratism’), with manyof its personnel mobilised in the interest of Fast Track LandReform (Moyo and Yeros 2007a). The constitution of DistrictLand Committees overrode local bureaucratic structures,7 butit also established fast-track procedures and new capacitiesfor the expropriation and redistribution of land, while alsoreforming laws and amending the constitution to underpin theaction and defend land occupiers against eviction. One mayrightly fault the ruling party for streamlining the landmovement and creating space for the petty-bourgeoisie, but itis not the case that it fulfilled a reactionary role, for it did notdefend the status quo ante. Contrary formulations do notadequately recognise the existence of real intra-class conflict,between petty-bourgeois and monopoly capital, black andwhite elites, and among black elites.

This suggests that Zimbabwe’s radicalisation entailed anotherrare phenomenon of petty-bourgeois radicalism, shaped bypressures from the land movement, as well as by blatant


external political interventions and sanctions. That the petty-bourgeoisie also became an agent of change presents verydifficult political questions, as previous African scholars havenoted (Fanon 1967; Shivji 1976). However, there is a problemin attributing radicalisation solely to certain local- level warveterans, against all the rest who vied for land, although theland movement did coalesce varied streams of land occupiers.Instead of one ‘genuine’ category of radicalism, there aredifferent radicalisms, each with its own class project.

Others who claim to stand aloof of the difficult politicalquestions have deployed a liberal-populist ‘people versusstate’ dichotomy, rendering the whole land and agrarian reformprocess solely as a consequence of the agency of the landlessagainst an indifferent state at best, or a ‘commandist’ and‘clientelist’ state, at worst (see Scoones et al. 2010; Hanlon etal. 2013). Class analyses that reach similar conclusions do soonly by downplaying the radicalisation of the petty-bourgeoisie and treating it as if it never really broke ranks withmonopoly capital.

It would be more correct to say that the nationalist leadershipin recent years had come to represent mainly un-accom-modated bourgeois interests, which indeed have liberationconvictions of their own, but which are under the illusion thatthey can reform monopoly capitalism so as to sustain a‘patriotic bourgeoisie’ into the future. This situation explainsthe current scattered pressures for ‘indigenisation’ program-mes in strategic industries, as opposed to more collectivistsolutions (Moyo and Yeros 2011b, Moyo 2011b). It also partlyexplains the violence that accompanied land reform, mainlyoff the farms, as the nationalist leadership was unable tocommit ‘class suicide’ and submit itself to the evolving andexpanding popular demands on the ground (Moyo and Yeros2009, 2011b). The bifurcation of the Fast Track Land Reform,the strategy of indigenising agro-estates and other industries,and the recurrent violence are manifestations, not only ofclass conflict, but also of intra-class conflict between petty-bourgeois interests and monopoly capital.

A related weakness may be attributed to the war veteranmovement which became ‘tactically sterile’, and paid dearlyfor this when the state’s Murambatsvina project assaultedurban settlements in 2005 (Sadomba 2013). An uninterruptedescalation of the revolutionary situation would have requiredthat the land movement undergo organisational andideological innovation founded in proletarian mobilisation andwider strategic concerns. Masuko (2013) argues that the landmovement did go beyond the single-issue platform of landreclamation by promoting a plethora of associational formsthat sprouted in the resettlement areas (see also Murisa 2013).While such associational forms are the kernel of progressivepolitics in the countryside, including their issue-focus onservice provision by the state (agricultural inputs, socialinfrastructure, markets, credit, and subsidies), they are notarticulated into a radical mass agrarian movement. Thisopportunity is dissipating, as the liberal ‘pro-democracy’movement, comprising the donor-funded MDC, NGOs, andsettler farmer elements, seek to mobilise such associations inservice of a new market integration agenda.

The radicalised nationalist leadership could also be faultedfor allowing other petty-bourgeois tendencies, since aspiringcapitalists, lacking other means to bid for land, mobilised sub-national, ethno-regional claims to land ‘rights’ to exclude non-local competitors (Moyo 2011a). This tendency continues,and could escalate as land bidding is re-focused on theenlargement of existing landholdings at the expense ofsmallholders, and as bidding spreads to the redistribution ofretained private and public agro-estates.

Such contradictions among the black petty-bourgeoisiecould undermine its radical nationalist economic posturealthough these are essentially the ongoing tendencies of aclass which remains profoundly insecure. Should the main‘enemy’ come to be seen as ‘internal’ (including ‘ethno-regional’ or party political partisans), there could be regressionto a neocolonial type of politics, malleable to foreign interests.8Yet, this is not a foregone conclusion "or a perennial anddecontextualised ‘ethnic’ possibility in African politics" butreflects shifting strategies of accumulation, subject topressures from above and from below. The re-grouping ofpopular forces is all the more necessary given the newtendencies of class formation at the top and the changingstrategies of monopoly finance capital.

Structural Reform, Renewed Developmentalismand Economic

NationalismThe land reform radically restructured land ownership, but itdid not ‘oust capital’, which itself is now re-grouping (Moyo2011b). Instead, a broadly based tri- modal agrarian structurehas been instituted, consisting of peasant, small-scale capitalistand large-scale estate farms (which are being indigenised).There was a deliberate promotion of competing trajectories ofaccumulation, mustered through the mediation of contradictoryland struggles and class interests, and combined resistancesto the opposition to reform by capital and Western donors.This outcome suggests another distinctive characteristic ofthe radicalisation process.

This agrarian structure is based on differential landownershipregimes (state-sanctioned usufruct permits, non-tradableleases, and freehold or state property, respectively); differentforms of integration into markets; varied forms of labourrelations and varied linkages to non-farm activities and assets.This, in turn, gives rise to different types of producers vyingfor different forms of labour mobilisation and competingaccumulation strategies (Moyo 2011b, 2011c). This hasunravelled the legacy of the settler-colonial ‘labour reserve’structures, by amplifying the smallholder sector andincorporating a significant ‘merchant’ path, while retainingelements (albeit downsized) of the ‘junker’ and ‘state’ paths(see Moyo and Yeros 2005a).9 This has also restructured farmlabour supplies and labour utilisation.

The diverse elements of this structure are not entirely uniqueto the continent, but their clear demarcation in state policy,and the dynamics by which they have been established, domake this case unique. Moreover, the reform brings Zimbabwecloser to the rest of Africa’s agrarian structures by breaking


up the large-scale farming established during the nineteenth-century, and broadening the small-scale capitalist sector, whichhad also been introduced by the colonial regime, whilepreserving some ‘strategic’ agro-industrial estates (Moyo2011b).

The fundamental question is whether Zimbabwe will be ableto sustain, via this tri-model structure, an introverted processof accumulation ‘from below’, given the tendencies andcontradictions of this new agrarian structure, with regard tothe new type of labour reserve that has emerged, incipientland markets, the persistence of the core agricultural exportsand the re-insertion of finance capital through markets, creditand contracts. Moreover, the attendant processes of classformation and the contestations over accumulation and thepolicy regime, remain intrinsically fluid, given also thecontradictions imposed by the extant sanctions regime.

For instance, one of the immediate consequences of FastTrack is the re- emergence of informal land rental marketsbetween the ‘better performers’ and the ‘weaker’ ones, oftenbetween A2 and A1 farmers, respectively (Moyo et al. 2009).Both macroeconomic constraints and labour shortages, onboth A1 and A2 farms, have contributed to this tendency.Land sharing is also common, although this often occursamong A1 farmers’ kinship networks, as well as between allresettled farmers and farm workers, gold-panniers, and‘squatters’ who have yet to be settled formally (Moyo et al.2009). Such tendencies represent local class differentiationacross all agro-ecological regions and heralds future conflictsover access to land and natural resources.

Although land tenure is generally seen to be secure, boundaryand access disputes could intensify (Moyo 2013). One of theterrains of struggle that could intensify is the status ofleasehold on A2 farms, which is being challenged by domesticand foreign elements which advocate the conversion of thecurrent leasehold land rights into freehold tenures. In thiscase, small-scale capitalist farmers would find allies in privatebanks, which typically justify their refusal to financeresettlement farmers on the supposed absence of ‘collateral’.Another terrain of struggle is the land tenure status of theremaining farm workers, some of whom have been re- insertedinto labour-tenancy relations (Chambati 2013). Yet, state policystill remains committed to both leasehold tenure and theprotection of farm workers against eviction from A2 lands.

Re-peasantisation and the break-up of the settler agrarianmonopoly has diminished the labour reserve of the past andundermined the functioning of the colonial cheap-laboursystem. By 1999, half of this labour-force consisted of non-permanent, casual labour, reproducing itself precariouslybetween the LSCF and the Communal Areas, on real farmwages which had collapsed to 24 per cent of the PovertyDatum Line. Super-exploitation was facilitated by a racialised,quasi-feudal labour-tenancy system, together with apatriarchal system of customary authority, which continuedto undermine the bargaining power of the semi- proletariat asa whole (Moyo and Yeros 2005).

Land reform has absorbed surplus labour into petty-commodity production for own consumption and the market,and pried open access to natural resources and related landuse values that previously were enclosed in the properties

monopolised by white farmers (see also Chambati 2011). Theimmediate manifestation of this has been a shortage of labour,which has deprived especially the small-scale capitalist sectorof the prior abundant workforce willing to work for wagesbelow the cost of social reproduction.

That the labour reserve diminished and the bargaining powerof labour altered does not, of course, mean that the labourreserve economy has been extinguished. The persistence ofsimple reproduction among smallholders and thereconstitution of the small- and large-scale capitalist sectors,under the weight of Western sanctions, continue to re-createthe structural conditions of super-exploitation, even amongthe new self-exploited peasantry. Super-exploitation is furtherabetted by residual labour-tenancy on some new farms, aswell as the exploitative intra-family and gender-based labourrelations. Yet, the unravelling of racialised relations of personaldependence and the expansion of the smallholder sector hasaltered the balance of power among the three modes of farming.It is here that the new political struggle is now being fought.

State Interventionism, Indigenisation and NewDevelopmentalismBoth small- and large-scale capitalist farmers have a structuralinterest in policy measures that will oblige small producers towork for wages below the cost of social reproduction. Thisinterest would be reinforced should an export-orientedaccumulation strategy predominate. But these two types offarmers are not identical, given that small-scale capitalistfarmers, many with significant resource vulnerabilities, mayalso be co-opted by the state into production for domesticmarkets and industries. In fact, this objective has largely beentheir principal orientation to date. At the same time, smallholderfarmers will themselves undergo differentiation, therebyadding to the labour pool. Yet, this may also be mitigated byinward-looking policy measures that both reinforce theconditions of smallholder production and induce the growthof cooperativism and rural industries capable of re-organisingthe labour process.

The political struggle between the three modes of farming andthe attendant disputes over labour remain imbalanced and willbe determined by a number of factors, including the characterof state interventions against monopoly capital.

The dominant factor in shaping the accumulation trajectoryis, however the structural power of monopoly capital, whichopposed the radicalisation process and underminedprogressive agrarian change by imposing severe limits onZimbabwe’s economic recovery. From the beginning of theFast Track, financial isolation and a capital strike had led to asevere shortage in the economy, leading the state towards aninterventionist economic strategy, initially without acomprehensive plan to defend against sanctions (Moyo andYeros 2007a). A plan emerged as the internal and externalcontradictions escalated, although the key constraint was howto finance the plan. This interventionism under contemporaryneoliberalism is the fifth distinctive characteristic of theZimbabwe model.

It entailed controls over prices, trade, capital, and agriculturalmarkets, the monopolisation of grain purchases by the GrainMarketing Board, and the setting of food production targets,


as well as targeted subsidies to agriculture and industries, tobolster an erstwhile import substitution industrialisation. State-owned agro-estates, together with state interests in mining,banking, and other firms led this strategy, which includes theproduction of local agro-fuels against a rising fuel-import bill.An agricultural mechanisation policy sought to enhancemotorised draught power, although the bulk of this wasallocated to small- and large-scale capitalist farmers tocompensate for the labour shortages that emerged (Moyo2011a; Moyo and Nyoni 2013). State subsidies in electricity,fuel and transport facilities were also effected, albeit at lowlevels associated with the fiscal constraints. This planreflected both the class bias of the state and its reaction to thegeneralised strike by private banks and, bilateral andmultilateral donors.

Eventually, hyperinflation, political conflict and informalisationof economic activity compelled the state to attemptnormalisation with international capital. It is through thisprocess that the state ‘interrupted’ the momentum of therevolutionary situation, including the assault on urban landmovements in 2005 to establish ‘order’ (Moyo and Yeros 2007a,2009, 2011b). Indeed, the heterodox plan lacked the foresightto defend against the ensuing capital strike, which could havebeen better resisted by a policy of immediate nationalisationof banks and strategic industries. Thus, the state becamesusceptible to carrot-and-stick strategies by foreign capital,leading to its refusal to fully default on debt.

Normalisation has led to cooptation back towards anextroverted strategy through various mechanisms (Moyo2011a, 2011b). The land redistribution policy on agro-estatesis essentially a comprador ‘indigenisation’ strategy, whichenables black capitalists to become majority shareholders inagro-estates, thereby succumbing to the logic of plantationagriculture and its associated financial circuit. The expansionof outgrower contract farming, linked to a similar externalfinancial circuits, locks small-scale capitalists into the agro-estates for the production of sugarcane for the Europeanmarket (under the ACP-EU Lomé Convention). So do thetobacco and cotton contracts tied to Chinese and Westerncapital.

Dependence on external finance, inputs, and markets hasexercised overriding power in tilting, once again, the internalbalance between social classes, while Western sanctionsagainst Zimbabwe, including those against the parastatalsspearheading the economic recovery, reinforce this. Theadoption in 2008, at the peak of hyperinflation, of a neoliberalpolicy on currency, ‘dollarisation’ capital, trade, andagricultural markets may have been a tactical retreat, but itentrenches the cooptation.

Nonetheless, counter-tendencies suggest that the policy ofnormalisation has not totally extinguished the dirigisme of thestate and the new black bourgeoisie, which is still acutelyvulnerable to a monopolistic world market, and remains inconflict with international capital. The popular classes, fromwhich the nationalist leadership must still claim legitimacy, areeven more vulnerable. The state has not abandoned the ISIpolicy, or its intention to mediate pro-actively in favour ofblack capital and, secondarily the smallholder farmers. TheZimbabwean state persists with its policy of building national

food self-sufficiency and to substitute for imported petrol byexpanding the cultivation of sugarcane on agro-estates ownedby the state and public trusts to produce ethanol for domestictransport, may have various local industrial spin-offs (Moyo2011b). Such investments include via joint ventures withforeign capital, from the East, West, and South, under the‘Look East Policy’ (LEP) inaugurated in 2004.

The class character of state power, the strategies of the blackbourgeoisie, and the re-grouping of social forces are the threefurther factors that will co-determine the balance of forces, assuggested by the escalation of the indigenisation strategybeyond agriculture to secondary industries, banking, andmining. Generally, indigenisation is a multi-class strategy,whose class character has oscillated in accordance with thecorrelation of forces as the policy regime shifted.

In the 1980s, it shifted from a popular land reform policy to onegeared towards the creation of a black bourgeoisie viaaffirmative action with respect to land and state commerce.The former continued throughout the 1990s, under structuraladjustment, without much success, until its radicalisationduring the Fast Track Land Reform Programme. Then, underthe subsequent normalisation from 2005, the strategy shiftedback to a bourgeois strategy, geared towards creating majorityshareholding for black capitalists. Yet, a further elaboration ofthe policy from 2010 envisions joint ventures between state-owned enterprises and foreign firms. This policy isincreasingly reflected in the mining sector (e.g. diamonds),which has enormous potential to fill foreign-exchange gaps.

Upon the discovery of massive diamond deposits, a struggleensued, especially from 2007 onwards, for the control of theindustry, against both small miners who entered the fray, aswell as corporate capital of South African and Western origin.The strategy on diamonds, and the possibility of circum-venting sanctions, led to a confrontation with foreign capitaland small miners, and this entailed repression of the latter. Inthe event, the West, ostensibly in solidarity with the repressedsmall miners, resolved to broaden its sanctions tactics byinvoking the ‘Kimberly Certification Process’, alleging thesewere ‘conflict diamonds’. When Zimbabwe won Kimberlycertification, the United States unilaterally imposed sanctionson the diamond mining firms in partnership with miningparastatals.

Nonetheless, state policy on minerals seems to be stabilisingand is positioning the state to reap future profits, via jointventures looking both East and West. The accommodation ofChinese capital has been central to this strategy. Similarly, theexpansion of platinum production by Western multinationalswas compelled by the threat of losing concessions to the East.Meanwhile, high-ranking state personnel have positionedthemselves in the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Develop-ment Corporation driving the joint ventures, which hasundermined the legitimacy and transparency of the strategy.10

It is notable that the indigenisation policy has been elaborated,beyond the redistribution of majority shareholding and jointventures, towards a higher degree of social access, in thewake of popular agitation. This transformation involves theimposition of conditions on foreign firms to undertakeinvestments in physical and social infrastructure, such asroads, schools, and clinics, as well as the allocation of shares


to ‘community and employee trusts’. The strategy reflects arenewed attempt, in response to more general criticisms ofclass bias, to broaden the benefits of indigenisation, especiallyof mining, to the rural areas. It also reflects the continued needof political elites (combining both ZANU-PF and MDC leaders)to respond to the reaction by capital, and to meet populardemands for state support in light of forthcoming elections.

Overall, these policies reflect the persistence of a specificallynationalist accumulation strategy promoted by blackcapitalists with connections to the state. For, despite havingsunk roots of their own in the means of production, they remainvulnerable to both monopolistic forces and the need tomaintain legitimacy vis-à-vis popular forces. Black capitalcontinues to seek to consolidate its position by recourse to apro-active state, against what it considers to be its mainobstacle: Western monopoly capital.

New Agrarian Movements: Rural Cooperativismand Democratisation?The sustainability of the current outcomes, and the potentialsfor further progressive reforms, will depend on the politics ofthe popular classes after land reform. While the larger farmershave been gravitating towards production for export markets(albeit still in minority numbers), the basic pillar of foodsovereignty will remain the smallholder farmers, together witha significant portion of small-scale capitalists, who, forinstance, dominate the rapid recovery of tobacco production.There has been a clear shift in the orientation of productiontowards food grains and pulses, to which the new landbeneficiaries have dedicated 78 per cent of their cropped land.And, while national maize yields per hectare have sufferedsevere setbacks under conditions of drought, expensive inputsand sanctions, beneficiaries in wetter agro-ecological regionshave performed much better (Moyo 2011c).

But the economic potential remains enormous, consideringthat land utilisation rates are already at 40 per cent « that is,the land utilisation level of the extroverted LSCF sector priorto Fast Track. But notable in this regard is that, on average,the A2 farmers with larger landholdings crop below 20 percent of their land, while a few surpass the 50 per cent mark. Inthe absence of broad-based investments in infrastructure,fertiliser, and machinery due to credits supply constraints,fulfilment of the agricultural potential will be delayed.Furthermore, differentiation across class and regions willdeepen, with adverse consequences for national cohesionand the weak rural movements. The emerging struggles overproduction, land access, tenure, and labour, as well as overthe much-needed social services in general, require organisedsocial forces capable of tilting the balance towardssmallholders and farm workers (Moyo 2011c).

The most promising development is the emergence among 40per cent of small producers of new local cooperativemovements to pool labour, savings, and infrastructure, procureseeds and fertilisers, channel extension services, bid forproducer prices, and negotiate labour contracts (Murisa 2012).Among the farm workers, there are group negotiations foraccess to land and improved conditions of work, althoughtheir poor representation by the national agricultural labourunion (GAPWUZ), which has never been in favour of agrarian

reform (Chambati 2013), is notable. Some of the farmer groupsare orchestrated by state extension agents and privatecontract farming firms, while others are led by the war veterangroups. Yet others draw on kinship relations and existing formerfarming associations in the Communal Areas (see Murisa 2012).

De facto, the state had extended customary authority toresettlement areas, both as a cooptation tactic and a low-costdispute-resolution mechanism, but the new constitution of2013 limits their authority to Communal Areas. The state alsoco-opted chiefs through their inclusion into the A2 farmingscheme and mechanisation, but it excluded chiefs fromexercising real authority over A1 land permits and A2 leases. Ithas also maintained their subordination (in some powerrelations) to elected authorities in local government.Meanwhile, their cooptation into a new class position, wherethis has occurred, raises new questions regarding thetrajectory of this institution, notwithstanding the ethno-regional structure of Fast Track having extended the kinshipbasis of customary authority. It has nonetheless beenobserved that beneficiaries from non-contiguous areas havenot always embraced their new chiefs (Murisa 2012).

Rural cooperativism also holds the unique potential totransform gender relations and customary authority, to defendland rights and progressive agrarian change, as such,authority was the social and political pillar of historic super-exploitation, particularly of women. Fast Track Land Reformtripled the proportion of rural women holding land in theirown right, yet women remain greatly under-represented (withbelow 20 per cent of all farm units). The land movement alsoopened political space for women, which was filled in massnumbers. Women however seldom held leadership positionsin land committees and local farmer associations (see Murisa2012). While new cooperativism is the most realistic vehiclefor withering away the retrogressive patriarchal aspects ofcustomary authority, there are class contradictions here too.

Quite critically, facing various agrarian demands from suchorganised groups and other influential actors, the state hasremained interventionist since 2003. For instance, the statehas also been active in supporting farmers’ groups viaagricultural extension officers, contrary to suggestions thatnew farmers have not received state support (e.g. Scoones etal. 2010; Cliffe et al. 2011) or that they have been re- tribalised(Worby 2003). The various measures which show that thesmall producers have thrived because of rather than lack ofstate support include: the protection of land occupiers,despite allowing some evictions to occur; the expanded roleof marketing boards; trade protection; some subsidies to agro-industry and farmers (credit, inputs and machinery) beforeand after dollarisation; the ban on GMOs; and so forth.

Overall, it is clear that intervention into this fluid field by anew social agent based on cooperative and democraticprinciples can further erode customary authority, empowerwomen, integrate farm workers and smallholders into agro-industrial production units, and expand the potential for theformation of alliances among cooperative producersnationwide. Such agency may fulfil the aspirations for popularagrarian change which are necessary after Fast Track, but thisshould go much further than welfarist measure to createefficient worker-controlled cooperatives to sustain the


struggle against monopoly capitalism, and retain pressure onthe reconfigured state.

These social dynamics may shape the future of rural andnational politics, depending on the ability of ruralcooperativism to deepen its scope and branch out to formwider political alliances. The resurrection of mass rural politicsrequires building up the new producer associations into anadvanced, united, and autonomous cooperative movement ofrural workers, capable, not only of obtaining ad hoc services,but also of dislocating the new black bourgeoisie from itspolitical pedestal (Moyo and Yeros 2007a).

Concluding Remarks: Lessons from ZimbabweWhile the internal dynamics, including the class character ofthe land reform, the indigenisation strategy and ongoingsocial struggles will determine the ability of the state tosustain an inward-looking accumulation process and itslegitimacy, the security context and the foreign policy havebeen crucial in creating the external conditions for sustainingthe radical reform. In this context, despite Zimbabwe’s relativegeopolitical insignificance, the re-radicalisation of land reformhas challenged outright the controlled character of thetransitions to majority rule in settler-colonial Africa. For thisreason, it has been characterised as an ‘unusual andextraordinary threat’ to the USA (President George Bush 2002),and subjected to a host of sanctions and isolation.

It is only the new SADC security framework which, despite allits prevarications, is anchored in a mutual defence pact thathas effectively prevented the militarisation of the Zimbabwequestion (Moyo and Yeros 2011b). Zimbabwe’s Look EastPolicy is ‘complementary, rather than [serving as] analternative to engaging with the West’ (Patel and Chan2006:182) as it has neither turned its back on Western capital,nor accepted investment from China and the rest of the East orSouth without conditions. The LEP was pursued as a methodof circumventing Western sanctions, while pressuring theWest back into investing in Zimbabwe, on conditionsconsistent with its indigenisation and empowerment policy.This outcome raises wider questions about the externalconditions which enable or undermine radical reform,particularly the nature of relations with neighbouring states.

Furthermore, while Zimbabwe has particularities of its own,the structural and social sources of radical change are firmlyrooted in most societies of the Global South (see Moyo andYeros 2005a, 2011a). This is not to say that radical changedepends on mere ‘will’, and that political resignation shouldbe answered by naïve voluntarism. The correlation of forcesin every situation should be assessed, with the intention ofchanging it, not preserving it. This also means that a clearunderstanding of the state apparatus and state power must bedeveloped. A blanket anti-statist policy of ‘changing the worldwithout taking power’, which remains so hegemonic amongsocial movements, ought to be replaced by a strategy andtactics which seek to alter state power and unravel the stateapparatus in the interest of the oppressed; i.e. towards radicalagrarian reform.

For mass mobilisations to endure the countervailing forcesthat will inevitably align against them, they must takeseriously the agrarian component of society. The objective

should not be merely to accumulate forces for change, butalso to initiate a longer-term process of structural change andnational resistance, of which the agrarian question is afundamental component. All societies in recent years thathave entered a process of radicalisation have discovered thattheir food dependence and their domestic disjuncturebetween agriculture, industry, and energy are crucial sourcesof vulnerability. This potential weakness means that massmobilisation must also take seriously the project of ‘re-peasantisation’ as an explicitly modern project, and as theonly alternative in conquering autonomous development inthe South (Amin 2012; Patnaik 2012).

The particular Zimbabwe experience suggests thatredistributive land reform remains necessary to redressexisting racial, social and spatial inequalities to advancesocially inclusive agrarian societies and promote wider rurallivelihoods, accommodating a diverse range of classes andethno-regional entities, in the context of an innovative nationaldevelopment strategy. An African vision for agrarian changecannot be modelled around Eurocentric experiences ofindustrial transformation, which pretend to have arisen from apacific evolution of economies of scale and a natural processof integration into the global neoliberal capitalist world basedupon ‘comparative advantage. This is neither a plausible norfeasible alternative. In countries such as South Africa andNamibia, what remains of the legacy of the Apartheid agrarianmodel is a deepening of class-race inequalities and theongoing concentration of land ownership and capital, andsocial deprivation.

The challenges of broadly based agrarian transformation, inlight of the uneven balance of forces require serious consi-deration, including more innovative state interventions thatseek to promote a progressive accumulation trajectory, entai-ling new strategies of rural development. To prevent thepersistent super-exploitation of wage labour and smallproducers in the context of globalised agrarian markets, thecurrent weaknesses of small producer and market coopera-tives will have to be addressed to countervail existing limitedstate agricultural protection and support. This requires bothincreased popular mobilisation and progressive reforms in thestate.

Notes1. The material in this speech was reworked from a chapter by Sam

Moyo and Paris Yeros (2013): The Zimbabwe Model:Radicalisation, Reform and Resistance, In Moyo, Sam and W.Chambati (eds), The Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe:Beyond White-Settler Capitalism, Dakar: CODESRIA (2013).

2 . A merchant path consist of non-rural capital, including merchantcapital, petty bourgeois elements, bureaucrats, military personneland professionals who gain access to land. They farm on a smallerscale than capitalist farms but are integrated into export marketsand global agro-industry.

3. The junker path, formerly of landlords turned capitalists, has itsvariants in the white settler societies of Southern Africa, and itoperates in tandem with transactional capital.

4 . Formally constituted and bureaucratised organs of politicalrepresentation, such as political parties, farmers’ unions, trade


unions, and NGOs failed to mobilise a radical land movement (seeMoyo 2001; Yeros 2002; Moyo and Yeros 2005b).

5. Some contemporary parallels include Bolivia and, to a lesser degree,Venezuela (see Moyo and Yeros 2011a).

6. By 1995, trade unions, led by the Zimbabwe Congress of TradeUnions (ZCTU) had completely abandoned land reform as apolitical project (Yeros 2002).The ZCTU had pried away from thecontrol of the state in the late 1980s, and articulated a critique ofstructural adjustment in the early 1990s, but it gravitated towards apolitical project of ‘good governance’ and ‘regime change’,promoted by foreign donors and international trade unions.

7. Something that the ‘chaos’ theorists have seen as the ‘destructionof the state’ (Hammar et al. 2003)

8. The immediate manifestation of such a tendency would be theescalation of factional politics both within the ruling party andwithin the MDC (see Moyo and Yeros 2007b).

9. Class analysis of the new Zimbabwe must come to grips with the ten-dencies and contradictions of this tri-modal structure, and avoidtheories of ‘rentier economy’ (Davies 2005) or ‘crony capitalism’(Bond 2009), or notions of ‘passive revolution’, which are basedon nebulous assessments of the new class relations (e.g. Raftopoulos2010).

10. For some ‘pro-democracy’ forces (e.g. Cross 2011), this critiquehas become opportunistic, calling for the nationalisation of blackcapital but not Western capital!

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CODESRIA 14th General Assembly

Rethinking CODESRIA’s Future: Priorities to Consider

It has been a great privilege, but alsoan immense challenge, for me and forthe outgoing Executive Committee I

worked with, to serve CODESRIA duringthe last three years and half.

• Let me proudly present to you mycompanions in this journey:

• Helmi Sharawy, from Egypt: the mostdynamic and the youngest at heart

• Mwallimu F.E.M.K. Senkoro, fromTanzania: the sage

• Emmanuel Yenshu Vubo, fromCameroun: the most reflective

• Dzodzi Tsikata, from Ghana: thebarrister

• Kenneth Inyani Simala, from Kenya:the passionate Mwallimu

• Jessie Kabwila-Kapasula, fromMalawi: the political animal

Claudio Alves-Furtado, from Cap Vert,Etanislas Ngodi, from Congo Brazaville& Puleng Lenka Bula, from South Africa– respectively sociologist, Politicalscientist and Dean of Students specialistof Ethics and leadership. This trio is theyoungest, and proved to be the mostresourceful and innovative element of thisExecutive Committee.

Working with this group of brilliant andengaged pan-African scholars who allhave CODESRIA at heart – and who intheir majority (7/10) served their first termof office in a CODESRIA governing organ– was both pleasurable and gratifying.The challenges we had to face togetheras a unit during our mandate brought usclose to each other and it was always in aclimate of entente, even of complicity, thatwe performed our duties.

Teaming up with the Executive Secretary,Ebrima Sall, well known to the constitue-ncy for his scrupulousness and hisidentification with CODESRIA, has alsobeen a motivating experience.

Please find here, dear Ebrima, the expre-ssion of our gratitude to you and youraids and staff for your kind support andalways courteous collaboration.

On behalf of the Executive Committee Iwould like now to highlight some of theachievements of this Executive Committeesince its election in December 2011, thedetails of which will be elaborated by theExecutive Secretary in his report to thisAssembly.

The 2012-2015 Framework

Special, Focus 14th AG

Global environmentThe global environment during thesecond decade of the twenty-first centuryis characterized by an exacerbation of thefinancial crisis. The debate prompted byThomas Picketty’s book is symptomaticof the ambient anxiety about the future ofCapitalism as a result of the increasingscarcity of resources, the greater debt, andthe intensifying popular resistance tosustaining the burden of the politics ofausterity (the Greek case is indicative).

At the same time as the US and theEuropean Union (the previous economicengines of global expansion) haveexhausted their potentialities and are inopen decline, the new centres of growth,the BRICS, which provided a new impetusfor world growth during the first decade,are also showing signs of de-acceleration.

The political and military outlook is alsobleak, even hopeless: NATO, led by theUS and the EU are engaged in declaredimperial wars, directly or through proxies,and a number of other so-called civiliza-tional clashes around the world, includingin Africa (North Africa, the Sahara andSahel).

Situation in AfricaThese developments have all left theirimprint on Africa, but there is also aspecifically African context.

• In essence, Africa today is at thecrossroads. It is saddled by a myriadof political, social and economicchallenges which have left manycountries politically unstable.

Yet, the paradox of a continent richlyendowed with natural resources and stillstruggling with grinding poverty isillustrative of the African economicstructural challenges. These political andeconomic conditions have triggered awave of forced migration sometimes withtragic results.

In North Africa a wave of popular protestspromised a new dawn of democratic revo-lutions, but the Spring did not naturallyprogress to a bright summer of demo-cracy; it has even regressed, in some cases,and the progress towards the institutionand/or consolidation of democratic gover-nance disrupted and the return to military,despotic and repressive rule legitimated bythe so-called "war on terrorism".

The dismantlement of the State in Libyaand the total destruction of its economy,society and political order has offered yetanother African base, after Somalia – and

The outgoing President of CODESRIA’s Executive Committee, Fatima Harrak, has identified five areas ofconcern the Council must focus on as it repositions itself for the challenges of the twenty-first century. In herreport at the 14th General Assembly of CODESRIA held in Dakar, June 2015, she identified some of the Council’schallenges and proferred various recommendations to overcome these challenges. Excerpts of her speech:

Fatima HarrakFormer President

CODESRIA


an inexhaustible source of funding – forthe combatants of the "war of civili-zations", a war now proclaimed in North,Central and West Africa.

The Ebola crisis in West Africa, which wehave lived with directly in CODESRIA,came to demystify and deflate the Afro-euphoria and the "Africa Rising" narra-tive. It displayed to the world the dramaticand persisting damages inflicted onAfrican states and societies by StructuralAdjustment Policies, and which the Mil-lennium Development Goals did notsucceed in remedying

Now that the MDGs have come to an end,the time has come for Africa to pause foran evaluation of this experience beforeembarking on a "post 2015 SustainableDevelopment Goals" agenda that the UNand other international developmentagencies are currently working on, on itsbehalf!

State of African higher educationand social science researchIn the field of African higher educationand social science research, the seconddecade of the twenty-first century hasbeen marked by:

• Growing awareness by African sta-keholders, including some politicalleaders, of the value of higher educa-tion in achieving their visions ofprosperity, peace and integration…Whence the tremen-dous growth inthe higher education and researchsphere in Africa and the phenomenalincrease in the number of public andprivate universities, research centersand institutes, think tanks andresearch NGOs, and the multiplicationof initiatives geared towards encoura-ging higher education, research andinnovation – even if the share of So-cial Sciences in this effort isinsignificant.

• the creation of more African fundinginstitutions, public and private, andthe implication of some BRICScountries in funding research andhigher education projects in Africa.

Nonetheless,

• Higher Education in Africa con-tinues to be fragmented, increasinglyprivatized and internationalized, andit continues to suffer from brain drainand the "expert/consultancy syn-drome"

• African governments continue toprioritize the teaching and researchin STEM (Science Technology,Engineering and Mathematics (withfew exceptions) for which theyprovide infrastructure and funding(national and endowment funds).

• Social sciences in Africa continue,therefore, to operate under condi-tions that are seriously under-equipped and under-resourced,both in African universities and inindependent research institutionsand NGOs. This means that Africansocial scientists and social scienceresearch institutions are still in asituation of dependence vis-à-visinternational donors and fundingagencies.

• And today these resources are nolonger reliable, nor are they alwaysadapted to the local researchpriorities.

Obviously, these developments haddirect bearing on the functioning,scientific production as well as on theworking conditions at CODESRIA.

The cutback and delay of disbursementof funds from some of our key donors didconstitute one of the major challenges wefaced during our mandate. Both thefinancial crisis, and the fact that some ofour partners were funding newly createdsocial science research institutions inAfrica, explains the difficult situation inwhich CODESRIA found itself during thelast three years. This brought home theobligation to confront the challenge ofdiversification of our funding sources.

The other difficulty we faced during ourterm was the Ebola crisis which made itobligatory for CODESRIA to suspendmany of its activities. This situation alsobrought home the urgent need to developthe capacities of CODESRIA, bothtechnical and human, for assimilating andintegrating ICTs in its functioning.

The convulsions in North and Sahelo-Saharan Africa caused the halting of someof our activities but were also the sourceof lively intellectual debates and aninspiration for a substantial number ofresearch proposals and activities atCODESRIA.

Another difficulty faced during thisperiod was the fact that the Secretariathad to work with a reduced workforce asthe result of the voluntary and involuntaryparting of a number of senior staff.

Notwithstanding all these incon-veniences, however, important achieve-ments have been made by this ExecutiveCommittee.

Achievements since the 13th GAInstitutional developmentThe general disenchantment induced bythe predicaments of the 13th GeneralAssembly made that the ExecutiveCommittee elected in Rabat had amongits major tasks, if not its main task, therevision of the governance mechanismsof CODESRIA. What was required of uswas the initiation of an internal evaluationof the root causes of the malaise wewitnessed in Rabat, an evaluation thatwas to lead to the renewal and revitali-zation of the membership, governanceand management of CODESRIA and there-actualization of its intellectual agenda.

Kicking off this process to a start was noteasy; that is why we consider that comingto this General Assembly with an internalreview is a major achievement of thisExecutive Committee.

It is an Internal Review in three parts:

(1)An Internal Review on Membershipand Governance, chaired by Pro-fessor Thandika Makdawire with theparticipation of Dr. Pierre Sané andProfessor Aki Sawyer. This reviewwas finalized in February 2015 andthe report, recommendations andproposed Charter amendmentscirculated to CODESRIA member-ship in early March, for examinationand discussion in this GA;

(2)An Internal Review on Management,chaired by Prof. Zenebework Tadesewith the participation of ProfsAkwasi Aido and Temba Masilela,launched in April 2015. A preliminaryreport of this review will bepresented to the GA for information;

(3)And a third internal review concer-ning CODESRIA’s intellectualagenda, is chaired jointly by Profs.Elisio Macamo and Mustapha Raufuwith the participation of Profs.Pamela Mbabezi and Dickson Eyoh.This review was launched in March2015 and a preliminary report of thecommittee will also be presented tothis GA for information.

The work undertaken – or underway – bythese three review teams and the spiritedand fertile debate we will have aroundtheir documents, will assuredly unfoldunto a new vision and new directions forCODESRIA.


Another important contribution of this ECto the institutional development ofCODESRIA is the elaboration and adop-tion of a Code of Ethics for the membersof the Executive Committee. This was ourway of contributing to streng-theningaccountability, guarding against conflictof interest and abuse of power and esta-blishing a moral protocol for this gover-ning organ of CODESRIA. This documentmay serve as a model for the developmentof a more general code which will bind allofficeholders at CODESRIA.

Together with the Secretariat, this EC hasalso been able to put membership issueson a stronger footing, by urging for thecompilation of the list of members, adop-ting a membership policy and almost com-pleting the modalities of payment ofmembership dues through electronicmeans.

This EC has also overseen the preparationand adoption of several policy papers theaim of which was the rationalization ofCODESRIA's work and the reinforcementof responsibility.

Intellectual AgendaThe mandate of this EC coincided withthe launching of a new strategic plan tocover the period 2011-2016. Work startedon this plan since 2009 but could only befinalized in 2012, with the contribution ofthe EC and the SC.

Our mandate also coincided with thecelebration of CODESRIA’s 40th anni-versary. Various activities of CODESRIAduring 2013 were held under the umbrellaof the anniversary celebration but thegrand celebration was, for logisticalreasons, held in June 2014 under thetheme of "Forty Years of Research andKnowledge Production for Africa"

Apart from these two big events thiscommittee has had to regularly overseethe completion of various activities of theresearch, training and publication pro-grammes, with a particular concern for therationalization and refocusing of ourefforts and our resources (decentralizing,privileging research over micro-metho-dological training, optimizing use of ICT,delegating to African universities...)

More needs to be done in this directionand we are counting on the InternalReview on Management to initiatechange where routine and entrenchedways of doing things have been difficultto extricate.

CODESRIA has been involved in manyother exciting intellectual activities whichthe Executive Secretary will expound inhis report.

ChallengesCommunicationCODESRIA continues to suffer from acommunication deficit (or a "commu-nication challenge" as a colleague put it),in spite of a cognizance of the difficultyand an expressed will to tackle it.

We still have difficulties disseminating ourresearch and projecting CODESRIAwithin and outside the continent.

Efforts have been made by the secretariatin the form of the development of thewebsite and the social media associatedwith it. Some of CODESRIA’s publi-cations and journals have also been putonline, partnerships have been made withcommercial publishers and distributors,the process of renewal of tenure forperiodicals’ editors has been started …

However, this deficit of communicationpersists and exists on more than one level;it exists within the institution andbetween CODESRIA and its constituency.

In spite of the progress made on member-ship matters, including the long-sought-after list of members and the MembershipReview, a lot remains to be done in orderto strengthen relations with bothindividual and institutional members,reach out to the young generation ofscholars, especially from the among themarginalized communities – such as theArabophone, the islanders and resear-chers in zones of conflict or instability.

The monthly Newsletter is a welcomeinitiative but it is not regular and it needsan editorial team that will invigorate andenergize it; more than that, it does notdispense from direct contact, real orvirtual, whenever that is feasible. That iswhy we have continuously urged for:

• a structured Outreach Program forEC members,

• holding of more meetings andactivities of CODESRIA outside ofDakar, thus allowing a decongestionand decentralization of our pro-grammes and stimulating theexchanges between the leadershipand management of CODESRIA onthe one hand and the researchers,universities and research institu-tions in various parts of thecontinent , on the other.

During our term, two of this EC’s meetingswere held outside of Dakar, one in CapVert and one in Mombassa, and twooutreach missions were organized for ECmembers to Tunisia and Congo; thelessons learned from these limitedexperiences pledge in favor of moremobility for CODESRIA activities andmore collaboration with African researchand higher education institutions.

I cannot end this section withoutunderlying the necessity of improvingcommunication on some other levels:

• between the EC and the CODESRIAstaff, and

• between the EC and our funders

• between the EC and the ES

The two meetings that this EC had withour Nordic donors and its encounter withthe CODESRIA local staff represent agood step in this direction. Thesereunions have been very informative andhave given us greater awareness of theproblems of the local employees and abetter understanding of the complexitiesof the funding milieu.

