Part 1
Black people marched to defeat the white conqueror that was on the doorstep just to wipe out the only remaining uncolonized country with unremitting statehood. Ethiopians marched more miles than Napoleon’s advance to Russia, I read somewhere. No need to tell all what happened but the Victory of Adwa in 1896 turned the world upside down. The “savage” has not only won the war but humanized the battle at the site of the treatment of the colonial war captives; which was quite alien to the dominant anthropology that fed the brutal machinery of slavery and colonialism. Africanism was redefined at Adwa.
Witnessing this, Africans were able to kick out the deep fear within and began the struggle for redefinition. The struggle for redefinition was not as easy as it sounds. From the first modern European involvement in the slave trade in 1441 when a Portuguese captain seized 12 Africans in Cabo Branco (Mauritania) until now it resonates across the world. Whether in Gustavus Vasa’s (Equiano’s) biography 300 years ago or even in the contemporary social media trends of hashtags and twits- the voice for definition and re-definition has been archetypal for black people.
From Chicago-Chiraq to Kisangani-Congo, from Guadeloupe to Guinea it has echoed; from Aimé Césaire’s and Léon Damas’s Negritude to Fanon’s “sociogeny”, from King Haileselassie’s ideals, the unsung hero Ketema Yifru’s pan-African struggle, to Nkrumah’s philosophical consiencism; from Wilmont Blyden to Marcus Garvey, it has been a trail blazer across the struggle for the advancement of black men, and for the black women who have, of course, suffered from “double oppression.” The demand for realistic representation, and consciousness of the lack of it, has been a central element in all these struggles, originally in the very obvious problems of decolonization and civil rights.
Unfortunately decades later, when Ethiopia was looked-for to lend its golden hands to further advance that time’s struggle, the country itself was caught in a fire of Marxist-Leninism & Maoism. What was not done at the battle was made at school! Ethiopian Intellectual life became captive to what Triuilz called “Historiographical Simplification.” That quite resembles- the sad end of Harlem Renaissance as it was narrated by the brilliant Black writer Harold Cruse in his “The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual” simply as “rotting before ripening.”
Today, much may have been achieved in a number of areas in this country as well as in the continent, but any real struggle to re-ignite the stumbling Pan-Africanism is still lacking on both domestic and international levels.
The strange reality is places forget no history! Adwa made her call again and gathered black people with its first Global conference of Adwa pan-African University that took place this week in the emblematic town of Adwa, Tigray, Ethiopia. At the conference the Deputy Chairperson of the AUC, Thomas Kwesi Quarty noted the Adwa Pan African University will be used to conduct research and come up with solutions for African challenges. Construction of the Adwa Pan African University was officially launched in the city of Adwa, Tigrai State in northern Ethiopia on April 23, 2017. The cornerstone laying ceremony was attended by many African leaders including the former Premier Hailemariam Dessalegn, President Yuweri Museveni, the Nigerian, South African, Malawian, Liberian, and Burundian former presidents. In addition the current Vice President of Botswana, the Puntland administration president and other dignitaries from all over Africa attended the cornerstone laying ceremony.
One reckons few prominent pan-African Universities that have made genuine efforts to “come up with solutions for African Problems” and left their footprints on the sands of Pan-Africanism. Ibadan University ( the school of Achebe), Dar Es Selam University (the school for Walter Rhodney, Terrence Renger), Makerere (Ali Mazrui), Kenya- Bethwel Ogot, Cheikh Anta Diop University (where the genesis of African Civilization to Egypt/ Kemet was deeply studied; Later reverberated in the African American perception of Black Heritage), etc— have played unforgettable role against the conceptual vocabulary of colonialism under what the spirit of the age demanded.
