IB and Chambi:
This is a great debate to have, and Gloria Emeagwali should please contribute to it. I was part of ABU as an external examiner from BA to PhD levels in the 1980s when Professors Inikori and Abdulhai Mahdi were heads of dept. One essay to read is on Bala Usman in Mamdani's short book, Define and Rule.
TF
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
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From: "ibdullah@gmail.com" <ibdullah@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, January 14, 2016 at 3:33 PM
To: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Where are the papers of Bonaventure Swai?
Reply-To: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, January 14, 2016 at 3:33 PM
To: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Where are the papers of Bonaventure Swai?
Chambi:
There is always a difference between what we do in particular moments and how we come to analyse that moment after it's passing. I graduated from ABU in 1980. Arnold Temu was my teacher; I even applied to Dar in 1981 but never got a response. Swai came to ABU in 1982; and I got to know and read him after I graduated in Ibadan in 1982.
Looking back on those years at ABU--Nigeria's Dar?--there was much posturing and anti-imperialist rhetoric but no rigorous analysis in terms where to go and what to do. What happened at ABU mirrored a lot of the happenings at Dar. But there was no ABU debate; no journal; only mimeographed exchanges that were hardly available outside radical circles . The excessive premium on political economy at the expense of solid historical research---there is difference---stifled historical scholarship and the emergence of an emancipatory discourse anchored on concrete reality. In this context reductionism reared it's ugly head--everything became imperialism. Dependentistas took over the academy and the longue duree approach to African history suffered. Consequently research topics became limited to colonialism and underdevelopment. Research on pre-capitalist socio-economic formations was neglected.
Much too much energy was invested in chasing the colonial ghost. And the contemporary realities which doubly embodied that pre-capitalists past were shafted in the quest for a usable past. Today we are much the poorer: no Historian of Africa--not Africanists--want to venture beyond 1800. Unlike in Dar, the radical upsurge in ABU did not advance our knowledge of the Nigerian or African pasts.
Ib
--
Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 14, 2016, at 8:39 PM, "'Chambi Chachage' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
----IB, that was a quote from Monday Yakiban Mangvwat's (2013) book. I did not know Swai personally. But his 'radical' colleagues in Tanzania regarded him highly. The same applies to some readers in Nigeria and elsewhere such as this:
"Swai was another of our unsung heroes who was not given sufficient recognition by his alma mater, UDSM" - Former Colleague
From: "ibdullah@gmail.com" <ibdullah@gmail.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2016 11:06 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Where are the papers of Bonaventure Swai?
Swai left Nigeria without looking back! He was not too happy in Sokoto. When he trooped back to East Africa that was it. He had no friends that he stayed in contact with. Not even Arnold Temu, my teacher at ABU, and my Dean at UWC, South Africa, was in contact with Swai after he departed Nigeria.Hope this helps. The claim in your posting about his radicalism is overrated; Swai did not get pass Althuser and Corrigan. Before he even left ABU he had seemingly reached the end of intellectual journey with constant repetition and citations unconnected with history as lived experienced. The book you cited--Historians and Africanist History--contains all the pitfalls of his evolving notion of the African pasts. He was not into empirical research and his philosophizing, if one can call it that, did not add much to our understanding of the African past. Comrade Swai, was definately not Wamba, another historian philosopher with his feet squarely in Aftica.Hope this helps.Ib
From: Chambi Chachage
Sent: 14/01/2016 10:45 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue
Cc: Wanazuoni
Subject: Where are the papers of Bonaventure Swai?
Dear Professor Falola et al.,
By any chance did Bonaventure Swai (described below) deposit his papers in Nigeria or elsewhere?
"Closely related to Professor Temu was another Tanzanian Professor with whom I became closely associated. He was Professor Bonaventure Swai, a younger and more intellectually restless scholar whose Ph.D. thesis was supervised by the same Temu back at the University of Tanzania, Dar es Salam. He had joined the history department at A. B. U. on the encouragement of his teacher who had recommended him to the Head of Department. He was excessively critical and tore apart almost every argument I was putting forward until Temu would calm both of us down. Professor Swai was uniquely well-read and knowledgeable but highly critical and impatient with any scholar who could not keep pace with his thinking. Together with Temu, they authored the famous book, Historians and Africanist History: A Critique published by Zed Publishers, London, 1981, while they were still in Zaria. Swai eventually left Zaria for the Usmanu Danfodio University, Sokoto, and finally left Nigeria for the University of Uganda, Gulu, where he took ill and passed on; may his soul rest in perfect peace. I will never forget him" - http://www.cap-press.com/pdf/08476.pdf
Best Regards,
Chambi
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