Scholar and political writer Professor Ali Mazrui has Passed Away
Scholar and political writer Professor Ali Mazrui has Passed Away
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iparamasa
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Shivji ni janga la kitaifa kwa sasa,anashirikiana na watawala kuhujumu taifa
iparamasa
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Dude it is true but, in that quotation the emphasis is on the word "EASILY" !!!
Job K
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Umefanya vizuri Mkuu kumsahihisha, yaani kiswahili siku hizi sijui wanafundishwaje bwana! Umakuta mtu na elimu ya chuo kikuu lakini hawezi kutofautisha kufariki na kufa. Kijana wangu wa darasa la 5 hawezi kutofautisha matumizi ya mwanaume na mvulana! Mulugo umetuachia matatizo!
assadsyria3
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msomi maarufu PROF ALI MAZRUI amefarik marekani leo hii. alipigania demokrasia afrika pamoja na lugha ya kiswahili
RIP
SOURCE CITIZEN NEWS
RIP
SOURCE CITIZEN NEWS
assadsyria3
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R i p profesa
lukatony
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RockSpider
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Inna Lillah wainna illaihi rajyun... Amali zake njema zitaendelea kudumu milele daima..
Zumbe Kimweru
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Haina size yake Tanzania...,Mungu ametwaa,Jina la bwana libarikiwe.
Daudi Mchambuzi
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Unatumia nguvu kubwa kutetea unajisi wa ccm.
Jospina
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Just to be honest, I have never read any book authored personally by Prof Mazrui but I got to know a little bit about him from other intellectuals who cited his written ideas to justify their arguments in their publications.
Personally I'm in the opinion that Prof Ally Mazrui exemplify himself to the young intellectuals of Africa and the world at large what it entails to be an intellectual. He bestly used his super knowledge he dug from the varieties of books and researches to tell the global community the truth about Africa and its true history without getting out of the lines of impartiality.
Personally I'm in the opinion that Prof Ally Mazrui exemplify himself to the young intellectuals of Africa and the world at large what it entails to be an intellectual. He bestly used his super knowledge he dug from the varieties of books and researches to tell the global community the truth about Africa and its true history without getting out of the lines of impartiality.
simplemind
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Nyerere's
policies of Ujamaa amounted to a case
of Heroic Failure. Quote prof Mazrui
policies of Ujamaa amounted to a case
of Heroic Failure. Quote prof Mazrui
simplemind
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(Mazrui
has written many scholarly works, but
The Trial of Christopher Okigbo remains
his only work of fiction).
Okigbo separated art and politics -- but
he was active in both. Nigeria was torn
by civil war in 1967, and Okigbo
volunteered for service. He was killed
on the front, only 35 years old.
The dichotomous figure of Okigbo is an
ideal one for Mazrui's unusual fiction.
One half abstract poet (and
acknowledged as a true and great
artist), the other half committed fighter
(willing to sacrifice his life for his
political convictions), Okigbo
personifies questions that have been
popular for ages, particularly regarding
the responsibilities and duties of the
artist in society.
Okigbo -- a legendary, larger than life
figure -- makes for a neat hook for a
novel, but Mazrui wisely chooses to go
only so far: Okigbo, though at the
center of events, is barely a presence in
the novel. Okigbo is on trial, but it is
Okigbo as abstraction, hardly the flesh
and blood figure. Others argue for and
against him, others recount the events
at issue. Okigbo himself remains far in
the background.
In fact, there are few figures that are
flesh and blood in the novel -- at least
in the literal sense. The Trial of
Christopher Okigbo is set in After-Africa,
an afterworld populated by the
deceased of Africa. And rather than
Okigbo, the central character is the
recently deceased Hamisi, a Kenyan
Muslim.
The novel begins with Hamisi finding
himself in After-Africa, an invention
Mazrui spins out, adding and
embellishing, throughout the novel. It
is a pleasant enough sort of place, and
quite remarkable in a number of ways.
