Prof. Ali A. Mazrui
18 October 2008
Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama are potential icons of a post-racial age which is unfolding before our eyes. Mandela has become the most respected Black man by all races in world history.
Obama stands a chance of becoming the most trusted Black man in US history. No African-American has ever come so close to winning the US presidency. But no African-American could have approached so close to winning the US presidency without an unprecedented level of trust from a sizable part of the white electorate.
A major cause of the Mandela-Obama respective successes lies in their embodying a short memory of racial hatred, and their impressive readiness to forgive historical adversaries. They have both illustrated a remarkable capacity to transcend historical racial divides.
Cultures differ in hate retention. Some nurse their grievances for generations. Others are intensely hostile in the midst of a conflict, but as soon thereafter, they display a readiness to forgive, even if not always to forget. The Armenians, Irish and Jews fall in this category.
Armenians were butchered in large numbers by the Ottoman Turks in 1915–1916. This story of the Armenian martyrdom of World War I has been transmitted with passion from generation to generation.
Armenians are still demanding justice from Turkey nearly a hundred years after the massacres. Similarly, the Irish have long memories of grievance. Clashes occur in Northern Ireland virtually every year concerning marches that commemorate ‘Orange Conflicts’ in the seventeenth century. Jews also have strong collective memories of the Holocaust and other outbursts of European anti-Semitism.
Mandela came from a culture illustrative of Africa’s short memory of hate. That culture is far from being pacifist. Wars and inter-ethnic conflicts have been part of Africa’s experience before European colonization and decades after independence.
What is different about African cultures is relatively low level of hate retention. Obama’s tolerance may be due to personal multi-culturalism. He had a white American mother, a Black Kenyan father, and an Indonesian step-father.
His cultural ancestry includes Luo culture, Islam and Black American Christianity. Mandela’s life passed through stages. His early days as a nationalist were characterized by a belief in non-violent resistance. In a sense, he carried the torch of South Africa’s Albert Luthuli and Mahatma Gandhi. Sharpeville was a major blow to his belief in passive resistance.
By the time that Mandela was having afternoon tea with the unrepentant widow of the founder of apartheid, Hendrick Verwoerd, he had tough acts to follow in African magnanimity. There were precedents of forgiveness that he followed and improved upon.
Post-colonial Africa had produced other instances of short memory of hate. Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, once condemned by a British colonialist as a “leader of darkness and death” was unjustly imprisoned in a remote part of the country.
When he finally emerged from prison on the eve of independence, he proclaimed “suffering without bitterness.” He proceeded to transform Kenya into a staunchly pro-Western country.
In November 1965, colonial Southern Rhodesia’s Ian Smith launched his Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain, unleashing a bitter Zimbabwe civil war. Yet, he lived to sit in a parliament of Black-ruled Zimbabwe and was not subjected to postwar vendetta. Again, Africa’s short memory of hate at work. In the late 1960s, Nigeria waged a highly publicized civil war that cost nearly a million lives. The Federal side won that war but was uniquely magnanimous towards the defeated Biafrans. Yet, another manifestation of Africa’s short memory of hatred.
For his part, when Mandela was finally released from prison in 1990, this most illustrious of all Africa’s liberation fighters embarked on a mission of healing and forgiving. This former hero of mobilization leadership became a paragon of the reconciliation style of leadership. He became the greatest of all African examples of prolonged reconciliation, an exemplar of African short memory of hate.
Obama illustrated his post-racial tolerance by denouncing his firebrand pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and leaving his own radicalized church. Obama is more of an ideological liberal than a moral Gandhian. Indeed, Obama is less of a Gandhian than Martin Luther King, Jr. was. But in their different ways, Mandela, Obama and King have all been part of the search for a post-racial age.
The writer is a professor of political science and African studies at State University New York.
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Huulu60:
You must be another hate monger; you could colaborate and get funding together with Mazrui on outdated and outmoded scholarship. Most hatred perpetrated in todays Africa was learnt from colonilizers; a relic of divide and conquer strategy that the colonizers used to subdue Africans. Africans sold Africans is, likewise, a baseless proposition. Mandela and Obama are forgiving (not forgetting)individuals. Unlike some politicians they are NOT riding the cycle of hatred that has bedeviled Europe and Middle East, and which unfortunately has gained currency with bankrupt corrupt dictators around the world, especially Africa, because it helps them cling to power illegimately. And for you and Mazrui may the credict too should go to other races in these multicultural countries: USA and RSA that are rejecting the politics of hate. A few brainwashed Africans could learn a lesson or two from Mandela, Obama, USA and RSA.
Another hate Monger, You are Insane! You have just rumbled, crackled and rattled and have not made any point at all! I do not know what your problem is with me. I am against Professor Mazrui's superficial analysis of these two African Icons. My argument is that it is in the nature of both Obama and Mandela to be what they are. It is not and I repeat it is not because they are Africans NO! Such character is rare among the human race white, black, orange , yellow extra extra Mr. Another hate monger!!!!!!!! Get this into your head. What we should strive for and this is crucial is to get leaders all over the world to emulate the example of these two people you understand? Both White and Black Politicians are rogues, selfish, cheats; Who base their decisions on testesterone charged arrogance! You Could be one of them sir.
