Uninspiring intellectuals and the big gap crying to be filled

 

In early January 1978, the government held a three-day, high level leadership conference at the Kenya Institute of Administration in Kabete in what came to form part of the famous ‘Kenya We want Debate.’

In the event, opened with an address from Vice President Daniel Moi owing to Kenyatta’s ill health, the agenda was to take stock of 14 years of independence and reflect on Kenya’s political and economic development. The event, seen more as an endorsement of status quo leadership than a moment of critical debate, hailed the ‘tremendous’ development achieved in education, security and national unity.

The fact that the State held such an important debate and excluded intellectuals prompted the University of Nairobi’s academic staff to convene a similar symposium bearing the same theme, ‘The Kenya We Want’.

The symposium, held in Taifa Hall and chaired by historian ES Atieno-Odhiambo, drew more than 2,000 students and lecturers and was articulated as representative of the wishes of the oppressed, silenced masses and a fitting response to the elitist workshop earlier held at Kabete.

Reporting on the event, a students’ publication named The Anvil gave details of how delegates called for an overhaul of the existing political set-up in the country, arguing that it went against the aspirations of most Kenyans.

There were fundamental wrongs in the present Kenyan Law, argued Okoth-Ogendo, a law lecturer who made a presentation. Dr Nicholas Nyangira, a political scientist, denounced “the petit bourgeoisie in Kenya who, with the collusion of international capital, had monopolised access to economic resources to the detriment of its Kenyans”.

Mukaru Nganga, a research fellow, audaciously announced that “the Kenya we have is the Kenya we do not want”.

These proceedings highlight just one of many events in the 70s where Kenyan intellectuals were at the forefront of shaping public discourse. As the leading opinion shapers of their times, intellectuals continuously nourished the imagination of an alternative social-political condition.

While an intellectual can be any highly informed person who speaks for specific societal, university dons are natural intellectuals simply because their vocation of producing and sharing knowledge lies at the core of what constitutes an intellectual. In this article, I wish to explain why academics have nearly lost their previously exalted space as intellectuals.

Perplexed bystanders

Across Africa, intellectuals have provided initiative and leadership to some of the most important movements of change. In Kenya, the role played by scholars such as Ngugi wa Thiongo, Ali Mazrui and William Ochieng among others is immense.

In actual fact, a number of them were detained or exiled because of the ideas they held and shared with their readers. Intellectuals in society play the role of dismantling assumptions, speaking to power, disrupting that which is perceived as ‘natural’, speaking beyond the self, generating ideas and offering solutions.

Sadly, the position of intellectuals in public life in Kenya is uninspiring. There is legitimate concern that intellectuals are no longer at the centre of critical debates facing our country. In a book edited by Godwin Murunga and Shadrack Nasong’o on Kenyan democracy, the scholar Maurice Amutabi captures the decline of the role of intellectuals using a quote from the late historian William Ochieng:

“What went wrong? Did our academicians lose interest in the political issues of the State? Or have they been scared into silence? Or can we assume that the current academic is incapable of reflecting on fundamental political issues that affect us? How come that we never get, from time to time, authoritative discussions and reflections...on our political performance...?”

Although Ochieng wrote in the mid-80s, his words speak accurately of present conditions. Ensconced in the proverbial ivory tower with heads buried in piles of unmarked scripts, intellectuals today are largely unrecognised and are in danger of being reduced to perplexed bystanders as exciting and momentous events unfold. How did we reach here?

The decline of the intellectual’s role has gone hand in hand with the general decline of intellectual life in Kenya. In many universities, the idea of holding a seminar to reflect on serious issues affecting the country is as infrequent as having a public lecture in a Kenyan university. As a result of the shrinking intellectual space, few policy makers or political leaders recognise the university as a place where policy is debated and issued.

It is unsurprising that many of our intellectuals were absent in one of the most significant event in recent times; the making of our constitution. The waning intellectual life in our universities is a natural outworking of the collapse of quality locally authored journals and the dormancy of academic organisations similar to the Historical Association of Kenya or Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa (Chakita). These groups help give legitimacy to the voice of local intellectuals.

Notably, the participation of intellectuals in public life has been negatively affected by a shift in the process of intellectual production. Unlike in the past when the most deserving and the brightest graduates were developed into upcoming intellectuals through graduate assistantships, our universities have adopted an elitist model that favours students who can afford, rather than those who merit. Natural intellectuals are unlikely to emerge in a system that panders to the markets.

The systematic pauperisation of scholars and the subsequent focus by UASU, the academics union, on bread and butter issues at the expense of wider societal demands, has distracted intellectuals from focusing on the higher societal calling. Today, the average scholar finds himself bound up in a mindless everyday characterised by over teaching and little research. Such a routine has forced many scholars to withdraw their voice from other equally important concerns such as social justice, democracy and human rights.

Culture of fear

The rise of ‘celebrity intellectuals’ has also undermined the crucial role that intellectuals ought to play in society. Celebrity intellectualism is a product of a media saturated society. It is characterised by obsession with political analysis for its own sake, narcissism, superficial pontification and outright profiteering masked as knowledge or consultancy.

It is not socially engaged and rather than speak for society, it speaks and exalts the self. On its part, the media as an institution has by default or design, ignored the crucial role of intellectual in framing and explaining complex issues affecting society. Apart from the innumerable ‘political analysts’ on TV, the media has sometimes failed to give intellectuals voice especially when complex issues need explanation.

Once, I was shocked to watch a news item on mental ‘patients’ in a famous market in Bunyore with no expert opinion from the university.

Meanwhile, a culture of fear still engulfs the academe. While the intellectual in the 70s and 80s had an abiding fear of a repressive state, intellectuals today struggle with other delicate fears such as being overlooked in promotions and upsetting known and unknown powerful networks.

Finally, with universities still grappling with ethnicity, some latter day intellectuals have become as much ethnic bigots as any other unlettered villager out there.

The only difference is that the intellectual is more sophisticated in articulating bigotry. Sometimes, what is paraded as intellectual insight is nothing more than adulation to the tribal deity.

Dr Omanga teaches Media Studies at Moi University