Jaramogi was that lonely voice in the wilderness of the struggle for democracy in Kenya.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga did not get to occupy State House. It is a useful fate of heroes in many countries. History records that the few that have managed to occupy the highest office in any land on the African continent have been either assassinated or overthrown from power and exiled; Thomas Sankara, Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba come to mind. The idea of heroines and heroes who reign and rule is captured in the notion of the “People’s President” and the “Leader of the People’s Opposition”, both roles being undertaken by people who reign and rule, albeit not constitutionally and legally. They may reign and rule economically, spiritually, socially, and morally. They are oppositional figures who invariably build a formidable following that makes them and a perpetual thorn in the political backside of the status quo. For some, their rise to prominence and authority can be meteoric and short-lived, for others it can exist until they die. Kenya’s Jaramogi reigned and ruled until his death in January 1994.

I first saw Jaramogi at Kalundu Market in Kitui Town in 1959 when I was 12 years old. The airlifts to the US were in full swing. Justus Kalewa Ndoto, a former Permanent Secretary in the Kenyan government, had been accepted at a university in America for further studies. Our Member of the Legislative Council of Kenya (LEGCO), Hon. James Nzau Muimi had organized a fundraising event for Ndoto and had invited his fellow LEGCO members to the fundraiser. Jaramogi was one of those who honoured the invitation. I decided to go to the event together with a few of my schoolmates. We knew the names of the first African members of LEGCO, thanks to our rigorous primary school course on civics. This course was about who was who in Kitui, namely the District Commissioners, the District Officers, the headmaster of Kitui Secondary School, the Heads of Police and Prisons, the Medical Officer of Health, and religious leaders. The election of Africans to the LEGCO in 1957 had trumped these local Kitui notables and dignitaries. The scope of the civics class was extended to connect political issues in the native reserve to those in Nairobi.

As the fundraiser began, I was able recognise the politicians present from the photographs in the East African Standard newspaper that my uncle, who I lived in Kitui town, bought every day. But I struggled to locate Jaramogi among the dignitaries; he had taken a sit with the Wenyenchi before he was invited to the rostrum. When he got onto the rostrum, I saw that like me and my buddies, he was wearing Akala shoes made from old tyres and was dressed in his famous “Mao Zedong” outfit (the top had some resemblance to Mao’s tunic but Jaramogi wore elongated shorts instead of trousers). He greeted all present by waving his flywhisk. I was instantly impressed and inspired by Jaramogi and I believe it had a lot to do with the shoes, his outfit, and his stories (now you know where Raila Odinga’s kitendawilis/riddles come from) which made him a perfect Kitui peasant, a man of the people. The other LEGCO members were Asungu/wazungu, clad in suits and ties. We loved the man who dressed like us! I read everything that Jaramogi was reported to have said in the East African Standard. My habit of reading Jaramogi’s speeches did not decline with the release of Jomo Kenyatta in 1961, whose speech I heard at Donholm Stadium on my first visit to Nairobi the same year; Kenyatta’s attack on racism and colonial segregation in Kenya was as superb as it was persuasive to my ears.

Little is known about Jaramogi’s airlifts to India, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and Eastern Europe; one had to read Jaramogi’s Not Yet Uhuru to get the story. Tom Mboya’s airlifts to the US received more media coverage. This was also the era of the Cold War and the ideological differences between Jaramogi and Mboya that existed within the Kenya African National Union (KANU) were not as pronounced as they were to become later in the 60s decade.

In Kitui Secondary School (1962-1965), we were not spared the politics of independence that were reflected both in the papers and in reality when politicians came to Kitui town. One of the political meetings was held on Kitui Secondary School’s soccer field and that was my first time to see Tom Mboya at very close range. Jomo Kenyatta also visited Kitui after his release from detention and addressed the people of Kitui at the Ithookwe Agricultural Show Ground.

Little is known about Jaramogi’s airlifts to India, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and Eastern Europe.

I would say most students were members of Kenya African National Union (KANU). I was part of the “Youth for KANU!” of which the Youth for KANU of the 1990s was but a pale shadow. Jaramogi was my hero. Moreover, I was convinced that the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) was for colonialism and white settler domination in Kenya; the small town of Kitui was also an epicentre of colonialism with colonial segregation and so KANU’s nationalist and anti-colonial politics resonated with many of the students at Kitui Secondary School. I remember how we celebrated KANU’s victory in the elections and the formation of the so-called internal government of 1 June 1963 (the first Madaraka Day) in which Jaramogi became Jomo Kenyatta’s deputy. Fourteen months after independence, I joined Strathmore College of Arts and Science in the Lavington suburb of Nairobi, the first multi-racial and multi-ethnic college in Kenya. Strathmore was founded in 1961, although the founders were already in the country when I first saw Jaramogi in Kitui.

At Strathmore College, I met a young man who actually worshipped Jaramogi. My classmate in the Arts, Onginy’o Ogutu, had a huge photograph of Jaramogi before which he would prostrate himself before going to bed. I did not know whether he actually worshipped Jaramogi or simply prayed for him, or both. Another classmate, Eliud Thini Waiyaki, who shared a room with Ogutu and two others, would tell of Ogutu’s dedication to worship and prayer – in his room or when he had access to the college chapel. Ogutu was a confident student who became a college mate at the University of Dar es Salaam, and a boxer of note. It was the political scene in Kenya that turned Ogutu’s drama, worship, or prayer into a national ideological and political contestation since independence.

The KANU Limuru Conference was held in 1966 against the backdrop of the Cold War and the ideological and political conflicts within KANU. Bolstered by KADU, the political party that was pro-British colonialism and white settlers in Kenya, KANU’s right wing decided to purge the party of its leftist radicals. Pio Gama Pinto, the ideological and political leader of the left had been assassinated on 24 February 1965. William Attwood, the first American Ambassador to Kenya, wrote about the KANU Limuru Conference in his book, The Reds and the Blacks: A Personal Adventure. So did Jaramogi in Not Yet Uhuru: The Autobiography of Oginga Odinga, published in the same year as Attwood’s, with a foreword by Kwame Nkrumah. The Conference abolished the party’s post of vice-president, which Jaramogi held, and replaced it with eight provincial vice-presidents, signaling to Jaramogi the political truth of the Kiswahili saying Afukuzwaye haambiwi toka, those who wish to expel you do not tell you “get out”. Jaramogi left KANU and formed his Kenya People’s Union (KPU). He became president of KPU with Bildad Kaggia as his deputy.

The majority of my classmates at Strathmore College supported KPU. Its radical social democratic ideology and politics appealed to me and to many others. KPU’s Manifesto reflected the ideology and politics of Not Yet Uhuru, setting the political stage for ideological and political contestation with the rightist, pro-Western imperialism KANU. Issues of foreign interests and their domination, oppression, and exploitation of Kenya featured. The issue of land was taken up by KPU with radical solutions advanced. Some of the ideological and political positions of the KPU Manifesto touched on the protection of the constitution, commitment to socialism, African traditions and culture, land, agriculture, employment, civil service, corruption, education, teachers, technical and commercial education, and university education.

The KANU Limuru Conference was held in 1966 against the backdrop of the Cold War and the ideological and political conflicts within KANU.

Leftist scholars at the University of Nairobi, such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o, were supportive of KPU’s ideas and political opposition. For me and other students, the material in the KPU Manifesto and the ideological and political struggles that followed radicalized us. This material incited and excited us intellectually, ideologically, and politically. For me it was a great preparation for my university education at Dar es Salaam University where I developed my intellectual, ideological, and political pursuits more fully.

KANU decided to crash KPU with the full support of Western imperialists. Kenyatta visited Kisumu in 1969, ostensibly to open Nyanza General Hospital, which had been built with aid from the USSR. Kenyatta verbally attacked and provoked Jaramogi who responded in kind. There ensued what is correctly referred to as the Kisumu massacre. The official number of people killed in that massacre is 22. In his book The Flame of Freedom, Raila Odinga, argues that more than 100 people were criminally massacred.

The massacre took place while I was a law student at the University of Dar es Salaam. The president of Kenyan Students at Dar (KENSAD), Emmanuel Okello O’Kubasu (who later served as a magistrate, rising to become a judge of the Court of Appeal in the Kenyan Judiciary) convened an urgent meeting of Kenyan students at the University of Dar es Salaam and we sent a telegram to Jomo Kenyatta’s government condemning the massacre. Jaramogi and his KPU leadership were detained (by this time Bildad Kaggia had resigned from KPU after facing several assassination attempts).

Jaramogi visited the University of Dar es Salaam in 1968 as the Leader of the Opposition in Kenya. As was to be expected of the activist students in Dar, he was received by a full house at Nkrumah Hall. Amos S. Wako (former Attorney-General of Kenya and now Senator for Busia County) welcomed Jaramogi with the KPU slogan Dume! Dume! Bull! Bull! – the KPU’s clarion call during the 1966 by-elections was Bull-Freedom-Socialism; the bull was the party’s symbol during the by-elections). Jaramogi gave a very radical speech on African unity, regional unity, and the continuing struggles against imperialism. Many of us had read his autobiography and many of the questions he answered were about the invisible government that he describes in one of the chapters in his autobiography. As usual, Jaramogi was my hero; this time he was clad in his “Mao Zedong” outfit but with trousers in place of the pair of shorts. I reflected warmly on when I had first seen him in this outfit, in Kitui, 9 years earlier. Jaramogi became one of the many leftist leaders, political oppositionists, freedom fighters and armed strugglers to visit the Mecca of Revolution, the University of Dar es Salaam!

Jaramogi was detained at Hola Prison for 18 months. This was the prison where 11 Mau Mau detainees were massacred by the British colonial government on 3 March 1959. I was detained in Hola for a month (February-March) in 1983. That Jaramogi survived Hola for 18 months has always been a fact for my glorification of his patriotism, courage, radical unbowed spirit, and his determination not to die in detention so that he could continue the struggles to liberate Kenya. Jaramogi planted five trees in the compound outside one of the cells. Hola is a very hot place and I have never forgotten the comfort I enjoyed under the shade of Jaramogi’s trees in that inhumane and hot environment. I must say I was better off than my prison warders who were always in full uniform. Luckily, one of Jaramogi’s trees was right at the gate of the compound where they could sit and remove their boots. Whenever their bosses visited me, it was a scene to behold as they hurriedly put on their oppressive boots and shirts. Among the uninvited guests in the compound were snakes and scorpions. As well as enjoying the shade of Jaramogi’s trees, hearing the sound of the Adhan five times a day from the Mosque in nearby Laza town on the banks of Tana River, was a great comfort.

