Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BREAKING: Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe Resigns

The other thought I have on shina's evocation of postcolonial critique is that it seems to me that it is a dated approach that seems somewhat better attuned to the ills of neo-colonialism than to globalization. The evocations of spivak and hall, two of my favorite thinkers, two of those with values that are always to be celebrated, along with, say, fanon's take on the dangers of autocracy in newly established independent states in Africa, all that dates to another age when something like the center-periphery model made sense and needed to be fought. The center is no longer there in the state as metropole; and the periphery was always there in the center, if you read gikandi. Now more than ever that old dualism is rendered meaningless. Just consider how we think of the words refugee and immigration today, versus yesterday. Think of how geschiere has changed our thinking about indigeneity today versus yesterday. Think about what drives economic forces, think about china yesterday in the world and in Africa, compared with today.

So, for me, if I want to work with global forces and Africa I read comaroff and comaroff. I thank spivak and bhabha, in fact, but have to move on, have to read the latest mbembe, if I want to understand today's world.

And postcolonial theory is no longer the word for those we are reading today

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

619 Red Cedar Rd

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday 22 November 2017 at 21:52
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>, Ofure Aito <ofureaito@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BREAKING: Zimbabwe's President Mugabe Resigns

 

To be fair, Mugabe is just a melo-dramatic actor who failed to notice the dying and the death of the applause before bowing out of the stage. Otherwise, he would have occupied the same legendary seats of the likes of Nyerere, Kenyatta, Nkrumah, and the heroes of the past who laboriously (and successfully) mounted resistances against the tyrannies of imperialisms of their times. But, as our people allude, when you beat the bata drum with the crafted skin, it produces good sound and engenders people to dance; when you beat it with the rough-edged stick, it shatters the drum and draws the wrath of the dancers. His reign, unfortunately, will go down in history as one of villains. I wished, and could only wish, he did not become power-drunk, and did not know that somewhere in Zimbabwe there must be someone else, other than he and his wife, who is equally, if not better equipped, to lead the people of Zimbabwe into a new dispensation.

 

Michael

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday, November 22, 2017, 6:41:42 PM CST, Ofure Aito <ofureaito@gmail.com> wrote:

 

 

Dear Dr Afolayan

Thanks for this expressive analysis and very philosophical... your last two paragraphs answered my concerns in the fate of Africa and Africans and importantly Nigeria.

Indeed you raised salient issues and also provided thought-provoking answers that resonate Nigeria within the context of leadership, institutions and democracy. And within the discourse of postcoloniality is the quadmire of democracry, which i find rather intriguing in its practice in Africa. As for Mugabe, he is like the dog that failed to heed the hunter's whistle.

Ofure Aito, Ph.D

On Wednesday, November 22, 2017 at 11:25:55 AM UTC+1, Adeshina Afolayan wrote:

There is nothing wrong with postcolonial critique (though i am not sure we will still be left with that conclusion when we wade through postcolonial theory and criticism from Spivak to Hall.). And I have also only signaled globalization, capitalism and Empire as those contemporary ideological dynamics that any robust postcolonial critique must have to contend with. The Mugabe-type nostalgia for anticolonial comradeship is dead born in the face of these significant devilish hordes against the African continent. His anticolonial credential is further degraded in the face of the blatant plundering of the common weal, and a messianic complex too. 

 

Prof Harrow's response hits the appropriate connection i was drawing between Mugabe and Gaddafi. And i think i understand the democratic context where he is coming from. But then, to muddle the waters a little bit more, i am not sure that tyranny occupies the same political continuum with an enlightened dictatorship. I am, for instance, fascinated with Lee Kuan Yew but is he in the same league with Gaddafi (certainly not with Mugabe, a dotard!)

 

I am forced to revisit the Obama statement that Africa does not need strong men but strong institutions. Which statement equally reminds us of the thorny social science dilemma between leadership and institution. in other words, how do we build good structures and institutions that have the capacity to constrain errant behavior? Which is prior in this regard, leadership or structure? It seems to me that Obama was just being intellectually correct when he made that statement. Is it not the case that Africa needs strong men if the hope of strong institutions are to be realized? 

 

If we set this as the "social/political agenda," it becomes a template to knock off Mugabe instantly, disqualify Gaddafi's endgame, and rethink Yew's political strategy. Prof. Harrow's democratic principles will likely knock of Yew, but i don't think we should be so fast to do so. Singapore under Yew makes for an interesting study in social change. And even more so is Yew's adroit combination of constitutionalism and political stability sans effete populism. His political sensibility is democratic but pragmatically dictatorial (if i understand what i am saying!). Then he left office. He is therefore, to all intents and purposes, a strong man that Singapore needed to build strong institutions that transformed it into a first world country. 

 

In an enlightened dictatorship, the demos are led by a sensitive and pragmatic leash. This is why they can technically be called a demos and not subjects. If the use of "leash" is problematic, then we would all be hypocritical if we think Trump and all the other populist demagogues are better in what we call "democracies". Democracy cannot just be taken as a political given in all contexts. In fact, it seems to me that democracy does not guarantee strong institutions. On the contrary, strong institutions are what we need to sustain a vibrant democracy. Where then should a country like Nigeria start from? Lee Kuan Yew got the answer to that question right for a once-a-third-world-country Singapore.

 

For me, one of the fundamental core of a postcolonial critique is the question: What can we do with democracy? The answer to that question will have to run the gauntlet between stability and economic progress; enlightened and pragmatic dictatorship and populism; leadership and institution; strong man and strong institutions.       

 

Adeshina Afolayan, PhD
Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan

+23480-3928-8429

 

On Wednesday, November 22, 2017 3:22 AM, Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso <jum...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

But I agree, Professor Harrow, that we must not excuse tyranny of any sort. And I have not done so. I have only said we can't compare Mugabe and Ghadaffi merely by their age, or their being of the same "era". And my contrast was well defined: based on simply their bequest of social welfare for their citizens. I have not assessed their regional politics or related madnesses. Permit me to also humbly point out, at the risk of being misread too, that as surely as Ghadaffi gave us Charles Taylor, so surely did Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Nobel prize for peace winner, — a woman who I admire tremendously— also give us Charles Taylor. And now she is also being considered for the Mo Ibrahim Prize for good governance. Contradictions we must live with.

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