Baba,

Thank you for this original and refreshing essay on the intellectual.  Very
educative.  The intellectual is rare .

best,
Mboge

On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 6:37 PM, Baba Galleh Jallow
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:

>  *Provisional thoughts on the intellectual*
>
> *By Baba Galleh Jallow*
>
> In *Representations of the Intellectual*, Edward Said (pronounced sayid)
> defines the intellectual as simply that educated person – “an oppositional
> figure” - who speaks out against injustices in his society. The
> intellectual is not merely one who has obtained an advanced degree in a
> particular field of study. They have to be someone actively engaged in
> speaking truth to power in the service of their society and those who are
> not able to fight back when bullied by the power structures of society.
> Said’s characterization of the intellectual disqualifies many educated
> persons from claiming the status of intellectual. An intellectual cannot
> afford not to take sides – be on the side of the underdogs - in national
> discourses of power, oppression, and exploitation. They are either vocal
> and therefore with the mass of oppressed or otherwise underprivileged
> people, or they are silent and therefore with the oppressive structures and
> institutions of society. They can also join the oppressive power structure
> and win the title of “intellectual prostitute” for their pains and in their
> pursuit of material gain.****
>
> Before going further, let me make a small but significant disclaimer: In
> this essay, I use the masculine pronoun to refer to all intellectuals. I
> hope our dear mothers and sisters will forgive me for taking this easy way
> out of the “he/she” conundrum. Great female intellectuals are to be found
> in all walks of life and have made incredibly great contributions to all
> aspects of human civilization. Thus, my use of the masculine pronoun in
> this small essay is merely for ease of reference. It is certainly not meant
> to marginalize or otherwise downplay the tremendous contributions of
> females to the world’s intellectual wellbeing and resources. A great small
> book titled Essaying the Past by Jim Cullen uses “she” and “her” throughout
> the text, making me wonder, why Dr. Cullen, are there no “he” intellectuals
> in your world? But of course, I understand that Jim’s decision to use the
> feminine pronoun was driven by the need for ease of reference. I use “he”
> and “his” here for the same reason. Moreover, some of the not so
> complimentary actions of intellectuals discussed in the essay are mostly
> perpetrated by male intellectuals, though females are also sometimes
> culpable.****
>
> In Said’s formulation, the intellectual who keeps mute over the injustices
> inflicted upon their compatriots or joins the oppressive system may write
> and publish many books in academic presses and articles in learned
> professional journals. However, the fact that they condone the tyrannies
> and injustices in their home countries renders them disqualified for the
> title of an intellectual. These kinds of educated people are mere academics
> or professionals contributing to the production of knowledge in their
> fields or otherwise belonging to and serving their special professional and
> special interests. By their active participation in the tyrannical system
> or their silence, they aid and abet tyranny and injustice where they could
> have helped neutralize these negative forces from the lives of their
> peoples. Said suggests that the intellectual cannot afford to either be
> part of an oppressive structure or to sit on the fence and maintain passive
> silence in the face of injustice or aggression.****
>
> Most studies of the intellectual characterize him as an outsider, an exile
> to mainstream society, even if he lives within his own country, a character
> marginal to whatever public he finds himself in. Ironically, the
> marginality of the intellectual derives precisely from his inextricable
> immersion in society. At once existing outside of society, he is
> perpetually embedded, energized and motivated by his engagement with issues
> of social concern. It is his hatred of injustice, his total identification
> with the plight of the poor, the weak, the oppressed and the otherwise
> powerless victims of structural violence that at once makes him an outsider
> and the quintessential insider and champion of social justice. Unable to
> partake of the ordinary joys of belonging, he nevertheless is the epitome
> of belonging. It is his feeling of belonging that makes him an unyielding
> champion of a just social order while at the same time keeping him
> perpetually outside of his society.   ****
>
> Of course, some of the worst atrocities against human kind both in Africa
> and around the world have been committed by people who would characterize
> themselves as intellectuals. Almost all of Africa’s founding fathers held
> academic qualifications ranging from masters degrees to PhDs. Kwame Nkrumah
> held a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Economics (1939) and a Bachelor of
> Theology (1942) from Lincoln University. He also held a Master of Science
> in Education (1942) and a Master of Arts in Philosophy (1943) from the
> University of Pennsylvania. By the time he left America for the United
> Kingdom, he was on the verge of finishing work on a doctorate in philosophy
> at the University of Pennsylvania. Yet, for all his great contributions to
> the forging of a new nation in Ghana and the advancement of the
> pan-Africanist cause, Nkrumah was able to justify passage of such
> oppressive laws like the Preventive Detention Act of 1958 under which
> people were detained for up to five years or more without charges, without
> trial and without the benefit of habeas corpus merely because Nkrumah saw
> them as potential threats to Ghana’s peace and security. One can understand
> that Nkrumah was faced with a particular difficult task of founding a new
> republic at the height of a cold war which threatened to sabotage Africa’s
> emergent independence. But as Africans faced with a particularly malignant
> problem of unjust rulers, we cannot afford to overlook injustices and
> oppression merely because the perpetrator has also made great contributions
> to the advancement of society. Under no circumstances may acts of injustice
> and oppression be condoned, especially when they are perpetrated by
> intellectuals who should know better than to assume positions of
> infallibility. There are always alternative ways of doing things,
> alternative choices to be made which may achieve the same or better
> results. ****
>
> Other independence era leaders like Jomo Kenyatta, Hastings Banda, Leopold