Communication between the EC and theES is a governance and managerial matterwhich needs to be approached throughorganizational reform.

SustainabilityLike the communication syndrome, theissues of diversification of fundingsources and long term financial sustai-nability have been worrying CODESRIA– as well as its key funders – for sometime now. It is now a pressing question.

We have yet to imagine and lay down astrategy, a fundraising campaign for longterm, independent and sustainable fun-ding to support CODESRIA’s adminis-trative costs and the execution of itsscientific programmes.

We have been speaking of the establi-shment of an Endowment Fund for a longtime but moving very slowly in thatdirection. At the same time, numerousplans and suggestions for mobilizingresources from the continent (Gulf, ADB,Angola…) have been proposed, but notfollowed up.

We hope that the efforts of this and otherExecutive Committees to ensure that theEndowment Fund is established will becontinued and sustained by the incomingExecutive Committee.


We not only need to be more resourcefuland more aggressive in our pursuit of thediversification of our funding but we alsoneed to address the emergent and sprea-ding phenomenon of small grants andsmall funders.

RecommendationsMay I close this statement by recom-mending to the attention of this venerableassembly the major concerns of this ECas it ends its mission:

First concern: the completion andimplementation of the three reviews andthe concretization the vision for aCODESRIA for the twenty-first century;

Second concern: the diversification,sustainability and independence of ourfunding and the definitive resolution ofthe question of the Endowment Fund;

Third concern: the configuration of a de-centralization scheme for our programmesand activities as one of the means of fa-cing up to many challenges: communica-tion of research and with scholars;

outreach to young and emerging intellec-tuals, marginalized regions and scholarlycommunities; concretization of relationswith insti-tutional members; co-fundingof a number of activities…);

Fourth concern: the responsible use ofICTs. Driven by CODESRIA’s goals andneeds, serious thinking must be given tointegrating this technology for theefficient management of both theadministrative and scientific pursuits ofthe Council; and

Fifth concern: the intellectual agenda ofCODESRIA. While this agenda should beglobally engaged, we must be attentivethat it remains locally relevant andfocused around themes of priority notonly to our constituency but to ourcontinent. And while cultivating colla-boration between scholars of Africa andthose of the global south and betweenAfrican researchers and their peers in therest of the world, we must see to it thatthe knowledge produced by this Councilcontinues to be context specific and

geared towards African needs as formu-lated by the continent’s intellectuals.

It is the enthusiastic engagement of theseintellectuals, and the commitment of theAfrican human and social sciencecommunity of scholars at large, manifes-ted in the presence of so many of youhere today (and the so many others whocould not come), that give meaning andvalue to the work of CODESRIA. Thankyou, dear members of CODESRIA, for yourloyalty and unfailing engagement.

May I in the name of all of you, and in thename of the outgoing EC, express ourappreciation to our funders and partners,some of whom have been backing us andvaluing our work from the very beginning;we are grateful for their trust and theirsponsorship.

Together we can fashion a dynamic andresourceful CODESRIA for the twenty-first century!

Thank you for your kind attention.

Summary Report of CODESRIA 14th General Assembly:Creating African Futures in an Era of Global Transformations

The 14th General Assembly of CODESRIAtook place at the King Fahd Palace Hotel,Dakar, 8-12 June 2015. The theme of theGeneral Assembly and upon which mostpaper presenations and discussions werebased was ‘Creating African Futures inan era of Global Transfromations’. Thetheme was chosen due to the felt need tohave the General Assembly, which is oneof the largest gatherings of SocialScientists in Africa, engage in debates andreflections on a framework that wouldinform the construction of the Africanfuture, within the context of globalizationthat has threatened to destroy theprogress in social development in recenttimes. The Assembly had initially beenscheduled for December 2014, but had tobe rescheduled due to the outbreak of theEbola virus disease which affected mostcountries in the West African region.

The 14th General Assembly took place inthe context of a number of developmentsthat need to be highlighted. First themeeting took place a few months after thecommemoration of the 40th anniversary

of the establishment of CODESRIA. The40th anniversary was a moment of reunionand reflection on CODESRIA’s leadershiprole in research and knowledgeproduction in the social sciences in Africa.The 14th GA also coincided with the endof the 2012-2015 programme cycle of theCouncil’s research engagements, andreflections on the next cycle and strategicplan. This was therefore an opportunityfor the Executive Committee of the Counciland the Secretariat to report to thecommunity and funding partners on whathad been achieved and what the futurefocus of the Council would be. Thirdly,the Assembly was an opportunity for thecommunity to discuss reports on theadminstrative and intellectual reforms thatthe Council needed to undertake moving

forward. This was a purely internalexercise that the Council had decided toundertake in order to continue positioningitself as Africa’s premier Social Scienceresearch institution. A new developmentin the organization of the activities of theGeneral Assembly was the separation ofthe scientific and adminstrative activitiesof the assembly following therecommendations of the managementreview committee.

With the above background, it wasconsidered imperative for the AfricanSocial Science community to reflect onhow to ‘reinvent a future for themselvesand redefine the social, cultural, moral,ethical and institutional foundations ofthe citizenship and membership in thelocal, national and continental levels, in afree, united, democratic and prosperousAfrica, in peace with itself and the world’.Thus, the choice of the General Assemblytheme.

The conference was organized into 6plenary sessions (conference presen-

Ibrahim OandaCODESRIA

Dakar


tations), 6 roundtables, 24 parallelsessions and one event for the launch ofnew CODESRIA journals. The firstplenary session was devoted to threeevents. These were the opening speechof the CODESRIA Executive Secretary,Ebrima Sall, the report of the president ofCODESRIA’s Executive Committee, FatimaHarrak, and the keynote address (CheikhAnta Diop Lectrure), which was deliveredby Carlos Lopes, Executive Secretary ofUNECA on the theme’ Africa’s impera-tives to determine its own future’.

The roundtables focused on the followingissues:

• Inventing our future

• Building healthy societies: epidemiccontrol and prevention

• Understanding and TranscendingFundamentalisms

• South- South: Reconfiguring South-South Relations for GlobalTransformation

• Industrialization, Trade andStructural Transformation

• The Africa we want

The presentations at the parallel sessionsalso covered a broad range of themes,including the following:

• The African Diaspora in theRecreation of Africa’s Futures

• Regional Integration and Pathwaysto African Futures

• Toward more Democratic Futures:Making Governance Work for allAfricans

• Neo-liberalism and the Financia-lization of Natural Resources inAfrica

• International Criminal Justice,Responsibility to Protect (R2P), andSovereignty in the Africa of theFuture

• Fashioning African Futures:Disciplinary, Interdisciplinary andGendered Perspectives

• Land Grabs, Property Rights andCitizenship

• From Impressive Growth to Inclu-siveness: Large-scale Deals andHouseholds’ Livelihood in SSA

• Planning Development: AlternativeEconomic Models for Africa’sFutures

• Towards Knowledge-driven Socie-ties in Africa: Higher Education,Research, and the Transformation ofAfrican Economies and Societies

• African Popular Culture and the Ima-gination of Alternative Futures

• Decoloniality and African Futures inthe Twenty-first Century

• Beyond MDGs: Pathways to theSustainably Developed Community

• Designing and Building Resilientand Socially Inclusive Societies

• Social Reconstruction in Post-neoliberal Society

• Health, Arts and Popular Cultures:How Cultural Industries Re-inventthe "Suffering "? in Africa

• Regional Integration and Pathwaysto African Futures

• Strengthening the Social and HumanSciences in Africa: Intellectual andInstitutional Challenges

• African Popular Culture and theImagination of Alternative Futures

• Climate Change and its Implicationsfor African Futures: Innovative Ap-proaches to Agricultural Develop-ment and Industrialization

• Progress of the World’s Women2015-2016: Transforming Economies,Realizing Rights

• Supporting Forest Livelihoodsthrough Local Representation

• Reinvesting History in Literature,Movies and Media

• History in the Construction ofAfrican Futures: Challenges andProspects

Opening Speeches

The Speech of the ExecutiveSecretary of CODESRIA, Dr EbrimaSallDr Sall began his address by inviting themembers to observe a minute of silencein tribute to fellow members of thecommunity who had died in the courseof the year; Prof Amady Aly Dieng ofSenegal, Dr. Ndeye Sokhna Gueye ofSenegal, Dr Yves Chouala of Cameroonand Dr Roselyne Achieng of Kenya. Hethen took time to share with members hisdesire and ambition to create conditionsfor a more promising future for theCouncil. He reitarated the need to have a

CODESRIA that is more committed, morevisible, with necessary reforms in depth.He invited the community to furthercontribute to the development of Africa.The ES took time to thank the researcherswho had come from all backgrounds, theSenegalese government for supportingthe council over the years, and donorswho have always trusted CODESRIA andcommitted funds to the Council’sactivities.

Speech by the President ofCODESRIA, Dr Fatima HarrackThe President welcomed participants tothe GA. Like the ES, she echoed theCouncil’s gratitude to the Senegalesegovernment for continued hospitality andsupport, and the honour that thegovernment had accorded the GA byhaving the Prime Minister preside overthe opening ceremony. The presidentalso extended gratitude to the differentpersonalities from the universities, thediplomatic corps in Senegal andorganizations of civil society for theircommitment and support.

Keynote Speech by Carlos Lopes,Executive Secretary of the EconomicCommission for Africa (ECA)Carlos Lopes started his speech by con-gratulating Codesria for its 42 years ofexistence. Lopez noted that CODESRIAhas a critical role to play in shaping Afri-ca’s transformation. He noted the existingpartnerships between CODESRIA andECA and expressed the need to expandthe depth of such cooperation for theorganizations to make a shared contri-bution to Africa’s development.

Speech by Mohammed AbdallahBoun Dionne, Prime Minister of theGovernment of Senegal, representingthe PresidentThe last speech was that of the PrimeMinister (PM) of Senegal, on behalf ofthe President of Senegal. The PrimeMinister paid tribute to former Presidentsof CODESRIA and the founders, whonurtured the idea to create such a relevantorganization. He also congratulatedthose who have contributed, since thecreation of CODESRIA, to its historicmission of knowledge production,networking, training and publication. Heextolled the role of CODESRIA in helpingto confront the many challenges ofAfrica. The PM made reference to the


Senegalese government’s strategy for anemerging Senegal, known as the "PlanSenegal Emergent" (PSE). The strategy,according to him, aims to increase theproductivity of Senegal’s economy in thepublic and private sectors. He noted thatthere is a perfect connection between thePSE and the theme of the 14th GeneralAssembly which is: "Creating Africa'sFutures in an era of GlobalTransformation". The PM called for thecooperation of Senegal towards realizingSenegal’s development agenda. He alsoreiterated the commitment of theSenegalese government to continue tosupport CODESRIA. One expression ofthis continued support, according to thePM, is the recent the provision of a pieceof land in Djamiadjo for the constructionof CODESRIA’s headquarters. IOn thisnote, the PM, on behalf of the Presidentof the Republic of Senegal, formallydeclared open the 14th General Assembly.

1st Working Session of theScientific Conference

Chair: Dzodzi Tsikata (Vice-presidentof CODESRIA)This session was devoted to presentationand discussion of CODESRIA ReviewReports. Three reports were presentedand discussed during this session. Thesewere:

a) Report of the President of CODESRIAby the President, Fatima Harrack

b) Report of the Executive Secretary ofCODESRIA by the ES, Ebrima Sall.

c) Presentation and discussion of theReports of CODESRIA internalreview committees

Presenting her report, the President ofCODESRIA, Fatima Harrack, highlightedthe difficult environment within which theEC had worked to drive the work of theCouncil. According to her, global trendssuch as concerns about the future ofcapitalism, expression of discontent asseen in popular uprisings especially in theArab world, the emergence of proxy warsas seen in the entry of the USA and NATOinto North Africa, the Ebola crisis in WestAfrica and the general concern with thestate of higher education in Africa; hadall presented both intellectual andoperational challenges to the work ofCODESRIA. This had been mirrored in thedelayed disbursement of funds fromdonors; the rescheduling of variousCODESRIA activities due to the Ebola

crisis and the reduced staff numbers atthe secretariat despite the expansion ofprogramme activities. With regard to thestate of higher education in Africa, thepresident noted that the sector continuedto be fragmented, privatized, interna-tionalized and therefore deepening thecrisis of brain drain, and continuouslycreating an expectation within the com-munity that CODESRIA needed to step into alleviate shortages in capacity. Wheregovernments had shown any interest, thefocus was on the STEM disciplines whileignoring the SSH. Despite the challenges,the president highlighted the achie-vements that had been recorded in thetenure of the EC. These included puttingthe membership of the Council on a strongfooting; overseeing preparation andadoption of policy documents such as thegender policy; overseeing the develo-pment of the new strategic plan, 2013-2016; and completion of various researchand publi-cation programs. She addedthat three internal reviews were accom-plished in the areas of membership andgovernance, intellectual agenda andmanagement. These reviews were initiatedfor the purpose of moving CODESRIA ina new direction and vision. The Executivecommittee also put in place a code ofethics to strengthen accountability.

The need for better communication andutilization of ICTs was echoed in herreport. Improved communication need tohappen between the EC and CODESRIAstaff, between the executive committeeand funders as well as between theexecutive committee and the executivesecretary. In terms of sustainability, theissue of diversification of funding andlong-term financial stability in order tosupport administrative costs andexecution of its activities has been ofconcern to CODESRIA and its funders.To tackle this financial issue, efforts werestarted towards the establishment of anendowment fund for CODESRIA. FatimaHarrak finished her report with somerecommendations from the executivecommittee, which include: 1) thecompletion and implementation of thethree internal reviews, 2) diversificationand sustainability of funding through theestablishment of an endowment fund, 3)decentralization of CODESRIA’s program-mes and activities as a means of tacklingchallenges linked to communication andresearch, and outreach to young scholars,4) ensuring that the intellectual agendaof CODESRIA remains locally relevant

and focus on the continent andconstituencies, 5) production ofknowledge that would be continent andcontext specific, and 6) fosteringcollaboration among researchers in Africa.

In his report the ES, Ebrima Sall, notedthat despite the challenges outlined bythe president, the state of the Councilremained strong and the balance sheetpositive. He highlighted the level ofengagement, involvement and inputsfrom the community during workshops,institutes and conferences organized byCODESRIA. He noted some of theaccomplishments by the Council in thelast 42 months, including; 1) The externalevaluation of CODESRIA commissionedby the donors which came out with apositive evaluation of the Council’sactivities and focus, 2) Streamlining of theactivities of the Council which includeorganization of the research agendaaround themes and a concentration ofresearch training activities to renew thecommunity through training of youngscholars, 3) The launch of newprogrammes, journals, networks andpublications, and 4) an attempt to enterareas which CODESRIA was not inpreviously like justice. Other lines ofinterventions from the office of theExecutive Secretary focused on, 1)training trainers on leadership and cyber-security issues, 2) supporting doctoralresearch activities, 3) generating literaturein areas needed for the continent byAfrican universities, 4) ensuring freeelectronic open access of material insteadof printed versions only, 5) theestablishment of a monthly e-bulletin, 6)a strong partnership with the global southby putting resources together and gettingaccess to a larger pool of material, 7) anda systematic effort put in place to makesure practices are codified. In terms of theendowment fund, Dr. Sall highlighted thedifficulty of establishing one due toexpensive cost, time and challenge withsetting up an online system like paypalfor donations. Regarding the staffingissues, Dr. Sall advocated for a rotation atthe level of senior staff so thatCODESRIA does not lose its institutionalmemory. The ES also mentionedCODESRIA’s outreach initia-tive by beinga co-organizer of a major summit on highereducation this past March in Senegal. InSeptember 2015, CODESRIA will partnerwith the Inter-national Social ScienceCouncil and the Human SciencesResearch Council to host the World Social


Science Forum in Durban, South Africa.CODESRIA will also continue to reach outto the African Union and regionalorganizations in an effort to bringresearch and policy together.

Various Interventions were made from thefloor in response to the reports of the pre-sident and ES. With regard to the esta-blishment of the endowment fund, someconcerns were raised regarding the ideaof sourcing for endowments from outsi-de while keeping the integrity of CO-DESRIA’s mission. With regard tomembership, a suggestion was made tostrengthen regional sub-groups in orderto connect with young scholars, as youngscholars still considered CODESRIA asan elitist organization meant for esta-blished scholars. With regard to the en-dowment fund, Professor Adam Habibsuggested that CODESRIA should nego-tiate with institutions in Africa that alrea-dy had the PayPal facility and in factoffered that of the University of Witwa-tersrand, where he is the Vice Chancellor.

C) Second Session: Presentation anddiscussion of the reports of theCODESRIA internal Review com-mittees (management, intellectualagenda review and membership andgovernance)

Chair: Fatima Harrak

The chair gave an overview of the reviewprocess and review documents, pointingout that the review documents had beencirculated within the community. The taskwas therefore first, to discuss and adoptthe charter amendments especially withregard to membership and elections. Shenoted that the EC appreciated the reporton membership, which it valued andconsidered important in guiding charteramendments. The EC however indicatedthat the issue of votes and representationrequired further reflection. There was alsorelative disagreement with the reviewteam’s narrow view of the social sciencesand the approach to transdisciplinarity.The amendments largely dealt withmembership and the rights of members asregards participation in the GeneralAssembly and scientific conference.

Discussion and adoption ofcharter amendment proposalsThe discussion on the adoption of charteramendments was chaired by Issa Shivji,Former Mwalimu J. Nyerere Chair in PanAfrican Studies, University of Dar EsSalaam in Tanzania .The Vice-President

of CODESRIA, Dzodzi Tsikata, wentthrough each of the 5 clusters ofamendments to the charter and moved aresolution for the adoption of each ofthem. Professor Sam Moyo seconded it.The floor was opened for discussion bythe chair. The amendments wereeventually passed after a unanimous votein support of each of them.

Reports of the ReviewCommitteesAfter the adoption of the Charteramendments that largely covered thereport of the Membership andGovernance Committee, the participantswere taken through the reports of theIntellectual Agenda and the ManagementReview Committees.

Report of the Intellectual AgendaCommitteeThe members of the committee were ElisioMacamo; Abdul Raufu; Pamela Mbabaziand Dickson Eyoh. Presenting the reporton behalf of the other members, DicksonEyoh noted that the committee looked atthe state of research undertaken by theCouncil, what had been achieved and thebest way of moving forward. Thecommittee based its report on a review ofdocuments and feedback from aquestionnaire that it had circulated withinthe community. The committee noted thefollowing:

• That CODESRIA has continued topursue its research agenda throughvarious vehicles and that theresearch themes covered a widerange of issues.

• That the quality of research by theCouncil remained good but uneven.

• In terms of the research portfolio, thecommittee noted that there had beena rapid growth in the size of theresearch portfolio to the extent itwould appear the secretariat haddifficulties in managing all of them.

• There appeared to be lack of claritybetween basic and policy researchand how to effectively interface thetwo.

• Training is linked to researchprojects and thematic institutes, andin the overall the quality had beengood though there was room forfurther improvement.

• In terms of publications, there was abacklog due to too many titles thatCODESRIA was managing and the

management of the publicationprocess needed improvement.

Report of the ManagementCommitteeThe members of this committee wereZenebeworke Tadesse, Akwasi Aidoo,Pablo Gentili and Temba Masilela.Presenting the report on behalf of thecommittee, Tadesse noted that the focusof the committee was to look at thestatus, strengths and challenges that theCouncil faced in terms of its management.The leading question was to explore theextent to which CODESRIA was adjustingitself to global and African challenges.The committee, after an analysis of thestatus and strengths of the Councilrecommended the following:

• The need for CODESRIA to diversifyits sources of core funding

• The need to have dedicated staff atthe secretariat to look into mem-bership and resource mobilizationand that priority is given to creatinga special endowment building sub-committee.

• Convince donors to have a jointreporting template as staff spent somuch time to respond to differentreporting templates from differentdonors.

• Greater utilization of the scientificcommittee in implementingCODESRIA programmes

• Some internal reforms were requiredwithin the secretariat starting with ahuman resource audit.

• A rational decentralization ofCODESRIA’s activities was needed.

• Increase membership fees andensure it is regularly paid.

Reports from the Round-Tables

Round Table: "Inventing Our Future"

Chairperson : Mahmood Mamdani

Presenters :• Adam Habib,• Adebayo Olukoshi,• Y ang Guang• Benjamin Soares

Presentation by Adam Habib

The presentation began by underliningthe imperativeness and urgency of Africato play a vanguard role in its develop-ment. This would have to be informed byAfrica’s original ideas. It would requirecreating incentives and capacities for thepolitical class to include Africa’s future.


While it was possible to imagine the futu-re, the problem was how to create the ne-cessary conditions to accomplish it.Africa was operating in a hostile worldthat was dominated by alternative viewsand ideas of more powerful actors whowere opposed to its initiative and agencyto attain its own future. This needed acoherent plan, which would include theagency and method for creating it. It wouldinvolve institutional architecture and se-curity architecture, as well as a commonmarket for the continent. A case in pointwas China, which had used its market sizeto enhance its agenda. Countries like Ni-geria, South Africa and Egypt, which hadtaken the lead in industrialization and de-velopment, would have to take the leadto create the "continental hegemonictriad" to drive the market agenda, etc.They have the capacity to establish thatalliance and undertake that vanguard role.Other measures included creating incen-tives for the political class and putting inplace checks and balances (balance ofpower) so as to ensure that the politicalclass acted in the right political direction.This, in his view, required democracy atnational level, civil society, organizing thepopular masses and a viable opposition.Other require-ments included Pan-Africa-nism as an ideology, identity, language,common values, etc. Pan-Africanism wasviewed as a cosmopolitan identity. Heconcluded that a common market andPan-Africanism would bring all peopletogether without roots.

Presentation by AdebayoOlukoshiHe noted, in his presentation the multiplepast struggles for the future and thepessimisms, which had been expressedabout Africa’s future. He warned thatwhereas the leftists envisioned thefuturistic tasks, many of which requiredattention, dedication and time, somescholars lacked time for serious research.They therefore formulated solutions forunresearched problems. This resulted inmore unintelligibility of future studies,which became more of daydreaming. Heunderlined the imperativeness ofundertaking prospective studies andexperiencing projections for the future.This required inter alia, defining theproblem, the agency and resources, thereasons why; linking the past, present andfuture; clarity about the geo-political andstrategic interventions on the Africancontinent by superpowers seeking to gain

a foothold in Africa. Others includedproposing a continental vision for Africa,responding to foreign visions aboutAfrica and felt power of the many futuressuggested about Africa. He stressed theneed for understanding the linkagebetween the notion of the collective andthat of power; how dimensions ofinequality, exclusion, marginality etc. leadto vital questions; how to unleashnecessary movements for (in) forming ourfuture; the current declarations about"emergence of Africa" amongst Africancountries; and the role of trade unions,civil society and social movements ininforming Africa’s "collective" future. Heunderpinned the imperativeness ofAfricans designing their own destinyinstead of reacting to external demandsthrough the current projects like NEPADand Vision 2063; building internalcapacities while rejecting externalagendas. This was because everymeaningful future had to be sufficientlyinformed by the present.

Presentation by Yang GuangThis presentation raised two importantpoints on the Chinese research commu-nity’s view about Africa and China-Afri-ca cooperation. The first one expressedgreat optimism of the Chinese researchcommunity about the future of Africa andits development. This optimism wasbased on observations and progress attheoretical level. They considered con-cepts like NEPAD, developmental state,etc. which were combining the role of themarket and state to address external chal-lenges and relate to the domestic reforms.Another example was the formulation ofpromising projects like Agenda 2063 plusspecific programmes/sectoral responses.He emphasized that Africa had to own itsfuture and deve-lopment.

On the second point, he envisionedChina-Africa cooperation being beneficialto Africaand identified the followingpreconditions for attaining this: improvingthe terms of trade for Africa, infrastructuredevelopment, technological transfer,employment and experience-sharing withAfrica, cooperation between Chinese andAfrican intellectual communities andthink tanks. He stressed that Africa’sdevelopment was possible; that Africancountries had to deliberately andtirelessly work towards development theway China had done. They would haveto translate the continental visions tonational visions and improve investment

conditions. He opined that the Chinesemodel/experience was of comparativevalue for African elites and concluded thatnot democratic development but adictatorial one could do for Africa the wayit had done for China. The issue was toaddress questions of inequality throughredistribution rather than neoliberaldevelopmentalism.

Presentation by Benjamin SoaresThe presentation started by exploring"Euro-pessimism" versus "Afro-pessi-mism". It explained that many develop-ments in Europe showed how studies onAfrica were waning in Europe; that highereducation in Europe was under stressdue to difficulties of funding and otherreasons including reduction in Africanstudents’ scholarships; reducing scopesof scholarships to predetermined themes,pressure for students to finish in time,pressure to raise external funding, etc.These have resulted in reduction in thequality and quantity of education, re-search and limited focus on "Centres ofExcellence". The saving grace was thatAfrican studies has begun to flourish el-sewhere like Asia due to multipolarisationof the world by BRICS and MINT (Ma-laysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey).Many Africans were in Asia and othernon-Euro-American spaces. All thesepointed to the central role of CODESRIAcontinentally and globally. It would haveto remain as an African voice in the faceof the increasing anti-academic and anti-intellectual developments.

Round Table2: "Building HealthySocieties – Epidemic Control andPrevention"

Chairperson : Cheikh Ibrahim NiangPresenters :

• Phillis Kanki,• Isabel Casimiro,• Ibrahim Abdullah• Khoudia Sow

All the four presentations focused on thepandemic threats to humanity in Africa.Three were on Ebola, which raided andbesieged the Mano River Basin in WestAfrica in May 2014. While it practicallyshut down three countries, but Nigeriaand Senegal were able to nip it in the budthrough stringent enforcement ofadministrative-political-medical measures.The fourth presentation explored HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa and Brazil. Thefour presentations showed how states


and peoples respond when faced withsocio-medical threats. They demonstratedhow different responses; measures andinterventions by the states, societies, andexternal actors can determine the spread,longevity, virulence and magnitude of anyepidemic regardless of its infectiousnessand malignancy. They also demonstratedthe political character of these pandemics.

Round Table 3: Discussion Session on"Understanding and Transcending

Fundamentalism" Held on 9 June 2015from 4:15 – 5:45 PM.

Chairperson: Anyang’Nyong’o

Presenters:• Fatou Sow• Abdul Raufu Mustapha• Michael J. Neocosmos• Jibrin Ibrahim,• Ousmane Kane

Presenters in this round table raised issuesrevolving on how notions of exclusion,rejections of status quos and quests foralternatives either through persuasion orcoercion always characterized funda-mentalisms. Examples included messianicsalvation movements in the urban areasthat promised the end of the world. Thequestion was what these movements hadon progressive movements, how theyrationalized oppression, and therelationship between political power andfundamentalisms. Another commonpeculiarity was their conservativerejection of cultural imperialism withoutany aim of effecting any social transfor-mation. Their reliable constituency wasthe urban poor on whom they thrived buthad to use compulsion on the agrarianpopulation. This was because the latterhad no time to waste on them.

Fatou Sow’s presentation focused onfundamentalism in Senegal and focusedthe inherency of ideological terrorism onwomen in all fundamentalisms. Shepointed out that religious fundamentalismwas culturally ingrained. She explainedhow this fundamentalism rejected genderparity on flimsy, nonreligious ground thatman was above woman. The problem wasthat while Senegal was a Muslim country,it politically proclaimed secularism ratherthan theocracy. She emphasized thatrights were not in the Koran but werepolitical. As such, Senegal could not baseon the Koran to define political rightssince it was secular. She underlined howthere was little discourse on political

Islam and that it required more attentionrather than politics alone.

On his part, Abdul Raufu Mustapha beganby explaining how there was anideological contestation within Islam inNigeria and that some enemies of thestate were going into extremistantagonistic fundamentalism. Whilelooking at the violence being perpetratedby Boko Haram in Nigeria, he pointed outthat the bmajority of Muslims – 90 percentwere not Boko Haram. He highlighted sixdimensions of fundamentalism, whichneeded comprehending and transcendingto be able to decolonize it.

1. Clear distinction between globalIslam and local ones like BokoHaram;

2. Take their ideology seriously andtheir utilitarian political agenda.

3. Their own interpretation of history;4. Sources of fundamentalism –

poverty or wicked Islam?5. Cruciality of politics. E.g. how

developments in local, regional andnational governments informfundamentalisms.

6. Fundamentalisms not monolithic andnot all are extremists and violence-oriented.

John Neocosmos reflected on Africanpolitics of peace amidst intensified non-state violence. He focused on fundamen-talist politics and how people at thegrassroots opposed it. Focusing onxenophobia in South Africa, he raised thefollowing issues:

1. That identity politics was fascism.Xenophobic nationalist violence hadspecific features. Not only states butalso agencies/people.

2. That inventing the Other becomesan obstacle to the understanding ofthe Other and leads to violence.

3. That dominance of neoliberal capi-talism enables exclusionary organ-ization, leads to false humanism andfalse universalism – thinking aroundnarrow interests.

4. That liberal states create conditionsfor exclusion and inequality; no ideaof egalitarian state. That theminimum of common good shouldnot be subjected to the market, andthat it required thinking outside thestate and its logic.

5. That there was need to study howpeople think when they areconfronted by a problem. That this

was imperative in Africa where manypeople were guided by existing beliefsystems. That without returning torelive the past, it would be imperativeto return to identity politics.

Jibrin Ibrahim argued that fundamentalismwas a return to the source for newinspiration in religion. The problem wastextuality. The Biblical and Koranic textsgave interpretations, which could guidepraxis. Fundamentalisms were aboutcontent and choices, which people didnot know. Actions were taken about thatunderstanding. He noted that post-colonial Africa had a very high level ofreligiosity and religious practicesincluding prayers, which wereincreasingly consuming a lot of time,thoughts, money and other resources.

Ousmane Kane, in his presentation,began by historicizing Islam andChristianity in Africa, their growth andhow they had increased their education.He then etymologized fundamentalismfrom the end of the twentieth century,explored its intertwinement with use ofviolence and why it had been increasingwith new jihad groups as the literaturefrom 2011-2014 showed. He explained howand why Islamic and Christian religiousmilitants were challenging the powerfulstates in West Africa, killing people,controlling territory and taking peoplehostage, etc. The question that emergedwas on the possibility of understandingthe most fundamentalists and proceedsto transcend them. He reflected on howChristianity and Islam were dominatingAfrica and their divisive character.

Round-Table 4-Reconfiguring South-South Relations for GlobalTransformations

Presenters:• Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Centre

of Economic and Social Studies –Coimbra (Portugal)

• Kuan-Hsing Chen, Institute for SocialResearch and Cultural Studies, Inter-Asia School, Chiao Tung University(Taiwan)

• Lin Xinfeng, Chinese, Academy forSocial Sciences (China)

• Sam Moyo , African Institute forAgrarian Studies, Zimbabwe

The round table opened with remarksfrom the chair, Ebrima Sall, who noted thatglobal relations were lopsided and thepower relations unbalanced in favour ofWestern nations. Within this context it


was noted that the South had evolved asan epistemological construct, concept, aswell as its geographical dimensions. Henoted that it was an opportune momentto rethink the South within the changingglobal order. CODESRIA has beenconnecting with scholars in Asia and LatinAmerica in a quest for knowledge buildingin the South by scholars from the Souththemselves. Intellectual collaborationbetween CODESRIA and InternationalDevelopment Economics Associates(IDEAs) in Asia, and the Latin AmericanCouncil of Social Sciences (CLACSO) inLatin America is currently in placethrough various tri-continental researchprojects.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, outlined theconceptualisation of the term "GlobalSouth" and observed the various formsof historical and contemporary coope-ra-tion in the South. He noted that the "Glo-bal South" was not a geographical term,but a geo-political term used to describeparts of the world that have been histori-cally associated with various terminolo-gy including "developing world" and"third world". Global South cooperationhe noted was emerging as alternative tothe dominant North-North cooperationthat currently characterises the worldlandscapes. Santos traced the origin ofSouth-South cooperation to the Haiti in-dependence movement. It was exhibitedin various independence movements inAfrica and Latin America (e.g. the role ofUSSR and China in assisting the variousliberation move-ments on the continent –Mozambique and Zimbabwe). The South-South cooperation in its contemporaryforms is currently fragmented and cutsacross intellectual, state and civil societyspheres. He noted that BRICS was a con-temporary form of South-South coopera-tion aimed at providing an alternativedevelopment platform for the south.

Chen’s presentation outlined the need forSouth-South cooperation in order toovercome the challenges imposed by thedivision of nation-states during thecolonial period. This is required to re-integrate Asian scholars in particular atthe level of knowledge production. Heoutlined various initiatives in Asia todevelop Inter-Asian Networks from theearly 1990s that culminated in theformation of Inter-Asia School in 2012.Unequal resource distribution in theworld was highlighted as a key imperative

that requires South-South Cooperation toredress.

In his own contribution, Li Xinfengfocused on China-Africa relations in theSouth-South cooperation. He indicatedthat South-South cooperation has grownsince the Bandung Conference. TheSouth is striving for a new world order asthe resource gap between the North andSouth was widening characterised byincreasing poverty levels and wars in theSouth. South-South relations are thus apriority for developing countries at thisjuncture. China and Africa, according tohim, share a long history of collaborationand common history in the role ofagriculture in economic transformation.The relations are based on mutual trustbetween the two cooperating partnersand do not entail any strings attached asthose of the West.

Sam Moyo prefaced his presentation byasking what changes have taken place inthe South under global transformationover the last couple of decades and whateffects these have had on South-Southrelations. Another key question posedwas how knowledge production can bedeployed to enhance South-South coo-peration. Overall, North-South relationshave remained dominant, despite the in-creasing growth in the South-South coo-peration. It was highlighted that since theBandung conference, there has beenmuch social and economic differentiationbetween the North and South, while dif-ferentiation has also been exhibited wi-thin the South itself with the emergenceof semi-industrialised or semi-peripherycountries in the South. The intellectualtendencies, it was noted, had been to fo-cus on the jump by some countries in theSouth over the last 60 years from peri-phery to semi-periphery or semi-industria-lised countries. Sam Moyo said that therewere two broad perspectives in the un-derstanding of South-South relations.One was of "Recolonisation of Africa"specifically with respect to China’s in-fluence on the continent which was groun-ded on popular sentiment on the street.He noted that the current framing ofknowledge on China-Africa relations wasdominated by Western scholars, yet it wasCODESRIA which was in the forefront ofarticulating the centre-periphery relationsin the 1970s. The major challenge for CO-DESRIA is how to produce knowledgeabout Africa by African scholars. A who-le range of interesting questions were

noted to have emerged during the courseof global transformation with respect toAfrica’s relations with other parts of theworld, specifically with regards to landissues. These included, the growth in thenumber of actors from about three or fourEuropean countries during the colonialperiod to about 22 actors from the North,East and South investing in land resour-ces in Africa. Now land investments haveattracted over 15 countries from Europe,whose identities tend to be hidden in thephenomenon of sovereign funds that areused to acquire land. The relations aremuch more complex and require detailedempirical examination, he said.

Round-Table 5: Industrialisation, Tradeand Structural Transformation

• Takyiwaa Manuh, UNECA (AddisAbaba)

• Said Adejumobi, UNECA (Lusaka) • Theresa Moyo (University of

Limpopo)

Summary of PresentationsTakyiwa Manuah’s presentation focusedon the social imperatives required tosupport Africa’s push for industria-lisation, trade and structural trans-formation. She noted that industrialisationand trade were back on the agenda andUNECA was devoting substantialresearch and publications to these topics.Africa’s economic growth was noted asthe fastest growing in the region over thelast decade, but the growth has nottranslated into poverty reduction for theregion’s poor people. The growth is beingprimarily driven by services rather thanmanufacturing with limited employmentopportunities. Manufactured goods onlyconstitute a miniscule of Africa total trade,while intra-African trade was only 16.3percent of its total trade volumes. Theopportunities for Africa to industrialisewere immense given the substantial valueof its natural resource and demographicgrowth that will provide a huge internalmarket for its products. For Africa toachieve its objectives key social inves-tments were required in developing thehuman capacities through education,health, social infrastructure and qualityof employment.

On education, it was noted that althoughuniversal education had increased on thecontinent, completion rates and qualityof learning achievements were still verylow. It was thus important for Africa to


focus education investments on Science,Technology and Mathematics (STEM)education that will catalyse and form thebasis for the continent’s industrialstrategy. The health of Africa’s workforce,Professor Manuah noted, was directlylinked to labour productivity. Investmentin health facilities and quality of healthservices is thus a key building block inthe industrialisation process. Thegrowing urbanisation in Africa, notaccompanied by industrialisation, has ledto a strain on the cities’ social infra-structure. With regards to employment,she noted that over 77% of the employedpeople in Africa work in the informal sectorcharacterised by low labour productivityand technologies. It was thus imperativeto develop the skills to match the industrialaspirations of the continent in order tomatch the demand.

Professor Said Adejumobi’s presentationaddressed the intersection between "Re-gional trade and industrialisation". Heprefaced his presentation by highlightingtwo major policy developments that hadtaken place on the continent recently thatincluded the signing of the Tripartite FreeTrade Agreement between COMESA,EAC and SADC by 15 countries in June2015 and the adoption of a Strategy onIndustrialisation by SADC in April 2015as important steps towards the trade andindustrialisation agenda. He howevernoted that there were tensions and con-tradictions regarding regional trade andliberalisation, as fears abound that Chinawill sieze the enlarged economic spacecreated by the TFTA since industrialisa-tion was low. Liberalised regional trade isgenerally associated with less win-winsituations so the imperative for industriali-sation is back on the agenda in a big way.

Adejumobi noted that "Structural Trans-formation" should be understood as shiftin the structure of production that isaccompanied by qualitative impro-vements in human capital and socialdevelopment. Its four components entail:(i) re-allocation of resources fromAgriculture to industry; (ii) Demographicshift from country to town; (iii) rise ofmodern industrial sector and (iv) Growthof services sector.

The current aspirations for indus-trialisation represent a second major pushon the continent following ImportSubstitution Industrialisation Strategiesadopted by most African governmentsafter independence. The first phase had

failed as a result of flawed assumptionsthat (i) Industrialisation can be importedfrom the West ; (ii) Foreign Direct Inves-tment (FDI) will stay on the continent and(iii) Technology transfer without adaptingto local conditions will suit Africa.

To achieve its objectives in Indus-trialisation and Structural Transformationfour key issues were highlighted byAdemujobi. These include :

(i) Industrialisation needs to beconceptualised as a political projectwith an economic plan. Africancountries will thus need to adoptthe relevant policy choices andinstitutions to undertake thismission.

(ii) FDI will not propel the indus-trialisation of the continent, thusthere is a need to develop adomestic industrial capitalist classthat will lead this process.

(iii) Industrialisation should be basedon the development of new ente-rprises in agriculture and alliedsectors

(iv) Race to the bottom will not assistin Africa’s quest for industrialisa-tion as represented by increasingnumbers of bilateral relationsbetween several African countriesand China. Specifically it washighlighted that the bilateral agree-ments were more favourable toChina than they were to Africancountries.

Theresa Moyo’s presentation focused onthe "Innovative Industrialisation Appro-aches in Africa : Experiences of Botswana,Mauritius and South Africa. The questfor industrialisation, it was noted, was notnew to Africa but can be traced to theLagos Plan of Action amongst many otherinitiatives including the UN decade ofindustrialisation. The manufacturingvalue added on the continent was notedto be on the decline, whilst its reliance onprimary commodity production andexports remains a key characteristic ofmany countries in Africa. The imperativefor industrialisation is being partly drivenby external demand shocks on the pricesof primary commodities. Moyo highli-ghted that industrialisation was key forAfrica as it would spur the developmenton the continent, create backward andforward linkages between various sectorson the economy, and reduce externaldepen-dency on manufactured products.

Experiences from abroad can be used byAfrica to develop an industrial strategybased on natural resources as was thecase in Norway. The successful indus-trialisation of Africa, according to Moyowas contigent upon eight key factors : (i)development of institutions to supportindustry ; (ii) implementation of growthpolicies ; (iii) enabling macro-economicpolicies ; (iv) investment in skills andhuman development ; (v) regional andinternational trade agreements andpartnerships ; (vi) intensive efforts toattract FDI ; (vii) inclusive approachesand (viii) developmental state. She notedthat the three countries she examined hadmade progress in diversifying theireconomies. Growth was highlighted onthree variables analysed by the studynamely; job creating, manufacturing,mining and services sectors.

Some of the questions raisedduring the discussionsPertinent questions raised in thediscussion were on the need to clarify thetype of industrialisation that is beingpursued in this second phase ofindustrialisation: is it for export promotionor import substitution? Is it heavy or lightindustrialisation? Is it labour or capitalintensive industrialisation? Is it foreignor domestic industrialisation?

The drivers of industrialisation on thecontinent were also questioned by theparticipants. In particular, how thedomestic industrial class would be deve-loped given that private banks in generalare not willing to lend for long-termprojects. While Africa was noted to havedemographic dividend in the projectgrowth of the population that is assumedwill form a huge "market" for the manu-factured products, yet the demographywill not constitue a market if it is notaccompanied by income growth to formeffective demand patterns for goods andservices. Building the incomes of thegrassroots was thus noted as a missinglink in current industrialisation strategieswhich benefit a few people creating dualeconomies of rich and poor people. In thisregard, there were calls to ensure thatAfrica’s industrialisation is not solelydesigned for the service of Euro-Americato the exclusion of its majority poorpeople.