Professor, it would be brilliant on your part to solve the Zimbabwe crisis. How do African leaders effectively move forward with Robert Mugabe's mindset of a 2 year old. It looks foolish even weak to see these leaders spinning their wheels and arriving no where. Mugabe have no concept of Time, People and Places, behaves no different than that of a two year old. Explain his behaviour.
This is the year 2008, we live in a time of progress not the dark ages (the age of the viking long gone). What looks even worse is the fact that the rest of the world's perception of African leaders is that of Mugabe's (BBC CNN commentary section). That is not good for any of us.
Although there is some "truth" in what Mazrui says, to suggest that Africans have a short memory of hate is an over generalized statement that might be difficult to validate. The examples he provides to support his positions are just short anecdotes that need to be tested for construct validity.If we look back at the history of Africans in the context of colonialisation and oppression, its plausible to conclude that Africans in general have greater tolerance and forgiveness. But to suggest that they have short memmories of their history is perhaps a misplaced conclusion. Africans have memories that are "long," and that have been tried and tested. It is for this that in most African educational systems history is an important and integral part of African legacy, a legacy that seeks to perpetuate long memory as well as cement forgiveness and tolerance.
It seems to me that any people of color regardless where they are in the world; when they are discriminated against by their own Government or people. The manifestations of hurt carries from one generation to the next. Anger seems to reside with the immediate generation to follow. The history and actions of the American Government against any people of color speak for themselves. American Indians (Native Americans) were the first people slaughtered by the American Government. "Many tribes to total extinction." Then they treated African slaves with no regard to human dignity. They again repeated attrocities against Japanese Americans during World War II. Now move forward to 2008. The government is on the verge or they are commiting attrocities against people who appear to be of Arab decent. Being profiled and discriminating against people of color is a repetitive behavior of the American government. I personally do not hate the government for the actions of their countrymen. I have the freedom now to participate in voting. Native Americans gained that right in 1937; after African Americans. I am a Native American. VOTING FOR BARACK OBAMA 2008
Pendleton, Oregon USA
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH-THE BENEFICENT-THE MERCIFUL;SAY:HE,ALLAH IS ONE.ALLAH IS HE ON WHOM ALL DEPEND.HE BEGETS NOT,NOR IS HE BEGOTTEN.AND NONE IS LIKE HIM.[QUR'AN:112].THE GREATEST PERSON IN HISTORY THAT WAS PERSECUTED AND FORGIVING WHEN VICTORY CAME AGAINST HIS ENEMIES WAS THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD IBN ABDULLAH[PBUH].DR.ALI MARUI HAS SOME VALID POINTS IN HIS ARTICLE.HOWEVER AFRICAN PEOPLE ON THE CONTINENT AND IN THE DIASPORA ARE COLLECTIVELY STILL ENSLAVED BY ZIONIST AND IMPERIALIST AND A TRUE GENERAL RECOGNIZES HIS STENGHT AND HIS WEAKNESS.COLECTIVELY AFRICANS IN SOUTH AFRICA AND AMERIKA WERE SYSTEMATICALLY DENIED EDUCATION AND VOCATION AND INFLICTED WITH AN IMPOSED INFERIORITY COMLPLEX THAT RESULTED IN SELF DESTUCTION IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE AS SOUTH AFRICA AND AMERIKA EMERGED ON THE WORLD SCENE WITH AN IMPOSED SUPERIORITY COMPLEX THAT ENABLED THE COLLECTIVE EUROPEANS TO BENEFIT FROM THE OPPRESSION OF AFRICAN PEOLE THAT STILL IS IN EXISTANCE IN 2008 REGARDLESS OF THE PRESIDENCENY OF A BARACK OBAMA.BECAUSE THE SAME SYSTEM THAT ENSLAVED US STTLL EXIST BECAUSE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM OF SOUTH AFRICA AND AMERIKA IS OPPRESSION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE.WHO CONTROLS THE DIAMONDS AND GOLD IN SOUTH AFRICA IN 2008 AND DID THEY CONTROL IT PRE PRESIDENT MANDELA ? WHO CONTROLS THE U.S.SENATE AND CONGRESS ? SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN SEGREGATIONIST.AS THE SAYING GOES IN AMERIKA AFTER 1865 " THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN." THE POLITICAL,SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEM OF CAPITALISM MUST BE REMOVED IN ORDER TO BE FREE FROM OPPRESSION.AS ROTHSCHILD SAID IN THE 1700'S " GIVE ME CONTROL OVER A NATIONS ECONOMY I DO NOT CARE WHO MAKES THE LAWS." MOST PEOPLE IN AMERIKA THINK THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM IS FEDERAL WHEN IT IS AUTONOMOUS TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WHICH HAS ENSLAVED THE WORLD THROUGH THE IMF,WORLD BANK,WALL STREET BANKERS ETC.INSHA-ALLAH OPPRESSION WILL END AROUND THE WORLD AS PEOPLE SEEK TO BE FREE FROM OPPRESSION REGARDLESS OF WHO IT IS OPPRESSING THEM.TAIF'TUL'ISLAM-P.O.BOX 338-COMPTON,CA.90223
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Mazrui the professor of misreading history is here as usual misinterpreting African history. Africans do not habor hatred as a political idealogy like others do. They are more forgiving, but forgetting as this insulting drivel seems to suggest by saying Africans have a short memory, theyy are not. Remember this: Africans forgive, but they never forget.