After Daniel arap Moi succeeded Jomo Kenyatta as the president of Kenya on 22 August 1978, he asked Jaramogi to head the Cotton and Lint Board. Jaramogi accepted this offer. A debate that ensued about Jaramogi’s acceptance of the post; some thought that he had compromised his ideological and political views. I had no doubt he had not. My view was validated when Jaramogi returned to the issue of land grabbing, accusing Jomo Kenyatta of this crime whereupon Moi relieved him his of his parastatal job. Jaramogi remained in the trenches of struggle.

One of the political actions by Jaramogi that I will never forget was during the brutal KANU-Moi dictatorship in the 1980s. At that time, Moi had managed to silence all forms of dissent. His party KANU had also compromised the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU), Maendeleo ya Wanawake, and the University of Nairobi, a site of serious opposition and dissent where the University Staff Union was banned in July 1980 and student leaders and activists were either jailed or forced into exile.

Hola is a very hot place and I have never forgotten the comfort I enjoyed under the shade of Jaramogi’s trees in that inhumane and hot environment.

Underground opposition became the norm as evidenced by the December 12 Movement and MWAKENYA. Jaramogi was that lonely voice in the wilderness of struggle for democracy in Kenya. He did not fear the dictatorship; after all they had done to him, there was nothing else they could do short of assassinating him. The KANU-Jomo Kenyatta dictatorship had detained him. The KANU-Moi dictatorship had placed him under house arrest. It was under these circumstances that in his shrill voice he told Moi in Bondo that he did not own the title deeds to Kenya, our Motherland. That speech gave me great revolutionary oxygen, as I believe it did other revolutionaries and radicals.

Jaramogi was at the centre of the Second Liberation, the quest for the return to multi-party democracy. He led the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD)  in Kenya which did much of the agitation and mobilization of the masses for the repeal of section 2A of the Constitution that had decreed, in 1982, that KANU was the only political party in Kenya. Jaramogi’s leadership resulted in the repeal of that section in 1991.

I felt that I had to become one of Jaramogi’s foot soldiers and the Law Society of Kenya was the perfect civil society organization for the struggle. In his inaugural speech in March 1990, Paul Muite, the President of the Law Society of Kenya (I was the Vice-President) called for Jaramogi’s National Development Party (NDP) to be registered. In an address that was as constitutional as it was political, Muite argued that in the constitutional amendment of Section 2A that decreed KANU to be the only political party in Kenya, critical provisions in the constitution remained intact. One of them was freedom of association in the Bill of Rights. Using the constitutional interpretive tool that constitutions must be interpreted holistically, with no single provision subverting another, freedom of association had to be harmonized with Section 2A. Ultimately, Muite argued that the constitution did not decree against the freedom of association and NDP ought to be registered. Muite knew what he was doing. In his constitutional argument he was garnering support from the workers, women, land buying companies, cooperative societies, public intellectuals, all of whom had had their associations and unions either banned or oppressed and intimidated by the KANU-Moi dictatorship. Paul Muite rose to be Jaramogi’s Vice-President in the Original FORD.

It was a very courageous speech that resulted in a mass walk out by invited judges (only Judge Frank Shields remained at that LSK dinner) and the dictatorship turned its guns on the Council of the LSK whose members were Martha Karua, G.B.M. Kariuki, Barnard Mbai, Charles Nyachae, Jeff Shamalla, J.V. Juma, and Jackson Kagwe. We were sued by four of the LSK members: Aaron Ringera, Nancy Baraza, Nesbitt Onyango, Phillip Kandie, and Kokonya Mukololongo.

Jaramogi was that lonely voice in the wilderness of struggle for democracy in Kenya.

We disobeyed the court orders issued to the five members of the LSK to stop us from “engaging in politics”, were found guilty of contempt and fined KSh10,000 each. We refused to pay the fine, with Paul Muite exhorting us and declaring, “We will not go to Kamiti shitting in our pants.” Judge Mwera decided he was not going to send us to prison because that would glorify our struggle. He ordered instead that our properties be attached and auctioned off if we did not pay the fine. The LSK ended up paying the fine for all of us. In this court action, we were able to mobilize the robust support of the International Bar Association and the American Bar Association. Global solidarities work, particularly when you identify where to bring civil society foreign pressure to bear on a dictatorship. I believe, however, that two national factors helped us to stay out of prison: The Law Society Act 1949 gave us much needed legal protection (and continues to do so) and we were the foot soldiers/Young Turks of a great transformative popular political movement led by Jaramogi.

The last time I saw Jaramogi in person was in 1993. I had just been elected president of the LSK and Jaramogi was then the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. The Council of the LSK requested Jaramogi that we pay him a courtesy call as the Leader of the Opposition and he agreed. Jaramogi met us in his corporate offices at Spectre Limited and his first question was that I be identified so that he could appreciate me as president of the LSK; he made my day. Speaking to us, he spent almost the entire time analysing Moi’s astuteness in politics and what he called Moi’s “native cunning”. The lesson I learnt from Jaramogi in my last meeting with him was never to underestimate one’s political opponents. The strategy must be to find out where their political strengths lay, not their weaknesses. One needed to fight those strengths first.

Global solidarities work, particularly when you identify where to bring civil society foreign pressure to bear on a dictatorship.

Jaramogi died in January 1994. I did not attend his funeral in Bondo. However, I grieved like any of his political orphans. I cheered on Hon. Orengo as, with his usual brilliant oratory, he tore into the hypocrites present at the funeral who had shortened Jaramogi’s life through detentions, house arrests, intimidations, and abuses. (One abuse I remember was Moi’s celebration of Jaramogi’s misfortune as his eyesight dimmed with age. Jaramogi’s response was that it was true he had eyesight problems, but he knew that “some people” had throat cancer and they were up and about. He would be up and about too! Whether Moi had throat cancer then was not the issue, but Jaramogi’s rebuke of Moi warmed the hearts of his followers.)

There are women and men who reign and rule without occupying the apex of political power. Both Malcolm X and Dr Martin Luther King JR did not contest for political office, yet they reigned and ruled in America. Pope Francis has not held any elective political office but he reigns and rules. Desmond Tutu reigned and ruled in South Africa. Mahatma Gandhi reigned and ruled in India. Mekitilili wa Menza and other Kenyan heroines reigned and ruled in Kenya.

Jaramogi sought elective political office, served as member of LEGCO, became Kenya’s Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs after independence. From 1966 when he formed KPU, he became both the People’s President and the People’s Leader of the Opposition. He reigned and ruled in both positions for 28 years.

May the great spirit of Jaramogi continue to inspire us and the youth of Kenya.

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Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

A theologically informed course of action that sets cremation as an alternative way of disposing of the dead that is consistent with the existing traditions of the Christian faith and African customs.

Every time a prominent Kenyan Christian is cremated instead of being buried, a debate ensues among Kenyan Christians on the best way of disposing of their dead. However, the real contestation is about whether Christianity sanctions cremation.

The attitudes of Christians have not shifted to favour cremation, despite the reforms the churches have made to their funeral policies. For instance, the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) adopted changes to accept cremations as a way of disposing of the dead in 1999. But when the ACK’s second Archbishop, Manasses Kuria, cremated the body of his wife Mrs Mary Nyambura Kuria in 2002, astonished Christians disapproved of his action.

It is noteworthy that Anglicans followed the lead of the Roman Catholic Church which relaxed its position on cremation following Vatican II. Prior to Vatican II, however, the Catholic Church had always justified the cremation of her dead in extraordinary circumstances, argues John F. McDonald. The Catholic Church allowed cremation in emergency cases where the quick disposal of bodies was a civil necessity, thus justifying the disposing of corpses by cremation for the public good in wartime, or during a serious epidemic. 

To explore the debate, I have divided this paper in four parts. The first explains the historical development of burial as the Church’s core practice that Christians in Kenya have adopted. Further, it highlights various African customary norms on disposing of the dead. In the second part, the study mentions instances of cremation and explains why Christians are taking up the practice. The third part sets out a critical correlation of the findings with the normative traditions of Kenyan Christians. The fourth past applies the empirical data and theological discourse to offer a theory for action and, thus, revise the present praxis.

Burial remains the core method of disposing of the dead among Kenyan Christians, although more and more of them are adopting cremation as an alternative. Here we explore the historical development of burial in Christianity and the various African customary norms on disposing of the dead.

Upon death, people perform particular rituals on the body before disposing of the corpse, rituals that Vyonna Bondi identifies as the most “primitive sign of religious faith is the ritualized burial of the dead”. These rites shadow a people’s gained spiritual traditions, since they understand death as a transition to the afterlife. This is a common thread linking ancient civilizations with the modern, the belief in the afterlife, which forms a fundamental feature of religious faith. Disposal of the dead is, therefore, a fulcrum balancing the living and the afterlife.

Burial is not inherently Christian. The Church acquired the burial custom from Judaism and the pagan communities. Margaret R. Bunson dates the Egyptians’ burial rites around c 6000- c 3150 BCE in the Pre-Dynastic Period, long before Judaism and Christianity. The most popular Egyptian practice of disposing of the dead was mummification, which was practiced as early as 3500 BCE, a practice that preserved the corpse buried in the arid sand. In his writings, Joshua J. Mark refers to “Ginger”, the preserved body found in a tomb in Gebelein, Egypt, and dated to 3400 BCE. Egyptian tombs were graves dug into the earth, the eternal resting place of the body (Khat), which they protected from grave robbers and the elements. These tombs became important in Egyptian civilization, as they used mud brick to build more ornate graves, the rectangular mastabas. It was from the mastabas that they developed the “step pyramids” and later the “true pyramids”.

The Egyptian burial rites were dramatic. Egyptians hoped that in mourning them, their dead would find bliss in an eternal land beyond the grave. According to Herodotus,

As regards mourning and funerals, when a distinguished man dies, all the women of the household plaster their heads and faces with mud leaving the body indoors, perambulate the town with the dead man’s relatives, their dresses fastened with a girdle, and beat their bared breasts. The men, too, for their part, follow the same procedure, wearing a girdle and beating themselves like the women. The ceremony is over when they take the body to be mummified.

