FEBRUARY 2000 
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      FEATURE   
      The lies my teacher told me
      Ursula Yatima Troche writes about how African/black and other radical students who challenge the accepted educational order in British universities are marked down by their lecturers.
      "Some people even end up getting mad here!", said a student of the University of London's highly-regarded School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where I studied. 

      Both of us were ambitious students, eager to learn about Africa. She was in the history department and I was in the politics department. But instead of the history and politics of Africa we yearned for, we learned the history and politics of colonialism and neo-colonialism, though the very existence of the latter is denied by some lecturers at SOAS where events are routinely manipulated or erased in the name of the "good old Empire".

      To me, SOAS is a prime example of what I call "academic racism" - it is an issue of constant battle for African/black and other radical students. While colonialism has been defeated, the colonial mentality in Britain's most prestigious universities is still very much alive. This battle still has to be won.

      Racism in British educational institutions is usually addressed in terms of the number of "black" lecturers, admissions and exclusions. That the "problem" is being addressed, is laudable; but I want to draw attention here to the nature of the curriculum.

      I had encountered academic racism before going to SOAS. I remember in my "access course", we discussed imperialism in the history class where we were taught about the Battle of Adwa during Italy's attempted colonisation of Ethiopia. 

      This battle, because for a change it was won by the Africans and not by the Europeans, was described by our female lecturer as a "humiliating defeat". I asked her why it was a "humiliating defeat" whereas the battles lost by the Africans were not seen as "humiliating" for the Africans. I got a stammered response. There are more incidents of this kind that I remember.

      Other SOAS students had also experienced academic racism before going there. So we all agreed that what we were experiencing at SOAS was not unique - only that it was more pronounced at SOAS than the secondary schools and colleges we had come through.

      For example, the SOAS library - apart from having some very useful collections of books and materials - is full of books that confirm its Euro-centric teaching. One such book, Dependence and Opportunity well sums up what the teaching is all about, and how useful (in SOAS-speak) the colonial period was to Africa - otherwise "it wouldn't even have had the little development it had."

      I am neither African nor British. So how did my lecturers at SOAS take my criticisms? 

      I remember sitting at my desk after coming home angry from lectures and feeling an urge to 'write what I like', which I did, and not to repeat what were plain lies told us by the lecturers. 

      However, this meant that my essays were constantly marked down, with remarks such as "pipedreams", "you only write what fits your explanation", etc. As if they don't teach only what fits their explanation. And I wasn't alone, other students felt the same.

      We were banned, so to speak, from mentioning academic theories such as the "dependency theory" that argues how unequal the relationship between Europe on the one hand, and Africa, Asia and Latin America on the other hand, is. This theory allows for a critique of imperialism, but some SOAS lecturers would not have any of it.

      In one of my papers, I criticised one of the economic theories for its failure to take into account the effect of the slave trade on the underdevelopment of Africa. Of course I got marked down!

      It has to be said that some students from Africa, when coming to study in the UK or continental Europe, are impressed by the perceived freedom of expression in these countries. Of course we are not thrown into jail or tortured for what we say in Britain. But the practice of marking down students who challenge the accepted academic order, is surely a form of imprisonment - imprisoning the mind, and free thinking! It means you cannot develop an independent mind and survive your course. Or you get a bad degree (if you are lucky), or none at all (if you are not)! 

      This state of affairs works - very subtlely - on the minds of students. You have to toe the line or perish. And since nobody wants to commit academic suicide, we all conform! This is how the minds of Africans who study abroad are "conditioned" to become classic HMVs - His Master's Voice.

      This situation mirrors the colonial practice of "indirect rule" - controlling and using people in a way that they don't know they are being used. And it is not just our essays that are marked down, the economies of developing countries are controlled with the help of the economic theories we are taught at school.

      In 1992, a number of British institutions of higher learning were openly criticised for this kind of teaching by the magazine, Africa World Review (AWR), then edited by Tajudeen Abdulraheem, now head of the Pan African Movement's secretariat in Kampala, Uganda. That issue of AWR attracted such attention that it sold out within a very short time. One of the articles "SOAS and Imperialism" was so hot that SOAS, which used to stock the magazine in its library, took it off its shelves. 

      Yet the "problem" persisted. In 1993, shortly before I joined SOAS, a group of students, unable to stand it any longer, complained. Professor Roberts, a lecturer in the history department, took the brunt of their anger. I got to know Prof Roberts very well in my first year course on the "History of Africa since 1800". 

