Prof ochieng att Prof Mazrui again

I have genuinely warned Kenyans many times, to give up on Ali Mazrui — not because he is a bad man, but because he thinks and operates from a different planet.
Mazrui does not understand, and will never understand, the nature of the relationship between the world in which he operates and the one in which we live. He simply anglicises our arguments with him; and his advocations irritate us, because they miss out lumpen reality.
I must confess that I did not read Taban Lo Liyong’s attack on him, since I was out of town, but I suspect that Taban was right. Mazrui is not simply a darling of the West. He is a personification of Western arrogance and flippancy.
Did I say arrogance? Yes, and selfishness also. I have never read any article by Mazrui in which he was not, as it were, the profile. Who cares whether he has been nominated amongst the top 100 public intellectuals in the world, or amongst 103 most dangerous academics in America?
Those are mere games which rich and idle Americans play. You may find that whoever put him amongst the 100 top intellectuals in the world has no idea what serious thinkers in China, India, Japan or Africa think or write about.
Has Mazrui ever seriously thought about African problems and issues? Is Anglo Leasing to him a bourgeois theft, or a malignant African cancer? What, to him, explains our unbending and persistent descent into poverty?
Let us look at Mazrui’s article, which appeared in The Sunday Standard (March 5) on President Yoweri Museveni. Have you ever read a more flippant and meaningless article? I do not believe that the mere fact that Museveni altered the Ugandan constitution through Parliament, to give him another term as President, lessens his heroism domestically or internationally.
When I walk through the streets of Kampala and observe the peace and active economic activities by Ugandans, I sometimes wish he were our President.
Putting the above aside, how has Museveni permitted Makerere University to become "less and less," as Mazrui alleges? If he wished to talk about Makerere why didn’t he say more?
I have been going to Makerere as an External Examiner in the last two years and I have always seen a robust, fast developing and well managed institution.
What does Mazrui want? Does he know that Makerere may be the only university in the world where teaching goes on round the clock, every year?
Mazrui also alleges that the Ugandans who escaped to Europe and America during the Idi Amin era, have become "more globalised" and many have "counter-penetrated the economic citadels of Europe!" What is the meaning of this glib language? Does one become "globalised" simply by living in Europe? What is the content of the alleged "counter-penetration?" Just words, words, words!
Mazrui is also unfairly offensive to the Baganda. True, the Baganda love their monarchical system, but have they ever imposed it on any other East African cultures? What evidence is there that the Baganda regard Kiswahili as a threat to their language? And why is Mazrui trying to force Kiswahili on the Baganda? Is he inciting East Africans against them?
In his article on Taban, Mazrui claims that in 1992 he called on President Moi to step down "at the risk of being detained," but who told him that Moi detained Americanised Kenyans? Was he playing at the gallery to be appreciated? That sounds very much like him!
And finally, in the same article on Taban, Mazrui claims that I, William Ochieng’ Opondo, suffer from a disease he calls "Mazruiphobia", whatever that means. Why was he dragging me into his war with Taban? I neither hate, love, fear nor admire Mazrui. There are better and more exciting things to hate and to love.
Mazrui should leave Yoweri Museveni alone, if he has nothing of substance to say about him. Even more importantly, he should deeply ponder on what Taban has told him, for Taban is an intellectual prophet and a restless individual in the genre of John the Baptist, of yore.