Dear Madiba,

Thank you very much for being a good courier between George Ayittey and
myself. I hope you will transmit my response to his memorandum of 6 November
1999.

I went to Zanzibar and then to Ghana and came back on 21 November only to
discover a ton of mails waiting for me.

I must say that I am quite amused by the responses given by George Ayittey;
my friend, Cherno Baba, and an individual by the name Saul Khan whose claims
I will address to his satisfaction, hopefully.

Frankly speaking, I had expected George Ayittey to be an erudite
intellectual. I had anticipated that he would take up issue with me from a
completely different angle than he has adopted. If I were in his position, I
would have refused to engage in polemics and rather invite the contending
party for us to move away from the castigation and resort to the methodology
of social scientific enquiry.

Polemics is the art of exposing the weaknesses in the arguments of one's
opponents so as to refute the premises he or she seeks to defend. Polemics
starts with a strong conviction that the premise one wants to validate is
irrefutable. It is designed to ensure that people accept a given view of
things by convincingly refuting the premises which try to colloborate the
opposite view. Polemics starts with a conclusion just like lawyers start by
affirming the innocence or guilt of the accused aand then proceed to adduce
evidence to convince others to accept the truth that they hold.

Scientific enquiry, however, puts aside fore knowledge of a given reality.
It compels the enquirer to seek evidence objectively by putting emotions,
beliefs and convictions aside and pursue the hard facts. Scientific enquiry
calls for the collation of facts and their interpretation in such a way that
all reasonable persons could derive knowledge of a real situation.

Frankly speaking, if George Ayittey had done a scientific analysis of
Tanzania's political, economic, social and cultural development during the
Nyerere years, analysed the external and internal factors which enhanced or
restricted the development of Tanzania, interpreted the facts gathered, I
would have celebrated him as an honest African intellectual who wants us to
have  a true knowledge of the African condition. I am sorry that George
Ayittey has not displayed such intellectual profundity.

I decided to challenge them for polemics precisely because he and his
colleague departed from the scientific method of enquiry and preferred to
engage in producing what is essentially a polemical literature. His
objective was clear from the very beginning of the article. The impression
they sought to give in their article is glaringly summed up in their
concluding remarks which read:

"Perhaps, this "reeducation" came a little too late but it validated the
adage that one never ceases to learn until death. In this sense, Nyerere was
a true teacher. But the supreme irony of it all is that, Julius Nyerere, who
denounced the British colonialists, should seek medical help from Britain
where he died of leukemia. But then again, who thought Sergei Kruschev, the
son of Soviet President, Nikita Kruschev, would take up U.S. citizenship
this year?

"May Nyerere rest quietly in peace."

This vain attempt to dismiss Nyerere and put his reputation into disrepute
is what I considered to be grossly unfair and irresponsible. It is amazing
that people like Cherno Baba consider Ayittey's article to be the work of a
scholar. I am sorry if Cherno Baba really knows what a scholar is.

Will a scholar start an article on this note?:

"Before the international media pundits/mavens elevate any African leader to
sainthood, a reality check with his own people is imperative for balance. At
the minimum, Africans should be allowed to choose their own saints, not
those imposed upon them by outsiders for that smacks of cultural imperialism
or intellectual arrogance.

"As the new millennium dawns, many Africans fervently hope that their old
generation of leaders would quietly fade away into the sunset. To be sure,
they did endure great personal sacrifice and fought gallantly  for freedom
from colonial rule for their respective countries. But the
legacies they left behind bespeak of shattered economies, rampant
corruption, never-ending cycles of political instability, senseless
civil wars, wanton destruction, famine, and massive refugees. To deflect
attention away from their own domestic failures, they grandstand on the
world stage, railing against Western colonialism, imperialism, racism, the
IMF and the World Bank. To continuously celebrate them without a hint of the
unspeakable misery they bequeathed to their people is criminally
irresponsible."

Is this the way a scholar would introduce a professional article entitled
JULIUS NYERERE: A SAINT OR A KNAVE? Is this the way to pose research
questions?

What is a scholarly article?