The physical body was of immense importance to the Egyptians, which Mark illustrates using the Opening of the Mouth Ceremony. This ceremony was conducted to reanimate the corpse for continued use by the soul. They performed it by placing the mummy in the tomb, where a priest recited spells and touched the mouth of the corpse, to eat and drink, and the arms and the legs to move about in the tomb. So, to release the corpse on its journey to the afterlife, the people invoked more spells and recited prayers, such as The Litany of Osiris. Proper burial rituals were therefore very important and strictly observed. Even if one had lived an exemplary life, one would not reach paradise if one’s burial did not adhere to all their funerary rites.

Other civilizations and religions of the ancient world gained this belief through cultural transmission through trade on the Silk Road. Evidence of burial rites and customs of the Church in the early centuries is scanty for there were no known distinct Christian burial forums during the first two Christian centuries. The early Christians observed local burial customs, which R.A. Peterson affirms; there were no Christian burial customs. According to L.M. White, only in the late second century did the first unique Christian concerns regarding burial emerge even though the burial of the Christian dead was clear. In Geoffrey Rowell’s view, the rites of burial in early Christianity were not controversial matters and so did not feature in apologetic or polemical works. Hence, references to them are only incidental, which explains the dearth of information detailing Christian burial practices. During the Church’s first three centuries, cemeteries exhibited Christian care of their dead. To this day, the secret burial places—not the public cemeteries but the Roman catacombs—bear witness to the practice of burying their dead.

Even if one had lived an exemplary life, one would not reach paradise if one’s burial did not adhere to all their funerary rites.

Initially, Christians and pagans buried their dead in the same cemeteries. After the fourth century, Christians distinguished their graves, marking them with decorative representations and inscriptions. Besides, the graves differed in burial motif as well. Christians did not remember their dead with sadness and resignation; their dead preceded them to the shepherd’s paradise, “to the place of refreshment, light and peace”.

The first Christians upheld the Jewish burial customs, which they modified to show both local practices and Christian hope. They not only adapted contemporary non-Christian funeral practices but modelled them to show monotheism. This, notes J.W. Childers, defined Christian belief in the resurrection of the dead. Of all their influence in the Roman Empire, Julian ranks the care for their dead in burial as top in converting the empire. Christians expressed the characteristics of their new faith—their belief in the body’s resurrection—through reverence for the body in their funeral rites, thus giving us a long-established liturgy of Christian burial rites, comprising the funeral mass followed by the absolution over the body, and later burial in a consecrated or blessed grave. Thomas G. Long described this practice thus:

They invited once more the community of faith, and in dramatic fashion, to recognize that Christian life is shaped in the pattern of Christ’s own life and death. We have been, as Paul says in Romans, baptized into Jesus’ death and baptized into Jesus’ life: do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom. 6:3–5)

Kenya’s Anglican Church shares other Christian denominations’ understanding of burial as a pious tradition among Christians, a practice which John F. MacDonald notes, “The church has always tried to encourage by supporting it with an appropriate ritual designated to highlight the symbolism and religious significance of burial.”

However, every occurrence of death confronts African Christians with the heightened tension between the Christian tenets and their African worldview of disposing corpses. They express this in the belief that the dead have power over the living. In most African societies, life and death exist together on a continuum as they understand the concept of death in tandem with life, with death as a rite of passage through which one becomes an “ancestor” and continues to live in the community. Prof. A.B.C. Ocholla-Ayayo claims that “death amongst the Luo is expressed as a ‘crisis of life’ and an element in the life cycle of the individual”.  Death and funeral rites amongst the Luo and the Luhya involve not only the bereaved immediate family but also include other relatives and the community at large. Thus, the exit at death only means entering the invisible world. Hence, proper death rites became a necessity as a guarantee of protection for the living.

The manner and location of the burial among the Luo is determined by the individual’s status in society, the nature of their death, their deeds, as well as the rituals performed to appease the ancestors. The arraying of the deceased’s body remains an important part of Luo custom. After observing burial rites, the body is buried in a rectangular grave about five feet or deeper. The Luo, like the Luhya and the Gusii, bury their dead within the deceased’s homestead. They also bury their dead infants (including the stillborn), although Luhya methods differ from those of the Luo in insignificant details. The differentiation in burial methods, asserts Ocholla-Ayayo, highlights the differing social distinctions amongst the members of the tribes, thus maintaining the societal order.

The rituals surrounding death amongst Africans are systematic. They keep ancestral links, guide succession and inheritance, and underscore the interdependence and the conjoint relations of living kin. The Luo observed these rites to prepare for the afterlife, which was part of the continuum that fulfils one’s social responsibilities. It evinced the intricate relationship between the dead and the living in Luo nomenclature, which incorporates the name of the spirits (nying juogi). For the Luhya on the other hand, funerals were intrinsically a custom aimed at pleasing the ancestral spirits, a notion that is strengthened by the observance of Lisaabo, the remembrance of dead ancestors. Hence, the ritualistic slaughter of animals and the serving of food and drinks to mourners during funerals.

Every occurrence of death confronts African Christians with the heightened tension between the Christian tenets and their African worldview of disposing corpses.

Nomadic communities, such as the Maasai, did not allow the sick or aged to die in the home. Instead, they took them into the forest, to a hillside, or abandoned them by a river. Once dead, they buried them under a tree in the sitting position with the deceased’s chin resting on their knees. The body was then covered with stones. However, these burial sites were not sturdy, allowing hyenas to sniff out the corpse and pull it from its tomb in a practice known as exposure of the corpse.

The Kikuyu, like the Maasai, practiced exposure, discarding their dead to the wild animals. In his biography, Francis Hall claimed to have buried victims of disease himself, since under Kikuyu customary law, corpses ought not to be touched. The Meru, like the Kikuyu, abhor contamination through contact with a corpse. Hence, those who disposed of corpses as well as the family members underwent ritual cleansing by shaving.

But not every Kikuyu threw their deceased to the hyenas; the rich were buried. According to Johnson N. Mbugua, a kĩbĩrĩra was the burial ground where the Kikuyu took their dead. Before burial, they performed rituals which involved a careful wrapping of the body in a sleeping position, with the kĩbĩrĩra facing the homestead. These were elaborate rites, costing sheep and goats beyond the means of many. Kikuyu funeral rites culminated in a full Gũkũra ceremony, which showed the deceased person’s spirit achieving ancestral status.

But not every Kikuyu threw their deceased to the hyenas; the rich were buried.

Today, with the prevalence of Christianity, burial ceremonies even amongst African Christians often involve prayers in a church and at the dead person’s home, alongside traditional rituals.

The reasons for the growing practice of cremation in Kenya vary. I identify them as individual preference, cultural changes, environmental reasons, and relaxation of religious opposition.

The main reason for cremation in Kenya is honouring the wishes of the departed. For example, in 2002, Archbishop Kuria honoured his wife’s wish to be cremated. According to Maurice Murimi, Kuria’s son-in-law, “It was not the family’s decision but the express choice of our mother.” Archbishop Kuria died three years later, in 2005, leaving a similar will to be cremated. ACK Primate David Gitari did not interfere with his predecessor’s wish. Justifying his stand, Gitari pointed out that the ACK has always respected the family’s decision on interment. Roman Catholics take a similar position, giving the right to choose the church where the funeral rites are to be observed and the choice of the cemetery where the burial will take place to the individual, unless the church forbids it.

Apart from Islam, which forbids cremation, more religions have taken into consideration cremation as a way of disposing of the dead. Although Christian denominations prefer burial, with the exception of the Greek Orthodox Church, all allow cremation. The Kenyan Church is part of other global Christian denominations and has shared these beliefs with them. Anglicans/Episcopalians, Baptists, Lutherans, and Methodists, favour cremation before or after the funeral rite. Presbyterians do not support cremation, but nor do they forbid it.

The ACK proposed changes in her funeral policies accommodating cremation at the 1999 Provincial Synod. Its adopted resolutions stated:

The African culture has not yet accommodated itself to the practice of cremation. But if a Christian in his or her will wishes his body to be cremated, the church will accept that wish.

The Roman Catholic Church prefers cremation to take place after the funeral mass, and demands that the cremains be buried in the ground or at sea or entombed in a columbarium. It forbids the scattering or the keeping of the ashes by the family. Although the Roman Catholic Church pronounced itself on cremation earlier, it was slower in actioning the decision. During Vatican II, the Catholic Church reformed its funeral and burial rites, adopting a more relaxed approach, allowing cremation with one very explicit proviso. The Catholic Church codified this modification in the latest Code of Canon Law:

The Church earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burial be retained; but it does not forbid cremation, unless they chose this for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching.

But only recently did the Roman Catholic Church issue instructions on cremation; on 25 October 2016, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith addressed the objectionable ideas and practices of cremation.

Christian theologians advocate for cremation as an alternative way of disposing of the dead. Concluding his research on Kikuyu burial traditions, Mbugua urges Christians from the Kikuyu community to embrace cremation as a way of disposing of the dead, as this will reduce funeral costs. Cremation for an adult costs KSh50,000 at the Lang’ata crematorium in Nairobi. Kariokor is much cheaper, where the cost ranges between KSh13,000 for adults and KSh6,000 for children. Further, Mbugua cites lack of adequate space to bury the dead, as a reason for cremation. Cremation should be a workable choice for the people of Nairobi according to Hitan Majevdia of the Nairobi County Health ministry, who also cites scarcity of space, and shortage of cemeteries within Nairobi.

Africans are living under the constant pressure of globalization. It is a tension between adopting the modern and jettisoning their traditional practices.

When Maria Louise Okondo, the European spouse of the former minister for labour, Hon. Peter Okondo, had him cremated in 1996, the family accused her of introducing Okondo to foreign customs. She went against Okondo’s extended family’s wish to bury him according to the Luhya-Abanyala customs. Among the Luhya, one’s burial positioning contracts or extends, which has to do with the “mythology or origin of the clan”. Moreover, the kin wished to rid themselves of bukhutsakhali (the breath of the dead), an Abaluhya funerary rite where the bereaved family members shave. Mrs Okondo refused to accede to the family’s wishes, arguing that her husband was no longer bound by Abaluhya customs.

Ruth Okuthe, wife of former Kenyan sports administrator Joshua Okuthe, cremated him in 2009 in accordance with Joshua’s will. His extended family went to court in a bid to stop the cremation but Ruth Okuthe outwitted them. His family buried his empty coffin in a mock funeral ceremony at his Muhoroni home. This was in line with the Luo burial tradition where an empty cenotaph represents the deceased whose body is buried in another location. In the case of a death by drowning or where a body has not been recovered, the Luo bury the yago fruit in the cenotaph or by the lakeshore.