      Things were so bad that the SOAS Student's Union (SSU) was compelled to write to Prof Roberts on 10 February 1993, thus: 

      "We are writing to you," the SSU said, "to express our grave concern over the level of complaints we have received about you from students. If these were isolated, we would not be writing to you now, but as the complaints have multiplied and come from all your classes (re: African history), we feel compelled to draw these matters to your attention.

      "Unfortunately the complaints are not contained within one racial group. Both black and white students have told us that they consider your interpretation of history to be riddled with inaccuracies and inconsistencies together with more serious charges of insensitivity and downright racism.

      "1. On black nationalism, you referred to it [as] 'rearing its ugly head.'

      2. You allegedly told students that it was a widely held view that black people had smaller brains than Europeans (a myth that was debunked scientifically many moons ago).

      3. You also allegedly told students that Walter Rodney, who gained a PhD from SOAS, did not write the SOAS way. What exactly does this mean?

      4. You also allegedly told students that the colonial presence in Africa, especially the British, should be viewed as a civilising influence [which] merely exercised a degree of trusteeship over the continent.

      5. Referring to Great Zimbabwe, you told students that you were puzzled by how such a great monument could have been built by indigenous black Africans, and that its existence could only be explained by Arabisation. This, despite your knowledge that Great Zimbabwe contained many similarities with West African constructions.

      6. It is further alleged that you claimed slavery did no account for depopulation of Africa, a fact that has been refuted in many eminent historical works."

      The letter was signed by the co-presidents of the Student Union, Ross Slater and Debbie Mortimer. They requested a meeting "at the earliest possible time" with Prof Roberts to sort out "the resultant anguish that you have caused". 

      But just before they sent the letter off to him, another student ran in to complain about the professor. So they added an appendix: "Within minutes of us writing this letter, another student has come in to complain. They [sic] said that in a class this week, you [talked] about how Africans helped the colonisation of their own continent. 'By selling their brothers, they did nothing to encourage Europeans to respect them but everything to encourage Europeans to despise them'." 

      The case was taken up by the Council for Academic Freedom and Standards (CAFAS). The result was a meeting with Prof Roberts. As he wasn't able to defend his remarks, he was suspended for two weeks while the history curriculum was reviewed and changed - but not by very much.

      This kind of teaching demoralises and intimidates. But some students are trying to fight back. At SOAS, there is a group called "Black and Proud at SOAS" which is very active and has the courage to complain. Another activist is in the process of setting up the "Afrocentric Society"'.

      Other examples of ex-SOAS students who have tried to redress the balance of history after completion of their degrees are Walter Rodney and Ivan Van Sertima. 

      Van Sertima has made a name for himself with his Journal of African Civilisations, and Rodney's book on How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is legendary, much to the chagrin of lecturers who, for a long time, refused to include it on the reading list for relevant courses at SOAS. 

      It did appear on my reading list, though. But even then, we were told: "Have a read of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa just to see how one-sided and poorly researched the book is. When I mentioned the book in one of my essays, my lecturer wrote on the side that Rodney admitted to him shortly before his death that he (Rodney) did not believe in his own writings anymore

      Another ex-SOAS intellectual is Donovan McGrath. He says the exclusion of certain books is a central practice of the Eurocentric curriculum. He has now designed a course on "African World Studies" which challenges viewpoints such as those expressed by Prof Roberts.

      Though I did enjoy my days at SOAS, my enjoyment would have been far greater if I hadn't been demoralised by the kind of teaching I came across. 

      I have concentrated here on SOAS because this is where my personal experience comes from. This is not to say, however, that other British and Western institutions don't have the same problems

      In Britain, the "new" universities that were formerly polytechnics are often considerably less "racist" in their teachings. There are more black lecturers there than at the old universities, and black students there stand a far greater chance of being taught a more realistic curriculum.

      Now, as a teacher myself teaching ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages), the staff at the college where I teach includes Africans, Black-British and foreigners. We have a multicultural curriculum, we present positive images of black people and, generally, we have some very good books on Africa and the black world. I am lucky with the choice of my college. Not all colleges in the UK employ black or foreign teachers.

      Editor's note: We invited SOAS to give an official response to this article. We faxed the full text to them on 14 December. But on 7 January, Dr David Taylor who is in charge of media matters at SOAS told NA that after much discussion, they had decided not to respond officially to the piece.



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