A scholarly article must be faithful to the methodology of scientific
enquiry. It does not begin with value judgment. It may start with
hypotheses, the posing of research questions and the adoption of a
methodology to interrogate those questions in order to come up with facts
that are reliable enough for objective interpretation of a situation. Such
facts provide the basis to acquire knowledge of a situation and provide the
basis for a conceptual framework about a given situation.

Apparently, Cherno Baba's scholars had already drawn their conclusion before
drawing evidence and their colloboration. May be Cherno Baba does not know,
but Ayittey does know that he made a terrible blunder when he utilised this
pedantic method of trying to assassinate the character of Nyerere.

In fact, the emptiness of their conceptions is glaringly revealed in the
very opening of their article. They wrote that: "Before the international
media pundits/mavens elevate any African leader to sainthood, a reality
check with his own people is imperative for balance". Of course,  this is
not enough for a social scientist to truly understand the characteristics
and nature of a country during the term of office of a given leader.
However, we will accept George Ayittey's premises and ask him the question
whether he has gone to Tanzania to find out how the Tanzanian people feel
about Nyerere.

I was in Zanzibar up to 11 November 1999 and I can say that the people are
still mourning Nyerere. Although the questions I posed to many people in
Zanzibar and the answers given cannot give us a wholistic picture of the
situation in Tanzania before and after Nyerere, they address the narrow
emotive factor that George Ayittey and his co. have raised; a factor that no
social scientist can rely on to pass judgment on a regime. George Ayittey
and co. had even acknowledged this; that they are so inept that they could
not separate emotive issues from factual issues in their article.

My response to George Ayittey and co.'s article was not meant to be a
scholarly article. It was polemical. It was based on the strategic objective
of refuting the conclusions that George Ayittey has drawn and convince all
reasonable persons that their article is not worth the salt. It was aimed at
exposing the weaknesses of their conceptions and make all reasonable people
to see that Nyereres and  Nkrumahs deserve respect and honourable places in
African history just like the George Washingtons and Jeffersons are given
honourable places in American history. My article  was aimed at
contextualising our conception of African history so that we will not judge
1960 realities with 1999 eyes. This is why I focused on the international
scene so that we could see the contemporaries of the Nkrumahs and Nyereres
such as the De Gaulles, the Trumans and the Eisenhowers; the state of
democracy and human rights in the various countries so that we can truly
conceptualise the contribution of these African leaders. My aim was simply
to state the facts as they are so that we can draw defensible  conceptions
from the facts.

I am glad to say that I have succeeded in pushing George Ayittey in the
defensive and that he has taken a rhetorical approach to move away from his
posture of being prosecutor, judge and jury sitting in judgment regarding
whether Nyerere is a saint or a knave.

Madiba, in your posting of 6 November 1999, Ayittey wrote:

"No African would deny that the first generation of leaders strove gallantly
and endured personal hardships to win independence from colonial rule. They
were hailed as heroes by their people and the international community. We
made this point in our piece. BUT in country after country, these leaders
proceeded to establish brutal regime, violated the civil rights of their own
people and looted their economies. Nyerere was an exception, which we also
said in our
article...."

Here, it is clear that Ayittey is retracting from his posture of trying to
transform Nyerere into knave. In that sense, the outcome of the polemics can
be said to be in my favour. I have, therefore, attained the strategic
objective for writing the article in the first place.

Apparently, all subscribers to the L have said at one time or another that
the Nyereres and the Nkrumahs deserve mention in the history of the
emancipation of the African continent. Each accepts that our duty is to
condemn those who have contributed nothing but to destroy Africa, appreciate
the work of those who have tried their best to serve Africa, acknowledge
their mistakes and learn from the past to build a better future. This is the
defensible posture which has emerged from the debate that I have read.

Ayittey, however, did not stop at backing down from his original posture. He
went on to become a psychiatrist, invent a new mental disease which he gave
the name "intellectual astigmatism" and then took me to his clinic and
diagnosed me to be afflicted with the illness which, according to him, makes
intellectuals to conclude that "black African leaders can do no wrong; only
white colonialists and imperialists". He concluded by asserting that this
"kind of intellectualism is a disgrace to Africa. Even children no longer
buy this." He then went on to publish the sad story of two Guinean
teenagers, Yaguine Koita and Fode Tounkara who sneaked into the landing gear
of a Sabena airliner on a flight from Conakry to Brussels and were unable to
survive the temperatures of 55 degrees below zero.

