CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 1

Editorial

A Giant Has Moved On

This 12th General Assembly is taking place exactly one year and Sociology Department at the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tan- nine months after the death of an illustrious member of zania before moving to The Hague as a Visiting Professor of CODESRIA, one most committed to the problematic of the pub- Social Anthropology of Development and Chairman of the Ru- lic sphere in Africa. Wednesday 28 March 2007 will go down as ral Development, Urban Development and Labour Studies a sad day among social researchers all over Africa and beyond. Programme at the Institute of Social Studies from 1972 to 1975. It was the day Professor Archibald Monwabisi Mafeje (fondly It was here that he met his wife and life-long companion, the known among friends, colleagues and admirers as Archie) passed Egyptian scholar and activist, Dr Shahida El Baz. In 1979, he away in Pretoria, in what was a most quiet exit that has left very joined the American University, in Cairo, as Professor of Sociol- many of us whom he touched directly or indirectly, in a state of ogy. Thereafter, he took up the post of Professor of Sociology sadness and anger. and Anthropology and Director of the Multidisciplinary Re- search Centre at the University of Namibia from 1992 to 1994. Archie Mafeje, the quintessential personality of science and Mafeje was also a senior fellow and visiting or guest professor one of the most versatile, extraordinary minds to emerge from at several other universities and research institutions in Africa, Africa was, in his days, a living legend in every sense. His Europe and North America. He is the author of many books, knowledge and grasp of issues – almost all issues – was breath- monographs and journal articles. His critique of the concept of taking. His discourses transcended disciplinary boundaries and tribalism and his works on anthropology are widely cited as key were characterised by a spirit of combative engagement under- reference materials. He also did path-breaking work on the land pinned by a commitment to social transformation. As an aca- and agrarian question in Africa. demic sojourner conscious of the history of Africa over the last six centuries, he rallied his colleagues to resist the intellectual Mafeje returned to South Africa several years after the end of servitude on which all forms of foreign domination thrive. He apartheid where he was appointed a Research Fellow by the was intransigent in his call for the liberation of our collective National Research Foundation (NRF) working at the African imaginations as the foundation stone for continental liberation. Renaissance Centre at the University of South Africa (UNISA). In all of this, he also distinguished himself by his insistence on In 2001, Archie Mafeje became a member of the Scientific Com- scientific rigour and originality. It was his trade mark to be un- mittee of the Council for the Development of Social Science compromisingly severe with fellow scientists who were medio- Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and in 2003 was awarded the cre in their analyses. The power of his pen and the passion of Honorary Life Membership of this Council. In 2005, Professor his interventions always went hand-in-hand with a uniquely Mafeje was appointed a CODESRIA Distinguished Fellow in polemical style hardly meant for those who were not sure-footed conjuction with the Africa Institute of South Africa, in Pretoria. in their scholarship. This, then, was the Mafeje who left us on 28 March 2007, to join the other departed heroes and heroines An Incarnation of Africa’s Intellectual Ideals and of the African social research community. A great pan-African, Struggles an outstanding scientist, a first rate debater, a frontline partisan Archie Mafeje was in many regards an epitome of the intellec- in the struggle for social justice, and a gentleman of great hu- tual ideals that engineered the creation of CODESRIA in 1973, manitarian principles, Archie was laid to rest on Saturday 7 April and that has fuelled and propelled the Council for the past thirty- 2007 in Umtata, South Africa. five years. To Issa Shivji, he was a man of “great intellectual Professor Archie Mafeje, South African by birth, completed his rigour and integrity” who did not compromise on ideas, and undergraduate studies and began his career as a scholar at the “whose ideas were so powerful that you instinctively felt you University of Cape Town, but like many other South Africans, had known the man from time immemorial.” He was a rigorous he was soon forced by the apartheid regime to go into exile and thorough researcher who, already in the early 1960s, im- where he spent the better part of his life. He obtained a PhD in pressed his professor and supervisor – Monica Wilson – with Anthropology and Rural Sociology from University of Cam- the quality and depth of his masterly ethnography in Langa bridge in 1966. In 1973, at the age of 34, he was appointed Pro- (John Sharp). But, as his daughter, Dana, rightly remarked in fessor of Anthropology and Sociology of Development at the reaction to the outpouring of tributes following his death, Mafeje Institute of Social Studies in The Hague by an Act of Parliament was more than just an intellectual giant. He was above all a and with the approval of all the Dutch universities, becoming human being. “My father was critical but humane, fierce but the first African scholar to be so distinguished in The Nether- compassionate, sarcastic but gentle, silly but brilliant, stubborn lands. That appointment bestowed on him the honour of being but loyal, but most of all, he was passionate.” a Queen Juliana Professor and one of her Lords. His name appears Indeed, it was this passion and compassion, this humanness in the prestigious blue pages of the Dutch National Directorate. that made him both appreciated and contested, leaving few in- Archie Mafeje’s professional career spanned four decades and different in the face of his sharp, incisive, critical mindedness covered three continents. From 1969 to 1971 he was Head of the and love for debate in which he, metaphorically, did not hesitate CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 2 to cross swords or draw blood. His debates with fellow African knowledge) because he was black in the apartheid eyes of the intellectuals in the pages of the CODESRIA Bulletin – which Minister of National Education, despite his being the best can- we have reproduced in this special tribute issue – were, in the didate for the position. It could always be argued that if Mafeje words of Ali Mazrui (one of his intellectual adversaries), “brutal had reason to be angry and bitter vis-à-vis the UCT authorities – almost no holds barred!” Ali Mazrui, whose idea of ‘inter- for having succumbed too easily to government pressure, he African colonisation’ Archie Mafeje viciously savaged as an should have taken heart to reintegrate himself at the end of attempt at facilitating Europe’s recolonisation of Africa, regrets apartheid in the 1990s from the fact that the National Union of not having had “a formal intellectual reconciliation” with Mafeje South African Students protested the violation of his academic before his passing away (Ali Mazrui). His utter forthrightness, freedom through mass demonstrations within UCT and in other razor-sharpness, brilliant turn of phrase, cynicism, polemical university campuses, including a sit-in that lasted for nine days style, unwavering stances, and penchant for pushing arguments (Lungisile Ntsebeza). He was relevant to students in the 1960s to, and even beyond their logical conclusions, made Mafeje to just as he was in exile, and within the CODESRIA networks come across sometimes as “deeply embittered”. where he served as resource person and mentor to younger scholars; and would certainly have been relevant to students in However, there was reason enough to be embittered and sad- South Africa as well, after the 1990s, with some mutual forgiving dened for someone at war against the intellectual hegemony of and forgetting. those who proclaim universal truth and wisdom, regardless of time or space, on a continent where many of his colleagues UCT and the Game of Reconciliation: Too Little, Too continue to embellish their references with irrelevant writers Late from the global North to prove their intellectualness (cf. Issa Shivj, Jimi Adesina). There was reason for bitterness and sad- Following the end of apartheid in the early 1990s, instead of ness for someone outstandingly critical of double-speak and things getting better in the spirit of truth and reconciliation, other shortcomings of the African political and intellectual elite relations between UCT and Mafeje only worsened, despite sev- (Kwesi Prah), to realise that such dissemblance was far more eral attempts by Mafeje to return to UCT, including as the AC deep-rooted and resilient than he initially imagined. And there Jordan Chair in African Studies. Mafeje felt insulted and in cer- indeed was reason for embitterment and sadness to be per- tain cases described as “most demeaning” the reactions of the suaded to return “home” to a post-apartheid South Africa where authorities of UCT to his efforts to return to his alma mater as little in effect is post anything, and where, instead of closing professor. When it was announced to him that another candi- ranks to win the battle of ideas, many are the black intellectuals date had been offered the AC Jordan Chair to which he, Mafeje, who continue to be induced from academe into government, the had not even been invited for an interview, Mafeje wrote: “In corporate world and NGOs, where bureaucracy and making 1968 it was an honour to be offered a post at UCT but in 1994 it money matter more than knowledge production, social justice, is a heavy burden which only the politically naïve or the unim- truth and reconciliation (Eddy Maloka). aginative can face, without some uneasy doubts. I might be wrong, but only time will tell.” From then on Mafeje treated with Despite his immense generosity of spirit and capacity to see the disdain various overtures by UCT, including the proposed award other side even when he disagreed with it, Archie felt more in of an honorary doctorate and a formal apology in 2003. Only in exile back home in South Africa than he ever felt away from August 2008, almost two years after his death, did UCT bring South Africa. According to Jimi Adesina, the relative intimacy together 11 members of the Mafeje family at a symposium where he enjoyed within CODESRIA circles was brought home to a second apology was issued and an honorary doctorate Mafeje through the pain of his intellectual isolation in South awarded him posthumously. The Mafeje family agreed to over- Africa. “The tragedy for all of us,” Jimi Adesina writes, “is that rule Archie Mafeje and accept the apology on his behalf, an Archie did not die of natural causes – he died of intellectual apology in which UCT recognises that it “did not do nearly neglect and isolation. In spite of the enormous love of his family enough in the 1990s to make it possible for Professor Mafeje to and loyal life-long friends, Archie’s oxygen was vigorous intel- return to UCT, and that this remained an obstacle to his recon- lectual engagement. He lived on serious, rigorous and relevant ciliation with his alma mater” (Lungisile Ntsebeza). scholarship. Starved of that, he simply withered.” Yet, as Maloka argues, instead of succumbing to embitterment and sadness, Whatever the reasons for his rejection of overtures of reconcili- Mafeje should have used “his towering intellectual stature and ation and recognition by UCT, Mafeje was seldom comfortable his ‘straight-shooting’ approach” to help “make the case for a with honours, especially in his life time. In December 2003 when very vibrant, strong and independent black intelligentsia as a CODESRIA, on the occasion of its 30th anniversary celebra- force to reckon with in confronting the enduring legacy of apart- tions, decided to honour him with a Life Long Membership of heid.” His age was taking a heavy toll on him, Maloka admits, CODESRIA in recognition of his lifetime contribution to schol- but if he had asked Mafeje, the latter would probably have arship, Mafeje was grateful but full of misgivings. “It might be repeated what he said at the CODESRIA 30th anniversary that you are wishing me not a soon death, but death alright. conference in Dakar in December 2003: “You don’t make knowl- When you honour people, you usually honour them after their edge alone”. deaths, and the glory comes after their death. But this glory comes before death,” he told the special panel CODESRIA had Archie Mafeje would die before reconciliation with the Univer- put together to celebrate him (Ebrima Sall). The challenge is sity of Cape Town (UCT) – his alma mater – the intellectual thus for UCT to prove that its posthumous recognition of Archie community within which he began his knowledge making – Mafeje would bring glory enough to be recognised even by the which in 1968 rescinded its decision to appoint him senior lec- late Mafeje, a man who was not comfortable with honours, and turer in Social Anthropology (or right to make and help make who had every reason to be bitter towards an institution that CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 3 had yielded too easily to the pressures of apartheid in his re- poorly conceived and even more poorly articulated attempts at gard, and that did not appear keen to make him part and parcel affirming Africanity such as “African renaissance” (Eddy of its post-apartheid identity in knowledge production and aca- Maloka). The extent to which African scholars buy these aspi- demic freedom (Lungisile Ntsebeza; Teboho Lebakeng). rations in principle and in practice would determine the degree to which Mafeje and CODESRIA have succeeded in making A Staunch Critic of Intellectual Colonialism these battles and lofty heights truly collective and pan-African Archie Mafeje’s bitter critiques of Ali Mazrui’s Africa’s self- beyond rhetoric. colonisation and Achille Mbembe’s “African Modes of Self- Achille Mbembe, in a highly erroneous post-modern monologue writing” are only fully understood in the light of his deep intel- – ‘African Modes of Self-Writing’, lumps Archie Mafeje together lectual and political commitment to the total emancipation of with those he dismisses as “nativists”, in opposition to his own Africa as a symbol of the pan-African ideals he shared and supposed “cosmopolitan” experience, outlook and scholarship fought for in his scholarship, activities and pronouncements. (Jimi Adesina). Fred Hendricks and others have also challenged Through his sustained critique of African anthropology as a Mafeje for freezing his intellectual gaze narrowly on sub-Saha- handmaiden of colonialism and call for social history to replace ran Africa, and for inadvertently reproducing ideas about “a it as a discipline, surfaces Archie Mafeje’s total discomfort with disaggregated and dismembered Africa” in a pan-Africanism the epistemology of alterity and exogenously generated and that had little real room for North Africa beyond the fact of his contextually irrelevant knowledge produced with ambitions of considerably long period of stay in Cairo and being married to dominance, especially when such knowledge is passively inter- Shahida El Baz, an Egyptian and mother of his daughter Dana. nalised and reproduced by the very people whose ontology But such criticism could be countered by the fact that he did not and experiences have been carefully scripted out (sometimes necessarily have to study Egypt or North Africa in order to even as fellow scholars – see the Archie Mafeje versus Sally consider the region as part of his pan-African project. In the Falk Moore debate) of this knowledge by misrepresentations absence of personal scholarship, Mafeje used other indicators informed by hierarchies of humanity structured, inter alia, on to affirm his belonging to North-Africa and esteem the region in race, place, class, gender and age (Jimi Adesina, Helmi Sharawy, his pan-Africanism. He probably felt more at home in Egypt Dani Nabudere, Samir Amin, Teboho Lebakeng). than he ever did in South Africa, especially following his return As John Sharp argues below, what Archie Mafeje objected to under the post-apartheid dispensation, where he increasingly about anthropology which he once described as his ‘calling’, felt isolated and lonely, and indeed, where he died unattended “was not its methods of research or the evidence that could be (Jimi Adesina, Eddy Maloka). Was it a premonition of this lack produced by careful participant observation. Even at his most of warm relationships in the land of his birth that made Mafeje critical he took care to endorse the value of this form of inquiry less than enthusiastic about returning home to South Africa relative to others.” He remained faithful to the fact “that any after 1994, preferring instead to stay on in Namibia as director of attempt to understand the circumstances of people in Africa the newly established Multidisciplinary Research Centre at the required firsthand inquiry into what they made of these circum- University of Namibia, even if he did not last long in the latter stances themselves.” What he objected to therefore, “was an position (Kwesi Prah, Eddy Maloka)? anthropology in which particular epistemological assumptions Whatever be the answer to this and similar questions, to meas- … were allowed to overwhelm whatever it was that people on ure the fullness of Mafeje’s Africanity and pan-Africanism, it is the ground had to say about the conditions in which they found appropriate to go beyond scholarly declarations and appreciate themselves.” If Mafeje objected to this kind of anthropology, it the social relationships he forged and entertained in his life in was “because anthropology was the discipline he knew best – and away from a place called home, motherland or fatherland. the one he had said was his ‘calling at the outset of his profes- According to Kwesi Prah, Archie Mafeje exuded an “effortless sional career. Had he had cause to express himself with equal worldliness” that gave him a rare “vibrant and sublime fervour in respect of other disciplines, he would no doubt have cosmopolitanism”; and as a veritable cosmopolitan African, he found the epistemological premises of their liberal versions as was used to describing himself as “South African by birth, Dutch objectionable as those of liberal anthropology” (John Sharp). by citizenship and Egyptian by domicile”. Kwesi Prah writes of Fred Hendricks notes that Mafeje was committed “to combat- Mafeje’s impressive familiarity with Western literature, Dutch ing the distorted images produced and reproduced about Africa art, “sophisticated and totally uncommon knowledge of Euro- from the outside”, and sometimes uncritically internalised and pean wines”, and culinary skills and accomplishments. Just as reproduced by Africans trained to mimic but not to question “his often placid exterior belied a stridently combative spirit and (Issa Shivji). Mafeje spent the best part of his life and scholar- expression” in debates, Archie Mafeje’s committed pronounce- ship contesting the racialised epistemological underpinnings ment and writings on pan-Africanism and the importance of of a system of social knowledge production into which Africans decolonising the social sciences, often took attention away from have been co-opted and schooled as passive consumers with- the cosmopolitan that he was – leading to misrepresentations out voice even on matters pertaining to their very own realities even by fellow African intellectuals. Far from being essentialist, and existence. In this regard, Mafeje’s unwavering pan- Mafeje was a person to whom belonging was always work in Africanism has always resonated with CODESRIA’s mission of progress to be constantly enriched with new encounters and increased visibility for African scholars, African scholarship and new relationships, and never to be confined by geography or African perspectives on African and global issues. Yet, his call boundaries, political or disciplinary. His deep embitterment came for the valorisation of Africanity, its creativity and innovations and/or was exacerbated when those claiming him failed to dem- has not meant easy endorsement for all that claims to be afro- onstrate the nuances and sophistication that made of him the centric. He has been especially critical of well-meaning but cosmopolitan intellectual and African that he was. As Jimi CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 4

Adesina reminds us, the meaning of Archie Mafeje for three rable knowledge of foods and wines from all corners of the generations of African scholars and social scientists is about world. For those he has left behind, especially those of us encounters and the relationships that resulted from those en- whom he inspired, the challenge before us is clear: Keep the counters. To John Sharp, Archie Mafeje will be remembered as a Mafeje spirit alive by investing ourselves with dedication to the scholar who spoke truth, unfailingly, to power; and who over quest for the knowledge we need in order to transform our soci- the years carefully worked out how best to support his political eties – and the human condition for the better. The timely call by convictions by means of the research he did. In speaking truth Mahmood Mamdani, for CODESRIA to take a formal decision to to power, he had come to master the art of hard and uncompro- commit resources to gathering Archie Mafeje’s papers, with a mising intellectual argument, without having to resort to per- view to deciding whether they should be archived at CODESRIA sonal animosity or the denial of respect for those with whom he or are substantial enough to be archived in a library, most likely came to argue. in South Africa, with the understanding that these would be available to all scholars, is precisely what CODESRIA is ac- Archie Mafeje has fought the battle and run the race success- tively pursuing. This special issue of the CODESRIA Bulletin, fully. We will surely miss his thoughtful insights, his strident and the 12th General Assembly panel in honour of Mafeje are rebukes, his loyal friendship, his companionship, and – yes, his part of a package of measures aimed at memorializing his sub- wit, humour and expert culinary skills that included an incompa- stantial contribution to the development of knowledge on the African continent.

Adebayo Olukoshi Francis B. Nyamnjoh Executive Secretary Head, Publications CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 5

Archie Mafeje

came across Archie Mafeje’s name and Mandaza could not help granting and fame in the late 1960s during my this. His concept of ‘compradorial Istudent days at the University of Dar Issa Shivji democracy’ might be etymologically es Salaam, then a college of the Univer- University of Dar es Salaam vulgar and theoretically undeveloped sity of East Africa. I do not remember hav- Dar es Salaam, Tanzania but, as a shorthand for what is hap- ing met him personally then. My memory pening or likely to happen in Africa may be failing and, regrettably, Archie is under the current pax Americana, it hits the nail on the head.1 no longer with us to confirm. But Archie’s piece on the debate. Even while agreeing ideas were so powerful that you instinc- with my basic thesis, Archie did not spare This wonderful piece, tantalisingly tively felt you knew the man from time me for my loose formulations. He de- subtitled ‘Breaking Bread with my Fellow- immemorial. ployed his usual razor-sharpness. I will travellers’, was written sometime in 1992, The first thing I remember of Archie quote him extensively because it illus- during the transition in Africa from the Mafeje is a story, then making the rounds trates all I am saying about Archie’s style, one-party to multi-party. It stood out as a of the student body and young tutorial rigour, theoretical sweep and utter forth- singularly enlightening piece and an assistants. Archie was the head of the rightness. Using Gramsci’s idea of the incisive review of the debate on Department of Sociology. He was the su- ‘philosophy of praxis’ as a peg on which democracy among African intellectuals. pervisor of one of the first PhD students to hang his arguments, Mafeje says: In my view, it remains so to this day. in that department. The student went on Almost fifteen years into the so-called From the point of view of ‘philoso- to become the Head of Sociology in the multi-party democracy, we are now in a phy of praxis’, there is always an un- 1970s and was an influential person in the better position to understand and derlying tension between determinism corridors of power at the university. appreciate Archie Mafeje’s great insights and voluntarism. Intended or not, this Archie failed him. The thesis, Archie said, and analysis of the struggle for manifested itself in the exchange be- democracy. I would like to invite my fellow without mincing words, was not passable. tween Shivji and Mandaza (1990). He stood by his decision in spite of the African intellectuals to revisit that debate Mandaza was inclined to accuse Shivji and Archie’s great contribution. usual pressures. So long as Archie was in of determinism or ‘waiting for Godot’ the department, the man did not get his in his academic and theoretical tower Archie’s remarks cut sharply, but I never doctorate. I came to learn later that the (unkind words, perhaps communi- felt the pangs of hurt. Rather, my respect thesis was passed after Archie left the cated as a sign of respect and appre- and admiration for him increased. Archie university. The students told and retold ciation), while not only reserving the read his fellow African intellectuals, took this story with great admiration. For us, latter for himself but advocating it for them seriously, and engaged with them then, Archie’s stand symbolised his great others on the basis of his experience without being patronising. Unlike many intellectual rigour and integrity. On ideas, in Zimbabwe, without acknowledging of our colleagues, who embellish their he would not compromise. that it is a mixed one. He also chas- references with writers from the global tised Shivji for ‘caricaturism’. Perhaps North, to prove their intellectualness, Personally, I adore and respect Archie for Shivji deserves what he got. He his great and incisive intellectual insights, Archie’s references were African, rooted trivialised his own problematique by in Africa yet fully aware and critically his uncompromising stand on matters of presenting it in a Charlie Chaplain principle and his steadfastness on rigour appreciative of intellectual discourses fashion. (One wonders why but also elsewhere.2 He refused intellectual hege- and unwavering commitment to national one recalls that in his prison notes monies, in particular those that proclaim liberation and social emancipation. He Gramsci affected certain verbal pos- universal truth and wisdom regardless of refused to be taken in by the fashions tures; so it could be with anybody.) time or space. He detested racism but ap- and fads among intellectuals – usually But, as is known, Charlie Chaplin’s spawned by Western academia and mim- message was always very profound preciated the ‘anti-racist racism’ (Senghor’s icked by us in Africa. I marvelled at and to the disquiet of the Americans who phrase) of African nationalism as an as- enjoyed his think pieces in the CODESRIA found it necessary to deport him back sertion of African humanity against cen- Bulletin. I read and zealously circulated to his native England. turies of oppression and humiliation. He his sharp rejoinders to Achille Mbembe’s was clear of the bourgeois nature of anti- Irrespective of the reaction Shivji elic- postmodernist writings on Africanity. I colonial and post-independence African ited from his colleagues (irritation from quote and requote his excellent piece re- nationalism but appreciated and cel- Mandaza and disgust from Anyang’ viewing the debate on democracy be- ebrated the historical role of national in- Nyong’o if only with his ‘hackneyed dependence as ‘the greatest political tween Thandika Mkandawire and terms’), his diagnosis is more correct Anyang’ Nyong’o. He did not pull achievement by Africans’. He called it ‘an than most and, theoretically, is better unprecedented collective fulfilment’.3 punches in his analysis of his colleagues founded than that of his detractors. whom he nevertheless respected and en- For instance, on liberalism and impe- As a person, Archie was modest but gaged with. Little did I realise before I read rialism or ‘fashionable bandwagons’ proud. In relation to those with whom he this piece that Archie had read my short of the West, his observations are valid disagreed, he did not bicker behind their CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 6 backs but told them to their face. I occa- bly defended historical materialism and Notes sionally met him at Thandika’s place in used it with great originality to understand 1. ‘Theory of Democracy and the African Dakar. It was a great intellectual treat. the burning issues of the continent. Discourse; Breaking Bread with my Fellow- From Thandika you got intellectual provo- Archie’s oral and written interventions travellers’, in Chole, Eshetu and Jibrin Ibra- cations, references to great progressive were short, simple, sharp, witty and pithy him (eds) (1995). Democratisation movies, tips on the use of a computer. but never ‘sweet’ in the sense of being Processes in Africa: Problems and Pros- From Archie you got controversies and flattery. He rarely called a spade a spade pects, Dakar: CODESRIA. heresies accompanied by choice wines. or an instrument to cut with but used it One could never predict Archie’s posi- 2. Out of curiosity, I counted the author entries to illustrate its sharpness. Reading him, tion on intellectual and political contro- in Archie Mafeje’s 1992 book of essays (In you could never fail to recognise a spade versies. But one could always be sure that Search of An Alternative: A Collection of when you saw one. I always wished I it would be from the class standpoint of Essays on Revolutionary Theory and could emulate his style, at least the brevity the oppressed and exploited. Archie was Politics, Harare: SAPES) and unsurprisingly and clarity, if not the sharpness, but not ashamed of his Marxist outlook. Even found three-fourth of the entries were never succeeded. during the heyday of neo-liberalism when African. many former African Marxist scholars In memory of Archie Mafeje, the giant of 2. ‘African Philosophical Projections and uncritically turned postmodernists or sub- an African intellectual, I keep this Prospects for the Indigenisation of Political alterns or culturalists, Archie indefatiga- tribute short. and Intellectual Discourse’, in ‘In Search of an Alternative’, pp .9–10.

Archibald Monwabisi Mafeje: A Vignette

Introduction panding international capital has been Mafeje will be remembered by those who crucial for the emergence of modern Kwesi Kwaa Prah knew him for a million and one things, cosmopolitanism. Twentieth-century fas- CASAS and those of us who had the privilege of cists associated cosmopolitanism with Cape Town, South Africa knowing him in different situations and internationalism and hated every bit of it. climes for three to four decades and more Internationalism for them was anathema will recognize in his character a vibrant and a cruel term of abuse. smugly and too easily this heritage of ex- and sublime cosmopolitanism that was I met Mafeje during the opening of the pansion has been translated as ‘we dis- rare. It was not a feature of his make-up 1970s when he was teaching at the Insti- covered the world’. That glib, self-adula- that jumped into the face of the observer. tute of Social Studies in The Hague. I was tory assumption and all that it carries in Indeed, it could easily be missed or un- at that point based in Amsterdam but com- train has provided an unspoken fillip for derestimated. But any close and careful muting to Heidelberg every fortnight to those who will argue that without appre- appreciation of the personality would not teach. We were, I believe, introduced by ciating where we all are and what we all have failed to perceive his almost effort- Ernst Feder who was a colleague of have to offer, it is difficult to see how we less worldliness. Most people knew him Archie’s. After telephonic contact, Mafeje can be world citizens. Can you be part of as Archie. Only few knew his second name agreed to visit me in Amsterdam. Monwabisi (literally, one who makes oth- a world you do not know? Only by sub- ers happy). mitting yourself to a universalist morality The rendezvous was Reinders, a so- and ethos – a cultural openness which called ‘brown café’ (a traditional looking I would like to understand a cosmopoli- celebrates all. wooden interior-décor Dutch café) in the tan to be a ‘citizen of the world’ in the heart of Amsterdam; on the Leidseplein This moral dimension of cosmopolitanism core meaning of the idea as expressed by to be exact. It was a popular haunt of the has been eloquently and superbly argued the classical Greek cynic, Diogenes, in the arty set and their regular meeting and ‘wa- by Kwame Anthony Appiah in his 4th century BC. ‘I am a citizen of the world’ tering hole’. My memory tells me that all Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of were his words. He was making this pro- the big names in the Amsterdam art world Strangers (2006). Today, it is as James nouncement in a world in which Greeks including Harry Mullisch the writer, Morris somewhere writes, ‘contemporary saw themselves as the centre of all things. Robert Jasper Grootveld the high priest orthodoxy. There are many who will ar- From the fifteenth century onwards with of the anti-establishmentarian anarchist gue that Ubuntu represents a localized the European voyages of expansion and Provo Movement, Jan Telting the painter, traditional African expression of this ethos the early beginnings of globalization, the Piet Leeuwaarden the arch-hippie, Art by those who, like Aimé Cesaire, say: world became increasingly one unit, with Veldhoon the painter and many others ‘Hurrah for those who never invented the West as the centre. made it a regular stop in town. If you anything, who never explored anything, wanted to know ‘the scene’,you ‘hung Cosmopolitanism has for long been seen who never discovered anything.’ For around’. It was a very cosmopolitan and as largely a western sentiment. Too Marx the opening up of societies by ex- ‘free’ place. These were years following CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 7 the heady 1960s when Amsterdam was sical literature was equally not inconsid- was during the 1960s, when they refused regarded as the most libertarian city in erable, although he hardly made a show to offer him a lectureship. Europe and when the old description of of this. Mafeje was a very kind and considerate migrant Jews fleeing from the excesses of In the Netherlands, I remember that I was person. He had a lively sense of humour, the Spanish inquisition in the closing dec- invited to his rooms for dinner in The but his normal quietness often masked ade of the fifteenth century found a new Hague with the Kenyan Paul Adhu Awiti. this quality. His kindness was equally meaning in our times as Mokkum or ‘Je- It was superb. I suspect that this culinary matched by loyalty to his friends. He val- rusalem of the North’. skill was one of Archie’s accomplish- ued friendship and stood by his friends, It was a late summer afternoon, and I was ments that not many people knew about. but he did not suffer fools. Archie’s sitting and waiting at the front of I have been informed that in his home in cosmopolitanism was matched by a fer- Reinders, looking in the direction of the Cairo he was very often and easily in vent Africanism, which was worn unob- tram-stop, which was within view and charge of the kitchen. trusively but staunchly. He was also out- barely a few metres away. I did not have standingly critical of political double- His robust intellect was particularly ob- to wait too long. Almost at the appointed speak and other shortcomings of the Af- servable in debates where his often placid time a tallish, gaunt but ramrod African, rican political elite. This did not endear exterior belied a stridently combative spirit carrying his head aloft, stepped out of him to many elements in the African Na- and expression. Sometimes this one of the trams coming from the direc- tional Congress of South Africa. His origi- polemically acute approach came across tion of the Central Station. He rolled for- nal political home had been in the Unity as abrasive, but it was an abrasiveness ward with an easy and steady gait. I was Movement in the Cape. It was from the that was measured and hardly licentious. looking in his direction, and he appeared philosophical inclinations of this group- to inquire from a newspaper seller the lo- I was instrumental in getting Archie to ing that his early appreciation of political cation of Reinders, because the two Namibia during the very early years of Marxism and the intellectual rudiments of swung in our direction and the newspa- Namibia’s independence to work in de- cosmopolitanism were possibly acquired. per man pointed to Reinders. I immedi- veloping an implementational strategy for All these multifaceted dimensions of his ately assumed that this was Mafeje, and I the research wings of the new University personality contributed to giving him a stood up to meet him. He had calmly pen- of Namibia. I had, as a consultant for the cosmopolitan make-up. He grew up in the etrating and appraising eyes. He wore a new Vice Chancellor’s office, produced Cape, in South Africa, and spent a good vague straggling beard and had enough the structural concepts and theoretical part of his life in Cairo. Our mutual friend, self-possession to carry a beautifully designations for the research wings of the Helmi Sharawy, informed me that Archie crafted handbag. The air about him was university. However, I left shortly before held his own in the super-chaotic traffic not macho but also not effeminate. he arrived. For some reason he could not of Cairo, in word and deed. I am not sure hit it off with the interests on the ground We exchanged greetings and initial pleas- if Cecil Rhodes would have counted the and in the ensuing differences that antries and took seats on the patio of the successful migration of a ‘native’ from emerged he was in some cases a casualty. café. By his own account, Archie had Cape Town to Cairo as part of his Cape to Many of the interests on the ground in settled well in The Hague but was not Cairo project, but Archie achieved much the then University of Namibia were not altogether happy about some of the atti- of Rhodes’s project in more ways than very welcoming to an African of Archie’s tudes he encountered at the institute. one, and had a roaring family life in Cairo calibre, and considerations they had, I When the conversation drifted to the fact with his partner Shahida and daughter. suspect, for consultancies and other that we were literally a stone’s throw from things probably made them fearful of a I was in Cairo when the news of his death the Rijksmuseum he strongly expressed new and senior African presence in their arrived and had the opportunity to attend the wish to visit the museum in the not midst. Archie returned to Cairo. his funeral in the Omar Makram mosque too distant future and went on to extol in the heart of the city. It was extraordi- the excellence of the Dutch Masters. We Later, after the collapse of apartheid in narily moving to observe the wonderful also discussed the Van Gogh Museum and South Africa, he applied to be appointed crop of the Cairenne intellectual class as- the eccentricities or rather madness of to the new A.C. Jordan Chair at the Uni- sembled to honour and pay homage to Van Gogh. It distinctly occurred to me versity of Cape Town. Again, interests his life. They included Tayeb Saleh, the that there were not many African academ- fearful of transformation and, I am recently well-known Sudanese–Egyptian writer; ics who were at home in such subjects. informed, partly linked to elements from Kamal Bahaa Eldeen, former Minister of the Namibian scene, colluded to bar his On another occasion, elsewhere, he dis- Education; Prof. Hussam Issa, Politbureau entrance into the university. I had written played a sophisticated and totally uncom- Member of the Nasserist Party; A.G. a reference, on his request, which was mon knowledge of European wines. I am Shukr, Politbureau Member of the Pro- politely acknowledged but carried little myself quite at home with such knowl- gressive Party; Ragaa el Naqash, critic of effective weight in the corridors of power edge, but in the social science circles of Arabic literature; Prof. I. el Esawy and Prof. and influence in the university. This was Africa I have not come across anyone Helmi Sharawy. Archie managed success- the second time the establishment of the who could rival Archie in this respect. fully to pack all these different strands University of Cape Town had visited Archie’s knowledge of the Western clas- and impulses into his life and character. shabby treatment on him. The first time CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 8

