African intellectuals in the belly of the beast:
migration, identity and the politics of exile1
Francis Njubi Nesbitt
UCLA, Global Fellows Program
3 February 2004 (revised)
Abstract
This paper examines the “double consciousness” of black African intellectual migrants in
the North. It argues that the migrants are forced to come to terms with Africanity for the
first time in exile. The condition of Africanity is particularly poignant for the intellectual
migrants who must negotiate new identities that can no longer depend on the security of
nationality and ethnicity. The dilemma of being –not exactly African not African
American either– is the peculiar challenge of migrant African scholars. The resolution of
this identity crisis is a political act that manifests itself in the lives and work of academics
producing three types of migrant intellectuals: the comprador intelligentsia, the
postcolonial critics and the progressive exiles. This paper examines each of these
categories and argues that we can best understand the crisis by drawing on W.E.B. Du
Bois’ theory of double consciousness.
1
Earlier versions of this paper were published in Mots Pluriels, Critical Arts and African Issues. The paper
was presented at the 30th anniversary conference of the Council for the Development of Social Science
Research in Africa in Kampala, Uganda, 8th-12th December 2002 and on March 21-23, 2003 at a conference
held a the Evangelische Akademie, Loccum, Gernamy, titled “The role of the educated class in Africa –
between African renaissance and globalization.”
1
It is a particular sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking
at one's self through the eyes of others. . . . [O]ne ever feels his twoness ... two
souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark
body whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history
of the American Negro is the history of this strife, -this longing to attain selfconscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this
merging he wishes neither of the other selves to be lost. He would not Africanize
America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not
bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro
blood has a message for the world.
W.E.B. Du Bois, 1903, The Souls of Black Folk
When W.E.B. Du Bois wrote of the "double consciousness" of Africans in America he
was reflecting on the complex identities of the "talented tenth", the educated minority of a
minority like himself who felt the alienation acutely because of their awareness that their
qualifications meant little in a racist society. Thus, Du Bois argued that Black
intellectuals are gifted with a "second sight", a "third eye" that allows them to gauge the
white and the black while seeking to transcend this duality by creating a "better and truer
self". Though written in reference to the African-American intellectual, this duality, this
sense of "twoness", is even more acute for African exiles today because they have fewer
social and cultural ties to the West than Afro-Europeans and African-Americans. The
exiles are much closer to the African "soul" Du Bois refers to and are less prepared for
the pervasive racism and second-class status that they have to overcome in the West. This
duality is intensified by the sense of alienation and guilt engendered by the widespread
demonization of exiles as selfish and ungrateful wretches who, as soon as they get their
degrees, escape to greener pastures instead of using their education to uplift the poverty
stricken societies that educated them at great expense. This paper examines the "double
consciousness" of Black African intellectual migrants in the West. It argues that the
migrant is forced to come to terms with Africanity for the first time and that the
resolution of this identity crisis is a political act which produces three "types" of migrant
intellectuals: the comprador intelligentsia, the postcolonial critic and the progressive
exile.
2
According to the United States Bureau of Census, migrants born in Africa have the
highest level of educational attainment in the United States when compared to other
migrant groups like Asians, Europeans and Latin Americans. Census figures for 2000
show that 49.3 percent of African migrants in the 25 years and over age bracket have a
Bachelor's Degree or higher compared to Europeans, 32.9 percent, Asians, 44.9 percent
and Latin Americans, 5.5 percent (Bureau of Census, 2000). This high percentage of
Bachelor's, advanced and professional degree holders (almost 50 percent) means that Du
Bois's "talented tenth" category needs to be adjusted upward when dealing with the recent
African migrants. Nevertheless, these numbers do not discount the identity crisis: they
compound it. African migrants are acutely aware of their qualifications and the obstacles
that they face as a highly visible immigrant community. Their educational achievements
stand out in a racist culture that stereotypes Black people as athletes and entertainers.
Even their mastery of the English language, which gives them some advantages in
schools and the workplace, highlights their difference because it is spoken in distinct
accents. They sometimes dress differently and have different tastes in food and music.
These markers of difference make them an easy target in a society that valorizes
homogeneity. To complicate matters further, the migrants must also endure alienation
from their countries of origin. Academic exiles are likely to be victims of government
repression even before leaving their home countries. Many are pushed out of their
countries after political disturbances at university campuses. Others are exiled because
their political perspectives do not correspond with the dominant ideological dispensation
of the time. Yet, these same forces that kept them from achieving their full potential at
home demonize them for leaving instead of contributing to national development. These
tensions between intellectuals and politicians have boiled over frequently in the
postcolonial world, most recently in a shouting match between Ghana's President Jerry
Rawlings and eminent Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui during a conference in Davos,
Switzerland in June 1999 (Mwagiru, 1999). The Ghanaian president was extremely upset
because medical doctors trained in Ghana at great expense were leaving for the West as
soon as they completed their studies. He argued that it was not enough for the
professionals to repay their student loans because it took at least 7 years to train another
doctor, leaving thousands of patients without medical care.
Professor Mazrui's position, however, was that politicians like Jerry Rawlings were to
blame for the exodus of professionals and academics from the continent. Mazrui himself
had gone into exile in the early 1970s after being expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin and
being denied a position at the University of Nairobi in Kenya, the country where he was
born. Mazrui, therefore, argues that African politicians are partly to blame for the exodus
because of the political and economic crises they create and the lack of recognition of the
contributions of African intellectuals. Even today, Mazrui is bitter about the fact that
Kenyan broadcasting systems refused to air his television documentary "The Africans: A
Triple Heritage" which was produced by the BBC. The series is the only one on Africa
made by an African. According to Mazrui, "I sometimes feel a bit bitter about the fact
that my own country has refused to televise the series, despite its fairly innocuous and
barely radical political content, and I am convinced that ignoring it in Kenya was a case
of the authorities having a grudge with the singer rather than the song" (Mwagiru, 1999).
3
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has also joined the debate by urging educated
Africans to relocate to South Africa and neighboring African countries instead of
migrating to the West. Yet this option too, is complicated. Many educated Africans do
spend some time in neighboring countries before migrating to the West. As stated earlier,
Ali Mazrui was expelled from Uganda for his outspokenness. More recent cases have
shown that turf battles between the migrants and local scholars make it difficult for the
former to thrive in other African countries. In the 1990s, for instance, many African
scholars and professionals migrated to South Africa after its liberation from the system of
Apartheid. Many of them thought they could be closer to their home countries while
contributing to the development of a sister country.
