Coach:

I find Mr. Sall's commentary very useful. Thank you for forwarding it.



>From: Ebrima Ceesay <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Fwd: Ebrima Sall's commentary
>Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 00:49:47 -0000
>
>Gambia-L:
>
>The commentary/paper below was forwarded to me by a Ghanaian friend and I
>hope one or two on the L might find it useful. It is written by Gambian
>scholar Dr Ebrima Sall, formerly of CODESRIA in Senegal, and now a
>researcher at The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala University, Sweden.
>
>Kabirr: I still haven't recovered from the FA cup shock. Yes, it was a good
>final! Manager Arsene Wenger announced today that he WILL buy new
>world-class players for next season. Thierry Henry also told Sky Sports
>that
>Arsenal MUST buy a "natural goal scorer" next season, because he was tired
>of being accused of squandering golden chances/opportunities. We also need
>an imposing defender next season - someone in the calibre of France's
>Lilian
>Thuram. But Parma F.C. reportedly want £24 Million pounds for Thuram which
>I
>am sure, Arsene Wenger, an economist-turned-soccer manager, will never pay.
>
>Regards,
>Ebrima
>
>____________________________________________________________________
>
>
>Academic Freedom and the African Community of Scholars: The Challenges
>
>By Ebrima Sall (Co-ordinator of the new research programme "Conflict in
>Africa - Post Conflict Transition in Africa States: The State and the Civil
>Society")
>
>Introduction
>
>Ours are times when knowledge is said to be as important a factor of
>production as physical capital. In its report, the very prestigious Special
>Task Force on Higher Education in Developing Countries convened by UNESCO
>and the World Bank states that "the world economy is changing as knowledge
>supplants physical capital as the source of present (and future) wealth". 1
>
>The "knowledge revolution" has led to a complete change in attitudes at the
>level of some of the erstwhile archenemies of higher education in Africa
>such as the World Bank. One of the casualties of structural adjustment in
>Africa was higher education, for it was said to be an expensive luxury.
>These days, every country is said to need at least one research university,
>ideally fitting in, or rather, constituting the core of a "knowledge
>system"
>conceived of as a coherent whole.
>
>This change in attitudes vis-à-vis higher education in developing countries
>is a welcome development that comes as a source of relief for African
>scholars who have had to endure the severe restrictions on funding for
>higher education occasioned by the implementation of SAP. The leaders of
>the
>African independence movement, for whom independence was a necessary step
>towards the elimination of poverty, were very clear about the need for
>universities. The latter were not only seen as central to the process of
>Africanisation of administrations through producing the human resources
>required to run the newly independent states, but also as key players in
>the
>struggle for nation-building and development. The basic assumption was
>simple. Poverty, diseases and ignorance were seen to be conquerable.
>Knowledge could help in that struggle.
>
>Hence the serious efforts to build education systems that catered for the
>whole range of needs. Schools and universities therefore mushroomed all
>over
>the continent. From six universities in the early sixties, sub-Saharan
>Africa (excluding South Africa) had some 120 universities in 1996, with
>1,926,000 students. Studying, teaching, doing research or simply working in
>a university, or in any other academic institution for that matter,
>require,
>however, certain minimal conditions, one of which is academic freedom.
>
>Academic freedom is "the freedom of members of the academic community,
>individually or collectively, in the pursuit, development and transmission
>of knowledge, through research, study, discussion, documentation,
>production, creation, teaching, lecturing and writing". 2
>
>It has also been defined as "the right of scholars to pursue their research
>and teaching and to publish without control or restraint from the
>institutions that employ them". 3
>
>Such a freedom is a prerequisite for serious research: "without it
>universities are unable to fulfil one of their primary functions: to be a
>catalyst and sanctuary for new ideas, including those that may be
>unpopular". 4
>
>The level of intellectual freedom enjoyed by its intelligentsia can
>therefore, to a certain extent, be a yardstick for measuring the level of
>freedom that a given society enjoys. The independence of the mind is a
>condition for the independence of a nation.
>
>Serving the nation – expectations and dilemmas
>
>The leaders of the newly independent states of Africa had a slightly
>different understanding of the role of universities. Universities were to
>serve the nation and participate in the development of the country. The
>concept of a "development university" actually gained currency in some
>countries. Few people would disagree with the view that some form of social
>relevance is expected of universities and of research.
>
>Among African academics themselves, there is a widely held view that
>academic freedom also implies some form of obligation on the part of the
>academics to give something back to their communities in return for the
>freedom that they are calling for. This is best expressed by the notion of
>"social responsibility". Some scholars actually initially shared the view
>that academic freedom is a petty bourgeois claim, a sort of luxury that
>poverty and crisis ridden societies cannot afford.