Archie Mafeje and the Social Sciences in Africa

he death of Archie Mafeje in March did this was that the concept had no 2007 was a great shock to many boundaries because it was widely diffused TAfrican scholars and political ac- Dani W. Nabudere in space, especially in conditions of im- tivists. There is no doubt that Mafeje was Makerere University proved communication; and for this rea- one of the leading African social scien- Kampala, Uganda son it could not be used as a designating tists who tried to deconstruct anthropol- category in social analysis. Secondly, he ogy while trying to construct a new re- also declined to use the concept ‘soci- anthropologists who challenged the dis- search methodology that was free from ety’ for the same reasons in developing cipline of colonial anthropology, which these colonially inspired disciplines the theory of analysing interlacustrine was regarded as the ‘handmaiden of co- within wider social science discourses to kingdoms of East Africa because there lonialism.’ At the eighth General Assem- explain the African context. On the politi- could be ‘societies’ within societies. cal side, there is also no doubt that Mafeje bly of CODESRIA held in Dakar, Senegal, In many ways, therefore, it can be said was a committed pan-Africanist who was in 1995, he even dared to declare anthro- that Prof. Mafeje made a real break with dedicated to African emancipation and lib- pology a ‘dead’ discipline in Africa. In- the anthropological past in writing this eration, and a great teacher and crusader deed, he went ahead to write a monograph, book for it enabled him to problematise for African political, intellectual and cul- which CODESRIA published as Mono- both anthropological and Marxist tural freedom. His achievements remain graph Series 4/96, to make good his claims concepts in trying to develop a new un- great landmarks upon which young Afri- and to give his African fellow-anthropolo- 1 derstanding of analysing dynamic can scholars can build to establish that new gists an opportunity to ‘disabuse’ him. changes in African ‘social formations’. His approach that he fought to set in motion in Mafeje went further to demonstrate that analysis of the ethnography of the African knowledge production, intellec- the ultimate concern for writing his essay interlacustrine kingdoms established a tual freedom and social responsibility. was to interrogate anthropology as a dis- theory of ‘social formations’ of these king- cipline and challenge its credentials for I met Archie Mafeje in the heyday of the doms by relying on a discursive method claiming to study ‘the other’ as a ‘thing struggle for African liberation at the Uni- that built on local histories with a strong of the past’ as well as its claim to deal versity of Dar es Salaam, where he was a interpretive force emanating from the lo- with the present ‘without making invidi- professor of sociology, from 1969 and later cal peoples’ epistemologies and ‘hidden ous distinction betweens between the in Harare. At each of these places, he was knowledge’. Based on this theory, he ar- Third World subjects and those of the a vibrant progressive debater and a de- gued that the pastoralists in the ten king- imperialist countries’ (Mafejoe 1996:1). fender of the interests of the working peo- doms of the interlacustrine region, which The problematic he set for himself in the ple. He did not take an open political had both segmentary and centralising essay was to explore the deconstruction position in favour of any political party tendencies, challenged the notion that of anthropology ‘with reference to the ex- or liberation movement in South Africa, these kingdoms were ‘invaded’ by the colonial world’ and as this emanated from the country of his birth, although he was empire-building Hamitic pastoralists from the North and place the deconstruction known to take a Trotskyite activist posi- pre-dynastic Egypt. Instead he recon- debate within the African context. This tion that operated under the Unity Move- structed a history of their ‘social forma- enabled him to commit himself ‘irrevoca- ment of South Africa, which had a number tion’ that built on local processes of po- bly’ to adopting a different paradigm in of student organisations. But in academia, litical action based on a detailed ethnog- the application of ethnography in Africa. he took a broad position, which enabled raphy in which both the pastoralists and He did so with the writing of his book: him to maintain contact with the general sedentary communities converged The Theory and Ethnography of African intellectual community. (Mafeje, 1991:20).2 Social Formations: The Case of the Mafeje’s early contribution as a young Interlacustrine Kingdoms, which he From this, Professor Mafeje was able to anthropologist was a path-breaking arti- wrote in 1986 but which was published in challenge the whole notion of a particular cle he wrote in 1970 for the Journal of 1991. Indeed, this book can be taken as pastoral community that came down from Modern African Studies entitled ‘The Mafeje’s magnus opus in that it laid out the north with longhorn cattle associated Ideology of Tribalism’, which stimulated the research approach that he recom- with the Hima/Tutsi people as a racial wide-ranging debate challenging the an- mended for Africa, and therefore his con- group with any special political charac- thropological concept of ‘a dual economy’ tribution has to be judged from here. teristics for introducing a new political and the alleged static nature of African system. His research proved that such Mafeje explains that he used the inter- society that the concepts of ‘tribe’ and cattle could be found in Sierra Leone, and lacustrine ‘social formation’ both as a ‘tribalism’ implied. Throughout this early along the River Niger and as far south as synthesis of his previous theoretical and period, Mafeje argued that African soci- Namibia. He pointed out that the indig- ideological explorations and as a testing ety was composed of social classes just enous Bantu agriculturalists and the ground for his deconstructionist ideas, like any other society by introducing Nilotic Babiito peoples had a pastoral his- first by moving a way from the concept Marxist concepts of class and class for- tory and therefore the process of state ‘culture’ as an analytical category that mation. He became one of the African formation in the Bunyoro Empire could was used in anthropology. The reason he CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 9 only be understood in terms of dialectical in their use of ‘social formation’ as mean- als by virtue of their ascribed identi- social relations and interactions, which ing an ‘articulation of modes of produc- ties are assigned categorical statuses evolved between the two modes of pro- tion’. Instead he preferred the use of ‘so- and roles (Ibid.). duction and existence. He pointed out: cial formation’ as meaning ‘the articula- Having clarified his second ‘key concept’ tion of the economic instance and the in- of ‘ethnography’, Mafeje declared it to The Bairu provided the agricultural stance of power’. base and services and the pastoralists, be ‘radically different from that of the relieved of any onerous duties but in The counter-argument for this departure Northern theorists or conventional an- control of prestige goods, indulged was that one could not use an articula- thropologists’. Referring to the results of themselves, turned the latter into a tion of an abstract concept such as ‘mode his investigation of the interlacustrine mechanism for political control and of production’ to designate ‘the same kingdoms, he states: ritual mystification. This phenom- concrete social reality they are meant to It is these texts that I refer to as ethnog- enon, involving the same social cat- explain’. The other counter-argument was raphy. They are socially and historically egories, got repeated in five other that Balibar’s and Amin’s use of the con- determined, i.e. they can be authored kingdoms in the interlacustrine re- cept ‘mode of production’ had an organi- and altered by the same people over gions of Ankore, Burundi, Rwanda, sational referent in which economics and Buhaya and Buzinza (Mafeje 1991:22). time or similar ones could be authored politics were determinant, which could be by people with a different cultural The British anthropologist John Beattie subsumed under the concept of ‘power’. background under similar conditions. had argued that when the Babiito dynasty Therefore in order to ‘balance’ the Marx- Therefore ‘context’ is most critical for took over from the Chwezi dynasty in the ist concept of economic instance: ‘I in- their codification (Mafeje 1996:34). Bunyoro Kitara empire, these new rulers vented what would have been “power If Professor Mafeje is therefore to be cred- ‘appeared strange and uncouth to the in- instance”’ but this proved, according to ited or discredited with the claim of hav- habitants’ and had to be instructed in the Mafeje, to be too awkward linguistically. ing made a leap from the discipline of manners appropriate to rulers of cattle- So, instead he settled for the ‘instance of anthropology as a ‘handmaiden of colo- keeping and milk drinking. From the eth- power’, which was actually inconsistent nialism’ to ‘ethnography’ as defined by nographical evidence he collected from with the Marxist demarcation between him above, it is in the attempt he made in the people, Mafeje found that the Babiito ‘structure’ and ‘superstructure’. Having developing a thesis based on these ‘texts’ were by tradition pastoralists and could made up his mind, he adopted ‘social for- as an approach that was suitable for ex- not have been ‘ignorant of cattle-keep- mation’ as his unit of analysis par excel- plaining African conditions. Mafeje sums ing’ although it was likely that they were lence. This is how the study of the up this attempt when he concludes: ‘ignorant of the kingship institutions, interlacustrine kingdoms, became a series which in Bunyoro centred on sacred herds of ‘social formations-in-the-making’, The final methodological lesson that and milk diet for the kings’. which interbred with each other in such a can be drawn from the study is that way that the study explained how these Mafeje’s analysis and that of Peter Rigby, detailed ethnographic knowledge independent kingdoms would have be- helps us to avoid mechanistic inter- who investigated the Masaai of Tanzania come one social formation or state had it pretations. Far from opening the way using a phenomenological Marxist ap- not been for the colonial intervention. to relativism or particularism, it ena- proach, demonstrated that the organic This proved that ‘social formations’, ac- bles us to decode what might strike relationship between people of different cording to Mafeje, had ‘extendable in- us at first sight as so many different modes of existence and culture must in- stances depending on the nature of inter- things and, thus, puts us in a position form any analysis of society as a dialecti- vening social and political forces whether where we can discover hidden unities. cal process of social and economic rela- internal or external’. For instance, we discovered that tionships. The social formation that arises ‘tribal’ names were used, not to iden- historically must be demonstrated to arise Professor Mafeje continued to develop tify tribes, but to designate status-cat- out of these organic social relations and his theory and ethnography of African egories in non-tribal formations, for political actions. This can only be arrived social formations by clarifying that as units example, ‘Bairu’, ‘Batutsi’. Further- at by use of a detailed ethnographic in- of analysis his ‘social formations’ were not more, ethnographic detail showed vestigation instead of hypothetical a pri- defined according to their ethnography that contrary to stereotypes that ori constructions based on one’s ideo- but according to their ‘modes of organisa- pastoralists were the founders of the logical convictions. tion’, so it did not matter which people be- kingdoms in the interlacustrine region, longed to a particular social formation, but neither the pastoralists nor the agri- In arriving at this method of concep- rather ‘what they were actually doing in culturalists can take credit for this. tualisation, Mafeje tried to discard old their attempts to assert themselves’: Likewise ethnographic detail forbids anthropological concepts as well as pol- us to treat pastoralism and cultivation ishing Marxist concepts by choosing ‘so- It struck me that in the ensuing social as things apart. The kingdoms were a cial formation’ as his unit of analysis and struggles people try to justify them- result of a dynamic synthesis of so- discarding the concepts ‘culture’ and ‘so- selves and not so much their causes cial elements that were drawn from ciety’. By interrogating the use of the con- which remain hidden. They do this by both traditions and the prevailing cept ‘ethnography’ by the Comaroffs,3 he authoring particular texts which give modes of existence within them served adopted ‘social formation’ and his own them and others certain identities as politically controlled alternatives. notion of ‘ethnography’ as ‘key con- which in turn become the grammar of … These discoveries enable us to cepts’ in writing his book. In doing this, the same texts, the rules of the game, generate more objective codes and to he departed from Balibar and Samir Amin or, if you like, the modus operandi, in put into proper perspective the his- a social discourse in which individu- CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 10

torical and ethnographic intricacies of dualistic ‘dialectical opposites’ inherent the peoples’ texts so that he can decode African societies. (Mafeje 1991:128–9) in colonial anthropology, so that instead them and make them understandable to Mafeje’s claim here is epistemic, if indeed of the ‘subject/object’ epistemology of the other scholars as systemised inter- it is true, for it destroys the way colonial the coloniser, ‘us’ and ‘them’, we have a pretations of existing but ‘hidden knowl- anthropology and imperial ethnology ‘synthesis’ or a ‘convergence’ of social edge’. But in such a case how different is were used to classify human societies elements that are drawn, in the case of he from the colonial scholar who claims according to their basic characteristics. the interlacustrine kingdoms, from both to be ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’? This is These approaches denied the colonised traditions of the pastoralists and agricul- perhaps the legacy that young scholars ‘objects’ knowledge of themselves since turalists, into an interrelated whole ex- must grapple with. But it is clear that Pro- they were regarded as ‘primitive’ and pressed in the existence of the kingdom. fessor Mafeje made a definite contribu- ‘backward’. On the other hand, ‘ethnog- This means Mafeje had discovered a new tion in his lifetime in developing a new raphy’ as used by Mafeje here was an epistemology behind the ‘hidden knowl- social science and philosophy in discard- end product of social texts that were edge’, which he was able to retrieve through ing colonial anthropology. authored by the people themselves as the ‘ethnological’ approach or what he calls Notes knowledge-makers. In this approach, all ‘ethnological knowledge’ of the colonial that a scholar does is to study the peo- ‘object’ who now becomes the subject. 1. A. Mafeje (1996), Anthropology and ples’ texts so that he/she can decode them But Mafeje operates as a neutral researcher Independent Africans: Suicide or End of an and make them understandable to other or scholar standing outside the new epis- Era? CODESRIA Monograph Series 4/96, scholars as systemised interpretations of temology because he informs us that in Dakar: CODESRIA. existing but ‘hidden knowledge’. Accord- discarding the old concepts and ap- 2. A. Mafeje (1998), The Theory and ing to Mafeje, his approach ‘marked a proaches he also adopted a ‘discursive Ethnography of African Social Formations: definite break with the European episte- method’, which was not predicated on The Case of the Interlacustrine Kingdoms, mology of subject/object’. any epistemology but was ‘reflective of a Dakar: CODESRIA. 3 J. & J. Comaroff So with Mafeje’s approach, we have certain style of thinking’. It is with this (1972), Ethnography and the Historical achieved a philosophic break with the ‘style of thinking’ that he is able to study Imagination, Boulder: Westview Press,

Debating Archie Mafeje and Wole Soyinka: Can Africa Colonize Itself?

My most famous debates with fellow Af- On the other hand, Archie Mafeje inter- rican intellectuals were, firstly, with Wole preted my concept of ‘Africa’s self-colo- Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate in Literature Ali A. Mazrui nization’ as an attempt on my part to fa- and, secondly, with Archie Mafeje, the Binghamton University cilitate Europe’s recolonization of Africa. eminent South African anthropologist. USA Soyinka regarded my ‘triple heritage’ as a The debates with both intellectual adver- Trojan Horse for a Muslim colonization saries were brutal – almost no hods barred! of Africa. Mafeje denounced my concept But what did my two major debates with of Africa’s recolonization of its own failed My personal relationship with Wole Wole Soyinka have in common with my states as a Trojan Horse for the return of Soyinka was substantially mended when single debate with Archie Mafeje? My Pax Britannica and related European in- I invited him to a conference on my cam- first debate with Soyinka was conducted trusions. pus in Binghamton, New York, and he in the columns of Transition magazine agreed to come unconditionally. I had also (originally founded in Kampala but more In reality, my concept of Africa’s triple her- invited General Yakubu Gowon, former recently based at Harvard under the itage was about a convergence of three civi- Head of State in Nigeria, who had once editorship of Henry Louis Gates Jr). My lizations in contemporary African experi- imprisoned Wole Soyinka during the Ni- single public debate with Archie Mafeje ence – Africanity, the penetration of Islam gerian civil war. Both the General and the was conducted in the pages of CODESRIA and the impact of Western civilization. In Nobel Laureate came to Binghamton, and Bulletin, based in Dakar, Senegal. spite of Soyinka himself, Nigeria already we mended our fences. had more Muslims than any Arab coun- . My first debate with Soyinka arose try. The size of the Nigerian population that With regard to my personal relationship out of his misinterpretation of my tel- was already Muslim was larger than the with Archie Mafeje, we never really had a evision series, The Africans: A Triple Muslim population of Egypt. My televi- formal intellectual reconciliation. But I Heritage (BBC/PBS, 1986). Basically, sion series was trying to understand this would like to believe that my tribute to Wole Soyinka interpreted my concept triple heritage, rather than promoting it. him in my presentation at the CODESRIA of ‘Africa’s triple heritage’ as an at- conference on ‘Pan Africanism and the tempt to facilitate or legitimize a kind In fact, far from emphasizing the Islamic Intellectuals’, in December 2003, was at of Muslim colonization of Africa. part of Nigeria when I issued invitations least an olive branch from me. for my Binghamton conference on ‘Glo- CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 11 balization and Dialogue of Civilizations’, this particular kind of inter-African military rather than demand-driven, and would not in 2002, my most distinguished Nigerians occupation was on balance malignant. have occurred but for the collaboration were General Yakubu Gowon and Wole of African kingdoms like Ashanti. I suspect the American connection would Soyinka, both of them of Christian Afri- have aroused comparable suspicions in Henry Louis Gates Jr is a very distin- can upbringing. Archie Mafeje. While Archie did indeed guished African American scholar and Although Archie Mafeje had spent a misunderstand my own belief that inter- public intellectual. Why did Wole Soyinka number of years in Egypt, and had even African colonization could at times be defend him? Partly because Gates was shown me around Cairo on one of my vis- benign or even benevolent, he and I were Wole’s student at Cambridge University its in the past, his quarrel with me had united in our distrust of Pax Americana. in England, and partly because Wole be- almost nothing to do with Islam in Africa. Ethiopia’s participation as an ally of the lieved I was disqualified from criticizing a Partly through Egyptian newspapers, he United States in its ‘war on terror’ was rival television series when I had pro- had discovered that I was championing bound to transform Ethiopia’s military in- duced an earlier TV series of my own. It the recolonization of Africa. He wrongly tervention in Somalia into a case of nega- was as if Wole Soyinka was arguing that assumed that I was urging the return of tive occupation of one African country anybody who had written a book on a European colonial powers. He was there- by another. I suspect Archie Mafeje would particular topic was thereby disqualified fore understandably outraged. In reality I have shared my sense of outrage. from reviewing a book on the same sub- was urging that stronger African states ject by anybody else. Of course, I regarded Archie would also have been outraged should temporarily ‘recolonize’ failed Af- such an argument as intellectually ridicu- by the reported participation of Ethiopia, rican neighbours, the way Tanganyika lous, which made Wole Soyinka even Egypt and Kenya in America’s scheme of ‘colonized‘ neighbouring Zanzibar in 1964 angrier. extraordinary rendition. Egypt and (permanently) or the way Tanzania occu- Ethiopia are accused by human rights What did this second Soyinka–Mazrui pied Idi Amin’s Uganda (temporarily) in groups of accepting ‘terror suspects’ ar- debate have in common with the Mafeje– 1979–80. rested or identified by the United States. Mazrui debate? My disagreement with I do not think I came even close to con- Egypt and Ethiopia are Africa’s oldest Mafeje was about whether Africans could vincing Archie Mafeje that inter-African states, with at least a thousand years of colonize each other in the future if condi- colonization could ever be either benevo- experience in forceful interrogation – oth- tions were favourable and legitimate. My lent (benefiting the weaker state more than erwise known today as torture. The disagreement with Skip Gates and Wole the stronger), or benign (causing no harm United States seems to have exploited that Soyinka was about whether Africans had on either side). Mafeje regarded any kind millennium of African forceful interroga- enslaved each other in the past when con- of colonization as decidedly malignant tion. Mwai Kibaki’s government in Kenya ditions were favourable and profitable. (beneficial mainly to the interventionist has been accused of exporting its own Mafeje and I debated prospects of Afri- power). Muslim citizens for torture in Addis ca’s self-colonization in the future. Gates, Ababa. These accusations have been Soyinka and I debated about whether I, on the other hand, regarded Tanzania’s made not only in the Kenyan media, but there was a record of Africa’s self-enslave- ouster of Idi Amin from Uganda in 1979 also on the British Broadcasting Corpo- ment in the past. as benevolent inter-African occupation ration (BBC) and the Public Broadcasting – while Tanganyika’s union with Zanzi- I happen to believe that inter-African colo- System (PBS) in the United States. Since bar in 1964 as a case of inter-African an- nization could be benign or even benevo- Archie Mafeje had spent so many years nexation that was more benign than ma- lent if the circumstances are self-fulfill- in Egypt, he would not have been sur- lignant. It was more benign because, on ing. But I do not believe inter-African prised by allegations of torture in Egypt balance, the terms of the union were enslavement during the Atlantic slave either for local reasons or at the behest of disproportionately to the advantage of trade could ever have been either benign the United States. Zanzibar. The union was indeed a forced or benevolent. Whether Africans collabo- marriage – but the bride wealth to Zanzibar While my own debate with Wole Soyinka rated in enslaving each other, or were was truly generous in the powers allocated. in Transition was partly about Arab and merely victims of European-instigated Muslim factors in Africa’s triple heritage, slave raids, the ultimate outcome was Archie Mafeje died before Ethiopia in- my second debate with Soyinka was on malignant and evil. vaded Somalia in 2007 in the name of the the Internet following the showing of an- so-called ‘war on terror’. Somalia was in- On the issue of Africa’s self-colonization other television series about Africa – deed a failed state and would have gained I can try to understand why Archie Wonders of the African World by Henry from inter-African benevolent interven- Mafeje was angry with me. But on the Louis Gates Jr (Skip Gates) of Harvard tion in the interest of the Somali people. issue of whether Africa was guilty of self- University, who also happened to be the Unfortunately Ethiopia and Somalia had enslavement, I continue to be puzzled as latest editor of Transition. I was a critic of a long record of mutual hostility with pe- to why Wole Soyinka was more angry Wonders of the African World, partly be- riodic conflicts. Ethiopia’s motives for in- with me than with his former student, cause this television series blamed the tervening in Somalia were inevitably sus- Henry Louis Gates Jr. Atlantic slave trade on Africans them- pect. Indeed, there was evidence that selves. Henry Louis Gates virtually de- However, I am relieved that Wole Soyinka Ethiopia did it at the behest of the United clared the white slaver as being off the and I are on our way towards intellectual States as part of America’s own war on hook, and got a series of Africans inter- reconciliation. I also hope Archie Mafeje terror. My own conclusion is that, while viewed in West Africa to confess that the is at last at peace with me wherever he is. Ethiopia’s military role in Somalia does Atlantic slave trade was supply-driven Amen. indeed include elements of benevolence, CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 12

Homage to Archie Mafeje

n this paper intended to pay homage Mafeje, I believe in scientific rigour but to our late friend and comrade Archie neither in learnedness nor empiricism. In- IMafeje, I would like to cite two of his Samir Amin deed, it appears to me that the history of most recent contributions: Third World Forum, the Arab and Islamic world is quite badly Dakar, Senegal comprehended by the Arabs themselves, (i) The book titled The Theory and Eth- caught in the shackles of religious my- nography of African Social Forma- thologies about nature and the role of Is- tions: The Case of the Interlacustrine gion, Démocratie, Critique de l’euro- lam in their history or nationalistic my- Kingdoms, Dakar: CODESRIA, 1991, centrisme, critique des culturalismes. thologies. The lack of a genuine critical translated into Arabic by AARC, bourgeois thought in our region – whether Cairo, 2005; (ii) my article ‘Les réformes des régimes it has remained embryonic or nipped in fonciers souhaitables en Afrique et en (ii) the paper titled The Agrarian Ques- the bud, notably by nationalistic Asie’, which was presented at the tion: Access to Land and Peasant Re- populism – is certainly responsible for the Conference of African Farmers’ Or- sponses in Sub Saharan Africa, dire poverty of not only Arab and Mus- ganisation, Dakar Agricole, 2005, to UNRISD Papers, 2004. lim historiography but the common dog- be published in India under the Eng- matic nature of dominant Marxism as well. I consider these two contributions to be lish title Desirable Land Tenure Re- This is certainly the reason why a differ- quite exceptional in terms of the quality forms in Africa and Asia. ent reading, which departs from the pre- of information provided and the rigour of Both of us have followed parallel paths vailing dominant mythologies (and even their analysis. They provide passionate and as a result, our dialogue, both oral reinforced by the decline of rational and reading, and I believe it is essential they and written, has always been fruitful. Our critical thinking of the past few decades), be known by whoever is seriously inter- divergences if any have always incited is often unwelcome when understood. ested in understanding the region sur- me to deepen my reflection, and I believe veyed (the Great Lakes), in particular and The theory that I named the tributary the same applies to Mafeje. rural and sub-Saharan Africa in general. mode of production was suggested to me We were to pursue this dialogue in the by a few of the major conclusions that I I believe my judgment is not biased by my coming months on the issue of the future drew from my reinterpretation of the his- strong sympathy for the method and theo- of African peasantry that both of us tory of Ancient Orient and the Arab and ries advocated by the author. I therefore deemed fundamental. Our primary conclu- Islamic world. It was later further con- want it known that I share the same line of sions coincided; in other words, first we firmed by my readings on China and a thought in terms of how you join economy both acknowledged that the way to enter few other societies. I then felt comfort- and politics; in other words, the reading of the global capitalist system, inevitably as able enough to make a different reading historical materialism, which some of us a periphery of the centre, was a dead end; of European history, freed from dominant share in common (cf. Preface to Mafeje’s and secondly, that accordingly the only Eurocentrism and capable of placing feu- book), but not all who would claim to be way to offer African peoples a better fu- dal specificity within the context of the Marxists. The method, notably the author’s ture was through a national and popular general evolution of tributary forms. criticism of the economy-world, which reconstruction within the long view of makes an abusive use of analogy instead The critical reading of the Africanist eth- twenty-first century socialism. of concept-deepening (cf. Introduction, nography that I was leading in parallel and compare with my article ‘Capitalisme Alas, since the voice of our friend is never helped me considerably in understand- et système Monde’, Sociologie et to be heard again, and the dialogue has ing the genesis of this tributary mode of Sociétés, Montréal University, XXIV, 2, become a monologue. I nonetheless want production, the general form of pre-capi- 1992). I, of course, particularly appreci- to pay deserved homage to Mafeje for talistic advanced class formations. I did ated his discussion of the tributary mode his intellectual and political contribution. say genesis because it is clear that the of production theory that I proposed and 1. However, I think it is important for me society of classes was preceded by a very the validity of its use to understand the to indicate that I did not base the tribu- long period when neither those classes region surveyed by the author. I person- tary mode production of theory on the nor the exploitation associated with them ally learnt a lot from it about this region. African Great Lakes societies nor on sub- existed. I therefore described that period as a ‘community’ era without reducing it On my side, I wish to cite: Saharan Africa in general, but first on my reflection on the societies that I believe I at any time to a single form but instead (i) my book, commented on by Mafeje, know best, those of Egypt and the Arab underscoring the diversity of these or- Classe et Nation, Paris: Minuit, 1979, and Islamic world. I then focused my at- ganisational modes while looking for their and ‘L’Eurocentrisme’, Anthropos, tention on the history of the most ad- common denominator. I believe this 1988, but also a book to be published vanced oriental societies (China, in par- should be found in the dominance of ‘the by Paragon, titled Modernité, Reli- ticular) and the ethnography of Tropical parenthood ideology’, the basis for di- Africa, through systematic readings. Like versity in the organisation of social power CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 13

(as distinct from the state). Going from ally drew a few conclusions on the differ- ground. Rejecting the Eurocentric expla- there, it is easy to grasp the extremely slow ences between the mechanisms com- nations attributing this miracle to cultural pace of evolution of the passage to tribu- manding the development of productive specificities, acknowledging that the simi- tary formations. In the case of many soci- forces in capitalism (viz. that this devel- lar contradictions at work in all tributary eties of Tropical Africa, it seems I could opment is the result of an in-built and im- systems (no matter whether they are cen- detect some of the mechanisms of the manent economic law in the capitalist tral or peripheral) can only be solved long transition; and I sensed intuitively mode) as opposed to those explaining through shifting to capitalism (thereby that it was at quite an advanced stage in progress in anterior societies (which is restoring the universal dimension of his- the societies of the Great Lakes region of not commanded by an economic law im- tory), I can observe that the peripheral East Africa. The reading of Mafeje’s work manent in the system). And yet, this nature of feudalism gave it some degree confirmed my intuition and taught me progress is a reality, even if precisely as I of elasticity leading to a rapid passage to much on the subject. explained it, it has always been slow, mak- capitalism, while the power of the tribu- ing these systems to appear as ‘stagnat- tary political realm in the central forms In fact, Mafeje demonstrated that the so- ing’. I then suggested several plausible represented an obstacle slowing down cieties in question were in transition to explanatory hypotheses including class this evolution. the tributary mode of production, which struggle or the greed of dominant classes made my theory on the issue appear gen- The third conclusion relates to the issue on which examples abound. Mafeje has erally user-friendly to him. I therefore need of the ideological forms accompanying the expressed reservations about these hy- not repeat here what Mafeje wrote on that tributary mode. It was on this subject that potheses (pages 95-96 and 113 of his subject, regarding economic-political ar- I spoke of state religions, which replace book). ticulation in the societies surveyed, reject- here the parenthood ideology specific to ing – as I did – the theories put forth by 3. My description of feudalism as ‘periph- anterior community modes, and clashes some Marxists who were mindful of describ- eral’ follows the same logic. The predomi- with the economist alienation ideology ing as exploitation and classes all forms of nance of the political realm in the tribu- specific to subsequent capitalism. Which- hierarchy and inequality – putting the em- tary mode (which Mafeje admits) implies ever way you look at it, in my opinion this phasis on political domination to the very that the ‘central’ (elaborate) or ‘periph- general theory appears to be the only one exclusion of any form of economic exploi- eral‘ (non-elaborate) character of this so- that can explain why Christianity in medi- tation or coagulation of social classes. cial form should be measured by the eval Europe and Islam played the same Please refer to the extraordinarily clear- strength of this realm. In this sense, the role but through different means: in Eu- sighted elaboration of these issues (pages dispersion of power in European feudal- rope, the Church substitutes for the 39, 42, 58, 60–3, 67–9, 72–9 and subse- ism justifies my description of it by com- shortcomings of the state (which then and quently pages 87, 119 and 120 of his book). parison to centralisation, which is found, later, when it grew stronger in parallel with for example, in China, Byzantium or the the birth of capitalism, during the mercan- 2. My proposal in which the capitalist Muslim Caliphate, which then constituted tilist era, distanced itself from the Church mode is opposed to the tributary mode, elaborate tributary forms. On the other and even sometimes opposed it); in the the general form of all pre-capitalistic ad- hand, the predominance of the economy Islamic world, religion remains submitted vanced class societies, is clearly ex- implies, in capitalism, that the central– to power. This distinction, which is factu- pressed, in my opinion, by the contrast peripheral opposition should be founded ally unquestionable, is generally attrib- between the predominance of the precisely based on considerations per- uted in the Muslim world to the ‘in-built economy in the former (‘wealth is a source taining to this realm (‘central capitalist characters’ specific to each of the reli- of power’) and of politics in the latter economies’ and ‘peripheral capitalist gions. The struggle in which I engage, to (‘power is a source of wealth’). This radi- economies’). explain that the problem does not lie there cal inversion reflects a qualitative trans- but rather in the social use of religions, is formation of the system, which does not I explain this peripheral nature of feudal- still unwelcome to those who cannot rid allow an analysis of the infrastructure/ ism by the fact that medieval Europe was themselves of the religious mythologies superstructure relationship using the formed by grafting barbaric community that I mentioned earlier on. same method in both systems. societies on to the Roman tributary em- pire. From this distinction between the 4. In his book, Mafeje studied the pre- Incidentally, I believe this fundamental elaborate tributary forms and its periph- and post-colonial history of the Great distinction later erased by common Marx- eral feudal form, I drew a few conclusions Lakes region. I must confess that I am ism to be the very base of Marx’s analy- that I believe to be important. perfectly and completely convinced by sis of capitalism specificity (merchandis- what he says on these subjects. ing). Identified by Karl Polanyi, who in- The first one is that the centre/periphery sisted on this qualitative difference op- contrast, which is marked in the political My opinion is that Mafeje’s theories on posing all pre-capitalistic formations to realm, is not necessarily so at the eco- these issues are strengthened by the fact capitalism, this distinction has, however, nomic base level, which was not less de- that the societies of the region surveyed often been overlooked in many analyses veloped in the European Middle Ages were, prior to colonisation, still in transi- of Africa (and elsewhere) by historians or than it was, for example, in the Arab world. tion to the tributary mode. These are em- Marxist ethnologists. bryonic forms of the tributary mode (be- The second conclusion is that precisely ware: the term ‘embryonic’ should not be Mafeje shares my view on this issue, this peripheral nature of feudalism ex- confused with the term ‘peripheral’). which I believe to be a cardinal one, and plains the ‘European miracle’, that is, the Mafeje provided clear proofs in this mat- expressed it in very clear terms. I person- precocious birth of capitalism on the CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 14 ter and highlighted them very convinc- the global capitalist system and the capi- point and brilliantly illustrated it in the ingly; he analysed using these terms the talist peripherisation of the formations case he was studying (p. 147). persistence of a kinship ideology to point submitted to its expansion had modified 7. The question about the future of Afri- out that it is dulled and does not confer this problematic root and branch. Today can peasantries is at the core of the cited on the societies in question a ‘tribal’ char- in the countries concerned, the capitalist two papers by Mafeje and me. In my view, acter as alleged by ethnography (the bad approach can no longer be but that of a these two papers complement each other one); he noted in parallel that there was peripheral capitalism. As a result, a new in a very happy way, and the conclusions no religious phenomenon similar to the approach is necessary, and on this Mafeje that both of us draw from our analyses one I mentioned regarding tributary soci- and I totally agree. coincide. eties (cf. pages 97–101, 120–4 of his book). 6. I think Mafeje’s criticism of ‘the articu- What does this mean if not that the socie- In my view – which is also Mafeje’s – not lation of modes of production’ theory ties in question were in transition from com- only colonisation (and the post-colonial should be somewhat put into perspective. munity forms to those of a tributary mode? system so far) perfectly ‘adjusted’ to ‘the I agree with Mafeje’s definition of social absence’ of private land ownership in most The nuances and perhaps divergences in formations as a bloc covering the eco- of sub-Saharan Africa but even reaped views should be put back into context, nomic and political realms (p. 16). But it some additional benefit from it. We both that of the confusions created in some does not fully and necessarily substitute share the view that integration into glo- cases by the possible telescoping of pre- for the structuring of specific and differ- bal capitalism does not necessarily re- and post-colonial periods. ing modes of production. Mafeje and I quire the adoption, in the dominated pe- 5. Mafeje also proposes in his book a dif- are both critical of the abuses that have ripheries, of capitalist organisational forms ferent reading of the changes that coloni- been committed in the use of this modes of production. sation inflicted upon the organisational of production theory (p. 127). I person- But what does the situation look like to- forms of the region and an interpretation ally limited its significance by making day? My proposed theory is that in the of the conflict between what he called the three clarifications: prospect of the expansion of contempo- ‘small bourgeoisie’ of independent Africa rary imperialistic capitalism the question (which I prefer to call compradore state- (i) not ‘all modes’ and any modes can be structured in a complex formation. How- about land privatisation has now to be bourgeoisie) and the ‘aristocracy’ of the raised. My paper is sufficiently explicit old regime. I am convinced altogether by ever, this does not exclude co-existence, for example in capitalism, of a small on this point so it is not necessary to ex- these brilliant developments (cf. notably merchant production mode (which is plain it any further. Fractions – though a page 131 and subsequent pages of the frequent in agriculture and service minority but politically powerful – of the book) and, like Mafeje, I never consid- economies) and the capitalist mode; African peasantry are now playing this ered that a ‘bourgeoisie revolution’ could game. The majority of the peasants are have developed in the region (or anywhere (ii) in this case (when distinct modes can resisting. Mafeje, who put the focus on else in the peripheral capitalist world). Like actually be identified), their structure these forms of resistance, has made a use- Mafeje, I have always believed that it was plays out through predominance over ful contribution. On my side, I tried to essential to make a distinction between the other. In the previous example, the analyse the different possible and neces- small merchant mode is submitted to the capitalist revolution and integration sary resistance strategies at work under the logic of accumulation (specific to into the global capitalist system. many and various extreme conditions, the capitalist mode), which dominates Neither Mafeje nor I have ever consid- the social formation in question as a from that perspective, from one region to ered the ‘unavoidable necessity of going whole. There are even submitted another in the South, since in many of the through the capitalist stage’, but have modes that have been actually ‘fabri- Asian and Latin American regions land always advocated a socialist approach to cated’ by the predominant mode. As privatisation is already a fait accompli development as the only way to pull Afri- an example, I cited slavery in America, (which is not the case in sub-Saharan can peoples out of destitution. at the service of mercantilist capital- Africa or otherwise an exception), and in Asian countries where a socialist revolu- I claimed that all advanced tributary sys- ism, which was neither original nor specific to the previous conquered tion occurred (China and Vietnam), access tems, before being colonised by capital- systems but was established by the to land ownership is still managed by the ist Europe and submitted to the imperial- conquerors. state and the peasant communities with- ist expansion logic, could find a solution out privatisation. to their contradiction only by moving to- (iii) articulation-submission is not the wards an invention of capitalism and sub- only form characteristic of complex It is now more necessary than ever to sequently some forms of ownership that formations. The distortion of pre-capi- pursue the discussion of alternative strat- it requires to develop. Of course, this talist forms (whether tributary or com- egies for pulling out of the dead end proposition is questionable and Mafeje munal) through their submission is reached by globalised capitalism. In the may not have shared the same view. Alas, more frequent and marks all societies absence of late Archie Mafeje, let us live he is no longer around to answer this of peripheral capitalism. Mafeje, by up to the challenge. This is the best way question that I intended to ask him. But I the way, said nothing different on this to pay him homage. have always written that the formation of CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 15

The End of Anthropology: The African Debate on the Universality of Social Research and its ‘Indigenization’ A Study Dedicated to Archie Mafeje

About a Special Relationship apart from the scores of published stud- with Archie Mafeje ies and articles in Africa and abroad. How- Helmi Sharawy Cairo became acquainted with Archie ever, Archie Mafeje must be read in the African-Arab Research Centre Mafeje almost four decades ago, first as a original to appreciate his debates over Cairo, Egypt young political militant in the leadership Colonial Anthropology, and the liberation of the Unity Movement, one of the libera- of African Social Sciences. One should tion movements in South Africa, then as also read his analysis of modes of pro- duction in the African context, the eco- a prominent Professor of Sociology in the Ethnography and Anthropology, since nomic, agricultural and social effects of American University in Cairo in the 1980s. his master’s thesis in the University of colonialism in the African South, the eth- I made his personal acquaintance as a Cape Town, back in 1962, about local Af- nography of the agrarian question, the political militant, when I was myself the rican society. We also noted how UCT, discourse of African intellectuals in the coordinator of African liberation move- under the influence of apartheid, refused Continent and the Diaspora and the dev- ments in the 1960s and 1970s. Then I be- to appoint him as a staff member, which astating effects of Structural Adjustment came a friend and an associate in the Arab triggered numerous demonstrations of Programs. We can never ignore the great African Research Center (AARC) in 1995. protest on the part of students of many efforts of Mafeje in the UN Economic All through his career, he was appreci- universities. Such persecution forced him Commission for Africa, in CODESRIA, in ated by Egyptian social circles as a criti- into self-exile, to gain his PhD from Cam- FAO, and other bodies in search of an cal intellectual and an astute observer of bridge in 1966, followed by a long trek ‘Alternative Development for Africa’, and society. He always commanded a special among the universities of Holland, Bot- his close examination of social protest social status as the husband of a promi- swana, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, movements from Soweto to the Great nent Egyptian researcher, Professor Egypt and Namibia, to rest at last in the Lakes, and elsewhere. Shahida El-Baz, and the father of a prom- African Institute in Pretoria, in collabora- ising young daughter, Dana Mafeje. tion with the young scholars of the new I personally took part in translating his I had the pleasure of taking part in the South Africa, where he coaches the hold- book on African Social Formations, session held in his honor in Dakar by the ers of scholarships in a program of higher which was published in Arabic in 2006, a Council for the Development of Social education named after him, the ‘Archie few months before he passed away. I Research in Africa (CODESRIA), as one Mafeje Programme’. wrote the introduction to that book in Arabic, and would like to present here that of the prominent researchers in Africa, of In this brief introduction, we cannot re- introduction, in English, for the benefit of the stature of J. Ki-Zerbo, A. Mazrui and view the extensive scientific contributions his students and friends in Africa and else- I. Shivji. During that meeting much was of Mafeje to the body of African Studies. where, as a token of my great esteem for said about his extensive career as a pio- I can personally name at least ten books, neer in laying the foundations of African this distinguished scholar. The End of Anthropology: To the late Archie Mafeje