The family of Kibera Member of Parliament Hon. Kenneth Okoth had to honour his wish to be cremated. The individual choice has a chiasma. While African customs often trumped individualism in preference to societal customs, they nevertheless held the will of a dying individual as sacrosanct. The Luo espoused belief in the afterlife, which was integral to the belief that a person’s social status in life and an individual’s last words at death in effect determine his or her relationship with those left behind. They believed the elderly had the power to bless or to curse, and hence their last spoken words could either bless or curse. Thus, the last words spoken at a funeral are binding to the relatives. This was prevalent among the societies that revered the dead. 

The communities that previously practiced exposure adopted burial with the coming of Europeans to Kenya; they are bound to change again. Hon. Kenneth Matiba, founder of Ford Asili Party, a leading politician and an opinion leader among the Kikuyu people and Kenyans in general, chose cremation over burial. Matiba is reported to have said in 1994 that he did not want a state funeral or “dancing parties and harambees” upon his death. Another prominent Kikuyu who chose the crematorium over the grave is professional golfer Peter Njiru, who was cremated at Kariokor in 2015.

Land scarcity and hygiene and environmental concerns have also contributed to the increased acceptance of cremation as a method of disposing of the dead. Cremation makes better use of land. To reinforce cremation as a Christian practice, William E. Phipps posits: “As land becomes scarcer, cremation is more widely endorsed.” Environmentalists argue that ecologically, cremation is more environmentally responsible. This was the position of Prof. Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who died and was cremated in 2011 and her ashes buried at the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies.

The awareness of the benefits accruing from popular Eastern practices has caused them to become accepted worldwide. According to the Cremation Association of North America, the cremation rate within the United States was 48.6 per cent of deaths in 2015, up from 47 per cent in 2014. The association predicted that the rate would reach 54.3 per cent by 2020. The projected rate in Canada was 68.8 per cent in 2015 and 74.2 per cent by 2020. In 2015, 65 per cent of Americans, two-thirds of the people, chose cremation.

Here we shall explore the critical correlation of the findings on cremation with the normative traditions and interpret the discourse on the disposal of the dead to show its salient aspects and discuss whether cremation is un-Christian and un-African.

CITAM Bishop Dr David Oginde, the most articulate critic of cremation in Kenya, claimed that “Traditional Christian faith considers cremation as inconsistent with orthodox doctrine”. He echoes conservative theologians such as Rodney Decker who took an “active discouragement” position, considering cremation a sin if done as an act of defiance against God.

Opponents of cremation base their argument on the Scriptures which they say are full of examples of burials, although there exists no explicit text commanding Christians to bury their dead. Oginde argues that “one reads nowhere of a godly person cremating the body of one he or she loved [. . .] one does read repeatedly of burying human bodies and Scripture teaches that the burial of the body is an act of faith.” Cremation, according to Oginde, was not acceptable among the Hebrews, except as a punishment as recorded in Leviticus 20:14. The scriptures record the dead bodies of the unfaithful people, such as Achan and his family whom Joshua burned (Joshua 7:25). However, this was the exception rather than the rule (Deuteronomy 21:22, 23).

The communities that previously practiced exposure adopted burial with the coming of Europeans to Kenya; they are bound to change again.

Had Oginde attended to the account of charring Saul’s remains, he might have reached a different conclusion. To salvage the honour of King Saul and of his three sons against the defilement of their corpses by Philistines, the men of Jabesh-Gilead burned and buried their remains (I Sam. 31:8–13). Phipps notes the Bible’s approval of their action where David commended the men of Jabesh-Gilead for the honour they gave to Saul with their action (2 Sam. 2:4–6).

It is difficult to rule out cremation from the Scriptures. Biblical narratives lack uniformity and so gives a conflicting position on cremation. Decker observed that much of the Biblical material is descriptive narrative and not prescriptive. Hence, the Bible never commands, encourages, or condones cremation and it is possible to draw multiple principles from a variety of situations. Despite this, Decker insists inhumation is the most compatible with Christian theology and the most effective in terms of Christian witness in the West. (This essay has not attempted to discuss the question of Christian practice in Eastern cultures or in countries where cremation may be mandated. I have insufficient knowledge of such matters to attempt such a discussion.) However, Decker concedes, “I would not go so far as to declare flatly that cremation is sin. Sometimes it may be acceptable without embarrassment.”

It will be difficult to associate cremation with the new age movement—as Oginde claims—that ushered in cults and philosophies, bringing in a human revolt against God. This claim comports with MacDonald’s assertion that those opposing burial hate Christian customs, ecclesiastical traditions, and have sectarian interest.

The Church refutes regeneration or reincarnation as a denial of individual uniqueness and the resurrection of the body. She affirms that human beings are both physical and spiritual, both of which apply to salvation, and thus challenges the notion of Gnosticism in the first century that viewed the body as evil (Col 2:9). God’s salvation and redemption include both the soul and the body (1 Cor. 7:34; 2 Cor. 4:16; 7:1; Rom. 8:10), which will occur at the resurrection (Rom. 8:23). The human is complete when he/she is both material and immaterial, making the future resurrection imperative.

Opponents of cremation base their argument on the Scriptures which they say are full of examples of burials, although there exists no explicit text commanding Christians to bury their dead.

The separation of soul and body at death implies that man is incomplete until reunited at the resurrection, which is understood as clothing of a naked soul (corpse). However, theologians differ on the state of the corpse. M. Harris holds a monistic anthropology, which expects an immediate resurrection at death. But Decker argues, at “death, the corpse in the grave is referred to as a person. The dead body of Jesus is referred to as ‘him’ not ‘it’” (Mark 15:44-47, see John 11:43). This position that a person—body and soul—is eternal, for which Jesus promised everlasting life, needs scrutiny.

The living believers at Christ’s second coming will get new bodies, while the dead bodies, since buried, will decompose (Eccles. 12:7). The present human bodies count for little for salvation, for God has designated new bodies for believers (1 Cor. 15:42-49; 1 Thess. 4:13-18; Job 19:25-26). At death, the human body rots, just like seed being cast into the earth, dies and rots (1 Cor. 15:36). Given that the body is chemicals, it disintegrates at death as David Wasawo explains in his unpublished memoir We Understand but Darkly:

Are we not mostly made of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen, sixty percent of which are in the form of water? Are we not reminded that a man weighing 150 pounds contains 97.5 pounds of oxygen, 27 pounds of carbon, 15 of hydrogen, 4.5 of nitrogen, 3 of calcium and 1.5 pounds of phosphorus? Added to these are a few ounces each of potassium, sulphur, sodium, chlorine, magnesium, and iron; and traces of iodine, fluorine, and silicon.

Wasawo notes how these elements are combined “to form thousands of very complicated compounds forming parts of cells, tissues, and organs, each performing its allotted function in the sentient being”. But once life is taken out of the body, all these elements revert to the “soil” and to “dust” whence they came—to Mother Nature.

The dignity of the human body is a focus of the Church’s attention from birth to death. Unlike other creatures, God made man in His image, hence the respect for the human body. Although Anglican Bishop Peter Njenga defended Mrs Mary Kuria’s cremation, speaking at a thanksgiving service, he voiced a Christian’s objection thus: “I think the big problem with cremation is that people believe cremation subjects the body to torture”. Pope Pius XII affirmed this position while addressing those engaged in the treatment of the blind on 14 May 1956:

The human corpse has been a dwelling place of a spiritual and immortal soul, an essential part of the human person in whose dignity it had a share. Since it is a component part of man and formed in “the image and likenesses of God.”

Through burial, Christians showed reverence for the body in view of the future resurrection. As Normal Geisler argues, “Burial preserves the Christian belief in the body’s sanctity,” and the Church developed meticulous funeral rites where some churches use incense and holy water with prayers that the Lord receives this person into paradise. Burial became synonymous with the dignity of the individual’s body, as Oginde asserts, “For a corpse to be burnt by fire or left unburied to become food for beasts of prey, was the height of indignity or judgment.” However, Brigham refutes that proper burial was essential for an individual’s bliss in the afterlife; sometimes undignified disposal of the body provided lasting witness. As St. Augustine observed in The City of God:

And so there are indeed many bodies of Christians lying unburied; but no one has separated them from heaven, nor from that earth which is all filled with the presence of Him who knows whence He will raise again what He created… Wherefore all these last offices and ceremonies that concern the dead, the careful funeral arrangements, and the equipment of the tomb, and the pomp of obsequies, are rather the solace of the living than the comfort of the dead.

Christians regard the human body as a temple of the Holy Spirit but this role ceases at death. The body is valuable while one is alive. Decker concedes that the Holy Spirit does not dwell in our bodies after death but makes limping claim of the body being still united to Christ, “. . . if the body is a member of Christ due, in part to the resurrection.” A person’s existence does not end at death, as materialists believe. For, as White notes, a connection and continuity between the human soul and body exists; otherwise a future resurrection would be unnecessary.

Phipps contends, “The allegedly preserved body is a Promethean rejection of Isaiah’s judgment that ‘all flesh is grass’ and Paul’s claim that ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God’. Since death neither destroys the person nor reduces his or her uniqueness and individuality, cremation doesn’t constitute an objective denial of these dogmas.” MacArthur states, “So cremation isn’t a strange or wrong practice—it merely accelerates the natural process of oxidation.” Christians should accept cremation when it meets the demands of due respect and dignity for the body, and the ashes are treated with the same dignity. Further, Phipps suggests, “a memorial worship service after cremation sets the transitoriness of the physical in bold relief against the everlastingness of the spiritual. The ‘consuming fire’ has transformed but not destroyed the essential self of the person honored at the service.”

Burial was not inherently Christian; since Christians adopted and developed this tradition from pagan and Jewish practices, under different circumstances, they could have adopted cremation.

Given that Jesus himself was buried and raised bodily from the dead, a Christian’s burial was to be witness to the resurrection yet to come. Christians assume that burials confer the symbolism of resurrection, which gives them a deeper religious significance. Indeed, MacDonald argues for laying the body to rest in the grave to await the call to general judgment on the last day rather than submitting the human corpse to extermination by fire.

Accepting this view implies that resurrection is physical, a position Phipps disputes, stating:

Paul did not believe that the residual dust in a tomb would be the substance of a new heavenly organism. When the apostle writes about ‘the resurrection of the dead,’ he does not mean the reassembling and the reanimation of the corpse. The expression ‘spiritual body’ (1 Cor. 15:44) which he uses does not refer to the physical skeleton and the flesh that hangs on it. Rather, in modern terminology, it means the self or the personality. Paul’s view is compatible with body disposal by cremation. Contrariwise, those who adamantly advocate earth burial because it enhances resurrection have a weak New Testament foundation on which to stand.