> Senghor, Houphouet Boigny, and Julius Nyerere, and more recently Laurent
> Gbagbo among others, all held higher education qualifications that placed
> them firmly in the category of intellectuals. Yet, most of these African
> intellectuals proceeded to impose unjust social orders on their societies
> simply because they lacked the capacity to recognize that they might be
> mistaken in some of their ideas. It is to be said for Nyerere that once he
> recognized the error of his ways, he happily stepped aside and allowed an
> alternative system to replace his failed experiment. That is the mark of a
> true intellectual – the capacity to recognize error, say sorry, and take
> corrective measures in the interest of social wellbeing. Of course, we also
> have those African leaders, some very close to home who, much like cows in
> a library, carry upon their necks such intellectual titles like Sheikh,
> Doctor and Professor. We may term these delusional fools “underdogtuals”
> for they lie prostrate at the lowest bottom of the pseudollectual ladder,
> making funny noises that are never heard in the real world. ****
>
> The true intellectual recognizes above everything else his human
> fallibility. He certainly expresses strongly held beliefs and opinions and
> could prove extremely stubborn in upholding and defending them. But he
> never assumes a position of infallibility and certainly never suggests that
> his version of whatever issue is at stake is the only correct version. He
> always leaves room for the possibility of error, and depending on his level
> of maturity as an intellectual, is always prepared to revisit and revise
> his position in the light of strong evidence suggesting that he might be
> wrong. In short, the true intellectual is a perpetual student, both of
> academics and of life. One of the greatest intellectuals of all time, the
> Greek philosopher Socrates famously confessed that the only thing he knew
> was that he knew nothing. ****
>
> The true intellectual will not be co-opted by power structures that bear
> the tiniest bit of responsibility for human suffering. He is utterly
> incapable of inflicting premeditated injustice except as a response to
> injustice inflicted upon him or some other victim. In Africa however, and
> admittedly in all parts of the world, people who consider themselves
> intellectuals often serve as the spokespersons and legitimating signposts
> for oppressive and unjust social orders. Every tyrant has a crop of
> intellectuals around him, with some others waiting in the wings, licking
> his boots, and hoping to be co-opted into the system for monetary and other
> benefits. Some go out of their way to produce works on the tyrant’s
> non-existent achievements, or to praise the tyrant’s non-existent
> magnanimities as a way of attracting favorable attention and perhaps
> landing a lucrative job from the tyrant. Because tyrants are generally
> insecure and have grossly over inflated egos in constant need of stroking,
> they are famously susceptible to intellectual sycophancy because it tends
> to confirm their own unrealistic estimations of themselves. But those
> intellectuals who prostitute themselves to unjust power structures and
> corrupt institutions for mere monetary gain are not true intellectuals;
> they are mere academics out to line their pockets and utterly heedless of
> the lessons of history which show just how badly intellectual prostitutes
> almost inevitably suffer. They are victims of self-inflicted mental
> blindness who assume convenient truths to convince themselves that the only
> way they could escape what appears to be a life-long cycle of material
> poverty is to court the favors of the tyrant. Indeed, it is their obsessive
> preoccupation with material gain that pushes them into the thorny arms of
> the tyrant and makes them sell their souls to the devil. The true
> intellectual does not dismiss the necessity of material comfort; but placed
> against the necessity of dignity, principle and integrity, material comfort
> pales into utter insignificance in the mind of the true intellectual.****
>
>  Then there are those intellectuals who will neither sell their souls to
> the devil nor actively fight the injustices in his society. These seem to
> be in the majority. Having obtained higher educational qualifications, they
> are well aware of the nature of structural violence in society. However,
> they tend to lean more towards silence largely for reasons of
> self-preservation, cowardice, or mere laziness. African intellectuals
> belonging to this group are often prolific writers and great scholars
> working for some of the world’s greatest universities or corporate
> institutions. However, they maintain a stony silence while their own people
> are bullied and killed by tin pot despots. They place the conveniences of
> being able to freely land at their home airports and bask in the communal
> glory that greets them back home to the inconvenience of having to stay out
> of the country while waging a battle against unjust social orders. They
> claim to be not interested in politics; yet their entire professions deal
> with politics, a subject they engage on a daily basis. These are the types
> of intellectuals the sociologist C Wright Mills call “inactionaries.” They
> convince themselves that they are not doing anything bad, that they are
> independent beings who have no bone to pick with the unjust system as long
> as it does not attack them or theirs, or that they are not interested in
> politics. Assuming these convenient truths, they manage to willfully
> maintain what they feel is a clear conscience and go about their lucrative
> business. It is to be said for these inactionaries that they seldom sell
> their souls to the devil either. ****
>
> The true intellectual neither sells his soul to the devil nor remains mute
> over social injustices. Marginal to society, he is embedded in a sea of
> social concerns. His entire being is animated and inspired by an
> irresistible urge to speak out against tyranny and injustice in all their
> various forms. He cannot survive long in an environment of intolerance and
> censorship. He will allow others to control anything about him but his
> mind. He is a fiercely independent individual who finds it hard to belong,
> yet inextricably and almost literally belongs to his community. And he will
> not be silenced, except by brute force that renders him totally incapable
> of talking truth to power. Some of the greatest intellectual treasures of
> all time were produced by intellectuals in prison or on the verge of being
> murdered by unjust regimes. Two classical examples are Gramsci’s *Prison
> Notebooks* and Plato’s *The Trial and Death of Socrates*.  ****
>
>  ****
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