Introduction study where he announced that Anthro- ‘enhance’ its effectiveness. Some young The cry proclaiming the Death of Anthro- pology had committed suicide, and that a American anthropologists even consid- pology came several decades ago, from new beginning of this science was to be ered it an imperialist science as it was the European camp that saw the incep- heralded. closely connected to the American wars of the 1960s. Such an assessment has tion of this epistemological order under Anthropology is one of the social sci- meant different approaches to this sci- the name of ‘Colonial Anthropology’. P. ences most attached to the world politi- ence from the French school (of the Worsley (of Britain) was the first, present- cal and economic order, as it was closely Annales) on one hand, and the Marxist ing his paper entitled ‘The End of An- linked to colonialism, and the expansion school or that of Historical Materialism thropology’ to the anthropological of industrial then financial capitalism be- on the other. congress in 1966. This concept was again yond the European boundaries. Thus the discussed in an African congress in Dakar anthropologist became a vulnerable Such a varied outlook to this science may in 1991, where A. Mafeje announced colonialist, as James Hawker once said explain why its African protagonists de- the death of Anthropology in Africa. He (1963), as Anthropology was created by clared its ‘death’ in their Dakar congress reiterated this concept in an important the colonial administration as a means to in 1991, or in Mafeje’s studies, in pursuit CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 16 of a new birth on new foundations for its many of them enjoyed their work, and can intellectuals in particular played a methodological and theoretical basis, and were fond of the people they worked negative role in devising a Critical aiming at new social objectives. upon. Such a standpoint was taken to Anthropology, either through the ro- the extreme by Talal Asad (1973), who manticism of some, the developmen- From such considerations we proceed maintained that considering the old talism of others, or the involvement to study the following aspects of anthropology as simply ‘colonial’ was of still others in the imperialist anthro- An-thropology: both arbitrary and naïve. In contrast, pological institution. both Mafeje and Rigby considered I. The main criticisms addressed to the Hence came the attack of Archie Mafeje such conservative criticism as a sort objectives and methods of Anthropol- and Ben Magubane on the old Anthro- of self-defence, or protection of the ogy; scope of employment, and one that pology, and declaration of its demise, in order to put up the basis for a new Afri- II. The attempts to reconstruct Anthro- does not offer a theoretical or episte- pology as a support for development mological correction. Thus they con- can Ethnography. Such an attack was in the post-independence state; clude by declaring the death of the motivated by the abuse of the Apartheid science to give place to a new episte- system, of the so-called ‘Apartheid Eth- III. The efforts to transform the theoreti- mological order; nology’ to establish racial segregation, cal concepts and methodology after and it was only normal for South African the declaration of the end of the old • Some researchers considered that scholars to proceed with such an attack. Anthropology, then trying to ‘renovation’, if any, still came from the indigenize it in the context of African North, which means that African An- The Attempt to Reconstruct realities. thropology is void of substance as Anthropology the African contributions are next to This means debating the doctrine of the African politicians played a role, directly nothing, despite the efforts of the Ni- universality of the social sciences when gerian Bassey Andah and the Ghana- or indirectly, in the attempts for ‘self-eman- applied to African societies, meaning the ian Kwesi Prah. Thus African Anthro- cipation’ from Anthropology by refusing need to fragment epistemological disci- pology still claims no African anthro- to create studies of this discipline in the plines for the benefit of globalizing holis- pologists. In the West, however, there new universities in the post-independ- tic scientific values. In such a pursuit, appeared some real innovations, as in ence states. This came about owing to various African parties look out for new Reinventing Anthropology, by Dell the direct experience of some of them traits of African Anthropology, or Ethnog- Hymes (1972) and Writing Culture by (Kenyatta, Nkrumah, etc.), or because of raphy as constructed by Archie Mafeje. James Clifford and George Marcus the conditions of building the modern (1986); state/nation, and the need for develop- The Critical Standpoint mental sociology, and evading the frag- Some critics of Anthropology lay stress • What is common between the new menting Anthropology of tribalism and Northern renovation and the new epis- on the functional role of the anthropolo- racism. The Anglo-Saxon anthropologists temological order is that both pursue gist rather than on the methodology of tried to save their reputation when they the school of modernism and adopted the theme of ‘Social Change’ in this science. This may explain the abun- postmodernism. Thus the claim that their congress in Kampala (1959), but to dance of debate around the scientific per- the old Anthropology was functional, no avail. The counterattack came from sonalities that contributed to anthropo- or functional/structural such as to lead African anthropologists in their congress logical research, such as Edward Evans- to fragmentation of epistemological Pritchard, Charles Seligman, Nadel, methodology, and rejection of inclu- in Yaoundé (1989), and in Dakar (1991). In Malinowski, and others. However, their sive studies of society and state, also these congresses the Africans raised the connections with colonial and imperial applies to the postmodernistic school, slogan ‘Post Anthropology’, while some administrations were always mentioned which tends to study local cultures of them went to the extent of declaring with regret, as a mar on their scientific and minorities, or fragmented themes the Death of Anthropology. Yet the his- activity. Such a position led P. Rigby to of linguistics, literature or rationalities. torians of these attempts consider such point out that Evans-Pritchard’s son Some noted that the North pointed its moves for renaissance, or constructing helped the US forces in Vietnam in the criticism toward Anglo-Saxon func- development anthropology, to be still in 1960s as a continuation of his father’s role tionalism, trying to reform it, while the the pragmatic stage, and as not consti- in the Sudan with the British forces! We Francophone scholars did not resort tuting a negation of the old epistemologi- also note Malinowski’s studies on accul- to functional anthropology, as they cal order, on the road to creating a new turation in South Africa as a theoretical had adopted the policy of integration, African Ethnography. basis for the ideologies of apartheid there. which produced a sort of cultural im- perialism that leads to a call of cul- In this connection we would point out to However, Critical Anthropology went fur- tural dialogue, and not getting rid of the pragmatic stand of Kwesi Prah (in ther to more advanced critical perspec- Anthropology; Dakar, 1991), who noted that British An- tives, although it remained reformist within thropology insisted on functionalism as the old framework. In this connection, • The critics of Anthropology could not a non-historic order rooted in ‘European there are several trends, such as: approach any of the schools of his- Culture’. He concluded by urging Afri- torical materialism, political economy cans, likewise, to study ‘African Culture’ • The Apologetic Stand: this continues or social historiography. They would within the framework of national construc- the conservative position by main- not even approach sociology despite tion, and delve deep into self-study, while taining that the anthropologist was a their claims of interdisciplinary meth- constructing an African Anthropology as ‘colonialist against his will’, and that ods. The Afrikaner and Afro-Ameri- an interdisciplinary system that might CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 17 make use of Marxist methodology in so- the authority of the tribe, and assessing concepts of ‘Tribalism’ and ‘‘The Char- cial analysis of the salient social phenom- the authority of the elite on a political and acteristics of Human Races’, and others, ena (CODESRIA, 1991). class basis, and as the foundation for the which they attributed to colonialism and hierarchy in society as a whole, and not its lackeys. We shall review in brief some To stigmatize the pragmatic stand, Mafeje the tribe as an isolated entity as in tradi- such contributions. pointed out the position of A. Bujera tional Anthropology. (Kenya), who highlighted the role of An- P. Rigby denounces such attempts in his thropology in development as being a Therefore, Ahmed’s studies reflected his African Images under the title: ‘The Rac- recent trend in the USA, where investors efforts to develop Anthropology rather ist Ideology Creates the Legend of the planned to develop Africa with the help than declare its demise or negation. Thus, Hamites’, where he denounces the ex- of the anthropologists. He contended the titles of his various contributions – travagance in extolling their social as- that this field must not be left wide open Unity and Diversity, The Changing Sys- cendancy over their neighbors owing to to the Westerners by themselves while tems in Rural Areas, and Anthropology their Caucasian ancestry, etc. He points they lacked comprehension of African and Development Planning in the Sudan out the discourse about the peoples of culture and ethnography. – point to the possibility of transforming East and Central Africa, where some co- the role of Anthropology in the social lonial anthropologists like Hinde pro- Some opposed this developmental trend context of the Sudan. posed the utilizing of some such groups as bereft of a theoretical basis, and ac- to dominate other groups for the benefit cused its protagonists of presenting a What End to Anthropology? of the colonial power. The claim was that new imperialist form of the old anthropol- this group (the Massai) were superior as ogy (E. Leach), or at the best, trying to Talking about the ‘End’ of Anthropology Hamites over their neighbors of the utilize Anthropology as a mechanism for does not mean its complete negation, but Nilotes as the anthropological studies projects that the local bureaucracy can- rather the negation of its functional non- asserted. not manage. Ifi Amadiume proposed to historical legacy, and its methodology, the Dakar congress the liquidation of which refused any historical approach to, The same ‘theory’ of racial superiority of Anthropology, to be replaced by African let alone the social history of, the total the Hamites was also extended to Rwanda Social History, or Sociological social edifice. While the rejection was and Burundi where the Tutsi were utilized Historiography, which was a sure indica- aimed at Colonial Anthropology as men- to dominate the Hutu in accordance with tion of her being influenced by tioned above, the attempts at its transfor- the recommendation of another anthro- Francophony and the French Annales mation came from the ‘North’ in the form pologist. Such claims called for a special school of social history, and the reliance of modernistic or postmodern methods that assessment of the physical, psychologi- on Oral History, Folklore and other popu- led to the reference to ‘post anthropology’. cal and mental characteristics of the Tutsi lar arts as a source for the interpretation Such attempts led in turn, to the fear that to explain the continued discrimination to of society. The influence of the school of ‘Imperialist Anthropology’ would come to their benefit, and their domination of the Cheikh Anta Diop on the anthropologists replace the old ‘Colonial Anthropology’, Hutu, and even explain the post- inde- of francophone West Africa was evident as propounded by the French and Marx- pendence struggles and colonialist inter- by the inclusion of the ‘situation of ist schools. However, most African schol- ventions. Here we find Rigby tracing women’ as a new topic for Anthropology. ars consider all such attempts as ‘North- Hamite legend: ern’ efforts at reproduction of the old Dr Abdel Ghafar Ahmed (Sudan) took part in the 19th century, as J.H. Speke ap- theme under new global conditions. in the debate about Anthropology in his plied it in 1865, for the first time, on contribution to Talal Asad’s book (1973), Here, stress was laid on the necessity to the studies about East Africa. The an- followed by a number of sociological an- indigenize social sciences in the African thropologists adopted this legend thropological studies on Sudan from a anthropology congresses (Hountondji in once more in the 20th century till critical viewpoint. Yet Mafeje considered 1993, and Mafeje in 1996). They refused 1950, in the form ‘Hamite Nilotes’. This him a vulnerable developmentalist to accept the holistic European advance last form was applied in 1953, in the ‘against his will’, despite his open criti- while refusing such totality for African ethnographic survey of Africa under cism of Colonial Anthropology and tradi- society, or that European postmodernism the direction of Galvier and his wife. tional functionalism. Ahmed collected his could lead to the old colonialist frag- This survey tried to establish the ‘in- contributions on the subject in Anthro- mented empirical outlook to be applied to feriority of the Negro Race’ by claim- ing that the history of East Africa pology in the Sudan (2003), building on Africa and the Third World alone while cannot be explained except by an inva- the premise that the old anthropologist Western society would benefit alone from sion by Caucasian Whites! was indeed colonialist against his will, globalization (Mafeje 1996). Samir Amin because of the context and political envi- also reiterates this theme when he writes: Mafeje and Southall and others – accord- ronment in which he worked. The devel- ‘The capitalist society of the Center, based ing to Rigby – refuted the Hamite legend, opmental approach, however, came in the on Rationality, is now exporting Irration- but it continued as popular mythology in context of the total society in the modern ality only to our World in the South.’ the historiography of East Africa. Cheikh state, rather than the previous fragmented Anta Diop also refuted the mythology of society. This change in approach was Reconstructing the Old Concepts the Hamites, by stating that the claim that applied to his studies on unity and diver- Such refusal came first as a rejection of the Dinka, the Shiluk, the Nuer or the sity in Sudanese society. Thus, Ahmed the old concepts of traditional Anthro- Maasai had a Caucasian origin was tan- made his theoretical and field contribu- pology. This was the work of young Afri- tamount to claiming that the Greeks were tion on the theme of the disintegration of can anthropologists who rejected the not White! Such claims amount to saying CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 18 that any civilized group in Africa has a urban context (e.g. Mitchell’s study on ing one’s tribesmen in the context of a non- African origin, meaning that the the dance of the Kalela in the Copper modern society. Dinka or the Maasai were different from Belt), to evade any reference to social or To simplify Mafeje: tribalism becomes an the ‘primitive’ masses around them. In- class distinction in the towns. ideology with no objective existence as deed, such groups have a very long his- When anthropologists started the study claimed. It becomes some sort of false tory in Africa. of social change, they again referred to consciousness of the so-called members This was also a denial of Seligman’s tribal resistance to change, rather than its of the tribe, and an aberration that the school that claims that the pastoral disintegration or loss of stability. Watson elite resorts to while exploiting their Hamites came in waves of migration from even refers to tribal stability in conditions ‘tribesmen’. It is ideology in the Marxist the Caucasus, passing through North of monetary economy. Here we find a di- sense, but also ideology for the Africans Africa and the Nile valley. This school vergence between politicians and anthro- who share the Western ideology with reached such conclusions after the study pologists, the former attributing the fail- their colleagues in the West. of the animistic tribes in Nilotic Sudan, ure of attempts at modernization to tribal- With social change, people often belong and the claim that the intermingling be- ism, while the latter think tribalism lies to the region rather than the tribe, such tween these superior immigrants and the behind the success or failure of moderni- as the Transkei in South Africa, or the local Negroes produced the Maasai and zation, as the case may be. immigrants in Cape Town. Thus the con- the Baganda, and later, the Bahima Nkule, It remains to answer the query whether cept of region comes before that of the and so on. Such claims – according to tribalism may exist without tribes. If we tribe, as has the criterion of culture that Rigby – were passed on by the followers accept the classic definition that ‘Tribes the British anthropologists ignored be- and colleagues of Seligman, such as are self-sustained groups with little or no cause they were isolated from structural- Malinowski and Evans-Pritchard. external trade’, then anthropologists will ism. In South Africa, Xhosa speakers The contribution of Mafeje in challeng- have to explain whether all African politi- share a common culture over a very wide ing the colonial anthropological concepts cal entities are tribes. What about the region, even though they belong to dif- appeared first in his study on the ideol- large kingdoms such as the Lwabola or ferent political entities. Culture is utilized ogy of tribalism (1972), followed by the the Zulu? Or shall we accept calling them in South Africa to attain a higher social study of the ethnography of the region super tribes as some anthropologists do? status, so can we also call this tribalism? of the Great Lakes (1991). He considered Indeed, some still call it tribalism! Schapira tried to evade the discrepancy that it was not easy to separate social by calling the tribes ‘separate political Why maintain the concept of tribalism so sciences from ideology, and that had the groups’ that administer their affairs with- much in an urban context and a market Africans written their history, the results out foreign intervention … thus the tribe economy? First, because it helps embroil would have been different. Thus we is considered as being above all known the nature of the economy, and the power should look for the motivation behind forms of human organization. Culture as relations between the Africans, and be- such writings. a criterion of assessing the tribe was only tween them and the capitalist world, as In this connection, Mafeje makes the fol- introduced with the advent of modern- the concept of feudalism was used in Latin lowing analysis, in which he notes that ism, and the contributions of political and America to cover up imperialist capitalist the Western system of concepts leads to social studies (J. C. Mitchell, M.G. Smith). relations. the occurrence of the term ‘tribalism’ in According to Mafeje, the anthropolo- Mafeje introduces the concept of ‘Re- any study, using the colonial European gists’ concept of the tribe, large or small, gional Characteristics’ in order to facili- terminology about Africa. Even a century may be acceptable for pre-colonial socie- tate situating the cultural elements in a later, European ideology still stuck to the ties, where the tribe lived in relative isola- wider society, as well as understanding term tribalism to describe African society. tion as an entity defined in time and local- the class transformations in that society. The British insisted on the use of the term ity, and living a subsistence economy. He maintains that anthropologists need and their students in East Africa and the Such a definition cannot, however, be to use a concept that may be generalized South used it after them, despite the fact applied after the intrusion of European to cover human societies, and that tribal- that the Southerners never used this term, colonialism, and their inclusion within the ism cannot be such a concept. but referred to the ‘nation’, the ‘people’ capitalist monetary system and the world and the ‘clan’, or sometimes to the ‘land’ In his book on the theory of ethnography market. The new division of labor, and the (of the person). Anglo-Saxon anthropol- (1991), Mafeje states that the first gen- new modes of production and distribu- ogy always looked for the pure tribalism eration of European ethnographers in tion, gave African societies a radically that fitted the policy of indirect rule ad- Africa contributed a considerable body different basis. Thus it is no more a ques- vocated by Lord Lugard, and Sir Donald of material that became the classics in the tion of scope, but rather qualitative Cameron. Some anthropologists thought field. He also believes they adopted cer- changes of the social and economic or- such policies helped conserve social con- tain fixed concepts such as the tribe, the der. One cannot totally deny the role of sistency and stability. Later when these clan and the lineage etc. They also re- the tribe in Africa, but we must differenti- anthropologists started studying urban sorted to opposing categories for classi- ate between resorting to one’s tribe as a societies, they attributed some folkloric fication such as acephalous states in con- token of integrity and self-esteem, and phenomena penetrating urban society, trast with centralized ones, patriarchal using it as a means to remain in power, in such as dancing of rural origin, as an in- societies in contrast with matriarchal the capital of the modern state, or exploit- dication of persistence of tribalism in an ones, pastoral versus agricultural socie- CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 19 ties, etc. All such classifications were swamped by theoretical theses, Mafeje Speaking on the liberation of the disci- looked down upon with disdain by the took one fundamental thesis and sub- pline, Mafeje recalled that among those British anthropologist Edmund Leach jected it to his method of doubt and ex- who showed interest in developing a radi- who named such methods ‘Butterfly Col- amination. He applied this system to S. cal social theory in Africa and anywhere lecting’. Apart from the clearly organic Amin’s thesis on the ‘Tributary Modes else, Samir Amin occupied a distinguished outlook of the functional structural an- of Production’ whose history was differ- place. Although he cannot be considered thropology, all such classifications are of ent from that of the perspective of Euro- among those who decline details, and go an empirical and even static nature, try- pean history, and as such must be judged forward to present issues of forgone con- ing to crowd various objects into a tight by its own terms. clusions, yet he will always be consulted bag. They also create working modes of for his critical thinking and seeking out of I agree with Mafeje that the main aim of thinking that lead directly to an ahistoric new ideas. Although such ideas may not Mafeje’s study was to establish a con- stand. We note here that in biology, such always be fundamental, they generally ceptual formulation of some of the phe- methods of classification were abandoned present logical conclusions. nomena and social relations in Black Af- for the more dynamic reactions of bio- rica, which had been examined in a biased Hence Archie Mafeje does not uphold the chemistry that we meet in all forms of life. manner by non-Africans for a long time. idea of the End of Anthropology in order In human societies, some social phenom- The aim was to show that most of these to liquidate an epistemological order, but ena may seem as various types, but in the concepts were misrepresented to prove rather to put in its place a more appropri- last analysis they are found to be differ- the lack of correlation between the uni- ate alternative to the concept, which, in ent manifestations, or permutations of the versal language of social sciences based his opinion, leads to anthropological theo- same phenomenon, such as types of ex- on the European historical experience and rizing of another kind. istence or social classifications. All this the local language as understood by the makes us wary of falling into the snare of Imperialists. References evolutionism or historicism. The problem, as we see it, is the authen- Ahmed, Abdel G.M., (2003), Anthropology in Such studies may add to our acquired ticity of social sciences, as some of their the Sudan, Utrecht: International Books. knowledge, but they have little effect on texts have no historical context, and in Amin, S., (1994), Ideology and Social Thought’, the classic ideological systems, as they order to grasp them fully we must com- CODESRIA Bulletin, September. use the same classified categories to prehend their historic context. The point reach almost the same results. Moreover, Asad, T., (1973), Anthropology and the Colo- here is not that social formations are gov- ethnographic description or theorizing is nial Encounter, London: Ithaca Press. erned by the related ethnography, but that far from their center of attention. the latter explains social classification, and CODESRIA (1991), ‘Symposium on Anthro- However, such criticism does not by ne- codes of social conduct, and the ideo- pology’, CODESRIA Bulletin, November. cessity include all historians of African logical reproduction. A given social stra- Grummey, D., and Stewart, C.C. (eds) (1981), societies. As we find in Modes of Pro- tum need not behave in a certain manner Modes of Production in Africa, Beverley duction in Africa, edited by D. Grummey anywhere in the world. African capital- Hills, CA: Sage. and C.C. Stewart (1981), a great effort by ists may set aside the possibility of dou- Hountondji, P., (1997), Endogenous Know- the authors to theorize African history. bling the surplus value, for reasons of kin- ledge, Dakar: CODESRIA. They tried to apply the concepts of his- ship. In Buganda the proprietor chiefs will torical materialism to the pre-colonial Af- gain more value from making political de- Mafeje, A., (1971), ‘The Ideology of Tribalism’, rican history, using accepted epistemo- pendants than from squeezing their labour Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. logical concepts and arrays of Marxist force. To evaluate these development as- 9. concepts such as ‘modes of production’, pirations, all such ideas are relevant and Mafeje, A., (1991), The Theory and Ethno- ‘classes’, ‘surplus value’ and ‘capitalist credible, and even objective. We must graphy of African Social Formations, Da- production relations’, to explain that his- keep in mind that all local dialects, as well kar: CODESRIA. tory. They made a serious effort to allure as all languages, can mislead, and what English-speaking historians away from may guide the analyst is the context. Mafeje, Archie (1996a), Anthropology and their empiricism, without showing a simi- When we read local tongues, we do not Independent Africans: Suicide or End of lar will to learn from African ethnography face an object that is clear per se, and this An Era?, Dakar: CODESRIA. except to extract the greatest amount of is exactly the error of both the empiricists Mafeje, A., (1996b), ‘Review on Anthropology historical ‘facts’ and explain them by pre- and the globalists. The deciphering of the and Africa’, CODESRIA Bulletin, June. accepted standards and classifications. symbol usually means an expert transla- Magubane, B., (1971), ‘A Critical Look at Indices tion of an ambiguous language to make it Mafeje says (1991) that he intentionally Used in the Study of Social Change in Modern more lucid. Thus when we insist on com- tried to evade all such generalizations. He Africa’, Current Anthropology, vol. 12. prehension of local dialects, we have no took African ethnography as a standard intention of discarding the current scien- Rigby, P., (1996), African Images: Racism and by which to assess all previous concepts tific social language; rather we insist on a the End of Anthropology, Oxford: Berg that he did not take for granted. Using clear understanding of local experience, Publishers. such a method, some epistemological hence better credibility and objectivity. Shivji, I.G. (1976), The Silent Class Struggle, hypotheses per se, including Marxism, From the point of view of social theories Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House. became subject to doubt, and must be this implies a thorough process of exami- subjected to cultural discussion, as Y. Temu, A., (1981), Historians and Africanist nation, classification and rearrangement. Tandon remarks. Instead of being History, London: Zed Books. CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 20

Archie Mafeje, the African Intellectual and the Anti-imperialism in Social Science

rchie Mafeje was a man marked gested that the Pax Africana was going from the beginning by the strug through a ‘self-colonisation’ or rather gle against imperialism and all André Mbata B. Mangu through a ‘mild colonisation’ of the Afri- A University of South Africa & forms of injustice in which he was caught can states in decaying or ‘disintegrating’ by birth and because of his convictions Université de Kinshasa, states like Somalia, Sierra Leone and Zaïre of being a free man and someone who DR Congo (Mazrui 1995). Mazrui felt that ‘key states’ also has to bring the flame of freedom to like South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt his people. A man well-versed in the so- It is impossible to summarise an intellec- and Ethiopia could be charged with ‘re- cial sciences, in flesh and in spirit, he tual work spanning four decades, but if colonising’ those in a disintegrating state. embodied the aspirations of his people. there is a word constantly repeated in his Colonisation by some African states He was involved in their sufferings while writings and thought, just like in that of would be a form of ‘self-colonisation’ not also sharing their dream for freedom. one of his friends, Issa Shivji, who retired affected by the vices associated with ‘con- recently and lost that retirement shortly ventional’ colonisation. Born during the spring of apartheid in after, it was probably the term ‘imperial- South Africa, he later became one of its ism’. Mafeje considered ‘imperialism’ to Ali Mazrui probably knew that his idea of first intellectual victims and positioned be an evil, which must be combated at all colonisation whether mild or not, which himself on the frontline of the struggle costs in every domain including the so- is in-built in the imperialism ideology, was against it, constantly supplying new in- cial sciences. Claude Ake, another de- provocative and would not pass. The tellectual weaponry to the freedom fight- parted icon, noted that ‘imperialism’ did not forceful reaction of Archie Mafeje was a ers at a time when others his age or even spare the social sciences at all – as thought tit-for-tat as he denounced ‘sly spirits at older engaged in armed struggle against and transmitted to us from Europe – to the service of imperialism’ (Mafeje 1995). the most horrible regime of oppression. the extent that it could also become or The debate was thus ignited and involved all CODESRIA members. We wondered For Mafeje, apartheid was first and fore- used as a vehicle of imperialism (Ake 1979). whether we should take the floor in the most an oppression ideology, and there My first meeting with Archie Mafeje was face of these two giants, who practically was no more powerful weapon against the more ‘intellectual’ than physical. It dated intimidated everyone, who keep silent for system than the weapon of intellectual back to the early 1990s and was largely fear of being crushed on the battleground reasoning. The system of apartheid was facilitated by CODESRIA. In 1994 I was where the two wild cats of African social essentially that of repressing the minds, an Assistant in the Department of Public science were confronting each other and the emancipation of the latter was a Law at the Law Faculty of the University cordially. sine qua non condition for the total free- of Kinshasa in what was then still called dom claimed by millions of men and Republic of Zaire. For the first time, I learnt But I might have asked Shivji this ques- women. For the regime and the apartheid of the existence of CODESRIA through a tion: between imperialism and anti-impe- mechanism, this black intellectual was poster calling for applications for the Sum- rialism, do we really have the choice to eventually one of the brains who must be mer Institute on Democratic Governance. remain silent? I then decided to sound combated at all costs if not physically I decided to try my luck. The fact that my my little voice even though it could not taken out. He championed the academic candidacy was retained among the fifteen resonate in the middle of the heated ex- and intellectual freedom that character- who were selected was certainly one of changes and finesse shots between the ised his whole intellectual and scientific the best surprises ever in my intellectual two giants, all the more so as the debate activity. Any intellectual conversation and scientific career. I thus found myself was open to all (Mangu 1996). This was with him turned stormy. He had an incred- in Dakar from August to September 1994. how I introduced myself to Archie Mafeje. ible thrust of ideas and a convincing power Luc Sindjoun and Peter Kagwanja were In 2001, I found myself teaching at the while leaving his interlocutors the free- among my fellow participants at the Insti- University of the North in South Africa, dom and choice to think otherwise. Archie tute. It was during my various reading his home country. Five years had elapsed. Mafeje was unquestionably one of the visits to the CODESRIA Library that I Mafeje was invited to give a lecture at the icons of African social science, adulated came across the writings of Archie Mafeje. university, and I was very happy to see by some and hated by others but respected him physically. He had a terrific memory: by all at home and abroad. Two years later, I experienced my first shock with the scholar. It was through just mentioning the name of André Mbata Meeting Mafeje and spending time with the CODESRIA Bulletin published in was enough to remind him of the young him was a privilege for people of my age. 1995 and 1996. Ali Mazrui, this other gi- and daring gentleman from former Zaire He wrote extensively and reflected on a wide ant of African social science, had submit- who then was ‘bold’ enough to intervene range of themes, and one may even state ted his ideas on the Pax Africana. Faced during his heated exchange with Mazrui. that none of the subjects of concern to his with the risk of ‘disintegration’ threaten- In 2003, I was a Professor at the College of generation and people left him untouched. ing many African regions, Mazrui sug- Law, University of South Africa and Mafeje CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 21 was also there as a researcher emeritus. He so much loved this Africa extending forcing him into exile forty years ago. He Since then, we met regularly and I contin- from Cairo, where he lived as a ‘refugee’, always dreamed of the greatness of the ued benefiting from his relevant analyses. to Cape Town, where his appointment as continent, which required mastering so- the first black lecturer in a whites-only cial science and challenging imperialism My lasting memory is that he was a model university, in accordance with the very in all its forms insofar as it constituted a senior scholar, somewhat radical and not logic of apartheid, had provoked a gen- negation of the dream shared by several always conciliatory about certain ideas, a eral outcry on the part of the racist gov- generations of CODESRIA members. rigorous and non-complacent scientist ernment of Pretoria to the extent of who opposed any compromise solution.