The outcomes for industrialisationprocess were also a key concern in thediscussion especially on the pattern of


benefitting only a few people, while thesocio-economic character of the majorityregress or stagnate. It was highlightedthat there were no guarrantees thatindustrialisation would bridge theinequality gaps as is the case currently inSouth Africa, the state was expected tointervene to redistribute incomes toprotect the poor people on the continent.How to ensure that industrialisation doesnot result in dual economies consistingof a minority few and majority poor was akey question raised in the discussions.

The questions raised in the discussionsalso focused on how Africa has been siteof experimentation of industrial projectsthat were based on wholesale importationof Western models. The prospects fornational projects for industrialisation atcurrent juncture was also put under thespotlight in Africa given that state-ledcompanies were instrumental in the caseof China in spurring industrial growth, yetStructural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs)in Africa discouraged state participation.

The ideological orientation of the indus-trialisation strategy was a key concernhighlighted in the discussion. Participantsnoted that while industrial strategies inthe EU are based on national interests,the overarching ideology of pan-Africa-nism was not embedded within the stra-tegies being pursued by Africa. The roleof globalisation in the industrialisationagenda was also raised in the discussion.Indeed it was highlighted that there aremany countries in the South that haveindustrialised as part of the globalisationprocess. This put to the fore three chal-lenges that need to be resolved in the in-dustrialisation agenda: (i) sovereignity ofcountries within globalisation context; (ii)role of the state within the current neo-liberal framework that is averse to stateintervention and (iii) how to mobilise do-mestic resources to support the indus-trialisation process.

Round-Tables 6 and 7: The Africa We Want

Chair: Thandika Mkandawire

Presenters

• Ndongo Sylla, Rosa Luxemborg• Natasha Shivji, State University of

New York• Mamadou Diouf, Columbia University• Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Uni-

versity of Ghana• Mshai Mwangola, Africa Leadership

Centre, Kenya

• Mahmood Mamdani, MISR/ColumbiaUniversity

• Ato Onoma, CODESRIA• Marylinn Ossome, Rhodes University

Professor Thandika Mkandawire openedthe roundtable by highlighting that thepredictions about Africa’s future requirea huge amount of imagination in SocialSciences. Mired in the day to day survivalof the massess, it is easy to forget toreflect on the future. Eight presentationswere made each exploring differentperspectives of imagining the ‘Africa wewant’.

Sylla Ndongo outlined two broadperspectives that are deployed to thinkabout the future; namely economic growthplans and equality projects. The latter ischaracterised by a mission for achieveinga future of equal participation by thecitizenry in shaping their destiny throughthe breaking of the monopoly power heldby politicians. The former are mostcommonly used to predict the future onthe basis of economic growth projections.They take the form of 50 year programmesthat are predicated on the assumption thatequality will follow from economic growth.Examples cited by Ndongo included theLagos Plan of Action and current Agenda2063 under the auspices of the AfricanUnion. The economic growth plans tendto provide superficial figures of growththat are not achievable.

According to Ndongo, economic growthfigures are an unreliable indicator ofhuman development and progress. Usingtwo country case studies (Botswana andEquatorial Guinea) which are touted tohave done well economically between1960 and 2000 in terms of GDP per capitagrowth rates and compare favourably tosuch developed countries as Spain,Ndongo notes that their humandevelopment indicators rank poorly. Forinstance, Equatorial Guniea was rankedthe least developed country despite theimpressive economic growth rates. WhilstBotswana, which is also ranked veryhighly in terms of democracy and goodgovernance with growth rates exceedingthose of South Korea between 1960 and2000, had the least life expectancy.

Natasha Shivji argued that we shouldinstead pose a different question astalking about the future when we havenot sufficiently understood our presentis problematic. It is based on a modernityproject, yet the challenges we face in

Africa are of how to re-assert the eman-cipation of the African peoples. Thepossibilities for "now" were more urgentthan those of the future. The strugglesof today are many, including closedsurvival spaces for young people andneed our attention to forge ahead. Sheproposed the deployment of "History"as method to retrieve the history of theoppressed, before we imagine the future.Such a process will lead to a present thatis well understood. In looking forward,Shivji argued that the deployment ofhistory as a method enables the under-standing of how the struggles of Africanpeople are rooted in a deep historicalcontext.

Mamadou Diouf’s presentation alsoemphasised the importance of history inunderstanding the future. The mainargument proffered by Diouf was that itwas impossible to imagine the future ifwe cannot understand the present. Hehighlighted that it was important to know"who was thinking about the future ofAfrica" and the perspectives of theaverage African in these issues, beyondthe intellectual dominance in thesediscourse. There are a plurality of visionson Africa which are based on differentperspectives. Africa’s future, he noted,was imagined in economic terms,precluding the thinking outside of theeconomic structure.

This historical analysis, Diouf arguesneeds to be pursued from a long-termperspective. The history of Africa ispredominantly thought of in threeparadigms: (i) as tied to the shackles ofdependence; (ii) the hope of the worldand (iii) Africa must unite. Rather thanbeing imposed on the world system,Africa needs to take its place in the worldby recreating a new universal that deta-ches it from the perception of a dark past.Structural adjustment policies made thefuture of the continent uncertain. Itbrought to the fore the need for newquestioning on how we can build a newfuture.

Cultural dimensions, including the issuesof languages, which are negated by"economistic imagining" are also criticalin thinking about the future. In fact, Dioufemphasised that we need a culture ofsocial construction to forge ahead. Thisbrings to the fore the characterisation ofa post-genocide Rwanda as model ofeconomic development.


Titled "Dreaming Wide Awake", AkosuaAmpofo argues that in imagining thefuture of Africa, story telling provided aneffective tool compared to science. Sheargued that science only has assistivepower but has no causal power which arefound in story telling. Stories from thepast need to be reconnected to the future,whereby story tellers leverage on ourhopes to dream about the future. Themethod of storytelling in thinking aboutthe future, Ampofo informed theparticipants, was well deployed byNkrumah through the use of variousconcert groups to popularise his agendafor a Pan-African project. Recent examplesof story telling cited by Ampofo includedthe use of social media for social actionthrough platforms such as Ushaidi that isused to track conflicts in some Africancountries. Political satire, she argued, iscreative space to think about the futureand it constitutes part of the democra-tisation project. Overall, Ampofo urges usto be prophetic in thinking about thefuture and be alert to diversity, inter-generational and gender dimensions.Professor Mamdani expressed reserva-tions in future studies, but insteademphasised the need to historicise thepresent in order to get resources to openup new possibilities. To support hisreservations, Mamdani observed thatmajor historical event had been predictedincluding the fall of the USSR and collapseof apartheid in South Africa. In order todemonstrate the importance of history inunderstanding the present, Mamdanicited two examples, namely that ofxenophobia outbreaks in South Africaand the discourse on globalisation. Withreference to the xenophobia outbreaks,he noted that the current interpretations(i. South Africans are not grateful for helprendered during apartheid by fellowAfricans; ii. Xenophobia is nothing newon the African continent and iii. There isno social justice in South Africa) were notthinking of the present historically. SouthAfrica was the hub of migrant labour inSouthern Africa for long historical periods.Xenophobia’s origins are traced from thedisenfranchisement of migrant labourersafter 1994 elections in South Africa on thebasis of narrow definitions of whobelongs and who doesnt. It was thus anorigin of the political class, and recentexpressions are following the wayprovided by the leaders. Regardingglobalisation, Mamdani also argued thatit is discussed in a historical vacuum, yet

its origins can be traced to the Indianocean trade which was characterised bynon-militarisation. In its contemporaryforms, it is associated with militarisation,global securitisation and exclusion of themasses from reaping the benefits.

In her presentation, "Come and imaginewith me" Mwangola argues that the Africawe want should be based on five tenetsnamely; (i) cultural in foundation ; (ii)creative in essence ; (iii) democratic insubstance (iv) generative and (v)prospective in orientation. Culture isconsidered as the foundation of a nationand in imagining the future, intellectualsneed to engage with the cultural vision.Following Cabral, Mwangola equatesnational liberation to be an act of culture.The creative in essence aspect entails theneed to bring something new to thethinking about the future – what is newin our thinking ? The generative aspecthinges on Fanon’s theorisation that everygeneration must define its own mission,on which others will stand on. As suchevery generation is part of a long line ofhistory. The mentoring of the youth isthus a critical aspect of thinking aboutthe future.

Onoma argued for the importance ofstudying African institutions in the lightof what they think of Africa of the future.The presentation made three obser-vations that need to be taken intoaccount in imagining the future of Africa :

(i) It ought to be viewed not asgeographical location, but assomething we want to create. Twovisions are dominant in thisparadigm – one which thinks ofAfrica in terms of the externalcharacteristics of the world (e.g.GDP) and second ; thinking of Africain terms of the internal characteristicsof the people that live in it

(ii) View it as its making. It is not a state,it will keep moving towards thisvision through a model of constantcausation

(iii) How can we engender this processof constant causation

The institutions are always characterisedas missing in the African context and theirinsertion is suggested to be a panacea tothe continent’s problems. Yet in studyingsocial realities in Africa the emphasis hasbeen on macro and micro-institutions tothe exclusion of the meso-level institutions.

Ossome’s presentation emphasised theneed to resolve the present challengesthat are being faced by Africa before wethink about the future. She opined thatunder neo-liberalism, humanity was underattack. Neoliberal democracy, she arguedhad intensified the attacks on people’sidentities, emphasised the politics ofrecognition to the exclusion of the politicsof distribution that could pave way forthe masses out of poverty and soverei-gnity of states had been compromised bythe transnational movement of goods.Neoliberal democracy has absolved thestate of its responsibility in protecting thepeople. In fact the states are more andmore constructing the people as theproblem. The protection of the people’srights is deferred to global institutionssuch as the ICC.

The human rights discourse within theneoliberal framework negates the notionof history and presents all people as beingequal, yet the reality is that countries suchas South Africa that were touted asmodels of upholding human rights arefailing to sustain increasing populationswho are impoverished. Women inparticular are noted as key losers underneoliberal democracy and are increasinglyreliant on men to ascend to positions ofauthority, yet they constitute the majorityof the voters. Landgrabis increasing atan alarming pace under neoliberalism withthe dispossession of peasants of theirland for conversion into large-scalecapitalist farms where they are promisedjobs, yet history tells us the wageeconomy is not sufficient to meet thereproduction of the rural families.

Some of the key questions raised in thediscussions were that the thinking aboutthe future of Africa was insurmountablefor intellectuals to pursue alone. Inparticular, the absence of the views andaspirations of the people were observedin the discussions. Questions related howdifficult it is to develop a future that iscompliant with the aspirations of thepeople (including the youth), and the rolesthat organic intellectuals that are at theservices of oppressed people can play.The issue of the people’s agency wasalso evoked in the discussions, with callsto understand why African people leavetheir leaders to construct them as theproblems and how this is linked to thedemocratisation of society.


Concerns were also raised about who wasthinking about the future of Africa.Whether thinking about the future was aEurocentric project or rooted in Africa.The role of external actors in chartingAfrica’s destiny was identified asproblematic in the discussions, with somecalls for Africa to define its ownapproaches to development that are basedon African unity. The issue of whatlanguages were being used to convey themessages about the future was also anissue of concern. French and English arethe predominant languages used, yetparticipants noted that people understandmore their indigenous languages.

Questions focused on the influence ofconflicts in thinking about the future asthese have a long history in Africa in thevarious dimensions, including internalcountry conflicts, regional conflicts, andconflicts between different classes insociety. The negation of gender equalityin the economic growth models was alsoraised during the discussion. Specificallyparticipants questioned the assumptionsthat gender equality was inherent ineconomic and political equality.

Reports from the ParallelSessionsAfrican Popular Culture and TheImagination of Alternate Futures

Chair: F.E.M.K. Senkoro

Presenters:

• Gbemisola Aderemi Adeoti:Demystifying the Future in Africa’s(un)Vanishing Past; A Study ofNgugi wa Thiongo’ s Novels

• Msia Kibona Clark: AfropolitanIdentities: Representations ofAfrican Immigrant Experiences inAfrican Hip-Hop

• Catarina Isabel Caldeira Martins:Recreating African Futures throughLiterary Imagination: The NewestGender, Racial, National and Africanidentities as revealed in Mario LùcioSousa’s O Novissimo Testamento(The New Testament)

• Francis Beng Nyamjoh: AmosTutuola’s The Palm Wine Drinkardand the Art of Endless Possibilities

The parallel session was devouted topresentions on specific historical andsocial context of the political and geo-social contexts within which the work isset and the form the artist uses to convey

a vision of an alternate space. Thepresenters shared alternative paths to thefuture as articulated by the protagonistor artist’s vision as expressed within thework. The choices made by the artists todeploy certain stylistic devices or formsunderscore the thematic content of theworks in discussion, and leave us with ademonstration of how art references, is inconversation with and either affirms orsubverts other artistic texts. Forexample,the Saviour as envisioned inparticular in and Ngugi wa Thiongo’sMatigari and in Mario Lùcio Sousa’s ONovissimo Testamento gives us alternatevisions of what the facilitator of liberationmight bring us, and might be. These aresimilar in that the Saviour is not drawnfrom the dominant class and likes,behaves and works very differently tocommon conceptualisations of what oneexpects the Saviour or Messaiah of thepeople to be and do.

The importance of creative intellectualwork to be taken as seriously and inconversation with other intellectualdiscourse, particularly in the dreaminginto being alternative futures for Africacannot be over-emphasised. The abilityfor popular / mass culture to reach wideaudience and act as a catalyst for socialorganising should be given emphasis.

Towards more democratic futures –making governance beneficial to allAfricans

Presenters:

• Ante Sane – Howard University –Gender Inequality in the Process ofPublic Good Governance: The Caseof Senegalese Parliament

• Maria Teresa Henriques Da CunhaMartins – University of Coimbra(Portugal) – Women in Power:Women, Democracy and HumanDignity in Non-capitalist Experiencesled by Women in South-East Africa

• Felesiah Arudo Yieke – LaikipiaUniversity College, Kenya – WomenCitizenship and ParticipatoryDemocracy in Developmental Statesin Africa: The Case of Kenya

• Adediran Daniel Ikuomola –Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria– Electioneering, Electoral Violenceand Fear of Crime: The Odds inMain-streaming Gender in NigerianPolitics

The first panelist, Maria Teresa HenriquesDa Cunha Martins, in her presentation,stressed the need for women to make amark in their lives and that of their familiesbeyond the patriarchal environment. Shenoted that historically, Africans are viewedas primitive and ignorant and this hasaffected the case of African womenresulting in double prejudice. Also, ineconomic terms, African women areviewed as poor and less visible butalthough African women are weakphysically, they are strong in other areasespecially in perseverance, dignity, careof the young. She noted that women areseen to be solely focused on reproductivework while men are seen to haveproductive work adding that thisdichotomy does not make sense becauseall works are productive. She furtherstressed that women have the capacityto manage things around them includingfinances. They have a sense ofresponsibility and thus the stories ofwomen should be heard from theirperspective and lived experiences.

The second panelist, Felesiah ArudoYieke noted that women’s access to thepublic sphere has become a burning issueand that women are still marginalized inthis area. She posed a rhetorical question:why is it that several countries are aheadof Kenya in meeting this goal of improvedwomen participation in developmentagenda and further identified contributoryconstraints to include poverty, pooreducation, unequal opportunities,conflict, etc. The presenter noted that thisissue has been in the front burner of someNGOs and international organizations inKenya though there appear to beinequality in their initiatives and thus littleimprovement seen. For example, somefocused on the plight of elitist women withlittle work done on that of the rural women.The presenter concluded that Kenyashould borrow from initiatives fromcountries outside of Kenya to improveon this and that development cannot besustained if women are not fully part ofdevelopmental process

The third panelist Adediran DanielIkuomola noted that the traditional roleof women as housewives and homekeeper puts women in a disadvantagedposition especially in participation inpolitics. His study examined variousfactors that put women behind in politics


by interviewing 45 key women leaders inOyo and Lagos states of Nigeria.

The fourth panelist, Ante Sane in herpresentation, noted that Senegal is ranked6th in the world with largest womenpopulation in the parliament. Inspite ofthis slight growth she noted that there isstill room for improvement. Factors thathinder women participation in politicswere identified to include: illiteracy, lackof access and control over income andother resources; language barrier – thisis because most of the charters are writtenin different languages. Other factorsinclude: lack of solidarity among women,lack of training on the roles andregulations of the parliament. Strategiesthat could be used to overcome thesebarriers include: partnering with men inpolitics, girl child education, skill asses-sment and training, improved solidarityamong women. She recommended thatcreating a national database that willhouse bills, improved skills in communi-cation writing and in rule of parliament,girl-child education etc., should be upheld.

The African Diaspora in the Recreationof Africa’s Futures

Presenters

• José Mvuenzolo Bazonzi ; Ladiaspora africaine et l’identitébiculturelle: enjeux et defies pour lareinvention de l’Afrique

• Abdoulaye Guèye ; Expatriation etdéveloppement: l’investissementdes universitaires africains en posteen Amérique du Nord dans lerenforcement des institutions derecherche scientifique en Afrique

• Frank Aurelien Tchokouagueu;Impact des mutations socioéco-nomiques et démographiquesactuelles et futures en Afrique surles échanges migratoires entrel’Afrique et le reste du monde: quandl’immigration perd le nord

• Jalani Adwin Hamid Sadiki NiaahOlana Niaah; "I’d rather see asermon than hear one …": Africa/Heaven and the Diaspora in CreatingGlobal Futures and Transformation

The presenations here focused on theAfrican diaspora, stressing on the fact thatthe diaspora is highly skilled and therefo-re has the potential to play a crucial rolein African development. While there is alink between Africans in the diaspora andtheir home countries and they also con-

tribute to African societies and economies,the author argues that more can be done.There is a need to reinvigorate the dias-pora so that they move into quality as-pects, which will then boost growth. Theskills and experience of the diaspora couldlead to the creation of a new Africa throu-gh the development of a bicultural identi-ty, which will be formed, by the forgingand reinforcement of transnational andintergenerational connections with thecontinent. The bicultural identity will in-tegrate and preserve African culture andidentity while also including foreign cul-tures and modernity. The author also ex-plores the contribution of education andwork in Western societies towards Afri-can development, arguing that there is aneed to rethink the African model for de-velopment through the crucial role of edu-cation. There is also the issue of culturalidentity and the author argues that cultu-re is adaptive. There is a dialectical move-ment between people and regions andmigrants can incorporate new cultural ele-ments into host societies. The author talksabout scientific socialisation and develo-pment of education and labour as beingsignificant. Some constraints are howe-ver present; for instance the brain drainsyndrome has caused a lot of damage.There is also the risk of cultural loss, es-pecially through the influence of westerncultures and globalisation and the youthin the diaspora are confused on whichculture to adopt – the ancestral or that ofthe country they live in. The author con-cludes by stating that one cannot unde-restimate the contribution of the diasporato development in Africa. The diaspora isfree to choose elements to contribute cul-turally to African development as it is alsoreconfiguring its own cultural identity.

Decoloniality and African Futures inthe Twenty-first Century

Chair: Nkolo Foe

Presenters:

• Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni: GlobalColoniality and the Challenges ofCreating African Futures

• Akhona Nkenkanan: No AfricanFutures Without the Liberation ofWomen: A Decolonial FeministIntervention

• Morgan Ndlovu: Coloniality ofKnowledge and the Challenge ofCreating African Futures

The papers in this session were a panel,presented in relation to each other.Ndlovu-Gatsheni laid out the theoreticalframework and the other presenterselaborated further through their focus onthe following issues.

• Decoloniality challenges theCartesian notion of being thatproduces hierarchies of cultures,and affirms a notion of being whichis contingent on others. Thequestion as to what this actuallymeans and how it influences how wethink and act as African intellectualsand beings is an important one

• What is validated by who and forwhat reasons as knowledge; what isprioritised and by who and whatreasons for African curriculum andresearch

• What does it take to go beyond the"numbers game" when it comes toaffirmative action and to what extentdoes playing the numbers gameobscure the real issues of qualitativetransformation of African societiesespecially in relation to gender?

• What experiences, processes, eventsetc dominate our understanding ofourselves, our lives, our knowledgesand therefore define who we are andwhat we invest in as we envision ourfutures? How does decoloniality asa theory take us beyond the existingalternatives that centre the colonialexperience and other experiences ofoppression, dehumanisation andpain? How does it allow us to replacethe hegemonic master-narrative withnarratives that affirm us as Africanpeoples and nations?

• What theories – such as Negritudeand Panafricanism – is decolonialityin conversation with? How does ittake us beyond the limitations andcontradictions of these into newtheoretical ground?

• Can decoloniality level out theepistemological playing ground ofthe African academy, and even in theglobal one? How might it fix theunicentricity of Eurocentricity? Canit help facilitate the re-ordering ofexisting hierarchies, epistemologies,knowledge products and processeswithin in particular the Africanacademy, providing a logic for theprioritising of African agendas andlived experiences within our univer-sities and other knowledge spaces?


International Criminal Justice,Responsibility to Protect (R2P), andSovereignty in the Africa of the Future

Presenters

• Maria Paula Guttierrez Meneses,Entangled Histories of MultipleConflicts: The Complex Landscapeof War and Peace in Mozambique

• Bahati Bahati Mujinya, Forgettingthe Crimes and the Issue ofReparation to Victims: Which Optionfor Lasting Peace in the DemocraticRepublic of Congo

• Hinnougnon Nathaniel Kitti, LaCour Pénale Internationale (CPI) àl'épreuve des poursuites en Afrique-The International Criminal Court(ICC) test of prosecutions in Africa

• Odair Bartolomeu Barros LopesVarela, External Humanitarian Inter-ventions in Africa: Legitimacy andLimits. The Case of States "Fragile","Failed" or "Collapsed"

Summary of Presentations

The presenations in this session exa-mined the international criminal justiceand the responsibility to protect Africansovereignty in the future. Maria PaulaGuttierrez Meneses’ paper highlightedthat historical uniqueness of countries areneglected when making laws in recenttimes. Nation-state building is a violentprocess in nature. The identification andpersecution of the collaborators inMozambique and the violence that charac-terized these processes is an integral partof independent Mozambique history. TheInternational Criminal Court (ICC), TruthCommissions (TC) reproduce a model forcriminal justice that, by proxy, reproducethe experiences of war courts set up withthe of World War II. However, othermodels have been in used in Africa to dealwith conflict situations, as the case of thetruth commissions in Mozambiqueillustrate. The situations analysed show,the goal of the truth commissions was tobroaden trust and to create conditions forpeople to regain their dignity, as fullytrusted citizens. But these conditions arehard to achieve, as the case of Mozam-bique demonstrates.

Bahati Bahati Mujinya’s presentationargued that amnesty and reparations tovictims is critical to peace consolidationin DRC.

Odair Bartolomeu Barros Lopes Varela’spaper argued that legitimacy has limits.

The paper provided a critical analysis ofthe foreign humanitarian interventions,especially in the post-Cold War era, in theso-called "fragile", "failed" and"collapsed" States. It specifically focusedon the causes and consequences of theemergence of the unilateral foreignmilitary interventions in late 1990s byaddressing the most emblematic andcontroversial cases and, more recently, inLibya and Mali. It also sought to map out,in an embryonic manner, the pathwaysthat can lead to overcoming the limitsposed by both multilateral and unilateralsolutions regarding foreign militaryinterventions of humanitarian nature.

Neo-Liberalism and the Financializationof Natural Resources in Africa

Presenters

• Emmanuel Kasongo Mungongo,Universite de Kinshasha (RDC) –De-mondialiser le sector minier pourdeveloper L’Afrique

• Etanislas Ngodi – Universite Marien– Vision africane des mines atgovernance de la rente a l horizon

• Teresa Maria de Cruz e Silva –Eduardo Mondlane UniversityMozambique – Access a recursonsnaturals a luta pela sobreviveaciaexperiencias de cabo DelgadoMocambique

• Moussa Willy Batenga – Universitede Ouagadougou Burkina Faso – Laquestion de l emergence decrypteea travers la valorization d uneresource naturrele au Burkina faso:le Karite (Vitellaria paradoxa)

The presentations here focused on theeffect of globalization on miningcompanies , noting that the future ofAfrica with reference to Agenda 2063,need to take into cognizance the potentialof mining sector in Africa. Access tonatural resources is a huge problem indifferent communities especially themining sector, tourism and energy sectorand the demand for energy is triggeredby the expansion of new markets andconsequently new spaces of socialstruggle have risen as a result of this.

Regional Integration and Pathways toAfrican Futures

Preseters:

• Gordon Onyango Omenya; Coalitionof the Willing as a Pathway to AfricanFuture Integration: Some Reflectionson East African Regional Integration

• Sabastiano Rwengabo; InstitutionalDesign and the APSA’s imple-mentation in Eastern Africa

• Arka Abota Aynako; Regional Integra-tion and Pathways to African future:The Case of East African Power Pool

• Nkwachukwu Julius Orji; NationalLegislative Assemblies and AfricanRegional Integration: The Role of theNigerian Parliament in ECOWAS

• Bahim El Morchid ; Pour unemeilleure integration des institutionsinformelles dans les strategies dedéveloppement en Afrique: Uneapproche néo-institutionelle

The presenters here focused on the con-ditions that were enabling and limitingregional integration in different parts ofAfrica. The need for an all-inclusive ap-proach to regional integration wasstressed. There have been changes inorganising at institutional levels, especial-ly on issues pertaining to African peaceand security architecture. Fieldwork inEast Africa showed that multiple mem-bership in regional economic communi-ties and regional brigades have createddecision-making overlaps and conflictingobligations. This has also led to differen-tial impacts on states and implementationchallenges.

In the areas of finance, banking andissues of security, a monetary affairscommittee which brings togethergovernors of central banks of thesedifferent countries is important and thereis also a need to find a way towardsfinancial integration.

Fashioning African Futures:Disciplinary, Interdisciplinary andGendered Perspectives

Presenters

• Patricia Alexandra Godinho Gomes• Jose Maria dias Teixeira

Patricia Alexandra Godinho Gomes pre-sented a paper titled ‘The GuineanWoman as Subject and Object of Contem-porary Historical Debate: Lessons fromthe Historic Examples of Theodora InáciaGomes’. She reflected on the use of indi-genous knowledge to understand Africa,adding that colonial experiences andimpact can be helpful. Jose Maria diasTeixeira, paper dealt with a reflection ongender in the society, education andinstitutions to effect transformations.Arguments were advanced that the waysociety represents gender needs change


as equality and gender tend to affect onlywomen.

Regional Integration and Pathways toAfrican Futures

• Charly Delmas Nguefack Tsafack ;La citoyenneté communautaire afri-caine et l’avenir du processusd’intégration régionale en Afrique.Comment oeuvrer pour une bonnegouvernance future de l’Union.

• Babatunde Olaitan Fagbayibo, ‘I aman African’: A Critical Examinationof the Politics of TransnationalIdentity Within the Context ofAfrican Integration

• Abdul Karim Bangura, PromotingSustainability and PredictingTipping Points in Africa: Suggestionfor a Collaborative initiative via E-clustering

• Vusi Gumede; Regional Integrationand African Renaissance: Movingbeyond the Rhetoric

• Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo;Africa’s Relations with BRICS: ASearch for Multipolar DevelopmentParadigms or Reconfiguration ofUnipolar Liberal Globalisation

The presenations here focused oncommunity citizenship and regionalintegration. Questions on how theinstitution of African citizenship couldconsolidate regional citizenship in Africawere posed as well as the criteria for theestablishment of status of communitycitizen to the African. The need to movebeyond the legal aspect, when definingoneself as an African was proded muchas were reflections on what makes peopleAfrican. Lastly, one author made apresenation on how mathematicians canhelp Africans achieve the challenges ofdevelopment – work with social and otherbehavioural scientists to help Africa andadopt the mathematics of sustainabilityand mathematics of tipping points.Integration, it was argued by anotherpresenter, is not possible in Africa becauseof ethnic, tribal conflicts. On the issue ofthe BRICS, Tukumbi Lumumba-kasongoargued, there is need to question pos-sible outcome and benefits of BRICS toAfrica. BRICS is not addressing the issueof pan-Africanism, but rather focuses onnational interest, exploitation and is a newinterpretation of the capitalist system.

Towards more Democratic Futures –Making Governance Beneficial for allAfricans

Presenters

• Andre Mbata Mangu – Universityof South Africa, South Africa.Constitutionalism and Democracy inAfrica: Do Constitutions andDemocracy still Matter?

• Richard Asante – University ofGhana, Legon - & Emmanuel Debrah– The Legislature and the Executivein Ghana’s Fourth Republic: AMarriage of Convenience

• Godfred Nsangou Mbolo Chimy –CEFAM Cameroun & Susana YeneChimy Awasom CEFAM/MINATDCameroun – Challenges of GoodGovernance in Africa through thePrism of a Uniform Accrual Accoun-ting Standard: Implementing Issueswith Cameroun as a Case Study

• Mohamed Mohamed Ibrahim AlyHagag – Cairo University Egypt –Democratic Local Governmentapproaches in Africa: Decentra-lization Policies in Egypt and Ethiopia

• Raidh Harizi – Universite de Tunis& Mohammed Taoufik Bouzidi etRafaac Mraihi. L’equite de develop-ment regional passé par la baisse desiniquities socio spatiales et uneamelioration de l’acces-sibilitiesregionale. L’exemple de la TunisiePost-revolution

Summary of PresentationsThe first panelist was Andre MbataMangu from University of South Africa.His presentation was on "Constitu-tionalism and democracy in Africa: Doconstitution and election still matter infrancophone Africa" His presentationnoted that establishment of constitutionand democracy constitute the biggestproject in African politics, thus there isno future for the continent if we do noconsider these concepts. He furtherstressed that elections are determininginstitutions in political experience,drawing a quote from Claude Ake‘democracy has simply been reduced tothe practices of organized parties’ tobuttress his point. The second presen-tation made by Richard Asante fromUniversity of Legon, Ghana focused on"The legislature and the executive inGhana’s fourth republic: A marriage of

convenience? The third panelist wasGodfred Nsangou Mbolo Chimy fromCEFAM Cameroun & Susana Yene ChimyAwasom CEFAM/MINATD Cameroundiscussed "Challenges of good gover-nance in Africa through the Prism of auniform accrual accounting standard:Implementing issues with Cameroun acase study" The main presenter GodfredMbala in his definition of term stated thataccrual accounting is an accountingsystem previously used by the privatesector, and is more encompassing thanthose used in the public sector. The WorldBank has therefore suggested that thisform of accounting could be used in thepublic sector for improved efficiency.

Pathways To Sustainable DevelopedCommunity

Chair: Odile Ndoumbé Faye

Presenters:

• Sybille Ngo Ngeck: "ContractualSchemes in Africa’s PoliticalDevelopment: Conceptualising OldPractices and Establishing Rele-vance with New Governance Modelsfor the 21st Century"

• Alex Egodotaye Asakitipikpi:"Healthcare Delivery and the MDGs:Lessons from Neo-Liberal Policy inSub-Saharan Africa"

• John Mary Kanyamurwa: "Politicsof Natural Resource Managementand Accountable Systems in the Deli-very of Water Systems in Uganda"

• Lotsmart Fonjong: "RethinkingWomen Land Rights Concerns in theEvolution of Large Scale LandAcquisition in sub-Saharan Africa"

• Mohammed-Bello Yunusa: "ClimateChange, Desertification, LivelihoodChallenges and Urban Futures: AReflection on Nigeria"

This panel dealt with the politics, realitiesand machinations around the allocationand management of natural resources andservice delivery. It underscored the needto delve beneath the appearance ofthings and phenomena, whether it be theapparent easy "sell-out" of African landby African rulers to the Europeanmetropole, or the abdication of theirresponsibility to act in the best interestof their constituencies, or the too easyacceptance of the inevitability of naturalor man-made processes.


Designing and Building Resilient andSocially Inclusive Societies

Presenters:

• Ayuk Nkem Agbortoko Manyigbe:"Rural- Urban Interactions as a Con-temporary Paradigm to SustainableDevelopment in Africa: The Case ofMeme Division, Cameroon"

• Perpetual Maria Adjoa Crentsil:"The Role of NGOs and Civil SocietyEngagement in HIV / AIDS Initiativesin Africa; The Case of Ghana"

• Pedzisayi Leslie Mangezvo:"Xenephobia and the Re-ordering ofPower, Population and Place"

• Ethel Ngere Nangia : "Care for OlderPersons in Cameroon; Alternativesfor Social Development"

The panellists approached the questionof resilience and inclusivity from differentperspectives, establishing the stratifica-tion of society that has implied hierarchiesof being with real consequences in thedelivery of social services and basic pro-tections. The panelists argued for theneed for greater understanding of thechannel of flows between urban and ruralplaces that are linked to see how bothpopulations benefit, (or not) and whatmaintains their viability, as well as whatincreased the fragility of their nature.

Towards More Democratic Futures –Making Governance Beneficial for allAfricans

Presenters

• Surendren Pillay, University of theWestern Cape, South Africa –Identity, Difference, Citizenship orWhy am I no Longer a Racist

• Abubakar Momoh – The ElectoralInstitute, Nigeria – Does Democracyhave a Future in Africa: Comple-xifying a Dualism

• Abdallah Saaf: Universite Moham-med V Maroc. La question de lareforme de l’ Etat perspective compa-res entre l’Afrique et la region arabe.

• Lydia Apori Nkasah – KwameNkrumah University (Ghana),Dispute Resolution and ElectoralJustice in Africa: The Way Forward

• Daniel Zawadi Limbe – Universityof Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) – TheSatirical Portrayal of AfricansDevelopment Issues: Examples fromKiswahili Short Stories

The first panelist, Surendren Pillaystressed that the promise and hope forpolitical modernity that is laden withfreedom and stability is the yearning ofthe South African state. To him, politicalmodernity should strive to stimulate ahealthy political struggle for the benefitof all. He called for SA to move beyondtriple burden of inequality, religion andracism and also the need for eradicationof racism. The second panelist, AbubakarMomoh noted that studies arounddemocracy in Africa portrayed thatcitizens prefer one party democracy,because of fear of marginalization; anexample was drawn from the Tanzanianexperience. Recalling the statements byYusuf Bangura, he stated that ‘liberationis a project that is worth building in Africaand that we should embrace it’. And asthe debate goes on, he added that ClaudeAke concluded that the form ofdemocratization going on in Africa is thatof disempowerment largely becauseforeign languages disenfranchised manyAfricans, he noted. He went further tostress that the discourse aboutdemocratization is a work in progressionand this concept as used in Africa ishighly racialized and what we have in mostpart of Africa is not democratization butde-democratization. The fourth panelist,Lydia Apori Nkansah noted that electionis the badge for democracy. Elections inAfrica are tainted with flaws andirregularities in Africa.

The fifth panelist, Daniel Limbe fromUniversity of Dar es Salaam Tanzaniamade her presentation on "The satiricalportrayal of Africans development issues:Examples from Kiswahili short stories"She described Satire as a portrayal ofevents or issues in an opposite manner.

Toward more Democratic Futures:Making Governance beneficial for allAfricansPresenters:

• Abdessater Sahbani ; Becomingmore Democratic in Africa: Demo-cracy faces What Challenges ?

• Ahmad Amal Mohammad EmamKhashab, Re-examing TransitionParadigm: Are Elections Enough toEnsure Democratization in Africa?

• Ibrahim Mouiche, La gouvernanceélectorale et la consolidation démo-cratique en Afrique : défis et pers-pectives.

• Serge Bernard Emmnuel Aliana,(Re)penser la démocratie deliberativeen Afrique à l'aune de la palabre afri-caine une approche philosophiquepar la théorie des capacities.

Presentations in this panel focused onhow to make democracy and good gover-nance work for Africa.

Towards a New Research Agendafor CODESRIADiscussions of CODESRIA’s newResearch agenda took place on Friday, 12June 2015 and flowed from the recom-mendations that had been made by theintellectual agenda review committee.

The first few minutes of the session weretaken up by discussions on the amend-ments of the CODESRIA charter. In viewof the impending elections, it wasnecessary to decide on when theamended charter came into force. Indiscussions chaired by Issa Shivji, aresolution was passed to the effect thatthe amended charter came into effect fromthe 15th June 2015. This meant theimpending elections had to be conductedusing the old charter. This resolution wasmoved by the VP of CODESRIA andseconded by Sam Moyo.

Discussion on CODERSIA’S new researchagenda were chaired by Teresa Maria daCruz e Silva, Professor at the EduardoMondlane University in Maputo,Mozambique and Former President ofCODESRIA. The first section of the paneldiscussion was marked by the report ofthe Scientific Committee, followed by aroundtable discussion. The key pointsthat emerged from the presentation of theVice-Chair of the Scientific Committee,Shamil Jeppie dealt with the challenges.Jeppie mentioned that it was challengingto get all ten members of the ScientificCommittee to meet all at once. Despite that,members who were present were able toreview drafts of documents, abstracts forthe conference and came up with a themefor the 14th General Assembly. Jeppienoted that a good number of the abstractsignored the theme. He expressed a recom-mendation that the way forward and goalof the research agenda should be inter-disciplinary.

Five panellists were invited to presenttheir contributions on the new researchagenda for CODESRIA, namely DicksonEyoh of the University of Toronto, Abdul


Raufu Mustapha of the University ofOxford, Elisio Macamo of the Universityof Basel in Switzerland, Manthia Diawaraof the Scientific Committee of CODESRIA(USA), and Shamil Jeppie of the ScientificCommittee of CODESRIA (South Africa).The first speaker, Dickson Eyoh, focusedhis presentation on knowledge andunderlying assumptions and research andpolitics. He expressed that what we areable to know is a faction of our underlyingassumptions. These latter make ourknowledge of the world coherent. Eyohalso mentioned that people talk a lot aboutthe concept of development, but fail totake into account assumptions linked tothat concept: for example that the futureis a social project. Eyoh further discussedthat research cannot take the place ofpolitics, and cannot define what shouldtake place in the world. He argued thatpolitics cannot validate research findings.On the contrary, politics should rather bedeveloped by methods. That itself is thefirst challenge that we have to face. Eyohrecommended that we should developbasic narratives around three mainthemes. The first one has to do withcitizenship and an emphasis on nationbuilding, expanding the scope withinwhich we can expand human dignity. Thesecond theme deals with institutions. Thethird theme has to do with actions overpractice, namely the gap between moralityand politics. In other words, to whatextent can we ground our political actionsto moral principles we can identify with?

The second speaker, Abdul RaufuMustapha focused on a theme that dealtwith Africa and its multiple vision of thefuture. In that vein, he shared that thereare six things to advance research. First,respacing Africa includes transna-tionalism, namely hubs, corridors andnetworks. Mustapha argued that there isa need to change topographies of beingand understanding topographies of wherewe are. Second, measurement issues needto be dealt with when talking about theadvancement of research. Third, it isnecessary to move from the concept ofgood governance to hybrid governance.Fourth, it is also critical to move from neo-patrimonialism to political settlement.Fifth, the research-policy nexus needs tobe redefined. Finally, Mustapha discus-sed area studies as the sixth componentto advance research. He noted in thatregard that it is important to learn fromthe global common. Mustapha furthermentioned the issue of bringing policy

with research together, pointing out thatpolicy makers need to be brought into thepicture before research is done. He arguedthat it is a very costly process and man-power to do the work may be an issue aswell.

The third speaker, Shamil Jeppie talkedabout the challenges faced withpublications, housing of the information,and lengthy and difficult process toaccess archives in some African countriessuch as Niger. He further denounced thatour collections in Africa are exported, ourconversations hardly exist and are usuallydigitized coming from the North and thatwe do not have our own reports. Thefourth speaker, Manthia Diawara focusedon how archives can be used to positionresearch. He showed video clips ofSenghor and Soyinka discussingimmigration in Africa and Europe. On onehand, from the excerpts, Senghoremphasized the need to avoid theinfiltration of outsiders, and that it is morethan a biological reason but it is a culturaland political one. Soyinka, on the otherhand, evoked the concept of "ivoirity" inIvory Coast, case of Ghana and Nigeria,and denounced why African leaderscannot recognize that the use of the wordmigrants within Africa itself is obscene.Soyinka also talked about xenophobia asbeing implanted by governments. Hefurther stressed that humanity is mobileand that the influx of migrants to Westernnations should be looked at from theperspective of restitution.

The following were the interventions fromparticipants regarding CODESRIA’sresearch agenda:

• When thinking about the researchagenda, it has to fit with Africaregions. Africa is looked at based onthe colonial division. North Africafor example is not considered part ofAfrica.

• What is the vision of civil society inAfrica, what vision will help liberateus.

• We should know and learn aboutother countries.

• We should not stop at the source ofinformation; we should look at alsodistribution of the information. Weshould push for private ownedlibraries.

• How do we get to the parliamen-tarians? We have to connect policyand research

• History is not being taken seriouslyat CODESRIA. Students in SierraLeone for example do not knowAmical Cabral

• CODESRIA needs an intellectualagenda. The nature and quality ofsocial science have to be situated inour own environment. Academiciansno longer exclusively do socialscience.

• Proposal: Scientific Committee tocome up with a concrete agenda

• The title of this panel discussionmention "new research agenda":what is new? There are manyinteresting topics and thinking thatneeds to be done. It will be good toexplain the novelty: Does it have tobe the way research has to beconducted, the way it will beconducted and who are thestakeholders? What is the identityof CODESRIA? Is there any change?

• Debate on research agenda cannotbe contained itself. Institutional inte-rest may be different from theindividual interest. Dialogue bet-ween policy and research is carriedon as if CODESRIA is a politicalorganization, policy-making is not anacademic exercise, it is a political one.