What happens to the body after death is immaterial. The cremation of the body has no effect on the soul and nor does it hinder God’s power from raising a body to life again. Thus, the dead will change like the dead seed which is quickened and raised in stalk, blade, and ear. The dissolution and corruption of the body by death is not a hindrance to its resurrection. If God can quicken a rotten seed, turning it productive, why should we consider it incredible that God should quicken dead bodies?

So, it does not matter to God whether a person’s body was buried, cremated, lost at sea, or eaten by wild animals (Revelation 20:13). The Almighty can re-create a new body for the person (1 Cor. 15:35, 38). For cremation does not affect the soul, nor does it prevent God from raising up the deceased body to new life (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith).

While some Christians accept cremation as a choice today, many more consider this practice too radical and foreign.

Communities such as the Meru, Kikuyu, Kamba, and Kalenjin, which practiced exposure of corpses, learnt to bury; they should find cremation better than customary practices. Justifying his choice of cremation, Matiba argued, “After all, the Kikuyu traditionally never buried their dead. They used to take the bodies into the forest to be devoured by hyenas. Was that not wisdom?”

Until now, Africans have held that the dead affect the living but westernization among Kenyans is eroding the belief that the spirits of the dead have an influence on the living, that they would be haunted were they to dispose of their dead differently, that the deceased may become a malevolent spirit. Upon one’s death, an “exact” burial bounded by abundant religious formalities allows them to become an ancestor. Hence, the weight given to “proper” death rites, which ‘guarantee protection’ for the living, more than they secure a safe transition for the dead.

Burial was not inherently Christian; since Christians adopted and developed this tradition from pagan and Jewish practices, under different circumstances, they could have adopted cremation.

Yet, here is a paradox: while the Luo rejected cremation because they held the belief that the dead influenced the living, and adhered strictly to their customary funeral rites to stop the dead from tormenting the living, Dr Ocholla-Ayayo explains that under exceptional circumstances the Luo permitted incineration; they exhumed and burned the remains of a departed one believed to be haunting their kin. This recognition of the impotent dead among Luo Christians has blunted the fear of ancestral wrath, and removed the traditional obstacle to cremation.

In the construction stage, the paper applies the empirical data and theological discourse to offer a theory for action and, thus, revises the present praxis. The theory is aware of the presuppositions of cremation.

As the Church expands, she confronts diverse human conditions, encounters new cultures not within the experience of the biblical traditions from which Christians can draw answers. Where we have no concrete biblical injunctions to guide us on how to dispose of our dead, its broad narratives should help us to frame firm conclusions, which ought to be theological considerations, cognizant of our various cultural issues.

The first significant decision by the Council in Jerusalem, recorded in Acts 15, which declared that the new gentile Christians did not have to enter Jewish religious culture, opened Christianity to the adoption of the cultures it had entered. The lack of a Christian culture in the way we have an Islamic culture, points to the cultural diversity and flexibility built into the Christian faith from the beginning; Christians didn’t have to receive circumcision or keep the Jewish law, bringing to an end a tribal mode of faith. This stand opened Christianity to other things.

Christianity lacks a specific Christian lifestyle. So, Christians are to work out, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a way of being Christians in their context. Since disposing of the dead is a cultural construct, not a doctrinal edict, like in Islam, the decision to bury or cremate ought to be theological. Long before the Vatican II changes, McDonald observed, the Church allowed Japanese Catholics to be cremated. Cremation as an age-old national custom was compulsory in Japan. However, the bishops in Japan negotiated and were allowed to bury priests and members of religious orders and congregations.

The foregoing theological argument and the critical correlation of the findings on cremation with the normative traditions established above, provide the basis on which Christians today can explore cremation instead of burial. Although both the Anglicans and Roman Catholics settled the theological questions, they never went beyond their pronouncement. The ACK, for instance, did not develop cremation protocols or liturgies despite having undertaken funeral reforms. Beyond the resolution, they have put little effort into preparing Christians for cremation. Moreover, general Christian cremation infrastructure remains undeveloped.

“After all, the Kikuyu traditionally never buried their dead. They used to take the bodies into the forest to be devoured by hyenas. Was that not wisdom?”

The Church should set cremation protocols in tandem with Christian dogma. Through the Holy Office’s instruction, the Roman Catholic Church maintains that those who choose cremation must not deny the dogmas, such as the immortality of the human soul and the bodily resurrection of the dead. Therefore, cremation undertaken in adherence to Christian dogma would enhance, not mute, the expression of Christian faith.

Where Christians choose cremation over burial, their wish ought to be clarified to avoid conflict upon death. George Omwansa, a council member of the Lawyer Society of Kenya who has handled several cremation disputes, observed that in such cases not the entire family was aware of the cremation wishes of the departed, leading some relatives to oppose cremation in favour of burial, thus causing trouble.

The Church should provide families and individuals opting for cremation with guidelines to help them in their decisions, and to ensure that they bury the cremains in a dignified manner. A Christian cremated in the recommended manner may choose, for example, to be buried with his ancestors or at a cemetery or any other sacred place (e.g., a church, a columbarium, or a mausoleum). And while the memorial service should remain unchanged, there is a need to create a liturgy and order of service to assist the clergy when dealing with a cremation service and committal of the cremains.

Since disposing of the dead is a cultural construct, not a doctrinal edict, like in Islam, the decision to bury or cremate ought to be theological.

There is also a need to develop public and Christian crematoriums. The largest crematorium in Kenya is the Hindu crematorium in Kariokor, where most cremations occur. In effect, since Hindus run most crematoriums in the country, it is easy to associate cremation with Hinduism or modern-day agnostics.

I do not here propose a biblical response to cremation, but a presentation of the Christian core beliefs to clarify the faith challenge that disposing of the dead presents. I have established a theologically informed course of action that sets cremation as an alternative way of disposing of the dead, consistent with the existing traditions of the Christian faith and African customs. Besides discussing the occurrence of cremations in Kenya, I have discerned why people are choosing cremation over burial as an interpretive element of practical theology. In its discourse, the study has exposed the salient aspects surrounding cremation, establishing that it does not offend Christian dogma, and nor does it assault African customs.

In offering a plan of action to revise the present praxis, this study has proposed a way forward for Kenyan Christians, having established that cremation offers Christians a valid and acceptable alternative to traditional burial.

Through a “tour” of sessions of the April 2022 African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) conference, Kathryn Toure tries to show that decolonization, more than jargon or a mere buzzword, is a process in progress.

One is never intelligent alone. – Senufo proverb

The 4th African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) biennial conference was all about being human and (re)imagining the human from Africa. About 600 people participated, in person in Cape Town and/or virtually. The theme of decolonization was discussed in many of the 160 sessions over five days in April 2022. This article explores some of the themes that emerged in the presentations and discussions regarding decolonization, which some called merely a buzzword.

Is decolonization more than a buzzword? And if so, is it even possible to achieve decolonization? To begin the reflection, how is the concept defined? Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed, drawing on other scholars, writes that “Decolonization is rooted in dismantling colonial and imperialist systems that are built into the social, economic, political, cultural, and religious realities of colonized peoples” and “requires tremendous work and effort in addressing these injustices.” People and organizations in communities around the world are trying to understand colonial hierarchies and legacies and how to dismantle them and refashion ways of relating and organizing in society that account for mutual respect and reciprocity for one and all. However, if decolonisation is more than just talk, is it sufficient as a concept and a strategy to attain that end? Another question to keep in mind.

This article is organized in nine sections: Doing Africa; Speaking out through kangas, writing and publishing; Values, history, language, education, and culture matter; Epistemic journeys; Umoja; Exercising real power in parliament; Leveraging digital spaces; Hope for Africa as a forever incomplete project; Positionality. The non-comprehensive nature of this “coverage” of the decolonization debate at the ASAA conference makes this reflection incomplete and open to dialogue. The intergenerational conversations and queries and affirmations of Global Africa’s next generation at ASAA2022 suggest that the project of Africa, building on ancestral foundations in a spirit of conviviality and incompleteness, is very much on the move.

In a conference session exploring inclusion and exclusion, Martha Mbuvi of Tangaza University College described marrying into the Akamba community in Kenya – which made her, according to her husband’s community, a “Muki”. The term means “one who has come” and brings fresh blood and new ideas, and it can also connote stranger or outsider. The way it is used in practice can leave women with a diasporic feeling – part of the community yet not entirely.

Mbuvi mentioned how she is inspired by the work of Ghanaian scholar Mercy Amba Ewudziwa Oduyoye (born in 1934, now in her 80s) who worked “for women’s voices and concerns” to be heard. Martha goes on to declare how her own research on the term Muki among the Akamba will help bridge gaps and bring attention to ignored or uninterrogated issues, including relationships between language and power.

Such participatory research, conducted in a spirit of sisterhood and solidarity and focused on African culture is part of the decolonization process, even though Mbuvi did not describe her work as “decolonial”. As African American artist Bisa Butler, who makes life-size quilt portraits celebrating Black life, says in an interview, Black history and culture – which are a part of world history and culture – have been “concealed, deliberately erased or ignored”. The work of Martha Mbuvi and other young researchers trying to understand the nuances and complexities of everyday lived experiences and interactions in Africa will certainly shed light on African his/herstory and culture in context.

Africa has for centuries been described and characterized from outside the continent, let us say, through “fuzzy lenses”, and from within the continent by Africans who often feel compelled to use those external lenses or simply take them for granted. If we look through fuzzy lenses, won’t vision be blurred? Even with fuzzy lenses, the more the angles and perspectives, the greater the possibility of representation of silent and silenced voices. It is paramount to multiply initiatives to tell the story of Africa by listening to everyday Africans. “Ces vieux sages m’apprennent ce que n’ont pu m’apporter les docteurs en Sorbonne […] faire la science relève de la vie ordinaire.” (Those elders taught me what I could not learn from doctors of the Sorbonne […] doing science is part of everyday life). What is being done to support the Martha Mbuvis across the continent?

“Who are you that mumbles in the dark?” asked Langston Hughes in a poem. In the poem, he turns from mainstream musings about life in America to centre previously parenthesized voices, voices from the margins of society, subdued voices of oppressed and colonized peoples. Mbuvi as a researcher and knowledge producer is listening to the stories, perspectives, and experiences of those who may be mumbling in the dark. Mbuvi is “doing Africa” from an Afrocentric point of view. This is part of decoloniality. She is sensitive to power dynamics, to who is included and who is not, and is seeking more wholistic and nuanced representations of relations and people in society.