Against Alterity – The Pursuit of Endogeneity: Breaking Bread with Archie Mafeje

Introduction 1976). I was a first-year undergraduate The passing away of Professor Archibald student at Ibadan, and I had been rum- Monwabisi Mafeje on 28 March 2007 was Jimi O. Adesina maging through the journal section in the a great shock to so many within the Afri- Rhodes University basement of the University of Ibadan Li- can social science community and be- South Africa brary. I came across a new issue of the yond. At a personal level, it was particu- Canadian Journal of African Studies and larly shocking: Archie, as we fondly refer pulled the copy off the shelf. I suspect it to him, was to be with us at Rhodes Uni- his treatment. I thought we would have was the name Mafeje in the contents page versity (Grahamstown-iRhini) for him around for many years to come. that drew my attention. I had never heard Thandika Mkandawire’s DLitt graduation of him, which might be forgiven in a fresh All these reflections are anecdotal, and undergraduate. I started nibbling through ceremony and we had worked frantically as with anecdotes there will be as many to finalise Archie’s travel arrangements the article. By the time I got to the third as the number of individuals who encoun- page, I was hooked. I took the journal to just the Friday before he died. He was to tered Archie. By themselves, they may return to Grahamstown in May for an au- the sitting area and buried my head in it. be of limited intellectual significance. In It was so elegantly written, with incred- dio-visual interview that I was to have this instance, it is in the personal that I with him, exploring his biography and ible detailed knowledge of the field and seek the scholarly. The loss of someone the debates from various parts of the scholarship; I had sent him the questions like Archie pushes us to search for mean- and he was keen on the project. Scholar- world. His conceptual handle on the ing that is both deeply personal and debate so rigorous and velvet, it was in- ship is biographical, and it is even more intellectual. so in Archie’s case. It was going to be a credibly exhilarating. While taking no pris- oners, he did not mind taking himself a time to break bread with this most engag- Meanings and Encounters ing of scholars; elegant in thoughts and prisoner too. Kathleen Gough had The meaning of Archie Mafeje for three taste. I had wanted to test out some of my charged Anthropology with being ‘a child generations of African scholars and so- hypotheses regarding the contours of his of Western Imperialism’ (Gough 1968), cial scientists is about encounters. For works and life with him; ‘sort out’ a few which I found delightful. In response, some it would have been personal, for nagging issues in his works. Although Raymond Firth (Firth 1972) rebuked others it was through his works, and for he had been in poor health for a few years, Gough and others like her; quite the con- most in the community the encounter via when we sat down to what turned out to trary, Firth insisted, Anthropology was a scholarly works became personal and in- be our last dinner in Pretoria in February ‘child of Enlightenment’. Mafeje’s re- timate. And Archie reciprocated more than 2007, he was in the best shape in which I sponse in the 1976 article was: ‘What’s most. Babatunde Zack-Williams, in an in- had seen him since 2002. He had spent the point of dispute, folks? Imperialism is tervention at a February 2006 conference December 2006 and January 2007 in the the child of Enlightenment, anyway.’ It in Pretoria, spoke glowingly regarding the Transkei (South Africa), among family was so detailed and elegantly argued I impact that Archie’s ‘The Ideology of members. He had received herbal treat- walked on air for days afterwards. “Tribalism” (Mafeje 1971) had on him. ment, he said, which proved quite help- Tunde wondered aloud why Archie was I was not to meet Archie Mafeje in person ful. His hands (especially the fingers) were absent from a conference in a city of his until 1992, at the CODESRIA General As- much improved, and he was going back residence on how to reinvigorate the sembly in Dakar. It was an incredibly en- to Mthatha (in the Transkei) on Tuesday study of Africa. The impact that Tunde gaging experience, and I got a copy of his 27 March as part of the arrangement to referred to is shared by many, but I missed Theory and Ethnography of African So- resettle in the Transkei by mid-year. Walter that by some five years. My encounter cial Formations (Mafeje 1991). He auto- Sisulu University in Mthatha had agreed was through his ‘The Problem of Anthro- graphed my copy with the words: With to provide him a place to work and re- pology in Historical Perspective’ (Mafeje pleasant memories after a most vigorous flect; and he would be able to continue encounter with the irreverent but a wel- CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 22 come sense of rebellion – Dakar 15/2/ continent. That is why he comes across similar mode of writing, which proceeds 92. The ‘irreverence’ was around the de- as fierce on ‘dangerous’ ideas – as in his from the subject’s perspective, is evident bate we kicked off at the assembly on contentions against Ali Mazrui – or those in two of his other works published in ‘icons’. I had argued that a viable intel- who subsist on ‘the epistemology of the 1960s: ‘The Chief Visits Town’ lectual community develops around iconic alterity’ (Mafeje 1997b: 5). It would equally (Mafeje 1963) and ‘The Role of the Bard individuals, events and/or ideas. I told explain why he chose not to have a pub- in a Contemporary African Community’ Archie that we won’t act like the Ortho- lic spat with Ruth First after her response (Mafeje 1967). However, in contrast to the dox Church; we won’t polish our icons (First 1978) to his article on the Soweto muted negation of alterity in these earlier and put them on a pedestal. When we Uprising (Mafeje 1978b). Ruth First was a works, ‘The Ideology of “Tribalism”’ was disagree with them, ‘we will kick their comrade even though they inhabited a more self-conscious critique of the con- butts’. He was quite tickled by it. Jibrin different points in the anti-Apartheid tinued use of ‘tribe’ and ‘tribalism’. Ibrahim would later take a dip at being struggle. While Mafeje’s paper was not new or iconoclastic in an article, ‘History as alone in contesting the concept of ‘tribe’ Iconoclast: Left Stardom and the Debate Against Alterity and ‘tribalism’ – cf. Vilakazi (1965), on Democracy’ (Ibrahim 1993). The prob- If there is a common thread tying all of Magubane’s 1968 paper (republished in lem is when you denounce Issa Shivji for Archie Mafeje’s professional writings, as 2000:1–26) and Onoge’s 1971 paper (pub- ‘manichean vituperations’, as Jibrin did, distinct from his more political writings, lished 1977) – that much Mafeje (1971:12; you should expect to have your feathers it will be the relentless contestation of 1996:260–1) himself specifically men- plucked; and plucked his feathers were. the epistemology of alterity and the pur- tioned.4 Nonetheless, Mafeje’s interven- The ‘icons’ were not going to roll over suit of endogeneity. Endogeneity, in this tion was a focused ‘deconstruction’ and die or rock in their chairs watching specific case, refers to an intellectual (Mafeje 1996, 2001) of the categories on the sun set (Amin 1993; Mafeje 1993). standpoint derived from a rootedness in conceptual and empirical grounds. Em- Even so, Archie and Samir were as gentle African conditions; a centring of African pirically, Mafeje argued, the word ‘tribe’ as one could expect of them in the cir- ontological discourses and experiences did not exist in any of the indigenous cumstances. Issa stayed out of it. Archie’s as the basis of one’s intellectual work. ‘To South African languages – or, to the best focus was on conceptual rigour as a prel- evolve lasting meanings’, Mafeje (2000:66) of my knowledge, any that I know. Con- ude to political action as well as empirical noted,‘we must be “rooted” in something. ceptually, those deploying the concept misrepresentations of what the iconic ‘Left Central to endogeneity is averting what are unable to sustain it on the basis of stars’ did or did not do. He probably Hountondji (1990) referred to as ‘extro- their own definitions of tribe(s) (hence thought Jibrin was mistaken but not an version’. In spite of the claims of being tribalism). It is a method of critique that ‘enemy’. nomothetic in aspiration, social analysis defines Mafeje’s scholarship, anchored My take on the idea of ‘icon’ and iconic is deeply idiographic. Those who exer- on conceptual rigour or its absence. ideas was quite different from Jibrin’s. It cise undue anxiety about being ‘cosmo- ‘Classical anthropology’, Mafeje noted was about constructing our intellectual politan’ or universalist fail to grasp this (quoting Fortes’ and Evans-Pritchard’s community rooted in ideas firmly about much of what is considered nomo- 1940 African Political Systems) defined grounded in our conditions and drawing thetic in the dominant strands of West- tribes as ‘self-contained, autonomous critical scholarly inspirations from those ern ‘theories’. All knowledge is first local: communities practicing subsistence who went before; not in squeamish adu- “‘universal knowledge” can only exist in economy with no or limited external trade’ lation but critical engagement. But to contradiction’ (Mafeje 2000:67). It is pre- (Mafeje 1971:257). Others (citing Schapera’s return to Archie, the Theory and Ethnog- cisely because Max Weber spoke dis- 1956 Government and Politics in Tribal raphy of African Social Formations is tinctly to the European context of his time, Societies) would define tribes as a group another example of what Mahmood as Michel Foucault did for his that guar- of people who claim ‘exclusive rights to a Mamdani called Archie’s ‘artisanal’ ap- anteed the efficacy of their discourses. given territory’ and manage ‘its affairs proach to intellectual work: painstaking ‘If what we say and do has relevance for independently of external control’ (Mafeje and rigorously argued. our humanity, its international relevance is guaranteed’ (Mafeje 2000:67).2 In this 1971:257). In this sense, tribes are defined The 1992 encounter speaks to what many paper, I will limit my focus to this aspect by subsistence economy, territoriality and people confuse as intellectual arrogance of Mafeje’s works. rule by chiefs and/or elders. Anthropolo- and a gladiatorial stance in Archie Mafeje. gists and others who persisted in using He demanded of you a rigorous engage- While ‘The Ideology of “Tribalism”’ is ‘tribe’ and ‘tribalism’ as their framework 3 ment with your field, extensive depth of often cited as the launching of Mafeje’s for analysing Africa were violating their knowledge, and knowing your onions in- attack on alterity, the drive for the cen- own rules. Territorial boundedness, po- side out. But even the most brilliant mind tring of the African ‘self-knowing’ is ev- litical and economic isolation, and sub- is not infallible; Archie knew that. He lived ident in Langa: A Study of Social Groups sistence economy no longer apply under on rigorous intellectual engagements and in an African Township (Wilson and the conditions of colonialism. To argue, a willingness to engage with you if you Mafeje 1963), co-published with Monica as Gulliver did (in the 1969 edited volume thought he had not finely tuned his ideas. Wilson, his supervisor at the University Tradition and Transition in East Africa) But ideas were not just esoteric things of Cape Town. The preference for the re- that they continue to use ‘tribe’ not out for their own sake. They are important search subjects’ own self-definition – of ‘defiance’ but because Africans them- because they mean so much one way or e.g., ‘homeboys’ rather than ‘tribesmen’ selves use it when speaking in English another to the lives of millions on our – in the book presaged his 1971 paper. A (Mafeje 1971:253–4) would be woolly- CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 23 headed. Mafeje did not ‘deny the exist- Much in the same way that Magubane’s Congo group – itself a ‘sub-family of the ence of tribal ideology and sentiment in vigorous critique of the Manchester Niger–Congo phylum’7 – labelling the lan- Africa… The fact that it works … is no School (Magubane 1971) was liberating guages as ‘Bantu’ is the ultimate in extro- proof that “tribes” or “tribalism” exists in for many African students studying version and alterity. While the languages any objective sense’ (1971:25–9). The Anthropology or Sociology in the United may share linguistic characteristics and persistence of ‘tribalism’ in such context States at the time, Mafeje’s paper, of the Bantu generally means ‘people’ (Abantu is ‘a mark of false consciousness’ (Mafeje same year, had similar edifying effects in IsiXhosa), none of the groups is self- 1971:259, emphasis in original). More im- on the same cohort of African students referentially ‘Bantu’. The labelling is portantly, that cultural affinity (what he studying in the UK or Anglophone rooted in European alterity, which found called ‘cultural links’) is deployed in se- Africa, as Zack-Williams has noted.6 its apogee in the Apartheid racist group curing ‘a more comfortable place’ is no classification, with all Africans designated Mafeje pursued his line of thought at the evidence of ‘tribalism’. More forces may ‘Bantu’ – hence Bantu education, etc. A expense of conceding that the category be at work than ‘tribal’ identity, including geographic classification, similar to might have been valid at an earlier time occupational and class identities. Mafeje ‘Niger–Congo’ rather than Bantu, might (Mafeje 1971:258). Not only does Anthro- cited Mitchell’s 1956 monograph, The be less eviscerating. Even if one were to pology deal with its objects of inquiry Kalela Dance and Epstein’s Politics in accept the singularity of classification outside history, it is ill equipped to ad- an Urban African Community, which both involved – ‘961 languages’ as so linguis- dress the issues of history. The ‘isola- point to such alternative explanations.5 tically close as to be given a name – it tion’ (political and economic) and territo- does not explain why Africans have to At the heart of Mafeje’s argument is An- riality that were supposed to define the absorb the alterity. What is more, other thropology’s conceptual conundrum. The African communities before the colonial linguists consider Malcolm Guthrie’s categories might have been valid once, encounter hardly stand up to scrutiny method, which is the source of the classi- Mafeje argued, but not any more because when approached from the perspectives fication, as deeply flawed. The role of mis- the colonial encounter ended the territo- of History and Archaeology. Neither sionaries in inventing the fragmentation rial and political isolation of the ‘tribes’ about Africa, Asia or the Americas, is it of African languages and then scripting and their subsistence economies. Further, possible to sustain the claims of territori- exclusive ethnic identities on the back of the ‘territoriality’ that was supposed to ality and isolation. None of the groups in such fragmentation is widely known be the conceptual basis of ‘tribes’ did not West Africa that are still routinely referred (Chimhundu 1992). Undoing this fragmen- exist in Mafeje’s reference group, the to as ‘tribes’ would fit the definition hun- tation has been the essence of Kwesi AmaXhosa; they were never organised dreds of years before the first intrepid Prah’s Centre for the Advanced Studies under a single political unit even when anthropologist arrived on their doorsteps. of African Society (CASAS) in Cape found in the same region. This is a theme Further, the very act of naming and label- Town. The idea of ‘Bantu-speakers’ is an Mafeje returned to in his 1991 book in the ling requires encounter. ‘Germanic tribes’, aspect of the inadequate ‘negation of case of the Great Lake Region of East as a label, is only feasible in the encoun- negation’ (Mafeje 2000:66) that I had Africa. In spite of these, anthropologists ter with the Greek or Roman ‘Superior hoped to explore with him in the audio- who studied sociational dynamics out- Other’ who does the naming and the la- visual interview planned for May 2007. It side the ‘tribal homelands’ persisted in belling. Isolation is thus unimaginable. is a task that we must take upon ourselves deploying the categories. It is this invari- Alterity rather than any conceptual va- as surviving African scholars. ant commitment to the categories that lidity is foundational to labelling one Mafeje called ‘tribal ideology’ or the ‘ide- community of people a ‘tribe’, another a Negation of Negation: Mafeje on ology of tribalism’. It was no longer schol- nation. The Germanic tribal Other is im- Anthropology arship but ideology – not that Mafeje mediately the ‘Barbarian’: an inferior thought scholarship could be non- Other. The appropriation of such alterity Mafeje’s (2000) Africanity: A Combative ideological. by the labelled is one of the legacies of Ontology is perhaps his most eloquent colonisation, such that it is still possible and elegant enunciation of the twinned The new army of political scientists for Africans themselves to speak of their agenda of the ‘determined negation of trouping into Africa in the periods imme- local potentates as ‘tribal authority’! negation’ (ibid., p.66) and the pursuit of diately before and after ‘independence’ What is required at the level of scholar- endogeneity. The former requires an un- would go on to deploy the same mode of ship and everyday discourse is the com- compromising refutation of the epistemol- writing and thinking. If the anthropolo- plete extirpation of the category of ‘tribe’ ogy of alterity that has shaped modes of gist could be excused because the study – evident in Mafeje’s works from 1963 to gazing and writing about Africa and Afri- of ‘tribes’ is his/her raison d’être the 2004, but insufficiently extirpated, con- cans. Such negation of alterity is the be- Africanist political scientist had no such ceptually, in 1971. ginning of the journey to affirmation: a excuse (Mafeje 1971:257). The result is method of scholarship rooted in the col- that similar phenomena in other parts of The same extirpation cannot be said for lective Self and speaking to it without the the world are ‘explained’ differently – with the category of ‘Bantu-speakers’ (Mafeje anxiety regarding what the western Other ‘tribe’ or primitivity being Africa’s explana- 1967, 1991), which he used as a shorthand has to say or think about us. In its spe- tory category. The tribal categories are for speakers of ‘Bantu languages’ cific sense, the two write-ups (2001, used simultaneously to explain ‘pattern (2000:67). Even if it is possible to catego- Mafeje 2000) were in reaction to the ‘cos- maintenance and persistence’ and the fail- rise the 681 languages referred to by lin- mopolitan’ anxieties of the postmodern ure of ‘modernity’! guists as belonging to the ‘Bantoid’ sub- monologue that Achille Mbembe sought set of the 961 languages in the Benue– to foist on the CODESRIA community. The CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 24 year 2000 marked the reappropriation of has received a renewed impetus. Anthro- of adhesion to ‘their tribes’. We will ad- the institution from the intellectual misuse pology is one discipline founded on such dress this further later in this paper. to which it had been subjected.8 Mafeje’s inferior othering of its ‘objects’ of study. Further, ethnography is no more unique pieces were an ode to a recovered patri- Unlike Gough and others who sought to to Anthropology than quantitative mony. However, Mafeje’s ‘determined reform Anthropology, Mafeje’s conten- method is to Economics. The methodo- negation of negation’ goes back much tion is that epistemic ‘othering’ is so im- logical opaqueness of the anthropolo- further, and its object was the discipline manent to Anthropology as to be its gist’s ‘field method’ quite easily gives way of Anthropology as the epitome of alterity. raison d’être. The point is not to reform it to methodological licence. Since the func- ‘The Problem of Anthropology…’ (Mafeje but to extirpate it. Mafeje uses ‘anthro- tion of anthropologists is to ‘explain’ exotic, 1976) was an intervention in the debates pology’ in at least two senses: anthropol- foreign cultures, and strange customs to between different factions of anthropolo- ogy as a conceptual concern with onto- their compatriots, methodological licence gists: on the one hand, the new genera- logical discourses (Mafeje 1997a:7), and and the erroneous coding of the ‘objects’ tion of anthropologists with a radical ori- Anthropology as an epistemology of of Anthropology are taking on the same entation, and on the other, an older gen- alterity. While Mafeje associates the lat- instrumentalism in the late twentieth and eration of ‘mainstream’ anthropologists. ter with the discipline, it is equally as much early twenty-first century’s new age of Kathleen Gough represented the former a mode of thinking and writing that con- Empire as applied Anthropology did un- and Raymond Firth, the latter.9 While siders the ‘object’ as the inferior or the der colonialism. Closely associated with Mafeje mentioned Magubane (1968) as exotic Other. It is the latter that one would the epistemology of alterity is erasure, one of the new generation repudiating classify as the ‘anthropologised’ reason- which becomes distinctly imperial at in- mainstream Anthropology, Magubane ing about Africa – a discursive mode that ter-personal levels; and those attempting was never an anthropologist; he trained persists and what I consider the curse of erasure tend to employ derision and in- at the University of Natal as a sociologist. anthropology in the study of Africa. As a tellectual bullying. discipline, however, Mafeje was careful As mentioned earlier, ‘The Problem of In response to Mafeje’s (Mafeje 1996, to distinguish between the works of Co- Anthropology…’ was elegantly written – 1997b) critical review of Sally Moore’s lonial Anthropology (most emblematic of in the best tradition of Mafeje’s scholar- book (Moore 1996: 22), Moore sought to British Anthropology) and works of prac- ship. Elegant erudition aside, Mafeje’s deride his claim that he ‘might have pre- titioners such as Maurice Godelier and contention was that Anthropology had vailed on Monica Wilson not to [use the Claude Meillassoux. The former is more passed its ‘sell-by’ date, and it was time tribal categories] in Langa’ (Mafeje foundationally associated with Anthro- to move on to something different. 1997b:12). Moore’s response was that pology ‘as a study of “primitive” socie- ‘Among the social sciences’, Mafeje ar- while Mafeje might have been responsi- ties’ (Mafeje 1997a:6); the latter, Mafeje gued, ‘anthropology is the only discipline ble for the fieldwork, Wilson produced the insisted, must be taken seriously: ‘their which is specifically associated with co- manuscript, an assertion that hardly re- deep idiographic knowledge, far from di- lonialism and dissociated with metropoli- flects well on her own understanding of minishing their capacity to produce nomo- tan societies’ (1976:317). The alterity as- the process of producing a manuscript. thetic propositions, has helped them to sociated with Anthropology is not acci- Authorship, if that is what this confers generate new concepts’ (Mafeje 1991:10). dental or temporal; it is immanent. If, as on Monica Wilson, does not mean exclu- They approached the African societies on Raymond Firth (1972) claimed, Anthropol- sivity of even the most seminal ideas in a their own terms – without alterity. ogy is ‘the legitimate child of Enlighten- manuscript. Significantly, Moore con- ment’, the leading intellectuals of the En- Anthropologists may claim they are no fused ‘detribalisation’ used earlier by the lightenment, unlike latter-day anthropolo- longer concerned with ‘tribes’, but alterity Wilsons for a rejection of the category of gists, were preoccupied with accounting remains their raison d’être. The study of ‘tribe’ or ‘tribalism’. Conversely, Moore for ‘the moral, genetic and historical unity the ‘exotic Other’ is only a dimension of failed to account for the recurrence of this of mankind’ and ‘had little regard for ex- alterity; often the ‘less-than-equal Other’. rejection of alterity in two other publica- otic customs’ (Mafeje 1976:310). However, As an undergraduate, I had the good for- tions by Mafeje (Mafeje 1963, 1967) in the insofar as the scholarship of the Enlight- tune of studying in a university that in- same period. She might simply never have enment ‘sought to make its own anthro- sisted from the early 1960s to eliminate bothered to read them. pological viewpoint universal’ (ibid.) it Anthropology. Even so, my first-year In response to Mafeje’s observation that inspired a ‘civilising mission’ in relation teachers included social anthropologists she failed to account for the works of Af- to non-European peoples – a pseudonym who came with Anthropology’s mode of rican scholars in her book with the lone for pillage and imperialism. Anthropology, native gazing, which struck me then as exception of Valentin Mudimbe, a distinct as a discipline, is rooted in this venture; it the ‘Sociology of the primitive Other’. It form of erasure, Sally Moore’s response is in this sense that, contrary to Firth’s was probably the reason why Mafeje’s was twofold. First, that she left out the claim, Anthropology is a child of imperi- ‘The Problem of Anthropology…’ reso- works of African scholars like Magubane alism, and a foster-child (if not grandchild) nated so much with me when I first read and Mafeje because she concentrated on of Enlightenment. English socialists like it. The claims by contemporary anthro- books and monographs not journal arti- Beatrice Webb, for instance, did not think pologists that they are committed to the cles (Moore 1996:22). Second, that she it strange to talk of East Asians as sav- wellbeing of their research subjects or cited many more other African scholars. ages (Chang 2008); Christian missionaries that field method defines their discipline On both accounts, she was less than can- took such labelling for granted: a perva- are rather lame. Even the most racist colo- did. The sources she used are profuse sive conception of Africa and Africans that nial anthropologists made similar claims with journal articles –German, French, CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 25

English, etc. (Moore 1994:135–60). Sev- ricans’ (Mafeje 1998) to which she claimed was ‘passé’ (Laville 1998). If Anthropol- eral of these are American anthropology she was responding. Again, you might ogy has transcended its alterity, why do journals, including Current Anthropol- be forgiven for thinking she was talking so many anthropologists persist in ogy in which Magubane’s piece appeared. to a two-year-old! How, for instance, is exoticising their ‘objects’ of inquiries? It is difficult to imagine that Moore was the crisis of funding that African univer- When the professional anthropologists unaware of Magubane’s 1971 paper at the sities face an answer to the alterity imma- transcend alterity, how will the result be time it was published given the uproar it nent to Anthropology? It was as if different from Sociology? If, as Nkwi generated and her seniority – she was Africans will have to choose between (Nkwi 1998:62) argued, ‘the trend in Afri- Chair of the Department of Anthropology alterity and generous funding. Yet the can Anthropology is towards the inter- at the University of Southern California high point of the rejection of alterity was disciplinary approach’ is the ‘discipline’ at the time. when research funding was readily avail- still a discipline? Nkwi is right in arguing able within the universities themselves. that more Africans were engaged in ac- On the second charge, Moore’s response The University of Ibadan (Nigeria) re- tive objections to Anthropology than was that she did nothing of the sort and jected the idea of a Department of An- Mafeje acknowledged: Mafeje mentioned listed several African scholars she claimed thropology in the early 1960s when it did himself and Magubane. A case in point is she cited. Other than Mudimbe, she en- not have any problem of research fund- Omafume Onoge at Ibadan. But Mafeje gaged with none of the others. When she ing and its staff had no need to seek ex- was referring to focused dissembling of did, if one can call it engagement, they ternal funding. The researches undertaken Anthropology’s epistemology of alterity, were part of general citation rather than by Kayode Adesogan10 in organic chem- not the ‘narcissism of minor differences’ an engagement with their ideas. The two istry were funded entirely from grants from within the camp (cf. Ntarangwi, Mills and references to Onwuka Dike (Moore the university (Adesogan 1987). It led to Babiker 2006) that the deliberations of the 1994:11, 15) were from his obituary on his contributing more than twenty new African anthropologists he was critiquing Melville Herskovits. You would hardly compounds to the lexicon of chemistry, represented. Most Africans simply walked know that Dike founded the famous precisely because his scholarship was away from the discipline rather than dis- Ibadan School of History. The references rooted in endogeneity (Adesina sipate their energies in arguing with the to Jomo Kenyatta were either incidental 2006:137). The same can be said of the ‘owners’ of the discipline. Central to this to Moore’s discussion of Malinowski or diverse schools of History in Africa – is the inherently racist nature of its dis- an oblique reference to Africans publish- from Dar-es-Salaam to Ibadan and Dakar. course – alterity. I recognised the racist ing ‘ethnographic monographs of their They flourished in the periods before the epistemology in my first term as an un- own peoples’ or ‘emigration’ (Moore funding crisis. What they shared in com- dergraduate; Mafeje (1976) only con- 1994:32–3). In the latter, Kenyatta was part mon was an uncompromising rejection of firmed what I knew. More than thirty years of five Africans grouped together, but the the colonial racist historiography later, we have African students express- reader will have no idea what exactly they (Adesina 2005, 2006). The difference in ing similar feelings within a few days of wrote. The reference to Paulin Hountondji chemistry and history is that alterity is being in their first-year Anthropology was second-hand, and part of African in- not immanent to them. History did not class at Rhodes University. It is either the tellectuals who ‘rail against what they see originate in the study of the ‘primitive’ discipline has overcome its epistemology as the misreading of outsiders’ (Moore Other nor was reserved for it. It was, there- of alterity or it has not. Clearly it has not, 1994:84): hardly an evidence of intellec- fore, amenable to epistemic challenge on precisely because whatever the negotia- tual courtesy. its own terms. The same cannot be said for tions around the ‘protective belt’ of the The only African scholar she discussed Anthropology! discipline’s core discourse, the core re- with any degree of ‘seriousness’ was mains rooted in alterity. Mafeje was fundamentally right in seeing Valentin Mudimbe, and even so, it was in through this in his review of Moore’s The claim to field method (ethnography) a remarkably derisive and imperial man- book. He ended the review by saying he as a defining aspect of Anthropology is ner. She referred to him as ‘a Zairean who did not mind the candour of those who equally intriguing. Ethnographic tech- lives in the United States’, like he did not write about Africa as: nique was used before the rise of Anthro- belong. Mudimbe’s The Invention of Af- pology and is used in other disciplines rica was dismissed as ‘complex, indigest- Simply a continent of savages (read beyond Anthropology. As Mafeje (1996) ible, and highly opinionated’ (Moore ‘tribes’) and venomous beasts… As noted, he did not have to be an anthro- 1994:84), without any apparent awareness a matter of fact, I like black mambas pologist to write The Theory and Ethnog- that to label someone opinionated is to lethal as they are and wish Africans raphy of African Social Formations. I be opinionated. If one were to look for could learn from them. Perhaps, in the made extensive use of ethnographic tech- the enduring tendency to treat Africans circumstances their continent would nique in my doctoral study of a Nigerian and their intellectuals as children one cease to be a playground for knowers refinery (Adesina 1988); I did it as a soci- need go no further than read Moore. She of absolute knowledge and they in ologist. A discipline’s claim to being would make similarly condescending re- turn would lose their absolute alterity. mono-methodological is hardly a positive marks about Mafeje in a later article (1997b:14) reflection on its credibility. Research prob- (Moore 1998), labelling his work as driven It was a ‘call to arms’ that many failed to lems suggest the research techniques to by ‘polemic strategy’, ‘noises’, ‘diatribe’, heed. The debate in African Sociologi- adopt, not the discipline; most research etc. As before, Moore failed to engage cal Review 2(1), 1998, is interesting for issues would require multiple research with a range of Mafeje’s works or even the persistent claims by the professional techniques, not being wedded to a par- the ‘Anthropology and Independent Af- anthropologists that Mafeje’s critique ticular one. CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 26

Anthropology was born of a European nary anchor. From the point of pedagogy, culture.11 He demonstrated their role as intellectual division of labour. When they transdisciplinarity is a recipe for epistemic social critics who can be withering in their stayed home and studied their own peo- disaster: you end up with people who are poetic social commentaries. Rather than ple, they did Sociology; when they went neither conceptually rigorous nor meth- ‘tribe’ or ‘tribal’ Mafeje used the catego- abroad to study other people, ate strange odologically proficient. They are more ries of ‘South African bard’ and ‘South food and learnt strange customs and lan- likely to regurgitate than be profound. African traditional bards’. guages, they did Anthropology (Adesina Mafeje’s own profundity comes from fus- The profundity of The Theory and Eth- 2006). The idea of a ‘native anthropolo- ing his trainings in Biology, Sociology, nography of an African Social Forma- gist’, as Onoge noted, is a contradiction. Social Anthropology, Philosophy and tion – apart from its artisanal nature and In spite of protestations to the contrary, Economics rather their absence. conceptual rigour – derives from Mafeje’s Anthropology is still more oriented to- Mafeje’s rejection of ‘epistemology’ is effort to understand the interlacustrine wards the study of the ‘exotic Other’ than rooted in his aversion for dogmatism, but kingdoms on their own terms – from not. When they write about their own that is hardly the same as epistemology, within and without the burden of fitting societies most still write as if they are which as any dictionary will attest is ‘the them into particular ‘universalist’ outsiders. In 2007, it is still possible to branch of philosophy that studies the typologies. In the process all manner of come across a manuscript written by a nature of knowledge, its presuppositions intellectual totems were overturned. I sus- Yoruba medical anthropologist with a ti- and foundations, and its extent and va- pect that this is what Mafeje meant by his tle that reads in part: ‘... of the Yoruba of lidity’. The study of specific epistemic rejection of ‘epistemology’: the freedom South-western Nigeria’. It is the kind of standpoints – from positivism to Marx- to allow the data to speak to the writer extroversion that Hountondji (1990, 1997) ism and postmodernism – is the business rather than imposing paradigms on them. warned against. Clearly, if the audience of epistemology. The crisis of dogmatic What such scholarship calls for are au- was conceived as Yoruba such adhesion to an epistemic standpoint can thentic interlocutors able to decode local exoticisation would not be necessary. hardly be construed as a crisis of episte- ‘vernaculars’: the encoded local ontology Those who wish to study non-Western mology. Postmodernism’s pretension to and modes of comprehension (Mafeje societies in the tradition of Godelier and being against grand narratives ended up 1991:9–10; 2000:66, 68). Mafeje argued that Meillassoux should get beyond casting erecting a grand narrative of its own. this is what distinguished Olufemi Taiwo’s these societies as exotic objects that need What it had to say that was brilliant was account of the Yoruba from those of Henry coding for the ‘non-Native’ audience and not new, and what was new was not bril- Louis Gate and Kwesi Prah’s interlocu- broaden their methodological scope; in liant. We deconstruct postmodernism’s tion of the Akan codes from Anthony other words, move over to doing Sociology. deconstructionist claims precisely from Kwame Appiah’s. This capacity, as oth- the standpoint of epistemology – ac- ers have demonstrated, does not come Against Disciplinarity and counting for a paradigm’s presupposi- simply from being ‘a native’ (Amadiume Epistemology? tions, foundations, claims to knowledge 1987; Nzegwu 2005; Oyìwùmí 1997): it re- However, two issues that I have argued production, extent and validity, as the dic- quires endogeneity; it requires being au- with Mafeje about and would have dis- tionary says. thentic interlocutors. The result in the cussed at the planned interview are his case of the latter has been seminal contri- repudiation of ‘disciplines’ in the social The Pursuit of Endogeneity butions to African gender scholarship sciences and ‘epistemology’. Given his Right from the start of his intellectual ca- without the anxiety of wanting to be cos- ill-health in the four years before his death, reer, Mafeje’s rejection of alterity was not mopolitan. The same applies to the diverse I thought it would be taking undue ad- simply a matter of rebellion; it was imme- African schools of History.12 vantage of his health condition to raise diately about affirmation. It is instructive, In earlier works, such as his review of these issues on the pages of the for instance, that not one of those who Harold Wolpe’s On the Articulation of CODESRIA Bulletin. In an intellectual purported to contend with him in the ASR Modes of Production, Mafeje (1981) dem- appreciation such as this one these con- ‘debate’ showed an awareness of any- onstrated such profundity as an inter- cerns are worth flagging. Mafeje’s rejec- thing Mafeje wrote before 1991. As men- locutor, decoding the local ‘vernacular’. tion of disciplines, I suspect, derives from tioned earlier, the idea of endogeneity is Added to this was a more conceptually his recognition that to develop a robust about scholarship ‘derived from within’, rigorous handle on what Etienne Balibar analysis of any social phenomenon you and that is not simply a matter of ethnog- meant by ‘social formation’ and why need the analytical skill drawn from a di- raphy. Rather than works of anthropol- Wolpe’s idea of ‘articulation’ is a misread- versity of disciplines. Nevertheless, to ogy, Mafeje’s sole-authored works in the ing of Balibar. Similar capacity is evident reject disciplinarity on such grounds is 1960s (Mafeje 1963, 1967) are works of in his ‘Beyond “Dual Theories” of Eco- to confuse issues of pedagogy with those profound ‘endogeny’. They reflect a nomic Growth’ (Mafeje 1978a:47–73). The of research. While knowledge production strong sociological mindset, combining village (‘traditional’ economy) is intri- is inherently inter-disciplinary, inter- fine field-craft with analytical rigour. For cately linked to the ‘modern’ economy of disciplinarity works because each disci- instance, Mafeje located the imbongi or the cities. Some thirty years after Mafeje’s pline brings its strength to the table of bard in a comparative context, Mafeje critique of the ‘dual economy’ thesis, the knowledge production. We address the (1967:195); he drew comparison with the debate on ‘two economies’ is going on in broad scope of knowledge essential to Celtic bards; an immediate extirpation of South Africa without as much as an ac- rigorous analysis by offering ‘liberal arts alterity that would have marked the knowledgment of his contribution on education’, but in the context of discipli- imbongi as a ‘praise singer’ of a primitive these areas. Similarly, the collection of CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 27 essays in a special issue of Africanus,13 tendency to use third-person pronouns of an acknowledgment of the injustice concerned with a critique of the ‘two as if he was separate from the processes done to all people of colour who went economies’ discourse in South Africa and of history that he was discussing. It is a through the university, as staff or stu- Wolpe’s ‘articulation of modes of produc- style that is quite evident in his last works dents during the period of Apartheid, ac- tion’ as the basis of some of such cri- on Anthropology (Mafeje 1997b, 1998, cepting the honorary degree would be to tiques, did not contain a single reference 2001). It was in those early hours of the individualise what is owed a wider collec- to Mafeje’s works in these areas. morning that I realised that it came from tive. At the individual level, an acknowl- his training as a biologist in the 1950s and edgment of what is being atoned ought For Mafeje: a style of scholarly writing that separates to precede the award, rather than an ob- Afrocentrism is nothing more than a the ‘scientist’ from ‘the object’ of re- lique assumption that it was, ipso facto, legitimate demand that African schol- search. Thinking of Archie as dispassion- an act of atonement. Rather than bitter- ars study their society from inside and ate may be something of an oxymoron, ness, Archie’s rejection was based on prin- cease to be purveyors of an alienated but it is this capacity to see the other side ciple; it was a decision that took him long intellectual discourse... when Africans even when he disagrees with them that I and was hard to reach. A formal apology speak for themselves and about them- detected; it is one that allows him to re- was sent posthumously to the Mafeje selves, the world will hear the authen- lent when he thinks you had a better han- family in South Africa – in a letter dated 5 tic voice, and will be forced to come dle on an idea or issue. It could be argued April 2007 from Professor Njabulo S. to terms with it in the long-run... If we that what I experienced is an instance of Ndebele, the university’s vice chancellor. are adequately Afrocentric the inter- the problem of phenomenological re- national implications will not be lost search: the research subject as a know- Generous and Loyal on the others. (2000:66–7) ing subject, telling the researcher what s/ Archie was as gentle as he was vigorous The resulting product may ‘well lead to he wants to hear; a dissembling key in- in debate. Over dinner, with a glass of red polycentrism rather than homogeneity/ formant. wine and steak in tow, he was a ‘master homogenisation... mutual awareness does First, there was no reason for Archie not craftsman’, but you need to listen care- not breed universalism’ (Mafeje 2000:67). to express very strong feelings about the fully because of his constant reflexivity subject; he is widely acknowledged as a and the subtlety and nuanced nature of A Return to Intimacy victim of institutionalised racism. Hours his discourse. Such reflexivity dots his works: a capacity to argue with and dis- Archie, Bitter? before, we had dined at his preferred res- taurant in Arcadia, Pretoria and we had miss some of his earlier writings (see for Let me end by returning to the personal. engaged in the usual vigorous discussion instance, Mafeje 1971, 1978a, 2001, 2001). One of the things I have heard said about of a range of issues. He won a few, but Many of us who have had the privilege Archie –apart from the tendency to de- got his white wine wrong! Why would he of this encounter will attest to how much scribe his style of writing as ‘gladiatorial’ suddenly go mute on me? The interview of his ideas have shaped our scholarship; – is that he was in the end a bitter man. was not on record – there were no tapes; but that was because he did not expect The same ‘Mafeje scholar’ would claim there was no reason why this most pas- you to treat him as an oracle. Listen, but that he never transcended his being de- sionate of intellectuals should suddenly engage with equal vigour. The age differ- nied the appointment to the University of grow reticent. It was one of the ideas that ence between you and him counted for Cape Town (UCT) in 1968. Archie’s rejec- I wanted to explore before we got to the nothing; he considered you an intellec- tion of an honorary doctorate by the uni- formal, recorded, interviews. tual colleague, and if you are a comrade, versity is offered as an illustration of such he took you even more seriously and de- bitterness and failure to ‘get over’ the 1968 Second, there is independent evidence of manded more of you. In his last few years experience. This was a subject that I ex- such absence of bitterness. A few years he nibbled at his food rather than ate heart- plored in an interview I had with Archie in after the 1968 incident, Archie collabo- ily; the discussions you had seemed to the early hours of 28 October 2007 in Pre- rated with others in a collection of essays fill him more than the food. toria. I asked him for his sense of the 1968 in honour of Monica Wilson (Mafeje experience – I made no reference to any 1975). Michael Whisson was a co-editor Archie was a man of immense generosity characterisation of him regarding that ex- of the volume. Finally, when in February of spirit and loyalty. I would arrive in his perience; just his own sense of the expe- 2007 he raised the issue of his intellectual apartment outside Pretoria to find that he rience. Specifically, I asked for his under- isolation over an intimate dinner, at his had neatly made the bed for me in the standing of the roles of several individu- favourite restaurant in Waterkloof, Preto- guest room, with clean towels and toilet- als and the fact that Michael Whisson ria, it was about the disparity in the rela- ries neatly laid out. After a long evening was the beneficiary of the post he was tive intimacy he enjoyed within the of dining out – and he dined like a denied. What struck me in Archie’s re- CODESRIA community and his intellec- Bedouin – he would engage you in dis- sponse was his immense generosity of tual isolation in South Africa, it was about cussions into the early hours of the morn- spirit towards the individuals who, in his his returning home to exile, not UCT, and ing; never about trivial matters. He would argument, were ‘trapped’ in history – in it was expressed more in sadness than worry whether you were fine, if you terms of institutional constraints and the bitterness. needed coffee or tea. It would be a de- limits of ‘voluntarism’. If there was any light if you shared a glass of red wine, What did Archie have to say for his rejec- then you got down to serious discussion. trace of bitterness, I could not detect it. It tion of the honorary degree? The univer- gave me an insight into a style of his writ- sity’s manner of making amends should The tragedy for all of us, especially in ing that I initially found irritating – the not be simply about him. In the absence South Africa, is that Archie did not die of CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 28

natural causes – he died of intellectual constantly challenged and prodded a new Gough, K., 1968, ‘Anthropology: Child of neglect and isolation. In spite of the enor- generation to think large and engage in Imperialism’, Monthly Review, vol. 19, mous love of his family and loyal, life- issues around us. The policy implications no. 11. long friends, Archie’s oxygen was vigor- are enormous. He was uncompromising Hountondji, P., 1990, ‘Recherche et extraver- ous intellectual engagement. He lived on in demanding that Africans must insist sion: éléments pour une sociologie de la serious, rigorous and relevant scholarship. on their own space; be completely una- science dans les pays de la périphérie’, Africa Starved of that, he simply withered. After bashed in rejecting every form of domi- Development, vol. XV, no. 3/4, pp. 149–58. four decades in exile, he returned home in nation. But averting alterity is not about 2002 to exile. Yet the gradual dissipation being marooned on the tip of criticism; it Hountondji, P.J., 1997, Endogenous Knowledge: of our intangible intellectual heritage in must move from negation to affirmation. Research Trails, Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA. South Africa by our failure to nurture the Ibrahim, J., 1993, ‘History as Iconoclast: Left heritage we have in people like him is not References Stardom and the Debate on Democracy’, limited to him. The twenty-fifth anniver- Adesina, J.O., 1988, ‘Oil, State-Capital and La- CODESRIA Bulletin, no. 1, pp. 17–18. sary of Ruth First’s assassination in bour: Work Relations in the Nigerian Na- Laville, R., 1998, ‘A Critical Review of Maputo passed in August 2007 with few tional Petroleum Corporation’, unpublished “Anthropology and Independent Africans: national acknowledgments. This I find PhD thesis, University of Warwick, Co- Suicide or End of an Era?” by Archie Mafeje’, confounding. If Archie’s passing away ventry, UK. African Sociological Review, vol. 2, no. 1, forces us to rethink how we engage with Adesina, J.O., 2005, ‘Realising the Vision: The pp. 44–50. this heritage we might as yet salvage Discursive and Institutional Challenges of something for a new generation that des- Mafeje, A., 1963, ‘A Chief Visits Town’, Jour- Becoming an African University’, African perately needs intellectual role models, nal of Local Administration Overseas, vol. Sociological Review, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. not just business tycoons. 2, pp. 88–99. 23–39. Mafeje, A., 1967, ‘The Role of the Bard in a Lessons of Mafeje’s Scholarship: Adesina, J.O., 2006, ‘Sociology, Endogeneity, Contemporary African Community’, Jour- Concluding Remarks and the Challenge of Transformation’: An nal of African Languages, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. The lessons that a new generation of Af- Inaugural Lecture delivered at Rhodes 193–223. University, Wednesday 16 August 2006, rican scholars can take from Mafeje’s Mafeje, A., 1971, ‘The Ideology of African Sociological Review, vol. 10, no. 2, scholarship are many. I will mention four: “Tribalism”’, The Journal of Modern pp. 133–50. 1. Deep familiarity with the literature and African Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 253–61. Adesogan, K., 1987, ‘Illumination, Wisdom and subject; Mafeje, A., 1975, ‘Religion, Ideology and Class Development Through Chemistry’: Inau- in South Africa’, in Religion and Social gural Lecture, University of Ibadan, Ibadan. 2. writing; Change in Southern Africa: Anthropological Ajayi, J.F.A. and Falola, T. 2000, Tradition and 3. Immense theoretical rigour; and Essays in Honour of Monica Wilson, ed. M.G. Change in Africa: The essays of J.F. Ade Whisson and M.E. West, Cape Town: Da- 4. An unapologetic and relentless com- Ajayi, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. vid Philip. mitment to Africa. Amadiume, I., 1987, Male Daughters, Female Mafeje, A., 1976, ‘The Problem of Over time, Mafeje moved from being Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Anthropology in Historical Perspective: An proto-Trotskyite (in the tradition of South Society, London: Zed Books. Inquiry into the Growth of the Social Scien- Africa’s Non-European Unity Movement) Amin, S., 1993, ‘History as Iconoclast: A Short ces’, Canadian Journal of African Studies / to being Afrocentric,14 but these were sim- Comment’, CODESRIA Bulletin, no. 2, pp. Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, ply the scaffolding for deep social com- 21–2. vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 307–33. mitment. Noteworthy is that a rejection of Chang, H., 2008, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Mafeje, A., 1978a, Science, Ideology and dogmatism did not result in eclecticism in Free Trade and the Secret History of Development: Three Essays on Mafeje’s hands. You cannot walk away Capitalism, New York: Bloomsbury. Development Theory, Uppsala: Scandinavian from any of his papers without being Institute of African Studies. struck by his voracious intellectual appe- Chimhundu, H., 1992, ‘Early Missionaries and tite and deep familiarity with his field, even the Ethnolinguistic Factor during the “In- Mafeje, A., 1978b, ‘Soweto and Its Aftermath’, when he moved into new fields. He took vention of Tribalism” in Zimbabwe’, The Review of African Political Economy, vol. the field craft seriously and was ‘artisanal’ Journal of African History, vol. 33, no. 1, 5, no. 11, pp. 17–30. in connecting the dots. But more signifi- pp. 87–109. Mafeje, A., 1981, ‘On the Articulation of Mo- cantly, his prodigious intellect was imme- First, R., 1978, ‘After Soweto: A Response’, des of Production: Review Article’, Journal diately grounded in addressing real-life Review of African Political Economy, vol. of Southern African Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, problems; scholarship (however pro- 5, no. 11, pp. 93–100. pp. 123–38. found) must find its relevance in engage- Firth, R., 1972, ‘The Sceptical Anthropologist? Mafeje, A., 1991, The Theory and Ethnography ment. Mafeje’s works on agrarian and Social Anthropology and Marxist Views on of African Social Formations: The Case of land issues, development studies, democ- Society’, Proceedings of the British the Interlacustrine Kingdoms, London: racy and governance, liberation scholar- Academy, vol. LVIII. CODESRIA. ship, African epistemic standpoints, etc., CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 29