Very recently, Africa has started working on its different institutes of the pan-African University that are hosted in the five geographic regions of Africa (North, West, Central, South and East Africa) established to become a centre of excellence, a pride of Africa. Some critics, in fact, perceive the establishment of PAU as “a needless waste of scarce continental resources which could have been used to strengthen the continent’s existing high-performing universities.” However, with a strong continental network system, I believe these PAU can collaborate with existing high-performing universities to enhance their relevance and contribution in dealing with local as well as international challenges.
In a fast-paced and interconnected world Adwa PAU can play a new unique role “towards fostering a prosperous, integrated and peaceful Africa” if the University, among many others, can effectively make a meaningful impact on two issues; Education and Diplomacy-
፩. Education
In his inaugural speech as well as remarks to the youth, Prime Minister Abiy outlined the major areas of emphasis for his government. Interestingly enough, the quality of education was one of them. He underscored that the key to solving the country’s multiple problems was to be found “in education and only in education”. He particularly highlighted the lack of quality in vocational and higher learning institutions as a major hurdle to the knowledge and skills graduates acquire.
It would be an important first step for Adwa PAU, to deeply assess the magnitude of the problem, and its all-round impact that education precedes everything. The much said catchall phrase that is now sadly being synonymous to “unrealistic & utopian”, i.e. “African solutions to African problems” will only bear fruit if education is re-structured and re-defined. Prof. Mahmood Mamdani in his article entitled “Politics and Class Formation in Uganda”, pointed out: “The political usefulness of missionary education, it should be clear, stemmed from its dual nature: that it was technical as well as ideological, that it imparted skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic as well as values such as loyalty to the existing order (of knowledge-emphasis mine) and disciplined self-sacrifice in the interest of that order.”
Adwa, as it has advocated a century ago that one owns the solution to its problems; its university should do so by offering education that tells knowledge about us. Therefore, said Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, “Therefore, after we have examined ourselves, we radiate outwards and discover peoples and worlds around us.”
Given its remarkable indigenous institutes that survived for many millennia Ethiopia and the Horn of African in general still are in a relatively sound position to provide a solution for African problems and for the yet unfinished struggle for redefinition. The country’s remarkable home grown schools are fields of mental vocabulary where African intellectuals could make archaeology of words to perceive the universe.
African cannot simply borrow concepts like democracy, liberty, feminism, modernism (& many other isms), etc which are historically loaded concepts imported from abroad. It is only when Africa customizes these conceptual dictionaries that “African solutions to African problems” will be realized, and every African would have every reason to see them work. Otherwise, the theme of denial by Hegel, Kant and many others that rejected the existence of any thought system in Africa would stretch its long arms even in our “small” socio-political and economic crisis. Quality of education should take into account this and Adwa PAU also, I hope, would be cognizant of these facts.
For this to happen, the Adwa PAU needs a degree of autonomy and Academic freedom. Ali Mazrui in his “Towards Re-Africanizing African Universities: Who Killed Intellectualism in the Post Colonial Era?” wrote “A university has to be politically distant from the state; secondly, a university has also to be culturally close to society; and thirdly, a university has to be intellectually linked to wider scholarly and scientific values of the world of learning.” While he was asked whether “a university be funded by the state and still maintain political distance?” He answered, “It is done in other societies; there is no reason why it cannot happen in Africa as well.” Though the university would be politically distant from the state, it has a big role to play alongside the state forcing the government to establish new relation with the people from the knowledge it has extracted from the people itself be it on policies or decisions of governments.
Adwa PAU should also work vigorously to be the hub of other Pan-African Universities in the continent by giving scholarships to other African students (which in fact needs attractive curricula, academic programs and facilities), harmonizing programs and degrees across Africa and promoting mobility of students and teachers in African Universities, thereby improving on teaching, leadership and collaborative research.
The university needs to consider some of the points discussed on its curricula and academic programs.
(to be continued)
Editor’s Note: Benyam Ephrem Betrework is a diplomatic officer at the Public Diplomacy and Communication Directorate General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the Ministry. He can be reached at zioneph@gmail.com.
You would have presented article at the conference. It is interesting and thoughtful indeed. Thank you.