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Conversations and Confrontations with My Reviewers

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Conversations and Confrontations with My Reviewers DEBATES & REJOINDERS Conversations and Confrontations with my Reviewers Archie Mafeje Department of Sociology American University in Cairo Egypt Point of Departure It is important for my readers to know that my monograph, as its title – Anthropology and Independent Africans – signifies, is directed to contemporary African anthropologists. This was in response to their representations in the 1991 anthropological seminar held in Dakar under the auspices of CODESRIA. It became apparent during the deliberations in the seminar that ‘African anthropology’ was an aspiration or wish rather than a reality. The attendant African anthropologists failed to provide a clear definition of ‘African anthropology’ as against colonial anthropology. Secondly, unlike colonial anthropology, they exhibited no theoretical framework, which guided their discourse, nor were they able to say what their designating categories and units of analysis were. All this can be verified by reading Anthropology in Africa which is an edited volume of the seminar papers (in press, Codesria Publications). This particular experience confirmed what I had suspected all along, namely the incorrigibility of colonial anthropology and, therefore, its likely atrophy in independent Africa. Then, the nagging question was: if an epistemological break from colonial anthropology had eluded African anthropologists due to certain objective conditions such as the transformation of actual or imagined ‘tribes’ and ideological/political imperatives of decolonisation, could somebody else do the job for them by rehabilitating colonial anthropology or by producing a new agenda for anthropology, without encountering, the traditional or proverbial Achille's heel of anthropology, namely, ‘alterity’? This was a pertinent concern, given the fact that ‘Anthropology in Africa’ could not necessarily be construed as ‘African anthropology’, irrespective of my immediate preoccupation, i.e., ‘anthropology by Africans’. Therefore, I had to satisfy myself that the epistemological problem facing, anthropology is not only a problem of Africans. It is an ontological problem in that it derives not simply from colonialism or imperialism, as Kathleen Gough believed, but from historically- determined white racism. This is the essence of ‘alterity’ and goes far beyond mere 95 Eurocentrism. To test the validity of this supposition, I made a strategic selection of texts which I thought had succeeded in confronting Eurocentrism in anthropology but failed to deracialise anthropology. The mistake I made in my monograph was not to make the above point explicit. It is apparent that while liberal Euro-American anthropologists and their kith and kin in the ex-colonies can consciously deconstruct colonial anthropology, it is doubtful if they can deracialise the original idea of anthropology as the study of the ‘other’. The authoritative remark by none other than Sally Falk Moore herself that: ‘From the start, the anthropological project was defined as the study of “others”, of non-European peoples with other ways of life’ (Moore 1994:9) confirms this supposition. Whether inspired by the lofty ideas of the Enlightenment (Firth 1972) or not, the search for exotica led to a situation wherein anthropology became a ‘scientific’ justification for drawing invidious distinction between Europeans and peoples of other continents. Under colonialism and white racial domination this had the most pernicious effects, as will be shown with reference to the intellectual role of white anthropologists in fostering ‘alterity’ in southern African settler-societies. Irrespective of whatever excuses individuals might make for themselves, the generic question is whether any anthropology founded on ‘alterity’ can escape being racist? Frequent references to ‘post-colonial’ research or ‘post-apartheid’ liberal reformism have not helped to clarify this issue. This need not concern Africans as victims of white racism about which they are still screaming, as the volume on Anthropology in Africa will testify. As the same volume will show, the problem facing contemporary African anthropologists is how to make an epistemological break from colonial anthropology, if at all. Points of Return I believe that my reviewers trivialised the problematique I wanted investigated and clarified for their own reasons – some predictable and some not so predictable. For instance, it is obvious that Sally Moore has too many axes to grind. I was actually puzzled by the fact that she found it necessary to re-introduce the specifics of our previous debate into the present one which is largely inspired by rejectionist texts or what she chooses to characterise as the ‘colonial period mentality’ critiques. However, it is possible that the earlier exchange left her with certain grievances which she found convenient to ventilate in the present context. Although my personal belief is that initiators of controversial debates should