Mafeje, A., 1993, ‘On “Icons” and African Pers- Reflections on Archie Mafeje’s Perceptions’, A.L. Epstein, Politics in an Urban African pectives on Democracy: A Commentary on African Sociological Review, vol. 2, no. 1, Community (Manchester, 1958). Jibrin Ibrahim’s Views’, CODESRIA Bulle- pp. 57–66. 6 See the comments of the African reviewers tin, no. 2, pp. 19–21. Ntarangwi, M., Mills, D. and Babiker, M.H.M., to whom Magubane’s paper was sent by the Mafeje, A., 1996, ‘A Commentary on eds, 2006, African Anthropologies: History, editor of Current Anthropology. Onoge, who Anthropology and Africa’, CODESRIA Critique, and Practice, London: Zed Books. met Magubane in the US, described him as Bulletin, no. 2, pp. 6–13. ‘the most exciting African sociologist’ of Nzegwu, N., 2005, ‘Questions of Identity and the time (Onoge 1977 [1971]). Mafeje, A., 1997a, ‘The Anthropology and Inheritance: A Critical Review of Kwame Ethnophilosophy of African Literature’, Anthony Appiah’s In My Father’s House’ 7. Cf. http://www.powerset.com/explore/ Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. in African Gender Studies: A Reader, ed. O. semhtml/Bantoid_langages. Also see http:// 17, pp. 6–21. Oyìw ùmí, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, www.ethnologue.org/. pp. 355–79. Mafeje, A., 1997b, ‘Who are the Makers and 8. Tiyambe Zeleza has documented his own Objects of Anthropology? A Critical Com- Onoge, O.F., 1977, ‘Revolutionary Imperatives experience of the silencing of alternative ment on Sally Falk Moore’s Anthropology in African Sociology’ in African Social voices to Mbembe’s monologue. The and Africa’, African Sociological Review, Studies: A Radical Reader, ed. P.C.W. institutional dimensions drove CODESRIA vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–15. Gutkind and P. Waterman, London: Heine- to the precipice of extinction. For the mann, pp. 32–43. relentless protection of our patrimony, Mafeje, A., 1998, ‘Anthropology and generations of African social scientists will Independent Africans: Suicide or End of an Oyìw ùmí, O., 1997, The Invention of Women: owe Mahmood Mamdani, the CODESRIA Era?’ African Sociological Review, vol. 2, Making an African Sense of Western Gender President at the time, a world of gratitude. no. 1, pp. 1–43. Discourses, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,. 9. This distinction is, of course, relative. Mafeje, A., 2000, ‘Africanity: A Combative Kathleen Gough was born in 1925 while Ontology’, CODESRIA Bulletin, no. 1, pp. Vilakazi, A.L., 1965, ‘“Toward a Sociology of Raymond Firth in 1901. The distinction is 66–71. Africa”: A Comment’, Social Forces, vol. more one of relative accretion to ‘classical 44, no. 1, pp. 113–15. Mafeje, A., 2001, ‘Africanity: A Commentary anthropology’. by way of Conclusion’, CODESRIA Bulle- Wilson, M., and Mafeje, A. 1963, Langa: A 10. Retired professor of Organic Chemistry, tin, no. 3 & 4, pp. 14–16. Study of Social Groups in an African University of Ibadan (Ibadan, Nigeria). Township, Cape Town and New York: Ox- Mafeje, A., and Nabudere, D.W. 2001, African ford University Press. 11. The similarity included the mode of self- Social Scientists’ Reflections, Nairobi: appointment, being arbiter and conveyer Heinrich Böll Foundation. Notes of public opinion, etc. In this Mafeje Magubane, B., 1971, ‘A Critical Look at Indices 1. Jimi O. Adesina is Professor of Sociology at registered a disagreement with the claim by Used in the Study of Social Change in Colo- Rhodes University, South Africa. He is the eminent linguist, A.C. Jordan, that the nial Africa’, Current Anthropology, vol. 12, engaged in a research project that explores imbongi has no ‘parallel ... in Western no. 4/5, pp. 419–45. the works of Archie Mafeje and Bernard poetry’. In the same breadth Mafeje pointed Magubane, B., 2000, African Sociology: Magubane, under the rubrics of Exile, to the non-hereditary nature of the imbongi Towards a Critical Perspective: The Endogeneity and Modern Sociology in in contrast with the European bards. Selected Essays of Bernard Makhosezwe South Africa. 12. See Toyin Falola’s (2000) collection of J.F. Magubane, Trenton, NJ: Africa World 2. Quoting Mao Zedong via Kwesi K. Prah. Ade Ajayi’s papers for insights into the Press. methodological and epistemological issues 3. The shift from first-name term of Moore, S.F., 1994, Anthropology and Africa: that shaped the Ibadan School of History. endearment to formal academic reference Changing Perspectives on a Changing Onwuka Dike was the founder and inspira- is also because while the earlier part is Scene, Charlottesville: University Press of tion of the school. personal, this and the following sections are Virginia. more concerned with breaking academic 13. Volume 37, Number 2, 2007. Africanus is a Moore, S.F., 1996, ‘Concerning Archie Mafeje bread with a progenitor. journal of Development Studies published Future’s Reinvention of Anthropology and by the UNISA (University of South Africa) 4. Much of the claims of taking on Mafeje, Africa’, CODESRIA Bulletin, no. 3, pp. 20–3. Press. especially Sally Moore’s, failed to Moore, S.F., 1998, ‘Archie Mafeje’s Prescrip- acknowledge this; see further on this later 14. My appreciation to Thandika Mkandawire, tions for the Academic Future’, African in this paper. an enduring mwalimu, in this regard. Sociological Review, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 50–7. 5 J.C., Mitchell, The Kalela Dance (Rhodes- Nkwi, P.N., 1998, ‘The Status of Anthropology Livingstone Papers No. 27, Lusaka, 1956); in Post-independent Africa: Some CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 30

Mafeje and Langa: The Start of an Intellectual’s Journey

rchie Mafeje’s contribution to unsympathetic to the difficulties Simons Monica Wilson’s research faced, and the council was persuaded to Aproject in the township of Langa John Sharp change its decision in 1957 (although by in Cape Town was crucial. Wilson em- University of Pretoria then it was no longer possible for Simons ployed Mafeje as the project’s field re- South Africa to take the research leave for which he searcher from late 1961 to mid-1962. He had applied earlier).6 worked very hard in this capacity, explain- Wilson’s main difficulty in this period was ing – in a letter to Wilson – that, particu- barking on a broadly similar project among the Social Research Council’s rigid insist- larly in the early part of his field research, the so-called ‘coloured’ inhabitants of the ence on the submission of regular he had hardly left Langa before midnight city and its immediate environs.3 This ‘ra- progress reports as the key to renewed on any of his research days.1 cial’ division of labour may not have been research funding. This insistence evi- Mafeje’s long hours in the field provided uppermost in the researchers’ minds at dently drove her close to despair, and she Wilson with the detailed case studies of the outset, but it soon came to be ac- considered throwing in the towel on her life in Langa that had been sorely lacking cepted that UCT was studying the Afri- portion of the project on several occa- before he came along. He also provided can population of Cape Town, and sions in the late 1950s.7 The problem was acute insight into the ways the different Stellenbosch its coloured inhabitants. the extraordinary difficulty of finding a categories of residents related to each The Stellenbosch researchers included suitable researcher to conduct detailed other, and their views and opinions of Professor R.W. Wilcocks, who was well field research in Langa. Wilson may have each other. He introduced her to the terms known for his part in the Carnegie Com- compounded the difficulty by her appar- – such as ‘ooscuse me’, ‘ooMac’, and mission of Inquiry into the so-called ‘Poor ent insistence that any researcher had to ‘iibari’ – the residents in these various White Problem’ in the 1930s, the sociolo- have a Cambridge – or, at a pinch, an Ox- categories used to refer to each other, pro- gists S.P. Cilliers and Erika Theron, and ford – background in order to qualify as viding sensitive explanations of their con- the anthropologist (or volkekundige) J.P. suitable. She managed to employ the Cam- notations, and when and where they were Bruwer.4 There is nothing in the record bridge-trained A.R.W. Crosse-Upcott, used or not used. (in the Wilson papers in the UCT Archive) who had some experience of fieldwork in to suggest that there were any tensions rural Tanganyika, for twenty-one months The Langa Project 8 between the two sets of researchers on between mid-1955 and the end of 1957. The Langa project had been in consider- personal or explicitly political grounds But after he left the project, to take up a able trouble before Mafeje was recruited (although the Afrikaner Nationalists had permanent position in Tanganyika, as field researcher. It had actually com- taken over the government in 1948 and Wilson went through a list of potential menced as early as 1954, shortly after were beginning, slowly, to elaborate the fieldworkers, only to be disappointed by Wilson’s own appointment as Professor policy of apartheid). But there were signs her failure to engage their services. One of Social Anthropology at the University of divergence over objectives and meth- of the people she tried, without success, of Cape Town (UCT). The project had ods of research between the two parties. to involve in the project was John been conceived as a study of African ur- The UCT researchers saw their endeav- Middleton, recently graduated from Ox- banisation in Cape Town, and it was an ours as being of the nature of pure re- ford, who provided relief-teaching in An- interdisciplinary endeavour involving Pro- search, and Wilson, in particular, laid great thropology for a period when Wilson was fessor Jack Simons from the School of emphasis on the necessity for detailed, on sabbatical leave. African Life and Languages and Dr Sheila qualitative inquiry. The Stellenbosch re- Wilson was to send Mafeje to Cambridge van der Horst of the university’s Depart- searchers, on the other hand, seemed in 1966, after he had completed a Masters ment of Economics. Wilson was to con- more inclined to think in terms of policy degree in Social Anthropology at UCT tribute an ethnographic study of contem- research, and to deploy the more rapid under her supervision. In 1961 he was in porary urban life, Simons a history of the research techniques they deemed ap- his final year of a BA degree, with majors African presence in the city (with a spe- propriate to this end.5 in Social Anthropology and Psychology cial focus on the changing legal constraints Wider political circumstances impacted (he already held a BSc degree from UCT). on this presence), and Van der Horst a Mafeje passed his Anthropology success- study of African industrial workers.2 on the project when the National Council for Social Research refused, in 1955, to fully at the end of 1961, but failed the final Wilson and her colleagues faced several fund a period of research leave for Jack examination in Psychology. He told difficulties with regard to the project in Simons on the grounds that the National Wilson he was furious at the lack of self- the course of the 1950s. Funding was se- Party government had declared him a discipline he had shown in approaching cured from the state’s National Council ‘listed’ person (because of his commu- this final examination, not least because for Social Research in 1954, but the coun- nist sympathies). The UCT researchers he was obliged to take time off from the cil insisted that the UCT researchers were incensed at this obstructionism, but Langa research in order to prepare for the should link up with a team of University their Stellenbosch counterparts were not supplementary examination – which he of Stellenbosch researchers that was em- negotiated successfully – early in 1962.9 CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 31

The quality of the information Mafeje ac- less detail than the church leaders), and revolution in the wake of national libera- quired in the field is best understood by he warned that since the leaders of the tion (Kayser & Adhikari 2004:5). The Cape comparing his findings with those of women’s groups he had encountered were Peninsula branch of SOYA had at least a Crosse-Upcott. In a rather defensive re- ‘both articulate and aggressive, investi- hundred members by the end of the 1950s, sponse to a request from UCT’s Principal gation of their affairs must proceed with drawn from working youth in the city’s in 1959 for a yet another progress report, caution’.13 townships and students at tertiary insti- Wilson explained that Crosse-Upcott ‘dis- tutions such as the University of Cape liked town work, and though he worked Mafeje’s Field Research Town (Kayser & Adhikari 2004:9). It is hard he did not prove as good an urban Crosse-Upcott may have become less therefore likely that Mafeje was known to field worker as he had been in a remote hesitant as he proceeded further with his some of Langa’s younger residents in this district’. He left her ‘560 pages of typed field research, but Wilson still noted in capacity, although he may have sought notes, reporting his observations and in- 1959 that he had ‘failed to collect material not to draw too much attention to his link terviews’, but she complained that ‘the on various topics (e.g. kinship and the to SOYA when dealing with the relatively great difficulty in anthropological re- groups of “homeboys”) on which I large number of middle-class, ‘ooscuse search is that it is almost impossible for pressed for information’.14 Mafeje sup- me’ people in the township, who were one investigator to make much use of plied material on these issues in abun- more likely – on the basis of Crosse- field material collected by someone else’.10 dance, as shown by the letters he ex- Upcott’s comments – to have been aligned with the ANC. The small portion of Crosse-Upcott’s changed with Wilson during his field re- tome that I have examined – an eleven- search, and the relevant parts of the even- On the other hand, this link may have page report on the first nine months of tual book. In my opinion the best part of stood him in good stead with the migrant his field research – gives some indication Langa is the one dealing with the ‘six workers in the so-called ‘barracks’ in the of why Wilson should have come to these “home-boy” groups’ (Wilson & Mafeje township, and with at least some of the conclusions.11 He appears to have been 1963:56–73), particularly insofar as it was residents of the ‘zones’ (the intermediate very tentative in his approach to the resi- able to compare the histories of these area – between the barracks and the ‘re- dents of Langa, fearing that – aside from groups on the basis of when their respec- spectable’ family housing – where many, the ‘leading personalities’ with whom he tive members first arrived in Cape Town not-quite-‘middle-class’ people still re- conducted ‘private interviews’ – they and the social class they achieved in the tained strong links with the Eastern Cape were bound to regard him with animosity. city. And I would go further to say that countryside). In the wake of the His report referred to the need to avoid the chapters of the book in which Mafeje’s Sharpeville shootings, the Langa upris- ‘arousing concerted opposition from po- hand is most evident as field worker (such ing, and the march on Cape Town by tentially hostile quarters’, as well as ‘pub- as those on ‘Home boys’, ‘Kinsmen’, and 30,000 people in March 1960, the NEUM licity that would enable extremists to sabo- ‘Arbitration in Disputes’) are far more constituents decided to launch a new or- tage the survey’. Why he believed that convincing than those that relied largely ganisation to take advantage of what they Langa was peopled by ‘extremists’ who on Crosse-Upcott’s efforts (‘Churches’ regarded as the ‘pre-revolutionary’ con- were necessarily ‘hostile’ in the mid-1950s and ‘Clubs’). Mafeje was clearly able to ditions that had arisen in the country. is hard to say. Wilson observed later that give Wilson much more ethnographic Mafeje was one of the founder members ‘at the time of the investigation what the detail with which to work than his pred- of the African Peoples’ Democratic Un- inhabitants of Langa regarded as a case ecessor had managed. ion of Southern Africa (APDUSA), formed of corruption by a European (official) was Mafeje was, of course, an ‘insider’ in a at a secret meeting in the Cape Peninsula being discussed everywhere’, but she way Crosse-Upcott could never have in January 1961 (Kayser & Adhikari gave this as the reason why some of the been. This was not only because was he 2004:5). APDUSA was intended to realise things people had said to Crosse-Upcott a native Xhosa-speaker, like most of the the NEUM’s objective of a non-racial were ‘probably libellous’, not as a pointer residents of Langa, but also because of struggle to overthrow white supremacy to the fact that they would not speak to his political activism, which one doubts and achieve national liberation as a prel- him at all.12 he kept entirely to himself in the field. In ude to a socialist revolution. It sought to forge an alliance between the urban pro- Crosse-Upcott began his study of social the 1950s he had been associated with letariat and the rural ‘peasantry’ to this groups in the township by looking at the the Society of Young Africa (SOYA), a end, and therefore made the issue of land churches, on the grounds that they were youth organisation affiliated to the All- redistribution in the countryside central ‘strong, friendly, and sophisticated’. His African Convention (AAC), which had to its programme. report divided the churches into ‘estab- been founded in the mid-1930s to mobi- lished’ and ‘independent’ categories, and lise popular opposition to Herzog’s seg- APDUSA’s programme was elaborated then spent a good deal of time explaining regationist bills (Kayser & Adhikari over time, of course, particularly at and that this ‘demarcation is blurred’, to such 2004:8). The AAC had joined forces with after its first National Conference in 1962 an extent that even the ‘ultra-conserva- other movements in the 1940s to form the (Kayser & Adhikari 2004:9). This means tive African priesthood of the Anglicans’ Non-European Unity Movement that, even if he had wanted to do so, shared much of the ‘nationalistic outlook (NEUM), which positioned itself to the Mafeje may not have been in a position typical of the “independent” Churches’. left of the African National Congress to discuss its finer points with the migrant This same outlook was also to be found (ANC) at the time, insofar as it took an workers and members of the ‘home-boy’ among the leaders of the sporting, rec- avowedly non-racial stance from the out- groups in Langa during his field research reational, occupational and commercial set, and envisaged a struggle for freedom in late 1961 and early 1962. Yet the gen- groups whom he had interviewed (in much that would necessarily involve a socialist eral thrust of the programme, and particu- CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 32 larly its focus on migrant workers as the between them, that she regarded Mafeje respectively, are often not marked off bridge between proletariat and peasantry, in exactly this light, and one may specu- by a comma from the principal clauses seem evident in the interest Mafeje took late that he was the student on whom she they precede. When a complex sen- in the circumstances of the residents of honed her skill in this regard. Wilson cer- tence is introduced by a relative the Langa barracks, and the detailed case tainly let him know how impressed she clause instead of the principal clause, histories of the ‘home-boy’ groupings he was with his field reports, but did so in the two clauses are always separated passed on to Wilson. His careful noting subtle ways, often combining praise with by a comma. … I found the same thing of which of these ‘home boys’ still had an injunction to expand his interpretation in the use of ‘but’, introducing an ad- access to rural land, even if they had of events or go back to the field to seek versative clause or to express mere spent a great many years working in the further detail.17 More explicit praise for his contrast. ‘But’ introducing the above mentioned clauses is always pre- city, may have had a significance for him efforts, and open acknowledgement that ceded by a comma unless, by doing far beyond what Wilson read into it. they were vital to her attempt to rescue so, the writer gets the feeling of ‘over- the Langa project from the doldrums in But it is important to bear in mind that, his stopping’.20 which it had landed in the late 1950s, she personal credibility in Langa notwith- reserved for her communications with Mafeje was also direct in his response to standing, Mafeje was also a student who other people.18 broad political issues that arose in Wil- had only just completed his undergradu- son’s text. Referring to a passage in the ate studies in Anthropology, as well as a The part of privileged student was not draft of the chapter on ‘Classes and Lead- neophyte field researcher working under always easy to play. Exactly how much ers’ (Chapter 7), Mafeje wrote sharply ‘You a professor whom he clearly regarded intimacy was being granted by one’s describe Noni Jabavu’s book “Drawn in with considerable respect. At this stage, distinguished mentor? This question Colour” as admirable. From what point of and for a good many years after this, seems, on occasion, to have exercised view is it so? One critic, an African writer Mafeje indicated to Wilson that social Mafeje. and nationalist, remarked that the book is anthropology was his chosen field and, 15 I would be very pleased if you could “thoroughly drenched with snobbery”.… indeed, his ‘calling’. He also gave evi- I also do not like the tone of the book. It is dence of a deep regard, both professional tell me what you feel about this work riddled with sentimentalism, and its con- and personal, for his mentor. He wrote, and things in general. To be honest, I am anxious to hear from you. Silence descending attitude is simply nauseat- for instance, in response to Wilson’s com- from you affects me very unfavour- ing’. 21 What Wilson made of this spirited ments on one of his field reports, that ably. The fact that you are my profes- sally one does not know, but it is notice- It is very important for me to hear your sor cannot be overlooked. I enjoy able that she made no reference to the comments because, as it happens, out doing this work only if you are pleased ‘admirable’ character of Jabavu’s work in of the many people through whose or satisfied with it. I should imagine the final text, and mentioned her book hands I have gone, you are one of the this would be the attitude of any stu- only in a footnote.22 few I do not only approve of but also dent. Now, as it were, I am not certain whether one could really speak to On the other hand, at the end of his com- have complete faith and trust in. This mentary, Mafeje gave Wilson’s text his explains, love for social anthropology one’s professor as I am doing at the unstinting approval. aside, the tremendous pleasure I de- moment. Anyway, I hope you will un- 19 rive in working for you. You might not derstand my position. believe me when I tell you that, at the These personal exchanges are, I think, Other than the few points I have present moment, there is nothing I essential background to an appreciation raised, I am satisfied with the exposi- enjoy more than working on the Langa of Mafeje’s response to the manuscript tion of facts in this work. I am also in 16 study. of the Langa book, which Wilson gave agreement with the fundamental ideas Mafeje was 24 years old when he wrote him for comment prior to its publication. expressed – that is, at no time did I find myself forced to compromise my this effusive passage at the start of the Wilson wrote the text on her own, draw- ideas. I am particularly pleased about 1960s. As another of Wilson’s students ing on the field reports by Crosse-Upcott this because I look at this study as (a decade later), I can empathise with the and Mafeje, but she acknowledged the purely scientific work which has noth- latter’s contribution by publishing the sentiments he expressed in it, sensing that ing to do with what white or black na- book as a joint endeavour. Mafeje was he was responding to the intriguing com- tionalists feel or think. It grieves me bination of scholarly erudition, regal bear- forthright in pointing to mistakes in areas to think that under present conditions ing and personal vulnerability that was – such as the correct spelling and use of the[re are] certain truths which, manifested in the way she related to jun- Xhosa terms – where his knowledge was though demonstrable, cannot be ior colleagues in whom she took an inter- clearly superior to hers. He was similarly stated.23 est. My reference to ‘junior colleagues’ is direct in dealing with her notoriously way- intentional since, in my experience, ward spelling and syntax in English. The Such wholehearted approbation gives Wilson made a point of treating the argu- didactic tone he adopted in these in- pause for thought. In the light of his sub- ments and observations of students in stances is self-conscious, and no doubt sequent, and well-known, reservations whom she saw promise with great seri- afforded him more than a little satisfaction. about the whole ‘acculturation’ paradigm ousness, giving them the impression that in anthropology (of which the book on they had been admitted to an inner circle I found this chapter very weak in Langa was clearly part), why should he punctuation. Adverbial clauses of of fellow professionals (or at least pro- have praised Wilson’s text in this fash- condition, time, and concession in- fessionals in-the-making). It is clear, from ion? Why should he have been able to troduced by ‘if’, ‘when’ and ‘though’, the correspondence concerning Langa express severe criticism of Jabavu’s ‘con- CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 33 descending’ views about the thin veneer eralised solidarity of kinship, was given ing’ black South Africans in Christianity of ‘civilisation’ she encountered among added weight by the presence of so-called in particular, and ‘civilisation’ in general. the people of Uganda (Jabavu 1960), and ‘middle class’ (or ‘ooscuse me’) people in The Transkei studies provided the yet have overlooked Wilson’s notorious this township in far greater numbers than vantage from which to give an alternative conclusion that ‘the innumerable asso- in other, similar areas with which she and account of Langa. They allowed Mafeje ciations of the modern African townships Mafeje were familiar. Moreover many of to make two crucial points. One (which (such as Langa) may, indeed, be seen as a these people would doubtless have en- was well-known from Mayer’s work in school for civilisation’, where Africans dorsed her liberal insistence that there was East London, but was not clearly spelt ostensibly ‘gained experience in the or- nothing, apart from the white govern- out in Langa) was that the Christian–pa- ganisation of groups which are no longer ment’s intransigence, that could have pre- gan (or School–Red) division was a long- based on kinship and which are part of a vented this wholesale transition to ‘civi- standing rural phenomenon (Mayer 1963). money economy’ (Wilson & Mafeje lisation’ from succeeding. The other was that, in the Transkei settle- 1963:179)? ments he studied, adherents of the inde- Rethinking Langa The evidence on the relationship between pendent churches were looked down on Mafeje and Wilson persuades me that one The flaw in this conviction was easy to by established-church Christians and pa- cannot reasonably ascribe the former’s identify when confronted with Jabavu’s gans alike. Even the All Saints Mission praise for the Langa draft to mere dis- views about faraway Uganda, but it was Station, indeed, constituted a social en- simulation. I do not think one can say that probably much more difficult for Mafeje, vironment in which Anglicans and pagans Mafeje indicated his agreement with ‘the at this early stage, to make his own ob- regarded each other with a strong meas- fundamental ideas expressed’ simply for servations in Langa speak to the same ure of respect, in part because this dis- strategic reasons – in order either to flat- objection. He returned explicitly to this tinction did not correspond, anywhere ter Wilson or to avoid criticising her. Nor issue only in 1975, in his contribution to near as clearly as in Langa, with social do I think it would be fair to either party Wilson’s Festschrift (Whisson & West class and standing. Moreover the ‘Red’ to suggest that Mafeje sought refuge in 1975). By this time, of course, he had his pagans at the mission station were con- the idea that the Langa manuscript was own Cambridge PhD under his belt, had scious, and proud, of their paganism. ‘purely scientific work’ that had ‘nothing been through the chastening experience Mafeje argued that they were ‘militant’ to do with what black nationalists think’. of the ‘Mafeje affair’ at the University of pagans, who deliberately refused to suc- This particular comment was in many Cape Town, and had been joined in inter- cumb to the self-alienation they saw ways a straightforward statement of his rogating the shortcomings of liberal among their Christian neighbours, and in personal position, since he was never – South African anthropology by compa- this respect they stood in contrast to the either then or in his subsequent career – triots-in-exile such as Bernard Magubane ‘defensive’ pagans of the outlying settle- a narrow African nationalist. One of his (1973). Moreover the field research ment he studied, who – in the absence of admirable characteristics was that he re- Mafeje had undertaken in the Transkei in in-their-faces antagonists – were merely mained true, throughout his life, to the the mid-1960s gave him deeper insight waiting disconsolately for the tidal wave principles of the NEUM and the African into circumstances in Langa, and his con- of ‘western’ civilisation to break over them Peoples’ Democratic Union, particularly tribution to Religion and Social Change (Mafeje 1975:177–84). regarding the importance of non-racial- turned on a comparison between these His Transkei observations allowed ism and the need for the liberation strug- two field sites. Mafeje to supplement the initial questions gle to continue beyond the first phase of Viewed on its own, Langa seemed to be about the character of social groups and national revolution. Fifteen years beyond an exemplification of the ‘modernisation’ the types of churches in Langa (which he the end of apartheid in South Africa, his story Wilson had sought to tell. Many of acknowledged had been ‘inane’) with an long-standing insistence on these princi- the migrant workers, who were at the bot- attempt to grasp what Christianity meant ples looks ever more appealing. tom of the social hierarchy (and at the for people in the different social classes But in the early 1960s, one may venture spatial margins of the township), were evident in Langa (Mafeje 1975:167). He to suggest, Mafeje had not yet worked reported still to be pagans. Most of the emphasised that there were both pagans out how to bring the principles derived urban residents, on the other hand, were and Christians among the migrant work- from his political activism to bear on his identified as Christians, but they fell into ers in the barracks, pointing out that if standing as a beginning anthropologist. two categories in which there was a cor- the pagans appeared in any way apolo- His contribution to the Langa project relation between social class and the getic about their beliefs this was because through his field research was masterly, ‘types’ of church to which people be- they, like their Christian counterparts, but it would take him another decade and longed. The ‘respectable’, middle-class were at the bottom of the township’s more to arrive at a position from which he people belonged mainly to the established socio-economic hierarchy. There was lit- could use this field research to formulate churches, while the less respectable, tle space for militant paganism in Langa. a convincing counter to Wilson’s liberal lower-class urban residents adhered to On the other hand, however, there were interpretation of his and Crosse-Upcott’s one or other of the independent churches many merely nominal Christians, particu- findings. Wilson’s argument that the ba- in Langa. Wilson’s intention was, no larly among the township’s youth, who sis of social cohesion among Langa resi- doubt, to provide a more subtle account were contemptuous of the Christian pi- dents was undergoing a radical transition than this, but one could certainly read into ety displayed by their elders, whether from ascription to achievement, and that the text of Langa a very straightforward aligned with the established or the inde- social groups based on common interest story about the sequence of steps by pendent churches. In his reconsideration were replacing those grounded in the gen- which the urban encounter was ‘school- of the material, Mafeje clearly found these CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 34 young people the most interesting cat- the Anthropology Department at the Uni- ies, even when, in later years, he explic- egory of the general population, mainly versity of Cape Town in 1968.24 At the itly turned his back on the notion that he because they – like the militant pagans in height of this crisis, Wilson wrote to was an anthropologist (Mafeje 1998a, the countryside – had come closest to Mafeje in Cambridge to suggest that he 1998b). What he objected to about an- realising that Christian piety went hand- might wish to consider turning the job thropology was not its methods of re- in-hand with the ‘respectable’ people’s down, because the South African gov- search or the evidence that could be pro- willingness to mimic white, middle-class ernment’s hostile reaction to his initial duced by careful participant observation. civilisation in all respects, and to ignore appointment indicated that any career he Even at his most critical he took care to the obvious contradictions, as well as the might have at the university would be endorse the value of this form of inquiry costs in terms of ‘self-alienation’, in- neither easy nor of long duration. relative to others. In this respect, one may volved in doing so. Mafeje’s reply was solicitous and firm. He say, he remained faithful to Wilson’s in- regretted the difficult situation in which junction that any attempt to understand Mafeje’s contribution to Wilson’s Wilson had been placed on his account, the circumstances of people in Africa re- Festschrift was, in my opinion, the best but he also declined the idea of withdraw- quired first-hand inquiry into what they piece in an otherwise pedestrian collec- ing from the job.25 For many years after made of these circumstances themselves. tion. This was, in large measure, because this he continued to address Wilson in he succeeded in introducing many of the What Mafeje objected to, by contrast, was his letters as ‘Aunt Monica’. principles of his political activism into his an anthropology in which particular epis- reconsideration of the Langa field mate- temological assumptions – which he in- Speaking Truth to Power rial. By 1975 he had clearly worked out variably characterised as ‘Western’ – were how to formulate academic questions that In the light of his later writings, we have allowed to overwhelm whatever it was were firmly grounded in his political con- become accustomed to the idea of Archie that people on the ground had to say victions, and he did this by showing that Mafeje as a scholar who spoke truth, un- about the conditions in which they found some of the people in Langa, and indeed failingly, to power. The value of the archi- themselves. In this article, I have shown also (and perhaps particularly) in the val material relating to his early career is how he developed his argument on this Transkei, came close to sharing his un- that it shows that he had to work hard to score in his early research in Langa. Lib- derstanding that a social order grounded develop the skill to be able to do this. He eral observers such as Wilson suggested in racial capitalism – not simply ‘white did not criticise the Langa manuscript on that Africans in towns had embarked on a domination’ – constituted the major prob- substantive or theoretical grounds in the process of social transformation that lem facing black South Africans. early 1960s. The fact that he did not do so would remake them, ever more closely was not an indication that he was unwill- over time, in the image of ‘Western civili- Does ‘social change’ or ‘being civilised’ ing to criticise his mentor, or that he had sation’. This was not in all senses incor- mean, unambiguously, being assimi- not yet arrived at the political principles rect, since these observers would have lated into the white middle-class cos- that guided his later work. His endorse- been able to point to people in places such mic view? What will it take for that view ment of the manuscript suggests, rather, as Langa who believed that they were to transcend itself? (Mafeje 1975:184) that he had not worked out how to mar- undergoing this process of refashioning Mafeje looked, in this context, to what he shal the findings of his field research in themselves. But the crucial point, at which hoped was the growing influence of the Langa in a way that would allow him to Mafeje had arrived by the mid-1970s, was militant urban youth, and the militant pa- support his political convictions by that this was by no means true of all the gans in the countryside, for the answer means of his anthropology. His contribu- residents of Langa. This insight allowed to his questions. Whether the answer still tion to Religion and Social Change him to distinguish between ‘assimilation’ lies in these particular categories of the shows, on the other hand, that he had as an analytical framework (which he, like population is, no doubt, a subject for con- found a way to do this by the mid-1970s. Magubane, rejected outright), and ‘as- temporary debate. But the questions he The start of Mafeje’s intellectual journey similation’ as an ideology to which some posed remain as pertinent today as they therefore tells us several important things. people in Langa undoubtedly subscribed. were a quarter-century and more ago. One is that it requires time, and careful It also allowed him to argue that their ad- herence to this ideology was something Mafeje’s reformulation of the Langa ma- reflection, to be able to speak truth to power that had to be explained by means of a terial marked a formal, and obvious, break effectively. Another important insight is more acceptable analytical approach, giv- with the teachings of his distinguished that while speaking truth to power calls ing rise to his insistence that many of the mentor. Yet this break was achieved with- for hard and uncompromising intellectual ‘respectable’ residents of the township out any hint of hostility or rancour. One argument, it does not require personal had become caught in the contradictions might reasonably expect no such hint to animosity towards, or the denial of respect of a form of nationalism that encouraged be apparent in a contribution to a book for, those with whom one comes to argue. them to mimic ‘Europeans’ in order to dem- intended to honour Monica Wilson and A third lesson, on which I wish to dwell onstrate that they were every bit as good, her scholarship. But it is also the case for a moment in concluding this article, is and as sophisticated, as the latter were pur- that there is no evidence of any parting that the act of speaking such truth is most ported to be. of personal ways in the private corre- effective, in the case of an anthropolo- spondence between Wilson and Mafeje gist, when it is grounded in a sophisti- Mafeje knew that the presence of such in the 1960s and 1970s. Their regard for cated understanding of one’s own eth- people had to be acknowledged. But he each other survived the ordeal to which it nography. In this respect I am struck by also knew that it was necessary to show, was subjected during the abortive attempt the fact that Mafeje always insisted on as Wilson and other liberal anthropolo- to appoint him to a teaching position in the importance of his ethnographic inquir- gists had not, that there were others in CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 35

Langa who had not succumbed to these 5. BC 880, K1.1, Wilson to T.B. Davie, 17 24. UCT Libraries, Manuscripts and Archives contradictions, and were on the road to May 1954. Division, Sir Richard Luyt Papers, BC 1072, Mafeje Affair 1968, B2. overcoming them. Liberal anthropology 6. BC 880, K1.1, Minutes of a Meeting of the could accommodate a narrative of Afri- Supervisory Committee, 3 June 1957; Wil- 25. BC 880, Correspondence, K1. can liberation based on assimilation, but son to UCT Principal, 6 October 1959. it could not recognise the voices of the References people who challenged the assumptions 7. BC 880, K1.1, Minutes of a Meeting of the Jabavu, N., 1960, Drawn in Colour: African on which this narrative rested. Liaison Committee for Research on Non- Europeans in the Western Cape, 18 August Contrasts. London: John Murray. Mafeje objected to this kind of anthro- 1956; Minutes of a Meeting of the Kayser, R. & Adhikari, M., 2004, ‘Peasant and pology because anthropology was the dis- Supervisory Committee, 3 June 1957; Wil- Proletarian: A History of the African cipline he knew best – the one he had said son to UCT Principal, 6 October 1959. Peoples’ Democratic Union of South was his ‘calling’ at the outset of his profes- Africa’, Kleio, 36: 5–27. sional career. Had he had cause to express 8. BC 880, K1.1, Wilson to UCT Principal, 6 himself with equal fervour in respect of October 1959. Mafeje, A., 1975, ‘Religion, Class and Ideology other disciplines, he would no doubt have 9. BC 880, K1.2, Mafeje to Wilson, 20 in South Africa’, in M. Whisson & M. West found the epistemological premises of their January 1962. (eds). Religion and Social Change in Southern Africa: Anthropological Essays liberal versions as objectionable as those 10. See note 8. of liberal anthropology. What clearly dis- in Honour of Monica Wilson. Cape Town: tressed him in later years was the attempt 11. BC880, K1.1, A.R.W. Crosse-Upcott, David Philip & London: Rex Colling, by African scholars to resuscitate a form of Progress Report on a Survey of Langa pp. 164–84. African Township, July 1955–March 1956. anthropology that had evidently learnt Mafeje, A., 1998a, ‘Anthropology and Independent nothing from his own confrontation with 12. BC 880, K1.1, Wilson to UCT Principal, 6 Africans: Suicide or End of an Era?’, African liberal thinking, and that sought – from a October 1959. Sociological Review, 2(1): 1–43. position of self-imposed disadvantage – 13. See note 11. Mafeje, A., 1998b, ‘Conversations and Confron- to mimic ‘Western’ academic orthodoxy. tations with my Reviewers’, African 14. See note 12. Sociological Review, 2(2): 95–107. Notes 15. BC 880, K1.2, Mafeje to Wilson, 13 February Magubane, B., 1973, ‘The “Xhosa in Town” 1. University of Cape Town, Manuscripts and 1962. Revisited: Urban Social Anthropology – A Archives Division, Godfrey and Monica 16. BC 880, K1.2, Mafeje to Wilson, 20 Failure in Theory and Method’, American Wilson Papers, BC 880 (hereafter BC 880), January 1962. Anthropologist, 75(5): 1701–15. Correspondence with Archie Mafeje re 17. BC 880, K1.2, Wilson to Mafeje (undated). Research 1960–1, K1.2 (hereafter K1.2), Mayer, P. (with I. Mayer), 1963, Townsmen or Mafeje to Wilson, 22 July 1961. 18. BC 880, K1.1, Wilson to Secretary, National Tribesmen: Conservatism and the Process Council for Social Research, 20 June 1962. of Urbanisation in a South African City., 2. BC 880, Proposals, correspondence, reports Cape Town: Oxford University Press. 1953–1962, K1.1 (hereafter K1.1), 19. BC 880, K1.2, Mafeje to Wilson, 18 Proposal to the National Council for Social January 1962. Whisson, M. & West, W. (eds), 1975, Religion and Social Change in Southern Africa: Research (NCSR), 29 March 1954. 20. BC 880, K1.2, A. Mafeje, Comments on the Anthropological Essays in Honour of 3. BC 880, K1.1, NCSR to University of Cape Manuscript (undated). Monica Wilson. Cape Town: David Philip & Town (UCT), 25 April 1954. 21. See note 20. London: Rex Collings. 4. BC 880, K1.1, Universiteit van Stellenbosch, 22. Wilson & Mafeje 1963:143. Wilson, M. & Mafeje, A., 1963, Langa: A Study Ontwikkeling van Wes-Kaaplandse 23. See note 20. of Social Groups in an African Township. Navorsingsprojek. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.