Yet the case of Professor Mahmood Mamdani, an Ugandan political scientist who moved
from the United States to South Africa's University of Cape Town (UCT), illustrates the
challenges faced by African exiles on the continent (Mamdani, 1998). Professor
Mamdani is a highly respected African political scientist who has taught at universities in
East Africa and the United States for over twenty years. Yet, when he accepted a position
as the director of the University of Cape Town's Center For African Studies in 1997, he
found it impossible to overcome his image as an outsider in academic turf battles
(Thornton, 1998). In spite of his high sounding position as Director of the Center for
African Studies and his distinguished record in teaching and publications in the field, his
syllabus for an introductory course in African Studies was rejected by an entrenched
group of white "Africanists" (Mamdani, 1998, pp. 3-7). When he protested, he was
suspended from teaching the course. In the highly publicized debate that followed it
became clear that the problem was one of perspective: Eurocentric versus Africa-centric.
Mandani's proposed syllabus revolved around key debates about African history and
politics that took place at African universities during the post-colonial period. These
scholars including Chiekh Anta Diop, Mamadou Diouf, Ife Amadiume, Samir Amin and
Wamba-dia-Wamba wrote the readings he selected (Mamdani, Appendix E). In contrast,
the substitute syllabus prepared by the White Africanists at UCT did not include a single
reading by an African intellectual. Instead, it used texts written in the 1970s by American
scholars like Lewis Gunn, Peter Duignan and Patrick O'Meara. The substitute course also
severed South African history from the history of the rest of the continent arguing that,
essentially, "Africa proper" was "Bantu" Africa or tropical Africa. This racialization of
African history is clearly evident in the substitute syllabus that was adopted for the course
"Introduction to Africa." Mamdani's proposed course suggested that South African
history during the era of Apartheid should be viewed as part of the history of European
colonialism in Africa. This perspective, which is commonsense in the rest of Africa, went
against the grain in South Africa where a myth of exceptionalism had taken root in both
scholarship and the popular imagination. According to this perspective, the settler society
in South Africa was dramatically different from other white settler colonies in Zimbabwe,
Angola, Mozambique, Kenya and Algeria.
4
Although UCT administrators apologized publicly to Professor Mamdani, they never
accepted his syllabus and he left the university without teaching a single course
(Mamdani, 1998). In addition to this, he faced a wave of hostility from White Africanists
at major institutions in South Africa (see Thornton, 1998) and the United States (see the
1998 Internet discussion logs of H-South Africa and H-Africa). Thus Mamdani was
unable to overcome his image as an outsider in the intellectual history of South Africa.
In Mazrui's and Mamdani's cases, the issues were both ideological and organizational.
Yet the pattern is repeated constantly around the continent. Exiled scholars are
stereotyped as "outsiders" and "refugees," and denied resources and recognition. While
most scholars either stay put or return to their home countries, the more adventurous
migrate to a second exile in Europe or the United States. Once they move to the West,
however, they face a new environment that forces them to rethink their identities as
Africans.
THE MEANING OF AFRICA
Africanity is foisted upon the migrants the moment they arrive in the West. On the
continent, most people in the rural areas live under ethnic categories like Kikuyu, Ibo,
Hausa and Acholi. Some educated, middle-class and/or urban dwellers may see
themselves as members of a nation like South Africa, Kenya or Tanzania. In some
countries like South Africa, which has recently emerged from the crucible of apartheid,
national consciousness is still strong. For most, however, "national" consciousness
emerges only occasionally during Independence Day celebrations, international soccer
matches or at election time. "African" consciousness, however, is a rarity. It is in exile
that the Nigerian-Ibo, South African-Zulu, Kenyan-Kikuyu person suddenly and
unequivocally becomes an "African". Ugandan writer Moses Isegawa reflected on this
condition eloquently in an interview published recently in Transition:
When you first leave Uganda for Europe you think, "At last, I'm free to do what I
want". But when you arrive there, you become an African for the first time, in a
sense. Because you are responsible for Somalia! They call you up and say, "What
do you think about Somalia?" And you can't say, "I'm Ugandan, I have nothing to
say about Somalia". You have this big, huge chunk of experience to defend --and
you will defend it, because nobody else is defending it. You become some sort of
an ambassador and for the first time you become conscious of what Africa means.
(Vasquez, 2001)
What exactly does it mean to be an "African" in Europe or America? One quickly learns
that the answer is not pretty. It is written in the faces of obnoxious waitresses, the teacher
who slams the door of opportunity, the policeman who treats you like a criminal. It is
reflected in the floods of negative media images that poison people's minds with racist
stereotypes. Just when Isegawa thought he was free of the travails of the African
condition, he is forced to confront the indelible mark of Africanity on his body. He is
forced to wear, explain and even defend a badge of inferiority. This predicament tears at
the migrant's identity. It creates a duality that is the root of the existential crisis faced by
5
the migrant African scholar. Ironically, the postcolonial flight from the African continent
reinforces the worst stereotypes of Africanity. A half century later, Frantz Fanon's
description of the Black migrant's experience in his classic Black Skin, White Masks
(1952) still holds true: "You are in a bar in Rouen or Strasbourg, and you have the
misfortune to be spotted by an old drunk. He sits down at your table right away. 'You,
African? Dakar, Rufisque, whorehouses, dames, coffee, mangoes, bananas'. You stand up
and leave, and your farewell is a torrent of abuse."
Yet, the condition of Africanity both marginalizes and expands Isegawa's horizons at the
same time. He is no longer an Acholi or an Ugandan but an African. A member of that
mythical race created by the White imagination as a foil and a justification for the
holocaust of slavery and colonial exploitation. He is not only responsible for Somalia,
Congo and Sierra Leone, but also tied inexplicably to the inner city gang-banger, street
hustler and drug addict. In the likely encounter with the police profiler, skin color will
trump national origin every time. Color also trumps education, erudition and
accomplishment. None of these mean anything in a late night encounter with the police.
In the New World, he is no longer an Acholi or even an Ugandan. He is an African, or
more accurately, a Black man, thus automatically a suspect and a target for any White
racist policeman, waitress, teacher or taxi-driver.