Science fiction is not exactly Mazrui's
forte, but his alternate reality has a
certain charm and wonder to it, and
certainly serves his purposes.
News comes that Okigbo has arrived in
After-Africa soon after Hamisi's arrival --
and more: that Okigbo has been
arrested, "on a high charge." It is the
talk of this other-world. Hamisi,
meanwhile, learns that he hasn't
completely crossed over into the
hereafter yet:
Hamisi was still no more than a
person deceased. A rite de passage
was needed to enable him to be
promoted from the status of the
merely dead to the status of the
immortal.
The test can come in any form -- but
Hamisi's is quite a challenge: he is to
defend Christopher Okigbo at his trial.
And what exactly is Okigbo accused
of ?
He is to be charged with the offence
of putting society before art in his
scale of values. (...) No great artist
has a right to carry patriotism to
the extent of destroying his creative
potential.
Hamisi -- not a trained lawyer -- is of
course in way over his head. But that
allows Mazrui to follow him as he
explores the issues underlying the
case, first in preparing for the case and
then at the trial itself.
The trial is the centrepiece of the novel.
It is held in the Grand Stadium which,
unsurprisingly, has a capacity of
millions. "The varying features of
Africa's humanity through all the ages
were fully represented."
Mazrui does the trial quite well. Hamisi
has an accomplished counterpart,
Kwame Apolo-Gyamfi, who acts as
Counsel for Damnation. The two
counsels introduce some surprising
witnesses offering wide-ranging
testimony -- including some from the
Herebefore.
Hamisi's own past also comes to haunt
him, in a surprise twist -- but that is
because he and Apolo-Gyamfi are also
on trial. Apolo-Gyamfi -- "one of the
most brilliant Africans produced by the
twentieth century" -- died in "an act of
tragic impatience" while studying at
Oxford. He, too, is being tested. Each,
with their weaknesses, is a stand-in for
an aspect of the catastrophe of Biafra.
Finally, all the pieces of Mazrui's
allegory fall into place. Early in the
novel he suggests that;
... the Nigerian Civil War and all its
ramified implications compressed in
the single poetic tragedy of the
death of Christopher Okigbo.
And so it is. The novel is about Africa
itself, and the civil war centered around
Biafra in particular (as well as about the
role of the artist in society -- and
especially in Africa). The final verdicts --
there are three, one for each counsel
and one for Okigbo -- explain Mazrui's
didactic intent. His conclusions don't
necessarily convince, but he has
brought them about quite artfully.
The Trial of Christopher Okigbo is a
programmatic novel, but it is not
without charm. Mazrui invents odd
details for his afterworld, and though
most everything has a purpose -- each
bit explains something that comes up
later -- his inventions also succeed
quite well in their own right. Okigbo
and his poetry are well-used, and as far
as programmatic literature goes it is
certainly a success.
The writing is often a bit clumsy, and
the points made somewhat heavy-
handedly, but Mazrui moves along at a
brisk pace and springs the unexpected
on the reader often enough to hold
one's interest. Without its message the
story has little purpose, but the issues
addressed here are significant ones,
and Mazrui addresses them quite well.
Certainly worthwhile.
has written many scholarly works, but
The Trial of Christopher Okigbo remains
his only work of fiction).
Okigbo separated art and politics -- but
he was active in both. Nigeria was torn
by civil war in 1967, and Okigbo
volunteered for service. He was killed
on the front, only 35 years old.
The dichotomous figure of Okigbo is an
ideal one for Mazrui's unusual fiction.
One half abstract poet (and
acknowledged as a true and great
artist), the other half committed fighter
(willing to sacrifice his life for his
political convictions), Okigbo
personifies questions that have been
popular for ages, particularly regarding
the responsibilities and duties of the
artist in society.
Okigbo -- a legendary, larger than life
figure -- makes for a neat hook for a
novel, but Mazrui wisely chooses to go
only so far: Okigbo, though at the
center of events, is barely a presence in
the novel. Okigbo is on trial, but it is
Okigbo as abstraction, hardly the flesh
and blood figure. Others argue for and
against him, others recount the events
at issue. Okigbo himself remains far in
the background.