African Sociological Review/Revue Africaine de Socioligie Address 1, 1, 1997 Neither gold nor bile: Industrial and Labour Studies of Socio-Economic Transformation and Cultural Formation in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa CONTENTS/SOMMAIRE Ari Sitas ………………………………………………………………… 99

Editorial …………………………………………………………………… ii Review Essay Africa and the Democratisation Debate Articles Rock Ajulu ……………………………………………………………... 112 Who are the Makers and Objects of Anthropology? A Critical Comment

on Sally Falk Moore’s ‘Anthropology and Africa’ Book Reviews Archie Mafeje …………………………………………………………….. 1

Armchair Empiricism: A Reassessment of Data Collection in Mamadou Diouf and Mahmood Mandani (Eds.) Academic Freedom in Africa Survey Research in Africa Reviewed by Michael Drewett …………………………………………… 121 Margo Russell and Mary Mugyenyi ……………………………………….. 16 Yeraswork Admassie. Twenty Years to Nowhere – property rights, Modern Education and Social Movements in the Development land management and conservation in Ethiopia of Political Cosciousness: The Case of the Oromo Reviewed by Monty J. Roodt …………………………………………….. 124 Mekuria Bulcha …………………………………………………………… 30 ISSN 1027-4332 Research Report The Mwonboko Research Project: The Practice of Male Circumcission in Central Kenya and Its Implication for the Transmission and Prevention of STD/HIV B. M. Ahlberg, V. N. Kimani, L. W. Kirumbi, M. W. Kaara, I. Krantz … .. 66

Debates Language Policy and Planning in New South Africa Neville Alexander ……………………………………………………….. 82

A Response to the Paper ‘Language Policy and Planning in the New South Africa’ Paul Walters ……………………………………………………………. 93

A Comment on Neville Alexander’s ‘Language Policy and Planning in the New South Africa’ Gary P. Barhuizen ……………………………………………………… 96 CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 36

The Mafeje and UCT Saga: An Unfinished Business?

Background doubtedly marks a major step forward and Archie Mafeje began his distinguished opens up space to debate the Mafeje af- Lungisile Ntsebeza academic career at the University of Cape fair within the context of transforming University of Cape Town Town (UCT). After completing his Mas- universities in post-1994 South Africa, it South Africa ters degree at UCT in 1964 and having is still an open question whether the chap- co-authored a book with his supervisor ter on the relationship between Mafeje and mentor, Monica Wilson, Mafeje went and UCT can be declared closed. I will on to further his studies and registered UCT, where a second apology to the expand on this later. for a PhD degree at Cambridge Univer- Mafeje family was publicly read and an The Mafeje Affair: The Events of sity in England. He was destined to re- Honorary Doctorate posthumously 1968 turn to UCT and pursue an academic ca- awarded to Archie Mafeje alongside the reer at this university upon completion of installation of the new Vice Chancellor at Fred Hendricks (forthcoming) has argu- his studies. As it turned out, Mafeje never UCT, Dr Max Price. These events were ably written the most comprehensive and returned to UCT. This is despite attempts meant to close this particular chapter in provocative account of the 1968 events on his part to return to his alma mater. the history of UCT. As will be seen later, so far. For current purposes, I will focus Later attempts by UCT to reconcile with the second apology was much more com- on the selection process, the decision to Mafeje were not successful. This was in prehensive and accepting responsibility rescind the appointment, the reaction to the form of the award of an honorary doc- on the part of UCT than the 2003 apol- the decision to withdraw the appointment torate in 2003, as well as a formal apology ogy. It is on the strength of the second and how the Mafeje issue was finally re- in the same year in which the University apology that the Mafeje family agreed to solved until it re-emerged in the 1990s. Council offered its sincere regret and overrule Archie Mafeje and accept an As noted in the background section apologies. Mafeje treated these overtures apology on his behalf. above, the UCT Council appointed, on with disdain, not even replying to the merit, Archie Mafeje to the position of various communications. At the time of My contribution attempts to give an ac- count of the relationship between Mafeje Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology his death in March 2007, Mafeje was still on 1 May 1968. It is clear from records angry and bitter with UCT. and UCT, on the one hand, and to pose questions about the meaning of the re- that the process of appointing the senior The thorny and vexed relationship be- cent (2008) agreement between UCT and lecturer in Social Anthropology was pro- tween Mafeje and UCT has become the Mafeje family, on the other. Here are tracted, the first advert coming out in Sep- known as the ‘Mafeje affair’. To most, this some key questions this contribution tember 1966.1 Mafeje applied in 1967 in relates to the events of 1968. As will be seeks to address: Why did Mafeje refuse the second round. After an involved proc- seen in the next section, Mafeje was ap- to accept the two important gestures ess, Mafeje was deemed to be the best pointed on merit in 1968 as Senior Lec- made in 2003? Was he angry or bitter candidate for the job. In recommending turer in Social Anthropology at UCT, but about the withdrawal of his appointment him, Professor Monica Wilson, head of the UCT Council rescinded the appoint- in 1968? Or was it a case of too little, too department and Mafeje’s former supervi- ment allegedly owing to the apartheid late? What is the significance of the re- sor and mentor, argued that Mafeje was government’s pressure. The Council de- cent agreement with the family? ‘the ablest anthropologist of the three and cision was taken despite strong opposi- much the best teacher’. She disclosed that tion from within the university, particu- I argue that it is the manner in which UCT she knew this ‘both from students in Cam- larly from students who protested by oc- treated Mafeje in the 1990s, more than the bridge and from Professor Fortes’, who cupying the university administration 1968 episode that can help us understand pointed out ‘that there was competition’ building for nine days. Little known, Mafeje’s behaviour in 2003 and his anger on the part of students ‘to get into though, is what happened after 1968, es- and bitterness towards UCT at the time (Mafeje’s) tutorial group there’. Accord- pecially after the demise of official apart- of his death. This must not be seen as ing to Wilson, Mafeje ‘was equally popu- heid beginning with the political negotia- downplaying the significance of the 1968 lar when taking tutorials here (UCT)’. She tion process in 1990. event. My contention is that a case can concluded: ‘As a person Mr. Mafeje is always be made that, in the context of very much liked both by fellow students It is noteworthy that since the death of 1968, a threat by the apartheid govern- and staff, wherever he works.’2 Most of Mafeje, UCT has made strenuous efforts ment could not be taken idly, given how what Wilson had to say was echoed by to reconcile with the Mafeje family. Fol- vicious the system was. However, the the three referees of Mafeje. lowing detailed research which I con- context of the 1990s, the advent of de- ducted on the relationship between mocracy, was fundamentally different. It must be said, though, that there was Mafeje and UCT from 1968 to his death, There was no external pressure to hide one objection from a member of Senate, the university brought together eleven behind. With regard to recent develop- D.C. Robertson. His objection was based members of the Mafeje family over three ments involving the second apology and on the qualifications of the candidates, days in August 2008, during which pe- the posthumous award of the honorary particularly the fact that the other two riod a symposium on Mafeje was held at doctorate, my point is that while this un- candidates had doctorates and had a far CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 37 better teaching record than Mafeje who terations: the date of commencement, from staff and students at other centres to give was completing his PhD. However, 1 July to 1 September 1968 and the deletion such protests their fullest support’. Robertson’s objection was unsuccessful. of the paragraph referring to the need to This set the scene for students’ protests The Committee of Selectors, ‘after full dis- obtain ‘the necessary permission to teach soon after their return from the mid-year cussion’, resolved ‘that the unanimous and reside in Cape Town …’. On 13 Au- vacation. A mass meeting was held in recommendation of the Board of Electors gust 1968, the Registrar notified Mafeje Jameson Hall on 7 August to discuss that Mr. A. Mafeje be appointed, be up- that ‘the vacancy (had) … been filled’. Council’s decision. Students attending held’.3 This recommendation was ac- The Council decision to rescind the ap- the meeting supported Raphael cepted by Council on 1 May 1968. On the pointment of Mafeje provoked debate Kaplinsky’s call to Council not to do the same day, the registrar wrote a letter to even within Council. Some saw it as un- Government’s dirty job. When this call Mafeje in Cambridge. duly succumbing to government pres- did not elicit any positive response, the This letter was never sent to Mafeje. The sure. After all, there was no law that students organised another mass meet- Principal, Sir Richard Luyt, reported that stopped UCT from employing a black aca- ing on 13 August 1968. This, it must be subsequent to Council’s decision at its demic outside African languages. Others, noted, is the same day that the Registrar meeting on 1 May 1968, he received a let- on the other hand, feared that a refusal to wrote a letter of regret to Mafeje. Follow- ter from the Minister of National Educa- heed the warning of the Minister of Na- ing this meeting, about 600 students tion urging that the appointment be re- tional Education could backfire in the marched to the Bremner Administration considered. According to Luyt, there was event government were to introduce a law Building, demanding an emergency meet- a clear warning that if the Council disre- with a retroactive effect. Such a law would ing of Council. When their call was re- garded the request of the Minister, the affect black academics who were already jected, the students resolved to occupy Government ‘would not hesitate to take in the university system. Geoff Budlender, the building, including the Senate room such steps as it may deem fit to ensure a student at UCT in 1968, recalled in an until such time that Council conceded to that the accepted traditional outlook of interview with me that this was one of the their demand for an emergency meeting South Africa was observed’.4 Luyt read arguments adduced by some members of to discuss the Mafeje affair. As Hendricks out the Minister’s letter and ‘also outlined Council justifying their decision to cave has noted, the sit-in ‘was the start of the discussions which he had had with the in to government pressure. first student occupation of a university Minister and with the Director of Higher building in South Africa in 1968’. There Another sector of the university that be- Education’.5 were solidarity protests at the Wits and came involved in the Mafeje affair was Natal universities.7 In the end, the UCT Council resolved on the student population. In terms of world 5 June 1968 to rescind its decision to ap- history, the Mafeje affair took place The sit-in came to an end after nine days. point Mafeje. The motion was put to a against the backdrop of protests that in- Those involved succumbed to all-round vote, with a close outcome of 12 for and 8 volved thousands of students in France, pressure: from the state, students from against. An addendum to the motion to Germany and the USA. The decision by the then conservative pro-government the effect that the Council ‘express dis- the UCT Council provided ammunition for Stellenbosch University, Council’s refusal may and regret that its decision in this students in South Africa to become part to bow to students’ pressure, not to for- matter of the appointment of Mr. Mafeje of these global developments. Students, get considerations of their future careers. should have been challenged by the Min- not only from UCT but from other liberal To show its resolve, Council passed a fi- ister’ recorded a vote of 14 in favour and campuses in South Africa, emphatically nal resolution on 26 August 1968 reaffirm- 7 against. Subsequently, Senate ‘noted’ rejected Council’s decision to withdraw ing that ‘an offer to Mr Mafeje of appoint- the Council’s decision to rescind its ap- its appointment of Mafeje.6 The Mafeje ment to the post of Senior Lecturer in pointment of Mafeje and associated them- affair got attention at the June 1968 con- Social Anthropology cannot in all circum- selves with the addendum of the Council gress of the National Union of South Af- stances be made’ (Minutes of the Special cited above. rican Students (NUSAS), held at the Uni- Meeting of Council, 26 August 1968). versity of Witwatersrand. A resolution on Following a report from the Academic In the end, the university embarked on the affair read as follows: Freedom Committee, Council adopted the what Hendricks correctly, in my opinion, following resolution by 11 for and 2 This student assembly regrets that the refers to as ‘face-saving measures’ to ‘cre- against: UCT council has, in capitulating to the ate an aura of respect for academic free- Minister’s threats, been guilty of a be- dom and for institutional autonomy at the In protesting against being deprived trayal of the university’s principles of very moment when the University was in this manner of the right to appoint academic freedom and university au- responsible for the denial of these princi- the staff deemed most fit by normal tonomy (Resolution 80, NUSAS Con- ples’. Students became part of this exer- University criteria, the University gress, 1968:25, as quoted in Hendricks’ cise. Their proposal for an Academic Free- Council must make known publicly its unpublished paper). dom Research Award in honour of Archie future inability, as a consequence of Mafeje received the approval of all sec- the Government’s intervention, to ap- Resolution 83 urged the UCT Students tors of UCT. However, the Senate rejected point non-white persons to academic Representative Council ‘to do the utmost posts, unless allowed to do so in spe- in its power to organise effective and sig- a critical aspect of the students’ proposal cial circumstances. nificant protest against the treatment that a levy be imposed so as to finance meted out to Mr Mafeje and furthermore the award. The university never had a plan On 1 August 1968, almost the same letter of financing the award other than that it that was written to Mafeje was sent to Dr urges all university and training college M.C. Whisson. There were only two al- CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 38 would be funded on a voluntary basis. Not Affairs showed him ‘a paper setting out friend, Kwesi Prah, Mafeje was always surprising, nothing came of this exercise. the record of Mr Mafeje in regard to sub- looking for opportunities to be close to versive activity’. The minister, according South Africa in the late 1980s and to re- A somewhat successful venture was the to Luyt, went on to tell him that ‘the record turn to South Africa as soon as it became erection of a plaque in remembrance of was so adverse that he (the minister) possible for exiles to do so.9 In the early the Mafeje affair in the UCT Heritage Trail doubted whether Mr Mafeje would be al- years of the political negotiation process alongside the steps leading to the Chan- lowed back in South Africa let alone at in South Africa, Mafeje was, in 1990 and cellor Oppenheimer Library. The plaque the University of Cape Town’. As far as 1991, doing research under the Visiting is next to an earlier one commemorating the minister was concerned, Fellowship Programme of the SAPES academic freedom following the extension Trust in Zimbabwe. This research was of Bantu Education to universities in 1959 the University was extremely fortu- published in 1992 as collection of essays as a result of the enactment of the Exten- nate not to have been allowed to ap- under the telling title: In Search of an Al- sion of Universities Act. point Mr Mafeje to its staff … he was ternative: A Collection of Essays on not free to give details of Mr Mafeje’s By the end of the 1960s, the Mafeje affair Revolutionary Theory and Politics. This record of subversive activities but he had escaped the memory of virtually all seems to suggest that he was sharpening could assure us that it was serious. (Ri- sectors of UCT, including students and his intellectual tools for a return to South chard Luyt Papers, Aide Memoire, The staff who sat-in at Bremner building. It is Mafeje Affair, 23 April–6 September Africa. Most important, by 1990, Mafeje interesting to note that almost all the stu- 1968, as quoted in Hendricks’ paper) was a far cry in scholarly terms from the dents of 1968 that I interviewed in 2008 one who was appointed Senior Lecturer not only claimed that they never met Luyt’s account must be read in the con- in 1968. He had by this time established Mafeje, they never made attempts to find text of a person who was trying to justify himself as an internationally acclaimed out what happened to him – a clear sug- the position of Council. But there is a scholar, as his CV showed.10 gestion that the Mafeje affair was, in the sense in which one can read the above It is well known by now that UCT did not eyes of the students, not about Mafeje, accounts as some indication of the deter- make any approaches to Mafeje. This the person, but about themselves and at mination of the state to ensure that Mafeje seems to bear testimony to the notion that best, the principle, in this case, academic was not employed. Whether being prin- for this institution Mafeje, the person, freedom and the autonomy of universities. cipled by defying these threats under the prevailing conditions was a viable option never mattered. In 1968 he was used The manner in which the UCT Council is debatable. merely as a ladder or a taxi to pursue cer- responded to government pressure is tain principles and arguably also to feather likely to be debated for a long time. There Hendricks’ forthcoming publication deals the nests of some individuals. As indi- are no easy answers to the issue. With with these issues and takes a hard and cated, hardly anyone was ever keen to hindsight, it is easy to condemn the ac- critical line, arguing that there was com- enquire about the whereabouts of Mafeje, tions of Council. Yet it is important to re- plicity between the UCT Council and the particularly as some at UCT claim that at member the political context at the time apartheid state in the Mafeje case. His the time the university was in search of and the viciousness of the apartheid state stance will most likely provoke healthy black academics. Mafeje found himself in with Prime Minister John Vorster and se- debates about how to interpret the deci- a situation where he had to take the initia- curity chief Hendrik van den Bergh at the sion of the UCT Council in 1968. My po- tive and explore opportunities of return- helm. The dilemma facing the UCT Council sition is that controversial as the 1968 ing to UCT. It is difficult to imagine why a is best captured in Ndebele’s letter to the UCT Council decision was, we must look highly principled and proud scholar such Mafeje family when Mafeje passed away: beyond 1968 to understand why Mafeje as Mafeje would subject himself to reap- never reconciled with UCT. Whenever plying for a job he was offered on merit. It It was a different era then. The threat Mafeje reflected about the events of 1968, can only mean that, for him, coming back of the then Minister of Arts and Sci- he seems to have understood the pres- to South Africa to pursue an academic ca- ence (responsible for Education) to the sure UCT was under. This does not mean reer meant returning to UCT, his alma mater. UCT Council may not have been an that he condoned the position of Coun- idle one and going against it could cil. In fact, it is arguable whether Mafeje Archival records suggest that Mafeje have had significant negative conse- would have taken up the position. Ac- made investigations through a friend quences. Yet – we should have been cording to his sister, Mrs Swana, she ad- about the possibility of returning to UCT brave enough, should have resisted vised him not to return to South Africa in 1990, the same year that political or- the pressure and remained principled. when the police started harassing her. ganisations were unbanned and the po- Regrettably, in this instance, we did not.8 litical negotiation process was set to be Mrs Swana, Archie Mafeje’s sister, has Mafeje and UCT in Democratic under way. His friend took up the issue recently recalled how the police harassed South Africa with the leadership at UCT. The response was that UCT could not ‘make any com- her. According to her, the police detained Ordinary sense suggests that if UCT mitment to Mafeje’. This again was an her, took her correspondence with her could not in the 1960s employ Mafeje indication that, despite the treatment brother and told her that they would de- because of government interference, the Mafeje received in 1968, the leadership of tain Mafeje were he to return to South early 1990s created conditions for UCT UCT did not want to take responsibility Africa. Mrs Swana’s story ties up with to make amends and offer Mafeje the job and create a job for Mafeje. Richard Luyt’s account of his meeting that he was given on merit in 1968. There with Minister de Klerk on the Mafeje af- is little doubt that Mafeje would have Following ‘many discussions’ Mafeje’s fair. The minister claimed that the South welcomed the occasion. According to his ‘champion’ suggested ‘that Archie Mafeje African Minister of Police and Internal CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 39 be a visiting’ Senior Research Fellow on a somehow we all have to rediscover In 1993, close friends of Mafeje urged him one-year contract. The university leader- ourselves in the wake of the current to apply for the A.C. Jordan Chair in Afri- ship found this acceptable. However, changes in the country. This would can Studies at UCT. Reluctantly, Mafeje when Mafeje’s friend conveyed this to probably be one of my last major pro- applied and was on the short-list as an him, he was not keen to accept such a fessional undertakings and I cannot ‘A’ candidate.15 In his letter, Mafeje had compromise. Mafeje clearly deserved do it outside South Africa.13 confidently declared: more than this. He reasoned with his Mafeje’s reply left UCT unmoved. Its re- friend that ‘as much as I appreciate the I believe that I am eminently qualified sponse was restricted to explaining the for the post. Not only did I have the gesture … (o)ne year is too short for me title of a Senior Research Fellow and why to move my whole family and take my privilege of working with the late A.C. Mafeje was, despite his vast experience Jordan as a research student at the daughter out of the British International and qualifications, offered remuneration University of Cape Town and abroad School here in Cairo’. He firmly pointed at the scale of a senior lecturer. With re- but also I can claim that among Afri- out that his family was ‘dead against the gard to the latter, the explanation was that can scholars specialised in African idea of moving on the strength of one this was owing to limited resources as the Studies I probably have the widest ex- year. They would rather wait until more posts concerned ‘are funded with “soft perience and recognition throughout 11 posts for which I could apply come up’. money’”. the continent, including Arab-speak- ing Africa.16 Mafeje’s champion agreed with Mafeje The claim that UCT did not have financial that a year was ‘rather too short to up- resources to offer Mafeje a permanent job After providing details of his achieve- root’ an entire family ‘in order to come is of course laughable and must be re- ments and extensive contacts with home’. He informed Mafeje that he had jected. Why UCT treated Mafeje in this ‘pan-African and regional organisations’, been trying to get a three-year contract at manner is a matter that calls for careful he ended his letter on a somewhat per- UCT, but this was not possible owing to research and may throw light on UCT’s sonal note: ‘the current financial circumstances’. His attitude towards black scholars. hope was if Mafeje came, it would be pos- It would … be a great pleasure for me sible ‘to raise funds or to find a job that It is noteworthy that as the leadership of to bring all this intellectual capital to could continue beyond the present one’. UCT was discussing their response to the University of Cape Town (my alma He told Mafeje that there were jobs that Mafeje’s letter, a senior member who mater) and in general to African stud- were coming up, including the Chair of drafted the offer to Mafeje wrote an inter- ies in South Africa. To impart some of Anthropology at UCT and the Director for nal memorandum in which he, among oth- this knowledge to South African the Centre of African Studies, also at UCT.12 ers, indicated that he was graduate students who have been iso- lated from the rest of Africa for so not convinced that Prof Mafeje is a suit- Despite Mafeje’s reservations about the many years would be the greatest con- one-year contract, UCT went on to make able candidate for a senior permanent tribution I could make after thirty years him the offer and placed his salary at the position at this university, given his poor in exile. bracket of a Senior Lecturer. Upon receipt publication and research record for the A substantial amount of time was devoted of the letter, Mafeje was quick to point past 10 years. Thus, I would not be en- to a discussion of Mafeje’s application.17 out that he found the offer ‘most demean- thusiastic about extending the offer be- Critical to note is that the chairperson ar- ing’. He reasoned: yond one year, which will give him some time to hunt around for a suitable posi- gued that Mafeje’s application be turned I fail to see how after 18 years of be- tion in South Africa. down. This was despite the fact that ing a professor internationally I could Mafeje was rated among the top candi- This quotation raises two issues. In the be offered a research fellowship at the dates during the shortlisting stage. The rank of senior lecturer at the Univer- first place, it casts doubts about the UCT reasons offered by the chairperson were sity of Cape Town. This becomes even claim that the reason it offered Mafeje a largely based on Mafeje’s personality and more incomprehensible when one re- one-year contract at the scale of a senior had very little to do about his scholar- calls that one had been offered an lecturer was as a result of financial con- ship. After making reference to the 1968 appointment at the same rank by the straints. The quotation strongly suggests UCT decision to rescind the appointment same university as far back as 1968. ... that a senior permanent appointment was of Mafeje, the chairperson raised three After 27 years in exile I do not intend not beyond the capacity of UCT. Sec- critical issues that were severely damag- to return to South Africa under any ondly, it is interesting to note that in his ing. First, the chairperson divulged that conditions. Some of the senior staff letter to Mafeje, this honourable person ‘a colleague’ at the University of Namibia, at the University of Cape Town should indicated that members of his department where Mafeje was based, divulged that have understood this. had ‘enthusiastically endorsed’ the invi- Mafeje had negative things to say about tation.14 However, in private, when Mafeje He concluded: UCT and ‘if offered the post will turn it cannot defend himself, the enthusiasm down’. Secondly, the chairperson Also, I cannot imagine what sort of evaporates and Mafeje is no longer good brought to the attention of the selection research I could do in South Africa in enough for a senior permanent position. committee correspondence between the such a short space of time after nearly When I interviewed this esteemed scholar two regarding Mafeje’s refusal to submit 30 years in exile. One of my main re- at the beginning of this year (2008), he copies of his publications as demonstra- search interests in coming back to could not remember why he made this tion of Mafeje’s ‘character’ and to show South Africa would be to undertake a damning remark about Mafeje’s scholar- how difficult it was to work with Mafeje. comprehensive study of South Afri- ship. He promised to get back to me. I’m In response to the request, Mafeje had can historiography … seeing that still waiting. CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 40 opined that he did ‘not see how they I have not the least doubt, on available riously. It is only in 2002 that the Mafeje would gain greater wisdom from reading evidence, that the selection process for affair was reopened for discussion at UCT. randomly and subjectively selected texts the A.C. Jordan Chair was fundamentally by contending candidates’.18 The third flawed. In the first place, the chairperson UCT’s Attempts to Make Amends issue was that Mafeje had ‘a drinking had already demonstrated that he was As pointed out at the beginning of this problem’. The authority in this regard was highly prejudiced against Mafeje. This contribution, in 2003, UCT tried to make a ‘UCT colleague who had spoken to goes back to Mafeje’s attempt to return amends with Mafeje. This came in two (Mafeje) recently.’ Lastly, it was alleged to UCT in 1990. At the time, the chairper- forms. First, following a motivation in that Mafeje was ‘very opposed to the son wrote to the leadership at UCT point- 2002, Vice Chancellor Ndebele wrote a let- women’s centre being set up at UCT’. ing out that a department that he was as- ter to Mafeje, inviting the latter to accept sociated with would not house Mafeje if No decision was taken at this meeting an honorary doctorate at the UCT June he accepted the one-year contract dis- largely because those attending did not graduation ceremony. As the June gradu- cussed above. Later, when one colleague make up a quorum. The matter was to be ation was approaching and Mafeje had at UCT recommended Mafeje when the formalised in the next meeting. not replied to the letter, a second letter post for the A.C. Jordan Chair became inviting him to the December graduation It is not clear what happened in the pe- available, the chairperson indicated that was issued. On the same day, the Univer- riod leading to the next meeting to make Mafeje was not what they were looking sity Council offered its sincere regret and the chairperson appear to have softened for. Records show that the chairperson was apologies for the university’s role in the his stance on Mafeje. Having argued in influential in tarnishing the image of Mafeje. events of 1968. As indicated, Mafeje did the previous meeting for the rejection of Secondly, the information or evidence that not even reply to the various letters, some- the Mafeje candidature, the chairperson was used against Mafeje about his ac- thing that some people saw as impolite. changed his mind and persuaded the com- tivities in Namibia was hearsay, based, as mittee to grant Mafeje an interview. It is But we have to ask ourselves why Mafeje indicated, on what the chairperson heard clear from records that the main reason behaved in this manner. Was he angry or from a colleague in Namibia. The informa- why the chairperson changed his mind bitter about the withdrawal of his appoint- tion was never tested. Why a selection was to put Mafeje on the spot and make ment in 1968? Or was there more to it than committee made up of senior members of him not only to state his case, but also to the events of 1968? As will be seen be- the university accepted this is puzzling, give the committee a chance to assess low, Mafeje felt the honorary doctorate except to say that the seniority of the his personality. Ultimately, a decision was was too little, too late and that it did not chairperson is a factor that must be taken taken to interview Mafeje. address broader political issues. Of more into account when considering why mem- interest for our purposes is the apology, At its next meeting, the chairperson re- bers of the committee allowed themselves which is discussed in some detail below. ported that since the last meeting ‘he had to be influenced by an individual. Addi- subsequently learnt that Mafeje had left tionally, I could not come across evidence In his letter dated 17 June 2003, Vice Chan- the University of Namibia and had gone to show that reference was ever made to cellor Ndebele informed Mafeje about a to the American University in Cairo’. He the reports of Mafeje’s referees. This unanimous decision of the University noted that Mafeje had not advised the raises questions about the purpose be- Council … to apologise to you formally Appointments Office of his change of hind asking candidates for these reports. for withdrawing an offer of appointment address. This seems to have given the to you in 1968, following severe pressure Upon receipt of the letter of regret, Mafeje 20 chairperson an excuse to exclude Mafeje. from the government of the day. wrote a lengthy letter to the chairperson, According to the aide-memoires, the which he ended with these words: Ndebele concluded with these words: chairperson indicated that ‘as he had res- ervations about Mafeje, and as it was a In 1968 it was an honour to be offered This apology is part of our process of marginal decision to invite him for inter- a post at UCT but in 1994 it is a heavy reviewing and redressing aspects of view at the last meeting, he felt at this burden which only the politically naïve our past. It is a matter of personal sat- stage, Mafeje not be invited for interview’. or the unimaginative can face, with- isfaction to me that Council has taken If the committee felt differently, this could out some uneasy doubts. I might be this decision. be discussed after the interview of the wrong but only time will tell. We hope that you will be able to accept other candidate for the job.19 This was arguably Mafeje’s last official this apology in the spirit in which it is 21 As it turned out, this strategy had the letter to UCT. The letter of regret from UCT offered. effect of successfully excluding Mafeje was, as far as I know, the last communica- With regard to the UCT Council resolu- from contention. When the other candi- tion with Mafeje until nine years later tion, this is how it reads: date was interviewed, all the members of when UCT offered Mafeje an honorary the committee had to decide was whether doctorate and a formal apology, as indi- The Council of the University of Cape the candidate was appointable or not. At cated at the outset. This suggests that in Town recognises that there remain the end of the interview, there was a unani- the interim no efforts were made by UCT many who are critical of the 1968 deci- mous decision that the candidate was to attract Mafeje. This is despite hopes sion of the Council to rescind its deci- appointable. As soon as the candidate that under a black leadership some at- sion to offer an appointment of senior accepted the UCT offer, the chairperson tempts to recruit Mafeje would be made. lecturer in social anthropology to Mr wrote a letter of regret to Mafeje, thus end- Efforts made by friends and sympathisers A Mafeje. The Council has reviewed this, expresses its sincere regret for ing the latter’s dream of returning to UCT. of Mafeje to the black leadership at UCT in this, and apologises to Dr Mafeje. the mid-to-late 1990s were never taken se- CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 41

The resolution that was adopted by UCT chapter in dramatic fashion. In Ndebele. Given the limited time at his dis- Council shows a slight amendment of an March 2004, he wrote in his will that all posal, the new Vice Chancellor, Dr Max earlier draft whose last sentence read: ‘The his books be donated to the Walter Sisulu Price, picked up the threads. It is under Council has reviewed this, accepts that University in the Eastern Cape. The mes- his leadership that the Mafeje family was this was wrong and apologises to Dr sage seems loud and clear that Mafeje brought to UCT, a second apology of- Mafeje for having done so’ (my emphasis). wanted to distance himself from UCT. fered and an honorary doctorate posthu- mously awarded to Archie Mafeje. As can be seen, the apology is about the It appears as if the issue of reconciliation 1968 decision to rescind the appointment was not pursued with any sense of vig- Regarding the apology,24 UCT acknowl- of Mafeje. There is not even a slight ref- our and hardly anything was being done edged that it erence to the treatment meted out to by the time Mafeje passed away. Mafeje in the 1990s as discussed above. has become clear that the University Since the death of Mafeje, UCT has made While the events of 1968 are important did not do nearly enough in the 1990s giant strides to bring closure to the Mafeje and cannot be swept under the carpet or to make it possible for Professor saga. This process began under the leader- Mafeje to return to UCT, and that this justified in terms of a repressive apart- ship of the previous Vice Chancellor, remained an obstacle to his reconcili- heid regime, I argue that it is developments Njabulo Ndebele. It was, it must be said, ation with his alma mater. in the 1990s that lie at the heart of Mafeje’s under his leadership that the Mafeje affair resentment, anger and bitterness towards It goes on: was reopened for discussion in 2002. In the UCT. That the 2003 apology did not refer letter to the Mafeje family referred to ear- to the 1990s casts doubts about the seri- We record therefore that significant lier, Ndebele had this to say to the family: opportunities were lost during the pe- ousness of UCT in extending the apology. riod of South Africa’s transition to de- In conversations with former Vice Chan- The UCT Council Executive Commit- mocracy to bring a very significant Af- cellor Ndebele, he pointed out that he tee in this week stood in silence in rican scholar home to UCT. In this the only heard about the developments of the honour of Prof Mafeje. It recognized University showed a serious lack of again the deep injustice done. It ac- 1990s when I reported to him in 2008. He sensitivity, and it is a matter of pro- knowledged his extraordinary contri- joined UCT in 2000. What is important to found regret that Professor Mafeje’s butions. The Committee has in- note though is that some of the people life ended with these matters unre- structed that his impact as an extraor- solved. The University now wishes who were associated with the Council dinarily gifted scholar be captured decision were not only aware of the events to apologise to Professor Mafeje’s forever. UCT will find a practical way family that it did not make a commit- of 1990s, but were directly involved. They to do this.23 cannot claim ignorance. ted effort to secure a place for Profes- In September 2007, just on six months af- sor Mafeje at UCT, and that it may When Mafeje understandably did not re- ter the death of Mafeje, Ndebele restated even have acted in a way that preju- ply to the letters sent to him, Council sent his commitment to resolving the Mafeje diced Prof. Mafeje a second time in an emissary. This is her account: affair before his retirement in June 2008. the 1990s. UCT also reiterates its re- gret regarding the Council’s decision Archie (Mafeje) was very bitter and He told me in a conversation that he would not like his successor to inherit this prob- under government pressure to with- resentful about UCT’s late recognition draw the appointment as senior lec- lem, as was the case with him. He wanted of what had happened; that under the turer in 1968. black leadership … no approaches to establish whether I was willing to be had been made and by the time I ap- part of the solution. I told him, as I did With regard to how UCT would honour proached him he had made up his mind when I agreed to be UCT emissary at the Mafeje and ensure that justice is done, that UCT was compromised about his funeral, that it would be an honour for me the university committed itself situation …When I asked him why he to part of solving this complex but ex- would not accept the nomination and tremely important issue. to finding tangible ways in which the the apology, it was clear that he had memory of a fine scholar of Africa closed his heart towards UCT in a big Towards the end of 2007, Ndebele formal- might be acceptably and indelibly en- way. He liked talking to me and en- ised the process by appointing Deputy shrined both at the University of Cape joyed telling me about his pain and Vice Chancellor Thandabantu Nhlapo and Town, and in the wider scholarly com- resentment, and for him UCT failed me to apply our minds as to the most ap- munity. propriate way of resolving the Mafeje af- and took far too long to acknowledge These tangible ways entail the following: what they had done. He also had a fair, as well as how best to honour him. We sense that they thought he was a third agreed with Deputy Vice Chancellor Nhlapo • The University undertakes firstly, to rate scholar and not good enough for at the end of 2007 that I should conduct permit access to scholars wishing to them. I think he would have liked be- the research on the relationship between research the events surrounding ing offered an Extraordinary or Emeri- Mafeje and UCT in order to base what- Archie Mafeje at UCT to all relevant tus position, the use of an office and ever steps would be followed on sound archival material without waiting the UCT’s resources, etc. For him an apol- knowledge and understanding of what normal proscribed period, and to al- ogy, coming from UCT at the time that precisely happened in this relationship. low publication of any research result- it was done, seemed to him more like ing from this. However, no individu- the politically correct thing to do A working paper based on research on als still living may be named or identi- rather than one of real contrition.22 the Mafeje affair, which contained some fied without their permission. recommendations, was made available to There is little doubt that the letters to the then outgoing Vice Chancellor Mafeje must have forced him to close the CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 42

• UCT will fund and promote a affair. A related question is whether any Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor will Festschrift to honour Professor lessons can be learnt from this experience. have to approve how any information Mafeje’s life-long body of scholarly Or was it one unfortunate isolated experi- obtained may be published or shared with work. ence? These are difficult questions to re- third parties’. This requirement, in terms spond to precisely because of their con- of the footnote, is meant to ‘ensure pub- • UCT will create a postgraduate schol- creteness. One may be tempted to take lic confidence in the confidentiality and arship in the name of Archie Mafeje the easier route and leave these questions integrity of selection committee proc- for a black South African scholar in the field of African Studies. to time. But it is also possible to respond in esses past and future’. a suggestive, rather than definitive way to How are we to interpret this qualification? these questions. I propose to do the latter. • UCT will rename the Senate Room in What does it mean to say that the Vice which the 1968 sit-in took place as the It can be argued that one of the main rea- Chancellor ‘will have to approve’ how in- Archie Mafeje Room and erect an ap- sons why Mafeje was so angry and con- formation obtain ‘may be published or propriate plaque recalling the history of the Mafeje affair. temptuous of UCT’s efforts in 2003, par- shared with third parties’? What does this ticularly the apology, was that he felt that mean in practice? Are scholars expected • UCT will confer on Archie Mafeje the university was not open enough to submit whatever they write to the Vice posthumously the degree Doctor of about the nature of the Mafeje affair. As Chancellor for approval before they sub- Literature, Honoris Causa. has been shown, for UCT in 2003, it was mit for publication? Is this going to be a about the events of 1968. It is apparent form of censorship? With regard to the On 17 August 2008, the first of the above that apologising for what happened in rationale given about ensuring public undertakings was fulfilled when it was 1968 was an easy option for UCT for the confidence and integrity of selection com- formally announced at the symposium simple reason that blame could always be mittee processes, it can be argued that that the Senate Room would be renamed apportioned to the apartheid state. More the very process of keeping records the Archie Mafeje Room and the plague difficult for UCT, it seems, was an accept- closed for 30 years makes these commit- to this effect unveiled by Mafeje’s son, ance of responsibility, which is what the tees unaccountable to the broader uni- Xolani. On the following day, along with treatment meted out to Mafeje in the versity constituency and beyond. This the installation of the new Vice Chancel- 1990s demanded. It is, I would argue, this protection may be a recipe for abuse and lor, an honorary doctorate was posthu- acknowledgement and acceptance of re- irresponsible behaviour. Indeed, the 30- mously conferred on Archie Mafeje. The sponsibility that makes the 2008 apology year embargo on records is something certificate was received by Mafeje’s more acceptable and respectable. This is that must be put on the agenda of trans- daughter, Dana. a major step that must be applauded. forming higher education institutions. At the time of writing this contribution, at This is arguably one important lesson we The 2008 apology makes another impor- the end of August 2008, nothing concrete can draw from the Mafeje affair. tant breakthrough by permitting opening has been done regarding the remaining access to archival material to ‘scholars In a nutshell, it is important for the cred- three undertakings. wishing to research the events surround- ibility of the 2008 apology and for an ev- Unfinished Business? Concluding ing Archie Mafeje at UCT … without wait- erlasting solution of the Mafeje affair that Remarks ing the normal proscribed period and to the truth about the relationship between allow publication of any research result- Mafeje and UCT be known. Whatever is UCT is attempting to bring closure to the ing from this’. What this section of the done for Mafeje will be meaningless if Mafeje saga in circumstances where ear- clause in the apology also points to is UCT will be seen to be suppressing the lier attempts to reconcile with Mafeje recognition that Mafeje was a scholar, truth. On a personal note, this would failed rather dismally. This immediately and that in making an apology, it is criti- amount to a betrayal of Mafeje. Until such raises questions about how UCT’s cur- cal to consider not only Mafeje’s immedi- time that the qualification is clarified in rent attempts to make amends with the ate, biological family, but his wider family terms of how it will affect telling the truth Mafeje family will be viewed. There is a of scholars and activists. They are as con- about what happened in the 1990s, the real danger that efforts on the part of UCT cerned about the Mafeje affair as his im- Mafeje affair may well be an unfinished to resolve the Mafeje affair, however genu- mediate family. Inviting scholars to do business. ine, may be seen as opportunistic. Vice research is one way of extending the apol- Chancellor Ndebele made it clear to us ogy to Mafeje bigger family. Notes that he would not be happy with that im- pression. It is precisely this awareness Worrying, though, is the qualification in 1. See File 12.2.5, ‘Senior Lecturer/Lecturer and the importance of demonstrating that the above clause. In terms of this qualifi- in Social Anthropology‘, Administrative Ar- UCT’s attempts are not an exercise rid- cation, ‘no individuals still living may be chives, UCT. I could not establish from the dled with opportunism that I agreed to be named or identified without their permis- records whether Mafeje applied. involved in this process of reconciliation. sion’. If this was all the qualification was 2. Ibid.. about there would be no problems. After As can be seen in this contribution, UCT 3. ‘Personal file’, Location 4.3.3, Box No. all, this is standard practice in research. It has reconciled with the immediate family 366. Administrative Archives, UCT. of Archie Mafeje. They have overruled is, however, the footnote that raises con- him and accepted an apology and honor- cern. According to this footnote, ‘schol- 4. Minutes of a meeting of the University ary doctorate on his behalf. ars wishing to access material still within Council held at 3 pm on Wednesday, 5 June, the 30-year archival protection period 1968. ‘Personal file’, Location 4.3.3, Box The question that imposes itself on us is must first obtain the permission of the Vice- No. 366. Administrative Archives, UCT. whether this marks the end of the Mafeje CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 43