• In terms of keeping memory, we needto link memory and oral tradition

• Intellectual projects to work to-gether/ encourage interdisciplinarywork/working together acrossdisciplines

• Thinking about language in terms ofnon-verbal in addition to the verbal.What does it mean for CODESRIA,and how do we produce it, consumeit. How do we deal with epistemicshifts?

• Train scholars on how to write goodabstracts

• How can CODESRIA play a majorrole and position itself on the conti-nent where data extracted from theresearch is housed on a continentaldatabase?

Adminstrative Aspects of the GA

Nomination and electoral panelreport and electionsChaired by Professor Issa Shivji, thissession was dominated by the report ofthe regional caucuses and the election ofthe new executive committee. The presi-dent of the five sub-regions presentedfirst their reports before the results of theelections within their region.


The reports focused on:

• For Central Africa: re-dynamize andimprove CODESRIA’s visibility

• For East Africa: connect moreeffectively with the youth, use infor-mation technology, and give greateraccess to academia articles. Recom-mendation to submit an annual re-port to the region, and failure to doso will result in a vote of no confi-dence. Another recommendationdeals with the implementation ofregional chapters and projects.

• For North Africa: reinforce publi-cations and participants from NorthAfrica

• For South Africa: Substitute shouldbe playing a major role. Committeeshould be held accountable andissues and reforms need to befollowed through, and more youngscholars and women need to bebrought to CODESRIA’s activities

• For West Africa: accountability ofthe Scientific committee, more youngwomen and scholars to take part inCODESRIA’s leadership and activities

The following were elected:

• For Central Africa: Nkolo Foe(Cameroon), Andre Mbata Mangu(Kinshasa) and Joseph Gahama (…..)as substitute

• For East Africa: Kenneth SimalaInyani (Kenya), Khalid El Amin(Sudan) and Mshai Mwangola(Kenya) as substitute

• For North Africa: Hassan Remaquin(Algeria), Sphedrine Ben Fredj(Tunisia and Mohammad Haggag(Egypt) as substitute

• For Southern Africa: Isabelle Casimo(Mozambique), Puleng Lenka Bula(South Africa, voted in abstentiabecause of brother’s death), andSolofo Randriana (Madagascar) assubstitute.

• For West Africa: Rokhaya Fall(Senegal), Dzodzi Tsikata (Ghana)and Oder Varela (Cape Verde) assubstitute

All members eligible to vote were invitedto confirm the results, which was doneby acclamation. The chair asked that forthe President and Vice-president, he willstop at 3 nominations for each. Aftervoters accepted this proposal, nomi-nations began. For the position of presi-dent, two proposals were made: ProfessorDzodzi Tsikata (Ghana) and ProfessorNkolo Foe (Cameroon). After the vote bysecret ballot and the counting of votes,71 to 25 in favour of Professor DzodziTsikata, she was declared the newPresident of CODESRIA.

For the position of the vice-President,two proposals were made: Professor

Nkolo Foe (Cameroon) and Andre MbataMangu (Kinshaha). After the vote bysecret ballot and the counting of votes,71 to 23 in favour of Professor Nkolo Foe,he was declared the new Vice Presidentof CODESRIA.

Just after, the new President, ProfessorDzodzi Tsikata, took the floor and thankedparticipants for their vote. She mentionedthat the values of institutional amendmen-ts need further discussion and that shewill bring it back to CODESRIA’s agenda.She also talked about the idea of electronicvoting which need to be rethought again.She shared that there were many interes-ting ideas and discus-sions that took placeabout Africa’s future, the involvement anddevelopment of young scholars, and thatshe will work in a team spirit to accomplishthe recommen-dations of the governingbody. She will also make sure that thisnew team will complete the work of thelast executive committee.

The floor was given to the Vice-President,Nkolo Foe for his remarks. He concurredwith the President’s message and than-ked everyone for the confidence and trustreposed in him. He pledged to work for agreater visibility of CODESRIA, moreyoung scholars’ involvement and linka-ges with governments. He also pledgedto strengthen relationship with the dias-pora who live outside of Africa and in LatinAmerica.

From left: Carlos Lopes (Keynote speaker), Serigne Mbaye Thiam, Senegalese Minister of Education andMouhamed Boun Abdallah Dionne, Prime Minister of Senegal at the Opening Ceremony of the General Assembly


Imagining and Creating the CODESRIA of Tomorrow is aPreoccupation for each one of us

Mr. Chairman,

Dear colleagues,

As we come to the end of the 14th GA ofCODESRIA, let me thank you for what,together, we have been able to accomplishthis week.

What we have accomplished goes beyondthe charter amendments and the electionof a new Executive Committee; a NewPresident and Vice President. Anyonewho has followed the rich discussions ofthe scientific conference, around thekeynote speeches and the round tables,has now seen the convening power ofCODESRIA on issues affecting Africa’sfuture and also the importance of thecontribution of the human and socialscience research in the imagination of thisfuture.

Imagining and creating the CODESRIA oftomorrow is also a preoccupation for eachone of us.

As I mentioned in my report to thisvenerable assembly , we are all aware ofthe current financial challenges. Thismeans that we must strive for diversi-fication, sustainability and independenceof our funding and be more pro-active indeveloping an Endowment Fund.

We must also work for the completion ofthe review process and implementationof the proposed reforms of ourorganization

We are called upon to configure a decen-tralization scheme for our programmes andactivities as a way of reaching out toyoung African scholars and emergingintellectuals and activating relations withour institutional members.

Driven by CODESRIA’s goals and needs,serious thinking must be given tointegrating ICTs for the efficientmanagement of both the administrativeand scientific pursuits of the Council.

The Intellectual Agenda ofCODESRIAWhile this agenda is globally engaged wemust be attentive that it remains locallyrelevant and focused around themes ofpriority, not only to our constituency but,to our continent.

While cultivating collaboration betweenscholars of Africa and those of the globalsouth and between African researchersand their peers in the rest of the world, wemust see to it that the knowledge pro-duced by this Council continues to becontext specific and geared towardsAfrican needs as formulated by the conti-nent’s intellectuals.

It is the enthusiastic engagement of theseintellectuals, and the commitment of theAfrican human and social sciencecommunity of scholars at large, manifes-ted in the presence of so many of youhere today (and the so many others whocould not come), that give meaning andvalue to the work of CODESRIA. Thankyou, dear members of CODESRIA, for yourloyalty and unfailing engagement.

May I in the name of all of you and in thename of the outgoing EC express ourgratitude to our funders and partners,some of whom have been backing us andvaluing our work from the very beginning;we are grateful for their trust and theirsponsorship.

Together we can fashion a dynamic andresourceful CODESRIA for the twenty-first century!

Lastly, let me express my gratitude to theoutgoing Executive Committee for thefriendship we have built and the excellentwork we have been able to realize duringthe past three years and half.

Let me, in the same spirit, congratulateand welcome the incoming President, VicePresident and Executive Committee. In thename of the outgoing ExecutiveCommittee, I extend to you our best wishesfor a very successful mandate.

May I also take up this opportunity toreiterate, in your name, our gratitude tothe Government and People of Senegalfor their solicitude, hospitality andmultiform contribution to the success ofthis General Assembly.

My appreciation goes to all those, nearand far, who in one way or another havemade this meeting a success.

But my – and our – very special thanksgo to the Executive Secretary, our collea-gue Ebrima Sall, the Senior Mana-gementand all the Staff of CODERIA who haveworked like one hand and were a majorcause of the success of the Assembly.

God bless you all, wa - salamu ‘alaykum.

Fatima HarrakFormer President

CODESRIA


This year’s general assemblyfocused on the future of Africa andtackled a whole range of issues

the continent grapples, with includingterrorism and radicalisation of the youth.

As a solution to the problem of terrorism,prominent political scientist, ProfMahmood Mamdani of Columbia andMakerere Universities, recommended thatgovernments consider holding talks withterror groups such as Al Shabaab, AlQaeda and Boko Haram.

He argued that refusal to engage thesegroups in negotiations only serves tofurther embitter and embolden them. ProfMamdani said this during a panel discus-sion on the connection between funda-mentalism, terrorism, and radicalisation ofyouth chaired by former Kenyan Cabinetminister, Prof Anyong Nyong’o.

Prof Ousmane Kane of Harvard under-scored the increasing importance ofreligion to Africans, noting that researchshows that twenty-first century Africansoften spend more time and money onreligious activity than those of the previouscentury.

Prof Kane shared his recent research,which indicated that more than 98 per centof Africans considered religion the mostimportant thing in their lives, with Sene-gal taking the lead in levels of religiosity.

Prof Jibril Ibrahim of the Centre forDemocracy and Development (Nigeria)stated that the rise of religion, and byextension fundamentalism, is down to thefailure of the postcolonial state in Africaand the commodification of religiouspractice.

Religion is good business in Africa,shown by the fact that Nigeria has sevenof the 10 richest religious leaders in theworld. However, the scholars noted thatdespite the heightened level of religiosity,crime has also increased tremendously.

Religion and terrorism, to my mind havenow become inextricably bound uptogether. Clearly certain interpretationsor misinterpretations of religious scripts

To Talk or not to Talk to Terrorists:That is the Question of these Unhappy Times

have justified and fuelled radicalisationand terrorism.

By the same token, there is room for anefficacious religious de-radicalisationprocess as a counterterrorism strategy.The movement led by Muslim clerics andscholars in Kenya, Building ResilienceAgainst Violent Extremism (BRAVE) is acase in point, sending, as it does, themessage via the media that killing non-believers is not a jihad but murder andthey quote the Koran.

But admittedly, detoxing the minds ofindividuals and groups convinced thatthere is a heavenly reward for maimingand killing is an arduous and uncertainprocess. It will require listening to whatthe terrorist says and what he does notsay because the door has been shut onhim. It will require listening to the silences.

Ken Walibora is the Kiswahili qualitymanager at Nation Media Group. E-mail:[email protected]

Sources: http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/To-talk-or-not-to-talk-to-terrorists/-/434750/2775208/-/item/1/-/havmjoz/-/index.html

Ken Walibora

One of the Round Table sessions at the General Assembly


Reports

The Bandung SpiritThe Asia-Africa Conference held inBandung in April 1955 was a turningpoint in world history. It marked the birthof the Non-Aligned Movement, andwhat has come to be known as the‘Bandung Spirit’; an expression of thedetermination of the peoples of theSouth to fight colonialism and all formsof foreign domination, as well as racial,gender, and other forms of inequality,and bring about sustainable, people-centered development. The 1955conference brought togetherrepresentatives of 29 countries, mainlyfrom Asia (including Japan and China),and Africa (which had representativesfrom the following countries: Egypt –represented by Gamal Abdel Nasser;Gold Coast/Ghana – represented by KojoBotsio; Ethiopia; Liberia and Sudan), andseveral observer countries. FormerYugoslavia was also represented byMarshal Tito, while Sukarno, the thenpresident of Indonesia, was the host. InApril 2015, on the invitation of theIndonesian government, 119 countrieswere represented at a commemorativeconference held in Jakarta and Bandung.

In October 2015 another commemorativeconference was held in Jakarta andBandung. The debates at this confe-rence were more robust, and participantsincluded many scholars and activistsfrom Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Thisconference was structured around thefollowing themes, reflecting dimensionsof the diversity of life: culture, ecology,economy, politics, religion; and twocross-cutting themes which are history

and gender. CODESRIA was one of theco-organising institutions, and wasrepresented at the conference byProfessor Fatima Harrak, immediate pastPresident of CODESRIA, and I. Ahead ofthe conference, a selection of theconference papers were published in abook titled Bandung at 60: New Insightsand Emerging Forces edited by DarwisKhoduri. CODESRIA is one of the co-publishers, and the book was launchedat the conference.

The conference was held at three venues:(i) at the LIPPI (the Indonesian ResearchCouncil) headquarters in Jakarta; (ii) inthe same hall where the 1955 conferencewas held in Bandung; and (iii) at TrisaktiUniversity in Jakarta.

The discussions were scholarly, butsometimes took on a militant tone, partlybecause of the participation of activistsin the conference. This mix of academicand activist perspectives is also reflectedin the framing of the declaration that wasissued at the end.

The conclusions reached and thedecisions taken include the following:

• The need to keep the Bandung Spiritalive and well, building on the richheritage of the many years ofstruggles of the peoples of theSouth, while promoting an under-

standing of the spirit in today’sterms: as a quest for emancipationfor the peoples of the Global South,and an aspiration for global trans-formation towards global justice and,in the words of ManoranjanMohanty (who was at the confe-rence), a Global Swaraj ; it is thesame spirit that led to, and has, overthe years been driving the WorldSocial Forums and struggles forfreedom and for a better world; it isalso the spirit behind the creation oforganisations and networks such asCODESRIA, CLASCO, and IDEAs;

• Bring Latin America and theCaribbean into the ‘BandungMovement’, and explore possibilitiesfor holding similar conferences inLatin America and Africa;

• Strengthen research and academiccooperation across the Global Southwithin the framework of a BandungStudies Programme.

A lot has changed in the world since theAsian-African conference was held in1955. The Cold War is over. Colonialismin its crude forms has been abolished. Butthere are many old and new challenges,many new frontiers, and many battles tobe fought at all levels – from the very localto the global. The "Bandung Spirit" musttherefore stay alive and well. TheBandung+60 Declaration speaks to someof the contemporary challenges that thepeoples of the Global South are facing(which include the global inequalities ofpower and the ecological challenges), andcalls for Asian-African-Latin Americansolidarity.

Bandung+60 Conference Report

Ebrima SallExecutive Secretary

CODESRIADakar


The Council for the Development ofSocial Science Research in Africa(CODESRIA) and the Human

Sciences Research Council (HSRC) co-hosted the third World Social ScienceForum (WSSF) which which took place inDurban, South Africa, in September 2015.The WSSF is a global event of theInternational Social Science Council(ISSC) that brings together researchersand stakeholders in international socialscience co-operation to address currenttopical global issues and future prioritiesfor international social science. The Forumpromotes innovative and cross-disci-plinary work, cross-science collabo-rations in the natural and human sciences,and engagement with donors anddecision makers in the science communityworldwide.While delivering the closingremarks at the occasion, Dzodzi Tsikata,President of CODESRIA’s ExecutiveCommittee emphasized the need for thesocial sciences to produce knowledgewhich can be used by differentconstituencies - policy makers, business,social movements and the general publicto strive for a more just world.

The closing remarks is presentedhere in fullDear colleagues and fellow participants,

After four remarkable days of excellentpresentations, the sharing of ideas andimportant debates on one of the mostserious challenges of our time, there isnot much left to say except to say thankyou and to call on all of us to act. I hopeyou are leaving here inspired andrejuvenated to re-examine your research,policy and advocacy agendas and havebegun to ask new questions about therising inequalities between and withincountries and regions of the world.

It is gratifying that the problem ofinequalities is taking centre stage onceagain, after many decades on the side-lines of social science research whenpoverty took the centre stage and becamea proxy for inequalities. In prioritisinginequalities at this forum, this communityof social sciences is responding to

longstanding and increasingly urgentconcerns within the policy space and thewider society that inequalities constitutea huge threat to peace and democracy aswell as to sustainable development. ForCODESRIA, this reaffirms our firm beliefthat the social sciences should beproactive in producing knowledge whichaddresses some of the most fundamentalproblems of our times, while remainingrigorous autonomous and not ensnaredin the service of the powers that be.

The decision to hold this forum in SouthAfrica, in the city of Durban has beeninspired. It enabled researchers, policymakers and activists from across the worldto get a feel of a country whose citizensengaged in a sustained and inspiringstruggle against inequalities andprevailed. While the struggle for a justsociety is still not fully won, South Africaoffers the example of what is possiblewhen people organise to overthrow anentrenched system of inequalities in orderto restore the citizenship rights and thedignity of the majority. Being here hasreminded us of the importance of socialmovements in the fight for a more equalworld. It enables us to interrogate thepositioning and demands of differentsocial actors in the quest for a just society.All over the world, young people,women’s movements, workers movementsand a range of new social movements areleading struggles for a better world, andour research going forward needs toaccount for these.

Many questions raised by the paperspresented and the discussions that havefollowed at this conference are buildingblocks of a broad and solid researchagenda on inequalities. For example, wespent several sessions discussing thenature of global inequalities in theeconomic, social and political domains,and several speakers have drawn

attention to the fact that these globalinequalities are deeply implicated in intra-country inequalities. Going forward, weneed to examine more closely the inter-linkages and relationships between globaland in-country inequalities. This wouldmake it possible to advance bothacademic and policy debates beyondwhether to blame endogenous orexogenous factors for the risinginequalities.

Questions have also been raised aboutthe measurement of inequalities andwhich indicators bring us to a betterunderstanding of the multifacetedcharacter of inequalities, its structuralelements and its drivers, and take usbeyond a narrow focus on economicinequalities. A dimension of accountingfor inequalities is the question of whetherwe should be concerned aboutinequalities of opportunities orinequalities of outcomes. Given that someindicators e.g. access to education andaccess to land, are both opportunities andoutcomes, a forward looking socialscience would take inequalities both inopportunities and outcomes seriously.

One uncontroversial issue is the impor-tance of inter-disciplinary work whichaddresses the different domains of ine-qualities and their interconnections. Itcame up in different ways- from the excel-lent plenaries and parallel sessions whichinvolved conversations among differentdisciplines, direct calls for the inclusionof different disciplinary perspectives infuture work on inequalities, and the cele-bration of the life and work of ArthurLewis, the Caribbean economist, whoseremarkable achievements demonstratedclearly the importance of taking cognisan-ce of different disciplinary perspectivesand also going beyond economic issuesin understanding the challenges of deve-lopment. In any case, gender and women’sstudies and feminist scholars have longdemonstrated the value of inter-discipli-nary research. Their longstanding focuson understanding and interrogating theintersections of social relations and theirdeep understanding of power relations

World Social Science Forum 2015:Transforming Global Relations for a Just World

Dzodzi TsikataPresident CODESRIA

Dakar


and inequalities offer many insights tothe social sciences into how best to ap-proach the study of inequalities, but alsohow to ensure the relevance to researchof different constituencies. The socialscience community has much to learn frompaying attention to the work of this cons-tituency.

Going forward, our research agendasshould therefore take cognisance of notonly the range and complexities of theinequalities we have identified, but alsointerrogate policy efforts and activism toaddress these. As well, new developmentsin the policy space require our attention.The recent inclusion of inequalities as astand- alone goal in the SDGs, theadoption of Agenda 2063, the AU’sambitious programme of structuraltransformation and regional integrationare just two examples. The social sciencesneed to produce knowledge which canbe used by different constituencies-policy makers, business, socialmovements and the general public tostrive for a more just world.

Each of us should participate to the bestof our abilities and inclinations, and join

with others to enlarge our efforts. In thisregard, our organisations such asCODESRIA, the HSRC and the ISSCshould deepen their collaborations withothers across the globe to provide thesolidarity and the space to strengthen thesocial sciences. In doing this, we shouldcontinue to address the inequalities andhierarchies in knowledge production andthe control of knowledge disseminationwithin the social sciences themselves.Only then can we prove equal to the taskof participating in the transformation ofunequal relationships at all levels oflevels- national, regional and global.

Before I take my seat, I would like to sayexpress on behalf of CODESRIA, ourprofound gratitude to the Forum chair,Professor Olive Shisana, and to thedynamic staff at HSRC who hosted us andwere responsible for execution of WSSF2015. Together, they delivered a well-organised and innovative programmewhich ensured that conversations tookplace between the different constituencieswho have a stake in the building of a justand prosperous world. I also would liketo express our deep gratitude to the chairs

of various committees and their members-Prof Shisana, chair of the executive andprogramme committees, Prof. Vasu Reddy,chair of the local organising committee,Ms Bridgitte Prince, chair of thescholarship committee, Profs. AdebayoOlukoshi and Jayati Ghosh, co-chairs ofthe scientific and abstract reviewcommittees, and Dr. Temba Masilela, chairof the logistics committee. I also want tothank the incoming head of the HSRC,Crain Soudein, and the ISSC President andits current and former executive directors,and the entire board and secretariat,particularly Heidi Hackman, Vivi Stavrouand Mathieu Denis. I want toacknowledge the years of hard work ofthese committees which came to fruitionin the last four days.

I would also like to thank all those whosupported the WSSF in diverse ways,particularly SIDA, NORAD and DANIDA.

Finally I want to wish the organisers ofthe next WSSF success and urge all of usto continue participating actively in theplanning and execution of future WSSF.

Thank you.


Hosted in Durban, South Africa, the World Social ScienceForum 2015 took place against the backdrop of multipletransitions that affect global governance, resource

utilisation, social relations and quality of life leading to increasedglobal inequalities. The Forum is the most significant gatheringof scholars and policy-oriented intellectuals drawn from all theregions of the world and across different disciplinary interestsin the social sciences and humanities.

It serves as a platform for presenting new knowledge andinsights, re-thinking received wisdom, charting new directions,promoting innovation in the research-policy-action nexus, andnurturing new international partnerships.

Issues of justice and growing inequalities at global, regional,national and local levels and their impact on the quality of life ofpopulations as well as on the sustainability of resources justifiesthe theme for the 2015 World Social Science Forum "Trans-forming Global Relations for a Just World". The theme builtupon critical issues that permeated debates during both the2009 and 2013 editions of the Forum which focused respectivelyon the themes "One Planet – Worlds Apart" (2009) and "SocialTransformations and the Digital Age" (2013) and addressedissues of power asymmetries, injustices, disparities, disjunctionsand the divide that pervaded contemporary global realities.

Organized by the International Social Science Council togetherwith the co-hosts – the Council for the Development of SocialScience Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the HumanSciences Research Council (HSRC) under the patronage ofUNESCO – the Forum shone a spotlight on the nature anddimensions of injustice and inequality, including:

1. Macroeconomic policy choices and their impact;2. The extent and consequences of income and asset

inequalities;3. Inequity in global governance, where the views of the

majority of states are excluded in making major decisionsregarding global affairs in various institutions and fora;

4. Agreed international legal instruments that uphold humanrights are not fully implemented;

5. The impact of inequality in terms of patterns of productionand consumption influencing the sustainability ofresources;

6. The impact of gender, race and class inequalities, asmanifested in unequal access to education, health,resources, employment and other social benefits;

7. Generational inequalities that exclude a majority of theyouth and the elderly;

8. Wage inequalities and labour unrest;9. Poverty and experiments in combating inequality; and10. Lessons learned from the action of social movements, civil

society, and governments, as well as policies, programs,and best practices.

Over 1000 people from 84 countries came together in Durban,South Africa to share their experiences on research undertakenin the areas of injustice and inequality and to analyse the impactof these scourges. The Forum brought together leading thinkersand policy makers from around the globe with the objective offurthering collective understandings of inequalities for thepurpose of addressing injustice. Participants addressed thetrends, magnitude, nature, causes, manifestations and driversof inequalities and injustices. This encompassed not just issuessuch as access to basic services including water, sanitation,health, education, and housing, relations among peoples, andoverall quality of life, but also the national and internationalprocesses that generate inequality. The Forum provided a platformfor seeking solutions to and effective strategies for theseinjustices and sharing experiences among people from thedifferent countries. The Forum also enabled participants towitness local manifestations of inequality in Durban, SouthAfrica as well as the efforts of non-governmental and communitybased organizations to address injustice and inequality.Participants learned and shared lessons that can be adapted todifferent settings.

Inspired by this experience, we, the participants of the 2015World Social Science Forum held on the 13-16 of September,2015 in Durban, South Africa under the theme of "TransformingGlobal Relations for a Just World," are concerned with theconsequences of injustice and inequality for the quality of lifefor global populations as well as with the sustainability of globalresources. As a result, we declare that we shall:

(a) Pursue theoretical and empirical research includingdevelopment of reliable and multi-dimensional indicatorson inequalities and injustices;

(b) Produce evidence to highlight issues requiring urgentattention and action, support advocacy and informpolicies to respond to them;

(c) Support efforts to address asymmetries, disparities, di-vides, and lack of autonomy in knowledge productionthrough the creation of transformative knowledgeprograms;

(d) Participate in programs and efforts that aim to end injusticeand inequality;

(e) Make every effort to reduce income inequalities and pro-mote equity, starting with scientific institutions where wehave influence;

(f) Support measurable progress to overcome inequalities,including through the implementation of the SustainableDevelopment Goals;

(g) Promote policies, programs, and values that act to endgender inequality;

(h) Promote the integration of youth in work places throughproviding them with the necessary skills to enter thelabour force;

Declaration of the 3rd World Social Science Forum16 September 2015


(i) Support efforts to achieve legally binding and universalagreement on avoiding dangerous anthropogenic inter-ference with the climate system; and

(j) Promote inclusive societies based on universal values andhuman rights.

The World Social Science Forum and the World Social ScienceReport advances social science research and awareness ofthese issues.

Chancellor of the University ofSussex, Sanjeev Bhaskar,

The Vice Chancellor, ProfessorRichard Farthing,

Madam Mayor of Brighton and Hove,

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Pro-ViceChancellors,

Members of Convocation,

Graduands,

Parents,

Members of Family and friends who are here,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have been delighted and honoured to join all of you at thisgraduation ceremony at the University of Sussex, and I am trulyhumbled by the honour done me by the university in conferringupon me an honorary doctor of laws degree in recognition (quote)‘of my contributions to the fields of law, gender and politics’.

Distinguished guests, inevitably on occasions such as this,one calls to mind the different individuals and groups who havecontributed to one’s progress over the years- family members,teachers, mentors, colleagues and friends and one’s networks,both professional and social- and to thank them for their support,encouragement and belief in one’s abilities to succeed.

In particular, I would like to thank my late parents, one self-educated, the other unlettered, but both utterly committed toeducating all their many children, female and male. I recall mymother, rebuffing her father, an educated man, who complainedabout the seemingly never-ending levels of education that someof us daughters were entering- ‘what would marriage do forthem,’ she parried? I also recall my father’s pride as I left topursue graduate education in Tanzania, and the support myparents afforded me when I left my young children behind, after

Sussex University Confers Honorary Degree on ProfessorTakyiwaa Manuh, Former President of

CODESRIA’ Scientific Committee

I became a single parent, to go, first tothe US, and then to Colombia, on aUnited Nations University Fellowship.How I wish they could be here with ustoday, to watch me receive this honour,and to swell with pride!

Ladies and Gentlemen, in the part of theworld where I was born, it was not at alla certainty some fifty-odd years agowhen I attained school-going age that Iwould actually be enrolled in school, or

remain in school and progress all the way to tertiary educationand beyond. It is a testament to the progress that has occurredalmost everywhere now that the right of girls to an education,skills and training, is almost uncontested and actually promoted,as we saw with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)that are now ending, and reiterated in the successor and moreambitious Sustainable Development Goals that are set to comeinto place later this year.

But it is not only in the area of girls’ education and women’srights that some progress has occurred, but also in the area ofpolitics in Africa. There is now a general commitment todemocratization and the rule of law to the extent that evenautocratic governments which wish to remain in power want theveneer of democracy and try to extend their rule throughelections, however stacked these may be.

And Africa has largely moved beyond ‘the basket case’ scenariodescribed by the Economist magazine some years ago. It isrecognized that several African countries are among the fastestgrowing economies in the world. However the challenge remainsof translating these impressive growth rates into decent jobsand skills for the teeming populations of young people, ofbridging the rising inequalities, and stemming the tide of someof the desperate migrations that we read about in the newsalmost every day.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, all these issuesand more are currently being discussed at the Third International

Prof. Takyiwaa Manuh, former Chair of the CODESRIA Scientific Committee (2009-2011), had an Honorary Doctorof Laws (LLD) conferred on her by the University of Sussex. Below is her acceptance speech:

We believe that together, bolstered by our social scienceknowledge, skill and power, we will contribute to end injusticeand inequality globally, regionally and locally as well as in ourown work and home spaces.


Conference on Financing for Development (FfD), that openedyesterday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the city where I now liveand work. That Conference has gathered over 7,000 delegatesto deliberate on actions, strategies and commitments forfinancing sustainable development, protecting the environment,and promoting social inclusion for a fairer and more just world.But I am happier to be here with you all this week than in that con-ference with the heads of state and all the important personalities!

Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Distinguished Ladies andGentlemen, I cannot end my address without mentioning whatthe University of Sussex has meant to me over the years. Sussexcalls to mind high teas- scones, clotted cream, strawberry jam,and tea- fish dinners, stimulating intellectual discussions withfriends and colleagues, social justice and internationalism. I recallin particular, Anne Whitehead and her many years of field workin Ghana, and the work of Kate Young and her colleagues.

The IDS was one of the places I visited with British Councilsponsorship as we were planning to establish our Women’sStudies programme at the University of Ghana in the late 1980s,and more recently the IDS was the location for our Pathways ofWomen’s Empowerment Research Project Consortium thatgrouped colleagues from Latin America, the Middle East, Asia,Europe and Africa, under the leadership of Andrea Cornwall,that has done exciting and comparative work on so many aspectsof women’s lives in our respective continents. The findingsabout the necessary and contingent conditions for women’s

empowerment including both the agency of women themselvesand their movements as well as the policy actions and resourcesthat states need to commit, remain to be taken up, particularly inthe post-2015 agenda.

Finally, I turn to you, graduands of today. You are entering afast-changing and turbulent world. There are severaluncertainties and challenges and you can take nothing forgranted. But the world you are entering has also experiencedsignificant progress, including in the areas I’ve described today.

So graduands, this is what I want for you:

• That today, you will use the technology available to you topost selfies of yourselves and your family and friends whohave helped you achieve this milestone;

• That throughout your lives, technology can help you toengage with the world and build on the progress I’vedescribed today in women’s rights, the rule of law, anddemocracy;

• That you continue to learn and seek knowledge after youleave Sussex.

• And that you take what you have learned here and whatyou learn since to make a difference.

Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Distinguished Guests, I thank youall once again for the honour bestowed on me, and I look forwardto my new association and status with the University of Sussex!

Academic Freedom Still Matters! The Case ofMaati Monjib and Nuno Castel-Branco

In recent months, the African scientificcommunity has been faced with twocases of serious violation of freedom

of expression and academic freedom. Thefirst one involved Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco, an economist, co-founder of theInstitute of Social and Economic Studies(IESE) and professor at the UniversityEduardo Mondlane in Maputo,Mozambique. Professor Castel-Brancohad to face criminal proceedings foralleged slander against the former presi-dent of Mozambique, Armando Guebuza,over a message that the scholar postedon his Facebook page on 4 November2013, entitled "Letter to President ofMozambique". In his letter, Castel-Brancocriticised some of the policies of the thenPresident and contended that thesepolicies were responsible for themultifaceted crisis in that country.

Although he was eventually dischargedand acquitted by the court, ProfessorCastel-Branco’s arraignment was a clear

violation of his fundamental right to free-dom of expression and raises new con-cerns about the issue of academic freedomin some parts of the African continent.The second case concerns the travel banthat was imposed on Professor MaatiMonjib, a historian and member of CO-DESRIA’s Scientific Committee by Mo-roccan authorities recently. Monjib, apolitical analyst and human rights acti-vist, was a founding member of the 20February Movement Support Council,which sought reform in Morocco duringthe Arab Spring. On 31 August 2015, onhis return from Montpellier (France), hewas unjustly detained by the authoritiesat Mohamed V Airport in Casablanca. Thisugly episode was followed by a series ofprovocative acts deliberately perpetrated

by the police on his person. The Moroc-can authorities also prevented him fromtravelling abroad in order to participate ina scientific activity, forcing Monjib toembark on a hunger strike to press for hisrights. These two cases are not isolatedcases. Certainly there are numerous simi-lar events that have not come to the at-tention of CODESRIA or that were notmade public due to limitations in the func-tioning of the press iand also due to therepressive acts of intolerant governmentauthorities in several countries in Africa.

For instance, on 17 March 2015 in Mo-rocco, an investigative journalist, HichamMansouri, was imprisoned for 10 monthswhile working on an article on state sur-veillance. Ibn Rochd Center for Studiesand Communication, an organi-sationwhich focuses on the freedom of press,of thought and of expression, democracyand cultural development, was forced toshut down by Moroccan authorities. Asimilar organisation, Freedom Now –

Carlos CardosoCODESRIA


Comité de protection de la liberté de lapresse et d'expression au Maroc (Com-mittee for the protection of freedom of thepress and of expression in Morocco) wasdenied registration by the authorities..These and other recent crack downs onindividual journalists and human rights

activists show growing restrictions onfreedom of expression in Morocco.

The frequency of executions perpe-trated against members of theresearch community and universitieson the continent, which contributesto the establishment of a climate of

fear and restricts the developmentof a conducive atmosphere for pro-ductive academic and social life isworrying. These acts of repressionstifle intellectual debate and makecensorship a rule. The cases of Castel-Branco and Monjib may especially betaken as paradigmatic examples ofwhat is happening in the academiaand in African societies in general interms of ensuring freedom of expres-

sion and academic freedom in par-ticular.

With the wave of democratization thatswept through several African countriesin the early 90s and the improvement ofcitizen rights conditions that followedthem, one would have thought that thetime of persecution and the imposition ofobstacles to the free exercise of freedomexpression had passed. But the recentcases of violation of academic freedom,to which should be added the recentevents that took place in South Africanuniversities, with students demanding forequal access to education and an end toracism in the delivery of higher education,leading to violent confrontations betweenstudents and authorities, are proof thatthe struggles for freedom of expressionand academic freedom in particular mustcontinue. Indeed, we may argue that thereis an intrinsic connection between aca-demic freedom and the global emanci-patory struggles of citizens.

In the cases involving Castel-Branco andMonjib, we are dealing with high-levelacademics whose voice is likely to influen-ce the critical positioning of citizens aboutthe public acts and the fight for freedomof expression in their countries. Besidehis position of an Associate Professor inEconomic Deve-lopment and Industriali-zation at the University Eduardo Mon dla-ne, Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco isResearch Associate, Department of De-velopment Studies at the School of Orien-tal and African Studies (SOAS),University of London and Senior ResearchFellow at the Institute for DevelopmentPolicy and Managemet (IDPM), Univer-sity of Manchester. His areas of interestinclude economic growth policy, econo-mic transformation and social system ofcapital accumulation in Mozambique and

Sub-Saharan Africa. He is a member ofthe Mozambican Association of Econo-mists (AMECON) and Mozambican Aca-demy of Sciences.

Apart from being a professor and journa-list, Maata Monjib is also a university re-

searcher, human rights activist and presi-dent of Freedom Now. He has facilitatedvarious debates between Islamists andsecular activists in Morocco. He has alsoinstituted a prize for investigative journa-lism Prize in Morocco. He is also founderand director of the Ibn Rochd Center forStudies and Communication in Morocco.

It is important to reiterate that the practiceof the research profession is inseparablefrom the exercise of free and criticalthinking. The right to do research is a rightwhich is recognized by fundamental law.Also, the right to freely communicateresearch findings is an inalienable rightwhich cannot be separated from the rightof citizens to freely express their viewson current topics of national interest.

In this context two articles of the KampalaDeclaration are worth mentioning. Theseare the article 3, which states that "nointellectual shall in any way be perse-cuted, harassed or intimidated for reasonsonly of his intellectual work or opinions"and the article that states that "everyAfrican intellectual shall enjoy thefreedom of movement within his or hercountry and freedom to travel outside andre-enter the country without let, hindranceor harassment" (Kampala Declaration,CODESRIA, Dakar, 1995).

Nuno Castel-BrancoMaati Monjib

"Every African intellectualshall enjoy the freedom of

movement within his or hercountry and freedom to

travel outside and re-enterthe country without let,

hindrance or harassment"– Kampala Declaration

"No intellectual shall in anyway be persecuted, harassed

or intimidated for reasonsonly of his intellectual work

or opinions"– Kampala Declaration


• Dr Sarah Motsoetsa, CEO of NIHSS• Professor Sitas and Dear Brother• My Brother Professor Adam Habib• Professor Nhlanhla Mkhize,

Chairperson of SAHUDA• My Friends Profs Gillian Hart, David

Dzanton, Fred Hendricks, JideOloyode, Hennie Kotze, and DarleneMiller

• NIHSS Programme DirectorsNthabiseng Motseme and YolandaDavids

• Colleagues,

I would like to begin by congratulatingProf. Sitas and Dr Motsoetsa for not onlyhaving done the excellent job of leadingthe consultations that led to the adoptionof the Charter for Humanities and SocialSciences, but also for the establishmentof NIHSS, which is a direct result of theearlier work on the Charter.

I would also like to thank you for invitingCODESRIA to be a partner in the AfricanPathways Project. This workshop isanother important milestone in theadvancement of the social sciences andhumanities in our continent, and in thecollaboration between NIHSS,CODESRIA and SAHUDA.

It is therefore both an honour and aprivilege for me to be here today, and tospeak to this important gathering.

The topic that was chosen for me is: TheState of the Social Sciences andHumanities in Africa. That is a very broadtopic. So, I asked myself what would bethe best way of speaking about the stateof the social sciences and humanities inAfrica to an audience of great scholars,and hundreds of doctoral students whoare aspiring to become great scholars inthe social sciences and humanities.

Keynote Lecture delivered at the National Dissertations Workshop Organised by the NationalInstitute of Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) of South Africa Johannesburg, 29-30 July 2015

The SSH: Trends and IssuesFifteen years ago, I wrote a working paperon The Social Sciences in Africa: Trends,Issues, Capacities and Constraints thatwas published by the New York BasedSocial Science Research Council(SSRC). The paper was my contributionto an ambitious project aimed at"Mapping Human Capital Globally",which was, in fact, an attempt to reviewthe state of the social sciences aroundthe world through a series of studies onAsia, Europe, the Middle East, theAmericas, etc. and I did the review of thesocial sciences in Africa.

In that working paper, I looked at four setsof issues; and will look at the same issuesin this presentation, because they still areamong the key issues to consider in anyserious review of the state of the socialsciences and humanities. The issues arethe following:

i) The institutional base for knowledgeproduction in Africa and how it hasbeen evolving, with differentgenerations of institutions and thediversification of institutional typesand modes (from what were in theearly sixties just a few ‘traditional’universities that were almost all publicuniversities, and almost all contactuniversities—the main exceptionbeing UNISA), to the many hundreds– that are now thousands – of publicand private higher educationinstitutions (HEIs) of all shapes andkinds, many of which are engaged inmixed modes of delivery, and have notonly contact students, but alsodistance learners; etc. particularly

with the revolution in the ICTs, andthe formidable advancement ofinternationalisation: virtual univer-sities, off-shore campuses; public andprivate institutes, centres and labo-ratories; etc. The diversification ofsites of knowledge production wasjust overwhelming. Today, barely 15years after I completed the study, thecomplexity of the institutional lands-cape has become much greater thananybody could imagine at the time.What Zeleza called the "six Cs" – cor-poratisation of management, collecti-visation of access, commercialisationof learning, commodification of know-ledge, computerisation of education,and connectivity of institutions –have reached enormous levels (Zeleza2004). Many of these changes areglobal, but with a particular meaningfor scholarship in Africa that we needto fully understand.

ii) The second set of issues had to dowith the social science disciplines:those considered to be the coredisciplines of the social sciences andhumanities (sociology, politicalscience, anthropology, history,economics, etc.), as well as themultidisciplinary fields of study:cultural studies, human rights studies,conflict and peace studies, genderstudies, development studies, etc.The modes of institutionalisation ofthese disciplines in the academy areinteresting to note. The fragmentationof the disciplines and fields into sub-disciplines and sub-fields in the nameof specialisation is also fascinating;under the dominant neoliberal context– neoliberal globalisation – thedevelopment of a market logic in thesocial sciences (some call it the"marketization of the social sciences";see Burawoy’s review of theGulbenkian Commission report

Trends and Issues in the Social Sciencesand Humanities in Africa

Ebrima SallCODESRIA, Dakar

Debates


ngotof

Opening the Social Sciences;Burawoy XXX), has both increasedthe fragmentation of the socialsciences and humanities, and broughtabout changes in the ranking of thedisciplines and fields of study, andchanges in the criteria for determiningeven what is HE, or SSH research ofhigh quality, and what is not. TheGulbenkian Commission, set up by aPortuguese foundation, the CalyxteGulbenkian Foundation, was led byImmanuel Wallerstein, and had amongits members a linguist (ValentinMudimbe, a physics Nobel laureate(Ilya Prigogine), etc. was trulymultidisciplinary and its task was toreview the social sciences globally andidentify trends. In its report theCommission argued that the future ofthe social sciences is in their furtheropening. This was in the mid-ninetiesof the last century. Ten years later,Burawoy, in his review argued thatwhat actually happened was not thefurther opening of the social sciences,but their increased fragmentation as aresult of their marketization: in thename of specialization, many newfields, sub-fields and sub-disciplineshave emerged, thus increasing theboundaries and what I would call‘enclosures’ within the socialsciences. These days, ‘relevance’ –market, or policy-relevance – is oftenused to determine ‘quality’, and setpriorities. The major trends alsoinclude the rise to prominence of thedisciplines that seem to have greatermarket value and produce moremarketable skills, students and otherkinds of products, such as the STEM/STEAM; and MODE II (Giddens) typeknowledges, and the neglect of the"public good" in HE and research(Singh; Sawyerr). Disciplines likehistory experienced great diffi-culties– CODESRIA actually laun-ched an"SOS African History" initiative tosupport the discipline. These changesare also global, but with a particularmeaning for scholarship in Africa thatwe need to fully understand.

iii) The third set of issues I looked at wasrelated to the scholars themselves,particularly those in the human andsocial sciences. In a paper publishedin CODESRIA Bulletin in 1995,Thandika Mkandawire, a formerexecutive secretary of CODESRIA,identified "Three Generations of

African Scholars" (see Mkandawire1995; Mkandawire 1997). I think wecan now talk about four or fivegenerations. From the generations thatstudied or did their research underconditions of colonialism, or the ColdWar, or apartheid, to the generationsof the age of the internet and ofneoliberal globalisation, there are greatdifferences: the historical experiencesare different; the worldviews aredifferent; the issues facing thesocieties in which they are evolvingare different; the ways data collectionand research, teaching, publishing,even conferencing are done have allchanged (NB we now have not onlySkype conferences, but also"webinars", etc.). The MOOCS areanother good example of the changedways; these changes are global, butwith a particular meaning forscholarship in Africa that we need tofully understand.

iv)The fourth and last set of issues Ilooked at are the research themes thatwe have been taking up, and thedebates in the social sciences andhumanities that we have been havingin Africa. I give a few examples:

a. Decolonizing the social sciencesand humanities; i.e. the need totransform what Mudimbe calls the"colonial library" – that has not onlyAfrican, but also Oriental and LatinAmerican variants (see the Said’sOrientalism; and Dussel’s TheInvention of the Americas,published 12 years before Said’sOrientalism but dealing with the verysame issues). The colonial libraryside-lined the other libraries thatpreceded it (Kane). As was noted ina conference that CODESRIAorganised with Point Sud in January2013, the ‘colonial library’ alsocovered many more aspects of lifethan texts and ways of knowing. Itwas in fact pervasive, for it shapedAfrican music, dances, bodilyexpressions, etc. The colonial library,I would argue, has also meta-morphosed into a larger ‘imperial’library that lives to this day. Thetransformation of the colonial libraryis therefore just a first step towardsthe transformation of the larger"imperial library", and thetransformation of the globalepistemological order (Zeleza 2004).The great African leader Amilcar

Cabral used to say that "we need tothink with our own heads, in thecontext of our own realities". Putdifferently, we need to look at socialreality in our own societies and inthe world around us with our owneyes, using our own lenses, ratherthan using the conceptual andtheoretical frameworks or lenses weborrowed from Europe. We need tolook at the world from where we are,rather than trying to look at the worldfrom where other people are.

b. The challenge of autonomy has beenand still is a major challenge for thesocial sciences and humanities inAfrica (Adesina xxx; Sall andOuedraogo 2012); the independenceof the mind is a pre-condition for theindependence of the nation and thecontinent. Thabo Mbeki, formerpresident of South Africa, in hisattempts to promote AfricanRenaissance, called for the rebuildingof Carthage which, he argued, was ametaphor for African independence. Ithink we must also rebuild Timbuktu,the metaphor of African intellectualtriumph. The parallels betweenCarthage and Timbuktu are interestingto note. As Mbeki reminded us, for150 years, every Roman emperor sethimself as a primary task the conquestof Carthage, in what is present dayTunisia; because Carthage wasflourishing and competing Rome for‘global’ prominence. In the end, oneof the Roman emperors succeeded inconquering Carthage. Timbuktu, in the15th and 16th centuries, i.e. severalcenturies after the fall of Carthage, alsobecame a prominent centre ofscholarship that attracted scholarsfrom far and near, until it was invadedby Morocco and its greatestintellectuals like Ahmed Baba weredeported to Morocco (see TheMeanings pf Timbuktu edited byJeppie and Diagne; and Kane’s Non-Europhone Intellectuals).

c. Our own identity and our history –the debates about ethnicity andnationhood, and those on ‘Afri-canity’involving Mafeje and others, andthose about "African modes of self-writing" (Mbembe), are goodillustrations. So are the debates onethnic and national identities, and theattempts to re-write our histories (aspart of the decolonisation of our past.