>
>The problem, however, was that the participation of the universities in the
>realization of the nation-building and development projects had to be done
>on the terms defined not so much by the researchers or the academic
>institutions, but by the politicians in power. Open resistance to such
>"embrigadement" of academia to the state was for a long time strongly
>repressed. Critical views were most unwelcome. The arrest and detention of
>scholars and students suspected of being critical of official views or
>policies, or simply for daring to struggle for better salaries, stipends or
>working conditions became a frequent occurrence.
>
>In some cases, this led to the closure of certain faculties or the banning
>of disciplines such as political science, sociology (as in Rwanda, and
>Senegal after the 1968 student riots), law (in Mozambique…). Censorship was
>strict and the suppression of academic freedom in general was severe in
>countries ruled by authoritarian single party or military regimes. Among
>the
>most dramatic episodes were the invasion of the campus of Lumumbashi (in
>former Zaire) by security forces in 1990; the police brutalities in the
>campus of Yopougon in Côte d’Ivoire in 1991, the Rwandan genocide, the
>Algerian civil war and the Abacha dictatorship in Nigeria.
>
>Academic freedom, or the lack of it, is in this sense a simple human rights
>issue. Intellectuals discovered that from being the privileged and highly
>respected few of a certain epoch, they now had to struggle to assert their
>basic human and citizenship rights. Four principal actors more or less
>determine the level of expansion or restriction of academic freedom in
>Africa: the state, civil society, donors and academics themselves.
>
>In the heyday of authoritarianism when single-party states and military
>regimes were fairly widespread, the risks faced by scholars in Africa were
>mainly in the form of state harassment. Arrests and detention, censorship,
>and in extreme cases assassinations were quite common. 5
>
>The Rwandan genocide was an exceptionally tragic moment for all, but Tutsi
>and critical Hutu intellectuals were among those who were specifically
>targeted for early, systematic elimination. Academic freedom may also be
>limited by restrictions inherent in donor funding, and in certain so-called
>solutions to the African economic crises. Finally, various kinds of
>discriminatory practices based on gender 6, age, religious or ideological
>differences existing among academics themselves also amount to violations
>of
>academic freedom. 7
>
>Fortunately, apart from Algeria and Burundi, and a few other cases, the
>risk
>of physical elimination has lessened somewhat for academics in Africa. The
>political liberalisations of the late eighties and early nineties have
>brought about some improvement in that regard. The space for free inquiry
>has become broader. Censorship of the kind that was instituted by president
>Moi in Kenya before the adoption of a new constitution in 1992, Life
>President Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, and apartheid South Africa has been
>abolished.
>
>However, with the conflicts and violence in countries such as Sierra Leone,
>the university system itself has in some instances collapsed. In 1996,
>about
>one third of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa were stricken by some form
>of violent conflict. The strain on the entire educational system in such
>countries is extreme.
>Economic constraints and increasing plurality
>
>Scholars are however faced with numerous resource constraints in a number
>of
>countries. The more common situation in Africa today is actually one in
>which the main forms of restriction to the freedom of scholars are of an
>economic nature: teachers are poorly paid or not paid at all; universities
>are overcrowded but under-resourced; student stipends are low and often not
>paid; teachers become consultants, taxi drivers, etc. The economic problems
>often lead to prolonged strikes, which are generally brutally suppressed.
>The paradox is that the more liberal political systems and the much
>stronger
>civil society that we have today make it possible for scholars to organise
>and protest more easily.
>
>However, the capacity of the state to respond to the needs of the scholars
>is very weak, which partly explains its nervousness and repressive
>attitude.
>There is also a problem of scale: the magnitude of the economic problems is
>such that nothing less than a complete overhauling of the system will do.
>
>The universities have gone a long way in the process of an all round
>indigenisation in terms of course contents, the composition of faculty and
>in their general outlook, and in their autonomisation. Many have succeeded
>in not only "rooting themselves firmly in African soil" (Mamdani), but also
>in freeing themselves from the "chains" that they were born in. 8
>
>Although the public university is still the dominant model, private
>universities, vocational universities, universities with a religious
>orientation, distance learning institutions such as the open universities,
>virtual universities and so forth have also been set up and their numbers
>are gradually increasing.
>
>This pluralization of academic and, more generally, knowledge producing
>institutions is even more visible when we look at it from the angle of
>knowledge production per se. A lot of good research is now being carried
>out
>by councils and organisations such as CODESRIA, AAWORD, OSSREA, SARIPS, the
>AERC, the AAS, and the Association of African Universities, and autonomous
>research institutes and centres such as CBR in Kampala, CASS in Port
>Harcourt, CRD in Kano, FESS in Addis Ababa, the Arab Research Centre in
>Cairo, research NGOs such as GERDDES based in Cotonou, and professional
>associations such as AAPS and AAA. (See list of acronyms.) Generations of
>institutions and scholars co-exist. Hardly had the process of
>indigenisation
>been completed when globalisation and what has been referred to as
>"knowledge acceleration" brought new challenges to the universities.
>
>However, out of this broad range of institutions and the complex links and
>flows between them it seems that national and regional knowledge systems
>are
>emerging. These systems are generally structured around the leading public
>universities.