THE FACT OF BLACKNESS
It would be a mistake, however, to leave the impression that Fanon’s "fact of Blackness"
creates a collective race consciousness, a natural unity among the African migrants and
the native Black populations of Europe and America. This race consciousness is a rarity
often limited to the politicized Pan-Africanist community. Most African descended
peoples continue to see each other, and themselves, "through the eyes of others" as Du
Bois put it. Unable to penetrate the veil of racism, many migrants consider African
Americans lazy, violent and obsessed with race while many African-Americans see the
migrants as inferior, ignorant and uncivilized (Askia, 1997; Waters, 1992). According to
John Arthur (2000) "The cultural barriers and social and economic differences separating
the Africans and African-Americans is sometimes the cause of a simmering hostility and
misunderstanding between them. Sharing the common physical characteristic of skin
color has not ensured cultural and economic unity between African immigrants and
American-born blacks" (p. 78).
These tensions are compounded at historically Black universities and Black studies
programs at mainstream universities where most African scholars are forced to find
employment because of the lack of opportunities at historically White universities and
departments. Although there are countless cases of African scholars working in harmony
with African-Americans in historically Black universities, the increasing numbers of
African migrant scholars has intensified competition for the few positions set aside for
Black scholars in the academy. Recent struggles at Virginia State University, a
historically Black institution, epitomize the problem. Virginia State has been hit by a
slew of lawsuits from African and African-American professors with both groups
alleging discrimination (Wilson, 2001). The lawsuits have cost the state $4 million
6
dollars so far with several suits still pending. The suits pit Africans and AfricanAmericans against each other in struggles over leadership and control of departments and
research dollars. Initially, three African-born professors sued the university claiming they
were denied raises and promotions by African-American department heads. The two
Nigerians and one Egyptian won their cases. One, a Nigerian, settled out of court and left
the university, while the other two received settlements totaling $1.6 million dollars.
After a major administrative reorganization in 1999 that replaced several AfricanAmerican department heads, the lawsuits came from African-American professors. The
reorganization sparked vicious infighting that is reflected in an e-mail that circulated on
campus and leaked to the national press. The e-mail, authored by an African-American
faculty member, accused the administration of appointing "unqualified" foreign-born
professors as department heads for fear of further lawsuits. The e-mail message
complained that the number of African-American department heads decreased from 15 to
4. The administration argued, however, that the numbers were 12 before and 5 after.
African-American faculty member F.S. Farley told The Chronicle of Higher Education
that the foreign-born department heads were "not experienced or well trained" although
the Chronicle reported that most of the foreign-born professors had doctorates. She also
claimed that Black students who were seeking their roots at historically Black colleges
faced an "extra burden" of dealing with foreigners.
Thus the migrant African intellectuals, who probably left neighboring African countries
because they were unable to overcome their images as outsiders, find that they face the
same problem in the United States. In this case the tension is between Diasporic- Blacks
and Africans who are forced to compete for the few jobs set aside for Black scholars
(African, African-American and West Indian) in the American academy. The problem,
therefore, is the segregation of most Black scholars in historically Black universities and
African and African-American studies departments. The fact that 49 percent of African
immigrants have college degrees while only 14 percent of African Americans graduate
from college adds a class dimension to the problem. The Bureau of Census reports, for
instance, that the median household income of African immigrants is $30,907 compared
to $19,533 for Black Americans (Bureau of Census, 1997).
These tensions are increasingly being reflected among students where the growing
presence of people of African descent from other parts of the world begins to redefine the
"fact of Blackness." Although universities across the United States continue to lump all
people of African descent together as "Black," students from Africa, the Caribbean and
the United States make finer distinctions. Harvard University, for example, reports that
10 percent of its student population is "Black", but it does not distinguish the numerous
subdivisions within the category (Henry, 2001). Yet, these subdivisions loom large
among the students and is reflected in their organizations: The Harvard African Students
Association that draws Africans, the Caribbean Club that draws West Indians and Black
Students Association that is predominantly African-American. As increasing numbers of
African and Caribbean-born students are admitted to universities around the country,
African-Americans are beginning to feel like a "minority within a minority." They resent
the fact that many immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean do not immediately define
themselves as "Black" or understand the history and politics of race in the United States.
7
Many of these immigrant students will take their experiences with them to graduate
school and some to teaching positions guaranteeing a continuation of the process.
Thus migrant African scholars must negotiate new identities that can no longer depend on
the security of nationality and ethnicity but are not exactly Afro-European or AfricanAmerican either. This dilemma of being --not exactly African but not Afro-European or
African-American-- is the peculiar challenge of migrant African scholars. The resolution
of this identity crisis is a political act that manifests itself in the lives and work of
academics, producing three "types" of migrant intellectuals --the comprador
intelligentsia, the postcolonial critics and the progressive exiles. This paper examines
each of these categories and argues that we can best understand the crisis by drawing on
W.E.B. Du Bois's theory of "double consciousness."
THE COMPRADOR INTELLIGENTSIA
One result of the civil rights movement was to open up employment opportunities to
Black people in major universities, corporations and international organizations. African
migrant scholars today are well positioned to take advantage of these opportunities by
virtue of their education and contacts on the continent. This has produced a new class of
migrant intellectual: The comprador intelligentsia. Members of the comprador class use
their national origins, color and education to serve as spokesmen and intellectual
henchmen for organizations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
They serve as the sweetener that makes it easier for African countries to swallow the
bitter pills of illegitimate debt and structural adjustment. Although some of them work
directly for the international financial institutions, most continue to teach at colleges and
universities in the West while serving as "consultants" to international financial
institutions. They receive lucrative contracts for research and development that serve a
dual purpose: putting a human (Black) face on international capital while forcing client
states to accept draconian conditions that amount to debt peonage. These migrant
intellectuals are related to the broader comprador class that emerged to rule the
neocolonies of Africa, Asia and Latin America. They make their contacts in the
neocolonies available to international organizations that would find it difficult to
establish reliable liaisons and negotiate favorable agreements.
Compradors can be recognized by their uncritical adoption of the free-market ideology of
globalization as the solution for Africa's development crisis. They can be seen touring the
continent on generously funded "research" junkets and attending international
conferences where they defend the global structures and heap blame upon African
countries for corruption, "tribalism" and ineptitude. This collaboration between Black
scholars and international capital in the exploitation of African resources has a long
history. It dates back to the use of ex-slaves like Olaudah Equiano and free BlackAmericans like Alexander Crummell and Edward Wilmot Blyden as special envoys and
settlers in the colonization of Sierra Leone and Liberia. The United States continued to
use African-Americans as envoys to Black States, like Haiti and Liberia, throughout the
19th and 20th centuries and extended this policy to the rest of Africa after the Second
World War. The African independence movements, however, brought a new policy of
incorporation directed specifically at African scholars from the continent. In 1953, the
Central Intelligence Agency created a "non-profit" organization called the Africa-
8
America Institute in order to influence African students by financing their "education" in
the United States (Neilson, 1994). To mask its involvement, the AAI recruited AfricanAmerican scholars from historically Black colleges as front men. Among these scholars
were Dr. Horace Bond Mann, President of Lincoln University, who recruited scores of
young African nationalists to study at Lincoln University under the auspices of the AAI
(Bond papers). Many of these African students used their connections in the United
States to acquire key leadership positions in the independence movements and to set up
neocolonial relationships with the United States.
