African Intellectuals: Rethinking Politics, Language, Gender and Development

Dakar, CODESRIA, 2005, 256 p., ISBN: 2-86978-145-8

In this thought-provoking overview of the history, fate and possible future roles of African intellectuals both within Africa and in the African Diaspora nearly half a century on from Independence, some of the continent’s most eminent thinkers discuss the issues at stake. Their starting point is the uniquely difficult circumstances confronting intellectuals: regimes intolerant of independent debate, economies in sharp decline, societies wracked by violent conflict, and official languages different from people’s mother tongues. Africa has experienced, compared with Asia or Latin America, much higher rates of emigration of its intelligentsia to North America and Europe, as well as frequent displacement from home countries to other parts of the continent.

African Intellectuals constitutes a valuable, because so rare, exploration of the complex interface between African intellectuals and society, state and politics in the context of fundamental new departures like the restoration of multi-party politics, new economic horizons like NEPAD, and a renewed awareness of the need for Pan African cooperation.