>
>Market solutions inadequate
>
>With SAP and the rise of neo-liberal ideologies, a major form of risk to
>serious scholarship is the drive for "marketability". The quality and
>relevance of the outputs of academic institutions and scholarship are
>defined more and more in terms of their so-called market value, or in terms
>of the ability to provide immediate solutions. The importance of
>disciplines
>and course contents, including in subjects such as law, is judged more or
>less in terms of their "market value".
>
>The so-called new "success stories" are the Makereres and other
>universities
>which have gone far in the implementation of liberal modes of functioning,
>especially in terms of the ability to raise funds by commercialising a
>number of services.
>
>This is a major cause for concern. As Issa Shivji, the renowned Tanzanian
>scholar who took an active part in the drafting of the Dar es Salaam and
>Kampala Declarations on Intellectual Freedom (adopted in April and November
>1990, respectively) put it: "You know what to expect from the state and how
>to resist, but you don’t know what to expect from the market. The state
>lets
>you know that it is out to hang you (the academic/intellectual), so you can
>put up a fight. The market gives you a long rope to hang yourself."
>
>Yet the market has hardly ever been able to provide adequate solutions to
>Africa’s problems. Higher education and research are even less likely to be
>the areas where adequate market solutions are expected:
>"On its own, the market will certainly not devise [quality higher education
>systems]. Markets require profit and this can crowd out important
>educational duties and opportunities. Basic sciences and the humanities,
>for
>example, are essential for national development. They are likely to be
>underfunded, unless they are actively encouraged by leaders in education
>who
>have the resources to realise this vision". 9
>
>Additional critical issues
>
>With the rise in hard, identity politics of a religious or ethnic nature,
>and the mushrooming of campus cults, many scholars get harassed for their
>views. Identity politics are also often very gender-biased. So, female
>scholars feel more threatened.
>
>Other kinds of challenges faced by African academics include the spread of
>HIV/AIDS, which has also led to serious loss of life among academics in
>some
>countries. World Bank figures on this are quite alarming. For instance,
>more
>than 30 per cent of the teachers of Malawi and Zambia are said to be
>infected by AIDS. In 1996 alone, 600 teachers lost their lives in Zambia.
>In
>1998, the figure had doubled.
>
>Finally, there is also the rising threat of marginalisation from the rest
>of
>the global community of scholars through lack of access to IT and other
>modern means of research and publishing.
>The list of issues that are critical to academic freedom is long. Among the
>most critical and difficult to deal with is that of "impatience" on the
>part
>of civil society; impatience for solutions to the current problems
>bedevilling Africa. In Senegal, a few years ago, the press ran a debate on
>what was called the breakdown of intellectuals ("la panne des
>intellectuels"), who were seen to have failed in providing solutions to the
>economic and social crises in the continent.
>
>It is however important to remember that academic freedom is not a problem
>for "developing countries" alone, and least of all still a problem for
>African intellectuals only. Elsewhere, particularly in the industrialised
>countries, it is with funding and the problems of political correctness
>that
>the problem is posed. Private funders claim a right to have a say in the
>determination of curricula and the content of courses taught and research
>carried out in the universities, and to determine their quality or
>relevance. This puts into question the very central notion of peer review,
>which has always governed academic institutions and activities.
>
>Academic freedom is therefore a clear issue of human rights and democracy.
>It is also about how we conceive of our societies. Independence of thought
>is a precondition for the realization of citizenship and the all-round
>development of societies. Each society has to generate the capacity to
>think
>for itself and make its own reading of the world, which means producing its
>own organic intellectuals. But the latter have to be recognized as such. A
>lot has been achieved, but there is still a long way to go...
>
>______________________________________________________________________
>
>1. The Task Force on Higher Education and Society (TFHES), 2000, Higher
>Education in Developing Countries. Peril and Promise. Washington: The World
>Bank, p. 9.
>
>2. Dar es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom, 1990; see also Diouf &
>Mamdani, 1994, Academic Freedom in Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA.
>
>3. The Columbia Encyclopaedia; cited in the report of the TFHES, p. 60.
>
>4. TFHES, p. 60.
>
>5. See CODESRIA, 1996, The State of Academic Freedom in Africa.
>
>6. See CODESRIA’s recent publication on: Women in Academia: Gender and
>Academic Freedom in Africa, edited by E. Sall.
>
>7. See Imam, Mama & Sow, 1994, "The Role of Academics in Expanding and
>Restricting Academic Freedom", in Diouf & Mamdani, Academic Freedom in
>Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA.
>
>8. Thandika Mkandawire, 1997, "The Social Sciences in Africa: Breaking
>Local
>Barriers and Negotiating International Presence. The Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola
>Lecture Presented to the 1996 ASA Annual Meeting" ; in African Studies
>Review, vol. 40 no. 2, p. 17.
>
>9. TFHES, 2000, Higher Education in Developing Countries, p. 11.
>
>_________________________________________________________________________
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