Mazrui

In the checkered history of Africology, from early colonial endeavorsto the brave new world of postcolonialist dissections, few scholarselicited the excitement and adoration that Professor Ali Al-Amin Mazrui(1933-2014) did. On the very continent that he studied so intensely, libraries,educational centers, and roads have been named for him posthumouslyin recognition of his manifold contributions. And yet, althoughrare by the standards of academic aloofness, the adulation of his defenderswas matched by the abrasive disdain and aberrant hostility ofhis detractors, some of whom were undoubtedly driven by intellectualor political opposition to his underlying project of reviving non-westernconsciousness during an era so marked by the supposed universalismof western finance, culture, and militarism.To be certain, though, Mazrui was not fazed by such criticism orchallenge; instead, it would appear that he rather thrived on controversy,relishing each emergent opportunity to provide correctives to the receivedwisdom. Indeed, when writing, Mazrui was often schooling. Hisdeliberately provocative pronouncements, in prose and speech, wouldquestion and rattle, but always make, in demonstrative (rather than didactic)terms, poignant points about errors perceptual and praxeological.In so doing, Mazrui – clearly inspired by the finesse of his Oxforddoctoral training – was not shy to adopt riveting rhetorical devices:irony, hyperbole, and simile abounded. Such devices, however, did notobscure the structured ways, even if implicit, through which his analysisunfolded. When he took the time, he would reason as well as argue inclear schemata by employing binaries, triads, dichotomies, and juxtapositions.His eye for detail was as pronounced as his mastery of history:microhistory could give way to longue durée in a paragraph, thelocal and the global would intertwine, and the ideational and the ...