Kenyan scholars should drop crab mentality

I miss Prof Ali Mazrui’s commentaries in our daily newspapers.

I have been his fan for many years. I have loved reading his critical and reflective pieces since I was a teenager. They have always been insightful. They often break new ground provoke debate.

They are different from the self-praise and self-centred articles we read from literary critics such as Prof Chris Wanjala, Prof Peter Amuka and Prof Egara Kabaji, who say and reveal nothing new, except lamenting that Taban Liyong is wrong to claim that East Africa is a literary desert.

Instead of writing, they engage in more criticism and personal attacks. They have recently been joined by Prof Austin Bukenya from Uganda, who seems to find fulfilment in the same habit of celebrating the ‘glorious past’ of the East African literary scene, of which he was part.

This is the reason I can never respond to them, unlike the late Prof William Ochieng and a few other scholars who are objective in the manner in which they write.

Many Kenyans are wondering what has become of Kenyan scholars. Instead of engaging in debates about contemporary problems, such as terrorism, radicalisation and how to deal with them, they are engaging in academic sniping, bullying and guerrilla warfare.

There was a time when Kenyan scholars such as Mazrui, Bethuel Ogot, George Eshiwani, Ochieng, Eric Masinde Aseka, Paul Ochola, Macharia Munene, Henry Mutoro, Mwangi wa Githumo, Daniel Sifuna, among others, produced world class books.

NEW INSIGHTS

We need to find that creative edge again instead of the present self-glorifications in which students invite their former professors and honour them, the way Prof Egara Kabaji did recently for Prof Chris Wanjala at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST).

Unlike what we are seeing today, Prof Mazrui’s articles always added flavour and new insight to knowledge.

The last time I read Prof Mazrui’s article in dailies in Kenya, he was concerned about the lack of democratic culture in Kenya. Mazrui recommended focus on building our institutions to allow them to be independent and not subject to manipulation by our political and economic elite.

The current grandstanding on the place of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) in electoral politics in Kenya is predicated on such suspicion.

Prof Ochieng and Ngugi wa Thing’o have always tried to walk this thin line of being intellectually productive without being parochial and provincial in their pronouncements.

Although he was an academic gadfly, Prof Ochieng used to churn out critical and reflective essays. When he reacted to any commentary, like he did to my pieces on several occasions, it was to give his own opinion about the same and not to engage in ‘below the belt’ boxing.

Of course Ochieng was not immune to this Kenyan practice, having attacked Prof Mazrui on account of his aging.

Despite suffering political detention, Ngugi wa Thiong’o has remained vocal on many issues that concern freedom. He conjures up images of a great intellectual interested in societal good.

Apart from Mazrui, Ngugi and Ochieng, many other scholars in Kenya write to either engage in self glorification or to respond to what others have said.

They are not capable of raising their own issues and debates. Not long ago, I read an article in the dailies where Prof Wanjala engaged in the worst form of public discourse by feeding Kenyan readers on his publications, some of which are very marginal, useful perhaps only to some literary scholars.

He went on and on about himself and how the 1970s and 1980s were the most productive decades in Kenya’s academic history. I am increasingly getting tired of these types of self-glorifications where some older scholars imagine that scholarship started and ended with them.

Unlike Prof Mazrui, who cites younger scholars in his writings, some of the older scholars from the first generation resist reading new works and prefer to continue citing their old, archaic works. I hear that some of them demand that students must cite them in order for them to pass their thesis and dissertations. Someone needs to remind them that there is a lot that is going on in the literary world that we need to be educated about.

It is, therefore, not surprising that the people writing readable and enjoyable novels are not at universities and do not even hold university degrees. It should explain why the works of Meja Mwangi such as Kill Me Quick, Going Down River Road or The Cockroach Dance and David Mailu’s books remain popular among Kenyan readers while our so-called literary giants are doing nothing but criticising.

LYNCH MOBS

One of my novels, Because of Honor, received more reviews in the West than Africa because our scholars are hooked on Achebe and Ngugi. My two little books, Nakhamuna Stories from Western Kenya and Amanani Stories from Western Kenya receive more hits from the West than from Africa.

Instead of spending our energies in creative engagements, Kenyan scholars permanently hold rocks in their hands looking for where to throw them, and land like lynch mobs when the opportunity presents itself.

You attend PhD defences and you wonder why we speak of mob justice on River Road and not at universities.

I recall the last time I read an article by Prof Peter Amuka in the dailies; it was a lengthy defence in which he attacked my ideas in my exchange with Prof Ocheing. I found it hard to respond to the article because although he did not mention my name, he attacked each and every item I had brought up against Ochieng.

Prof Egara Kabaji also tried the same. I could also not respond to the piece in which he discussed me, for he referred to sports for youth in his Neck of Woods such as ‘urine throwing,’ which revealed indolence, unfilled and problematic formative years.

To engage such would demean my status in society as a junior elder and father of grown up children who read these columns.

Kenyan scholars should emulate Prof Mazrui and be productive.

Prof Amutabi is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic Affairs), Kisii University. [email protected]