In fact, there are few figures that are
flesh and blood in the novel -- at least
in the literal sense. The Trial of
Christopher Okigbo is set in After-Africa,
an afterworld populated by the
deceased of Africa. And rather than
Okigbo, the central character is the
recently deceased Hamisi, a Kenyan
Muslim.
The novel begins with Hamisi finding
himself in After-Africa, an invention
Mazrui spins out, adding and
embellishing, throughout the novel. It
is a pleasant enough sort of place, and
quite remarkable in a number of ways.
Science fiction is not exactly Mazrui's
forte, but his alternate reality has a
certain charm and wonder to it, and
certainly serves his purposes.
News comes that Okigbo has arrived in
After-Africa soon after Hamisi's arrival --
and more: that Okigbo has been
arrested, "on a high charge." It is the
talk of this other-world. Hamisi,
meanwhile, learns that he hasn't
completely crossed over into the
hereafter yet:
Hamisi was still no more than a
person deceased. A rite de passage
was needed to enable him to be
promoted from the status of the
merely dead to the status of the
immortal.
The test can come in any form -- but
Hamisi's is quite a challenge: he is to
defend Christopher Okigbo at his trial.
And what exactly is Okigbo accused
of ?
He is to be charged with the offence
of putting society before art in his
scale of values. (...) No great artist
has a right to carry patriotism to
the extent of destroying his creative
potential.
Hamisi -- not a trained lawyer -- is of
course in way over his head. But that
allows Mazrui to follow him as he
explores the issues underlying the
case, first in preparing for the case and
then at the trial itself.
The trial is the centrepiece of the novel.
It is held in the Grand Stadium which,
unsurprisingly, has a capacity of
millions. "The varying features of
Africa's humanity through all the ages
were fully represented."
Mazrui does the trial quite well. Hamisi
has an accomplished counterpart,
Kwame Apolo-Gyamfi, who acts as
Counsel for Damnation. The two
counsels introduce some surprising
witnesses offering wide-ranging
testimony -- including some from the
Herebefore.
Hamisi's own past also comes to haunt
him, in a surprise twist -- but that is
because he and Apolo-Gyamfi are also
on trial. Apolo-Gyamfi -- "one of the
most brilliant Africans produced by the
twentieth century" -- died in "an act of
tragic impatience" while studying at
Oxford. He, too, is being tested. Each,
with their weaknesses, is a stand-in for
an aspect of the catastrophe of Biafra.
Finally, all the pieces of Mazrui's
allegory fall into place. Early in the
novel he suggests that;
... the Nigerian Civil War and all its
ramified implications compressed in
the single poetic tragedy of the
death of Christopher Okigbo.
And so it is. The novel is about Africa
itself, and the civil war centered around
Biafra in particular (as well as about the
role of the artist in society -- and
especially in Africa). The final verdicts --
there are three, one for each counsel
and one for Okigbo -- explain Mazrui's
didactic intent. His conclusions don't
necessarily convince, but he has
brought them about quite artfully.
The Trial of Christopher Okigbo is a
programmatic novel, but it is not
without charm. Mazrui invents odd
details for his afterworld, and though
most everything has a purpose -- each
bit explains something that comes up
later -- his inventions also succeed
quite well in their own right. Okigbo
and his poetry are well-used, and as far
as programmatic literature goes it is
certainly a success.
The writing is often a bit clumsy, and
the points made somewhat heavy-
handedly, but Mazrui moves along at a
brisk pace and springs the unexpected
on the reader often enough to hold
one's interest. Without its message the
story has little purpose, but the issues
addressed here are significant ones,
and Mazrui addresses them quite well.
Certainly worthwhile.
He was truely an icon and true son of Africa prof rest in peace.
My friend this is unfortunate for you. I regard your statement as the normal allergic nature of fellow countrymen dislike for books.