When I was asked to share some of my reflections on the evolution of African Diaspora studies in the United States, I recalled that a colleague and I mused about the appearance of recent advertisements in scholarly journals for African Diaspora specialists. We also observed that several colleges and universities have courses with African Diaspora in the title. Indeed, Diaspora as a description of the dispersion and settlement of Africans abroad is fairly common in academic parlance today and increasingly so in popular discussions; however, such has not always been the case.

(The text of an address given at the Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Orlando, November 5, 1995. At the time of the ASA Conference, David Gordon was the senior Africa specialist on the Democratic staff of the House International Relations Committee. He is currently Director of U.S. Policy Programs at the Overseas Development Council, a nongovernmental research institute in Washington.)

A recent review of South African universities concluded that higher education institutions have “in place considerable facilities and a substantial capacity to respond to the reshaping of post-apartheid education. However, in general the historically white institutions (and a number of black institutions) have little moral and political legitimacy. In contrast, the majority of black institutions (and a few white institutions) have little or no academic credibility. Overall, the ‘system’ is seen as one that perpetuates inequality, is hugely wasteful and is not serving the human resource needs of the country. These problems have led to numerous demands for reforms in order to redress inequalities, and to ensure greater relevance, accountability and democracy.”

The recent debates among scholars on hegemony and race in African Studies are very exciting. Realities that African-American intellectuals know quite well—that there was a Black tradition of scholarship on Africa in the Americas long before 1948 and that peoples of African descent have been marginalized within the African Studies establishment—are finally getting a much needed airing. Although some of the opinions, such as those expressed by Phillip Curtin in the Chronicle are difficult to swallow and no doubt the cause of great unease, many of us are not surprised and are in fact elated. Silences on issues of racism are never golden, only a resolve to expose and fight them are.

What is the meaning of the term “African Diaspora” and what is its extent? What is its future? Although the term has long been used for the scattered daughters and sons of Africa in the Americas, little attention has been devoted to delimiting its boundaries. From the fifteenth century onward, over ten million forced migrants left the African continent to people both of the Americas and the islands of the Caribbean. Their culture was never static; it involved syncretistic reformation, subsumption/transmogrification and reintegration/reassertion.

I would argue that history students should understand that the whole body of historical writing consists of interpretations of the past. They should be able to analyse a wide variety of texts and form their own opinions on a historical topic, and should be able to construct a coherent argument, using evidence to support their opinion. In doing so, they should be actively aware that their argument is no more “true” than that offered by any other historian. It is as much a product of their personal biography and the social formation in which they live as of the evidence used in its construction. Even this evidence is the product of other personal biographies and other social forces.

Let me begin by defining two terms that I use in the title. By “mirror images” I mean people who look alike based on certain physical characteristics they have in common. These characteristics may not be exactly the same, but they are close enough that people are both self-identified and other-identified as looking the “same.”

By “shared standpoints” I mean that people who have these are commonly enough situated in a set of circumstances or conditions due to shared factors such as ‘race,’ class, ethnicity, religion, sex etc. that they have a common perspective vis-á-vis a number of issues. People can have a shared standpoint on the basis of any one of these factors in common, or, a combination of them.

Both quotes point to the importance of a center. A center connotes stability, solidity, balance, equilibrium at the core. At the university level this center should be found in the dynamic interdependence of the five constituencies of a university—students, faculty, administration and staff, the support base, and the public. In this article I will discuss how and if the African university center holds and if it can be identified as exemplifying something near excellence, focusing on two universities.

The first universities were established in ancient Africa in places such as Timbuctoo, Goa and Ethiopia. In contemporary Africa, the Islamic Al-Azar University is the oldest academy.

While on its homeward passage in 1813, the whaling ship William Penn was intercepted off the island of Trinidad in the South Atlantic by a British frigate, boarded, and informed of the existence of war; and that the American seamen were prisoners of H.M.S. Acorn. Within a half hour, the Acorn and its prize (now manned by English sailors) were underway, heading off southeast for the Cape of Good Hope. After a passage of forty days they anchored in Table Bay.

Since the end of the nineteenth century, black music has been prominent in the international arena—from ragtime to rumba and jazz, right up to today’s black and white fusions. Dance music and drama originally from Africa were adapted to the New World, creating an enormous impact there and feeding back into the mainstream of music in Africa itself. This double transformation, brought about by leaving and returning home, has created a truly international music-style in Africa, and yet one that is doubly African.