Ironically, the comprador intelligentsia is a creation of the civil rights movement in the
United States and the anti-colonial movements on the continent. Before the 1960s, it was
not possible for Black Africans to gain employment at White universities and
international organizations because of the color bar. Thus, many of the compradors
returned home to Africa after their sojourn in the United States as students. After the
adoption of affirmative action and the transformation of immigration policies it became
possible for African scholars to seek employment at major universities and financial
institutions. This opened up a new window of opportunity for the comprador
intelligentsia as they could remain in the United States where their services were in
demand as middlemen between the client states and their financiers. Thus, after
decolonization we have the emergence of a whole new class of African compradors who
have joined the ranks of the African-Americans who continue to be used as agents of
White capital in Africa.
This strategy of using Black Americans and the African comprador intelligentsia to
promote neocolonial policies was highlighted prominently during President Bill Clinton's
high-profile tour of seven African countries in 1998. Clinton surrounded himself with
members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the comprador intelligentsia in an
insidious attempt to promote a corporate sponsored program to control African
economies called the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Walters, 1999). Clinton's
initiative led to the revival of the Africa-America Institute through a new corporate
sponsored program called the "Africa Summit". According to Ronald Walters (1999), the
Africa Summit strategy is to move Africa in the direction of "pure" capitalism. This
strategy depends upon a cadre of Black government functionaries "who, though they are
Black, pursue the interests of the Federal government at the table of the Black
community" (p. 168). The new "pro-business black coalition ... has been to lead from the
weak position of handing over the essential elements of the African agenda to major
financial interests and thus, while Africa burns, playing second fiddle to those interests"
(p. 169). This unabashedly corporatist institution has attracted high-profile African and
African-American scholars and intellectuals. It has transformed Pan-Africanist solidarity
into a quest for profit and recruited Black intellectuals and politicians as scouts and
interpreters for rapacious corporations.
9
THE POSTCOLONIAL CRITIC
Much like the compradors, the postcolonial critics take advantage of their color,
nationality and location in the West to become expert interpreters of the African
experience for Western audiences. They also play the role of the middlemen by serving
as conduits of Eurocentric thought for African consumption through the adaptation of the
latest trend in Euro-American perspectives to "explain" the African experience. This
adaptation of Euro-American thought to the African experience has ranged from
liberalism to various types of Marxism, to modernization, developmentalism and
dependency/world systems theories. Since the 1990s, the most popular Eurocentric
perspective has been the postmodernist critique of "essentialism" and "metanarratives"
through "deconstruction" and "discourse analysis" which the postcolonial critics have
adopted as their own. The postcolonial critic is only the latest phase in the long history of
Third World scholars borrowing Euro-American theories to explain African, Latin
American and Asian experiences. The genealogy of postcolonial theory is embedded in
the term "postcolonial" itself, which faithfully echoes its European progenitor
"postmodern".
Thus the postcolonial critic tends to echo postmodernist discourses in an African, Indian
or Latin-American accent. A representative example of this perspective is Kwame
Anthony Appiah's In My Father's House, Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, which
draws on deconstruction theory and anti-essentialism to criticize W.E.B Du Bois and
other Black Studies scholars who pioneered the study of race from a Pan-Africanist
perspective. Appiah devotes several chapters to the criticism of the race concept in Black
Studies and blames Du Bois, in particular, for being an "essentialist" and even a
"racialist." He accuses Alexander Crummell of being a racialist who supposedly believed
that skin color reflected the moral and intellectual properties. He refuses, however, to
place Crummell in the same camp as Nazis and South African Whites because they,
unlike Crummell and Du Bois, were willing to commit genocide. Appiah argues that
Apartheid and Nazism are examples of "racism" because they are ideologies that buttress
privilege, while "racialists" may not be privileged and do not commit genocide. Appiah
insists, however, that the concept of race itself is the problem and would place Du Bois
among the racialists:
Yet in his heart, it seems to me that Du Bois' feelings were those of an intrinsic
racist. He wanted desperately to find in Africa and with Africans a home, a place
where he could feel, as he never felt in America, that he belonged. His reason
would not allow him to be an intrinsic racist however; and so he reacted to the
challenges of racism by seeking in more and more exotic ways to defend his
belief in the connection between race and morally relevant properties. (Appiah,
1992, p. 44)
Appiah's position is not unique. It is merely a re-statement of the doublespeak of the
American neoconservatives who conjured up the term "reverse racism" to attack those
who fought against White supremacy. This so-called "colorblind" ideology has reversed
the gains made during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and is actually
10
commonsense among White Americans. It informs policymakers from the White House
to the Supreme Court and has been used to justify the retreat from egalitarianism. As
Howard Winant put it:
Today the theory of race has been utterly transformed. The socially constructed
status of the concept of race, which I have labeled the racial formation process, is
widely recognized (Omi and Winant 1986), so much so that it is now often
conservatives who argue that race is an illusion. The main task facing racial
theory today, in fact, is no longer to critique the seemingly 'natural' or
'commonsense' concept of race--although that effort has not by any means been
entirely completed. Rather, the central task is to focus attention on the continuing
significance and changing meaning of race. It is to argue against the recent
discovery of the illusory nature of race; against the supposed contemporary
transcendence of race; against the widely reported death of the concept of race;
and against the replacement of the category of race by other, more supposedly
more objective, categories like ethnicity, nationality, or class. All these initiatives
are mistaken at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst. (Winant, 2000; 181-82)
The popularity of Appiah's deconstruction of race stems from its articulation to this
powerful new ideology of colorblindness and its application to the discipline of Africana
Studies. Appiah's use of this colorblind ideology to attack the pioneers of Black studies is
an attempt to redirect Black studies toward a more accommodationist line. Thus we have
the bizarre situation where Du Bois's attacker completes Du Bois's encyclopedia (a more
accomodationist version of course) and becomes the leader of a Black studies program
named after Du Bois.