The need to re-write history was alsofelt after the Rwandan genocide, andafter apartheid). There is a "GeneralHistory of Senegal" that is also cur-rently being written, following theUNESCO General History of Africa.Dominant historical paradigms arebeing challenged in many of thesecases, using and recognising as legiti-mate a whole range of new sourcesand methods of inquiry, and re-framing dominant narratives. Thisstruggle over identities and for thereclaiming of our pasts and futures hasactually been going on for a long time,and have been central to the work ofalmost all the great pan African intel-lectuals such as Cheikh Anta Diop.

Other themes and issues exploredinclude the following:

i) The emancipation and independenceof Africa, and liberation fromapartheid

ii) The transformation and developmentof African economies and societies

iii) Crises and structural adjustmentiv)Politics and Governance in Africa, and

the challenges of building inclusive,democratic and developmental statesand governance systems on ourcontinent

v) Regional integrationvi) Environmental changevii) The Health challenges – maternal and

infant mortality; HIV/AIDs, malaria;today we also talk about EVD (Ebola)

viii) Education, and HEix) Youth and youth culturesx) Genderxi) Globalisation; the BRICS; etc.And so forth and so on. The list is long

Colleagues, and friends, I can take eachone of these sets of issues and demons-trate that most of the trends I observed15 years ago are still unfolding. If any-thing, they have become more complex,but they still exist.

The points I want to make are thefollowing:

i) The factors that have a role indetermining the state of the socialsciences and humanities in Africa aremany and varied.

ii) The criteria for assessing the socialsciences and humanities to determine

whether they are ‘healthy’ or not arealso of different kinds; one can usethe bibliometric data, or the citationindexes, most of which are developedin the North, to count the number ofarticles in what are considered to bethe only "international peer reviewed/ referred journals" (a category fromwhich journals produced by scholarsin Africa are often excluded); etc. etc.and come to the obvious conclusionthat in global terms, Africa hosts veryfew international journals, producesvery little, all disciplines combined;and among the disciplines, the SSHproduce even less; Africanuniversities are not ranked veryhighly, whether it is in the Shanghairankings or in other global rankings.Our think tanks are also not rankedvery highly (see the annual GOTOGlobal Think Tank Reports publishedby the Think Tanks and Civil SocietyProgram of the University ofPennsylvania). Within Africa, the real‘scientific countries’ are South Africa,followed by Nigeria, Egypt, andKenya. There is certainly great valuein these rankings and citation indexes.But the stories they tell are verypartial. They also tend to mirror theinequalities of power at the global level(see WSSR 2010, on "KnowledgeDivides").

iii) More important: the exercise itself, i.e.determining the state of the socialsciences and humanities, whether itis in Africa or elsewhere, is not aneutral or value free exercise. Forinstance, African scholars havedemonstrated through our researchthat SAP was very problematic andwas not likely to lead to the positivetransformation of African economies,societies or politics, and came up withserious criticisms of the Structuraladjustment policies imposed by theBretton Woods institutions (WB andIMF) on the world 20 years beforeformer senior officials of the Bankcame round to admitting that therewere problems with SAP. Africanscontinued debating SAP and itseffects long after SAP had ceased tobe seen by scholars else-where as animportant subject of scholarlydebates. As a matter of fact, for manymainstream economists and politicalscientists, there was nothing wrongwith the Bank’s policies or those of

the IMF: the problems were said to bewith us and with our economies. Idon’t think that today the Greekswould agree with such views that arealso expressed by social scientists,including African social scientists.These days, the scholars who dare tochallenge the dominant discoursesabout the private sector or about themarket, or about globalisation are inthe minority.

Therefore the epistemological issues andthe methodological issues are asimportant in the assessment of the stateof the social sciences in Africa as theyare to the research and writing of thedoctoral dissertations that you areworking on or about to embark upon.

These are some of the reasons that led tothe creation of a pan African socialscience research council calledCODESRIA, so as to promote socialscience research and research basedpublishing in Africa.

CODESRIA is also interested indeveloping an African indexation system.The reasons are the same as those thatmade CODESRIA engage in publishingjournals, including a journal of socialscience methodology (with Ouedraogoand Hendricks as editors), and an AfricaReview of Books, an African SociologicalReview (Jide and Fred present here havebeen lead editors of that review), etc.

That is also why CODESRIA is investingin the nurturing of new generations ofscholars and collaborating with NIHSSin a great project like the African path-ways Project.

Therefore, what I would do in what is leftof the time allocated to me is to reviewsome of the major trends and issues inthe social sciences and humanities intoday’s Africa, with particular referenceto the CODESRIA experience.

As we speak, CODESRIA itself is engagedin two processes:

i) a comprehensive internal review thatincludes a review of its intellectualagenda and

ii) preparations for a meeting to reviewand plan for the further advancementof the CODESRIA African HumanitiesProgramme to be held in Accra on 28-29 August.


CODESRIA and Where the SocialSciences Seem to be GoingA good way of getting to know where thesocial sciences and humanities (SSH) inAfrica are is to look at Africa’s problemsand the problems of today’s world andsee how the SSH are addressing them.The SSH are concerned with society andsocial relations. The major challengesfacing our societies, our continent, andour world at each given moment thereforetend to become the subjects of researchand debates in the SSH. Colonialism,decolonisation, nation/state building, panAfricanism; apartheid, post-apartheidtransformation, development, democra-tisation; climate change, globalisation,conflict, what Wole Soyinka calls the ‘newimperialisms’ (Soyinka 2009), or the"liberated zones and spaces" (MicereMugo); or the ITCs revolution, and soforth and so on.

One major complicating factor is the factthat the world and the societies we live inare unequal, and those inequalities havefound their way into the world ofknowledge production itself. The socialand global divides are mirrored byknowledge divides. The power relationsat the global and country levels tend toshape and be shaped by knowledges ofvarious kinds, produced in differentlocations. Euro-American domination ofAfrica and other regions of the world goeshand – in – hand with the dominantposition that the Euro-American academyoccupies in the global intellectualcommunity. Put differently, the globalepistemological order tends to mirror theglobal order. The transformation of theepistemological order is therefore seen bymany as an integral part, if not a pre-condition for the transformation of theglobal order.

It is therefore not by mere chance that thetheme chosen for the third World SocialScience Forum in Durban (to be jointlyhosted by HSRC, CODESRIA and theISSC, in September 2015) is: "Transfor-ming Global Relations for a Just World".

The SSH in Africa have been and still areengaged in that battle, a battle that was atfirst aimed at decolonising the SSH andtransforming what Mudimbe calls the co-lonial library, that is similar to the battleagainst what Edward Said called ‘orienta-lism’ – and we know from a recent articleby Farid Alatas of the National Universi-ty of Singapore that orientalism is still a

major problem in Asian scholarship, asindigenous and endogenous intellectualproduction is still largely overlooked asscholars tend to give pre-eminence toWestern scholars and scholarship (Ala-tas 2015).

Indeed, as the mechanisms of dominationreproduce themselves and metamorphoseinto new forms, so do the concepts andtheories that inform them. The question iswhether we in Africa in particular, and inthe global South, have been keeping upwith the evolution of not only the formsand mechanisms of foreign domination,but also other forms of domination withinour own societies, and whether we havebeen able to interrogate the concepts andtheories that we use to produce know-ledge. My good brother Professor VusiGumede put it nicely in one of hisinterventions at a recent conference heco-hosted at UNISA: "have we been ableto look at our societies and the worldaround us from where we are and not fromwhere other people are"? (Gumede 2015 –paraphrasing Cabral’s famous quote: Wemust "think with our own heads, in thecontext of our own realities".

I go back to the first question I asked:how have the SSH been addressing theproblems of Africa and the world of today?

I think it no longer is a question of whetheror not we are, in Africa, researching theissues that are high on the national,regional and global policy agendas, suchas poverty, inequality, global warming,regional integration, post-apartheidtransformation etc. Because there is a lotof work being done on all those issues.

There are, however, a few exceptions; acouple of issues that we are yet to take upas fully as we ought to be doing, such asthe study of representations of the futurein our continent (e.g. the whole debateabout the African Union’s Agenda 2063).At the 14th General Assembly ofCODESRIA – and the scientific conferenceof the CODESRIA General Assembly is a,good barometer for getting a sense ofwhere the SSH are in Africa, particularlywith regard to issues related to the themeof the conference – some of the mosthighly respected scholars of this con-tinent argued that the business of socialscience is not to engage in what one ofthem called ‘star-gazing’; i.e. trying topredict what the future holds. The bestthing we could do, it was further argued,is to "historicize the present". Now, these

colleagues for whom we have enormousrespect, obviously do not considerfutures studies as a field in which thesocial sciences should venture.

Yet prospective or futures studies is awhole field of study that is well recognisedas a legitimate field of study that is nowwell – institutionalised in universities inEurope and North America. But that is avery under-developed field in Africa whe-re the African Futures Institute of UNISAis among the very few such institutes inAfrica (Al Ahram Strategic Studies Cen-tre also has a focus on futures).

In this year’s edition of the annualCODESRIA Governance Institute thatbegan in Dakar two days ago, the director,Abdallah Cisse, who is a lawyer bytraining and has been dean of the lawfaculty of Gaston Berger University formany years, is working hard to introduceparticipants to prospective analysis. Thetheme is "Cybersecurity, Sovereignty, andGovernance in Africa". His argument isthat in matters related to cybersecurity,the books and journal articles on thoseissues are often outdated by the time theyare published, because the changes areextremely rapid. More fundamentally, heargued, a society that is not capable ofimagining a future for itself is a societythat has no future. Or at best it will haveits future determined for it by others. Andwe have many people and institutionsthat may or may not be well – meaningwho are offering us ‘advice’ about how tounderstand China’s role in Africa, how tomanage our economies etc.

The time of politics, as Aminata DiawCisse, a colleague of mine often argues, isnot the present but the future, because itis about anticipating what could happen,and planning where that is possible. Partof the problem we have in Africa is thatmanaging emergencies seem to occupythe best part of the time of our policymakers. Souleymane Bachir Diagne hasalso argued that a prospective approachand what he calls a "political culture oftime" are indispensable for development(see Diagne 2005; Diagne 2013 Diagne2014; and Diagne 2015). Diagne is aphilosopher who has been a member ofthe EC of CODESRIA for six years, afterwhich he became the chair of the scientificcommittee for five years, part of which timeArchie Mafeje was a member of the sameScientific Committee.


It is however important to note that thereis a major difference between the Socialsciences and the humanities when itcomes to discourses on, and repre-sentations of the future. Just oneillustration: in the early nineties, Ama AtaAidoo, a great writer from Ghana, wrote astory titled "She-Who-Would-Be-King" ,that is about a ten-year old girl who saidshe would like to be the president of hercountry when she grows old, but was toldthat the men won’t allow that. 50 yearslater, her daughter was elected the firstpresident of the newly formed Confe-deration of African States – sort ofrealization of Nkrumah’s United States ofAfrica. This is in 2026. The men, who wereamazed, said the president of the wholeof Africa cannot a president, it must be aking. And because it is a woman who hasbeen elected president of Africa, then shemust be a "She-King" (see Adam et al.).Kofi Anyidoho argues in an article onGhanaian literature and pan Africanismthat Ama Ata Aidoo is among many otherwriters discussing the future.

The social sciences in Africa are thereforefar behind the humanities in that regard.

Another area where the SSH in Africa arealso not really engaged is area studies inAfrica; i.e. in the study of other regions –not "African studies", but the study ofother regions of the world from where weare in Africa: there are extremely fewresearch centers and institutes in Africathat specialize in the study of other regionsof the world. We therefore are notproducing knowledge on or about thetrade and other partners and competitorsof Africa. At a conference on China-Africarelations that CODESRIA in 2011 inNairobi, one colleague presented a reviewof 900 more or less recent publications onChina-Africa relations and the reviewshowed that only 7 per cent of the publi-cations were produced in Africa! Thismeans that the bulk of the knowledgeinforming policies on China-Africarelations are produced outside of Africa.The situation is changing, but veryslowly, as more Chinese studies centersand programmes are being established,and Asian studies in Africa are beginningto get organised (there will be an AsianStudies in Africa conference in Accra inSeptember 2015). However, until today,we have almost serious no French studies,British studies, European studies, Ame-rican studies, or Latin American and Carib-bean studies centers in Africa (Sall 2013).

Therefore if, with a few exceptions, wenow are researching and debating almostall issues, the key question then really isthat of the extent to which our work isdriven by conceptual frameworks thatspeak to African concerns and to Africanagency (the concepts of ‘afrocentricity’and of ‘epistemologies of the South’ areto be examined in respect to theseconcerns). Also important is the extent towhich our scholarship speaks to the classand equity issues.

The notion of epistemologies of the Southraises the issue of the transformativenature of our scholarship, particularly inthe social sciences and humanities. Whatwe have called "Command science" (lascience du commandement; Sall andOuedraogo 2012), should not be allowedto completely side-line the science thatproblematizes conventional wisdom orechoes and amplifies the voices or thevoiceless.

Furthermore, it has now become extremelydifficult to differentiate agency literaturefrom academic literature, both because thebig agencies (development banks andorganizations, etc) are producing so muchand effectively disseminating theirproduction and pushing hard for theadoption of their perspectives on issues,but also because they employ scholarsto write many of their reports.

All this underscores the significance ofconsultations that led to the adoption ofthe Charter for the Humanities and SocialSciences, and the creation of the NIHSSthat brought us here today.

It is in that regard also that we, in theSSH, must continue to interrogate thedominant narratives about Africa: thenegative and the seemingly positivenarratives; right up and including thenarratives about the BRCIS; ‘Africaawakening’; Africa resurgence (Zeleza’slatest book); and ‘economic emergence’in Africa (18 countries have plans foreconomic emergence); and the Africa WeWant that the AU is now at the fore frontof, with its Agenda 2063, and the narrativeframed in terms of the World We Want (titleof the Rio +20 Outcome document).

There are many efforts to reclaim ourhistory, and our future, and part of thatnecessarily involves efforts to reframe thenarratives about Africa or frame counteror new narratives.

But we must also interrogate the counter-narratives and the alternative narratives,including the seemingly progressive, oreven revolutionary ones among them.

To conclude, I would like to say that socialscience, dear colleagues, is facingchallenges everywhere in the world. TheWorld Social Science Reports of 2010 and2013 bring this out very clearly. But thechallenges we face in Africa appear to beparticularly daunting, for three reasons:

i) We are at the receiving end of theglobal power relations, including thepower relations in the scholarlycommunity and in the largerknowledge production world wherebig institutions established topromote or sustain the global orderalso, pose as serious "knowledgeinstitutions" that ‘only disseminate,but also get their production andviews adopted. This has a directbearing on what goes for ‘good’ socialscience or humanities research andproduction, and what gets side-lined.

ii) We still have a long way to go in ourefforts to look at the world from wherewe are, given the great influence thatexternal factors still play in ourscholarship (Mudimbe; Zeleza).

iii) Very few of our policy makers are reallyconvinced that the SSH are of vitalimportance, and that it is important toprovide adequate resources for them.The fascination for the STEM is justtoo high. In Senegal, a nationaldialogue on the future of HE in thecountry, led by a great Africanphilosopher, one of our greatest,recommended to the government toprioritise the STEM as the best wayof ensuring that Senegal becomes anemerging power in 25 or so years. Onereason for doing that, it was argued,is the fact that student enrolments inthe SSH are far bigger than enrolmentsin the STEM. But also because theSTEM are seen as the key to solutionsto unemployment, and under-development. Yet even in the USA, areport of the American Academy ofSocial Sciences and Humanities titledThe Heart of the Matter released in2013 argued very strongly that if theUS wants to preserve its dominant rolein world affairs it must invest in thehumanities and social sciences.

There are, however, great opportunitiesas well. As noted in WSSR 2013 on global


Black Pain Matters: Down with Rhodes

This is a brief but detailed accountof the Rhodes Must Fall studentcampaign that unleashed the

clamour for transformation in highereducation, which has rocked universitiesacross South Africa since April 2015. It isan excerpt of a much longer account titled:"Sir Cecil John Rhodes: Themakwerekwere with a Missionary Zeal."The excerpted sections are: (a) Black PainMatters: Down with Rhodes; (b) NotEvery Black is Black Enough; and (c) UCTFires on All Cylinders.

Black Pain Matters: Down withRhodesThe Demand for Rhodes’ statue to bemoved or removed from the University ofCape Town campus may have taken manyby surprise, but the statue’s incon-venience as a blot on the intellectuallandscape of UCT had been noted andexpressed in the past, since the years ofthe Archie Mafeje Affair, even if its removalwas never formally requested before. TheRMF protest started on Monday, 9 March2015 on the Upper Campus of UCT1, whilethe VC, Dr Max Price, was away in Dakar,Senegal, attending the African HigherEducation Summit.2 In her capacity as theacting VC, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC)Sandra Klopper issued a statement con-firming the protest action. She condemnedin the strongest terms as "unacceptable"and "reprehensible" the actions of "An

individual among the protesters [who]threw excrement at the statue of CecilJohn Rhodes."She concluded herstatement with the reiteration: "UCTendorses freedom of expression. Weencourage open debate, as all universitiesshould do, and urge our students andstaff to participate in discussions thatcontribute to responsible action."3

The "individual" who threw a bucket ofhuman excrement at Cecil John Rhodes’statue was not quite acting as anindividual. Apart from that some studentsreportedly followed his example bythrowing urine and pig manure at thestatue, while others covered it with a whitecloth, "as if to hide the imperial stain,"4

Chumani Maxwele, the "individual"referred to by the acting VC, saw himselfas acting on behalf of a group of studentswho saw themselves as products of ahistory and a sociology of collectivedebasement, violation and victimisationby outsiders who came claiming the statusof superior beings and bearers of superiorvalues. He argued that black studentswould not want to study in a universitysuffocating with relics of colonial plunder,

including having to graduate in a hallnamed after the imperialist, LeanderJameson, over twenty years into ademocratisation process that shouldalready have proven itself by darkeningsome of the landscape with images andrepresentations (of ideas and ideals,heroes and heroines – dead or alive,individual or collective) that blackstudents could relate to.5 The studentshad had enough of repeated claims thattransformation cannot happen overnight,as if the institution were some sort ofscience fiction where a night is longerthan twenty-one years. Maxwele was that"individual" who refused to be treatedsimply as an individual. A black SouthAfrican politics student at UCT who wasno stranger to protests, Maxwele,regarded as a most inconvenient youthin many a conservative circle, saw himselfas a spokesperson for an intellectually andemotionally wounded black community ofstudents, and by extension the rest ofblack South Africans who were yet to feeland feed on the purported fruits ofliberation. Whether or not the anger andfrustration and demand for which heserved as vehicle was "the result of aninculcated sense of entitlement born ofexpectation,"6 Maxwele and his fellowstudent protesters were determined tomake their long silence heard. As KuseniDlamini captures it, the "protests reflectSouth Africa’s unfinished business,"

environmental change, we live in a newage: the age of the Anthropocene, one inwhich the human factor is moredetermining than ever. Which means thatthe social sciences and humanities aremore relevant than ever, and that relevanceis now more and more acknowledged. Ifclimate change was provoked by humanbeings more than anything else, thenobviously human beings must be at thesource of the solutions to it. This pointsto the importance of the SSH.

In reality, the humanities are entering intonew areas and fields, which has led to theconstruction of new sub-fields of studysuch as the ‘medical humanities’ and ‘di-gital humanities’. The range of discipli-nes represented here is a good illustrationof the expansion of the fields covered bythe SSH.

This makes the case for multi-disci-plinarity, inter-disciplinarity, and trans-disciplinarity even more important.

The SSH, the WSSR 2013 concludes, musttherefore be bolder, and better.

That is a conclusion that we must take forourselves in Africa. As you work on yourdoctoral dissertations, you must say toyourselves that the ground-breakingtheories will come from you. After all, thatis what every PhD thesis should be about:bringing something new from a theoreticalor other point of view. Theory building iswhere we are probably weakest, but it iswhere we must make great advances, andyou have opportunities for makingimportant theoretical contributions.

Remember, research in the SSH is not somuch about inventing formulae forresolving this, or that problem—whichdoes not mean that we should not try tofind answers and solutions to ourperennial problems of development etc. –it is, as Mahmood Mamdani rightlyargued, about asking the good questions,i.e. about how we think!

And that is what made all the greatscholars great.

I thank you for your attention, and I wishyou well!

ReferenceZeleza, P.T., 2002, "African Universities and

Globalisation" http://agi.ac.za/sites/agi.ac.za/files/fa_1_feature_article_3.pdf

Francis B. NyamnjohUniversity of Cape Town


reminding South Africans of "the burdenof our history that could not be wishedaway with the ushering in of the newconstitution which guarantees everyonefreedom and equality," and "tell us thatfundamental freedoms without inclusionand benefit from the economy and societyare insufficient to guarantee all citizens afeeling of belonging and empowerment"7.Maxwele was acting on behalf of the blackmajority described by Greg Nicolson asstill having a most raw deal over 20 yearsinto the new South Africa when he writesthat statues such as Rhodes and PaulKruger are only "a symbol of all thatremains to be done, of real transformation":

We still operate on the unequal andbigoted socio-economic conditionsgenerally talked about in the pasttense. In schools, universities andworkplaces black people still facehurdles that white people don’t andmany whites refuse to adjust theirperceptions of race to put them-selves on an equal footing. Despitehundreds of years of oppressionagainst blacks, whites often seeaffirmative action initia-tives as aninjustice, even though the largemajority of black people still facesystemic challenges just trying towork towards a sustainable anddignified life.Over 20 years into democracy, afterhundreds of years of brutality, thingshaven’t changed fast enough. The[African National Congress] ANCcould have done better, clearly, butspaces described as the avenues toopportunity, universities and pro-fessional workplaces, remain white,exclusive, often only tole-rating arainbow-nation-trickle of blacks whoface extra hurdles. If they fail, theirperformance reflects a race. If theysucceed, well, what an exception![….]While almost everyone seems towant change, they want it withoutfuss, without shaking the status quo.They want to open a conversation(maybe an inquiry?) within thecurrent system while their symbolsof being remain untouched. But thatleads to stasis, as it has, with theidea of transformation dropped intowhite noise.8

Maxwele and his fellow protestersrecognised the importance of symbols as"vessels of identity and knowledge of thecollective and its power," and as a thing

that "emotionally ties us to who we thinkwe are, where we’ve come from, and whatwe represent."9 In his repeatedinterventions on the apparentlydisgusting gesture, Maxwele reiteratedthat pouring excrement on the statuehonouring Sir Cecil John Rhodes, theBritish colonial mining magnate andsegregationist who died 113 years agowas intended as a metaphor "to explainour collective black pain," and express"our collective disgust"10 at the resilienceof colonial education and symbols andinstitutional racism at UCT and thecountry at large. He had acted for thoseperplexed by the fact that, more thantwenty years after the alleged end ofapartheid, so little transformation hadtaken place in a university that claimedpost-apartheid credentials and loved toportray itself as Africa’s premieruniversity11. Indeed, the situation hadremained the same12 – some would say ithad worsened – since MahmoodMamdani’s experience of the institution’s(1996–1999) lack of an Africa-focusedintelligentsia and hostility to Africa-focused thought (Mamdani 1998a&b),captured in the following words:

At the University of Cape Town, Iwitnessed a university adminis-tration that paid lip service to‘transformation’ but was so terrifiedof losing control of the process ofchange that it came to see any inno-vative idea as a threat to its positionand power (Mamdani 2007: xiii).

Siona O’Connell, a lecturer at theMichaelis School of Fine Art at UCT,expects management to take transfor-mation beyond "renaming campus roadsand commissioning memorials of slaveburial sites on UCT property."13 Writingin September 2014, O’Connell argues thatas a campus at odds with itself, UCT is:

[…] trying to make sense of amulticoloured landscape with adogged determination using thetools, frames and languages of thepast. It is a university that has beenhome to many messy affairs of parti-cularly darker shades, including theMafeje affair of 1968, the Mamdaniaffair of 1998 and the Centre forAfrican Studies affair of 2011. Onecan’t help but see a pattern thatdraws attention to the inability ofthis university to transform itself asan institution that values all itsvarious publics in a contemporary

South African moment that demandsa radically new way of thinking if weare to escape a repeat of the likes ofMarikana.14

According to Martin Hall –who was withthe Department of Archaeology whenMamdani was at UCT and who respondedin defence of the institution to one ofMamdani’s critiques of UCT turningAfrican Studies into a new home for BantuEducation (Hall 1998) –, "Mr Maxwele’sprotest has electrified longstandingresentments about the ways in which thepast is remembered and celebrated. [….]Wearing a brightly coloured safety helmetand two placards – "Exhibit WhiteArrogance UCT" and "Exhibit BlackAssimilation UCT" – Mr Maxwele emptiedhis bucket in front of the press, who hadbeen tipped off to attend." QuotingNelson Mandela, Hall observes that it ishardly surprising, that South Africanmuseums and national monuments shouldbe seen as alien spaces when they haveexcluded and marginalised most of SouthAfricans. It was Mandela’s hope thatdemocracy would afford South Africans"the opportunity to ensure that ourinstitutions reflect history in a way thatrespects the heritage of all our citizens"15.

If one insists that Maxwele was an indi-vidual in his action, he was no ordinaryindividual. His individuality had beencrushed by a history of repressiveencounters with the violence of domi-nance which Rhodes and UCT had cometo incarnate. The violence of colonialismand apartheid had denied him the luxuryof fulfilling his ambitions as an indi-vidual. He belonged to that amorphous,homogenous and voiceless darknesswhose purportedly primitive savageryoffered a perfect license for others topenetrate and enlighten their circum-stance with the benevolence of civilisedsavagery. Such ambitions of dominancedid not allow him or any other black manor woman to aspire to be an individual –at least, not on their own terms. How thencould he be anything but a collective? Ifthe term individual had to be applied inhis regard at all costs, he was more of acomposite individual, whose agency,whatever it was, could not rise and shinebecause others insisted he did notdeserve the status of a human being even,regardless of what he thought of himselfor what he looked like. Whatever he wasor wasn’t, is or isn’t, is aptly captured by


the title of Bloke Modisane’s book: BlameMe on History (Modisane1986 [1963]).

It is thus hardly surprising that Maxwele’sviews were shared by a "collective ofstudents and staff working to purge theoppressive remnants of apartheid inpursuit of a truly African university."16

Reference to collective black pain andcollective disgust was not to denyindividual agency and diversity amongblack South Africans. Rather, it wasintended as a strategic essentialism (inthe struggle for equality, restitution orreparation) in the same spirit thatessentialisms were strategically deployedin the colonial and apartheid pasts by theimperial and settler white minority as atechnology of exploitation,dispossession, debasement anddomination. In many regards, for blackSouth Africans to recognise their ownpain, is to have come of age. Underapartheid, survival depended precisely onnot dwelling on such pain that fed therepressive machinery of the violent regimeand those it benefitted. In the followingpassage, Modisane gives us insight intohow many a black South African copedwith such mass produced and zealouslydisseminated pain under apartheid:

I have no use for human feelings, Istripped myself of them that day Ilooked upon the battered remains ofthe man who was my father; Ipushed down the pain, forced itdown, refused to cry and never criedsince; every pain, every hurt, everyinsult I pushed down and held downlike vomit; I have graduated bloodywell, I cannot feel anything, I haveno emotional responses, I amincapable of being humiliated, I havelong ceased to experience thesensation of feeling a hurt. I am acorpse. (Modisane 1986 [1963]: 77)

For blacks to actually own up to pain onbodies as monuments of centuries oftorture17 the way Maxwele speaks aboutcan only be explained by the likelihoodthat they must have invested much hopeand aspiration in the declaration thatapartheid had come to an end and that itsvictims could now dream aboutreactivating their humanity. To feel painis to have hope, and to believe that humanagency can result in creative innovations.Yet, if such hope is repeatedly frustratedeven as freedom is celebrated, one isentitled to pinch oneself every now andagain with the question: "Are you free orare you dumb?" in the manner of the

Vodacom advert, Nightshift. This is howAchille Mbembe understands the currenturgency and impatience in clamours fordecolonisation by the RMF and relatedmovements, spearheaded by the eruptionof rights-claiming and rights-denyingwounded bodies, piling up, swearing andcursing, speaking with excrements and inallegories and analogies, asking to beheard. Thus to Mbembe, what we arehearing from the protesting students "isthat there have not been enoughmeaningful, decisive, radical change, notonly in terms of the life chances of theblack poor, but – and this is the novelty –in terms of the future prospects of theblack middle class." The students areimpatient that, over twenty years into theso-called free and new dispensation,South Africans are yet to disrupt "enoughthe structures that maintain andreproduce ‘white power andsupremacy’," and that ensure that themajority mostly black South Africanscontinue to be "trapped in a ‘bad life’ thatkeeps wearing them out and down." Theyare revolting against the terms ofengagement dictated to them, terms thathave only compounded their predicament.The students are screaming in nouncertain terms their dissatisfaction withthe lacklustre manner in which those incharge have gone about the business oftransforming a skewed, racialized SouthAfrica into an inclusive, egalitariancountry.18 To Mbembe, the anger andimpatience of South African youth shouldbe read as an accusation that thosecharged with transformation:

[…] have not radically overturnedthe particular sets of interests thatare produced and reproducedthrough white privilege in institu-tions of public and private life – inlaw firms, in financial institutionssuch as banking and insurance, inadvertising and industry, in terms ofland redistribution, in media, univer-sities, languages and culture ingeneral.‘Whiteness,’ ‘white power,’ ‘whitesupremacy,’ ‘white monopoly capi-tal’ is firmly back on the political andcultural agenda and to be white inSouth Africa now is to face a new-old kind of trial although with newjudges – the so-called ‘born-free’.19

Sir Cecil John Rhodes’ statue was attac-ked as a symbol of "Eurocentric, narrow-minded racism," and as a way of drawingattention to the unfinished and someti-

mes un-started business of transforma-tion beyond symbols. Jonathan Jansen,VC of the University of the Free State re-cognised this when he acknowledged ina newspaper column that the protests areabout a deeper transformation of univer-sities – including the complexion of theprofessoriate – that remains largely un-changed, twenty-one years after the al-leged end of apartheid.20 Singling out theEnglish speaking universities, Jansen ela-borates:

"The three English universities inupheaval – Rhodes, UCT and Wits– struggle with second-order chal-lenges of transformation. Havingenabled access to black studentsover the years – also not without astruggle, despite their liberalpretences – the students now rightlydemand greater recognition throughwho teaches them, what is taught,how the past is remembered (sym-bols such as statues, for example)and how they are made to feel(institutional culture) at universitieswhere they still roam around campuslike visitors. This is the heart oftransformation, and these universi-ties are only now beginning to realisewhat anger simmered below theepidermis of the superficial polit-eness of English culture, and boiledover with #RhodesMustFall."21

Adam Habib, VC of University ofWitwatersrand agrees:

The Rhodes statue was simply a triggerpoint for a broader unhappiness aboutrace, racism, and marginalisation at theUniversity. The universities, particularlythe historically white ones, have beenimmersed in a bubble. They assumed thattheir intellectual atmosphere and theirmiddle class constituencies protectedthem from a social explosion around race.But this was not to be because there islegitimacy to the criticisms of the students.How can there not be when there areuniversities 20 years after our democracythat still have more than two thirds of theirstudents white? How can there not beunhappiness when there are universitiesthat are organised around racialisedfederal principles, which when anincoming vice-chancellor tries to change,he becomes subject to attack by externalright wing organisations includingAfriForum and Solidarity? How can thesestudents not feel offended when even inthe more liberal and historically Englishspeaking universities like UCT and Wits,


the curriculum is not sufficiently reflectiveof our history or speaks to our historicalcircumstances.22

In an open letter on the website of UCTposted 19 March 2015, several studentswrote that removing the statue would"end the unreflective public glorificationof Rhodes at the expense of the legitimatefeelings of those the statue offends on adaily basis."23 Gillian Schutte24 criticisesthe tendency by the privileged class toreact with "shock and outrage," "decrythe animalistic behaviour of the filthy-bodied, filthy-mouthed, uneducatedpoor," and criminalise the desperation ofthe protesting black majority, instead ofopening up to understand and addressthe very conditions of hardship andinequality that have caused the protests,however outrageous. It is all too common,she argues, for the elite of this privilegedclass to "use elitist theory to delegitimisethe intellectual premise for black protestin supercilious articles brimming withwhite supremacy masquerading asacademic thought." She labels as "top-down" and "infantile" reactions that seek"to criminalise black struggle and tosilence black rage," and condemns the deftinsistence by the privileged class on theirown meanings and values when blackpeople, suffocated by excessiverepression resort to poo protests. 25 Onthe use of human faeces by historicallyrepressed blacks to make their point tothe economically and politically powerful,Gillian Schutte writes:

At a time in our history where thecollective is brutally suppressed and blackanger is presented on mainstream mediaas the ultimate violence, the marginalisedmasses find new and inventive ways tomake their grievances heard.

If this means spewing the humanwaste which they are forced to livein into the sanitised public spacesof the well-heeled, then we shouldapplaud their bravery and inven-tiveness.

In a neo-colonial world order wheredemocracy and human rights for therich means ‘shoot to kill’ for the poor,it stands to reason that protestbecomes a desperate cry for the re-cognition of the collective andindividual humanity of thedisenfranchised.Like it or not, defecation is the mostvisceral and inevitable aspect of

being human no matter what yourclass, race or gender.By importing the unfettered faecesof the poor collective, who live withdismally inadequate sanitation, intothe deodorised spaces of those whoare able to flush their own faecesaway in toilets, they are successfullyexposing the extreme and dehu-manising cruelty of a capitalistsystem which privileges some andentirely deprivileges others. 26

Xolela Mangcu, an Associate Professorin the Department of Sociology at UCT,has been at the forefront of the call forthe injection of a significant number ofblack South African academics into UCTand other universities in post-apartheidSouth Africa27. At the University Assem-bly to discuss the Rhodes Statue andTransformation at UCT he told the VC:"Max, I find it racially offensive that whe-never the issue of black professors co-mes up and you are asked about it, theissue of standards must come in."28 Nhla-po29 and many others have subsequentlybased their arguments on statistics pro-vided by Mangcu. At UCT where by 2013there were only 48 black South Africanacademics out of a total of 1,405 – that is3 percent, and not a single black SouthAfrican woman full professor –, black stu-dents and staff are expected to bear insti-tutional racism with a stiff upper lip, andto be subservient to the call of an intel-lectual tradition and logic of practice stee-ped in colonial symbolism and thecelebration of primitive savagery as anessence of being black and African. In acountry where only 4 per cent – 194 outof 4000 – of the professors by 20 July2014 were black South Africans30, it ishardly surprising that "One hundred andfifty years of Black intellectual thoughtremains outside the social theory curri-culum in South Africa."31 Mimicry andhypocrisy are central to the game of kee-ping up appearances in order to be remo-tely visible as a black member of staff oras a black student. White privilege andarrogance reward with token inclusionthose who are able to discipline their truefeelings and embrace what they are fedwithout question. As Amina Mama, for-mer Head of the Africa Gender Institute atUCT, argued during a meeting with the"RMF writing and education sub-commit-tees," given that most vehicles for scho-larly communication in South Africa andglobally continue to be owned and con-trolled by whites, it becomes very diffi-

cult for writing that challenges colonialthinking and models to be tolerated andmade visible. This predicament was reite-rated by 15 RMF students when the Jo-hannesburg Workshop in Theory andCriticism housed by the Institute for So-cial and Economic Research (WISER) atthe University of Witwatersrand made thepages of its Salon available to them32.Gamedze and Gamedze titled their intro-duction to Volume 9 of the publication"Salon for What?" and in it argue that "tobe a radical African intellectual is to chal-lenge, on fundamentally personal, insti-tutional and societal levels," the "form ofalienation that colonial education encou-rages," and that it is somehow ironic forthe RMF students to have to resort to apublication named "Salon" to expressthemselves. That notwithstanding, it isimportant that they are able to write whatthey want to write, the way they want:

We write to assert our humanity asBlack people, and to assert that,while the imagination that stemsfrom this unrecognised, in-betweencondition is indeed flashy, exciting,‘avant-garde’(in its un-investigated-ness) our humanity is at its root. […]we [must] continue to write, andwhile we must navigate the inevi-table ‘Salon’ of western knowledgestructures, we are aware that we arewriting in ways that these knowledgestructures have not prescribed.33

We just have a feeling that there issomething about writing that allowsus to subvert the structures thathave oppressed us and continue todo so, and while this space of writingis contested, we are armed to enterthis contest in ways that cannot anddo not occur to our oppressors. Wewrite different, and so we feel thatwriting is important. It is importantto write ourselves, to write our ownstory. We know that many, who arenot us, have BEEN writing about usand have painted us in manydifferent ways, of which none arecreative nor imaginative enough. Weare here to represent ourselves andshare our thoughts on our situationand on what we are up against. Weare thinking about how we mightcreate something new: how we mightpursue writing in a way that repre-sents and humanises us as energeticand hurt bodies.34

Transformation can only happen, ShoseKessi argues, if black academics and


students can unapologetically fore-ground black pain as a legitimate concern:

The idea of logical reasonedargument outside of affect isnonsensical and serves to legitimisethe idea that intellectual projects andacademic freedom exist outside ofhistorical structural analyses. Itserves as a smokescreen thatinvisibilises whiteness or whitefeelings. I cannot count the numberof times I have been in classrooms,meetings, and committees where thefeelings of white students and staffdominate the space in suffocatingways that exclude and silence –under the guise of ‘logical reasonedargument’. The burden of blackacademics in these spaces is oftenone of appeasing and negotiationfor fear of being dismissed andlabelled as irrational, at best, or, atworst, for fear of the white backlashthat typically spirals out of control.Black pain and anger is pathologisedand condemned whereas whitepeople’s anger is cajoled, under-stood, and considered rational.35

According to Panashe Chigumadzi, thefounder and editor of Vanguard Magazine,being what is generally referred to inSouth Africa as a coconut is no reasonfor one to be blind to, ignore or dismissthe reality of racism. Drawing on herpersonal experience, she explains:

At the age of six I had already begunthe dance that many black people inSouth Africa know too well, with ournames just one of the many importantsites of struggle as we manoeuvrein spaces that do not truly accom-modate our blackness. I had alreadytaken my first steps on the road tobecoming a fully-fledged coconut,that particular category of ‘born free’black youth hailed as torchbearersfor Nelson Mandela’s ‘rainbownation’ after the fall of apartheid; thesame category of black youth thatare now part of the forefront of newstudent movements calling forstatues of coloniser Cecil JohnRhodes to fall, and for the deco-lonisation of the post-apartheidsocio-economic order.We all know what a coconut is, don’twe? It’s a person who is ‘black onthe outside’ but ‘white on theinside’. This term came into popularSouth African usage in apartheid’sdying days as black children enteredformerly white schools. At best,

coconuts can be seen as ‘non-white’. At worst, they’re ‘UncleToms’ or ‘agents of whiteness’.I’ve chosen to appropriate the termand self-identify as a coconutbecause I believe it offers an oppor-tunity for refusal. It’s an act of proble-matising myself – and others – withinthe landscape of South Africa aspart of the black middle class that issupposed to be the buffer againstmore ‘radical elements’.Instead of becoming the trustedmediators between black and white,we are now turning to conceptionsof blackness and mobilising angerat the very concept of the rainbownation. The fantasy of a colour-blind,post-racial South Africa has beenprojected onto us coconuts, but ourlived experiences are far from free ofracism.36

Regardless of the blackness one targets,global or local, national or pan-African,to quibble about the reference to blackpain is to want to erase a history in whichblacks were defined and confined throughparticular encounters as a collectivity andnot simply as individuals by their colo-nisers armed with ambitions of dominancethat were sometimes veiled or disguisedby claims of mission civilisatrice andcontinue to be rationalised by the nebu-lousness of claims to modernisation,development and globalisation. Howeverloud the silence of some in their apathyto black pain may be, to proclaim this inpublic is to deny that universalisms, if notarbitrarily imposed, are always negotiatedand navigated through the encounters ofparticularisms. Common denominatorscome not from hiding the personal butfrom taking personal experiences to theemotive public distilleries of contextuallyrelevant forms of rationality. In the caseof South Africa, to quibble about blackpain is also to force black South Africansto live a post-apartheid lie that the playingfield has been levelled and race and thebenefits it accords and denies are nolonger important, even as no concertedeffort has been made, in real terms, to rightpast wrongs.37

As a numerical majority, black SouthAfricans are miffed by their incapacity toassert themselves in the age of freedom38.They are impatient and flabbergasted thatwhiteness continues to be such a power-ful force and to impose its vocabulary ofprovocation and victimhood on blacksdespite political independence. Of the

multiple pains blacks succeeded infreezing under apartheid, post-apartheidSouth Africa seems to have mitigated littlemore than the pain of political disen-franchisement. It has reawakened materialdesires and aspirations that had beennumbed à la Bloke Modisane who is citedabove describing numbing as a survivalstrategy in the days when freedom wasan extravagant illusion. Little wonder thatthe language of black pain nowproliferates, especially among those whofeel they have invested effort enough atschooling themselves in the valuesenshrined by the whiteness that hasdominated them body, mind and soul forso long. What use is it to be termed middleclass in post-apartheid South Africa onlyto be differentiated as "black" in thatmiddle-classness because one, howevercorrupt in one’s capacity to accumulatein a hurry, can hardly measure up to thetraditional middle class (white remainsfirmly white) because of decades (if notcenturies) of accumulation and thepassing down of wealth through suc-cessive generations of the family? Andhow can a black South African born post1994 celebrate the generic category of aborn-free when he or she cannot freelycompete with their white counterpartbecause of persistent material and struc-tural inequalities?39 According to a surveyof born-frees con-ducted in the course ofthe Rhodes Must Fall campaign, manyborn-frees declared they were likely toresort to violent protests because of thepersistence of inequalities in the country.