Africa is experiencing an educational crisis of unprecedented proportions in higher education. Having been hailed in the 1960s as agent of modernization, social mobilization, and economic growth, most African universities are now tumbling down under the pressures of diminishing financial resources. From all indications, Africa is lagging behind other developing regions in terms of public expenditures particularly on education, availability of educational facilities, equal access to education, adequate pools of qualified teachers, and sufficient numbers of professionals and skilled workers. Pertinent data show that most African governments in the 1960s and 1970s made comparable progressive accomplishments in higher education. However, these accomplishments steadily disappeared in the 1980s. What went wrong in the 1980s? Why is higher education now such a convenient target for African leaders/governments, when pressured to trim their overextended public sector? To what extent is the lack of multiparty democracies affecting the deteriorating state of higher education in Africa? Is the declining importance attached to education in sub-Saharan Africa a reflection of the lack of education among Africa’s tyrannical rulers, hence the low appreciation of education? What role did the foreign financial institutions play in the African educational system? How can we turn the educational crisis around? These questions not only address African educational issues but also help us to explain the scope of this crisis. In a comparative analysis, this study describes the main African higher educational problems, identifies the root causes of the problems, and finally examines the implications for the twenty-first century.

The 38th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association (ASA) was held November 3-6 in Orlando, Florida. In a panel made possible by a grant from USIA, discussion centered on the “Problems In African University Administration” in which more than ten participants from African universities examined some of the problems and solutions affecting the African higher education. The opinions expressed here reflect my extemporaneous comments made at the ASA meeting.

In a recent article by Veit Erlmann in the South African journal of musicology (SAMUS vol. 14, 1995) entitled “Africa Civilized, Africa Uncivilized,” Erlmann draws upon the reception history of the South African Zulu Choir’s visit to London in 1892 and the Ladysmith Black Mambazo presence in Paul Simon’s Graceland project to highlight the epithet “Africa civilized, Africa uncivilized.” Though the term was used by the turn of the century British press to publicize the event, the slogan carries far greater impact upon the locus of the identity of urban black people in South Africa for more than a century.

At the close of the twentieth century, we are witnessing across the globe competing, frequently cataclysmic discourses about identity. These discourses are literally erupting into activities that reshape the meaning of “national culture.” Simultaneously, many of these cultural confrontations are giving visibility and voice to transnational cultural communities. Within this world-wide context, U.S. cultural and educational institutions are at the national frontline of a related volatile, but potentially promising, debate frequently referred to as “cultural wars.” Museums in particular have become a flash point on the cultural landscape of what cultural conservatives Arthur A. Schlesinger and Patrick J. Buchanan accurately, although shrilly, formulate as “a struggle to redefine the national identity.”

PAT 101: Principles of Patronage reviews the structure, operations and results of a voluntary patronage system. It illustrates the theory of patronage by using empirical examples drawn from The University as a formal institutional structure, and from the academic and administrative operation of that institution. Patronage and educational functions are compared to show how the these two aspects of The University interact, and to document the results which follow from this interaction.

The relationship between African universities and their governments tends to be strained, whether these governments are political or military. Those in power often have little experience of higher education or understanding of its needs and there is little consensus about its goals. Political and economic insecurity provides little opportunity for “ivory tower theorizing”; low wages and inadequate resources are a poor basis for the research which needs to be done. Governments provide declining support and want a lot for their money. Universities are expected to become partly self-supporting through research contracts and charges to students, and teaching “relevant” subjects is supposed to prepare students for real jobs (which are often a future hope rather than a present reality). As beneficiaries of government cash, staff and students should not criticize or challenge government interests. Much is said about the benefits of science and engineering courses and of the wastefulness of humanities courses, ignoring the fact that governments are usually run by people with arts rather than science degrees.

The fifth Pan-African Congress was held in Manchester, England in October 1945 with a great roster of delegates who would play, and had played, critical roles in the advancement of Black freedom: W.E.B. DuBois, Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore, and Jomo Kenyatta, to name a few. It was an historic gathering held at a point in history when the defeat of fascism in Europe and the impending demise of colonialism in Africa and the Caribbean were great causes for optimism among progressive people the world over. The manifesto issued by the Congress delegates exposed the atrocities of colonialism, tapped into the universal language of anti-fascism, and thereby hastened the process of decolonization.