The irony is that Appiah and other postcolonial critics try to escape the African condition
but end up having to confront the indelible mark of Africanity on their bodies. The idea
here, is not to trash Appiah, but to point out the process through which African
intellectuals are forced to come to terms with their Africaness, despite their strained
attempts to escape. Appiah's desire to find Pan-Africanists guilty of racism is ahistorical
in that it fails to understand the sophisticated perspective on the historicity of racial
oppression that Pan-Africanists developed. In Dusk of Dawn (1940),for instance, Du Bois
rejected the notion that "race" had any scientific basis. "It is easy to see that scientific
definition of race is impossible", Du Bois stated. Yet he went on to argue that although
race does not exist biologically, racism as an ideology does and has had a terrible impact
on people of African and Jewish descent during the era of capitalism:
11
All this (the irrelevance of biology) has nothing to do with the plain fact that
throughout the world today organized groups of men by monopoly of economic
and physical power, legal enactment and intellectual training are limiting with
determination and unflagging zeal the development of other groups; and that the
concentration of particularly economic power today puts the majority of mankind
into slavery to the rest. But one thing is sure and that is that these ancestors of
mine and their descendants have had a common history; have suffered a common
disaster and have one long memory. The actual ties of heritage between the
individuals of this group vary but the physical bond is least and the badge of color
relatively unimportant save as a badge.; the real essence of this kinship is the
social heritage of slavery; the discrimination and insult; It is this unity that draws
me to Africa. (Du Bois, 1940, 137-138)
As this passage demonstrates, the emphasis is on socio-historical ties, not "race" as a
biological essence. This is a considerable distance from the crude racism of Nazism and
Apartheid that Appiah wishes to impute on the Pan-Africanists. Du Bois's insistence on
history and memory as the basis of his Pan-African identity demonstrates that he had
resolved the duality of "double consciousness" by reconnecting with people of African
descent in a struggle against racial oppression. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza (1997) argues that
Appiah "protests too much" and fails to take into account the dialectical nature of racial
oppression. As Zeleza puts it: "Racial discourses and theories are socially constructed ...
but repudiating race theory does not make it disappear in politics. Race matters ...
because it functions as a marker and an anchor to establish and repudiate identity, status
and position ... Races exist because racism exists" (Zeleza, 1997, 503).
So, Du Bois's position is much more sophisticated than Appiah's as the latter continues to
suffer from "double consciousness", seeing himself "through the eyes of others", namely
the postmodernists. Appiah's duality is demonstrated by the ironic fact that he is currently
a member of the most well-endowed African-American Studies Department in the United
States at Harvard University. The irony of ironies is that this department is named after
Appiah's nemesis, W.E.B. Du Bois. Thus Appiah, the postcolonial critic of Du Bois from
a Eurocentric perspective, ends up demonstrating most clearly the theory of "double
consciousness" developed by the very scholar from whom he was trying to distance
himself. Further, Appiah has become the representative example of the very scholarship,
Black studies, that he dismissed with postmodernist glee only a few years ago.
THE PROGRESSIVE EXILE
In "The Allegory of the Cave" Kenyan scholar-in-exile Ngugi wa Thiong'o discusses the
role of exiles in African liberation. The allegory describes members of a cave-dwelling
community who have had an opportunity to see the outside world and return to the cave
where they try to explain to the cave-dwellers what they have learned. (Ngugi, 1998).
Some return as agents of the outsiders, using their knowledge of the cave to facilitate the
extraction of natural and human resources. Others return with the knowledge gained from
their travels on the outside but refuse to speak in the language of the cave and instead
insist that the cave dwellers learn the language of the outsiders if they want to benefit
from the new knowledge and technology. Only a few return to the cave dedicated to re-
12
learning the cave-dwellers' language so that they can teach the insiders the new
techniques effectively.
Ngugi's allegory of the cave captures the migrant scholars' political dilemma in stark
terms, making it clear that they have a choice of either serving the neocolonial system as
witting or unwitting agents or using the knowledge they have gained from their sojourn in
the West to liberate their fellows. The progressive exiles resolve the crisis of double
consciousness by learning from the experience of exile while maintaining their identity as
Africans. As Amilcar Cabral put it, it is only through a spiritual and physical "return to
the source" that Africans in the Diaspora can build an "identity with dignity in the context
of national liberation" (Cabral, 1973). This dignified identity is what Du Bois was
referring to when he wrote that he wanted to merge his "double self into a better and truer
self" (Du Bois, 1903). Du Bois manages to build this dignified identity through PanAfricanism and the commitment to the liberation of all people of African descent,
whether in the Diaspora or on the continent.
This Pan-African identity allows the migrant scholar to join the struggle for liberation
while in the Diaspora. Ngugi wa Thiong'o himself epitomizes the successful resolution of
double consciousness through the development of a Pan-African identity. Because of his
outspoken support for human rights and opposition to neocolonial domination in Kenya,
Ngugi was detained without trial by the Kenyan government on 29 December 1977
(Ngugi, 1981; xvi). Eight months after his release from prison in December 1978, the
University of Nairobi informed him that he had been terminated by "an Act of State" the
day he had been detained (Ngugi, 1981; 206). Despite an extended battle to regain his
position as an Associate Professor of Literature at the university, and in spite of the
support of the University Staff Union and supporters around the world, Ngugi was unable
to resume his duties at the university. In 1982 he was forced into exile, first in London
and then in the United States where he taught at several universities before accepting a
position as Erich Maria Remarque Endowed Chair in Languages at New York University.
Today, Ngugi is at the forefront of the debate about the role of indigenous languages in
the struggle for decolonization. His artistic and theoretical writings have inspired anticolonial struggles around the world. But it is in the Pan-African community that Ngugi
has found a home. Since joining New York University, he has become a leading member
of the progressive bloc of the Africana Studies movement in the United States that
provides a counterbalance to the accommodationist perspective espoused by the Appiah
school of Black Studies located at Harvard University. Thus we see the politics of exile
determining the perspective and location of African scholars across the ideological
spectrum. Kwame Anthony Appiah, a descendant of the Ashante ruling class, who was
schooled at Oxford University chooses to associate himself with the conservative,
accommodationist strand of Black Studies while Ngugi wa Thiong'o, a descendant of
Kenyan peasants, associates himself with the progressive strand of Black Studies. What is
interesting here is not vulgar economic determinism but the transcendence of class,
political and educational background. The question is how and why these individuals
from dramatically different political and educational backgrounds ended up in Black
Studies. Both Ngugi and Appiah were accomplished and respected scholars in traditional
disciplines before taking the plunge into the murky and unstable waters of Africana
13
Studies. The fact that they chose to work in the same garden despite their ideological
differences demonstrates the power of Africanity in determining the politics of exile,
even among the most talented of the talented tenth.