According to the report, "unemploy-ment rates are higher among youngerpeople‚ women and Africans." Onthe expanded defi-nition of unem-ployment‚ the rate among Africanmales aged 15 to 24 years is 67%compared with 75% of Africanfemales.Violent protests in SA have almostdoubled in the last three years and itis suspected that the economicallydisenfranchised youth may play ahuge part in it.Born frees are also receiving poorquality education, said the report,with literacy and numeracy scoresin Grade 3 in this group barely above50%. This has a major ripple effectlater on as only 51% of matriccandidates pass their final school-leaving exam.The report found that "people aged14 to 25 years old account for 29%of the country’s prison population."


To speak of collective black pain andcollective black disgust is to demonstratethat one is not duped by hollow claims ofa common humanity and equality for alland sundry in a world structured by andaround interconnecting global and localhierarchies informed by considerations orcategories such as race, place, class,culture, gender and generation.

Bearing this in mind, one can understandhow and why Rhodes’ statue along withan untransformed UCT was seen by theprotesting students as a chilling reminderof a history steeped in blood and ruthlessindifference to the humanity of blackSouth Africans. To Maxwele, hisgeneration of black South Africanstudents is ready to succeed where itsparents failed in tackling white power andprivilege until satisfactory concessionsare made. If a letter addressed to theChairperson of UCT Council, ArchbishopNjongonkulu Ndungane, by anotherstudent Rekgotsofetse ‘Kgotsi’ Chikane40,who describes himself as "A student whowants transformation he can see," isanything to go by, Maxwele’s dramatic"poo" intervention was meant as shocktreatment for an institution that hassystematically resisted transformation.The letter begins with a series of what theauthor terms plaguing questions,amongst which are the following:

Why must it be that a student at theUniversity of Cape Town (UCT) ispushed to the point of having tothrow faecal matter over the statueof Cecil John Rhodes in order tohave a conversation about transfor-mation at UCT? How is it that we arenow at this point?

Chikane is frustrated by:

[…] the fact that there is no plan forreal transformation on campus.Transformation that I can see.Honest transformation. Transfor-mation that means something.

Chikane is worried by the "disconcerting"silence of the chair of UCT Council, ablack South African like himself and a manof God, over the "institutionalised racism"that continues to stand in the way oftransformation at UCT. To the authorneither the VC nor the UCT Senate can betrusted to lead the process of "meaningfultransformation" in the institution. To him,the discussion around the transformationof curricula and race relations "is largelyignored or recklessly diluted by those indecision-making positions." Policies

purportedly aimed at bringing about racialtransformation are yet to yield tangibleoutputs and to have a meaningful impact.UCT has not only failed to transform, ithas achieved little in opening itself up torepresent black South African aspirationsin any significant way. Chikane describesas "weak" the VC’s repeated defence thatthe university cannot attract quality blackSouth African academics because itcannot afford to offer competitive salariesto entice young black graduates tocontinue studying. The university isseriously in need of the injection of blackacademics and African perspectives todisabuse itself of the reputation amongstudents of "being a European universitystuck at the bottom of Africa." The"systemic" and "subliminal" form ofinstitutionalised racism at UCT is, in hisestimation, worse than that in any otheruniversity in South Africa. Chikaneelaborates:

It is the form of racism that makesyou ignorant about your subju-gation because you are neverchallenged to seriously engage oncritical matters. It’s the form of racismthat allows those who enter UCTfrom a position of privilege to neverhave to question their privilege. Theprivilege of being able to walk past astatue of Saartjie Baartman in thelibrary and have no idea that simplyplacing her on display, with nojustification, is an insult to her legacyand painfully offensive to manystudents.

Like his fellow students, Chikane wastotally frustrated with the excesses of theconquering amakwerekwere representedby Cecil John Rhodes, a statue of whomwas implanted in mocking imperialdefiance high on the campus of theuniversity, enjoying a magnificent viewof the city and contemplating outer space.By smearing Rhodes’ statue withexcrement and covering it with garbagebags and signs of protest, the studentswere screaming their revulsion with thecallous indifference that universityauthorities had repeatedly displayed vis-à-vis their plight in an institution in whichthey felt like perfect strangers oramakwerekwere. The statue of Rhodes,erected to celebrate an oppressor andimperialist who was able to buy his wayinto prominence with land and wealth heacquired through dispossession of theirforefathers and foremothers, was asymbol of oppression and white privilege

– an impediment to real transformation. Itwas neither here nor there that some ofthe students protesting had benefitedfrom funding by the Rhodes estate, or thatthe university was built upon land thatwas bequeathed to it in Rhodes’ will. Theywere sick and tired of the arrogance ofamakwerekwere like Rhodes who hadturned the bona fide sons and daughtersof South Africa and earlier generations ofmigrants into beggars and strangers intheir own land. Instead of opening up tothe idea of a truly inclusive and reconciledpost-apartheid South Africa in the spiritof the "rainbow nation" propagated bythe Truth and Reconciliation Commis-sion, the white establishment, in theestimation of the protesting blackstudents, had clung to their privileges ina business as usual sort of way, whilepaying lip service to transformation 41. Theoutcome has been, as Trevor Noah putsit in one of his comedy sketches: "We [inSouth Africa] used to be the ‘rainbownation’; now the colours are going theirown way"42.

Anthony Butler43 believes that by"speaking out frankly about theshortcomings of UCT’s transformationstrategy," black students were demon-strating "why they are better placed thantheir lecturers to understand their ownexperiences of being black." They werealso offering their fellow undergraduatewhite students the opportunity tointrospect and contemplate on their oftentaken for granted privileges. Not just their"affluent suburban backgrounds, well-resourced schools, and the societaldominance of their home languages," butalso, and perhaps more importantly, the:

[…] less obvious aspects of theiradvantage: an expectation that whenthey underperform it will not beattributed to their race; a capacity tosucceed that is not attributed byothers to affirmative action; a happyexpectation that potential employerswill assume they are competentbecause of their skin colour; and anease in negotiating the legacies ofcolonialism and white domination.44

The protest spread as more and more stu-dents joined, and politicians, the media(both conventional and social) becamepart of the fray. In a statement issued byGwede Mantashe, ANC Secretary Gene-ral, the ANC National Executive Commit-tee (NEC) "unequivocally" expressedsupport for the protesting "students in


their determined demands for transforma-tion at universities across the country."NEC declared: "We appreciate that sta-tues are mere symbols of our racist histo-ry and believe that the transformationneeded must be concerned with entren-ching fundamental and far-reaching struc-tural, systematic and cultural change;reflective of the aspirations and realitiesof our democratic and non-racial order."Twenty years into democracy have madetransformation a non-negotiable matter ofurgency.45 Higher Education and TrainingMinister Blade Nzimande, for example,vowed to turn 2015 into a year in whichhe would "uncompromisingly" push forthe transformation of the country’s uni-versities, adding: "There remains an ur-gent need to radically change thedemographics of our professoriate; trans-form the curriculums and research agen-das; cultivate greater awareness of Africa;eliminate racism, sexism and all other formsof unjust discrimination; improve acade-mic success rates and expand studentsupport."46 Speaking in her capacity asshadow Minister of Higher Education forthe Democratic Alliance, as well as formerDVC for University of Witwatersrand,Belinda Bozzoli admits that South Africastill has a long way to go in eradicatingracism, and that "Proper reconciliationhasn’t been truly achieved yet." To her,"Reconciliatory ideas vanished from po-litics with Nelson Mandela’s death," andthe purported lack of no money for newacademic posts in South Africa wouldmake it difficult for universities to openup any time soon to the inclusion of moreblack South African academic staff.47

Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, spokesperson for theEconomic Freedom Fighters (EFF) calledfor the reconstruction of public monu-ments in non-oppressive ways, addingthat the party would continue to "agita-te" and provide "ideological perspective"on the removal of colonial and apartheidera statues and monuments. Inspired bythe RMF protest, a statue of Paul Krugerwas allegedly defaced by members of theEFF in Tshwane, and a memorial statue inUitenhage Market Square in the EasternCape was reportedly set alight by mem-bers of the EFF. The student protests hadgiven the party’s campaign to removecolonial and apartheid statues and mo-numents added impetus. It was only logi-cal, Ndlozi argued, that with the end ofapartheid, public spaces configured in theimage of the repressive forces of the apar-theid era be reconfigured to reflect the

dreams and aspirations of the new SouthAfrica.48 Anglican Archbishop ThaboMakgoba of Cape Town was of the opi-nion that: "The campaign against sym-bols of the injustice of our past, alongwith service delivery protests and publicoutrage over corruption, reflect the angerof South Africans at the inequalities thatcontinue to plague us." He called on alland sundry to "harness the energy beingpoured into protest into rigorous self-exa-mination and action to expand the cur-rent campaigns into a creative,society-wide drive for real transforma-tion."49

The demonstrators mounted a "RhodesMust Fall" campaign on Facebook andrelated social media, along with a Twitteraccount: #RhodesMustFall.50 The"Rhodes Must Fall" Facebook page –which described itself as "a collectivestudent, staff and worker movementmobilising for direct action against theinstitutional racism of UCT"51 attractedsympathy posts from far and wideincluding from student movements inuniversities across the world.52 It must beadded though, as some of the students atthe University Assembly made evidentfrom some of the derogatory posts theyread out – posts referring to blacks asmonkeys, pigs, primitive savages andmorons because "you can take them outof the bush but you can’t take the bushout of them" – and filled with a catalogueof other negativities –, that not all theFacebook posts were supportive53.Transformation became the catchword,catchall and catchon about the unfinishedbusiness of recalibration of the hierarchiesof humanity that had informed relations,privilege and poverty in apartheid SouthAfrica. In this way, the Rhodes statue wasmerely an entry point for a series ofdemands seeking recognition andrepresentation for those who felt harddone by the privileges of the whiteamakwerekwere that presided over theirdestinies, diminishing the self-esteem andsense of identity of especially blackstudents and academics who felt theydeserved better especially within a newand purportedly free South Africa. It isthus significant that many white studentsinitially drawn to the protest persuadedby the general outcry in favour of mentaldecolonisation and transformation ofcurricula and relations within theinstitution, and the removal of the statureof Rhodes as a symbolic gesture, soon

found themselves being made to feel thatthey were weeping more than the ownerof the corpse. For those of them whosought to become more involved, theywere made to understand that their rolewas strictly limited to one of solidarityand support in a struggle that was clearlyblack. In other words, they questioned orwere made to question, how it is possiblefor a makwerekwere in the image ofRhodes – a white, born-free or not, localor foreign – to seek to convince anyonethat he or she could feel the pain of theoppressed black other, or claim to be inthe same boat? To some black students,whites who joined the protest were merelykeeping up appearances, making as ifCecil Rhodes and his excesses were allthat is to blame for the predicaments ofblack South Africans and black Africanson campus in general. Did they really thinkthat all that was needed was to name andshame Sir Cecil John Rhodes (as anindividual as if he had lived his life entirelyas an island with neither ancestry, kin,progeny or relationships with others) –the white makwerekwere who debased,humiliated and undermined Africans withimpunity so as to appropriate theirresources? If Rhodes, however iconic,was the only problem, why did hisexcesses and material superabundance orwealth appear to have trickled downthrough the ranks and generations, as ifflowing in the blood of his white brethrento contaminate even the post-apartheidgeneration of so-called born-frees? Whydid his legacy of a highly concentratedmonopolistic economy persist? Why isthe economy still firmly under whitecontrol? Could the fact – as evidencedby the "Fees Must Fall" and "EndOutsourcing" student protests whichsubsequently rocked universitiescountrywide54 – be blamed entirely on theincompetence and corruption of the newANC mostly black elite in power as somehave tended to insinuate?

Not Every Black is Black EnoughIt is commonplace to be caught betweenand betwixt any and everywhere in theworld, especially in South Africa where itis all too easy to be crushed by the giantcompressors of the regressive logic ofever diminishing circles of inclusion (Fe-bruary 1991; Adhikari 2005). Colonialismand apartheid functioned best throughhierarchies of humanity and their multi-plicities of agentive possibilities. It wasthe best form of divide and rule. Post-


apartheid South Africa and South Afri-cans are in no hurry to give up on catego-ries that have served them so well. So, itis hardly surprising that in the current cla-mour for decolonisation epitomised byRMF, some attitudes and declarations lea-ve one in little doubt that not every blackis black enough, both among nationalsand foreigners. Just as there is a hierar-chy of whiteness, so too is there a hierar-chy of blackness. NeighbouringBotswana, which went through similardebates on citizenship, belonging, rightsand entitlements in the late 1990s and ear-ly 2000s captures in a most fascinatingway the complexities and intricacies ofbelonging and attitudes towards citi-zenship and foreigners which South Afri-ca is currently experiencing, and fromwhich South Africans can draw vital les-sons for a future of inclusion (Nyamnjoh2002, 2006).

In the current RMF and transformationdebates, by insisting frequently that thestatue was only a symbol or a metaphorfor the wider lack of transformation atUCT, the protesting students echoed andwere echoed by academic staff withsimilar concerns about the predominantlywhite reality of the institution despite theallegedly post-apartheid landscape of thecountry. Mangcu wrote several piecesfeatured by the national media,complaining of the snail pace oftransformation at UCT, an institutionwhere Whites dominate teachingpositions and there are too few blackSouth African academics at professoriallevel. He pointedly insisted that it wasscandalous for UCT to have too few blackSouth African academics, especially atprofessorial ranks, and yet claim to be aSouth African university. It was even morescandalous that out of a total of 1,405academics at UCT, there was not a singleblack female professor of South Africannationality amongst them. Mangcu makesa distinction between black SouthAfricans, Coloureds and Indians, as dofellow South African academics and theState as well. Here is an excerpt from oneof his articles on the matter:

First, by 2013, the number of blackSouth African academic staff at UCTwas 48 out of a total of 1 405 — thatis, 3%. This was an increase from 46in 2009. That is a net gain of twoblack people over five years. Andlisten to this: there is not a singleblack South African woman who is a

full professor at UCT. Not one, in2013! That statistic is unacceptablein an inclusive democratic society.Of the 174 South Africans who arefull professors at the university, thereare only five black South Africans(2.8%), six coloured males (3.4%) andtwo coloured females (1%). Thereare 10 Indian male full professors(5.7%) and only one Indian woman(0.5%). In short, Steve Biko’s Blacks— blacks, coloureds and Indians —constituted just about 12% of thefull professors at UCT who wereSouth African in 2013. As Bikopointed out, the fate of coloureds,Indians and Africans in South Africawill always be interconnected on themargins. Yes, you guessed it right,85% are white South Africans (148out of 174). The parallels with theLand Act of 1913 could not be morestriking.In my faculty at UCT, the humanities,where you would expect pioneeringresearch about our future, there areonly two black South Africans whoare full professors. There was a 100%increase with the appointment of anew dean of the humanities to bringus to a whopping two out of 47 fullprofessors in the humanities. And theyare in one department, sociology.55

Put differently, Mangcu was complainingthat UCT was dominated by amakwe-rekwere of yesteryears (whites, coloured,Indians) – some of whom with dividedloyalties by virtue of carrying more thanone passport – and that even 20 yearsinto the so-called liberation of the countryfrom the yoke of apartheid, those claimi-ng the status of bona fide black nativesons and daughters of the land were yetto feel genuinely integrated into an insti-tution that was supposedly theirs. Ins-tead, the university authorities resortedto filling the place up with amakwerekwe-re of another kind, blacks from north ofthe Limpopo, as if every black was blackenough in the South African context. Thisis a nuance which was aptly pointed outby Professor Sakhela Buhlungu, Dean ofthe Humanities Faculty at UCT (who, inrecognition for his demonstrated lea-dership on drawing attention to the unfi-nished business of transformation, hasearned the reputation of champion oftransformation56) when he denounced as"most dishonest, most hypocritical andcynical" the common practice by univer-sities in South Africa to "cop-out" fromexpectations of redress, equity and ac-

cess by counting as "equity candidates"for recruitment "international scholars,who just happen to be black." At the riskof unsettling a number of his fellow aca-demics, Buhlungu subscribes to "threecategories of academics: white South Afri-can academics, black South African aca-demics and international scholars," andcalls for "balance across the categories."In other words, he recognises theamakwerekwere within (white South Afri-cans, who happen to be mostly thoseplaying "tricks" and being hypocriticalabout transformation and to whom oneblack equals another, South African ornot) and the obvious amakwerekwere intheir varying degradations (non-SouthAfrican whites and non-South Africanblacks – those who are recruited to thedetriment of meaningful equity and re-dress and whose recruitment is often jus-tified/rationalised with arguments to theeffect that South African universities needto be competitive internationally).57

This begs a few questions about "deco-lonisation," the label that has found trac-tion with the current RMF campaign.When does decolonisation entail Africa-nisation?58 And when does it mean South-Africanisation only, without thewhiteness? When does decolonisation asAfricanisation enter into a meaningfulconversation with decolonisation as whi-teless-South-Africanisation? Above all,when do decolonisation as whiteless-South-Africanisation and Africanisationenter into worthy epistemological conver-sations with decolonisation as a univer-sal aspiration à la Frantz Fanon and à laSteve Biko (as neither South Africa norAfrican can claim monopoly over victimi-sation by colonisation and apartheid as aracialized technology of subjugation anddomination) that may or may not coinci-de with being African or with being SouthAfrican, both in the general, generousand inclusive or exclusionary, parochialand autochthonous sense of these iden-tities? This teething problem of decoloni-sation is a replay of the debate in the 1960sin the rest of Africa, the time most coun-tries gained a semblance of independen-ce59, even if South Africa’s predicamentis that decolonisation is happening at thesame time as accelerated globalization,which in a way complicates the situationremarkably, through the mass productionof black migrants by the collapsing eco-nomies of many African states. But evenin the 1960s, as Fanon notes in The Wret-


ched of the Earth, narrow nationalism wasalready inciting nationals to violenceagainst foreigners while calling for oppor-tunities to be confined to citizens (Fanon1967: 125-6). When is decolonisation morethan simply opening out to engage withAfrican and South African issues,knowledge and epistemology? Whatreason is there to quibble about makingknowledge production focused on SouthAfrica and Africa the central concern of auniversity that purports to be South Afri-can and African, and therefore to implythat it thinks, teaches and relates to theworld from that vantage point of beingSouth African and African? What man-ner of transformation is sufficiently ac-com-modating of the complexities andnuances of being African or South Afri-can in a nimble-footed world where eve-ryone is a potential makwerekwere,powerful or not, and where autochthonymakes sense only in terms of how readyone is able to include history beyond thatwhich is convenient for one and the inte-rests one is defending for the moment?60

In a Facebook post reacting to an articleby Achille Mbembe on the "State of SouthAfrican Politics," Mojalefa Murphy – "aSouth African born Nuclear Physicist"and "skilled generalist and activist" –echoes Buhlungu’s sentiments. He arguesthat to keep postponing redressing pastinjustices and providing for equalcitizenship with black South Africans,university authorities in South Africa whoremain predominantly white, prefer toreach out to and co-opt black Africanacademics from the rest of the continentsuch as Mbembe to provide token blackpresence on campuses in order to givethe impression of racial reconfigurationin the name of transformation. Murphymay be right that it is no secret that foreignblack Africans "are generally preferred foremployment in white managed SouthAfrican outfits both in the public andprivate sector," possibly to foster thewhite supremacists’ agenda of "exploitingthe economy corruptly to feather nestsabroad." In reward for their support,African academics in "white institutionsof higher learning" are known to "sailthrough with ease" while many blackSouth African academics are "overlookedfor promotion to senior and professorialpositions." It is wrong, he concludes, forwhites and their black conformists inSouth Africa to "interpret the justifiableanger at whiteness as hatred for whites."

Black anger is nothing but an expressionof collective black psyche as informed bythe lived traumatic experiences of blacksfor centuries of racial assault by whitesupremacists61. Such divide and rulepractices as described by Murphy, if trulyintended, ought to be condemned withoutmitigation. It is equally in the interest ofthose invested in decolonisation as botha local and global pursuit to understandand circumvent the game of divide andrule championed by an ideological pre-disposition to a world of interconnectinglocal and global hierarchies informed byfactors or considerations such as race,ethnicity, place, class, gender andgeneration.

While some non-South African blacksmay be perceived to be co-opted to servethe interests of white supremacists, aprioritisation of transformation as redressand equity for South African blacks exclu-sively, however justified contextually,disenfranchises or delegitimizes anycompelling claims to black pain that non-South African black academics may haveat UCT as an institution dominated bythe privileged interests and taken-for-granted pers-pectives in tune with thehabitus of being white in South Africa.Such exclusionary or selective indicatorsof blackness and black pain give theimpression that black pain at UCT isexperienced by degree and that howevermuch solidarity non-South African blacksbring to the struggle, their black pain isalways susceptible, a priori, to beingdefined and related to as inferior – thepain of black amakwerekwere or out-siders within – to the pain of black SouthAfricans who overtly or covertly considerthemselves as authentic sons ordaughters of the native soil, those whoreally should have been in charge, hadnot the white amakwerekwere of yester-years epitomised by Rhodes, conqueredand tamed them with violence andsuperior technology, injecting andimplanting themselves and their progenyas a more or less permanent blot on thenative landscape.

Seen thus, the following critical reactionto Mbembe’s piece alluded to above byShose Kessi – a black senior lecturer ofTanzanian nationality in the departmentof psychology at UCT – would needqualification and nuance, to reflect theever diminishing circles of inclusion evenwhen race is a common denominator.

Being black or white is not all that there isto the transformation debate, which isalso, and often more importantly, aboutrights and entitlements as nationals andcitizens of a specific nation-state. In suchlocalised autochthonous struggle forsocial visibility, resources and power, thenew generation of amakwerekwere whoare black, often powerless anddispensable, and who hail from Africanorth of the Limpopo, matter very littlewhatever the magnitude of their ownfrustrations with the deeply colonialnature of the university institutions thathave hired them, or where they arestudents. They are caught between andbetwixt forces that often know littlecompromise. Seen in these terms,amakwerekwere such as Kessi, theircommitment to genuine transformationnotwithstanding, could easily findthemselves in awkward situations (notdissimilar to those in which so-called born-free white students have found themselveswhen they have come out to showsolidarity with their protesting blackcolleagues) where they are perceived andrelated to as if they were perfect strangersat a funeral weeping more than the ownerof the corpse, or as fighting fights inwhich they have no stakes. Paradoxically,it seems to matter little what non-SouthAfrican blacks think or feel, as they areopen to caricature either way in the gameof narrow nationalism that South Africanblacks find themselves compelled to play,systematically stifled as they have beenby the callous indifference of whites andwhiteness.

Kessi, a black African makwerekweresenior lecturer at UCT, is keen to highlightan all-black predicament in the institution.She presents herself as belonging to "theBlack Academic Caucus" at UCT – "agroup of over 80 black academicsrepresenting all faculties […] engaging ininstitution-wide conversations andactions to address the exclusion of blackexperiences and scholarship in the areaof curriculum, research, staff recruitmentand development, and institutionalculture" –, identifies with the struggle tothe extent that it is inclusive of all blacks,and expresses what to her are all-blackconcerns. To her, black scholarship,whether by black South Africans or byamakwerekwere from beyond theLimpopo and in the diaspora, shouldprioritise the needs and aspirations ofblacks. It should be scholarship that takes


into account the social and historicalcontexts of blacks, and in the particularcase of South Africa and the continent,"the material, symbolic and structuralconditions brought about by colonisationand apartheid." Important in suchscholarship are "the affective and bodilyexperiences" of black scholars and blackpeople. It is a scholarship that seeks to"dismantle the racist masculinist cultureof our institution (city, country andcontinent) and […] whiteness andpatriarchy in the lived experiences of blackstaff and students." It is a scholarshipthat challenges a tendency in "rational"talk to portray black people as always the"problem" – either as helpless passivevictims or as people whose sense ofjudgement is eternally clouded by toomuch emotion. To Kessi, it is preciselysuch emotion that is needed to understandthe thingification, undermining, andexperiences of exclusion of black bodiesin the institution. Such emotions awakenconsciousness of how the past invadesthe present and how to move forward. Farfrom closing off dialogue, Kessi arguesthat expressing "black pain" can beinstructive on the workings of"oppressive power […] and the intricatelevels and dimensions at which itoperates." To her, "Engaging with blackpain develops a new level of conscious-ness where the affective experiences ofexclusion are at the root of how criticalreasoned argument can emerge and leadto decolonising and transformativepractices."62 Kessi illustrates her pointthus:

When black students protest atbeing silenced in classroom debates,at being taught with materials thatexclude or devalue their bodies andcultures, at having to live throughthe rape culture of our residences,these painful experiences inform thelearning, teaching, and culturalpractices that need to change. Whenblack staff protest at being deniedpromotion, at being rejected byethics committees, or at beingdepicted as incompetent simplybecause of their race or so-called‘black accents,’ these experiencesinform the teaching, research, andgovernance practices that need tochange. In fact, all of theseexperiences tell us of the ways inwhich the dominant white maleculture at UCT is perpetuated at theexpense of black, women, and

LGBTQ experiences and intellectualexcellence. As an academic insti-tution that is forging and inspiringthe minds of future generations,challenging these dynamics isfundamental to creating a societythat fosters inclusivity, dialogue, andwellbeing.63

The fact of blackness as an attribute ofbeing a particular type of human,ascribed, achieved or imposed, is not themonopoly of any particular Africancountry, nor of the continent, calls for aconceptualisation and articulation ofdecolonisation of knowledge productionand consumption that is carefullynuanced to provide for the complexintersections of race, ethnicity, geogra-phy, class, gender and generation. Evenat our most legitimately aggrieved, wecannot afford to resort to the zero sumgames of dominance of the oppressors,as this would only compound oursubservience and predicaments.

UCT Fires on All CylindersAs the Rhodes Must Fall protest grew inintensity and stature, the universityauthorities went to work, firing on allcylinders, or just about, in an attempt toconcoct a solution.64 The VC and hissenior administrators also admitted thatUCT had tended to test the waters insteadof confronting transformation head on. Afew quotes by senior management andspokespersons at different points of theprotest illustrate this assessment. GerdaKruger, in her capacity as spokeswomanfor the university affirms: "[UCT] hasacknowledged that we have been slow toaddress certain facets of transformation,such as curriculum reform […] we arecommitted to listening, discussing,debating and finding answers"65.Management "held meetings withstudents and set up white boards aroundthe statue, wrapped in black plastic, wherestudents could write down theiropinions." In a circular UCT’s firstresponse to these calls for action was toconvene a discussion about "Heritage,Signage and Symbolism" led by DVC,Professor Crain Soudien66. But before thiscould convene there had been furtherprotests centred on the Rhodes statue,then swathed and taped in black rubbishbags. By the time these first negotiationswith the university administration wereconvened, the student representativecouncil position had hardened. Thepresident of the Student Representative

Council (SRC), Ramabina Mahapa, said:"I understand it is part of history, but theinstitutional representation of blackpeople at this university is negative."From here, the RMF movement escalatedrapidly, culminating in a march and theoccupation of the university’sadministration building, Bremner. VC MaxPrice responded with university-widedebates and a special meeting of theuniversity senate to consider proposals.Upfront, he said that he and his executivefavoured removing the statue, but onlythe university council could take the finaldecision. An emergency meeting of thecouncil was called for 25 April. Mean-while, the stand-off rapidly became anational issue. Students at RhodesUniversity in Grahamstown went onprotest in sympathy, and higher educationminister Blade Nzimande gave his supportfor moving the statue67.

The extended debate considered variousoptions. One was to leave the statuestanding where it was but include a plaqueat its base acknowledging the "injusticesof colonial conquest enacted underRhodes’ watch." In addition, the optionto leave Rhodes where he was would haveto be "accompanied by another artworkto be located alongside Rhodes, to ‘speakback’ by way of alternative values andconvictions." To the VC, it was the verystrategic location of Rhodes’ statue at thefocal point of the university that hadattracted connotations of being a"founder, hero, patron, role model and(an) embodiment of UCT’s heritage." 68

Hence his personal opinion that thestatue should be moved:

"I just think it should not be there –it should be moved. This will notcompromise our ability to record anddebate the role Rhodes played in thecity’s and continent’s history. Andit will not change our acknow-ledgment that UCT acquired its sitefrom the Rhodes estate, and thepositive contribution it has made toour institution and its students" 69.

Despite his conviction that there was "asignificant view that the statue should bemoved," the VC opted for an extendedconsultation because "there has neverbeen any formal consultation or organiseddiscussion on this matter, and it wouldnot be appropriate for the UCT executive,or council, to make such arecommendation without undertakingsuch a discussion"70. Adekeye Adebajo,


executive director of the Centre forConflict Resolution at UCT, was amongthose who criticised the university forbeing rather officious in its response tothe protest, "with a questioning of themethods of some of the students; aninsistence on the need to follow"procedures" for "peaceful and safe"protests; encouraging "open debate andresponsible action"; and threatening totake legal steps against any "unlawfulbehaviour"71 The VC responded toAdebajo, accusing him of distortion ofhis views on Rhodes:

Adebajo succeeds in completelydistorting the view I hold on Rhodes.First, he fails to mention that I,personally, have repeatedly statedthat I regard Rhodes as a villain, theperpetrator of ruthless exploitationof indigenous people, landexpropriation, illegal wars andvicious conquest.Second he fails to remind readersthat I, as well as the entire seniorleadership group of the university,have publicly expressed our viewthat the Rhodes statue must bemoved.72

The VC defended his decision to consultextensively despite his personalconclusion that the statue should bemoved, by reiterating the following: "UCTis an argumentative university. This is anabiding strength: it shows our enga-gement with the issues of our times andour interest in ideas that matter.Undoubtedly the students are leading anational debate."73 While some felt thatUCT had wasted time deliberating theobvious, others like Adam Habib, VC ofUniversity of Witwatersrand, felt UCT hadnot deliberated and conversed deeplyenough before a decision on the Rhodesstatute was concluded.74

Following nearly a month of protests andmeetings, Senate voted in favour ofmoving Rhodes’ statue as follows: Votesin favour: 181; Votes against: 1; Abs-tentions: 375. The decision was endorsedat a special meeting of Convocation onTuesday 7 April 2015, and on Wednesday8 April the university’s council decidedunanimously to remove the statue to betemporarily housed for safekeeping in anunnamed storeroom approved by theWestern Cape Heritage ResourcesCouncil, pending a formal application tothe council to have the statue removedpermanently, in accordance with the

National Heritage Resources Act.76 TheChair of UCT Council, ArchbishopNjongonkulu Ndungane asked foraccelerated and acceptable roadmap oftransformation. He credited the studentsin particular for the historic removal ofRhodes’ statue:

What sparked this was a cry fromthe students. That transformationneeds to be consolidated. Cecil JohnRhodes, for the sins of his past, asan imperialist and a racist […] standsin contrast to the values that thisuniversity enhances. And soManagement of this university gotinto a process of consulting variousstructures of the university,including Senate, and terminating inour meeting last night when Councilvoted unanimously as recognitionof what the students are saying anda demonstration of our commitmentto transformation.77

On Thursday, 9 April, 2015, at 5.37 pm,the contentious "statue of Cecil JohnRhodes was lifted a short distance by ahuge crane from its pride of place. […]pelted with whatever members of thegathered crowd could get their hands on,as it was lowered onto its waitingtransport," while "Some onlookers stoodin silence, a few took selfies and somesang and danced."78 As the statue wasdriven off, the SRC vice-president ofexternal affairs Zizipho Pae said moving itwas paving the way for the "real work" oftransforming UCT to begin. Otherstudents waving banners that read "Wehave only just started," concurred. Thestudents had won a victory on a statue,and they would continue to occupyBremner building, re-christened "AzaniaHouse," until their demands for racialtransformation were met. "This movementis not just about a statue, it’s aboutdecolonizing the colonial structure, thecurriculum and everything it stands for,"some insisted. On their transformationshopping list were plans to lobby incoming months "for the promotion ofblack lecturers and the enrolment of morestudents from disadvantaged commu-nities," and to follow up on a proposalthey had submitted requesting that "thenames of various other ‘coloniallandmarks’ at the university, includingJameson Hall, be changed. Jameson Hallwas named after Leander Starr Jameson,a confidant of Rhodes."

The protests spread to other formerlywhite universities such as University ofWitwatersrand in Johannesburg, RhodesUniversity in Grahamstown, StellenboschUniversity, and the University of KwaZuluNatal. But reverberations have also beenfelt at universities such as North West,Tshwane and the Western Cape.79 In allof these institutions, as Tasneem Essop,a Masters student in Political Studies andthe Secretary-General of the 2013 SRC atUniversity of Witwatersrand, puts it, blackAfrican students were in "rage againstthe forms of institutional racism thatstudents have been told to live with." Thestudents were protesting and taking tosocial media to challenge "the silencingof black students" in colonial institutionsthat no longer had a place in post-colonialand post-apartheid South Africa. AsEssop argues, in all of these universitiesthe protests spoke to "a much broaderfailure in higher education since 1994 anda much deeper problem of exclusion" forblack South Africans. She maintains thatthe increased number of black studentsand black staff on campus does not mattermuch if institutional racism and inequalityare not tackled at a structural level."Having been a student leader at WitsUniversity, I know all too well theconsistently frustrating pace of trans-formation at our institution. Wits, likemost other former white universities, hasa deep-seated, institutional and systemicform of racism that is swept under thecarpet." It is quite possible, she argues,for the majority of students in aprogramme to be black, and yet, for astudent "to go through a humanitiescurriculum without meeting one African,female lecturer and without learninganything outside of a deeply Eurocentriccurriculum." Faced with such intricacies,transformation requires careful andmeticulous thinking through to get it right.Without such meticulous care andthinking through, current clamours fortransformation are likely to end in failurejust as did past initiatives in the 1990s,Essop warns. To her, if fewer blackpostgraduate students graduate as isoften the case, this is "partly because ofsocioeconomic circumstances outside ofuniversities which force them to enter theworkforce earlier, rather than to remain inacademia," and partly because of thefailures of universities to take thefinancial, social and academic conditionsof black students seriously. "Many blackstudents have had to come to terms with


the fact that, despite their relative privilegeat universities, they do not benefit fromthe structures of the academy in the sameways as white students." Like the RMFcampaigners, Essop’s sights are setbeyond the symbolic: "Once the symbols– the statues and names – have beenremoved from our campuses, the samerage that we see now, must be focused onthe heart of these academies. That will bereal battle to transform the often invisiblestructures and mechanisms that sustaininstitutional racism."80

At Stellenbosch University, which insistson Afrikaans as the exclusive languageof undergraduate instruction, protests toopen up the university inspired a film byDan Corder of Contraband Cape Town,working with Open Stellenbosch titledLuister [Listen]81. Produced in just 17days, Luister, a 35-minute documentary,is made up of interviews with 32 studentsand one lecturer at StellenboschUniversity, detailing their experiences ofracist abuse, discrimination and exclusion.The film is centred on responses to thequestion: "What is it like to be a blackperson at Stellenbosch University?" All32 student interviews were filmed over sixhours on 2 August 2015. The followingquotes of pronouncements by studentsstand out in reviews and discussions ofthe film in social media and newspapers:"I feel like it’s wrong to be black […] Isometimes ask myself when I’m alone,why did God make me black when a lotcan happen in a good way when you’reotherwise?"; "The colour of my skin inStellenbosch is like a social burden [...] Imean just walking into spaces, there’s thatstop, pause, and stare where peoplecannot believe that you would enter intothis space"; "Being black within theStellenbosch community you know thatyou’re not accepted and you kind of askyourself what’s wrong with me, like whatdid I do wrong?"; "In the beginning Iactually started to assimilate, you know,wanting to lose myself and attainwhiteness. Maybe this will work betterand they’ll accept me more because I’mtrying to be like them. And I realised thatI cannot do that. I’m not willing to sell mysoul to whiteness. I have to be proudlyblack." Released 17 August 2015, the filmhad attracted over 343,222 views (3,784likes, 735 dislikes on YouTube) by 5October 2015 when I accessed it. It hastrended on social media in South Africa,attracting the attention of political leadersof all leanings. Debate over the film

reportedly resulted in the suspension ofMetro FM host Unathi Msengana, andto Stellenbosch University managementbeing summoned to appear in Parliamentfor an urgent meeting on transformation.82

Transformation is hardly merely a case ofadd a little black and stir, while continuingwith the same structure and the samerules. Commenting on Luister, JonathanJansen calls on white Afrikaans univer-sities to make peace with the fact thatAfrican students are rightly knocking onthe doors of learning simply to gainaccess to public institutions, and ensurethat these students are protected from therisks to which they are exposed in univer-sities where they are a racial minority. Heelaborates:

As I have said over and over again,in a country shaped by centuries ofwhite supremacy, and with a violenthistory of trying to push Afrikaansdown the throats of black people(Soweto 1976), race will always trumplanguage in the transformationdebates. In other words, because ofour history the right to access willalways take on much more politicalsignificance than language rights.The longer leaders of the Afrikaansuniversities take to accept this simpletruth, the more their campuses willbe the target of upheavals for yearsto come.83

As a direct result of the protests spear-headed by Open Stellenbosch, on Thurs-day 12 November 2015, Stellen-boschUniversity management announ-ced itsdecision to discontinue insistence onAfrikaans as the primary language ofinstruction with effect from January 2016.Here is an excerpt of the statement:

Language should be used in a waythat is oriented towards engagementwith knowledge in a diverse societyand to ensure equitable access tolearning and teaching opportunitiesfor all students. Since English is thecommon language in South Africa,all learning should be facilitated inat least English to ensure no exclu-sion due to language. The Universityremains committed to the furtherdevelopment of Afrikaans andisiXhosa as academic languages.[….]The primary language ofcommunication and administration atStellenbosch University will beEnglish, with Afrikaans and isi-Xhosa as additional languages. The

additional languages may not beused to exclude anyone from full par-ticipation at the University. Thisimplies that all communication atStellenbosch University will be in atleast English, including meetings,official documents, and services atreception desks and the call centre,etc.84

This announcement was celebrated by theOpen Stellenbosch campaign group witha Facebook post that read: "The LanguagePolicy Has Fallen".85 In a BBC report,Milton Nkosi adds: "Dropping Afrikaansmeans that, psychologically and symbo-lically, the walls of apartheid are stillcrumbling 21 years after racial segregationwas officially removed from the statutebooks."86

Back at UCT, senior management are busyputting together what they deem will be asolid foundation to begin the serious bu-siness of meaningful transformation.They are aiming to engage all consti-tuen-cies and to be inclusive. The VC is parti-cularly keen to bring on board "those whohave felt marginalised," and "those whomay have unpopular or rather differentviews on where and how to change theuniversity." He seeks to provide for co-creation and co-ownership of and unityaround the roadmap for change and intothe future at UCT, to ensure that the uni-versity is truly "a place where all staff andstudents feel at home and valued."87 Inthe interest of procee-ding with a collec-tive transformation project, the VC an-nounced "an executive decision to grantan amnesty in respect of all protest-rela-ted incidents that occurred between thefirst protest on 9 March 2015 and 18 May2015," insisting that "No disciplinary ac-tion will be brought against any studentor staff member in respect of theseevents." Furthermore, "I have written tothe Student Representative Council(SRC), Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) andTransform UCT, to inform them of the exe-cutive decision, and I trust that as a re-sult we will move swiftly to beginmeaningful discussions on the wayforward." In addition, referring to a groupof students who had occupied a building,the VC wrote: "We have provided RMFand those occupying Avenue House witha dedicated venue in a hall next to Ave-nue House, and they will have to leaveAvenue House at the latest middle ofMonday, 18 May 2015." He urged thatthe amnesty should not be seen as a signof "capitulation to pressure"88.


