First presented at the 1999 meeting of International Studies
Association, Washington, DC,
February 18–19, 1999. Global
Development Panel in Honor of Distinguished Senior Scholar.
DECONSTRUCTING MAZRUIANA:
SOME STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF
ALI A. MAZRUI’S THOUGHT
by
Ali A. Mazrui
Director, Institute
of Global Cultural Studies
and
Albert Schweitzer
Professor in the Humanities
Binghamton
University
State
University of New
York at Binghamton, New
York, USA
Albert Luthuli
Professor-at-Large
University
of Jos, Jos,
Nigeria
Ibn Khaldun
Professor-at-Large
School of Islamic and
Social Sciences, Leesburg, Virginia,
USA
Andrew D. White
Professor-at-Large Emeritus
and Senior Scholar in
Africana Studies
Cornell
University, Ithaca,
New York, USA
Walter Rodney
Professor
University
of Guyana, Georgetown,
Guyana
These 25 structural elements of Ali Mazrui’s thought were
chosen by the author himself as a basis of discussion. The thoughts are compiled from his different
works and drawn from different stages of his career. Element No. 1 on “Social Darwinism and
Theories of Modernization” is summarized from his article in World Politics
(Princeton) Vol.21
No. 1, 1968. The final Element
(No. 25) on “Judging Civilizations” is summarized from his article in Foreign
Affairs (New York) Volume 76
No. 5, September - October 1997. This
deconstruction has a long appendix - Mazrui’s Essay “THE MUSE
OF MODERNITY AND THE QUEST FOR DEVELOPMENT”.
1.
From Darwinism to Modernization Theories:
Western
theories of modernization have often been based on Eurocentric models whose
ancestry goes back to social Darwinism and beyond. Non-Western societies are seen as simpler
organisms slowly evolving towards the complex sophistication of Western
civilization. At best modernization
becomes Westernization.
2.
Yes to Modernization; No to its Theories:
We need not throw out the baby of modernization
with the bath water of its Western theories.
Let us look anew at the baby.
Modernization as a process needs a fresh examination.
3.
What is Development?:
Development equals
modernization minus dependency.
4.
What is Modernization?:
Modernization is change which is
compatible with the present stage of human knowledge, and helps to release the
creative energies of the people in socially responsible ways.
5.
What is dependency?:
Dependency is surplus need or
deficit control. Country B is dependent
on country A if country B needs A more than A needs B; or if B has less control
over their relationship than A has.
6.
Towards Transcending Dependency:
Dependency in a less developed
country can be transcended through five strategies - indigenization, domestication,
diversification, horizontal integration and vertical
counter-penetration. (See Mazrui’s paper “The Muse of Modernity”)
7.
The International Class System:
International stratification is
based not on who owns what but on who knows what. The power of Western skills controls the
diamond mines of South Africa
and the oil wells of Saudi Arabia. Israelis own less than the Arabs, but Israelis
are more skilled.
8.
Power and the Means of Destruction:
In a technologically underdeveloped
country power resides among those who control the means of destruction rather
than those who control the means of production.
Soldiers in Africa have often been much more
powerful than business tycoons.
9.
Ethnicity vs. Class:
In a technologically less developed
society, the forces of biological reproduction are more politicized than
the forces of economic production.
That is why kinship ties and ethnic forces are more powerful in Africa
than class affiliations.
10.
The Primacy of Culture:
Marx was right that “man had to eat
in order to live” (the origins of economics).
But man had to know what to eat and what to avoid (the origins of
culture). So culture is prior to
economics. In the beginning was the Word
, and the word was culture.
11.
Paradigm Lost?:
In development studies culture
has often been a paradigm lost. Are we
now witnessing paradigm regained?
12.
Seven Functions of Culture:
There are seven functions of culture
in society. Culture as lenses of perception,
as a source of motivation , as a standard of judgment, as a
criterion of stratification , as a basis of identity, as a means
of communication, and as a framework of consumption and production.
13.
Women: Between Centering, Liberating and
Empowering:
Women in Africa
are more centered in the means of production than women in the West, but
women in Africa are less liberated than Western
women. Women in both cultures have yet
to be adequately empowered.
