African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic ... - Blackherbals.com

Continued from page 49 – Intellectuals and Just Causes
Indeed, in many respects, as a scholar, the perspicuity,
length, breadth and depth of his contributions remain
unrivalled to this day. In fundamentals it continues to be
unchallenged as grand social theory; it is also a
methodologically yielding approach to our understanding
of the social process. No body of ideas has influenced the
course of human history in the last hundred years of
history as dramatically as Marxism both as a theoretical
construct and a practical or institutional representation. In
large state formations with sizeable proportions of
humanity as China and the Soviet Union, as official
ideology, for better or for worse, it has indelibly shaped
the organization of social life. In both these countries and
others like Cuba and Vietnam it has been successfully
pressed into service as a theoretical basis for resistance
against Western imperialism.
On the other hand, it has also been utilized to spawn
despotism and mail-fisted rule. From Stalin (Soviet
Union) to Ceausescu (Rumania) to the Kim dynasty in
North Korea and Pol Pot in Cambodia perverted statesanctioned
formulations of Marxism have been employed
to operate tin-pot and brutal dictatorships. However, all
said, Marxism as a sociological tool of analysis remains in
many ways theoretically unrivalled.
Nabudere started his extended intellectual journey with
Marx. It was a journey which was not only a scholastic
enterprise, but also in equal measure an activist
endeavour, more pointedly an attempt to direct
intellectual arsenal for the betterment of the human
condition in Africa. For our generation, Nabudere was
one of the most outstanding interpreters of Marxist
thought between the late 60s and early 80s of the last
century. His Political Economy of Imperialism and
Imperialism and Revolution in Uganda remain till today
definitive testimonies of African scholastic encounters
with Marxian approaches to social analysis of the period.
His work with Yash Tandon, recently republished (The
Crash of International Finance-Capital and Its
Implications for the Third World) displays robustly
studied, time-consuming scholarship and eloquent and
lucid critique of late capitalism. A historical
contextualization of his work is important for an
understanding of its larger import.
The 60s was the "decade of African Independence." At
the end, two-thirds of Africans emerged out of colonial
tutelage. In Indo-China Western imperialism was taken on
and triumphantly trounced by the Vietnamese people.
In East Europe, different peoples in the vast Soviet empire
rose in challenge to Russian imperialism. The Irish fought
-50- Traditional African Clinic August 2012
for their freedom and civil liberties, and in the United
States African-Americans said a loud "no, enough is
enough"! to the persistent and longstanding racism of
Uncle Sam. Cuba stood up to the United States. Women
everywhere rejected sexism and discrimination. The
birth of modern armed struggle against colonial rule
emerged in Africa. This was a new instalment of the
African resistance which was temporarily stamped
underfoot by the colonial powers at the end of the 19th
century and which continued in sporadic outbursts until
the Land and Freedom War of the 50s, otherwise known
as the Mau Mau Resistance. Those were inspirationally
bracing years. They shaped our thinking and action for
the decades that followed.
In hindsight, it may appear to some that the drift from
Marxism to African spirituality and the assertions of
cultural heritage even if it is modernist and radical
remains a contradiction; that this is an attempt to
reconcile extreme opposites. I think this view is illconsidered.
But is it eclectic? Is it a mixture of ideas
which do not mix? Is it an indication of intellectual
discontinuity? No. What some of us have found and
think is that at worst it is fruitful or elucidatory
eclecticism and at best a subtly blended and historically
constructed edifice of intellectual maturity; a better
understanding and appreciation of the realities of the
African world and what needs to be done if Africans are
to march forward towards modernity and meaningful
democracy with institutions adapted to the concrete
realities of African society; a new Africa built on the
legacy and cultural foundations of Africans.
A modern Africa which is African must use its
languages as languages of instruction at all levels of
education. This is how all modern societies in Europe
and Asia have done it. Languages hold memory, history
and identity. They instrumentally define and describe
reality for us; they store knowledge, its production and
reproduction. African development requires the
intellectualization of African languages. Our languages
need to absorb the universal intellectual offering of our
times. When African languages are scientifically
empowered, they will become viable instruments for
lifting up mass society. Without this development cannot
be effectuated. Language lies at the heart of culture;
indeed, the core area of culture. Without language,
cultures die; they vanish into extinction; the endangered
groups are assimilated into the dominant or hegemonic
cultures of the times.
A common fault of the generation of the sixties was that
oftentimes Marxism took on a theoretical logic of its
own; flighty and totally abstracted from the realities of
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