We did cover this incident in our newspaper, FOROYAA. I do not know what
lesson George Ayittey wants me to learn from this that I have not already
learnt. May be somebody needs to tell George Ayittey what type of life I am
living and for what reason. Unless Africa has leaders with hearts that can
beat in unison with the heart beats of her deprived sons and daughters who
are waiting and yearning to live in liberty, dignity and prosperity, such
narrations will continue to be made and hypocritically acknowledged by
people who will not raise a finger to change such conditions. This is a
challenge to both George Ayittey and my very self. It is not what we say
that matters, but what each of us is ready to do to help make such stories a
matter of history.

Should I respond to George Ayittey's attempt to give me a label? Should I
try to put up a defence that I am not afflicted with "intellectual
astigmatism"? No. No. No. That would be taking a defensive posture and that
would play into George Ayittey's favour. I have no intellectual complexes
and I have never met a person who has ever succeeded in giving me an
intellectual inferiority complex.

Cherno Baba says that Ayittey is a scholar. I would like to see some of his
writings before passing judgment on this issue. I am certainly not impressed
by his article on Nyerere which seems to be the type of clap-trap that those
intellectuals, who wish to collect crumbs from newspapers in the United
States or receive grants from foundations or become visiting lecturers in
some universities, write. I hope I am wrong in my conception. I certainly do
not want to put his integrity into question.

I believe, however, that he needs to do a bit of a research about me before
making a diagnosis. In that regard, I would give a list of people I have met
recently who are in academic circles whom he may contact to make enquiries
whether his conception of me is correct or not.

In  Zanzibar, the following people were in attendance at the Workshop
entitled: Africa on the Eve of the 21st Century: Between war and Peace:
Prof. K.K. Prah, Centre for Advanced Studies of African Societies, Cape
Town, South Africa;

Prof. K. Karikari, Media Foundation for West Africa, Accra, Ghana;

Mr B. F. Bankie, Ministry of Justice, Windhoek, Namibia;

Antonio Alberto Neto, Lisbon, Portugal;

Prof. Dani Nabudere, African Studies Centre, Entebbe, Uganda;

Prof. Victor Lawson, Centre for Democratic Empowerment (CEDE), Monrovia,
Liberia;

Dr Peter Adwok Nyaba, Secretariat of Industry and Mining, Nairobi, Kenya;

Dr Niara Sudarkasa, New York, USA;

Dr Edna Brodber, Kingston, Jamaica;

Patrcia Rodney, Department of Public Health, Atlanta, USA;

Wanjiru Kihoro, London, UK;

Martha Osamor, London, UK;

Dr Edialeda Salgado Nascimento, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil;

Lumana Claver Pashi, Entebbe, Uganda;

Fatma Alloo, NGO Resource Centre, Zanzibar, Tanzania;

Silindiwe Sibanda, Cape Town, South Africa.


In Ghana, where I recently visited to take part in the review of a research
report produced by Dr Jibrin Ibrahim, a lecturer from Nigeria and a member
of the Centre for Research and Documentation in Kano, I worked with the
following, some of whom are Ghanaian nationals:

Dr Takyiwaa Manuh; Dr Amos Anyimadu; Dr Attahiru Jega; Dr Emmanuel Anning;
Dzodzi Tsikata; Dr Baffour Ayeman-Duah; Funmi Olonisakin.

I would assume that Ayittey would know some of these personalities who are
lecturers in the universities in Ghana, Nigeria, The Netherlands, and so on.
He can ask those he is acquainted with whether I was simply a dormant
invitee to such fora. I hope he will tell the members of the L his findings.

Tomorrow I will take up issues with Cherno Baba and Saul Khan.

Greetings to all members of the L. Deception is no longer possible in
Africa. The battle for converting information into knowledge, that will
truly empower the African people so as to make them their own saviours and
their own guarantors of their liberty, dignity and prosperity, has begun. In
the 21st century, knowledge decides everything.

I promise the George Ayittey's that we will not leave any views
unchallanged, but I also wish to invite him for concerted action by African
intellectuals to carry out the type of research that would make African
intellectuals pacesetters in the world forum of knowledge producers.