14.
Women: Between Rights and Roles:
Traditionally, African women have
been custodians of fire, water and earth - while God has taken charge of the
omnipresent air. The Westernization of
an African woman has often meant more rights but a less central role
in society.
15.
Women in Islam and the West:
Islam grants greater dignity but
less liberty to women than Western culture does. Sons in the Muslim world respect their
mothers more than sons do in the West; but husbands in the West are more
respectful (though not necessarily more faithful) to their wives than are
husbands in the Muslim world.
16.
Between Genius and Gender:
Two
developmental revolutions are needed in the Third world - a revolution in
skills and a revolution in gender. The
talents of the people need to be unleashed; and the powers of women need to be
unbound.
17.
Development: Political, Economic and Social:
The central aim of political
development should be the evolution of humane governance and democratic
participation. The central concern of
economic development should be the improvement and consolidation of productive
capacity and distributive economic justice.
The central aim of social development should be the release of the
creative energies of each citizen, male and female, through education, socialization
and opportunities for self-fulfillment.
Social development should also foster the three C’s: Community,
Compassion and Cooperation in a global context.
18.
Towards De-Leninizing Marxism:
What has failed in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe is not Marxism but
Leninism. What has failed is the
vanguard party, democratic centralism and unmitigated statism. If Marxism is to survive in the twenty-first
century, it must learn to de-Leninize itself.
19.
What is globalization?:
The term “globalization” is new but
the process itself is centuries old.
Globalization is much more than the Information Superhighway and the new
expansion of international markets.
Globalization consists of all the forces which are pushing the world
towards becoming a global village.
Globalization is the villagization of the globe.
20.
What is an intellectual?:
An intellectual is a person who has
the capacity to be fascinated by ideas and who has acquired the skill to handle
some of those ideas effectively.
21.
Who are the revolutionaries?:
The masses sometimes have the power
to pull down the temple of the old order, as the mobs of Paris
in 1789 and the mobs of Teheran in 1979 did.
But it is the intellectuals (secular or religious) who attempt to create
an alternative order and design a new temple.
Robespierre, Lenin and Khoumeini were all intellectuals.
22.
Monotheism vs. Democracy?:
Why has
pluralist democracy survived better in India
than in either Pakistan
or Bangladesh? Could one of the reasons be that the concept
of God in Hinduism is pluralistic while the concept of God in Muslim Pakistan
and Bangladesh
is not? Did a pluralistic God in
Christianity (Three in One, One in Three) make it easier for Western culture to
evolve a liberal democratic system? Does
strict monotheism lean towards political absolutism?
23.
Between Nostalgia and Hate-Retention:
Societies differ in capacities for
nostalgia, as well as in retention of bad memories. Jewish nostalgia gave birth to Zionism. The Armenian long memory of the 1915
massacres has generated assassinations of Turkish diplomats decades later. African culture is distinctive in having a
short memory of hate. Political amnesia
is often a valuable developmental resource.
24.
Between the Dual and the Plural Society:
Most social scientists have tended
to lump dual societies with plural societies. A dual society (where two groups account for
more than eighty percent of the population) is vulnerable to polarization and
stalemate. Dual Cyprus
is in a stalemate, dual Czechoslovakia
broke up, dual Northern Ireland
is trying to find its way out of violence, and dual Rwanda
is trying to recover from the ravages of genocide.
25.
How are civilizations to be judged?:
Civilizations are to be judged not
merely by the heights of achievement to which they have ascended but also by
the depths of depravity to which they have sometimes descended. Muslims are often criticized for not
producing the best, but they are seldom congratulated for having standards of
behaviour which have averted the worst.
There are no Muslim equivalents of systematic Nazi extermination camps,
nor Muslim conquests by genocide in the bloody tradition of whites in the Americas,
nor Muslim versions of South Africa’s
apartheid sanctioned by the Dutch Reformed Church, nor Muslim versions of the
Stalinist terror in the name of Five Year plans. Nor can Islam be blamed for the only World
Wars in human history - those started in Europe.
M
