The+colour+of+a+searching+mind,+Sipho+Seepe,+Business+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 02 May 2006
=The colour of a searching mind=


 * Sipho Seepe**

FROM today until Thursday, the Africa Institute of SA, on behalf of the Native Club, hosts the conference: Where Are the Natives? The Black Intelligentsia Today. The Native Club is a presidential project that aims to create a vibrant critical consciousness among South Africans. It is to be a “centre of mobilising all sectors of the South African people to play their role in regenerating the communities that are still marginalised”.

Conference themes include: the contribution of African intellectuals to Africa’s liberation and development; the idea and relevance of the notion “native”; African identity; African languages, gender politics, knowledge production and the promotion of a vibrant intellectual culture among black South Africans.

The star-studded conference, comprising politicians, academics, editors, researchers and publishers, is a welcome relief in a country where the notion of black intellectual work is approached with suspicion by the black political elite and the white establishment alike. For the latter, intellectual work knows no colour. The former has accused black intellectuals of being detached from the community and not sufficiently engaged in the struggle.

The diversity of the background of participants could enrich the deliberations and serve as a platform for transdisciplinary and translocation dialogue that speaks directly to the plight of African people.

However, the conference risks sacrificing rigour and depth for breadth. Clarity is needed as to whether this is a political, scholarly, or intellectual project. Each demands a different form of engagement. This is not to deny that the political can be made more intellectual and that the intellectual more political — to borrow from Stanley Aronowitz. However, failure to clarify the terms of engagement could reduce the conference to yet another feel-good and lamentation exercise in which Africans blame everyone but themselves for their plight. In the context of national economies being subservient to global forces, to what extent are these debates relevant? The conference is informed by a number of assumptions. Central is the notion that because of apartheid, many African communities have lost their culture. This calls for an urgent “programme that asserts, promotes and celebrates the cultures of the African people”.

This culture remains undefined. Do all Africans relate easily to the past or are some content with having lost that version of African culture? Given the historical, political and economic unevenness in the country, which is the authentic culture — that of the urban African, or of the rural poor?

One suspects that many people in rural areas would choose the cultural life of Sandton, which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be deemed an African city. What about class interests? Are we to say that the interests of a black person living in Sandton have much in common with the interests of a black resident of Alexandra township?

The second assumption is that black intellectuals have withdrawn from public engagement post-1994. Much has been made of the absence of black intellectuals with the moral courage to challenge power when necessary. Given the freedoms we enjoy, the notion of self-imposed censorship is probably closer to the truth. Both readings raise questions as to whether those who have withdrawn from public engagement were intellectuals in the first place. A change in political power would not denude them of their intellectual ability. Political activism should not be confused with intellectualism.

Protesting against and writing about the evils of apartheid are not a sufficient condition to make one an intellectual. We do not assume that those engaged in antinuclear proliferation protests are intellectuals. Not everyone can be an intellectual, just as not everyone can be a neurosurgeon. Education helps, but does not make one an intellectual. The conference should distinguish between the intelligentsia and intellectuals. Intellectuals are a breed unto themselves. We are so desperate to be inclusive and non-elitist that we confer the term intellectual on anyone who voices an opinion.

In addition, a distinction must be made between propagandists and intellectuals. Propagandists in government and political parties masquerade as intellectuals, but are in essence impervious to logic, evidence and genuine intellectual inquiry.

Intellectual work involves critical engagement with ideas, a willingness to submit to the force of evidence and logic. It involves courage to challenge power, intellectual honesty, and integrity — attributes sadly lacking among politicians. To paraphrase Edward Said, true intellectual work would not win one friends in higher places. It is a lonely condition.

Given the extent of political sponsorship of this project, it is probable that political expediency will take precedence over the challenges of truth-seeking and speaking truth to power.

How, then, do we make sense of the perceived withdrawal from public engagement? The first explanation relates to material interest. As victims of apartheid, it was in the material, economic and cultural interest of black people to wage a war against an oppressive system. To take a stand against this government’s carelessness towards HIV/AIDS, Zimbabwe, the arms deal, and its centralisation of power, is “career-limiting”. When confronted with the possibility of losing material comfort, critical thinking takes a back seat.

The second explanation relates to the inability to deal with the complexity of the new environment. Apartheid was an obviously immoral system. It did not require intellectual depth to know this. Engaging a government with a glorious history of struggle and which enjoys overwhelming support presents a greater intellectual and moral challenge.

Lastly, it is evident from the topics, the tone, and those invited, that white participation is not encouraged. I continue to be bemused by the presumption that intellectual activity can be proscribed by race. How else should we interpret the exclusion of white intellectuals? What happened to the all-embracing notion that “everyone is an African”? Are there developmental issues and challenges that are no-go areas for white intellectuals? Or are they excluded because they are likely to raise embarrassing questions and expose the intellectual bankruptcy of the ruling class? While it may be true that most white intellectuals were supporters of, or apologists for, the apartheid regime, a blanket exclusion of white intellectuals is inconsistent with the constitutional mandate of creating a nonracial democracy.

Or should we interpret the exclusion of white intellectuals as a rescue mission for black intellectuals who find themselves marginalised by the hegemonic practices of the so-called white establishment?

The conference errs in presuming that encouragement from the “powers that be” would re-activate or usher in a vibrant intellectual culture.


 * Prof Seepe is academic director, Henley Management College (incorporated in the UK).


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A192975**

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