Africa has for centuries been described and characterized from outside the continent, let us say, through “fuzzy lenses”.

At the ASAA conference, South African researcher Sabelo Mcinziba stressed that “We need to do us, see us, hear us.” In an April 23 2022 Facebook post describing some of his historical research with elders in townships, Mcinziba insists that we must tell stories “that must be told because their memories will be erased while we prioritize elite history as official history.” My guess is that Martha Mbuvi does not spend most of her time thinking about whether decolonization is a buzzword or not but is getting on with her work of “doing Africa”, of telling stories that do not get told and making voices heard that otherwise get ignored. And she will be obliged to develop new tools and concepts along the way, which will contribute meaningfully to African and global knowledge production – and make us more humxn. Is that part of decolonization? I would venture to say yes.

Pfungwa Nyamukachi spoke at the conference about how The Conversation Africa helps academics translate research findings for the public. Others discussed how women speak and are heard through songs they compose and share at the local level and through messages emblazoned on the kangas that they wear – including in efforts to resist colonization and patriarchal systems.

Esther Karin Mngodo shared about how she is disrupting patterns of knowledge production by creating a platform for women to publish in Swahili: Umbu Online Women’s Literary Magazine. Esther explained how she did not get to read in Swahili about topics of interest growing up, nor later in life, and is working to change that. She asked, “Why can’t I read about breasts or postpartum depression in Swahili?” Swahili is one of the ten most spoken languages – with 16 million speakers worldwide – and was adopted this year as an official working language of the African Union. Mngodo’s work will have decolonizing and healing effects, although she did not use those terms, because she is making space for the sharing of reflections related to concerns close to her heart and to those of others, and in a language that can express the nuances of the lived experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Her work of enlarging the frame of “who knows” and of “what is considered as knowledge” comes with challenges. People ask: “Why dwell so much on women’s perspectives? Why are you so angry? Why are you so angsty? You are too educated for a woman.”

But Mngodo persists. She sees her disruptor role as important and does not mind when heads turn. She said, “Writing on kangas is not enough for me. Our literature and our libraries also need to reflect what is going on in our society at large.” She asks why anyone familiar with the Tanzanian literary scene knows about Shaaban Robert (1909-1972) but may not have heard of Penina Muhanda (born in 1948, now in her 70s) who wrote her plays in Swahili. Indeed, it can be a struggle for women to write and be published and recognized, perhaps especially if they write in an African language – which Muhanda wanted to do to reach her people. So much can be lost in cultural translation to colonial languages. Future generations will hopefully be grateful to the efforts of Esther Karin Mngodo who, in the tradition of Penina Muhanda, is helping to ensure that people will be able to read about everyday life experiences in Swahili. Esther and Penina contribute to shifts in the ebbs and flows of knowledge.

Esther is full of action and agency. This contrasts with a literary character, Jonas, whose obscurity was essential to his survival. Jonas, a character in the second novel of Dinaw Mengestu, is the son of parents who emigrated to the USA from Ethiopia. Caught between cultures and unsure of himself, he is ostracized by classmates and neighbours. Ultimately, Jonas opts out of a marginal existence – of being forced into colonial frames and ignorance of his humanity. This, according to Grace Musila, Associate Professor of African Literature at the University of Witwatersrand.

When I saw in a meme on social media with the text, “Although I was born visible, I now identify as invisible. I am trans-parent. My pronouns are who/where,” and the progression of images of someone disappearing, I somehow thought of the pain and trauma of Jonas, who is not alone in the experience of feeling erased or of being in a zone of non-being. I also think of the partners of miners in Marikana, described by Asanda Benya, and their struggles for dignity.

Like Esther, Sandra Tamele, Executive Director of independent press Editora Trinta Zero Nove in Mozambique, is another inspiring example of making the world accessible to her compatriots, through the written word and audio books. A trained architect-turned-professional translator and interpreter, she began translating novels and stories into Portuguese and supporting others to do the same. She subsequently founded Editora Trinta Zero Nove to provide a publication outlet for those works. Then, because only 11 per cent of the 31 million people in Mozambique speak Portuguese, she realized the works needed to be translated into four of the major languages of the country and, because only 50 per cent of the population read and write, to be turned into audiobooks as well. Her dream is to enrich education through access to literature in a country where bookstores can be rare, and many people do not know how to use the digital plazas available in the country. Tamele explains how both her grandmothers were child brides and did not have the opportunity to go to school and recognizes her privilege, being among the 1 per cent of Mozambicans with access to tertiary education. She believes she is planting seeds for the future, one book, one story, and one reader at a time. The press Tamele founded translates and publishes mostly female writers and writers living with disabilities.

“Although I was born visible, I now identify as invisible. I am trans-parent. My pronouns are who/where.”

Pfungwa Nyamukachi, Esther Karin Mngodo, Grace Musila, and Sandra Tamele are each filling a gap in valuing African history, culture, people, and knowledge production. This is long overdue, considering the vast inequalities in the global knowledge economy, where African voices are sorely underrepresented and often mispresented. These women are part of the process of decolonizing minds and cultures. With colleagues at The Conversation Africa, Nyamukachi is making the work of African researchers available to people with access to the Internet. Mngodo is disrupting the status quo and making heads turns with new and exciting writings in Swahili by women writers. Musila is deepening understandings of literary productions related to eastern and southern Africa. Tamele is strategically and creatively challenging the lack of access to literary productions by fellow Mozambicans. They are not just writing in Big English to advance their careers. Each of these formidable women is speaking out, proactively taking decolonizing action, uplifting African voices and perspectives, and planting seeds for the future. I find their work buzzworthy. A buzzword in this sense should be lauded, not discouraged.

In the ASAA session on “Remembering Humans”, Christopher Ouma, Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town, evoked the critical and creative work of Dr Harry Garuba of the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town, who died in February 2020. Throughout his career, he “tirelessly laboured against the erasure of worlds, people, ways of thinking and being – and offered critical tools with which to knowledge differently.”

“I miss the language that once lived in my body,” wrote Harry Garuba in his poem “Leaving Home at 10,” which Christopher read at the conference. How many other people remember or know about someone leaving behind family and a whole linguistic and cultural world to go to school – to learn to perceive the world through the prism of colonial language, culture and thinking?

Lawino, in a poem by Okot P’Bitek, observing the newly acquired values and attitudes of her schooled husband Ocol, speaks to him in the following way:

Husband, now you despise me Now you treat me with spite And say I have inherited the stupidity of my aunt; Son of the Chief, Now you compare me With the rubbish in the rubbish pit, You say you no longer want me Because I am like the things left behind In the deserted homestead. You laugh at me You say I do not know the letter A Because I have not been to school And I have not been baptized

Take care, Take care of your tongue, Be careful what your lips say.

Francis Nyamnjoh shows “how the values acquired during the colonial era that teach the superiority of the colonizer set the tone for the imbibing of knowledge and continue to dominate education and life in postcolonial Africa.” Thus, the decolonial project includes the need to unpack education, learn and relearn history, bring a critical perspective to what is valued and not valued, and revalue what has been devalued. Acclaimed Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo (born in 1942, recently turned 80), as Secretary for Education, called for children to learn to read and write their mother tongue and one other Ghanaian language, but this proposal did not see the light of day at the time; today she encourages writers to not hesitate to write in African languages.

Each of these formidable women is speaking out, proactively taking decolonizing action, uplifting African voices and perspectives, and planting seeds for the future.

At the ASAA conference, Wesley Maraire described Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms, which, contrary to courts of law, are not adversarial in nature and draw on African traditions and values. Anthony Diala called for the (re)education of a whole new generation of teachers, aware of their past. Lauren Paremoer explained the value of solidarity as described in the Banjul Charter. The producers of the film “When Women Speak”, which was screened at the conference, demonstrate a true spirit of sisterhood. Thaddeus Metz elaborated how the African philosophy of ubuntu acknowledges interdependencies among people and self-fulfilment through social ideals.

ASAA President, Akosua Adomako Ampofo, in her presidential lecture, called for empathy, kindness, humaneness, and love. She challenged conference participants to “Dare to be kind.” Mamokgethi Phakeng, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, and Rama Salla Dieng, Lecturer at the University of Edinburg, called for a culture of care and for justice. Many youthful voices called for being seen, heard, counted and considered, and for African values, history, language, ways of knowing, and culture to be part and parcel of the project of Africa. They are not talking about something that is just fashionable or trendy. They are calling for what can make for a better humanity.

In stripping away vestiges of colonialism, understanding of and attention to values, history, language, education, and culture is important but insufficient. The epistemological underpinnings of knowledge production need to be interrogated. Whose knowledge counts? Who is considered to know? What knowledge is valued and promoted? How is knowledge produced? With what assumptions and from what vantage points? From what philosophical perspectives? And for what purposes? According to Harry Garuba, decolonization and decoloniality, which may seem trendy and confusing, simply mean “putting the needs and interests of the epistemologically disenfranchised at the forefront of knowledge production.”

African children, for example, have been epistemologically disenfranchised. Oduor Obura argues that for many years the realities of childhood in Africa have been constructed through a western colonial lens, with a focus on want, need, and lack. His book, Decolonising Childhoods in Eastern Africa, challenges such domineering mono-directional narratives and “universalising experiences and notions of childhood” which silence “the pluralities of experiences and knowledges” present in eastern Africa. Through multidisciplinary work, the Congolese concept of Bula Matadi (the use of force in breaking of obstacle rocks), engagement with children and those around them, and studies of the presentation of children in literary works, he presents pluralistic counter-narratives about child agency, negotiation, resilience and creativity in eastern Africa.

The devalorization of Africanness and African ways of being, the “attempted epistemicide” of African ways of knowing, and centuries of “concessions to the outside” require critical perspectives and methodical and intentional epistemic work for true transformation. Francis Nyamnjoh argues that:

In Africa, the colonial conquest of Africans – body, mind and soul – has led to real or attempted epistemicide – the decimation or near complete killing and replacement of endogenous epistemologies with the epistemological paradigm of the conqueror. The result has been education through schools and other formal institutions of learning in Africa largely as a process of making infinite concessions to the outside – mainly the western world. Such education has tended to emphasize mimicry over creativity, and the idea that little worth learning about, even by Africans, can come from Africa.

Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai was aware of these epistemological challenges. At the ASAA conference session on “Remembering Humans”, Besi Brillian Muhonja argues that Wangari Maathai is celebrated mainly as an environmental activist, which ignores or erases her contributions as a scholar and African knower, thinker, and theorizer. Muhonja, in her book, Radical Utu: Critical Ideas and Ideals of Wangari Muta Maathai, presents a more multidimensional portrait of Maathai and her words and works, to situate her ideas and concepts in global discourse. She focuses on her practical philosophical and epistemological approaches. Maathai promoted the decolonization of knowledge and theories of self-knowing and facilitated emotional and spiritual processes of learning about self, language, ecology, and community. In a paper titled “The Cracked Mirror,” she wrote the following:

By the end of the civic and environmental seminars organised by the Green Belt Movement, participants feel the time has come for them to hold up their own mirror and find out who they are. This is why we call the seminars kwimenya (self-knowledge). Until then, participants have looked through someone else’s mirror – the mirror of the missionaries or their teachers or the colonial authorities who have told them who they are and who write and speak about them – at their own cracked reflections. They have seen only a distorted image, if they have seen themselves at all!

Maathai resisted the idea of the missionaries that “God does not dwell on Mount Kenya” but rather in heaven. She stressed that “Cultural liberation will only come when the minds of the people are set free and they can protect themselves from colonialism of the mind.” She promoted women’s rights and the use of African languages to reflect nuances of African ways of being and thinking. She believed that people need to reclaim their culture to attain cultural liberation and that that freedom will help people care for nature and future generations.

The decolonial project includes the need to unpack education, learn and relearn history, bring a critical perspective to what is valued and not valued, and revalue what has been devalued.

According to Muhonja’s interpretation of the philosophy of Wangari Maathai, when we have nothing to call our own, to reflect to us who we are, we no longer see ourselves and will forget who we are. We will try to fill voids with material things. Planting trees and telling our stories is important to conservation. “Let us mind our language, practice our spirituality, and live our communal culture,” she urged, drawing on the philosophy and critical ideas and ideals of Wangari Muta Maathai.

Wangari Maathai is an example of someone who took decolonization and Afrocentric thinking beyond the academy into her practice and interactions with rural Kenyan women and others involved in the Green Belt Movement.

Another issue I would like to cover in this discussion of epistemic journeys is the ASAA roundtable discussion on: Are African Studies Centres Gatekeepers of African Knowledge Production and Enablers of (De)Colonisation? Prof. Thoko Kaime of the University of Bayreuth in Germany launched the discussion by speaking about knowing and playing by the rules or disavowing the rules in the interest of reshaping African studies to focus on African perspectives and predicaments rather than imperial interests. After all, these centres were created to “study the native”. To promote the status quo, however, an environment of fear which discourages critical thought can be created. Kaime insists that decolonization happens “only when those we study can speak and be heard”.

One participant in the discussion called for auditing African studies centres around the world for Afrocentric perspectives and pedagogical approaches and closing those that perpetuate a colonial gaze. “What has changed since anthropologist Audrey Richards created the Cambridge Centre of African Studies in 1965?” they insisted. Isabelle Zundel, a University of Bayreuth student of legal and political trends in eastern and southern Africa, noted how African studies centres can, regrettably, promote the use of Africa as a career path, with the assumption of a “submissive Africa”.

Research cooperation in African Studies was discussed at two conference sessions. New ways of cooperation are emerging “due to individual interests” and “institutional awareness of the necessity of collaboration”. The session participants discussed demands for decentralising African Studies and for “fair participation of researchers from the Global South”.

In the discussion about gatekeepers and enablers of (de)colonization, legal anthropologist Anthony Diala insisted that the decolonization debate and its lack of structuration is keeping people from focusing on restorative justice and the dismantling of racist and hegemonic structures. Educationalist Prof. Brenda Leibowitz spoke to this tension to some degree in her 2016 inaugural address on the decolonisation of knowledge at the University of Johannesburg. She called for cognitive justice (through a university curriculum in which students see themselves and the pedagogical processes in which they are active) but also social justice (equitable access to resources, services, and opportunities in society). She went on to insist that decolonization is not just exchanging one knowledge for another and called for the dehegemonization and diversification of knowledge, understanding that different knowledge systems are in dialogue and need to dialogue with each other. 

Leibowitz went further to reference Raewyn Connell who insists that southern knowledge systems need to be especially supported to respond to southern preoccupations and planetary questions and disruptions. Connell et al. went on to show that patterns of extraversion in Southern scholarship can suppress theoretical advances and thus limit the quality and robustness of Southern and global knowledge production.

Wangari Maathai is celebrated mainly as an environmental activist, which ignores or erases her contributions as a scholar and African knower, thinker, and theorizer.

Other sentiments discerned at the ASAA conference about epistemological aspects of the decolonization journey include: “Colonialism took so much from our people, and it serves the status quo for us to be patient. We need pluralities rather than dichotomies. We need more Afrocentric ways of teaching and learning and the right as Africans to participate fully in knowledge production and be seen and heard. How we theorize matters. Our conceptual frameworks matter – we need to expand the frames of understanding. We need to use appropriate methodologies and humanize fieldwork.”

In her paper on the Dagbaŋ philosophy of respecting the human dignity of interlocutors, Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed cites two postcolonial thinkers, who write on decolonizing, respectively, the mind and methodologies. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o draws our attention to the importance of “pulling our languages, literature, and knowledge systems out of the periphery to which they have been banished.” Linda Tuhiwai Smith presents us with “the importance of disrupting the Western canon in knowledge production” and “the potential that Indigenous knowledges hold not only to affirm the lived experience of colonized peoples, but also to dismantle the colonial values embedded in and woven into academia.”

Rather than force themselves to write in a hand that is not theirs or force their research into frames that do not quite fit, Harry Garuba urges students to “center the questions that are important to you and let that drive your research and your methods and concepts formation”. Let knowledge production be directed by the “needs, interests, and desires of people epistemologically disenfranchised”. This will lead to conceptual voids, opportunities to rethink things, and new concepts and possibilities across disciplines. “When you reach the cul-de-sac, that is when we get invention” that transcends fragmentation and “moves beyond methodological fundamentalism”.

African integration, umoja, and pan-Africanism were part of the ASAA conference. Participants in different sessions appreciated the comingling and the dialogues across boundaries – national, linguistic, disciplinary, generational. Scholars and writers described the beauty of meeting new colleagues, encountering new concepts, learning about similarities and differences from context to context, and discussing potential transboundary collaborations. The international and pan-African spirit was palpable, inspiring, and uplifting. If this is part of decolonization, I want to be a part of it.

The screening of the film Umoja – Swahili word for “unity” – and the subsequent discussion, with producer/director Dr Mjiba Frehiwot of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, addressed pan-Africanism directly. Through a series of interviews, pan-Africanism is presented in the film as the celebration of African people and values, the teaching and practice of solidity over division, and investment in systems of thought and action that unite the continent. Pan-Africanists dreamed of a common foreign policy, currency, and defence for pan-Africanism to work and recognize the need to continually “give people the tools with which to liberate themselves”. Today there are new social movements – Y’en a marre and Nouveau Type de Citoyens for example, and #EndSARS, Black Lives Matter, #FixTheCountry, #ShutItAllDown, #NoMore and initiatives like re_sisters, Year of Return to Ghana, and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. How do Africans come together, address issues collectively, invest in education and create an ubuntu economy and shared prosperity? Then and now, pan-Africanism is rooted in values of dignity, love, sharing, learning, compassion, caring, dialogue, reciprocity, and interdependence.

When we have nothing to call our own, to reflect to us who we are, we no longer see ourselves and will forget who we are. We will try to fill voids with material things.

One interviewee in the film expressed the following: “We need to stop performing peace. Peace is the ability to claim rights, for the media to speak, and for people to not fight unimaginable rising prices and traffic. We need to protect ourselves and uplift each other. Let us keep telling the truth. The year 2063 is too far, we need to unite now.” Another interviewee insisted that “Girls should not be forced to marry, and education needs to be relevant.” And a third added, “Education needs to address our challenges, including psychological ones. The inherited institutions were not meant for transformation.” Rabbi Kohain, Executive Secretary of the PANAFEST Foundation is featured in the film saying, “We have had to put a mask on every day. Be prepared to be born again as Africans.”

Sabelo Mcinziba said on day one of the conference, “We trade too little with each other and cite each other too little.” Nonetheless, lived experiences of pan-Africanism are real – especially in frontier spaces. The film producer/director described observing women engaged in cross-border trade in West Africa. They speak several languages, take cedis, dollars, and CFA, know the exchange rates, and ask you how you want your change. “In whichever direction you are moving, they work with you.” Very convivial. They straddle borders that others so jealously protect. “But do police officers know about Umoja?” asked a participant. Indeed, cross-border traders and travellers can be challenged by authorities.

South-South collaboration and conversations among Southern scholars is another form of unity and was addressed implicitly in some conference sessions and explicitly in a panel on “Decolonizing Southern thinking” with Fabricio Pereira da Silva of Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Mjiba Frehiwot of University of Ghana. They examined the decolonial philosophies of Amílcar Cabral and of Paulo Freire as an intellectual bridge between Africa and Latin America and examined Yves Valentin Mudimbe’s Invention of Africa for insights on ways forward for pan-Africanism and Latin-Americanism. Although African and Latin American experiences are vastly different, there are shared experiences of being on the receiving end of colonialism and thus the value of unpacking the implications of colonial legacies together. The two presenting scholars travelled between their continents, reminiscing how Paulo Freire travelled to Guinea Bissau to work in a literacy programme there after Amílcar Cabral was murdered.

The panel sought to “rescue epistemologies in the process of being silenced. In a world in deep crisis and accelerated transformation, we believe that the Global South (Africa in particular) is well-positioned to contribute to the imagination of more humane alternative futures – and to the very survival of humanity. In this sense, we think about Global South contributions in terms of concepts and practices of interconnectivity, conviviality, communality, equality, and emancipations.”

Gender, women’s rights and concerns for intersectionality were integral to decolonial thinking and movements in Africa, and women were visibly involved – like Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Bibi Titi Mohammed, and Djamila Boupacha – as well as working behind the scenes. The attention to gender issues during decolonisation struggles “led to practical gains for women in many newly independent states,” but with time, some of the “spaces created by decolonisation movements were closed,” and imperialist and patriarchal structures continue to shape everyday life in many ways.