I hope he would accept the invitation. He can even seek support from a
foundation to go to Tanzania and start from scratch to collect data on any
area of concern. At least, this is part of my agenda for the 21st century
and I would collaborate with anyone who has that agenda of revisiting
perspectives regarding Africa to come up with authentic conceptions of the
African condition.


Halifa Sallah.



-----Original Message-----
From: Madiba Saidy <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, November 06, 1999 10:46
Subject: Response to Halifa Sallah on Nyerere (fwd)


>Madiba, thank you for forwarding the rejoinder by Halifa Sallah to
>our piece on Julius Nyerere. Could you please post this response on the
>Gambian net?
>
>Thank you.
>
>George Ayittey,
>Washington, DC
>
>**********************
>
>RESPONSE TO HALIFA SALLAH ON "THE BURIAL OF JULIUS NYERERE"
>
>I was saddened to read Mr. Sallah's article on Nyerere, which was a
response
>to a piece I wrote with a Tanzanian, Ludovick Shirima, that was published
in
>The Wall Street Journal (Europe) on October 20.
>
>Mr. Sallah's article reflects a peculiar type of mentality that afflicts
many
>African intellectuals. I have called this "intellectual astigmatism." And
it
>is this disease which has aided and abetted the ruination of Africa. The
>despots and dictators of Africa certainly could not have reduced Africa to
a
>mess WITHOUT the help, collaboration and servile prostitution of African
>INTELLECTUALS.
>
>Some of these intellectuals, like Mr. Sallah, are still wedded to OBSOLETE,
>colonial-era paradigms and models. To them, virtually ALL of Africa's
problems
>have been caused by Western colonialism, imperialism, the World Bank, IMF
and
>other EXTERNAL factors. Therefore, African leaders can do NO wrong --
>especially those who won independence for their respective countries.
>
>No African would deny that the first generation of leaders strove gallantly
>and endured personal hardships to win independence from colonial rule. They
>were hailed as heroes by their people and the international community. We
made
>this point in our piece. BUT in country after country, these leaders
proceeded
>to establish brutal regime, violated the civil rights of their own people
and
>looted their economies. Nyerere was an exception, which we also said in our
>article. To continue to make excuses for the failures of these leaders is
the
>epitome of intellectual astigmatism. Black African leaders can do no wrong;
>only white colonialists and imperialists. This kind of intellectualism is a
>disgrace to Africa. Even children no longer buy this.
>
>Please read below the letter which was found on the bodies of two teenage
>Guinean boys Yaguine Koita, 14, and Fode Tourakara, 15, who sneaked into
>the landing gear of a Sabina airliner, on a flight from Conakry, (Guinea)
>to Brussels. They died on August 2, 1999, unable to survive  temperatures
>of 55 degrees below zero in an unpressurized compartment at 30,000 feet of
>altitude.
>
>A PLEA FOR AFRICA
>
>Exellencies, gentlemen, and responsible citizens of Europe:
>
>It is our great hope and privilege to write to you about our trip and the
>suffering of the children and youth in Africa. We offer you our most
>affectionate and respectful salutations. In return, be our support and our
>help.
>
>We beseech you on behalf of your love for your continent, your people, your
>families, and above all your children, who you cherish more than life
itself.
>And for the love of God, who has granted you all the experience, wealth,
and
>power to ably construct and organize your continent. We call upon your
>graciousness and solidarity to help us in Africa. Our problems are many:
war,
>sickness, hunger, lack of education, and children’s rights. We lack rights
as
>children. We have schools, but we lack education. . . . We want to study,
and
>we ask that you help us to become like you.
>
>We beseech you to excuse us for daring to write this letter to you,
important
>people whom we truly respect. It is to you, and to you only, that we can
plead
>our case.
>
>And if you find that we have sacrificed our lives, it is because we suffer
>enormously in Africa. We need your help in our struggle against poverty and
>war.
>
>Be mindful of us in Africa. There is no one else for us to turn to.
>
>Printed in Harper’s Magazine, Nov 1999; p.22). It was also printed by most
>newspapers in Belgium, France, Britain and elsewhere in Europe.
>
>*************
>
>I hope Mr. Sallah would learn a thing or two from their letter. May they
rest
>in peace.
>
>George Ayittey,
>Washington, DC
>
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