Sharjah: “Where are all the African intellectuals?” asked Nobel Laureate Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, who explained on Thursday at the American University of Sharjah that the intellectuals are dead, exiled or imprisoned.
Accused of conspiracy for attempting to broker peace in the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70), Soyinka was held as a prisoner for 22 months.
In spite of this, he remained active since his release from prison and continues to be a critic of international political corruption and brutality.
In 2010 Soyinka founded the Democratic Front for a People’s Federation, which was a party to oppose corruption and apathy.
During his discussion, Soyinka explained that the main quality of intellectuals is that they are ready to debate with others and expand their minds on new ideas.
“Intellectuals are not magicians and it is not their responsibility to take action and make roads and buildings, but they are actual executors of change,” he said, pointing out that their role is to speak the truth, and to promote change and development.
Soyinka also criticised the current state of affairs and political unrest in northern Africa.
Replacing dictatorship
He emphasised that revolutionary parties in the past took part in brutal wars for liberation and to get rid of one form of dictatorship, merely to replace it with another.
As an outspoken critic of many Nigerian military dictators, and of political tyrannies worldwide, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, he questioned as to how a [liberation] fighter was able to change into a “fascist monster.” Soyinka noted that while some intellectuals might be called anarchists, they are also some that support political ideologies, such as the rule of Muammar Gaddafi.
He also compared the eight-year-presidential term of George W. Bush to the anti-communist era of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
‘Voices were muted’
“While the war against terror was going on, the US was lacking in its philosophical leadership and the media was playing up the hype of weapons of mass destruction and how America was striking back. They had [intellectuals] but the voices were muted…and the people were misled,” he said.
He went on to discuss US Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist campaign in the 1950s, when the senator blacklisted those he accused of being communists.
“Intellectuals have a commodity, which is the truth. Their mission is to ensure that countries have uncensored apprehension of that history, but it should not be limited to history but also have an impact on their visions [for the future].”