THE ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT
It is this power of Africanity; this “fact of blackness” as Fanon put it that compelled
African exiles and members of the African Diaspora to join Black people on the continent
in the successful struggle to liberate South Africa from the jaws of Apartheid. The global
anti-apartheid movement emerged in the progressive panAfrican communities of the
United States and England. It was sustained by strong ties that had been forged among
Black activists around the world during the anti-colonial movements of the 1930s and
40s. The first anti-apartheid organization in exile, for instance, was the leftist Council on
African Affairs that was led by Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois and Alphaeus Hunton
(Nesbitt, 2003). At the height of the movement in 1978, for instance, Leslie O. Harriman,
the Nigerian Chairman of the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid
reminded activists of the roots of the movement in Pan Africanist circles:
We have today anti-apartheid movements in many countries playing a crucial role in the
campaign against racial discrimination in South Africa. These are all fairly new, and the
first of these movements, we must recall, was founded by Paul Robeson and the black
people of the United States (Harriman, 1978; 78-79).
During the 1970s Africans and African Americans reestablished ties that had been
severed by the anti-communist hysteria of the 1950s. These ties were cemented by the
increased mobility of people of African descent and in particular the presence of African
exiles in the United States. The theories and activities of exiles and revolutionaries like
Julius Nyerere, Amilcar Cabral, Agostino Neto, Nelson Mandela and Eduardo Mondlane
heavily influenced African American activists (Walters, 1995; 59-65.). In 1962 Amilcar
Cabral addressed the United Nations and then met with African Americans where he
discussed his ideas on revolutionary nationalism. Julius Nyerere's African Socialism was
also a major influence leading to support for the armed struggle in South Africa, Angola
and Mozambique; the study of Kiswahili by African Americans and the formation of
Maulana Karenga's Kwanzaa movement (Walters, 1995). These practical and theoretical
ties were parlayed into a highly successful global movement for international sanctions in
the 1980s led by new Pan Africanist organizations like TransAfrica and the Free South
Africa Movement (Robinson, 1998). In the 1970s, radical groups espousing ideologies
ranging from Black Nationalism to Maoism to Marxist Leninism played an important role
in pushing the movement to support armed struggle. This was demonstrated in the
30,000-strong crowd that attended the Africa Liberation Day march in Washington D.C.
in 1972 and the large crowds that returned for ALD activities throughout the 1970s
(Nesbitt, 2003). These groups reflected a revival of pan-Africanist sentiment that created
the conditions for the emergence of an anti-apartheid culture in the United States. Like
the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the anti-apartheid movement introduced a new
language and culture with its own language, values and heroes to the United States. A
specific discourse on sanctions, divestment, divestiture, disinvestment and krugerrands
was clearly associated with the movement. Images of Nelson Mandela, Robben Island,
14
Soweto and Sharpeville became tools for galvanizing outrage against the racist regime.
SNCC and the Black Panthers evolved into anti-imperialist and Third Worldist
organizations. SNCC formed an international affairs desk under James Forman in 1966
and organized sit-ins at the South African Embassy in Washington D.C. Forman attended
the International Conference on Apartheid, Racial Discrimination and Colonialism in
Southern Africa in 1967 where he presented SNCC's position paper on apartheid
(Forman, 1985; 480). By its demise in 1970, SNCC had taken on a strong Pan Africanist
orientation although it was split between the "back to Africa" emigrationists and those
who saw their future in the United States. This latter group became very important in
moving the anti-apartheid movement from a pacifist orientation to unequivocal support
for the armed struggle (Cobb, 1996).
It was also this upsurge in popular anti-apartheid sentiment in the African American
community that led the CBC to take up the issue of apartheid. Ron Dellums drafted the
first sanctions bill introduced in the US Congress in response to a petition from the
Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement (Dellums, 2000; p. 124-125). It is this bill
that becomes the basis for US sanctions against South Africa thirteen years later when
Congress passes the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act over President Reagan's veto
(Dellums, 2000). The PRWM's access to Congress demonstrates how the black freedom
movement in the United States created the conditions for the success of the anti-apartheid
movement. It is the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and the election of African
American legislators that led to a key turning point in the U.S. anti-apartheid movement.
Before the election of African Americans to Congress, anti-apartheid activists were
outsiders with no access to the decision-making process. It is the establishment of the
Congressional Black Caucus in 1969 that made the institution of a black lobby
(TransAfrica) possible in 1977.
This collaboration between congressional leaders and human rights activists was reflected
in the Free South Africa Movement, which organized the arrests of thousands of
demonstrators outside the South African Embassy in Washington D.C. in the early 1980s
(Nesbitt, 2003; Veney, 2003). During the demonstrations numerous African American
Congressmen were arrested along with ordinary citizens and celebrities in the sit-ins
outside the South African Embassy. This loose coalition of politicians, activists, scholars,
students, ministers and journalists was established to implement on of the most
remarkable examples of grass-roots human rights groups influencing the foreign policy of
a major superpower (Nesbitt, 2003). The movement forced the pro-apartheid Reagan
administration to change its foreign policy and debunked the myth that foreign policy is
the preserve of national elites.
Prior to the emergence of the CBC, anti-apartheid organizations were limited to
disseminating information to the media and the public without having any impact on the
Congress where decisions were being made. With the election of African-American
legislators following the Voting Rights Act of 1965, however, the anti-apartheid
movement acquired important allies in Congress and moved to a different level. The CBC
itself also recognized the need for a partnership between black legislators and activists in
the effort to change domestic and foreign policies. This need stemmed from the fact that
15
CBC initiatives like sanctions against South Africa were not likely to be sponsored by
corporations or the traditional lobby groups that control interest group politics in
Washington. Thus the CBC was involved in the formation of advocacy organizations like
TransAfrica and the Free South Africa Movement as an alternative source of influence
and power. This collaboration between legislators and activists was the key to the
transformation of U.S. foreign policy toward South Africa. This global anti-apartheid
movement demonstrated that perspective was more important than space or time and that
progressive African exiles could use their location “in the belly of the beast” to transform
the international system for the benefit of all. These global solidarity movements
demonstrate that a united front of people of African descent as imagined by pioneering
panAfricanists like Du Bois and Nkrumah is still possible, even critical, in the New
World Order of global markets and corporate domination.
REPARATIONS AND TRANSFORMATION
Like the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, which forced the West to acknowledge
that apartheid was a "crime against humanity", the African reparations campaign is
gaining momentum and transforming human rights discourse on the global public sphere.