5. See Fred Hendricks’ forthcoming article for 11. Ibid. approached claimed that they could not a detailed account of the interaction between remember the discussions. 12. Ibid. the UCT administration and the Minister 18. Letter to the Appointment Office, Univer- of National Education and his employees 13. As already stated, in 1990 and 1991 Mafeje sity of Cape Town, dated 14 April 1994. AC between 2 May 1968 and the Council mee- was doing research in Zimbabwe. Jordan W/Os, File 300, No. 2, Administra- ting on 5 June 1968. The report that Luyt 14. See file ‘Prof. Archie Mafeje (SocSch/9 tive Archives, UCT. presented to Council in June was based on Anthropology)’, Location 21.1.4 Box No. 19. I am not at liberty to mention the candi- this interaction. 111, Administrative Archives, UCT. date, but it was not Mahmood Mamdani, who 6. It is notable that the historically black 15. This is the category of candidates that was appointed in a separate process in 1996. universities such as Fort Hare do not seem deserve to be interviewed. to have been involved in the Mafeje affair. 20. Hon Degree Corres – 2003, Dec Grad 2003, 16. AC Jordan W/Os, File 300, No. 2, Adminis- Administrative Files, UCT. 7. ‘Celebrated scholar dies’, Monday Paper, trative Archives, UCT. 26/05, 23 April–6 May 2007, 5. 21. Ibid. 17. Information about the proceedings of the 22. E-mail correspondence dated 10 February 2008. 8. Copy of the letter with the author. I attended meetings of the selection committee is from the funeral and delivered the letter to the aide-memoires, whose status is not the same 23. Letter to ‘members of the Mafeje family’ dated family on behalf of UCT. as minutes. The latter are approved by those 5 April 2007. A copy of this letter was made 9. Numerous conversations with the author. attending. However, the aide-memoires were available to the author and is kept in his files. signed by the chairperson. It was difficult to 10. See file ‘Prof. Archie Mafeje (SocSch/9 24. Copy of the apology is with the author. The get information through interviews. Most of Anthropology)’, Location 21.1.4 Box No. apology was read aloud at the symposium the members of the committee who were 111, Administrative Archives, UCT. and at a press conference on

The Imperative of Africanising Universities in South Africa

Epistemicide and Its Legacy in was to deny the colonised indigenous Education people of South Africa useful and rel- It is important to unashamedly declare Teboho J. Lebakeng evant social knowledge about themselves from the outset that I am in sympathy with, South Africa Mission to the UN and their world and, in turn, transmit a and therefore an advocate of the core Nex York, USA culture that embodied, and was designed concerns of the proponents of to consolidate dependency and generally Africanisation of universities in South undermine their creative capacities. one’s knowledge systems on such a terri- Africa. In this regard, the recurrent theme In many ways, colonial epistemicide has of my academic and popular articles has tory. This defining mantra of colonial historiography had serious implications been an indispensable trigger for re-affir- been the issue of Africanisation of uni- mation by indigenous African people. versities in light of colonial epistemicide for South Africa, as it had for the entire African continent. For instance, it neces- Although historically preceding the pe- and valuecide fostered by Eurocentric riod, in South Africa the call for indigenous paradigms on one hand, and the impera- sitated claiming and, thereby filling of the country with European moral philosophy, knowledge heightened with the advent tive for indigenous knowledge to inform of post-apartheid education and the need and underpin social policy and develop- social values, cultural traditions and eco- nomic fundamentals. But this also meant for an educational philosophy that would ment trajectories in South Africa on the reflect a renewal and redirection towards other. Given the longevity and quantity that in their self-serving wars of conquest, which did not meet the requirements of the rest of Africa, African cultures, identi- characterizing white colonial-settlerism in ties and values. Since then the debates South Africa, epistemicide was compre- both the right to wage war and the ethico- legal imperatives in the conduct of war, the on indigenization of knowledge in South hensive and extended to all spheres of Africa have been so emotive and polemi- life, including religion, politics, law, eco- invading colonialists destroyed indigenous African social institutions and customs. cal. Not only its content and purpose but nomics and education. also its very possibility have been, and Historically, European colonisation was With regard to the South African academia, continue to be, the subject of understand- justified on the basis of vacuous claims epistemicide inaugurated intellectual pa- ably passionate exchanges. that when Europeans first came to the rochialism and resulted in intellectual ex- troversion in which raw data was ex- The idea of indigenization and the issues southern African part of continent, they raised in the raging national debate, such found a territory that was empty, un- ported, theories were uncritically im- ported and categories on local conditions as endogeneity, context-sensitivity and known and un-owned. By virtue of its sta- relevance, directly speaks to the right to tus as such, such a territory invited the were superimposed. Academia became an imposition and extension of the episte- be an African university. However, there attention of those who wanted to know are many who are still intrigued by the and own it. Ownership, here, entailed both mological paradigm of the colonial con- queror. The thrust of Western education idea of the ‘right to be an African univer- claiming possession of and imposing sity’. The argument is made that ‘the right CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 44 to be an African university’ presupposes cal imagination, the academia in South existing dominant interests and challenge that someone is denying this ‘right’ and Africa will continue to depose rather than the citadel of European paradigms and therefore this argument only made sense pose vexing questions relating to higher scientific epistemologies of knowledge. in the context of colonial-apartheid, but education and its relevance in the new For instance, an African wit reminded us not in a post-colonial environment. It political and socio-economic dispensa- recently that ‘Apartheid created a self- would be naïve to assume that the South tion. For instance, in the immediate post- satisfied culture among white South Afri- African academia, which has so stub- 1994 South Africa, the result of overlook- cans. Because they could put down blacks bornly resisted transformation, has re- ing the historical perspective in the edu- through force of law, white South Africa versed epistemicide. In fact, the South cational sphere has been the false and did not imagine that they would not make African academia as seen in its institu- misleading but commonly held stratifica- the grades internationally. And so they tional rigidity and cultural conservatism, tion of higher education, especially its continued talking about standards but remain insulated and has not benefited university subset, as either merely black/ essentially from a very low base’. Little significantly from intellectual expositions disadvantaged or white/advantaged. wonder that there are various attempts at and philosophical projections coming out circumscribing and pre-empting the en- Such descriptors emanated from an incor- of the continent. This is despite the few try into the dominant discourse of indig- rect historical understanding regarding ‘top’ African scholars recruited to teach enous African epistemologies. the development, nature and role of uni- at a number of universities in the country. versities in colonial-apartheid South Af- From the perspective of the sociology of rica. After all, descriptors, like metaphors, indigenous knowledge, the assumptions Importance of Historical Memory are conjured up to give an organizing pat- which constructed European thought, lit- The importance of appropriate historical tern to matters. In theory, they are sup- erature and traditions are not universal memory and historical imagination and posed to help explain what is going on, but are derived from specific and discreet practice (as an antidote to the colonial but in practice are often meant to shape European experiences prescribed by the historical project) has been the preoccu- responses to policy. Essentially, descriptors level of economic and industrial develop- pation of a number of post-independence carry an acknowledged political freight ment. Implicit in this perspective is that African historians, especially the Dar es and perform a political purpose. standards are not universal but contex- Salaam School of History, the Ibadan tual. Academic standards are tentative, Given that South African historiography School of History and the Diopian constructed, historical and contextual is still fundamentally colonial, a wrong Africanity. Despite variations in their in- and, therefore, certainly not universal, diagnosis and a wrong prognosis were tellectual enterprises, the central charac- permanent, objective, neutral or invariant. inevitable. An appropriate historical analy- teristic of these historians has been their Clearly, the notion of standards must be sis indicates that the real problem of uni- refusal to be carried away by and to en- subjected to a careful, specific and his- versities in South Africa has been that of dorse the dominant knowledge systems torically sensitive analysis. Some schol- the right to be an African university. This of the colonial conquerors. Rather, they ars have advised that rather than main- right was denied through a process of engaged in vigilant, combative and un- taining and applying given academic and degrading and marginalizing indigenous compromising deconstruction of histori- educational standards, we need to con- African knowledge systems. In the post- cal distortions which were conscripted tinually create and redefine them. into the service of the colonial project. apartheid era, such a process takes place But this engagement has to be under- through resistance to transform universi- The right to be an African university, stood dialectically since in deconstructing ties to meet the critical requirements of which implies Africanisation, is essen- the Eurocentric colonial project, they also the transforming society. tially part of continually creating and re- reconstructed Africanity. They challenged defining educational standards within and debunked well-encrusted negative The Myth of Standards and the appropriate context of relevance. In other notions and systematically eroded a Search for Alternatives words, the focus on relevance and use- number of misconceptions and philo- In the light of the above, we propose a fulness is not antithetical to high stand- sophical crotchets about the African con- reversal of epistemicide through an in- ards. Rather, the imperative for inscribing tinent; its “lack of civilisation, history and scription of indigenous African indigenous African epistemologies into moral values”. epistemologies in education. The resist- the curriculum and underpinning educa- ance of underpinning universities with tion with African philosophy is, in the first Therefore, the younger generation of Af- African philosophy, on grounds that this instance, a question of rights, and thus a rican scholars can only condemn such threatens standards, is to perpetuate cog- matter of natural and historical justice. intellectual icons at their own peril ‘for nitive and epistemological injustice. Our These are key issues the South African spending too much of their intellectual observation is that the intellectual think- academia should not only acknowledge careers’ demythologizing European colo- ing behind the standards argument is the but, more importantly, begin to address. nial historiography on Africa and demon- fear that most white intellectuals and aca- strating the existence of indigenous Afri- It is in appreciation of the need for such demics will experience erosion of their can knowledge systems and history prior natural and historical justice that Profes- power base. The actual motive for want- to colonisation. Clearly, it is not only com- sor Mafeje was always measured in his ing to protect the current standards is bative but a liberatory act to expose the writings and was never comfortable with essentially to spawn a ‘law of inertia of tendentious nature of European colonial ideas lacking in substance. Until he privilege’ that guarantees that there is no historiography. passed away, he remained particularly re- reversal of epistemicide and reclamation spectful of his sizeable and highly con- My direct contention is that without ap- of African epistemologies. The reversal scious African scholarly and intellectual propriate historical memory and histori- of epistemicide will inevitably undermine CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 45

constituency. Hence, his extraordinary nental and international opponents and upon them to stand on the shoulders of mind is reflected not so much in the vol- detractors, including his memorable this intellectual giant in order for them to ume but in the quality of his intellectual brawls with Professor Ali Mazrui and later see further. More importantly, the chal- contributions. His ability to marry schol- Professor Sally Moore, self-preservation lenge for universities in South Africa is to arly pursuits with a life-time pan-Africanist was not Professor Mafeje’s hallmark. begin to introduce learners to his works. Anything less is a travesty of and a dis- political commitment made him a Professor Mafeje’s personal contribu- honour to scholarship in the context of liberatory thinker who never compromised tions and legacies to knowledge and the knowledge struggles raging on in the on his intellectual responsibilities in pur- scholarship – from the deconstruction of South African academy. suit of knowledge, in particular the Eurocentricism to the (re)construction of indigenization of African discourse. As indigenous knowledge – have blazed a * Lebakeng, T.J. (2007). Archibald Boyce seen through many intellectual confron- new trail for younger and future African Mafeje: a tribute to excellent scholarship. tations and conversations with his conti- social scientists. Indeed, it is incumbent Tribute. February. pp. 30-32.

Crossing Swords and Drawing Blood : Archie Mafeje – A Warrior in a Double Battle

Introduction pline. But his interests did not end with Archie Mafeje thrived on debate. He clari- being a mere maker of knowledge. His Fred Hendricks fied his own positions as he marshalled other side radiates a deep political com- Rhodes University his arguments in his many frontal attacks. mitment to the pan-Africanist ideal of South Africa He revelled in a genuine difference of proper political, economic and cultural opinion, informed by evidence and com- emancipation for Africans. It is precisely mitment, because these permitted him to this mixture of a normative concern for pursue his purpose with a rare single- in the presence of his intellect. He is still what is good for Africa with his sharp mindedness. ‘You are either stupid or in- very much with us in his work, in his words analytical mind that made Archie Mafeje tellectually dishonest’, he barked at a and in our many memories of him. So, on such a formidable intellect on the continent. young Rhodes University lecturer at a the one hand, I am driven to pay tribute I wish to use the conceptual metaphor dinner party at my house in Grahamstown to his inestimable contribution, but at the ‘argument is war’ as analysed by Lakoff a few years ago. The other guests were same time if only in respect to Mafeje, I and Johnson (1980:4) in their book, Meta- somewhat astounded by his brazenness, try to do this in ways that demonstrate a phors We Live By, to provide some back- but it cannot be said of Mafeje that his critical engagement with a small part of drop to Mafeje’s style of debate and to bark was worse than his bite. He could his corpus. Having known Archie Mafeje ensure that the battle of ideas as conceived also bite with considerable force and his as a person imposes a particular constraint and practised by Mafeje is placed in a rea- eloquence together with his erudite man- on any engagement with his work. He did sonable framework. Lakoff and Johnson ner never failed him in his many intellec- not suffer fools. He was an enormously (1980:4) state their case very clearly: tual battles. Ali Mazrui felt the full feroc- complex and multi-faceted individual who ity of his bite in the pages of the has helped us in constructing a unique It is important to see that we don’t CODESRIA Bulletin (1995:16) when approach to understanding our continent. just talk about arguments in terms of Mafeje made the following remark, which Here, I refer to only two of the very many war. We actually win or lose argu- has stuck in my mind as a powerful meta- sides of the man. Firstly, I use his style of ments. We see the person we are ar- phor of argument as war: debate to symbolise how, in his many guing with as an opponent. We at- years of scholarship, he has tried to en- tack his positions and we defend our I am prepared to cross swords with join epistemological, theoretical and em- own. We gain and lose ground. We Ali Mazrui. If in the process real blood plan and use strategies. If we find a pirical issues in the process of generat- is drawn, it might be an overdue sacri- position indefensible, we can aban- ing knowledge about, on and of Africa. fice to the African gods or an invita- don it and take a new line of attack. Secondly, I illustrate how he changed the tion to young African warriors. Many of the things we do in arguing way in which we think about Anthropol- are partially structured by the concept I don’t regard myself as young but I am ogy in Africa. of war. Though there is no physical taking up the invitation extended by battle, there is verbal battle and the Mafeje. It is a double-edged and hazard- Argument as War: Mafeje’s structure of an argument – attack, de- ous invitation. Knowing just how much Double Battle fence, counterattack, etc. reflects this. he detested the banal, I have to be ex- In his later years Mafeje started to violate Their definition of a metaphor is captivat- tremely careful not to be platitudinous, some of the basic principles of epistemol- ingly simple, ‘… understanding and ex- because that would be an affront to his ogy. He did this consciously, realising the periencing one kind of thing in terms of abiding spirit. Irrespective of the fact that importance of the subject of inquiry as a another’ (1980:5). I’m using the metaphor Mafeje has now departed from our world research problem rather than as a prede- of argument as war in order to demon- I can’t help the sense of awe that I have termined area of specialisation or disci- CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 46 strate one aspect of Mafeje in debate. It to accept Egypt as his home, and he cer- cipatory and not compromised by asso- is obvious that verbal discourse and the tainly did not regard it as part of his so- ciation with colonialism and oppression. conduct of war are two entirely different cial laboratory. This remains an abiding things, but the one is understood in pre- problem in his pan-Africanism. Since he Anthropology in Africa: Who are cisely the same terms as the other. Mafeje’s paid no scholarly attention to the cultural its makers and its subjects? discourse fits this metaphorical concept and political milieu of North Africa he in- As a protagonist in the debate about perfectly. His polemics are suffused with advertently reproduced ideas about a Anthropology in Africa, Mafeje reveals the metaphors of war: to take one choice disaggregated and dismembered Africa. the full range of his analytical thinking, example,‘(F)or an Anthropologist,’ says While he lived in North Africa for those his incisive mind and his unwavering Mafeje,‘it is well to remember that one years, his intellectual gaze remained fixed commitment to the continent. He made us thing “primitives” do not know is how to and confined to Sub-Saharan Africa. think about Africa in different ways. There fight in the dark.’ I use this example to As much as I respected his intellect, ad- is little doubt that his acerbic engagement show the linkages between the combat- mired his brilliant turn of phrase and cher- stems from a steadfast dedication to a ive style in Mafeje’s writing, the various ished his company, I also appreciated that pan-Africanist ideal as the negation of a representations of actual ethnographic Archie Mafeje was a deeply embittered Eurocentric discourse. The point of experiences and his struggle to under- man. ‘What’s wrong with being bitter?’ Africanity, Mafeje would argue, is a very stand how he understands his own en- he would frequently ask in conversation. simple one indeed. Africans should speak counters with history. As a retort, I would point to the lack of for themselves, they should nurture ideas Mafeje committed himself to combating bitterness in Nelson Mandela, after about themselves, they should under- the distorted images produced and repro- spending almost three decades in apart- stand themselves through their own in- duced about Africa from the outside, by heid jails. But Mafeje was, as with almost tellectual efforts, they should make their reference to the notion of authenticity in everything else, assured in his bitterness, own representations about themselves, his ethnographic practices. His polemic or at least he managed to give the impres- and they have to ensure that they have a is thus not only metaphorically warlike, it sion of being so self-assured. The conse- monopoly over the images that are made is an extension of a battle over how Af- quences of his bitterness were beneficial of and about them. Mafeje has played a rica may be conceived and how African because when it crept into his analysis it central role in the legitimate African claims claims over those conceptions may be sharpened the terms of the debate and it to write about and understand them- framed. permitted him to utilise his penchant for selves, and the Anthropology debate can pushing the arguments to and even be- be firmly anchored within this overarching Mafeje is a warrior in a double battle. He yond their logical conclusions. Balance Africanist impulse. is totally immersed in the struggle for ideas is clearly a casualty of this form of po- about Africa to be produced by Africans The debate represents a turbulent mixture lemic, but it served the very important for themselves and he connects this en- of Mafeje’s passion for and encyclopae- purpose of extending the boundaries of deavour to a profound commitment to the dic knowledge of the continent and his our understanding. Mafeje was obvi- political and economic liberation of Afri- grasp of the intricate details of the politi- ously aware of the consequences of his cans. His armour as well as his arguments cal passing parade in Africa. style of debate. In his polemics, he gave have to be scrutinised very closely for an at least as good as and often much more All students of African Anthropology assessment of their strengths and weak- than he got. He was prepared to expose cannot avoid encountering Mafeje’s de- nesses so that we can collectively engage himself to personal abuse and attack, and bate with a range of scholars and anthro- with ways in which this double struggle he was often bruised in the process, some- pologists. The debate was appropriately can be advanced. Mafeje’s clearest asset times very severely, but this did not made published in the very first issue of the is his incisive mind and his ability to trans- him waver from his pan-Africanist ideals African Sociological Review in 1997, late the complexity of his thought into and objectives of building a viable com- which in itself represents an effort to es- compelling and elegant prose. He is al- munity of social science scholars on the tablish a community of self-referring Afri- most intrinsically combative. And it is continent. can social scientists. Mafeje’s wide-rang- through these intellectual debates that he ing review of Sally Falk Moore’s book, has revealed his encyclopaedic knowl- Mafeje’s voice is unambiguously African. Anthropology and Africa is a frontal at- edge of Africa. He brings his Western learning to bear tack on the manner in which the discipline on a profound understanding of the lim- The major chink in his armour was the is constructed and structured around met- its of decolonisation. In many ways, his fact that he fought alone. He never co- ropolitan interests. He deconstructs the work precedes and pre-empts the kind of authored any significant work and he only essential concepts of Anthropology and analyses that have emerged from the ‘sub- collaborated with others in rather esoteric reveals what lies hidden – its basis in altern’ school of history in India on the areas where the outcome did not really alterity. But he does more than that. Since relation between the struggle for national matter. As a warrior of the social sciences he is concerned about African claims to independence and colonialism. There is in Africa, Mafeje chose his battleground study, understand and interpret their own simple realisation permeating this school very carefully. One of the major gaps in reality, he exposes the manner in which concerning the way in which nationalism his considerable repertoire of writings on the supposed makers of anthropological did not end up being the antithesis of Africa is North Africa. Being married to knowledge position themselves vis-à-vis colonialism but instead its most gro- an Egyptian with a daughter from the the assumed objects. Invariably, given its tesque imitation. Mafeje tries to avoid this marriage, Mafeje spent a considerable history as well as its political and ideo- kind of stricture in his writing by ensur- period of time in Cairo. Yet, almost as part logical importance in Africa, especially ing that his project was genuinely eman- of the syndrome of his exile, he chose not around the concept of ‘tribe’ the makers CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 47 were suffused, according to Mafeje, with ter to me if I’m Xhosa or Zulu or a vicious body blow. He proceeded to deep-seated white racism. Mafeje chal- Tswana or anything else. I am just bash Economics, Sociology, Political Sci- lenges the conventional division of the comfortable. If I had a choice, I would ence and Philosophy. Even Psychology social sciences and links the probably go along more with the was not spared his assault. After his historiography of Anthropology directly Sothos than with the Xhosas. Just in performance, Mafeje stood alone among to the colonial experience. He issues an terms of temperament and the way the ruins of the disciplines that he had abiding challenge to all African anthro- they do things. I am certainly not com- annihilated. pologists to become makers rather than mitted to something called Xhosa. I thought that there was a profound con- mere objects of knowledge. He also in- Mafeje’s views are consistent with his tradiction in all of this. While he was sin- sists that they should be centrally in- explanation for ethnic politics and con- gularly scathing about anything that had volved in a project to produce images, flict. He scolds Nnoli and others for not emerged from Africa in the field of social understandings and analyses of and for providing an analysis of ethnicity and for science, Mafeje continued to argue for themselves rather than merely consum- treating ethnic groups as things in them- an Afrocentric approach to our subject of ing what is produced for them by others selves, following the empiricism rife in investigation. He was also against any- outside the continent. For Mafeje, An- American Political Science. Instead he thing that smacked of Euro-centrism. It thropology is necessarily a discipline dispels the idea that there are discrete appeared to me that Mafeje the warrior founded on alterity, on the colonial set- naturally occurring entities of belonging was fighting a very lonely battle indeed, tlers studying the native other. For this that may be called ethnic groups in Af- since he was the only one worthy of its reason it is intrinsically limited and there- rica. He draws a distinction between so- lofty heights. fore was driven underground by the cial groups and social categories, where decolonisation process in Africa. While the former are characterised by inevitable In Praise of Mafeje the anthropologists did not suddenly dis- patterns of social interaction, for exam- We all realise that developing an African appear, they had to be content with oper- ple, lineages or associations, and the lat- social science discourse through the pro- ating under the rubric of joint academic ter does not imply such regular interac- motion of an African social science com- departments, invariably with Sociology. tion at all but is rather defined by com- munity of scholars is an extremely diffi- It was really only in Southern Africa that mon identity, such as membership of the cult exercise against the background of the discipline of Anthropology survived same religion. Mafeje’s argument is that the parlous state of African universities. as a separate entity, and that in itself re- ethnicity is related to the national compe- Mafeje reminded us just how structural veals very much about both the discipline tition for scarce resources in response to adjustment and a range of other factors and the colonial history of the region. the centralisation of power rather than to have conspired to wreck these universi- local particularistic conflicts. In this sense, A question that lies at the heart of Mafeje’s ties. Under these circumstances and ethnicity has a recent derivation since it efforts is the epistemological basis of the within this context it is to be expected that refers to an ideological ploy used by po- discipline of Anthropology in a postcolonial African social scientists would be quite litical elites to yield the benefits of power Africa. Since tribe was such a central or- happy to apply metropolitan ideas and and wealth. On this view, ethnicity does ganising concept in colonial Anthropol- concepts without subjecting them to criti- not represent some pre-existing African ogy, it is important to emphasise how cal scrutiny, and certainly not develop- cultural essence but a convenient means Mafeje was deconstructing this notion. ing concepts appropriate to the study of of political mobilisation for elites. ‘It is interesting to note’, wrote Mafeje in African societies. Attempts to indigenise social science in Africa have been incho- his highly influential article, ‘The Ideol- The Embattled Warrior ate, unsystematic and anecdotal. In this ogy of Tribalism’, ‘that the word for tribe In 2003 Archie Mafeje delivered the third does not exist in indigenous languages respect, there can be little doubt that the annual Z.K. Mathews memorial lecture at Council for the Development of Social of South Africa’. As he became more fa- the University of Fort Hare, in the little miliar with anti-colonial struggles across Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) village of Alice in the Eastern Cape Prov- and the Organization for Social Science the continent, and more fully conversant ince of South Africa. It was an auspicious with social and political realities in other Research in East and Southern Africa occasion indeed. The first of these lec- (OSSREA) stand out as important beacons African countries, he extended this for- tures was delivered in 2001 by the presi- mulation to the rest of the continent: of hope for the future of the social sciences dent of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, and in Africa. Yet, their reach cannot stretch far How often must it be pointed out that the second lecture was given by Quett enough to the nooks and crannies of in- in African languages there is no Masire, the former president of Botswana. tellectual poverty on the continent. equivalent for the term ‘tribe’ and that Archie Mafeje followed a formidable line- the concept ‘tribe’ is a colonial imposi- up. He did not disappoint the audience. Mafeje has more than most enriched our tion in Africa? What is ethnographically The warrior took on the role of perform- intellectual landscape by grappling with known is that Africans, like everybody ance rather than actual battle since the the issues of historical explanation, of how else, are conscious of the linguistic formality of the occasion prevented any to relate science and ideology to devel- and ethnic group to which they belong. retort, debate or even discussion. In his opment, how to understand the con- lecture Mafeje singlehandedly took on straints that confront the neocolonial About his own ethnic affiliation, Mafeje each of the social science disciplines as state in Africa, how to combine social his- said the following, they are practised in Africa. He flattened tory with ethnographic experience and I don’t care about being Xhosa, I am a all of History with a single strike to the generally how to marry scholarly pursuits South African black. It does not mat- head. He demolished Anthropology with with political commitment. He represents CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 48 the collective conscience of African so- write about Africa in ways that distort and erations can appreciate the depth and cial science, and because of his wide- harm the interests of people here. breadth of his contribution and so that spread legitimacy and credibility across they can also be inspired by his irrever- It is well that we honour Mafeje as an the continent it is not surprising that he ence and his irrepressible spirit. intellectual warrior so that younger gen- is not liked by those outside who wish to

Honouring a Giant

A Note on the Archie Mafeje Special Panel of the CODESRIA 30th Anniversary Grande Finale Conference, held in Dakar in December 2003

‘I would like to thank CODESRIA for debate. Maloka also discussed the slow the great honour, which is not to say pace of change in the tertiary education that I am grateful. It might be that you Ebrima Sall sector in post-apartheid South Africa, par- are wishing me not an early death, but CODESRIA ticularly in matters of curriculum reform, a death alright. When you honour Dakar, Ssnegal and Tandeka Nkiwane discussed people, you usually honour them af- Mafeje’s contribution to the debate on ter their death, and the glory comes Mafeje’s sarcasm and misgivings about democracy. Speakers from the floor in- after their death. But this glory comes cluded Helmi Sharawy, Samir Amin, before death. In fact, I was warned by him being honoured during his own life- time was therefore more of a kind of re- Thandika Mkandawire, Jimi Adesina, Said the philosopher Hountondji, who said Adejumobi, Kunle Amuwo, and Shahida to me: ‘be careful, do not accept this minder to us in the African academy that El-Baz, the spouse, friend and colleague thing.’ perhaps the best way of honouring peo- ple like him is not to make them look like who shared 35 years of Mafeje’s life. True to form, Archie Mafeje’s initial re- extraordinary people, but to both preserve sponse to two hours of presentations and the conditions that enable the academy Mafeje: The Man, and the testimonies highlighting his contribution to give birth to more great scholars, and Scholar to African and global scholarship, and his to highlight the principles, ethics, values Participants were reminded that Mafeje extraordinary human qualities, was both and practices that younger generations was fond of saying that he was South to point out the ritual side to such prac- of scholars should be encouraged to cher- African by birth, Dutch by nationality and tices and to remind us that he was born to ish, and portray people like him as living Egyptian by adoption, for he lived in Cairo a community of scholars, whose primary examples of what, with hard work, they for 24 years. His childhood and adoles- concern should be about how to give birth (the younger generation) could seek to cence were spent in apartheid South Af- to and nurture more scholars like him. achieve. Mentoring young scholars was rica. After a first degree in zoology and Honouring people has indeed sometimes in fact one of Mafeje’s main preoccupa- botanical sciences, Mafeje obtained a been a way of burying them. Not so with tions. I return to this issue later. masters degree in social anthropology at the University of Cape Town. His MA the CODESRIA panel, one could argue; The panel discussion and the many testi- thesis on leadership in Transkei was for, as Adebayo Olukoshi, the Executive monies that followed were each a mix of drafted in a monastery. He obtained a PhD Secretary, explained in his opening re- personal recollections of encounters, in- in sociology and anthropology at the marks to the panel, the idea was to per- tellectual and otherwise, with Mafeje, and University of Cambridge, and went back petuate a CODESRIA tradition, that of a discussion of his contributions to schol- to work in South Africa but was denied a breaking, precisely, with a terrible habit arship on a broad range of issues such as job by the University of Cape Town of the African academy, which consists democracy, academic freedom, land and (UCT), where he was going to be the first of acknowledging great African scholars agrarian issues, and the nature of schol- black African lecturer. Archie’s life took a only after they have been acknowledged arship itself. The presentations began dramatic turn thereafter, for he then went by West, and after their death. The with a portrait of Archie Mafeje, the man into exile and returned to his native South CODESRIA Charter provides for ‘Lifelong and the scholar (Ebrima Sall), followed by Africa only recently. He has held senior Membership’ to be conferred on some of a presentation on Archie’s style of schol- positions in many universities in Africa, the most illustrious African scholars, and arship: ‘drawing swords in the social sci- and Europe, including the University of CODESRIA’s Twentieth Anniversary con- ences’ (Fred Hendricks). Sam Moyo, the Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the American ference held in 1993 was an occasion for third speaker, focused on Mafeje’s work University in Cairo, the University of Samir Amin, Abdallah Bujra and Govan on land and agrarian issues. Eddy Maloka South Africa in Pretoria and the Institute Mbeki to be awarded ‘Lifelong Member- spoke about Archie’s place in the South of Social Studies in The Netherlands. It ship’ of CODESRIA. The Tenth General African community of scholars today, was in The Netherlands that, in 1973, he Assembly of CODESRIA, held in Kam- where he has remained a relatively un- became a Queen Juliana Professor of An- pala in December 2002, also included a known figure, particularly to the younger thropology and Sociology of Develop- special panel on the work of Samir Amin. generation, a point that Jimi Adesina also ment by an act of Parliament, with the made in his contribution to the general approval of all the 29 universities of The CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 49

Netherlands. The act was published in the Behind the cynical façade, my father short of the liberation of Africans, and prestigious Blue Pages of the Dutch gov- was one of the kindest, warmest and the building of a viable and self-sustain- ernment. That was one of the highest dis- most giving men I ever met. I vividly ing scholarly community in Africa. His tinctions that a scholar could receive in remember him getting me dressed for intellectual curiosity knew no bounds. I The Netherlands. He was then only 34 school every day (militarily), asking remember him explaining how he had years of age. His seminal papers and nu- me what I wanted to eat for lunch reli- spent six months underwater, observing merous other publications attested to the giously (until I was 26!), never telling the flora and fauna of the Atlantic Ocean fact that he was arguably one of the most me to study because to him exams in a Soviet submarine. distinguished scholars produced by our were for idiots, having serious chats continent. He was a member of the Scien- with me without ever looking me in Crossing Swords in the Social the eye (those of you who know him tific Committee of CODESRIA at the time Sciences personally will relate), speaking to me of his passing. logically in the most illogical situa- Fred Hendricks called Mafeje an ‘aca- There was unanimity among the panel- tions, pushing me to excel just to be demic warrior’. Mafeje saw argument as lists and general participants over what worthy of being his daughter and war, and explicitly talked about ‘crossing were seen as the main traits of Mafeje’s mostly for being my ultimate reference. swords’ with Ali Mazrui, in the famous Mafeje–Mazrui debate that went on for personality. He was extremely rigorous, Shahida El-Baz, his spouse, gave a very both as a scholar and in his personal atti- two years in the columns of CODESRIA moving account of how they met, and Bulletin. The powerful metaphor of argu- tude to life. ‘Archie can’t stand laziness’. shared a whole life of struggle in mutual And ‘Mafeje can’t stand sloppiness, ment as war could also be applied to the respect. She was a student at the Insti- exchanges Mafeje had with Sally Falk wherever it comes from’. These phrases tute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, were repeated several times during the Moore, following the review that he wrote very active in the campaign against the of Moore’s book on Anthropology and special CODESRIA panel. ‘Mafeje de- UCT refusal to allow Archie to take up a tested the banal and platitudes, for he Africa. The review was published in the teaching position to which he had been maiden issue of the African Sociological believed that people must demonstrate duly appointed. During his stint at the some independence of thought’ Review in 1997. ‘His polemics are suf- ISS, Mafeje became the guru of a small fused with the metaphor of war’ (Hendricks). He had a high sense of in- group of radical students, as he was later tegrity, and a high sense of social respon- (Hendricks):‘One thing primitives can’t to be a key member of the Marxist and do is to fight in the dark’ (Mafeje). sibility, and was ferociously independent pan-African circles of Egypt. When they in thinking, but also vis-à-vis structures decided to get married, Dr El-Baz said he In the view of most of the panellists and such as political parties. ‘Mafeje does not told her: ‘I know you will make a lousy contributors to the general debate, suffer fools’. He was ‘utterly uncompro- wife, but I don’t like wives anyway’. Mafeje’s scholarship was an extension of mising’ on matters of principle, and he his battles for Africa, for he was ‘totally ‘never fought personal battles’ (Shahida According to her, some of the episodes immersed in the battle for Africa’. A good El-Baz). He was very direct, and some- that left a lasting effect on Mafeje in- illustration of this is his seminal piece times brutal in his criticisms and rather cluded his sojourn in Namibia, a sojourn (published in 1971 in the Journal of Mod- aggressive, something that destabilised that he actually shortened as a result of ern African Studies) on the ideology of many a young scholar. both his utter disappointment with the tribalism, an ideology that, he argued, slow pace of transformation going on af- Several of his close friends, however, ar- ter the country’s independence, and the brought with it certain ways of recon- gued that behind the aggressive and fe- endless fights he has had to fight against structing the African reality. It re- rociously critical Mafeje was a rather shy unrepentant racists desperately hanging garded African societies as particu- man. He was also very loyal to his friends, on to a colonial mentality. Since for him larly tribal. This approach produced to CODESRIA, and to the African schol- going to work in Namibia was a first step certain blinkers or ideological pre-dis- arly community in general. The complex- on his journey back to South Africa, the positions which made it difficult for ity of his personality is probably best unpleasant experience meant that his re- those associated with the system to described in a very moving tribute to her turn to South Africa was going to be de- view these societies in any other light. father, written by Dana Mafeje a few days ferred by almost a whole decade. Hence certain modes of thought after his passing: among European scholars in Africa Mafeje has mentored many African schol- and their African counterparts have Most of you wrote about his academic ars, and many of those he mentored, in- persisted, despite the many important prowess, genius mind, incomparable cluding some of the panellists, found him economic and political changes that wit and endless struggle for his na- to be hard with those he was mentoring, have occurred in the continent over tion and greater Africa. Having ac- because his reference was the rigorous the last 75–100 years. knowledged all these attributes at a training he had himself been through, and The ideology of alterity, which is so cen- very early age, I later realised that Papa the very high standards that he had set tral to colonial anthropology, is suffused was a ‘giant’ not only in the intellec- for himself as a scholar. As the Senega- with deep-seated racism that Mafeje ex- tual sense but as a human being. lese sociologist, Momar Coumba Diop posed with brio. Hence the questions that once put it, Archie was what he would My father was critical but humane, he asks in his monograph titled Anthro- call a ‘knowledge aristocrat’ (un aristo- fierce but compassionate, sarcastic pology and Independent Africans: Sui- crat du savoir), and a creative artist of but gentle, silly, but brilliant, stubborn cide, Or the End of an Era?: what is the sorts. Yet he was a very committed scholar but loyal, but most of all he was pas- epistemological basis of the discipline sionate. as well, one whose mission was nothing CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 50