On the urgent and important business oftransformation, the VC outlined themeasures taken by UCT Council at aspecial sitting on 22 April 2015 duringwhich several SRC proposals wereconsidered. Council agreed to establish atask team (including student members) toreview the names of buildings and worksof art across campus, in the interest ofcreating an environment conducive todiversity. Also established was a task teamto review the current function, role andpowers of the Institutional Forum andexplore how it could play a more effectiverole in steering and negotiating trans-formation. A review of the functioning ofDISCHO (the Discrimination andHarassment Office) was scheduled to takeplace before the end of 2015. Provisionwas made to extend membership of theCurriculum Review Task Team, asubcommittee of the Teaching andLearning Committee, to students, and adifferent framework for thinking aboutcurriculum reform was to be developed. Areview of the structures, resources andfunctioning of Transformation ServicesOffice was scheduled. Faculties wereencouraged to hold open assemblies andfora where students are encouraged tovoice their experience within the faculty,drawing on the example of the faculties ofHealth Sciences and Law where theinitiative was already underway. It wasannounced that the employment equityplan for 2015 to 2020 had been intensivelydebated and was scheduled to be tabledin Senate and Council in June 2015. Areview of the functioning of the systemof employment equity representatives,particularly in selection committees, wasunderway. Funding was being sought toinvest in "ensuring that the career pathsof every black academic in the junior ranksis individually mapped out, withrequirements for the next promotionclearly spelled out with a plan for personaldevelopment, including pairing up withsenior mentors." It was announced thatthe composition of promotions com-mittees was undergoing review in allfaculties, to provide for greatertransparency, rebuild trust and fairness,and ensure that the changes wereeffective for the 2015 promotions calendar.It was also announced that TransformUCT (a grouping of black academic staff)had participated in the annual AcademicHeads of Department (HOD) workshopon the role HODs could play intransformation at department level. A day-

long workshop or summit to design theagenda for tackling transformation wasplanned. The list of things done andplanned was not intended to be acomprehensive statement of UCTtransformation plans, but rather anindication that things were on the movewith renewed energy and devotion. TheVC concluded with this appeal: "Onceagain, I invite all departments, staff andstudents, the SRC, Transform UCT, RMF,the trade unions and transformationstructures to seize this opportunity to plotthe course for UCT to achieve leadershipand excellence in transformation…"89

This programme of action approved byCouncil was followed by the appointmentof Associate Professor ElelwaniRamugondo as "Special Advisor to theVice-Chancellor on Transformation".90Here is an excerpt of the statementannou-ncing the appointment:

The Rhodes Must Fall protests, aswe know, were about much morethan the statue. They reflecteddeeper underlying frustrations withthe pace of transformation. The res-ponse of all constituencies withinthe University of Cape Town – fromCouncil to students, Senate, facul-ties, professional and support staff,unions, to the Institutional Forum(IF) – has been an overwhelmingcommitment to take much boldersteps and to focus more energy andresources on the multiple dimens-ions of transformation that lie ahead.This needs dedicated attention frommy office, and also additionalcoordination as leadership acrossthe university – the deans, academicheads of department, executivedirectors, Student RepresentativeCouncil and IF – all drive newtransformation efforts within ourrespective spheres of governanceand influence.In order to ensure the necessaryexecutive focus on the transfor-mation project over the next 12months, I am appointing a SpecialAdvisor to the Vice-Chancellor onTransformation, who will work in myoffice, help me keep abreast of allthe initiatives and advise me onways of accelerating the variousprogrammes across the university.This is since I cannot possibly bedirectly involved in them all whilestill performing the VC functionsthat I must inevitably carry out.While in no way being a gatekeeper

to my office, she will also be availableto meet with any groups andindividuals who wish to raise issuesrelated to transformation policy andpractice – whether these areconcerns or proposals.I am pleased to announce that Asso-ciate Professor Elelwani Ramugondohas accepted my invitation tobecome my Special Advisor and willtake up the position on 18 June 2015for a 12-month period.Associate Professor Ramugondohas been at UCT since her studentdays, having obtained her BScOccupational Therapy (1992), herMSc and her PhD here. Her careeras a faculty member started as alecturer in a development contractpost in 1998, and she has moved upthe ranks, having been promoted adhominem to associate professor in2010. She served as head of thedivision of Occupational Therapyfrom 2010 to 2013. Associate Profes-sor Ramugondo has super-vised oris currently supervising seven PhDand 13 Masters students, amongstwhom eight are black SouthAfricans.91

Among her many qualifications for theposition, Associate Professor Ramu-gondo was said to have "led someinteresting innovations in curriculumreform within her discipline andprofession." Her portfolio includedworking with "the task teams beingestablished to review names of buildingsand artworks." She was expected to"attend faculty assemblies to hear theissues raised," get "involved in thereviews of the Discrimination and Haras-sment Office and the Transformationoffice," oversee "the new plans to accele-rate employment equity and careerdevelopment," identify "issues in theinstitutional climate that need to beaddressed," and time permitting, "join theexpanded curriculum review process."She was also to serve as "an assessormember of the IF and University Transfor-mation Advisory Committee".92

Harry Garuba, a Nigerian AssociateProfessor who heads the School ofAfrican and Gender Studies, Anthro-pology and Linguistics, is sceptical thatcommittees such as those set up by theVC can deliver the rooted transformationof curricula and syllabuses needed todefinitively banish Rhodes’ legacy. "Idon’t want the discussion around


curriculum reform to die a slow, deliberativedeath, as so many issues do when landingat the feet of committees." He labels as"disingenuous" past explanationsadvanced by university management forthe "disgraceful paucity of blackprofessors." Of essence are conver-sations and debates about the nature andform of a decolonised curriculum in SouthAfrica. Because others have travelled thisroad before, Garuba argues, South Africadoes not need to start at ground zero.There are lessons of earlier debates andconclusions reached on the continent andelsewhere to draw on. Examples citedinclude the University of Nairobi, whereNgugi wa Thiong’o and two of hiscolleagues initiated a transformationdebate that challenged the Englishdepartment to open up its usualcontinuities in British content to includewritings in English from Africa andelsewhere. They demanded the insertionof Kenya, East Africa and Africa at thecentre of their research and tea-ching, andsought to reconceptualise universitycurricula relevant to their context, and notmerely an extension of the West intoAfrica. What the debate in Kenya thateventually led to a major curriculumtransformation in East Africa teaches usis that curriculum trans-formation is notsimply a question of adding new items toan existing curri-culum. It requires a radicalinterrogation of the very basis forconstituting the object of study.93

Transformation should aim to activate andbring into conversations sensitivities andsensibilities informed by African live-worlds, experiences and predicaments. Heinvites us to "recognise the cultural andscientific production – the knowledge –of previously devalued groups ofpeople." Borrowing from Edward Said,Garuba argues that a possible way for-ward could be a contrapuntal approach,which "takes into account the perspec-tives of both the colonised and thecoloniser, their interwoven histories, theirdiscursive entanglements – withoutnecessarily harmonising them orattending to one while erasing the other."Such contrapuntal thinking should takeplace at every level, and should include apedagogy that seeks to integrate in asignificant way the knowledge of themarginalised into what one is teaching. Itis not enough to have moved Rhodes’statue. This must be followed up withmoving "the hegemonic gaze of theRhodes that is lodged in our ways of

thinking, in our curricular and peda-gogical practices, our professionalpractices as teachers, academics, scholarsand students. We need to take a criticallook at our everyday routine." In short,we need to remove the Rhodes that livesin our disciplines and the curricula thatunderpin them".94

There is reason to doubt just how readyto turn the page UCT really is. Since theMahmood Mamdani years (1996-1999),there has been more rhetoric thansubstance about transformation(Nyamnjoh 2012a&b; Morreira 2015), ifthe address on the challenges ofcurriculum transformation to the RMFstudents by the current A.C. Jordan Chairand Director of Centre for African Studiesat UCT, Professor Lungisile Ntsebeza, isanything to go by (Ntsebeza 2012, 2014).95

It is equally worrying that despite its offerof amnesty, UCT has not resisted thetemptation to spot and discipline those itperceives as scapegoats for the currentRMF campaign. In this regard, it hassingled out Maxwele (who has dared tothink, speak, write and act as he sees fit inthe interest of the collectivity for whomhe is determined to take leadership onmatters of social, intellectual andeconomic transformation) for exemplarydiscipline and punishment. In thetotalising and often totalitarian logic ofsystems under attack, it is hardly surpri-sing, given Maxwele’s prominence andleadership role in the RMF campaign, thatUCT as an institution would seek to undohim in any way it could. The obvious, foran institution that purports to thrive onconsultative democracy even when theproblem is the majority white establish-ment and its logic of practice, was to resortto legalisms and pro-establi-shmentcivilities. Not only was Maxwele accusedto have done the unthinkable by smearingRhodes with human waste,96 he wasportrayed as no stranger to insubor-dination to constituted authority (inclu-ding when he purportedly showedPresident Jacob Zuma’s motorcade themiddle finger on a Cape Town street inFebruary 2010), alleged to have threa-tened whites with extinction, and wassuspended from the university in Mayfollowing an altercation with a femalewhite lecturer over study space oncampus during a public holiday.97

Maxwele was charged, inter alia, withhaving "raised his voice at the lecturer;shouted aggressively that ‘the statue fell,now it’s time for all whites to go’; and

showed aggressive behaviour, whichincluded banging on her office door," andto have said: "‘We must not listen towhites, we do not need their apologies.They have to be removed from UCT andhave to be killed.’"98 The statementsuspending him for two months read: "OnMay 7, Mr Maxwele was given aprovisional suspension order because hiscontinued presence on the campus wasconsidered to pose a threat to the main-tenance of good order. This provisionalsuspension order was made final after ahearing."99

Accusing the university of intimidation,conspiracy and of using his suspensionto achieve political ends by silencing thevoices of student activists, Maxwelechallenged the suspension and releasedhis own version of events, complainingabout the tendency in the white world tocriminalise and treat as dangeroussavages black men.100 He was dissatisfiedwith the manner in which the universityhad handled his own complaint on thematter: "My complaint has not been dealtwith to date when the complaint againstme has been handled with haste anddecisiveness," he claimed.101 The univer-sity released a statement refutingMaxwele’s102 claims, an amnesty whichMaxwele dismissed as "purelypolitical",103 and citing its offer of "am-nesty to protesters for a specific periodduring which they illegally occupied twoUCT buildings and disrupted a councilmeeting" as evidence of its fair-mindedness in dealing with the RMFcampaigners. The suspension waseventually overturned on technicalgrounds by the independent universitystudent disciplinary tribunal104.Disappointed with the outcome, theuniversity resolved to issue afresh asuspension order, and to accord Maxwelea right of appeal within 72 hours, aprocedure ignored previously. Accordingto Maxwele, UCT acted without duecourse when they suspended him asecond time, despite his vindication bythe discipline appeals committee.Following his resuspension, Maxweleturned to the Western Cape High Courtfor justice. The court granted an interimorder allowing him to register and attendclasses and tutorials.105 It took a HighCourt ruling in his favour for thesuspension to be set aside. To him thiswas evidence of UCT wanting to silencehim at all costs.106 To interested observerslike Nhlapho, the disciplinary proceedings


against Maxwele was added proof that"UCT, a white university, wants blackstudents to submit to white dominationwithout complaint, or that their complaintbe processed within the defined legalchannels, processed and reduced withina white dominated system, when 47% ofwhites in South Africa already thinkApartheid was "not that bad"107

Notes1. See http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/

News /UCT-s tuden t s - in -poo-p ro t e s t -against-white-imperialism-20150310-2,accessed 01 October 2015.

2. Upon his return, he issued a statement on18March, detailing the measures andprogramme of action on Rhodes statueprotests and transformation. See http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9034, accessed05 October 2015. This is an excerpt of hisstatement:

Last week’s student protests have resultedin a massive outpouring of anger andfrustration – much about the issue of thestatue, much more about experiences ofinstitutional racism, aggravated by students’perceptions that they are not being heard,or that their demands are not achieving theresponse they seek. There are also similarfrustrations experienced by a number of ourmembers of staff. There have also beenmany voices critical of both the mode ofthe student protest, and the view that thestatue should be removed. Given this recentescalation of debate and protest, I think itappropriate to replace our original program-me with a more accelerated process tofacilitate a more rapid decision about thestatue.

3. See http://www.iol.co.za/news/uct-rhodes-s t a t u e - p r o t e s t - b o t h - s i d e s -1.1831688#.VfWLGpce4TZ, accessed 17September 2015.

4. Adekeye Adebajo http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/03/23/debate-over-rhodes-is-one-of-transformation,accessed

5. Adekeye Adebajo http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/03/23/debate-over-rhodes-is-one-of-transformation,accessed

6. Simon Lincoln Reader, http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/03/27/one-monument-cannot-capture-all-countrys-ills, accessed 03 October 2015.

7. See http://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/rhodes-scholars-play-a-vital-role-in-sa-

1.1843802#.VfWkSJce4TZ, accessed 03October 2015.

8. Greg Nicolson http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-04-09-op-ed-statues-of-thought-and-symbols-of-resistance/#.VfWKb5ce4TZ,accessed 03 October 2015.

9. Greg Nicolson http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-04-09-op-ed-statues-of-thought-and-symbols-of-resistance/#.VfWKb5ce4TZ,accessed 03 October 2015.

10. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/6/anti-racism-protesters-in-south-africa-take-aim-at-a-s ta tue-with-poop.html ,accessed 17 September 2015.

11. Admits the protests to bring down the statue,UCT retained its position as the highestranked university in Africa, giving it thestatus of the Harvard or Cambridge of Africa,both universities globally ranked first andthird, as well as being first rankeduniversities in the USA and UK respectively.See http://www.destinyconnect.com/2015/0 5 / 2 7 / u c t - s t i l l - a f r i c a s - t o p - r a n k e d -university/, accessed 03 October 2015.

12. See Siona O’Connell, UCT: A Campus atOdds with Itself, http://mg.co.za/article/2014-09-08-uct-a-campus-at-odds-with-itself, accessed 17 October 2015.

13. Siona O’Connell, http://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/what-uct-s-not-telling-their-first-years-1.1806441#.ViKF1ise4TZ, accessed17 October 2015.

14. See Siona O’Connell, UCT: A Campus atOdds with Itself, http://mg.co.za/article/2014-09-08-uct-a-campus-at-odds-with-itself, accessed 17 October 2015.

15. See Martin Hall, http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31945680, accessed 01 October2015.

16. See http://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-14-this-is-the-year-varsities-will-transform-blade, accessed 30 September 2015.

17. This is how a female student at the UCTUniversity Assembly: The Rhodes Statue andTransformation described it in a poem whenshe took the stage to express her frustrationat being repeatedly told and expected toforgive and forget her white exploiters anddebasers. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWVJnBVnyPc, accessed 07October 2015.

18. See http://africasacountry.com/2015/09/achille-mbembe-on-the-state-of-south-african-politics/, accessed 01 October 2015.

19. See http://africasacountry.com/2015/09/achille-mbembe-on-the-state-of-south-african-politics/, accessed 01 October 2015.

20. http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/UCT-students- to-protes t -over-racia l -transformation-20150319, accessed 01October 2015.

21. See http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2015/09/04/The-Big-Read-The-storm-rages-unabated, accessed 03 October 2015.

22. Adam Habib, http://www.wits.ac.za/newsroom/newsi tems/201504/26107/news_item_26107.html, accessed 05October 2015.

23. See Open letter from former SRC presidents:‘Rhodes must fall’, http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9037, accessed 06 October2015; See also http://allafrica.com/stories/201503230163.html, accessed 01 October2015.

24. A founding member of Media for Justice, asocial justice and media activist as well as adocumentary film-maker.

25. See Gillian Schutte, http://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/becoming-a-master-of-subterfuge-1.1907710#.VfWmypce4TZ,accessed 01 October 2015.

26. See Gillian Schutte, http://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/becoming-a-master-of-subterfuge-1.1907710#.VfWmypce4TZ,accessed 01 October 2015.

27. See Xolela Mangcu’s Ripping the veil offUCT’s whiter shades of pale University’smove to ‘downgrade’ race fails to hide thetruth about inequality, 6 July 2014, SundayTimes, p. 18. See also: http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2014/11/03/sas-black-academics-are-getting-raw-deal, accessed 06 October 2015;Xolela Mangcu, 10 steps to develop blackprofessors, City Press, 20 July 2014.

28. See University Assembly: The Rhodes Statueand Transformation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWVJnBVnyPc,accessed 07 October 2015. On this pointMangcu was echoing a point madeemphatically by Jonathan Jansen at the 21October 2014 Public debate: Trans-formation in higher education at the BaxterConcert Hall, that the idea of standards isoften mobilised to exclude those not wanted,as very few universities in South Africa, UCTincluded, can demonstrate the standardsthey often claim when challenged to be moreinclusive. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thiiUDeIySw, accessed 08 October2015.

29. Tokelo Nhlapo, http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-03-11-ucts-poo-protest-violence-is-a-perfect-reaction/#.VfXL4Jce4TZ, accessed 04October 2015.


30. See Xolela Mangcu, 10 steps to develop blackprofessors, City Press, 20 July 2014; MaxPrice, Addressing the shortage of black andwomen professors, http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=8891, accessed 06 October2015.

31. See Xolela Mangcu, What a less Eurocentricreading list would look like, http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9275, accessed06 October 2015.

32. See http://www.jwtc.org.za/the_salon/volume_9.htm, accessed 12 October 2015.



35. Shose Kessi, http://thoughtleader.co.za/blackacademiccaucus/2015/09/25/of-black-pain-animal-rights-and-the-politics-of-the-belly/, accessed 01 October 2015.

36. Panashe Chigumadzi, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/24/south-africa-race-panashe-chigumadzi-ruth-first-lecture, accessed 03October 2015.

37. How can one quibble about black pain inwhat Mbembe describes as the only countryin which a revolution took place whichresulted in not one single oppressor losinganything? See http://africasacountry.com/2015/09/achille-mbembe-on-the-state-of-south-african-politics/, accessed 01 October2015.

38. See https://medium.com/@tomolefe/a-long-comment-on-mbembe-s-state-of-south-african-politics-5cd1030a1990, accessed 01October 2015.

39. According to a survey of born-freesconducted in the course of the Rhodes MustFall campaign, many born-frees declaredthey were likely to resort to violent protestsbecause of the persistence of inequalities inthe country.

According to the report, "unemploymentrates are higher among younger people‚women and Africans." On the expandeddefinition of unemployment‚ the rateamong African males aged 15 to 24 years is67% compared with 75% of African females.

Violent protests in SA have almost doubledin the last three years and it is suspectedthat the economically disenfranchised youthmay play a huge part in it.

Born frees are also receiving poor qualityeducation, said the report, with literacy andnumeracy scores in Grade 3 in this groupbarely above 50%. This has a major rippleeffect later on as only 51% of matric

candidates pass their final school-leavingexam.

The report found that "people aged 14 to25 years old account for 29% of thecountry’s prison population."

See "Born free but still in chains: SouthAfrica’s first post-apartheid generation,"http://www.biznews.com/briefs/2015/04/29/sas-born-frees-likely-to-drift-into-violent-protests-says-report/, accessed 03 October2015.

40. See http://www.iol.co.za/news/uct-rhodes-s t a t u e - p r o t e s t - b o t h - s i d e s -1.1831688#.VfWLGpce4TZ, accessed 17September 2015. For a similarly criticalopen letter on the Rhodes Must FallMovement addressed to the President ofUCT Convocation Barney Pityana, byLeigh-Ann Naidoo, a PhD student inEducation at the University of theWitwatersrand, Johannesburg, see http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-04-14-open-letter-to-barney-pityana-on-t h e - r h o d e s - m u s t - f a l l - m o v e m e n t /#.VfWVl5ce4TZ, accessed 17 September2015. Naidoo concluded her letter with thiscall to action: "Don’t stand by and watchthese students and their message and actionbe criminalised. They are speaking truth topower as you once did. And you know whatit feels like to be served with legal papers,bannings, trials, and police harassment.Perhaps Max Price will go to sleep at nightfeeling accomplished to have contained andshut down the possibility for real changedriven by brave black staff, students, workersand alumni. But will you?" In his defence,Professor Barney Ptiyana reportedly said,"amid a chorus of boos and jeers": ""It isuntrue that I said the statue must stay […] Isaid it is important to raise this issue at alllevels and to think about how to handlehistory [...] the only reason why I am hereis to facilitate debate [...] if my presence isnot helpful I am more than happy to stepdown." See http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2015/03/26/pityana-replaced-as-co-chair-of-rhodes-debate, accessed 2015. See alsoUniversity Assembly: The Rhodes Statue andTransformation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWVJnBVnyPc, accessed 07October 2015.

41. See http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/6/anti-racism-protesters-in-south-a f r i c a - t a k e - a i m - a t - a - s t a t u e - w i t h -poop.html, accessed 17 September 2015.

42. See Trevor Noah, Its My Culture Full Show,h t t p s : / / w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m /watch?v=DBYgnTIaG4c, accessed 06October 2015.

43. See http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/03/27/uproar-at-uct-has-only-been-good-for-it, accessed 17September 2015.

44. See http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/03/27/uproar-at-uct-has-only-been-good-for-it, accessed 17 September 2015.

45. See http://www.politicsweb.co.za/party/anc-nec-backs-rhodes-statue-protests-at-uct,accessed 02 October 2015.

46. See http://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-14-this-is-the-year-varsities-will-transform-blade, accessed 30 September 2015.

47. See http://allafrica.com/stories/201503230163.html,accessed 01 October 2015.

48. See http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/politics/2015/04/07/eff-calls-for-public-spaces-to-be-reconstructed, accessed 02 October 2015.

49. See http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/UCT-protesters-vow-to-continue-occupation-of-building-20150410, accessed02 October 2015.

50. See http://allafrica.com/stories/201503230163.html,accessed 01 October 2015.

51. See https://www.enca.com/south-africa/cecil-rhodes-statue-should-be-moved-uct-vice-chancellor, accessed 05 October 2015.

52. See for example, http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/American-students-suppor t -RhodesMus tFa l l -Campaign-20150326, accessed 17 September 2015.In a message of solidarity posted on TheRhodes Must Fall Facebook page, membersof the Black Student Union at the Universityof California, Berkeley, USA wrote: "Wewrite to express to you our strongestsolidarity as you embark in the courageousstruggle to take down one of Africa’s biggestenemies, and colonizer, Cecil John Rhodes.""We believe that, when we as Black studentsand youth organize ourselves in a disciplinedmanner, the decolonization of our educationand the total liberation of our people isinevitable." Other displays of support camefrom universities within South Africa, andalso from universities outside of South Africasuch as Oxford University and theUniversity of the West Indies. See http://m g . c o . z a / a r t i c l e / 2 0 1 5 - 0 3 - 2 6 -rhodesmustfall-protest-spreads-to-other-campuses, accessed 05 October 2015

53. See University Assembly: The Rhodes Statueand Transformation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWVJnBVnyPc, accessed 07 October2015. The students who read out these postsrequested management do disengage itselfthrough positive action to demonstrate that


they were not complicit in perpetuating suchracist innuendos.

54. For short critical analyses of the protests’achievements and shortcomings, see VitoLaterza and Ayanda Manqoyi, http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-11-06-looking-for-leaders-student-protests-a n d - t h e - f u t u r e - o f - s o u t h - a f r i c a n -democracy/#.VkiN67-3ud8, accessed 15November 2015; and David Dickinson,http://theconversation.com/fee-protests-point-to-a-much-deeper-problem-at-south-african-universities-49456, accessed 16November 2015. Both articles insist on themuch deeper structural inequalities andchallenges at South African universities andthe wider society that need urgent attention.On his part, Paul Kaseke makes a case forstudent leaders to "be elected on merit, notparty affiliation," arguing that themomentum and solidarity generated by thestudent protests were soon dissipated oncethe party political considerations of thevarious student leaders were prioritised overand above the broader interests and concernsof the student body. See http://theconversation.com/why-student-leaders-should-be-elected-on-merit-not-party-affiliation-49549, accessed 17 November2015. Kaseke’s point is buttressed by thesituation at the University of the WesternCape, where students continued the protestsdespite the announcement on zero fee incre-ment by President Zuma, calling on theuniversity to write-off student debts worthmore than R270-million, and resorting toviolence and physical confrontation tomake their case. In an article title "UWCcaught between a rock and a hard place,"Thulani Gqirana bemoans the "demands thatlack legitimacy" as well as "a student lead-ership not elected through a democraticprocess," and "who lack negotiation expe-rience". See http://mg.co.za/article/2015-11-17-uwc-caught-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place, accessed 17 October 2015.

55. See Xolela Mangcu’s Ripping the veil offUCT’s whiter shades of pale University’smove to ‘downgrade’ race fails to hide thetruth about inequality, 6 July 2014, SundayTimes, p. 18. See also: http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2014/11/03/sas-black-academics-are-getting-raw-deal, accessed 06 October 2015;Xolela Mangcu, 10 steps to develop blackprofessors, City Press, 20 July 2014.

56. See for example, Public debate:Transformation in higher education, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thiiUDeIySw,accessed 08 October 2015. This debate,which took the form of a panel discussion,was chaired by Sakhela Buhlungu. Titled

‘The University and Society’ and hosted atthe Baxter Concert Hall on 21 October2014, participating panellists were Dr MaxPrice, UCT’s Vice-Chancellor, ProfessorJonathan Jansen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the FreeState, and Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng,Vice Principal: Research and Innovation atthe University of South Africa.

57. See http://mg.co.za/article/2015-03-06-brazen-trickery-in-transformation, accessed30 September 2015.

58. Further reflections on this issue, see forexample, Achille Mbembe, http://wiser.wits.ac.za/system/files/Achille%20Mbembe%20-%20Decolonizing%20Knowledge%20and%20the%20Question%20of%20the%20Archive.pdf,accessed 09 October 2015; http://wiser.wits.ac.za/content/podcast-achille-mbembes-public-lecture-decolonizing-university-12046,accessed 09 October 2015.

59. Many African countries have since regrettedthe fact that they obtained token politicalindependence – usually derogatorily referredto by critics as "flag independence" to thedetriment of the economic independencethey ought to have sought vigorously inorder to avoid the excessive economicdependence on former colonial masters andthe West at large in the postcolonial era.Kwame Nkrumah’s slogan – seek ye firstthe political kingdom and all else shallfollow – was an extravagant illusion to whichthe post-apartheid ANC government seemto have fallen prey.

60. See http://www.destinyman.com/2015/04/2 3 / u c t s - l a t e s t - m o v e - t o w a r d s -transformation-may-not-be-the-best-way-forward/, accessed 03 October 2015.

61. See http://www.mediaforjustice.net/achille-mbembes-state-of-south-african-politics-undermines-black-south-africans/?fb_action_ids=10154170807341124&fbaction_types=og.likes, accessed_01 October 2015.

62. See Shose Kessi http://thoughtleader.co.za/blackacademiccaucus/2015/09/25/of-black-pain-animal-rights-and-the-politics-of-the-belly/, accessed 01 October 2015.

63. See Shose Kessi http://thoughtleader.co.za/blackacademiccaucus/2015/09/25/of-black-pain-animal-rights-and-the-politics-of-the-belly/, accessed 01 October 2015.

64. See the following statements by ViceChancellor Max Price, beginning from 18March, when returned from Senegal: Rhodes

statue protests and transformation http://www.uc t . ac . za /da i lynews /? id=9034 ;Appointment of Special Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor on Transformation http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9212; UCT andRhodes Must Fall sign agreementhttp://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9175; UCTgrants amnesty to protesters http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9155; Urgentupdate on the Rhodes statue and Bremneroccupation http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9100; Response to Sunday Independentarticle: ‘Adebajo distorts Price’s view onRhodes’ http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9068; Update on Rhodes statue andoccupation of Bremner Building http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9063; Progressin discussing the removal of Rhodes statuehttp://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9051;Price applauds students for bringingtransformation issues into focus http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9042. Hisdeputies and other instances of seniormanagement were equally busy.

65. See http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2015/04/10/botha-statue-may-be-toppled-next,accessed 17 September 2015.

66. See CT Talks: Heritage, Signage andSymbolism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NgpJ00M5Ho, accessed 06October 2015.

67. See Martin Hall, http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31945680, accessed 01 October2015.

68. See http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/vice-chancellor-statue-should-be-moved-1.1833822#.VfXERpce4TZ,accessed 02 October 2015.



71. Adekeye Adebajo, http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/03/23/debate-over-rhodes-is-one-of-transformation,accessed 02 October 2015.

72. Max Price, Response to Sunday Independentarticle: ‘Adebajo distorts Price’s view onRhodes’, http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9068, accessed 06 October 2015.

73. See http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/UCT-leadership-want-Rhodes-statue-moved-20150325, accessed 02 October2015. See also Hello Slaapstad, a vide on


Rhodes Must Fall by Yazeed Kamaldien,h t t p s : / / w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m /watch?v=z2PV5D9LtA0, accessed 07October 2015.

74. Adam Habib, http://www.wits.ac.za/newsroom/newsi tems/201504/26107/news_item_26107.html, accessed 05October 2015. It is ironic though, that Habibwould fail to practice the very deep, engagingdeliberative conversation when confrontedwith the case of Mcebo Dlamini, theUniversity of Witwatersrand SRC President,who posted his admiration for Adolf Hitleron Facebook, outraging the South AfricanUnion of Jewish Students, among others.Dlamini was summarily expelled from theuniversity, leading him to complain: "If Iwas a white student, I wouldn’t have beencharged." See http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/if-i-was-a-white-student-i-wouldnt-have-been-charged-dlamini/, accessed 05 October2015; see also, http://www.news24.com/S o u t h A f r i c a / N e w s / S R C - p r e s i d e n t s -comments-racist-and-offensive-Wits-VC-20150428, accessed 05 October 2015.Subsequently, Habib was described as adictator by striking students protesting "a10.5 per cent fee hike," with some referringto him as "Adolf Habib." The fee increasewas said to affect black students in particular,who continue to feel marginalised and to beplagued by poverty. In the words of MceboDlamini, "We continue with the struggle toeducate black people. Wits must lead societybut they neglect us. Our families look up tous to change this poverty cycle." When theprotesting students held VC Habib hostage,the university Council was summonedsummarily and the decision to increasetuition and residence fees was suspended, atthe end of a meeting that lasted 21 hours.See http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/habib-held-hostage-by-students-1.1931589#.ViIShCse4TY and http://mg.co.za/article/2015-10-17-wits-protest-habib-forced-to-hear-student-demands,accessed 17 October 2015; http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2015/10/18/Victory-for-students-as-Wits-backs-off-on-fees, accessed 20 October2015. See also a call for affordableuniversity student fees "to allow for greateraccess to the poor, poor working class andeven middle class families" by DeputyPresident Cyril Ramaphosa, http://www.msn.com/en-za/news/educat ion/ramaphosa-calls-for-affordable-university-fees/ar-AAfu7Yv?li=AAaxc0E, accessed 17October 2015. The fees protests dubbed"#FeesMustFall" on twitter caught on likewildfire, spreading to other universities,

including Rhodes, UCT and Stellenbosch,resonating with students across the country,and attracting international support andsolidarity from university students globally.For details, see for example, http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2015/10/19/Rhodes-shuts-down-as-students-blockade-entrances; http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2015/10/19/UCT-a p p e a l s - f o r - c a l m - a h e a d - o f -Tuesday%E2%80%99s-fees-protest; http:// m g . c o . z a / a r t i c l e / 2 0 1 5 - 1 0 - 1 9 -r h o d e s m i p m u s t f a l l - b r i n g s - r h o d e s -university-to-a-standstill, accessed 20October 2015. These protests were evidencenot only of well-structured (even ifspontaneous and lacking in a centralcoordinating leadership beyond the partypolitical affiliations of the individualmembers of the different SRCs involved)student movements countrywide, but alsoof repeated statements by leaders of theRMF movement that bringing down thestatue was just the beginning of a long list ofitems on their transformation menu,including the right to free educationpromised them in the constitution andrepeatedly reiterated by the ANC leadership,including the late Nelson Mandela.Following an emergency meeting ofuniversity leaders nationwide in Cape Townon Tuesday 20 October 2015 with theMinister of Higher Education BladeNzimande, a meeting at which students wererepresented, an agreement was reached tocap fees increase at 6% for 2016. Thestriking students rejected the agreement,insisting on zero per cent increase. OnWednesday 21 October, universitiesnationwide were grounded by student action,the highlight of which being the mobilisingof the police to disperse with violent forcea group of UCT and Cape PeninsularUniversity of Technology students whodescended on Parliament building in CapeTown, requesting to be addressed by MinisterNzimande. When the student protestspersisted and intensified, President Zumaorganised an emergency meeting at theUnion Buildings with vice-chancellors,chairs of university councils and studentrepresentatives on Friday 23 October, atthe end of which they resolved in favour of"a zero increase of university fees in 2016."A task team to address a package ofimportant related issues was also agreedupon. Among the issues the team wouldfollow up on were demands for freeeducation, the need to address institutionalracism in universities, the question of theextent of institutional autonomy for

universities, and the challenge oftransformation of curricula and highereducation in South Africa. "Governmentunderstands the difficulty faced by studentsfrom poor households and urges all affectedto allow the process to unfold to find longterm solutions in order to ensure access toeducation by our students," President Zumaurged. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/2 8 6 6 3 0 7 2 3 / P r e s i d e n t - Z u m a - n o - f e e -increase, accessed 23 October 2015. Forshort critical analyses of the protests’achievements and shortcomings, see VitoLaterza and Ayanda Manqoyi, http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-11-06-looking-for-leaders-student-protests-a n d - t h e - f u t u r e - o f - s o u t h - a f r i c a n -democracy/#.VkiN67-3ud8, accessed 15November 2015; and David Dickinson,http://theconversation.com/fee-protests-point-to-a-much-deeper-problem-at-south-african-universities-49456, accessed 16November 2015. Both articles insist on themuch deeper structural inequalities andchallenges at South African universities andthe wider society that need urgent attention.On his part, Paul Kaseke makes a case forstudent leaders to "be elected on merit, notparty affiliation," arguing that themomentum and solidarity generated by thestudent protests were soon dissipated oncethe party political considerations of thevarious student leaders were prioritised overand above the broader interests and concernsof the student body. See http://theconversation.com/why-student-leaders-should-be-elected-on-merit-not-party-affiliation-49549, accessed 17 November2015. Kaseke’s point is buttressed by thesituation at the University of the WesternCape, where students continued the protestsdespite the announcement on zero feeincrement by President Zuma, calling onthe university to write-off student debtsworth more than R270-million, andresorting to violence and physicalconfrontation to make their case. In anarticle title "UWC caught between a rockand a hard place," Thulani Gqirana bemoansthe "demands that lack legitimacy" as wellas "a student leadership not elected througha democratic process," and "who lacknegotiation experience". See http://mg.co.za/article/2015-11-17-uwc-caught-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place, accessed17 October 2015.

75. See statement issued by Pat Lucas, dated 27March 2015, titled, Further Info on UCTSenate Vote in Favour of Moving Rhodes’Statue.


76. In September the university issued an updateon the application for a permanent removal,announcing that it had sought and obtainedan extension of the deadline for thesubmission of the application for permanentremoval of the Rhodes Statue and HeritageStatement, from 28 September 2015 to 12November 2015, in order to allow forextensive comments from all partiesconcerned. See http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9367, accessed 05 October2015.

77. See The short rise and long fall of Rhodesstatue, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-rTQrybZpk, accessed 07October 2015.

78. See http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2015/04/10/video-the-short-rise-and-long-fall-of-rhodes-statue, accessed 17 September2015.

79. See Kwezilomso Mbandazayo, United FrontInterim National Co-Convenor, http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politics/students-should-unite-in-struggle-against-failed-u,accessed 05 October 2015.

80. Tasneem Essop http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/s t u d e n t - r a g e - a n d - t h e - b a t t l e - f o r -transformation-at-sas-universities/, accessed05 October 2015. For more at Universityof Witwatersrand where students havejoined the revolutionary bandwagon, and"standing up to the conditions of whitenesstheir parents accepted, confronting acolonial history manifest in the present,"as Greg Nicolson puts it, see his review of adocumentary titled "Decolonising Wits," byAryan Kaganof, http://w w w. d a i l y m a v e r i c k . c o . z a / a r t i c l e /2 0 1 5 - 0 7 - 1 5 - d e c o l o n i s i n g - w i t s - a -d i sconnec t -o f -c o n t e n t - a n d - c o n t e x t /#.Vfhblpce4TZ, accessed 05 October 2015.

8 1 .S e e h t t p s : / / w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m /w a t c h ? v = s F 3 r T B Q T Q k 4 ,a c c e s s e d 0 5 O c t o b e r 2 0 1 5 .

82. It led to the production of a documentaryLuister [Listen], a film exposing SouthAfrica’s ongoing racism problem, withStellenbosch University as a case in point.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/07/luister-south-africa-film-racism-stellenbosch, accessed 05 October 2015. Seealso, Greg Nicolson, http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-09-01-stellenbosch-luister-could-lead-to-change/#.VfmAjpce4TZ, accessed 05October 2015; for the StellenboschUniversity appearance before HigherEducation Portfolio Committee inParliament, see https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=3cufFANkFug, accessed 05October 2015.

83. Jonathan Jansen, http://www.rdm.co.za/politics/2015/09/03/campuses-in-sa-are-in-turmoil.-what-s-the-root-cause-of-the-upheaval, 05 October 2015.

84. See http://www.sun.ac.za/english/Lists/news/DispForm.aspx?ID=3172, accessed 13November 2015.

85 See South Africa's Stellenbosch Universityaims to drop Afrikaans after protests, http:// w w w. b b c . c o m / n e w s / w o r l d - a f r i c a -34807291, accessed 13 November 2015.

86. See Milton Nkosi, Why South Africanstudents want to be taught in English, http:// w w w. b b c . c o m / n e w s / w o r l d - a f r i c a -34811562, accessed 16 November 2015.

87. See http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9155, accessed 20 September 2015.






93. See Harry Garuba, http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-17-what-is-an-african-curriculum,accessed 04 October 2015.

94. See Harry Garuba, http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-17-what-is-an-african-curriculum,accessed 04 October 2015.

95. See also Decolonizing the Curriculum byProf Lungisile Ntsebeza filmed by WandileKasibe, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF8KVQSQCnk, accessed 08October 2015. In his address, Ntsebeza, whosays he is not out to change anyone’s course,discusses a university wide course heenvisages on the teaching of Africa,including the possibility of offering a majorin African studies. The fact that he is stilltalking in rudimentary terms is an indicationthat little of substance, especiallystructurally, has changed in the teaching ofAfrica at UCT since the Mamdani years.For additional insights and reflectionsprovoked by RMF, see Cherry Bomb, oncolonial legacies and the violence of liberalwhiteness at UCT – April 2015, http://fleurmach.com/2015/07/14/on-colonial-legacies-and-the-violence-of-whiteness-at-uct-april-2015/, accessed 09 October 2015;Puleng Segalo, http://www.ru.ac.za/media/

r h o d e s u n i v e r s i t y / c o n t e n t /equityinst i tut ionalculture/documents/Reflections%20on%20Conference%20-%20P%20Segalo,%20UNISA%20.pdf,accessed 09 October 2015.

96. Clearly revolted by the act, Simon LincolnReader represents it as follows:

Desecrating anything with human faeces isone of the most contemptible forms ofprotest; in the context of the University ofCape Town debacle, it was worsened by thereality that staff — black staff — were leftto sanitise the defiled statue of Cecil JohnRhodes. It has been near-impossible to gaugethe objective due in part to the blindingincoherence of the protest leader — atroubled boy who has an impressive rapsheet of attention-seeking. See http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/03/27/one-monument-cannot-capture-all-countrys-ills, accessed 03 October 2015.

97. See detailed UCT press statement on thematter, http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9198, accessed 03 October 2015.

98. See http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Maxwele-My-comments-about-whites-just-allegations-20150608, accessed03 October 2015.

99. See http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/UCT-students-suspension-lifted-on-technical-grounds-20150612, 03 October2015.