Led by African and African American intellectuals, the black reparations campaign raises
critical moral and ethical questions about human responsibility and restitution that the
North has refused to acknowledge despite the efforts of 19th century abolitionists and
20th century anti-colonial, anti-apartheid and civil rights activists.
Northern recalcitrance was demonstrated once again at the World Conference Against
Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance held in Durban,
South Africa from August 31 to September 7, 2001. At the conference, delegates from
Africa and the Diaspora came together to demand that the West acknowledge that slavery
and colonialism were crimes against humanity with serious contemporary effects that
require reparatory compensation. Despite resistance from the United States, the
conference adopted a declaration that acknowledged slavery and the slave trade were
“crimes against humanity” and “should always have been so.” The resolution also
acknowledged the wrongs of slavery and colonialism and recommended that the
international community take measures to alleviate the impact of these crimes. The
declaration fell far short of the African demand for an explicit apology and reparations
for the enslavement of millions of Africans, the bloody colonization of the continent,
cancellation of illegitimate debt and the return of Africa’s material and cultural treasures.
Nevertheless, the acknowledgement that slavery and colonialism are crimes against
humanity provides the international reparations movement with a foundation on which to
build the case.
Since the WCAR, the black reparations movement has gained considerable momentum.
Activists have adopted legal, political and mass movement strategies. A follow-up
conference, the African and African Descendants’ World Conference Against Racism
held in Barbados in October 2002, demonstrates the strength of the mass-movement
strategy. The conference, which attracted over 500 participants, discussed a plethora of
issues including lawsuits against France, England, Portugal and Germany, AIDS and
affirmative action. The conference resulted in the formation of a Pan African Movement
16
to deal with issues ranging from racial profiling to poverty and reparations for slavery,
colonialism and apartheid (Wilkinson, 2002). Participants agreed to form a Pan African
Movement and initiate lawsuits against Britain, Germany, France and Belgium, to
followed by suits against Portugal, Spain and Holland.
The movement showed both its strengths and weaknesses at the Bridgetown conference.
On the plus side was its mobilization of hundreds of participants from all parts of the
world to discuss the issue of reparations. This mobilization and formation of a panAfrican organization to facilitate communication and collaboration among activists in
different parts of the world demonstrates the growing maturity of the movement. On the
minus side was the tendency of activists to indulge in tangential gestures that had little
practical value. This was evident in the majority floor vote calling for the expulsion of
non-Africans from the conference. The vocal and organized Afro-British and AfricanAmerican delegations demanded the vote, but the motion was carried at an unacceptable
cost, resulting in the loss of delegates from Cuba, South Africa and Colombia who could
not accept the decision despite their African heritage. Given the minuscule presence of
non-Africans at the conference, this vote was self-indulgent at best.
The legal strategy has been the most successful in obtaining reparations for people of
African descent in the short run. These lawsuits have spread from the United States to
Haiti, Kenya and Jamaica. In 1999, lawyer Alexander Pires won $1 billion for 24,000
black families who charged discrimination by the Department of Agriculture. According
to Pires (2000), the U.S. Department of Agriculture provided no loans to African
American farmers until 1997. “Ninety-five percent of all farm loans went to white
farmers. And until the 1960s, the USDA had a special section called Negro Loans, which
ensured that black applicants were rejected. It’s amazing” (Harper’s, 2000). In March
2002, a reparations lawsuit was filed against Aetna, CSI and Providence Bank, along with
100 other companies, charging that they had profited from slavery (Cox, 2002). Also
planning class-action lawsuits is a group of high-powered lawyers led by civil rights
attorney Johnnie Cochran and Harvard University law professor Charles Ogletree. The
precedent for these lawsuits is the $6 billion settlement won by the World Jewish
Congress on behalf of Holocaust slave laborers (New Statesman, 24 July 2000).
In Kenya, survivors of the War of Independence and concentration camps established by
the British have sued the British government for war crimes (Daily Nation, 27 October
2002). Among incidents likely to be at the top of the agenda are the Hola massacre,
where 70 detainees were beaten to death; castrations at Nyangwethu Screening Camp;
and the Lari massacre, in which civilians – mostly women and children – were allegedly
killed by colonial and loyalist forces. Colonial officials estimated that 10,527 LFA
fighters were killed and 2,633 captured by the British forces between 1952 and 1956,
when the insurgency against colonialism peaked. About 1,826 “loyal African” soldiers
were killed and 918 wounded. At least 2,000 innocent black people were also killed.
After failing to effectively track down the freedom fighters, the colonial government
turned on the African population, arresting thousands and detaining about 77,000 in what
was called “Operation Anvil.” When the state of Emergency was lifted, about 38,449
Kenyans were still in detention, convicted of either being “Mau Mau” or their
sympathizers.
17
In Jamaica, lawyers served a writ on Queen Elizabeth when she visited Kingston in
February 2002 (Wilkinson, 2002). France is also being targeted because it forced Haiti to
pay 150 million francs as compensation for French property lost during the slave uprising
that led to the first Black republic in the West. Although these reparations lawsuits are
critical components of the movement, they need to be placed in perspective. Single-issue
class action lawsuits only benefit the parties affected by the particular crime against
humanity. While it is critical that the Kenyan victims of detention, torture, castration and
confiscation receive compensation, their case would be immeasurably strengthened by a
formal association with similar suits in Jamaica, the United States and Namibia. This
collaboration would allow the aggrieved to share experiences and collaborate on the
broader challenge of restoring Africa to its rightful place as an equal in global affairs.
A third strategy is the political campaign for reparations that seeks to convince
governments to acknowledge their role in human rights violations and provide
compensation for property and lives lost. The role of government has been prominent
during periods of reconstruction after major wars, genocide, and other mass human rights
violations. Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Field Order #15, for
instance, required military officers to provide black families with forty-acre plots on
former slave plantations as compensation for unpaid labor. On 11 March 1867 Thaddeus
Stevens of Pennsylvania introduced H.R. 29, which called for redistribution of former
slave plantations among the freed slaves. President Andrew Johnson reversed Sherman’s
field order and vetoed H.R. 29. One hundred and nineteen years later, Representative
John Conyers of Michigan introduced H.R. 891 in the 104th Congress, calling for a
commission to be established to study the question of reparations. Despite the
conservative tenor of its request, by contrast with Stevens’s call for redistribution of
property, Conyers’s mild proposal received little support, and as a result has yet to make
it out of committee.
