Nairobi — Nobel laureate James Watson continues to be widely condemned for his claim that Africans are less intelligent than Europeans. But surprisingly, leading institutions such as the African Union (AU) and the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) have not responded to the adverse comments.
In a swift response to Watson's comments, the Science Museum and other UK-based institutions cancelled his speaking engagements. The board of trustees of his institution, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, has suspended him from duty.
This is not the first time that international leaders have made adverse comments about Africa. What is inexcusable is that their outbursts hardly elicit responses from leading African institutions. The silence does more damage than the statements.
For example, two years ago President Vladimir Putin responded to a challenge about Russia's human rights record by saying: "We all know that African countries used to have a tradition of eating their own adversaries."
He added: "We don't have such a tradition or process or culture and I believe the comparison between Africa and Russia is not quite just." African still owes Putin a reasoned response to his outburst.
In a flawed speech delivered in Senegal earlier this year, French President Nikolas Sarkozy said "the African has never really entered into history. They have never really launched themselves into the future. The African peasant has lived according to the seasons, whose life ideal was to be in harmony with nature, only knew the eternal renewal of time. In this imaginary world, where everything starts over and over again, there is room neither for human endeavour, nor for the idea of progress."
President Sarkozy's outbursts were hardly challenged by leading African institutions. It fell on individual African leaders like President Abdoulaye Wade to seek to offer tutorials on social change in Africa to President Sarkozy. More comprehensive lessons on Africa from the AAS should have followed.
The task is not to engage in vitriolic but to offer reasoned responses that help to educate the world about Africa. Institutions such as the AU and the AAS could play key roles in setting the record straight.
But to do so they will need to build capacity in at least two areas. First, they need to monitor international trends and develop international capacity for swift responses when such adverse statements are made. Offering timely reaction and other forms of representation should be a function of the chairperson of the AU Commission.
Secondly, Africa needs to build the capacity to get its voice heard worldwide. There is an urgent need for African nations to strengthen their media outreach. More specifically, they should set an international radio broadcasting that is comparable in reach to the Voice of America (VoA) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Today young Africans seeking alternatives to the VoA and the BBC tune into Radio China International. But there is no genuine African voice that can keep the international community informed on African issues.
Finally, African diplomatic missions around the world need to do more in updating the international community on Africa. Africans should not expect others to present a balanced view of their continent. It is Africa's duty to do so.
It is bad enough that leaders such as Putin, Sarkozy and Watson can so whimsically make such adverse comments about Africa. It is worse that African institutions such as the AU and AAS let them go unchallenged.
As British essayist William Hazlitt once said, "prejudice is the child of ignorance." The international community will only grow up if those affected by prejudice take on the role of educators and not passive victims.
Prof Juma teaches at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, where he directs the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project.
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Who is talking? But surely, Calestous Juma, what should we (Africans) do about African academics such as you and Florence Wambugu who do not only subscribe to James Watsons genetic reductionism and determinism. Worse, you appropriate and reconstitute the rhetoric of your patrons (such as Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, multinational co-operations and their stakeholders, US farmers through USAID, etc) whose underlying cultural belief and vision is to exploit or exterminate all the brutes? History reminds us that slave trade was successful because some individual Africans collaborated with Western slave traders. The same is true for the success of colonization. If history is anything to go by, it may very well be that some African academics, well exemplified by you and Florence Wambugu, will go down the history book as Africans who collaborated with Western organizations or individuals; in destroying African environment, eco-system or exterminating all the brutes through the so-called bioscience. This of course, was executed through empty signifiers such as poverty alleviation and sustainable development, through bioscience. So many nights, I have lost my sleep because of people like you and Wambugu; and not the likes of James Watson. Watson is reciting and enacting deeply ingrained, pre-ceding and collectively agreed conventions in the Western society: about some primordial, pre-social substantive racial essence, which is crucial, if the Western society can continue justifying and legitimating Western abuse and exploitation of Africa. As much, it is critical for sustaining hegemonies of power. Africans who empower, nurture and facilitate this, by appropriating and reconstituting, for our purposes, genetic reductionism and determinism; and/or their patrons rhetoric (as a means for attracting, accessing and maintaining patronage) are, as far as am concerned, more dangerous for Africa, than the likes of James Watson. Just look at the HapMap project (http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071017/full/449762a.html) that is inherently driven by racist goals, couched as a scientific search for truth. And who are these Kenyan and Nigerian scientists participating in this research, as it were, in search for the so-called universal truth? Watson, Putin and Sarkozy's are reciting and enacting learned, instilled, and internalized preexisting conventions in the Western society. African academics subscribing to genetic determinism and reduction; and/or appropriating and reconstituting their patrons rhetoric, empower, nurture and facilitate their patrons visions. As far as am concerned, we (Africans) are our worst enemies. Africans should pursue science. As much, they should collaborate with Western organizations or individuals. However, science, in particular, scientific and other international collaborations must be informed and guided by wisdom, a sense of responsibility and self-sustenance. Lest we (Africans) forget history and how it shapes present and future beliefs, visions, expectations, and more importantly, hegemonies of power: thought provoking books by writers that includes J. D. Coetzee, Ngugi wa Thiongo and Sven Lindqvists should be made compulsory reads in all African High Schools. As a start and as a matter of urgency, we (Africans) should instil the belief, not in the Western God of the Bible or Islam. No, believe in our selves and our limitless abilitiesif only we work and think harder. This can only be instilled at home, in schools and institutions of higher education. It is only then, and only then, Africans can confront Western racism, unfairness, exploitation and discrimination. After all, it is not so long ago that Whites were worse than where we are, and were killing each other like nonsense. It is during the last 50 years they have developed and become civilized, so we shouldnt be so impressed. Sadly, I have met and seen so many African leaders, great scientists and intellectuals who suffer from serious, really, serious inferiority complex in their interactions with White Europeans. This inferiority complex is not natural as the West would want us to believe. It is an effect, a product of institutionalised structures of power arrangements and dynamics, through which Africans learn, internalise or worse, instil at home, school, work places, etc. As long as we fail to believe in ourselves, we will never subvert this power dynamic, let alone develop. Indeed, it is unreasonable to expect people who suffer from inferiority complex to confront the All Mighty White Men, of all White men, James Watson. All too often, my Danish fiancée reminds me of a Danish saying that goes; there is nothing that is so bad that is not good for anything. Indeed, I have learnt, after 1864 when Denmark lost a big part of its land to Germany and Sweden, Danish leaders, particularly, King Christian IX told the Danish people that, what is lost outside is won inside, for every loss, its replacement is found, what is lost outside, should be won inside. In King Christian IX spirit, Africans should take Watson, Putin and Sarkozy's insults as a challenge that should drive and fly Africans to greater heights.
Wambui