not reserve the right to be the final arbiters as well, I recognise the cathartic effect of unabated polemics. In her anger, indignation, and outrage she has revealed things which otherwise would have never known. One of these is to discover that she is capable of descending from her Olympian tower and engage in the rough and tumble of our kind of world. To make sure that this is for real, she takes leave of her genteel style of writing and becomes visceral to the point of being vitriolic and not disdaining use of exclamation marks to derive extra emotive impact where words prove inadequate. Not only this but she found it necessary to clear herself by declaring her political credentials, namely, that she was supportive of 96 African ‘independence’ and that she took an academic interest in Julius Nyerere’s ‘socialist, planned-economy path’. Regarding the former, her reference is her encounters with African students in the African Studies Centre at UCLA in the 1960s. It so happens that in the summer of 1965 I was guest lecturer in the Centre at the invitation of James Coleman (the Africanist king-maker). It was an opportune moment for me because it coincided with the climax of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. In my lectures African- American and African students lost no opportunity to air their grievances against racism in democratic America where slaves had been emancipated long ago about how African Studies were being taught in the USA. Worse still, the Watts riots exploded while I was still in Los Angeles and I had the fortune of being escorted by Mrs. Nat King Cole to see the disparity between white and black Los Angeles. As if this was not enough, during my lengthy discussions with Dan Kunene, an African linguist who had been recruited from the University of Cape Town, I learnt that a number of faculty members in the African Studies Centre were advisers to the State Department and that some of the Chairs in African languages were funded by the same Department and even by the American Navy – something, which led to the early departure of A. C. Jordan from UCLA in protest. Could all this have been unknown to somebody who became ‘closely involved with the activities of the African Studies Centre at UCLA’? Is Sally Moore after all these years deluding herself or trying to delude us? Whatever is the answer, it is significant that thirty years hence Mahmood Mamdani could allude to the same underlying contradictions in his stirring critique, ‘A Glimpse at African Studies, Made in USA’ (1990). Moore’s second claim to legitimacy is her field trip to Tanzania. She mentions the advice she got front the two historians, Ranger and Kimambo, but fails to report on the unnamed professor of anthropology who warned her that people in Kilimanjaro ‘wore trousers’, meaning that they were not suitable objects for an anthropological study. This as it may, what is important to bear in mind is that even if her book became famous in America, it remained obscure in East Africa. Interestingly enough, what emerged as relevant and often-quoted texts on customary tenure laws in East Africa in the last 20 years is the work of our former students from the University of Dar-es- Salaam, notably, Okot Ogendo, Pale Acholi, and more recently Issa Shivji. This is of more than academic import and might contradict her claim to legitimacy in the same way that her association with the African Studies Centre in UCLA did not transform her commitment to ‘alterity’, if not imperialism. As far as access to literature is concerned, I am sure, I am as privileged as any professor at Harvard simply because I am a regular visitor to all centres of western civilisation. In addition, I receive frequent review copies from publishers on Africa. Above all, the CODESRIA secretariat and other members of the network bring to my attention whatever they consider to be interesting/relevant latest publications on Africa, 97 irrespective of discipline. However, like Sally Moore, I have to ‘make choices’ in dealing with literature. She made the foregoing remark in response to the charge that she wrote her book, Anthropology and Africa (1994), without referring, to any of the writings by African anthropologists. This was a serious but deliberate omission on Sally Moore’s part. As she made it known to one of her colleagues who queried the omission, in her view certain things are understood, without having to be said. Sally Moore has no respect for or faith in African scholarship thus far. Naturally, she would deny this but, unfortunately, I cannot reveal the identity of her white colleagues with whom she feels free to express such prejudices. Therefore, her having discovered all of a sudden that there are African scholars such as Thandika Mkandawire who are capable of writing ‘subtle’ texts is open to suspicion. I am sure, she is not at all familiar with Thandika Mkandawire’s work since he joined CODESRIA about 20 years ago. Consequently, she might have used his name in vain, as the brewing debate between him and some of his African colleagues such as Kwesi Prah will show.
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