[anthropology] in independent Africa? tion, but also with the Food and Agricul- Hendricks also argued that towards the Given that it was founded on alterity, how tural Organisation, the United Nations end of his life, Mafeje had become ‘an can it survive when colonialism has been Economic Commission for Africa and the embittered man’ (Hendricks), and that the overcome? This monograph formed the World Bank. Mafeje was a member of the bitterness occasionally crept into core around which a symposium was or- expert group that, in the late 1990s, was Mafeje’s writings, although he offered no ganised in the maiden issue of the Afri- put together by the CROP, an organisa- examples of how bitterness sometimes can Sociological Review in 1997. tion based in Bergen, Norway, to review had clouded Mafeje’s scholarship. There Deconstructing concepts inherited from the World Bank’s work on poverty. were certainly many things that Mafeje colonial social science has actually been couldn’t help being unhappy about. Be- Mafeje’s work, Hendricks argued, in some part of the search for autonomy that sides the unpleasant Namibia experience, respects preceded what later came from Archie Mafeje and Joseph Ki-Zerbo, both when he went back to South Africa itself, the subaltern school. He saw colonialism of whom were honoured during the he was relatively unknown by the younger as a debasement of Africans. Unfortunately, CODESDRIA 30th anniversary confer- generation and isolated by those whose according to Mafeje, nationalism did not ence, and both of whom have moved on, politics made them uncomfortable with always end up as a negation of colonial- were engaged in, along with many other someone like him. That great scholars like ism, but its imitation. distinguished African scholars. Archie Mafeje, Bernard Magubane and The legitimacy that Mafeje enjoyed in Cheikh Anta Diop are relatively unknown Another good example is Mafeje’s cri- Africa and other parts of the world has to the younger generation of South Afri- tique of the African Alternative Framework been a source of discomfort for all those can scholars was a point made by several to Structural Adjustment (AAFSAP), pub- who, particularly outside Africa, wish to speakers, including Jimi Adesina, Kunle lished in CODESRIA Bulletin in 1990, in continue to write about our continent in Amuwo, Eddy Maloka and Tandeka which he openly calls for ‘an African re- ways that distort the reality. Mafeje rep- Nkiwane. Eddy Maloka explained how the covery in thought’. resented the collective conscience of the Africa Institute of South Africa was, un- Other concepts that Mafeje subjected to African social science community, and his der his leadership, trying to deal with that a thorough critique include those of knowledge was encyclopaedic. problem by establishing an Archie Mafeje ethnicity (discussed by Hendricks), visiting fellowship, with support from the Africanity, and the peasantry. Sam Criticisms South African National Research Foun- Moyo’s presentation was centred on Mafeje was awarded a Lifelong Member- dation. Although the problem of making Mafeje’s work on the land and agrarian ship of CODESRIA, for a lifetime contri- great African scholars known to younger questions in Africa. In his critique of bution to scholarship. In his acceptance generations of scholars is particularly Dessalegn Rahmato’s Green Book on speech, he said he was not worried that acute in South Africa, it is an Africa- wide Peasant Organisations in Africa, Mafeje he would be subjected to severe criticism problem, which is why CODESRIA has challenged the assumption that peasants by the panellists, ‘because I knew you launched a Distinguished Lecture Series exist in Africa, and called for a much closer will not denounce me as you are honour- aimed at enabling people like Mafeje (who study of property relations in rural Af- ing me’. However, the panel was not about was a nominee of that programme) to rica, rather than transposing concepts an uncritical celebration of Mafeje, but travel and give lectures in different parts borrowed from European sociology and also critically engaging with his work. As of the continent. anthropology. This was partly in re- Hendricks put it, in his contribution to As for Mafeje’s relative isolation in South sponse to Samir Amin’s work on the tribu- the panel, he was answering Archie’s in- Africa, in the conversations I was privi- tary mode of production, and his charac- vitation to the younger generation to draw leged to have with him during the last few terisation of certain social relations as swords, including with him. He therefore years of his life, on many occasions he semi-feudal. pointed out a couple of areas in which he said some scholars began keeping away On the land question, according to Moyo, felt Mafeje’s positions were problematic. from him from the moment that he frankly Mafeje has been arguing that apart from One such area is North Africa, which is expressed his views on some of their pub- the settler colonies of Southern Africa, almost totally absent from Mafeje’s work. lished work – which he found rather where there was massive expropriation of Hendricks felt that this was a major omis- sloppy. It was also rather unfortunate that land and racial hegemony, there is no real sion, despite the fact that Mafeje had lived in post-apartheid South Africa, a scholar land question in Africa. in Egypt for 24 years. This was rather dif- of the calibre of Archie Mafeje could be Mafeje therefore crossed swords with a ficult to comprehend. Was it a reflection left without a proper pension scheme. large number of African and non-African of what his spouse Shahida called a ‘refu- Maloka also made the very important ob- scholars. In addition to the Mazrui– gee mentality’, that is, some reluctance servation that no serious attempt is be- Mafeje debate, examples cited by the vari- on his part to get himself deeply immersed ing made to encourage African scholars ous panellists include: the critical reviews in the social and intellectual life of Egypt? to study the history of the liberation movements, particularly those of South- of Sally Falk Moore’s book, and ‘Mafeje was fighting a lonely battle’ Dessalegn Rahmato’s Green Book that ern Africa – not even the history of the (Hendricks). To illustrate, Hendricks cited ANC is being seriously studied. His Sam Moyo discussed in his presentation, Mafeje’s critique of the social sciences, both of which enlisted critical responses explanation was that South African schol- one by one, in a Memorial Lecture he arship has been constructed, and is con- from the authors, his debates with Samir gave at Fort Hare in 2001, advocating, in- Amin over the tributary mode of produc- structing itself, as a sub-field of scholar- stead, for an ‘afro-centric’ approach. ship in Europe and the USA. Other major CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 51 gaps in South African scholarship high- further argued, is now more or less re- of Umtata, in South Africa, where he was lighted by Maloka are those of the study served for operations related to tourism, given a decent burial. But prayers were of legal Marxism, and the study of Africa which is a massive expropriation carried said for him in mosques and churches in more generally. out with the backing of state and global Egypt, in the United Kingdom and in capital. South Africa. Nkiwane, one of the panellists, and a few of the contributors from the floor (Samir **** The special session organised to honour Amin in particular) argued that the gen- Mafeje ended on a very high note, with Archie Mafeje took African scholars very ius of Archie was not so much in the fact Archie, in his near-legendary humility, seriously, and read and engaged with as that he broke new ground, but because reminding everybody that he wasn’t a many of the scholarly writings of Africans he revisited old questions, such as the lone star/scholar: there are other people, as he could (Mkandawire). He was a fugi- question of democracy (Nkiwane), and scholars he’s been talking to over the tive scholar, who found a base in regional the agrarian question (Amin). Yet his cri- years. Among those present at the ses- organisations like CODESRIA, OSSREA tique of the ideology of tribalism has been sions, he cited: Thandika Mkandawire, and SAPES, and he was certainly one of celebrated as a seminal contribution. Samir Amin, Helmi Sharawy and Sam those who contributed most to the build- Moyo. And then there are all those he’s On the land question, according to Sam ing of these organisations. Mafeje was a been crossing swords with. The list is Moyo, Mafeje has been arguing that committed Pan-Africanist, and a world- long. ‘You don’t make knowledge alone…’ apart from the settler colonies of South- class scholar. said Mafeje. ern Africa, where there was massive ex- In a way, he seemed to have sensed that propriation of land and racial hegemony, This was also an occasion for Mafeje to the end wasn’t far away. As early as the there is no real land question in Africa. To reiterate what he had always been say- year 2000, several of us heard him say, in defend such a thesis, Moyo argued, was ing: that CODESRIA should continue to his usual joking manner, that he had a to fail to acknowledge the complexity of encourage multi-disciplinarity. That was ‘rendezvous with death in three years…’. the land question in Africa today, particu- why when, as new members of the Scien- It was as if he could foretell when his life larly with urbanisation and migration, on tific Committee of CODESRIA, ‘we were was going to end. the one hand, and on the other, the new asked to write state-of-the-discipline ways in which land is being concentrated He was a man with multiple identities and notes on our respective disciplines, we in few hands for use as tourist resorts. he had many dimensions to him. Upon refused to do so’. There are broader territorial issues in- his passing, many of these dimensions That was Professor Archibald Mafeje, or volved, and much of the Southern Afri- were brought out. Part of Archie’s jour- ‘Mr Mafeje’, as he preferred to be called. can land mass (about 40 per cent), Moyo ney ended in his village close to the city À Dieu, Prof.!

Archie Mafeje with Suzane Nkomo and Jimmy Adesina at the 30th Anniversary Conference, December 2003, in Dakar, Senegal CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 52

Archie Mafeje: The Local and the Universal

n his address to the National Research ruling party, the African National Con- Foundation in South Africa in May gress (ANC), deliberated on this challenge I2001 on ‘The Impact of Social Sciences Eddy Maloka under the topic: ‘Communications and on Development and Democracy: A Posi- NEPAD Secretariat the Battle of Ideas’. One of the resolu- tivist Illusion’, Archie Mafeje made this Pretoria, South Africa tions adopted at the conference in this point: regard committed the party to ‘vigorously communicate the ANC’s outlook and val- (UNISA), which took place in the Transkei Some social philosophers believe that ues (developmental state, collective a few days leading to his funeral. the universal is contained in the local. rights, values of caring and community This is only true, if the local is univer- In his widely disseminated tribute to solidarity, ubuntu, non-sexism, etc.) ver- sally recognised. The so-called Afri- Mafeje, Pallo Jordan, South Africa’s Min- sus the current mainstream media’s ideo- can renaissance is not universally rec- ister of Arts and Culture, recalls that logical outlook (neo-liberalism, a weak and ognised. Its intellectual representa- passive state, and overemphasis on indi- tions are wanting and its political Mafeje ‘described himself as South Afri- determinations are in question. This can by birth, Dutch by citizenship, and vidual rights, market fundamentalism, raises two questions: i) the indigeni- Egyptian by domicile. His return to the etc.’., and ‘that the battle of ideas must sation of knowledge in Africa; and ii) Motherland was intended to not only fuse be conducted in deeds not only in theory the political significance of Africanity these into one but spend the last years of and these deeds must find practical ex- or the so-called African renaissance. his life as a living example of African pression through the ANC structures’. Both of these questions are not popu- cosmopolitanism’.2 Another observer de- Accordingly, the party’s mouthpiece, lar in white South Africa and the West scribed Mafeje as a ‘straight-shooting ANC Today, subsequently carried a lead in general. In their immediate conno- Afrocentric critic of colonial anthropol- article with the title: ‘The Voice of the ANC tations these signify nothing more ogy and distortions of Africa in western Must Be Heard’! than an assertion of a new self-iden- academies … [his] work is not well known The second area of the debate is about tity. It is inevitably that any identity among younger scholars and is not as the virtual absence of black intelligentsia emerges as an opposed category to widely circulated in western venues as it in the country. Pitika Ntuli painted a dis- another/others. Likewise, it is inevita- deserves’.3 Mahmood Mamdani concurs: turbing picture: bly that the assertion of any identity ‘The important point is to memorialize the provokes equally subjective/ideologi- meaning of his life and work in a way that In South Africa, with the advent of cal revulsions from whatever is per- makes it accessible to the younger gen- the new dispensation, intellectuals 1 ceived as alterity. eration, those who did not have the oppor- were induced from academe into gov- Mafeje here was taking issue with the ‘il- tunity to know him personally as we did’. ernment to function as bureaucrats. Those who felt constrained there were lusion’ of positivism in social sciences in When I persuaded Mafeje to return ‘home’ favour of a ‘normative social science, that in turn induced into the corporate some few years ago, the intention was, world. In both these new homes they is, a social science that does not only ac- among others, to bring his intellectual in- knowledge the fact that it is not “value- find their voices circumscribed by the fluence and the respect he commanded logic of survival. There were those free” but is willing to confront and on the continent and internationally, objectify social and moral issues such as who went the NGO route, but even closer to his home front. We had hoped there they found that if they spoke poverty, racism, and globalisation’. How- he would dedicate whatever strength was out they would not receive state fund- ever, the dialect of and the tension be- still left in his body and mind to collate ing. Some sought other means of con- tween the local and universal, or the self his work for publication and dissemination. tributing to the broader society: they and the other that he describes in the ci- This is a daunting task that is yet to be sought funding from international tation above somehow explain how he accomplished. agencies, but this brought new prob- was received in his country, South Af- lems; they were accused of collabo- I was also hoping that Mafeje’s return rica, on his return from exile. rating with enemies of the state or were ‘home’ would inject more energy and, Jimi Adesina, in one of the tributes to used by these agencies to subvert our perhaps, even direction, in the ongoing new democracy.4 Mafeje, recounts how ‘in our last conver- debate about the role and contribution of sation he [Mafeje] spoke of his isolation black intellectuals in the post-apartheid Similarly, for Ebrahim Harvey, and loneliness in South Africa (at home, transition. This debate is in three related alongside the decline of civil society in a place of his birth, in a land that gave areas. Firstly, is the concern over the fact we have seen the decline in black in- us one of the finest minds in the global that public discourse in post-apartheid community of the social sciences)’. And tellectual production. There is a result- South Africa is largely dominated, shaped ing dearth of independent and com- this, indeed, is one of the themes that and led by those who were historically emerged from speeches by friends and mitted black intellectuals. So discourse privileged in the past because of the col- in every field continues overwhelm- relatives at a memorial service held in his our of their skin. Indeed, at its 52nd na- honour at the University of South Africa ingly to be dominated by white aca- tional conference of December 2007, the demics and intellectuals.5 CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 53

And finally, there is a tendency in the Multidisciplinary Research Centre at was unfortunate because South Afri- white intellectual and opinion-making es- the University of Namibia, as director. can Marxism has an extremely under- tablishment to deny the currency and sig- It took the efforts of his old friends developed theoretical tradition to nificance of ‘race’ in South Africa today and colleagues at UCT to persuade which Mafeje might have made a more because, they argue, apartheid is dead! him to apply for a post at the Univer- substantial contribution if he had con- What matters now is, for the white Marx- sity of South Africa.6 tained his bad temper. In this instance his eagerness to settle accounts with ist Left, ‘class’ or, for most, the fear of Indeed, for Mafeje, being overwhelmed by an all-powerful ideological opponents got the better 9 ANC. When some black intellectuals or- governments determine the options of him. ganised themselves into a Native Club in for ‘development’ but they are not the Mafeje may have not had the impact we 2006, this was dismissed in the media and source of all wisdom, as every social all had hoped for on his return ‘home’ from other public fora; others even comparing philosopher or social scientist would exile, but perhaps it was because he was the club to the ‘Broederbond’ of the agree. Critique is the ultimate commit- a living expression of the dialect of the Afrikaner nationalists during apartheid. ment of all good social scientists. Ten- local and the universal; an African living dentious social science is not only a Recently, some black journalists con- without borders, be they geographic or confirmation of the status quo but is vened a Forum for Black Journalists, and intellectual. He may have not been one of also anti-intellectual and, therefore, this also led to outrage in the white opin- the commissars in the trenches of the lib- detrimental to human/social develop- ion-making establishment, with some ment. Critical social science insights eration movement for fear of being con- white journalists even gate-crashing into are indispensable for social develop- strained by ‘borders’ negotiating the dia- a meeting of the forum to play heroes and ment and enlightened governance.7 lectic of the local and the universal, but martyrs for ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom of he was without doubt one of the pioneers speech and association’. The argument Of course, when the South African Left of the knowledge that we are armed with was, as in the case of the Native Club, debated the future of socialism in the today in our struggle for the total libera- that it is racist for blacks to organise them- early 1990s in the wake of Joe Slovo’s tion of our continent. selves into exclusive or, as they put it, ‘Has Socialism Failed?’, Mafeje joined But Mafeje could change lives also, and ‘apartheid-type’ organisations. Yet many in the fray with his ‘The Bathos of even transport them from the local to the public spaces in the country, including Tendentious Historiography’. Mafeje beyond of the universal, like that of Ken organisations, remain exclusively white informed, as it were, by the belief that Hughes, now with the Department of because of structural constraints and im- Slovo was ‘a confirmed Stalinist until Mathematics and Applied Mathematics pediments to access and entry for blacks, the writing of the essay under review’, at UCT, who was among the 200-odd stu- thanks to the impact of centuries of colo- argued that the South African Com- dents who staged a sit-in at that univer- nial rule. munist Party (SACP) was formed by ‘white émigré communists [who] de- sity in 1968 to protest the ‘Mafeje inci- Unfortunately, Mafeje could not fit in and pended to a very large extent on the dent’. For Hughes: find his way into this debate. His tower- Soviet Union and had virtually no The UCT sit-in of 1968 was a landmark ing intellectual stature and his ‘straight- constituency inside the country’. For event, both for the university and for shooting’ approach could have helped him, the Party ‘succeeded in splitting those who took part in it. Several people make the case for a very vibrant, strong the black national movement right in for whom it was a formative experience and independent black intelligentsia as a the middle for its own purposes. Hav- are still around… In my case it was the force to reckon with in confronting the ing lost any support of white workers start of a peculiar career as an interna- enduring legacy of apartheid. His age was, … it sought a constituency within the tional student agitator – for I went from to be fair, taking a heavy toll on him. black national movement without giv- ing up its privileged position, as a UCT to the University of Warwick in Eng- Perhaps, another factor that contrib- “vanguard party’” [emphasis in the land, where general grievances resulted uted to Mafeje’s loneliness on his re- original].Thus, concluded Mafeje, ‘… in occupying the Registry, and then on to turn ‘home’ was the fact that he was had it not been for its [SACP’s] self- MIT in the US, where we sat in protest never an active part of the liberation interested interference, a number of against the Vietnam War.10 movement establishment. Jordan makes differences, say, between the Unity this point in his tribute to Mafeje: Movement and the ANC, and between Notes the ANC and the PAC could have been 1. Archie Mafeje, ‘The Impact of Social Scien- Though he was a keen supporter of resolved’.8 African liberation, from his days as a ces on Development and Democracy: A student at [University of Cape Town] In his survey of the ‘Has Socialism Positivist Illusion’, Address to the National UCT, Archie Mafeje was always ex- Failed?’ debate, Pallo Jordan observed at Research Foundation, 31 May 2001. tremely sceptical of national liberation the time that 2. Pallo Jordan, ‘ Statement on the Passing of movements. He immersed himself in Mafeje unfortunately did not engage Professor Archie Mafeje by Minister of Arts the study of the anti-colonial nation- & Culture’, 4 April 2007. alist movements across sub-Saharan with Slovo, choosing instead to scold Africa. He withheld his support from the SACP and its ally, the ANC, about 3. ‘Celebrated African Anthropologist Archie all the liberation movements in South the policies they are pursuing to bring Mafeje is Dead’, AfrikaNews.org, 1 April Africa, and even after 1994 he down apartheid. Although … Mafeje 2007. could have made a number of valid sounded doubtful about returning 4. Pitika Ntuli, ‘We Need Real Intellectual to home to South Africa, preferring to points, these got lost because of the Africanist stance he adopted. This ask the Right Questions’, Sunday Times, 27 attach himself to the newly established January 2008. CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 54

5. Ebrahim Harvey, ‘South Africa: Where are 7. Mafeje, ‘The Impact of Social Sciences on 9. Pallo Jordan, ‘A Survey of the South African the Black Thinkers of the Left?’, Online Development and Democracy’. Debate on the Decline of Socialism in Eas- Mail and Guardian, 5 May 2006. tern Europe’, South African Communist 8. Mafeje, ‘The Bathos of Tendentious Party, 1991 [see SACP website]. 6. Jordan, ‘Statement on the Passing of Historiography: A Review of Joe Slovo’s Professor Archie Mafeje by Minister of Arts “Has Socialism Failed?’”, SAPES, vol. 3, 10. UCT Monday Paper, vol. 26.05, 23 April 2007. & Culture’. no. 11 August 1990.

Speaking of Archie

n 1957, fresh out of university, I left by definition, yet actively seeking to England for South Africa, looking to transform their society, have thrown in Deirdre Levinson join the struggle there. I thought the their lot with the worker/peasant constitu- I New York revolution was imminent. Shortly disa- ency in their struggle towards socialism. USA bused of this notion, I remained to be in- Mindful of the inherent contradiction in structed from scratch in what that revolu- this position, he proposes in one of his tion entailed. Eventually, in the organiza- essays that ‘the intellectual, like the samu- He was always at it, discussing, tion distinguished from all others in the rai, should go armed with two swords – analyzing, synthesizing, everywhere on liberatory movement for its uncompromis- one for killing his enemies, the other for the campus, with the single exception of ing probity, non-collabora-tionist policy, killing himself when he betrays his cause’. Blackies’ Corner – so-named as the undis- non-negotiable programme of democratic But the one sword was all Archie ever puted preserve of the non-whites. Archie demands, I found my instructors. This needed. The cause he served was the denounced it as voluntary segregation. He happened in Cape Town when I provi- social, political and economic transforma- wouldn’t be found dead at Blackies’ Cor- dentially picked up a job at the univer- tion of Africa, nothing less. In this com- ner. Likewise at lectures, while the non- sity, thereby acquiring at one and the prehensive vision of a socialist Africa, his white students customarily occupied the same time a livelihood and an introduc- inexhaustible intellectual passion found back row, Archie sat right up in the front tion to Unity Movement politics from an its commensurate form and scope. Hence, row, an admiring white girl on either side. assortment of its junior members study- (to quote one of the early CODESRIA trib- Ever himself, how strenuously he safe- ing there. That was how I became ac- utes), ‘he could not be shaken from his guarded his autonomy was equally plain quainted with Archie. stand’. to all of us who knew him in the Unity Already a seasoned Unity cadre, lately Movement in those years. No respecter Archie’s opposites in South Africa, the arrived from the Eastern Cape to study of persons, he kept a measured distance majority intellectuals of the petit-bour- (after a trial run in the biological sciences) from the leadership, the better (as he gave geois constituency who share the spoils for a degree in Social Anthropology, he out) to get his Movement work done. of the ANC’s negotiated settlement, not was then in his early twenties, a tall, spare, surprisingly foresaw his presence in their In his first year at UCT he would some- loose-jointed young man, tastefully at- midst as a direct threat. That is why when times drop in at my office, ‘to discuss’ tired, however meagre his wardrobe. His – free to return to South Africa in the between lectures. But thereafter, as our face too, highly charged and singularly 1990s, an eminent scholar of international acquaintance progressed, he preferred to resolute, had its merits, but beauty wasn’t renown – he sought appropriate employ- call at my lodgings (always transient in one of them. Years later, in his Dar-es-Sa- ment at his alma mater, the UCT adminis- those days, since I had to decamp as of- laam period, that face took the brunt of a tration, far from making due amends for ten as either my landlady objected to head-on automobile collision that landed their predecessors’ craven withdrawal of black visitors, or scandalized neighbours him in one hospital after another for his appointment in 1968, contrived by all called the police). He would stop by regu- months on end. Immediately upon hear- manner of foul means to keep him out. larly on his way from the townships where ing the grim news, I wrote him post-haste Nor, when he returned to South Africa he did his fieldwork, bringing me his in- to say for his consolation what a mercy it permanently in 2002 did they extend them- sider’s knowledge and meticulous obser- was only his face, since he never had any selves further than to send him the fol- vation of the township people, the multi- looks to lose. But it wasn’t his looks he lowing year an apology exclusively for farious African working class, whose as was worried about. From the hospital, in the 1968 offence, with a similarly worth- yet unconsolidated struggle, he, of all the Copenhagen this time, where he was about less offer of an honorary doctorate – both comrades who contributed to my politi- to undergo highly specialized surgery on of which Archie, never a man to be messed cal education, best interpreted for me, his jaw, he replied piteously, ‘For two with, studiously ignored. And there the because he was closest to the people weeks my mouth will be sealed. Can you matter rested till his death last year, where- whom it most closely concerned. He was imagine?’ It was indeed barely imagina- upon the students came out in such clam- my political touchstone in those years, ble. I never knew anyone so terse in his orous and widely broadcast protest on and so he remained all the years of our speech who had so much to say, ‘to dis- his behalf that the administration, taking life-long friendship. cuss’, as he called it. fright, forthwith reversed their position. Archie was one of those intellectuals who With declared intent to ‘bring closure to (as he described them), petit-bourgeois the Mafeje issue’, they dispatched their CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 55 emissary to Archie’s funeral with assur- has gone so far as to say that the Univer- equally unbefitting conduct in the 1990s ances that the UCT Council Executive sity ‘did not make a committed effort … won’t turn up any such telling material. Committee, recognizing ‘the deep injus- and that it may even have acted in a way Indeed, the University’s deafening silence tice done’, resolved that ‘his impact as an that prejudiced Professor Mafeje a sec- on Archie’s politics casts serious doubt extraordinarily gifted scholar be captured ond time in the 1990s’. As regards further on its fitness to celebrate the memory of forever’, and promised ‘to find a practical reparations, the first and most notable on the man whose unshakable commitment way’ to that end. the list is the University’s undertaking to to the interests of the disregarded major- open their archives to ‘scholars wishing ity of South Africa’s people so strongly As it now appears, the post-apartheid to research the events surrounding Archie discommended him to the university con- custodians of UCT who so assiduously Mafeje at UCT’. Archival research on the stituency of South Africa’s comprador kept Archie’s ‘impact’ out of the curricu- University Council’s withdrawal of government. lum, who closed their own ranks against Archie’s appointment in 1968 has already him and, with the ready collusion of their It remains for those of his family, col- revealed that the Minister of Education, sister universities, effectively ostracized leagues, students, comrades and friends in his discussions with the Principal of him till the end of his life, have lately at- to whom he was dearest, and who best UCT at that time, informed him of tempted to make amends. The new Vice- know the crucial importance to Africa’s ‘Mafeje’s record of subversive activity’. Chancellor, in his public apology for the future of his transformative, unremittingly But it’s a safe bet that research into the University’s failure ‘to bring a very sig- honest and fearless life’s work, to keep motive for the post-apartheid Council’s nificant African scholar home to UCT’, his banner flying.

Archie, Dear Archie

Archie was a Renaissance man. Others Then Archie introduced me to Shahida, have written about his outstanding intel- his soulmate and intellectual equal bar lectual abilities, which are so well known Katherine Salahi none. Shahida and I became friends, then in academic and political circles that they Oxford University close friends, then sisters. For me, from need no repetition here. He also loved and UK then on, Archie was family. The intellec- was highly knowledgeable about classi- tual challenges continued whenever there cal music (I can see him now, lounging on was a chance, alongside his ecstatic the sofa, totally absorbed in listening to a the ANC office in London. When I had ‘We’re going to have a baby!’ when they recording). He had a formidable grasp of finished he looked up at me with that in- discovered that Shahida was pregnant, the English language, frequently using imitable, quizzical look of his and said, ‘So?’ his pleasure at my baby son calling him words that had mother-tongue English He was always good at deflating people’s ‘Daddy Archie’ (‘He isn’t confusing me graduates reaching for their dictionaries egos when he thought it necessary to do with his father, he just understands that – and always finding that he had used so. He was equally good at encouraging I’m in a similar role’), the delicious meals them correctly. He knew about wines, he people’s confidence. Archie and I re- served in their Cairo apartment, his cul- knew about food, he knew about many mained friends, and he taught me more tural explanation of why he was driving other things too numerous to mention than I ever took the time to thank him for. us up a one-way road the wrong way, his here. He was a demon table-tennis player. He taught me by example how vital it is to sudden call to go to the window after a When he displayed any of his huge range question, to study, to think indepen- long night of serious talk with him and of interests he was not showing off, simply dently, to stick to principles in the face of Shahida, to see ‘this is what I like about stretching his knowledge and practising it. fashion, never to compromise. Cairo’ – waiters at the end of their night shift, at 5.00am, joyously playing football I first met Archie at Cambridge in the An- Archie was always challenging, but only by the canal. thropology Department library, in the au- dismissive when he felt dismissed. At tumn of 1964. We had both arrived at the Cambridge he quickly acquired a reputa- To say that Archie was unconventional same time, he to do his PhD against all tion for not suffering fools gladly, and woe is an understatement. In everything he the odds after the torment and experience betide the person at the other end of his did, he ploughed his own, usually very of growing up in apartheid South Africa, I acerbic tongue. But in Dar es Salaam, lonely furrow. He was neither a conven- as a first-year undergraduate after work- where I was living when he arrived to take tional husband nor a conventional father, ing briefly in a multiracial school in up his post as Professor of Sociology (and but he adored and was fiercely proud of Swaziland between English boarding was almost deported for travelling on a both his wife Shahida and his daughter school and university. I remember our first South African passport), I saw a new side Dana. Dana brought huge joy into her encounter vividly. Someone told me that of Archie, endlessly patient and often ten- parents’ lives; Archie’s decision to leave the man sitting hunched at a table ab- der towards his students, supporting Cairo and go back to South Africa must sorbed in reading was South African. I them, encouraging them, playing with have been one of the hardest he ever bounced up to him, introduced myself, them, all the time teaching them. His com- made. Ever a man of principle, he did what told him I had just come back from mitment was total. he thought he had to do, for all that he Swaziland and had been volunteering in and Shahida had always believed in. It CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 56 meant he was alone when he died, iso- tics, but doubtless determined to the last South Africa. What a privilege to have lated from the mainstream of contempo- to keep fighting for a truly transformed known the man. rary South African scholarship and poli-

Archie Mafeje

rofessor Archie Mafeje was born In this moment of profound pain, and on in the region of Eastern Cape on 30 behalf of CODESRIA´s members, the Sci- PMarch 1936. A few days before his Teresa Cruz e Silva entific Committee where he served, the 71st birthday on 28 March 2007, he passed University Eduardo Mondale, Executive Committee, and on my personal away. The sad news of his death brought Maputo, Mozambique behalf, I would like to express our heart- to the whole African intellectual commu- felt condolence and solidarity with nity, to his family and friends, a deep Archie’s family, intellectual colleagues, shock and a profound sense of pain. For tion, we need to recognize that the areas friends, and all those who have had occa- a moment, it seemed, time stood still, covered by his analysis came out also sion to drink from his well of wisdom. poised at the edge of the unknown. through his speeches, conference papers, And last but not the least, I have a word One of the finest minds among African public lectures and many other interven- for our dear sister. Dear Shaida, I’m aware scholars, Archie was a fighter for African tions. Whether published or unpublished, that in a moment of pain such as this, and freedom, a comrade, a mentor, and a very his highly original and profound quality especially the loss of someone we love special friend, to so many of us. Archie of thought has always been a great inspi- so dearly, the words of our friends are not was above all the projects of CODESRIA, ration for different generations of Africa enough to fill the great emptiness we feel. husband of our dear sister and friend, scholars and for Africans of all walks of life. However, I would like to assure you that Shahida. His departure leaves an incon- Archie has been and will always remain a CODESRIA´s family will walk with you, solable sense of loss. This untimely de- founding father and guide of CODESRIA. with Dana, with Xolane, and with the other parture leaves us with many projects and His contributions are of such magnitude members of Archie’s family, hand in hand, dreams unrealized, as CODESRIA had that the history of CODESRIA cannot be in this difficult phase of your lives, offer- great plans of immortalizing his formida- complete without him. In recognition of ing as much as we can, a shoulder for you ble achievements and ensuring continu- his immense work, he was honored by the to lean on. Accept therefore, our deep ity for the mentorship he was never tired African social research community with a expression of love and solidarity. On be- of giving us, and the younger generation life membership of CODESRIA at the 30th half of CODESRIA I can also assure you of social scientists. Anniversary Conference in Dakar in 2003. and the African community of our com- mitment to make any efforts necessary to In his intellectual and commendable con- As current president of CODESRIA I shall immortalize Archie’s lifelong work and to troversial style, Archie was a profound sorely miss his wisdom, guidance and good realize the dream we built together, to thinker, always concerned with the differ- humor at Scientific Committee meetings. spread his knowledge to the younger gen- ent social, political and economic chal- With other founder members, he shared eration in the continent and beyond. lenges Africa has faced and still faces. It different debates on the future of Africa. would be shortsighted of us to limit our His honest positions, political and intel- Archie has died, Archie lives. Archie will appreciation of Archie’s contributions to lectual integrity, immense generosity and live forever in our hearts. Archie’s memo- knowledge only to his published works. authority of voice earned him profound ries and thoughts will continue to grow and To celebrate the fullness of his contribu- respect from the academic community. flower like the seed of a giant tree.

Sammy Beban Chumbow, Tandika Nkiwane and Archie Mafeje, December 2003, in Dakar, Senegal CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 57

Tribute to Archie Mafeje

e are all here because we loved mented on a rather awful paper that I once and admired Professor wrote for him saying, ‘Perhaps you can WMafeje. I for one have always Hania Sholkamy read but you certainly can’t write!’ Per- been intimidated by him and infatuated Cairo, Egypt haps I still can’t but it is thanks to him by his work. that I continue to try. In one obituary written in his honour the There are three gifts that he has author politely alluded to Archie’s intol- left his students and readers: erance of mediocrity reminding us that he was ‘(L)ess tolerant of scholars not gists need to master, apprehend, sur- 1- The importance of cognitive value as sure footed in their scholarship’. I think round, expose and vanquish the former. distinct from empirical stock; This quintessential decon-struction, he was referring to me! 2- Clarity and rigour in writing as an al- deconstruction for transformation, is a ternative to writing postmodernist cir- Archie could indeed be much less than tolerant project that makes explicit his cles in an opaque but likeable lan- tolerant. But his writing and scholarship awareness of and acceptance of the limi- guage; were kind and conscious of the limitations tations of much current scholarship. of others. He wrote to convert practition- His vitriolic attacks on postmodernism are 3- Courage to find a peer group and rec- ers and researchers from objects to agents ognize when established criteria of known to most of you. So are his attempts for the liberation of African social sci- worth are fickle and faddish. ence. He was aware of how insurmount- to deracialize Anthropology and to deci- able the walls of ‘colonial anthropology’ mate its central concept of alterity. But Thank you, Archie, on behalf of the ‘not were and blamed that project and its com- while he speculated on the end of An- so brilliant’ who you helped challenge and plexity for the ‘defeat’ of African anthro- thropology he seduced his students into shape. Thank you for your brilliance, pology. To liberate the latter, anthropolo- that very same discipline. Archie com- cheek, audacity and very loving self.

My Father

Dear all, how I felt he didn’t want to lose a minute, he introduced me to my South African I have read and appreciated all that was Dana Mafeje family and friends, gave me advice on re- written about my father so far. At first, I Cairo, Egypt lationships, life and tennis, he even taught refused to, simply because I wanted to me his famous curry recipe. On my way shut out the idea of having lost such a back, I called my mother from the airport, man. Most of you wrote about his aca- crying and I told her I knew it would be demic prowess, genius mind, incompara- him getting me dressed for school every the last time I ever saw my father. Unfor- ble wit and endless struggle for his na- day (militarily), asking me what I wanted tunately I was right. tion and greater Africa. Having acknowl- to eat for lunch religiously (until I was edged all these attributes at a very early 26!), never telling me to study because to I was always told by him that ‘life isn’t age, I later realised that Papa was a ‘giant’ him exams were for idiots, having serious fair’, I never really understood what that not only in the intellectual sense but as a chats with me without ever looking me in meant until he left me. I wish I had seen human being. the eye (those of you who know him per- him one last time, I wish I had told him what a hero he was in my eyes. I wish he My father was critical but humane, fierce sonally will relate), speaking to me logi- had known how loved and admired he but compassionate, sarcastic but gentle, cally in the most illogical situations, push- was. To me he will always remain Papa, silly, but brilliant, stubborn but loyal, but ing me to excel just to be worthy of being Archie Mafeje, the man who got on the most of all he was passionate. his daughter and mostly for being my ul- timate reference. pedestal and never fell down. Behind the cynical façade, my father was His daughter, Dana one of the kindest, warmest and most giv- Last time I saw Papa was late 2005. We ing men I ever met. I vividly remember spent a week together in Pretoria. Some- April 2007 CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 3 & 4, 2008 Page 58

After 71 years of life, this is what Archie Mafeje would have told you: My Way And now, the end is near; And so I face the final curtain. My friend, I’ll say it clear, I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain. I’ve lived a life that’s full. I’ve traveled each and every highway; And more, much more than this, I did it my way. Regrets, I’ve had a few; But then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do And saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course; Each careful step along the high-way, But more, much more than this, I did it my way. Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew When I bit off more than I could chew. But through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and spat it out. I faced it all and I stood tall; And did it my way. I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried. I’ve had my fill; my share of losing. And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing. To think I did all that; And may I say - not in a shy way, No, oh no not me, I did it my way. For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels; And not the words of one who kneels. The record shows I took the blows - And did it my way! Written by Paul Anka

God rest his soul. P.S. I love you Papa, Dana