Ali Mazrui, the celebrity intellectual who epitomised the best of Africa

Countless people — the high and mighty, as well as the hoi polloi — have eulogised Prof Ali Mazrui. But mine isn’t an eulogy. I am interested in Prof Mazrui as a “celebrity intellectual.” That’s the rare species of a “public intellectual” who’s achieved the status of a global icon. A true man of letters who transcends the mundane classroom and the academic’s published works.

 That’s a guru who bends the history of knowledge by the power of his thinking. In death, few people have left a legacy richer than Prof Mazrui’s. It’s a standard of excellence that’s epochal, and out of reach but for a tiny chosen few. Let me unveil the many guises of the genius from Mvita.