I often have to ask why we are measuring the African Intellectual of the 21st century by the media attention & buzz the western academia and press gives to the ones they recognize. Have we the people been inspired by them or have their works become limited to simply just the west? These are questions I ponder on when I look around Africa and wonder how intellectual thought regarding changing our common narrative comes up.
Have we showered praise mistakenly upon Intellectuals who are simply of African descent and have ignored the African intellectuals who speak to and for the Africans in the continent? It seems their works have little to no direct impact on the people we thought they represented. Or are we missing something crucial that can shed some light on our queries?
Who are the African intellectuals still in Africa? Is the African intellectual still around but underfunded and under-recognized? I can perfectly understand those who seek greener pastures in the western world, amongst the academia who appreciate their sharp minds reflecting on their former homes. They give truly good accounts of their immediate past in different countries, yet, Europeans and Americans sometimes feel out of touch with our intricate differences and diversity, to them we are just one big Country.
To the intellectuals at home, where are you hiding? What has replaced the desire to use your sharp wit and piercing mind to speak truth to power, to ask from those we have chosen to lead us the right questions which will jolt them into positive action? It is tricky to be called an intellectual in Africa. Social Media has made it quite possible. Unfortunately, the ones with the loudest voices speak from privileged perches. Demanding we do not give up on dreams long forgotten. Demanding loyalty of citizens who have barely anything to give but a final goodbye to states and nations they thought held before them promising dreams.
There already is too much an African intellectual has to deal with if you do not come from privilege, while things change so fast for the worst that no matter how recent newly arrived intellectual touch down somewhere in the west, in a country where the system works, things here are already getting worse. No, this is not an exaggeration. Whatever you are being told is based purely on nostalgia. There is no comparable pain that can be likened to the one you feel today.
Those who choose to remain are left to make compromises. Seek paid employment with juntas or the same politicians who have failed us again and again. These politicians compromise intellectuals in two folds; to buy their silence and then to also use them to polish their words of lies and deceit. Who now speaks the language of the voiceless and naïve? Who now takes up the fight for the helpless? For it becomes comical when the intellectual realizes that as men of wisdom are sought after, they are both endangered and in high demand.
As more intellectuals take flight and the continent stays silent, we will constantly be beset upon by our former colonizers with their made in Oxford remedies. Content and solutions which in truth are not practical in the realities of Africa where corruption is normalized, tribalism is rife and religious intolerance is held high above common sense. So, imported remedies become mere placeholder until the next administration.
The intellectual who should speak has fled. His /Her colleague who thinks alike has been gagged by the junta. Who now speaks?
