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. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------