On 4 May 1994, the State of Florida passed the Rosewood Compensation Act,
acknowledging the state’s responsibility for failing to prevent a massacre of the black
town’s residents in a white rampage in 1923 (Brooks, 1999). The pogrom lasted for days,
leading to charges that the state of Florida could have intervened and saved lives and
property. The Rosewood Compensation Act provided compensation of up to $150,000
for victims and their families (a total of $7 million), and established scholarships for
minority students with preference given to Rosewood residents (Brooks, 1999).
Reconstruction after colonial rule in Africa sometimes involved land-redistribution
schemes that resembled General Sherman’s field order. In Kenya, British settlers were
forced to vacate Kikuyuland after a ten-year guerrilla war, but not before they had been
“compensated” for land taken by force from African peasants. The British also secured a
promise from Kenya’s first African President, Jomo Kenyatta, that he would not pursue
compensation claims for war crimes. A similar agreement between Zimbabwe’s Robert
Mugabe and the British in 1980 failed to materialize, leading to the current crisis as war
veterans attempt to take back their lands from settlers.
18
In Brazil and Colombia, people of African descent continue to seek title to lands they
have occupied for hundreds of years. In 2000, Brazil’s Congress voted that residents of
Quilombos in northeastern Brazil should receive title deeds to lands they had occupied –
in some cases since the 15th century, when Africans created independent communities of
fugitive slaves. Afro-Colombians also received title to lands occupied by former slaves,
but have been displaced by right-wing paramilitary gangs linked to the Colombian
military. The Afro-Colombians had the misfortune to occupy land near oilfields and
mineral deposits. Massacres and forced displacement are pulling the population out by
the roots. According to Mary Jo McConahay, the Chocó province on the Pacific, home to
400,000 people, has been hard-hit by the Colombian war. The area is the source of
mineral deposits critical to the aerospace and nuclear industries; of oil, gold, and silver;
and of most of the timber felled in Colombia. In l998, Afro-Colombian Governor Luis
Murillo declared Chocó off-limits to all armed groups, including the army. Within
months, courts stripped him of office, and he was kidnapped and held by a death-squad in
Bogota. He escaped, and is now living in exile in Washington, D.C. (McConahay, 2002).
The biggest challenge for the growing movement is to develop a global structure that will
bring together different parts of the movement for dialogue and development of a global
vision and strategy for reparations. There is no doubt, for instance, that the mass
kidnapping and deportation of millions from the African continent is at the core of the
reparations claims of all parties, be they from the Caribbean, South America, the United
States or even the African continent itself. This global trade in Africans and the products
of their labor also underpins the second pillar of the reparations campaign, which is the
claim that the West received unjust riches from the centuries of unpaid labor of Africans
and their descendants in the Diaspora. Africans and people of African descent in the
Diaspora were and continue to be targeted as a racial group, not as individuals. Slavery,
Jim Crow laws, apartheid and colonialism created a racial caste system that continues to
determine the life-chances of people of African descent, based primarily on their color.
Thus a pan-African effort is imperative if the campaign is to encompass the global
implications of slavery and its legacies of segregation, colonialism and global apartheid.
These efforts at the national and international levels are commendable, but they require a
more developed critique of capitalism, and thus a strategy to tie the campaigns to the
global anti-capitalist movements. These movements would be natural allies of the
reparations movement, if the issue were framed as part of a multifaceted attack on race
and class oppression, instead of centering itself on calls for an apology and a paycheck.
Reparations must be seen not as an end, but as a means to achieve a more equitable
distribution of wealth and power, the creation of a democratic culture, and the
dismantling of structures of global apartheid. As Robin Kelley (2002) puts it: “The
reparations campaign, despite its potential contribution to eliminating racism and
remaking the world, can never be an end in itself. Money and resources are always
important, but a new vision and new values cannot be bought. And without at least a
rudimentary criticism of the capitalist culture that consumes us, even reparations can
have disastrous consequences” (Kelley, 2002, p. 133).
19
CONCLUSION
The three types of African migrant intellectuals are not mutually exclusive. Intellectuals
who consider themselves progressives in one context find themselves allied with global
capital and neocolonial forces in another. Take the case of the independence generation.
Many of the leaders of African decolonization spent years --sometimes decades-- in exile.
Some, like Leopold Sedar Senghor, Sekou Toure, Kwame Nkrumah, Sylvanos Olympio,
Nmandi Azikiwe, Kamuzu Banda, Amilcar Cabral, Eduardo Mondlane and Julius
Nyerere were scholar-activists who studied for advanced degrees in Europe and the
United States before eventually returning home to lead their countries to independence.
Many of these leaders developed their political skills and personas in the West where
they formed student associations and joined Pan-Africanist groups dedicated to
overthrowing colonial powers in Africa. Many also flirted with leftist political theories
like Socialism, Marxism and Communism. It is this generation that gave us hopeful
theories such as African personality, Consciencism and African Socialism. Yet, once they
returned from exile and seized the reins of power, an alarmingly large number of them
abandoned their progressive politics for the worst forms of neocolonial clientelism and
despotism. Of this group of independence-era leaders, only Cabral, Mondlane, Nyerere,
Nkrumah, Toure and Olympio maintained their progressive perspectives. Few others
resisted the lure of power and client relations with the same colonial powers they had
once denounced in the streets of London, New York and Paris.
The postcolonial generation, however, faces a new reality and new options of negotiated
identity. Both groups were confronted with the specter of racism and the resulting double
consciousness, but the postcolonial generation has the benefit of more favorable
immigration policies and greater educational and professional opportunities created by
the Civil Rights Movement and African independence movements (Arthur, 2000, 7-10).
This new dispensation has allowed the African migrants to seek employment at major
universities and settle in the United States. Thus, despite the continuing problem of
racism, these migrants can and do make new lives for themselves in exile. This new
situation has allowed the African migrant scholar to participate, both in American
education and politics, areas that were closed to the independence era exiles. These new
opportunities have also produced new resolutions to the age-old problem of double
consciousness.
The migrant scholars must resolve the crisis of double consciousness and embrace the
unique perspective that this experience of exile and return offers for opening new paths of
liberation from constraints of race, time and place. The crisis of identity becomes an
opportunity to embrace and cultivate a broader Africanity that is more suited to the
increased mobility of Africans that will be the central reality of the 21st century. It is
through this process of becoming African, this spiritual and physical mobility through
time and space toward a Pan-Africanity that we can begin to resolve the crises of identity
reflected in the strife on the continent and in the Diaspora.
20
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