100. See http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/UCT-rejects-Maxwele-conspiracy-theory-claims-20150609, accessed 03October 2015.

101. See http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Poo-flinging-UCT-student-says-suspension-is-polit ically-motivated-20150511, accessed 03October 2015.

102. See http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Students-suspension-not-related-to-protests-UCT-20150515, accessed 03October 2015.

103. See http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/uct-amnesty-purely-p o l i t i c a l - m a x w e l e -1.1860007#.VfXD8Jce4TZ, accessed 03October 2015.

104. See http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/UCT-students-suspension-lifted-on-technical-grounds-20150612, 03 October2015.

105. See http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Interim-order-allows-Maxwele-to-attend-UCT-classes-20150722, accessed05 October 2015.


106. See http://citizen.co.za/772402/maxwele-wins-case-against-racist-uct/, accessed 04October 2015.

107. Tokelo Nhlapo, http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-03-11-ucts-poo-protest-violence-is-a-perfect-reaction/#.VfXL4Jce4TZ,accessed 04 October 2015.

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Ngugi wa Thiong’o 1986, Decolonising theMind: The Politics of Language in AfricanLiterature. London: James Currey.

Nhlapo, T. and Garuba, H. (eds) 2012, AfricanStudies in the Post-colonial University, CapeTown: University of Cape Town Press.

Ntsebeza, L. 2012, "African Studies at UCT: AnOverview," in: Nhlapo, T. and Garuba, H.(eds) 2012, African Studies in the Post-colonial University, Cape Town: Universityof Cape Town Press. (pp.1-22).

Ntsebeza, L. 2014, "The Mafeje and the UCTSaga: Unfinished Business?" SocialDynamics, 40(2): 274-288.

Nyamnjoh, FB. 2002, "Local Attitudes TowardsCitizenship and Foreigners in Botswana: AnAppraisal of Recent Press Stories," Journalof Southern African Studies. 28(4):751-771.

Nyamnjoh, FB. 2006, Insiders and Outsiders:Citizenship and Xenophobia in Con-temporary Southern Africa. London:CODESRIA–Zed Books.

Nyamnjoh, F.B. 2007. "From Bounded toFlexible Citizenship: Lessons from Africa,"Citizenship Studies, 11(1): 73-82

Nyamnjoh, FB. 2012a, "Potted Plants inGreenhouses: A Critical Reflection on theResilience of Colonial Education in Africa,"Journal of Asian and African Studies,47(2):129-154.

Nyamnjoh, FB. 2012b, "Blinded by Sight: Divingthe Future of Anthropology in Africa,"Africa Spectrum 47(2-3):63-92.

Nyamnjoh, F.B. and Shoro, K. 2014, "Testingthe Waters of African Renaissance in Post-Apartheid South Africa," in: ThenjiweMeyiwa, Muxe Nkondo, Margaret Chitiga-Mabugu, Moses Sithole and FrancisNyamnjoh, (eds), State of the Nation 2014:South Africa 1994-2014: A Twenty-year Rev


"We are mourning here … not his deathbut the manner in which he met hisdeath. Even if it takes 100 years, we wantto know why he was killed and by who…The Daily Nation, March 17, 1975.Mwai Kibaki , On JM Kariuki’s assassi-nation in Kenya.

PreambleMany African independent states havebeen unable to sufficiently marshal theirenormous human and material resourcesto achieve a lasting political stability,economic growth and sustainabledevelopment. Since independence, manycountries have witnessed an extensive,disturbing and systematic history ofpolitically motivated killings andassassinations. The African regimes havepresided over shocking and sometimesbrutally effective record of inhumane laws,harassment, impri-sonment, torture andother forms of oppression to terrorize,silence or otherwise neutralize those withdissenting views to the establishment.

Sadly, while such state perpetratedatrocities have been committed againstcitizens, there has never been any formof official acknowledgement or apology.For instance, Kenya had been ruled byregimes which have had no respect forhuman rights, the rule of law, socialjustice, transparency, accountabilityand other trends of democracy. It isagainst this background that a Truth,Justice and Reconciliation Commission(TJRC) was established in Kenya toexpose the colonial menaces of landgrabbing, massacres; the immediate post-independent frames of assas-sinations, aswell as the late indepen-dence skeletonsof state killings, the `ethnic clashes`; andthe economic scandals.

Today, nations throughout the world arecoming to terms with their pasts; Europewith its colonial history, America its darkpast of slavery, South Africa’s viciousapartheid and Germany with the scars leftfrom two totalitarian regimes. Within thisevolving process of dealing with the past,the issue of compensating victims hasoften been at the forefront of the publicdiscourse.

Scars of Memory and Scales of Justice: RethinkingPolitical Assassinations in Post-colonial Africa

IntroductionWhile speaking to a group of scholars atthe Taylor Institute of Oxford University,on a topic titled: Scars of Memory andthe Scales of Justice1. Wole Soyinka,struggled to engage in a rather controver-sial subject of memory and forgivenesswhen he openly wondered how modernsocieties should respond to the com-mission of despicable acts in public lifeoccurring on a systemic level; Commis-sions of acts such as slavery in the US,apartheid in South Africa, or even tyrannythrough the hands of individual tyrantsin Africa. Soyinka concluded that forgi-veness as "a value is far more humanlyexacting than vengeance… yet cannotswallow the proposition that it will, byitself, suffice". Most importantly though,in this juxtaposition, and like E. P.Thompson, Soyinka admonished histo-rians who rescue the "casualties of history…from enormous condensation ofposterity2.…by reconstituting thevanished components of the world wehave lost…

These casualties are the heroes whosuffered or were wounded or even killedeither as individuals or as a group whilestates and governments made efforts toerase their memories from the publicsphere. Consequently, to help societiesto heal and bring to justice past atrocitiescommitted by those in such autocraticregimes, historians would indeed engagein tenuous exercises of indulgence byevoking those memories and bringingthem to people’s attention.

In a similar controversy over the subject,Americans too were recently caught bythe fin-de-siecle disposition of past cen-turies memories. This was revealed at aconference organized by the OmuhondroInstitute at Elimina Beach, Cape CoastGhana in 2007. One of the participantsreported that he had made a request tothe then American President, George Bush

II to grant permission to set up a museumof memory to commemorate slave tradeand slavery. The reluctant Bush is said tohave replied and told him that the‘strength of Americans lies in what theyforget and not necessarily what they canremember…..why then bring bad memoryto them again?’ This was indeed a verycontroversial answer concerning the useof memory and quite significantly; history.

Indeed, Kammen's Mystic Chords ofMemory adequately hooks us onto thiswagon of argument, when he notes thatAmericans too are devoted to memory.Kammen proves this character bychronicling the growth and developmentof historical societies, erections of histo-rical monuments, government funding forpreservation, and academic and popularsentiments through documentedtestimonies, public lectures, and privateletters. He demonstrates America's pra-gmatic approach to memory; the thingsthey choose to remember and the thingsthey choose to forget. A major theme inhis exposition is the ways in whichnations have utilized the past in order toreconstruct an adequate national identity.3

Collective memories work much the sameway; they foster and define groupidentities, telling a group of people wherethey have come from, who they are andhow they should act in the present andfuture.4 In comparison, Kenya stillstubbornly clings to its past; it has anuncertain past haunted by a series ofmysterious murders and state sponsoredkillings and for this reason, for manydecades now, the country is faced withan uncertain future that is characterizedby ethnic mistrust and fear. This is theultimate reason why TJRC was formed,not only to help Kenyans to venture andexpose their dark past and come to termswith it, but to also account for the ills thathave shaped their history.

Nevertheless, alongside such under-standing of Soyinka and George Bush IIon official national memory, as concre-tised in remembering or forgetting, weknow that numerous sub-nationalmemories are often maintained andtransmitted on a more informal basis. For

Babere Kerata ChachaLaikipia University

Kenya


instance, while official memory of politicalMau Mau assassinations and extra-judicial murders was suppressed throughdecades of state-endorsed amnesia,published memoirs of former fighters anddetainees of the rebellion allowed MauMau to stay alive in the public memory.

In the wider African context, orality ascaptured in historical narratives play a bigrole in maintaining and transmittingmemories. What do relatives or friends ofthe victims of assassination or statesponsored killings remember and feelabout this? What grudges do they have?How can they be addressed? The key roleof orality, and in this case; the narrativesof the established commissions of inquiresplay a vital role as primary foci of memory.5

Through the truth commissions andpublic hearings, a window of opportunityhas opened to help those whose memorieshad been suppressed to speak out andexpress their fear, anger and pain. Inaddition, the duty to remember andaddress the past is essential in helpingensure that future generations ‘neveragain’ repeat such violations, and theability of memorials to preserve andcommunicate memory and history isinvaluable in the process.

Pierre Nora has argued that material sitesof memory can become more about theproduction of history than the preser-vation of memory; distinguishingbetween the two where memory ‘remainsin permanent evolution, open to thedialectic of remembering and forgetting’while history is ‘the reconstruction,always problematic and incomplete, ofwhat is no longer’.6 The construction ofmemorials, monuments, public holidaysand special days may allow re-remem-bering. Memorials can only fulfil their roleif they have some meaning to society,allowing the transfer of memory throughactive processes of remembrance such asintended visits to, and engagement withthem. While the Kenyan state may beapplauded on the facilitation of the exis-ting monuments and national holidays, itis still not sufficient enough to sustainsuch memories.

In this regard, therefore, historical reviewof political assassinations and extra-judicial killings in Kenya will to a largeextent, ameliorate social and politicaldilemmas that has shrouded and becomepart of the continent’s institutionalarchitecture. However, the path from

public history-telling in this country tonational political transformation is oftenelusive and biased. This is so, mainlybecause Kenya is in a state of denial. It isdenying its past and its present and it isdenying its future. The Kenyan state issuffering from what Onyango-Oloka callsa ‘calculated historical amnesia’ or whathas been referred to as ‘selective am-nesia’. Kenyans tend to choose what toremember and what to forget.

Memory is often seen as a prerequisitefor healing the wounds of the past, andtherefore a necessary condition forreconciliation, both on an individual levelas well as in politics and society. For onlythose who remember the past will be ableto prevent the recurrence of evils fromthe past. It would therefore be morallycallous and possibly unjust to simplydismiss every historical injustice assuperseded by the passage of time.Unfortunately, all former heads of state inKenya have dismissed the past andadmonished citizens to forge ahead andforget the past in popular aphorism:tusahau yaliyopita tuanze upya meaning,lets forget the past and forge ahead.

As a general issue, the challenge of dea-ling with any historical injustice toucheson a wide range of deeply contested yetessential concepts in contemporarypolitical philosophy, among them; natureof justice, rights and responsibility. It ishowever, ultimately true that truthcommissions do in no way give definiteanswers to those yearning for the actualthings as they happened, but will be ableto identify those that are consideredhistorical injustices and will try as muchas possible to deal with the subject oftruth and answer the following questions;How much normative weight should wegive to the past in deliberations aboutwhat we owe to each other? Which histo-rical injustice matters and why? To whomare reparations owed (if any)? Whoshould pay them? What form of repa-ration? Understanding and dealing withmoral consequences of the past is one ofthe most important political issue of ourtime, and yet also the most intractable.

In fact, in matters of theorisation oftransitional justice, contributions fromhistorians have always been conspicuousin their absence as Hannah Franzki argues…if anything, the ‘turn to history’ ofsocieties wishing to come to terms withtheir violent past is perceived as anencroachment on or a distortion of

academic historiography.7 However, inreviewing Berber Bevernage’s book‘History, Memory, and State-SponsoredViolence’ Franzki thinks that it is a proofthat such an engagement is pertinent toboth the field of transitional justice andhistory in itself as a discipline. An analysisof truth commissions and their practicaluse of history sheds light on the ‘politicsof time’ that are at work in transitionaljustice practices.

Political Assassinations, the Stateand the Scare of Nationhood:A Theoretical PerspectivePolitical assassinations, just like as in warhave bred insecurity at unprecedentedproportions in many concerned countriesaround the world. The assassination'shistorical importance lies in a horde offactors; the most pertinent being theglobal context in which it took place, itsimpact on politics since then and theoverall legacy of the assassinated asnational or political leaders. Rightly,assassinations are amongst the highestprofile acts of political violence, andconventional wisdom holds that suchevents often have substantial political,social, and economic effects on states.

It has been argued that states are amongthe most prolific killers; this reflects thefact that assertions of state power arenecessary factors in the establishment ofsocial order. The elites holding power in astate often use killing to maintain theirpolitical authority and use the lethalpower of the state to do so. The range ofkillings undertaken by such despoticregimes include; execution, war, mas-sacres, and genocide. Such killings occurin a unique context in which killing maybecome bureaucratized. Salient sociolo-gical issues include the nature ofnationalism, the capacity of the state tolegitimate killing, and the creation ofcommand killers.8 However, why doassassinations occur especially in develo-ping countries?

In a paper titled: Why Kill Politicians?Bruno S. Frey9 developed a model ofanalysis on what he calls ‘the Demand toAssassinate Politicians’. He identifieddifferent motivations for launching anassassination. One, is to achieve politicalchange or as Schumpeter 10 and Downs 11

supports: to survive in elections; thesecond, is pegged on the premises thatthe expected effect on policy is largerwhen there is one politician in charge than


if the policy is determined by a committeeof (equal) politicians. This person, Freyargues, it may be a King, a President or aPrime Minister, plays a prominent role andhas some unrestricted room to actaccording to his or her preferences. He orshe therefore becomes the object ofdislike or hatred by a number of indivi-duals some of which may exert a demandfor killing the ruler. However, assassina-tion may also occur when there is no well-determined succession rule. Again in acentrally planned economy, and in asociety without well-developed civil units-such as independent trade unions,churches and private clubs-there is astronger incentive to kill the ruler.

Assassinations can also occur in a morefractionalized a society, for instance, themore distinctive ethnicities and religionsthere are, the more their interests differ,and the more aggressive they are, themore difficult it is for a ruler to satisfytheir preferences, and the more likely heor she will be attacked. It can also occurwhere there is a strong internationalengagement of a country extends theborders of influence of national politiciansand therewith makes the ruler moreinvolved in fractional strife. As a resultthe demand to assassinate the ruler islarger. Finally, assassinations at someextreme cases may be executed to attractmedia attention by the would-be assas-sins camouflaged as hired mercenaries.

Assassinations in Africa have been em-ployed as a political tool since indepen-dence, marking, altering, or determiningthe course of events through modernAfrican History. It has been said thatterror and assassinations is the mains-pring of despotic government. Even incontemporary times, the sins of assass-ination and its forms continue to plaguemost countries. In addition, acts ofviolence, such as ethnic tensions andcoup de tats, executions, and civil wars,have continued to haunt societies andpolitical systems in the twenty firstcentury Africa.

Apart from affecting or killing the victim,assassinations have direct consequencesupon critical social-economic and politicalinstitutions and the targeted individualnation as a whole.12 As studied andexpounded by political theory andhistory, assassinations and assassinationattempts of critical political personalitieshave far-reaching political and societalconsequences and repercussions. For

instance, the sudden and unexpectedmurder of a head of state or high-rankingofficial would not only interfere with anation's political effectiveness, but alsopromulgates terror and unrest within agovernment.13 Most significantly, assas-sinations and attempts to assassinateoften disturb or change the focus ofdomestic and foreign policy within a nation.

Today, the International law differentiatesbetween state-sponsored and non- state-sponsored assassinations.14 When anassassination is committed by a groupthat is not linked with a government or byan individual acting alone, it is not state-sponsored. There have been many well-known assassinations of this typethroughout history. Assassinations thatare not backed by states are usuallytreated as murders in the nations wherethey occur. Because no state is answe-rable, they usually do not infringe uponthe international law.15 Except in the caseof international criminal law, only statescan be held accountable for violatinginternational law.16

Assassinations generally reflect a viola-tion of the international law againsttreachery in war or aggression in times ofpeace.17 Further, it is possible, althoughless likely, that individuals or groups ofindividuals accused of assassinationcould be held responsible for committinggenocide or crimes against humanity.Assassination could therefore rise to thelevel of a crime against humanity only if itwas part of a systematic or prevalent patternof attacks against a civilian population.

In Kenya, Tom Mboya’s assassinationcan rightly be viewed as a classiccountry's root of evil manifested in thatin less than a decade after independence,it became a stumbling block to the idealsof national unity, economic independenceand pan-African solidarity that Mboyahad championed, as well as a shatteringblow to the hopes of millions of Kenyafor freedom and material prosperity.

No matter how we look at it, the mere threatof assassination has always played apivotal role in the history of humanpolitics. It has also had a profound socio-economic impact upon all nations. Today,political leaders all over the world areroutinely protected from motivated andopportunistic assassins. Nations adapt tothis threat by implementing defensivestrategies, which require the expenditureof time, effort, and resources.18 In sum,political assassinations in Africa have

punctuated most political regimes; Egypt,historically, has had the most assas-sinations at 16, followed by South Africa(12), Algeria (11) and Nigeria at 10.

Exemplified below are some of the mostprominent assassinations committed inAfrica since attainment of independenceof States more than 50 years ago. Congo-lese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, apro-communist was assassinated in 1961,while Sylvanus Olympio, leader of Togowas killed in 1963. Hendrik Verwoed, thePrime Minister of South Africa wasstabbed to death in Parliament in 1966 andin the same year, Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsiwho was Nigeria’s military Head of Stateand the Prime Minister Sir AbubakarTafawa Balewa were exterminated inbloody military coups.

In the 1970s, political murders continuedwith the murder of Ugandan Chief JusticeBenedicto Kiwanuka in 1972 and that ofthe Archbishop of Uganda, Janani Luwumin 1977.19 Steve Biko, South Africa’s anti-apartheid crusader was battered to deathby would be law custodians in policecustody in 1974, while FrancoisTombalbaye, the President of Chad,followed suit a year later. In Nigeria,President Murtala Mohammed could notescape the assassin’s bullet in 1976.

Liberian President William Tolbert Jr ledthe list of those assassinated in the 1980swhen he was gunned down during the1980 military coup. Pragmatic EgyptianPresident Anwar Sadat was shot during amilitary parade in 1981, while in 1987,Burkina Faso Head of State ThomasSankara succumbed to the bullet.

While multipartism swept throughoutAfrica following the disintegration ofEastern Europe in the 1990s politicalmurders were still an eyesore in Africa.Rifaat al-Mahgoub, speaker of theEgyptian parliament in 1990 was the firstcasualty while Samuel Doe, the Presidentof Liberia could not be spared of the ritualthe same year. Chris Hani, the leader ofSouth African Communist Party could notsurvive to witness a rainbow state as hewas eliminated in 1993, while the sky wasnever to be the limit for Rwandese Presi-dent Juvenal Habyarimana in power asthe plane carrying him was brought downin pieces in 1994. Ibrahim Bare Mainassara,President of Niger was equally vanquishedin 1999 but the shooting of CongolesePresident Laurent Kabila in 2001 by hisown body guards was utterly shocking.The list could go on.20


In the wider East Africa, however, Kenyaseems to be the most assassination happynation with less than 10 major politicalmurders, while Burundi three PrimeMinisters were assassinated; LouisRwangasore (1961), Pierre Ngendandumwe(1965) and Joseph Bamina (1965). Ugandahas had two assassinations during thedictatorial regime of Idi Amin though inhis book State of Blood Henry Kyembawho was trusted Minister in the regimeputs the figure at 150, while Tanzania hasrecorded only one assassination, the 1972murder of the first President of Zanzibarand first Vice President of Tanzania,Sheikh Abeid Karume.

Kenya has had six major political assassi-nations the most prominent being themurders of Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya,J. M. Kariuki, Bruce MacKenzie, RobertOuko, and Crispin Odhiambo Mbai. Thesequential cases of political assassinationin Kenya as well as the mysterious circu-mstances in which they have occurredhave put the country in a turbulentsituation. The inconclusive state in whichthey have remained and the ‘bloody’political war that emerged in some part ofthe country, heightening particularly thecontest between the Luo and Kikuyuhave turned the Kenya political terrain intoa boiling cauldron, where the nation isoften but rudely awoken to the news ofyet another conflict.21

ConclusionSince independence, successive regimeshave employed political assassinationsand state sponsored killings to silencethose with dissenting views and entrenchthemselves into leadership and furthersilence the masses. Viewed in the lens ofmodern Kenya, these killings have raisedsentiments of repugnance and maddeningbust of indignation. To a country livingunder a law-abiding and ultra-humangovernment, there is certainly somethingrepugnant in the conduct of leaders whobeing bound to afford protection, allowsuch to occur; a replica of the worstdictatorial government of our next doorneighbour Idi Amin whose state spon-sored gangs-State Research Bureaumassacred thousands of Ugandans bothprofessionals and civilians who wereperceived to be a threat to the despoticregime.

While motives have varied; from expe-diency of punishing certain crimes,getting rid of political competition,

weeding ambitious politicians, perceived"dissidents" of the government or thosewho posed as "threats" to power, stateinvolvement and subsequent cover upsusing decoys in a well-oiled and preme-ditated assassination machinery havebeen employed in the majority of politicalmurders. Propaganda and Commissionsof Enquiry are often used as smoke-screens to get into "the bottom of thematter," but are nothing more than publicrelations exercises to mask the motivesand faces behind the assassinations.Prominent figures in government arenormally involved. Key witnesses into theassassinations disappear or die myste-riously. No real perpetrators, for thatreason, have ever been brought to bookand majority of those found guilty wereonly scapegoats of the regime and thesecurity system which is extensively usedin most of the political assassinations.

Notes1. W. Soyinka, ‘The scars of memory and the

scales of justice’. Olof Palme MemorialLecture, Taylor Institution, University ofOxford, 16 November, 2000.

2. Cf. E.P Thompson, The Making of theEnglish Working Class (New York, 1968),p. 12, Emphasis is mine.

3. David Thelen, "Memory and AmericanHistory," Journal of American History vol.75 (1989): 1118.

4. See also, John Gillis, "Memory and Identity:The History of a Relationship" in Comme-morations , ed. John Gillis (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1994), 7.

5. Editorial, Sunday Nation, 25 March 2007.Also in Patrick Gathara, ‘The British Warin Kenya’, The New Black Magazine, 31July 2007. Available

6. Pierre Nora (1989) ‘Between Memory andHistory: Les Lieux de Memoire’, Represen-tations (26): 7-24, 8. For a fuller discussion,see David Goldsworthy, Tom Mboya: TheMan Kenya Wanted to Forget (New York:Africana Publishing Co., 1982). p.229.

7. Hannah Franzki, Challenging the Politicsof Time in Transitional Justice – How toThink the Irrevocable: Bevernage’s History,Memory, and State-Sponsored Violence inTheory & Event, Volume 15, Issue 2, 2012

8. Tony Waters, When Killing Is a Crime,Boulder, USA, 2007, p. 18

9. Bruno S. Frey, Why Kill Politicians? ARational Choice Analysis Of PoliticalAssassinations, Working Paper No. 324,University Of Zurich And CREMA –

Research Center For Economics, Mana-gement and The Arts, May, 2007

10. Schumpeter, Joseph A. Capitalism, Socia-lism and Democracy. New York: Harper,1942.

11. Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory ofDemocracy. New York: Harper and Row,1957.

12. Anderson, Chris A."Assassination, LawfulHomicide, and the Butcher ofBaghdad." Journal of Public Law andPolicy 13:291, 1992.

13. Beres, Louis R. (1992). "The Permissibilityof State Sponsored Assassination duringPeace and War." Temple International andComparative Law Journal 5: 231.

14. Heaps, Willard A, 1969. Assassination: ASpecial Kind of Murder. New York: MeredithPress.

15. Wiebe, Mathew C. (2003). "Assassinationin Domestic and International Law: TheCentral Intelligence Agency, State-Sponsored Terrorism, and the Right of Self-Defense." Tulsa Journal of Comparativeand International Law 11:363.

16. The United Nations Charter prohibits theaggressive use of force by one state againstanother. The Charter also prohibitsinterfering in the territory or affairs ofanother state. Chapter I of the Charterrequires that all states must "settle theirinternational disputes by peaceful means"and must "refrain in their internationalrelations from the threat or use of force".When a state sponsors the assassination ofthe leader of another state, it violates thisbasic rule of international law. For furtherdetails of this read for example, Wiebe,Mathew C. (2003). "Assassination inDomestic and International Law: TheCentral Intelligence Agency, State-Sponsored Terrorism, and the Right of Self-Defense." Tulsa Journal of Comparativeand International Law 11:363.

17. Wiebe, Mathew, Ibid, See also Zengel, Patricia(1992). "Assassination and the Law of ArmedConflict."Mercer Law Revue 43:615.

18. Ronald F. White, ‘3 General Theory ofAssassination’ in Assassination ResearchVol. 5 No. 1, 2007. p.3.

19. U.S. Department of State, 2012.

20. For a more profound study of immediatepost-colonial independence assassination,see for example, Ali A. Mazrui, Thoughtson Assassination in Africa in PoliticalScience Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 1 (Mar.,1968), pp. 40-58,


21. See for example, John O. Oucho,Undercurrents of Ethnic Conflict in Kenya.This book analyses the ethnic conflict inRift Valley Province in the nineties at theend of cold war and when multi-partydemocratic politics were being reintroducedin the country. Its central thesis is that ethnicconflict in the country then was a functionof several issues, among themethnocentrism. The author particularly

pays attention to the long history of Luo-kikuyu conflict. For a wider debate on therift between the Luo and Kikuyo, see alsoAyodo, Awuor. 1996. "Luo." The HeritageLibrary of African Peoples. New York: RosenPublishing Group, Inc. 15-16; DuPre, CaroleE. 1968. The Luo of Kenya. Washington,DC: Institute for Cross-Cultrual Research;IRIN (Integrated Regional InformationNetwork): United Nations Office for the

Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.www.irinnews.org and Stewart, Frances. 3/2008. "Kenya, Horizontal Inequalities andthe Political Disturbances of 2008." Centrefor Research on Inequality, Human Securityand Ethnicity. Department of InternationalDevelopment, Oxford University. http://w w w . c r i s e . o x . a c . u k / c o p y /Kenya%20note%20for%20discussion.pdf,accessed 20/02/13

The world in which we live today isimpacted on by many conflicts involvingreligion. Much of this religious conflict istaking place on the African continentwhich is an obvious cause for concern.In this regard consider the conflicts thaterupted in Central African Republic,Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, Algeria, Egypt,Libya, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Kenya, etc.Since we live in a supposedly scientificage with its concomitant secularism, thiswould seem a bit surprising. Accordingto prominent theorists in the history ofanthropology such as Emile Durkheim(1915), James Frazer (1890, 1922), LucienLevy-Bruhl (1923), E.E. Evans Pritchard(1937), Levy Strauss (1966), et al., humanhistory is characterised by increases inhuman technological and scientificadvancement through the ages. Forexample, it is common knowledge thathuman technology improved its scopethrough the successive stages of theLithic (Stone) Age, the Bronze Age, andthe Iron Age. At the same time, accordingto the anthropologists mentioned above,human cultures have gone throughsuccessive cognitive stages according towhich the first stage was the age ofreliance on magical thinking wherebyhumans in their attempts to explainphenomena imbued inanimate objectswith animistic powers. Thus, rocks, trees,rivers, etc. all were seen to exerciseconscious powers over humans who inturn became their votaries and engagedin regular ritual practices includingsacrifices meant to appease and adulatethem. Such sacrifices often involved theritual slaughter of animals and thesacrificial killing of humans.

But despite the fact that certain animalswere being sacrificed some acquired thestatus of being sacred as in the case ofIndian Hinduism, where the cow, the

The Human Project and the Temptations of Religion

monkey , and the tiger were designatedas sacred. As time progressed, the votaryobjects were anthropomorphised as theyacquired human characteristics. Theybecame gods and goddesses and,although residing in other realms,managed and controlled human affairs.Ancient Egyptian and Greeks gods are ofthis category. The endpoint of all of thiswas that as knowledge of the empiricalworld grew, agency in matters involvingcausality was ascribed increasingly lessto anthropomorphised deities but tohumans themselves. Humans became themeasure of all things for many thinkersand less reliance was placed on theinvented deities. But only a minority ofhumans have attained this stage ofcognitive development. Religious beliefstill holds sway for the vast majority ofthe world’s population.

But continuing with the issue of theevolution of human metaphysicalthinking, in this instance religiousthinking, one notes that for most ofhuman anthropological history humanswere disposed to create their gods inpolytheistic fashion, There was always achief god but there were other gods whowere seen to be occupied with specificaspects of human existence. Anotheraspect of note concerning human-createdgods is that they were not perceived asbeings of moral perfection. They werepowerful and influential but not morallyperfect. Apart from Ancient Egypt, thecase of the Yoruba of West Africa is inte-resting in that one has here a polytheisticculture with a transcon-tinental reach inthe sense that the Yoruba deities are

highly influential in places like Brazil andCuba in the Western Hemisphere.

But what is of specific interest for thispaper is the fact that there developed aspecific branch of god worship that wasstrictly monotheistic according to whichthe sole god was imbued with infinitepower and an infinite moral scope thatwas directly and indirectly ‘goodnessoriented’. Reference here is to Abrahamicreligions of Judaism, Christianity, andIslam that are adhered to by the majorityof the world’s population. There was aprecursor to this form of deity in themonotheistic religion of the AncientEgyptian heretic pharaoh, Akhenaten.The founder of psychiatry, SigmundFreud (1939) argued in Moses andMonotheism that the monotheisticconcept of the Jews was adopted fromAkhenaten’s heretical formulation of asingle deity. And it was this possiblyadapted monotheistic religion of the WestAsian Hebrews (Jews) that set a largeportion of the world on the path towardsmonotheism. The initial Hebrew narrativefrom Moses to Christ was later adaptedto the Arabian culture of West Asia. Yetthere are other notable metaphysicalsystems that hold sway over a significantportion of humanity. They are the Asianmetaphysical systems: Hinduism andBuddhism. One interesting feature aboutthem is that there is no ultimate finalityfor the living human individual given thatphysical finality is rescued through theconcepts of reincarnation and karma. Thehuman body dies but its spriritualdoppelganger lives on to enter anothernewly born individual. The life fortunesof the newly born would then bedetermined by moral debits and credits ofthe soul’s previous life. Buddhismmaintains both reincarnation and karmabut in the context of an evolving

Lansana KeitaKwara State University

Nigeria


consciousness which is distinct from theoriginal human form of Hinduism. But themost noteworthy characteristic of bothmetaphysical systems as religions is thatthere is no single deity endowed withinfinite physical and moral powers. In thisregard both metaphysical religioussystems are quite distinct from theAbrahamic religions according to whicha single deity holds total sway.

The most interesting characteristic of theAbrahamic deity is that he is male anddeemed to be not only infinitely powerfulbut also infinitely ‘good’ in the strictlynormative sense of that term. Thedirections offered to humans by this deityare relayed to the adherents by chosenindividuals named ‘prophets’ who arethen assigned special status by theadherents themselves. What is of crucialimportance in the monotheistic paradigmis that the belief in the whole narrative isdetermined by faith, thus the truth claimsthat constitute the narrative are notsubject to doubt. Empirical and causalproof that is required of the naturalsciences does not apply in this case.Credo quia credo serves as the bulwarkagainst any epistemological query. Thischaracteristic of the monotheisticparadigm facilitates its totalising ontology.The monotheistic faiths – unlike empiricalscience – offer a complete explanation ofall phenomena in time and in space underthe holistic supervision of the all powerfuldeity, the ultimate arbiter and controllerof all events and phenomena. That is theversion of truth accepted on faith by thefaithful. Empirical science founded onexperiment and critical analysis cannotrival this ontological structure of beliefbecause science accepts the fact thatknowledge is fallible and that there is noprovable theory of everything. Thus themonotheistic religions continue to bedominant on account of the epistemo-logical limitations of even holistic scien-tific theories. In fact, totalising attemptsto understand the world under the rubricof science have been condemned on thebasis of promoting what is called scientism.

Yet no such caveats exist regarding thefaithful of the monotheistic religions. Theterm religion derives etymologically, asmany sources claim, from the Latin verb‘ligare’ which means to bind. In otherwords, religions bind their adherents tobelief systems based on an unalloyedfaith. In this regard, there are many amongthe faithful who act with utmost confi-dence on the dictates of their faith. It is

this lack of circumspection that leads tounreflective behaviour that bringsviolence, pain, and grief to many humans.

Humans, as sensory beings existing in aworld of empirically sensed phenomena,place great store by truth, i.e., the actualstate of affairs. It is for this reason thatscience has gained in ascendancy. Itstruth claims can be readily confirmed orrefuted. Theorist of scientific metho-dology, Carl Popper, argued effectivelythat what endows a scientific theory withits cognitive tenor is its capacity towithstand regular and increasingly robusttests which could prove it falsified. Thisexplains the fact that scientific claims thatwere once taken as valid and sound butwere subsequently shown to be falseabound in the annals of science. Still, onaccount of its successes, science hasproven to be a great epistemologicaltemptress on the basis of its effectiveempirical yield. Similarly, the temptationsof religion abound on account of its faith-bound temptations. But yet, faith likescience needs an auditor. If not, peacewill be perpetually threatened as thehistorically numerous wars based onreligious identity demonstrate. Africa isimmensely and unfortunately plagued bythis phenomenon in present times.

In all this, what then is the human project?On account of the fact that humans havebeen biologically equipped with a centralnervous system unique among nature’sbiological creatures, it would seemincumbent on them to optimise theirefforts to get an understanding of theuniverse in which they live. This has beenthe case at two levels: the empirical leveland the metaphysical level. The historyof humankind is characterised byattempts to increase knowledge of theworkings of the empirical world forsurvival purposes. This was the basis forthe improvements in human technologyand the foundations of empirical science.Certain regularities in nature in terms ofcause and effect were observed and suchbecame the later basis for the establish-ment of scientific laws. But empiricalknowledge though testable would not beenough for full cognitive satisfaction.Empirical knowledge understood in termsof cause and effect could offer answersto ‘process questions’, that is, to ques-tions asking how phenomena occur butsuch knowledge was ill-equipped toexplain the ultimate meaning and signi-ficance of phenomena, in other words, theultimate ‘why’ questions. This is not to

deny of course that scientists – especiallytheoretical physicists – have beenattempting to answer the ultimate ‘why’question, as in the case of Hawking(2010)as the latest popular example of such. Yeteven though such explanations offer‘theories of everything’ they do notanswer the metaphysical questions ofultimate cause in terms of the ‘why’question. One popular question of thisnature is ‘why is there not nothing’instead of the existence of phenomena.One possible answer is that it is impos-sible that there could ever be nothingsince nothing, by definition, is an identi-fiable something. The cognate argumentis that if phenomena exist they must existfor a purpose.

It is at this point that metaphysicalsystems enter the picture often in theguise of religious theory. The basic claimis that full explanatory knowledge of theuniverse cannot be obtained throughempirical investigation but only througha posit that an extrasensory conscious-ness endowed with cognitive and moralsensibilities is the ultimate agent andcause of all phenomena. The monotheisticAbrahamic religions are clear on thismatter. Everything is explained by way ofthe consciousness of this ultimate arbiter.But the posit goes beyond this withrespect to the Abrahamic religions. Onlycertain chosen individuals can haveaccess to the knowledge and moralprinciples promulgated by the ultimatearbiter. Such knowledge is epistemolo-gically insulated and beyond the reach ofcritical analysis. Adherents to theparticular faiths and their own subjectivebeliefs are then premised on faith or beliefqua belief. But there is a problematic withthis confident foundationalism. It hasultimately led to dogmatic beliefs thatultimately produce contentious secta-rianism. Consider the multiplicity ofinterpretations that one finds in Christianmonotheism. Such sectarianism also existin Judaism and Islam but to a lesser degree.

But there is sectarianism in other forms ofhuman knowledge and such could takeon disputatious forms especially whenhuman ideological interests are involved.In the natural sciences, for example, extanttheories are always being improved on orchallenged. In the case of theoreticalphysics there are a number of theoriescompeting for dominance. Kuhn’s populartext, The Structure of ScientificRevolutions (1961) testifies to this.Normal science punctuated by revolu-


tionary science is the rule as natural andbiological science wend their way forwardas they seek to increase the stock ofhuman knowledge of the empirical world.There are often theoretical disputesbordering on human and ideologicalinterests as was the case concerningAIDS research. Peter Duesberg, a theo-retical chemist of much repute suggestedalternative explanations for the relation-ship between the HIV virus and AIDS andwas practically ostracised from hisscientific community as a result. He waslabeled an ‘AIDS denialist’ and effectivelybecame a persona non grata in hisscientific community. And even beforeDuesberg there is the classic case ofGiodarno Bruno, an Italian 16th centurypolymath who was immolated at the stakefor promoting heretical beliefs includingthe heliocentric theory which ran counterto the dogmatic theological belief that theuniverse was a geocentric one.

It would seem however that the majordeterminant of dogmatic faith in anyparticular human ideology is thatconcerning human interests. Whereverhuman material and intellectual interestsare threatened, the default positionbecomes an increased dogmatic faith inthe received doctrine. This is indeed thecase in the social sciences. Consider thecase of the fierce ideological strugglesbetween those theorists who sought topromote their own interpretations of howto put into practice state structuresfollowing Marx’s critique of capitalism.Take the case of the Soviet Union wherethe struggle between those who followedStalin’s brand of communism and thosewho followed Trotsky eventually led tothe murder of Trotsky. But the much morefierce ideological struggle took placebetween the West and the Communistworld from 1917 to 1991 when the SovietUnion was dismantled and was replacedby Russia. In this ideological struggle bothsides assumed theoretical and empiricalcertitude regardless of what the empiricalfacts demonstrated.

But the saving grace here for knowledgewas that both social science ideologiesof free market capitalism and the commandeconomy system of communism bothoperated in the context of the materialworld. Hence their constituent claimscould be falsified according to theprinciple of falsifiability. This principleworks on the basis that a given claim isproven false if adequate countervailingevidence could be provided. Thus there

were theorists who claimed to havemustered adequate empirical evidence toshow that both economic theories werefalse. But the issue here is that there werealways grounds for saving the proposedtheories given that parametric boundaryconditions were not fixed. The fact is thatthe social sciences do not lend them-selves to strict experimental conditionsas in the natural sciences. But regardlessof those constraints there was still thebasis for the refutation of existing theoriesin both ideologically supported areas.

In the area of faith-based religious theory,matters are somewhat different. The factthat the epistemic foundations of thosewho believe on the basis of faith areassumed to exist in the metaphysicalrealm insulates such beliefs from criticalevaluation based on empiricist criteria.Thus, beliefs based on religious foun-dations, when firmly held, are held on thebasis of faith. The problematic here is thatagents whose beliefs derive from anepistemic faith are absolutely convincedthat relevant actions are fully justifiedsince doubt is not countenanced. It is onthis basis that beliefs based on suchcognitive security without any scintillaof doubt or circumspection can often bean epistemic temptation to humans asagents. Once cognitive structures are setin place on the basis of early conditioningor psychological needs, cognitiveprobings based on epistemologicalanalysis and strict logical analysis wouldnot, in most cases, be successful. Thepsychological payoffs are much toorewarding for old beliefs to be so easilyjettisoned. The question is under whatconditions could Cartesian doubt becreated? Matters are compounded by theassumption that the Abrahamic deity is"all good" and his actions are optimal forall of mankind. But there is the perennialquestion of how to explain what many call‘evil events’ taking place in a worldgoverned by a benevolent deity. That isthe eternal question that theodicygrapples with in perpetuity.

Despite the rise of empirical science overthe last five centuries, the vast majorityof the world’s populations base theirholistic belief structures on foundationsthat are diametrically opposed to thoseof a much more effective empirical science.The issue here is that empirical science isincomplete in its findings and has notsucceeded in establishing an empiricallyderived theory of everything. At the baseof all these are two key issues which

empirical science has not addressed fully.The first issue concerns human mortality.Human self consciousness is so advancedthat humans are the only living organismsthat can ponder their own ultimatemortality. The Abrahamic religions answerthis issue with the promise of aneverlasting hereafter. The second issueconcerns the purpose and meaning ofexistence. Theoretical and empiricalscience is not equipped to deal with theissue of the ultimate purpose and meaningof existent phenomena, especially thepurpose of human existence. For theadherents of the Abrahamic religions theissue of purpose and the ultimate signi-ficance of phenomena is explained withinthe content of the will of the Abrahamicdeity, the conscious and moral arbiter ofall things. In this regard the cognitive gapafforded by the limitations of science andsecular knowledge is filled by themetaphysical content of religion believedpurely on the basis of faith. Thus thehuman mind is tempted by religion to lendpurpose and significance to humanexistence, and especially so for those whoargue that there are two forms of belief.One form is based on belief based onevidence supported by causality; theother is based on evidence supportedmainly on faith. The cognitivelyinsulating idea here is that epistemologywhich plays such an important role inauditing material evidence and causalityis rendered otiose in this instance. Thetemptation is there but can onelegitimately bifurcate the thinkingattributes of the human mind in that way?

ReferencesDurkheim, E., 1915, The Elementary Forms of

Religious Life, London: Allen and Unwin.

Evans-Pritchard, E.E., 1937, Witchcraft, Oraclesand Magic Among the Azande, Oxford:Clarendon Press.

Frazer, J., 1890, 1922, The Golden Bough, NewYork: Macmillan.

Freud, S., 1939, Moses and Monotheism, NewYork: Knopf Doubleday.

Hawking, S., 2010, The Grand Design, NewYork: Bantam Books.

Kuhn, T., 1962, The Structure of ScientificRevolutions, Chicago: The University ofChicago Press.

Levi-Strauss, C., 1966, The Savage Mind,Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Levy-Bruhl, L., 1923, Primitive Mentality, NewYork: AMS Press.

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