The ASAA conference session on “Women as Lesser Humans?” explored women’s influence in African parliaments, particularly the cases of South Africa and Uganda. The number of women in parliament, or their “descriptive representation,” has increased in part due to affirmative action measures including quotas. But how does this translate into “substantive representation,” for example pro-gender agendas and policies that address the specific challenges and aspirations of girls and women, with concern for intersecting factors, like class, educational level, disability, and geographic location? Women are increasingly present in parliaments, but are they influential? In the end, it seems that substantial representation is difficult. The “stickiness of old rules” and the power of informal institutions (like male social networks, decision-making conversations with selective participation behind closed doors or in other shadow spaces) inhibit new ways of working.

African studies centres can, regrettably, promote the use of Africa as a career path, with the assumption of a “submissive Africa”.

At this conference session, Amanda Gouws, of Stellenbosch University in South Africa, explained how the women’s movement in South Africa was successful in ensuring a whole package of institutions to help advance women’s equality post-apartheid. Those active in the movement did not want just a gender or women and youth ministry that might be side-lined but the integration of concerns for gender equality and inclusion in all ministries, an office of the status of women, a commission for gender equality, and other institutions. This holistic approach facilitated substantive representation (for example the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act of 1998 and the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1996). This package of institutions, however, lost its vibrancy under President Mbeki (1999-2008) and President Jacob Zuma (2009-2018), who came to power after President Nelson Mandela, and has not been reinvigorated. Prof. Gouws, in responding to a question, said that “we cannot just want the institutions back – we also need the feminist consciousness and commitment.”

Dr Hannah Muzee, who studied at the Pan African University Institute for Governance, Humanities and Social Sciences, hosted by Cameroon, and lectured at Kyambogo University in Uganda, explored how women in Uganda have “a seat at the table but no voice”. Women can make it into parliament, but then what? Since the 1995 Constitution, women have been fast-tracked into politics through affirmative action but have also been tokenized. Factors that hold women back in politics include the lack of access to resources for campaigns, party loyalty pressures, and the perpetuation of gender division of labour in political parties and in parliament (i.e. men are usually in charge of finance, law, policy). In addition, women’s leagues of political parties do not work on pro-women’s issues. They speak or operate if sanctioned by the party executive, and their biggest role is to mobilize funds and votes.

However, the Uganda Women Parliamentary Association, an all-party parliamentary caucus, has supported networking, training in public speaking, and mentorship on pro-women issues for women parliamentarians. This has helped to enhance women’s voices and pass pro-women legislation, i.e. the Domestic Violence Bill and the Children’s (Amendment) Bill. The Association strategically admits male legislators as allies, with the understanding that men need to understand injustices women suffer so they too can speak to the issues. Promoter of women’s rights, Miria Rukoza Koburunga Matembe, who served in Uganda’s parliament and became Minister of Ethics and Integrity, writes from her experience about how the gender question and the journey of women to top positions need to be tackled by both men and women. She also wrote about the challenges of translating a gender sensitive constitution into reality, especially regarding land rights for women, and co-founded in 2006 the Centre for Women in Governance to “make women’s participation in politics and governance go beyond numbers.”

The phenomenon of women’s substantial representation is further explored in Gendered Institutions and Women’s Political Representation in Africa. In addition to the South Africa case study, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana are covered. Chapter 3 by Sethunya Tshepho Mosime and Maude Dikobe explores whether political candidate training programmes in Botswana are “A waste of resources or pedagogies of the oppressed?”

Then and now, pan-Africanism is rooted in values of dignity, love, sharing, learning, compassion, caring, dialogue, reciprocity, and interdependence.

In the current context of androcentric legislatures, can policies be advanced to fight persistent and prevalent forms of gender-based violence and promote equality and inclusion? The question stands for many legislatures around the world. Can we talk about decolonization at all in the contexts of male-centric political systems described by Gouws and Muzee? Where are the openings for transformative change? The session asked: For how long will women be kept as secondary citizens? Just as it is important to bring an intersectional gender lens to understanding fights against colonial rule, an intersectional gender lens – considering not only gender but also sex, sexuality, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and other identity factors, depending on the context – is necessary to understand and inform ongoing decolonization efforts.

Are hierarchies of power and belonging that were at the centre of colonial rule being reproduced? Or questioned and dismantled? Who is included and who is not? Who is respected? Whose humanity is valued? Whose agency is recognized? Who speaks? Who is listened to? Whose rights are considered as important? Whose knowledge is considered knowledge? Who may be taking up too much space or speaking or writing over others? Who has influence and power? And how is it exerted? Are processes inclusive or exclusive? Who is considered Greater? Who is considered Lesser? Does equality matter? Whose voices and needs and aspirations are considered? Is anyone dismissed or erased?

Digital technologies can reflect, reproduce, and even reinforce the inequalities, hierarchies, and power dynamics that exist in society. Their creative and strategic use can also facilitate new ways of organizing across multiple boundaries for social change, challenge authoritarianism and heterogendered relationship norms, and promote more horizontal ways of relating. During the COVID-19 pandemic, relations, even among diplomats on the continent, moved from strictly formal spaces to include more informal spaces on social media, and this induced changes in ways of relating.

The ASAA conference organizer, the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), brilliantly leveraged air travel and digital technologies to connect people in person and virtually after two years of hunkering down during the pandemic. What a beautiful opportunity to connect across the continent and beyond. Like at the 3rd ASAA conference in Nairobi, the energy was infectious. For the 4th conference, participants in Congo, North Africa, and Japan debated alongside people physically present in Cape Town. People participated online and offline.

Highlights were shared via Twitter at #ASAA2022, which serves as a record of important encounters and a space for continuing the discussions – among conference participants and with people who did not attend. In a tweet, Chichi Ayalogu affirmed that “#ASAA2022 is top of the list for organized conference executions and really should be noted as ‘the’ example of a Hybrid event done right.”

A dozen different meeting rooms for parallel sessions, each equipped with a roving camera connected to internet and someone present to ensure convivial use of the technology. What a feat. Considerate moderators of different ages fielding questions from the floor and the chat box and calling on people raising a virtual or in-person hand. People checking for sessions and room numbers in the online programme or via the ASAA2022 space on theEventApp. A virtual Information Desk where people could put themselves into the designated room for a parallel session or ask the attendant, Roxanne Adams of HUMA, to do so. Mx. Roxanne calmly reassured people toward the end when there was a temporary Zoom hiccup or two. Important human touches.

Jean-Marc Éla reminds us: “Le cerveau a besoin de rêver comme le corps de respirer.” The brain needs to dream, just as the body needs to breathe. ASAA2022 was a place to share knowledge and dreams and collectively (re)envision what it means to be humxn and what that means for organizational and institutional change initiatives.

“We trade too little with each other and cite each other too little.”

The conference was itself an exciting digital space, and some conference sessions dealt with the theme of leveraging digital spaces. Amani Abdel Rahman spoke about how a 2019 social media uprising in Sudan led to the disintegration of a regime that had governed the country for 30 years. “Youth were ahead of classical political parties – unfamiliar with internet and social media.” Aghi Bahi shared about the apparition of cyber activists on Facebook to address political concerns in Cote d’Ivoire. “Are the activists free, though? Or working for a political entrepreneur?”

Digitisation might be another buzzword, but, if well harnessed, its decolonial capabilities could be significant. Political analyst and activist Nanjala Nyabola has written about online organizing, efforts to contain online organizing, the circulation of fake news and hate speech on social media, and the threat of digital colonization. Nyabola participated in ASAA2022, along with Timnit Gebru of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research (DAIR) Institute, in a keynote debate on “Meta Forms, Artificial Lies & Digital Futures”. Artificial intelligence (AI) is part of digitality. To what extent is it creating a new colonial world order? To take but one example, languages, it can “further codify the supremacy of dominant languages” or be used “outside the wealthy profits centers of Silicon Valley to serve people and language revitalization work.”

Digitisation might be another buzzword, but, if well harnessed, its decolonial capabilities could be significant.

Digital spaces should also be leveraged to make African knowledge production more visible. This was discussed at the ASAA session on “Making African Research Visible and Accessible.” The work of the Training Centre in Communication (TCC Africa) to train scientists in effective communication skills was discussed, and AficArXiv was presented as an option for open scholarly publishing – to promote accessibility to research outputs by African scholars and scholarship on Africa more broadly. Part of decolonization would include the promotion of African journals, data repositories, research portals and means of circulating African scholarship.

It was great to see ASAA2022 – as Africa in miniature and a project for Africa – at the University of Cape Town. I would argue that it contributes to the decolonization debate in universities across South Africa and the continent and beyond, and makes the prospects for decolonization and transformation more real and tangible. One could also argue that the decolonization debate has been co-opted and that the conference was one big talk shop. On Twitter, Sandeep Bakshi suggests that assimilating decolonization into academic discourse as a buzzword “is one way to monitor and begin to incapacitate it” – because of its perceived or real threats to power. And a conference participant asked, “How can we decolonize the academy if society is not decolonized?” “True,” was the response. “It is hard to decolonize the academy when it is surrounded by a colonial world. But academics should not spend too much time being engulfed by the academy and forgetting about the interdependencies between community and university.”

The intergenerational conversations and debates are a sign of hope – for Africa as a forever incomplete project. At the conference, the voices of the living intermingled with those of the dead in a constructive spirit of learning and taking appropriate action for the current times and specific contexts. One generation feeds the other. From Wangari Maathai of Kenya, Ugandan politician Rukoza Koburunga Matembe, and writers Penina Muhanda from Tanzania and Ama Ata Aidoo from Ghana, to women of another generation – Martha Mbuvi (studying the Akamba in Kenya), Esther Karin Mngodo (publishing women writers in Swahili), Grace Musila (helping us understand history and culture through literature), and Sandra Tamele (expanding access to literary works in Mozambique) –, we have examples to guide us. People who had not heard about Langston Hughes and his poetry or Harry Garuba and his poetry and writings over several decades about decolonization could learn more, delve deeper, make connections. At ASAA2022, papers and thoughts were shared and films screened. People bravely challenged each other. Curiosities were aroused and collaborations discussed. Participants were enriched and hopefully inspired by the encounters. Were there absences or silences? Perhaps. How much did we hear from people from South Sudan or the Central African Republic, for example? How much did we hear from people living as refugees, about their experiences of displacement and more?

Gender, women’s rights and concerns for intersectionality were integral to decolonial thinking and movements in Africa.

Is it enough to talk about and work for de-colonization? In opposition to centuries of erasure through colonization? Probably not. One conference participant said something like, “We cannot just describe ourselves and what we want as de– or non-” – in the negative. In envisioning and working toward desired futures, perhaps we need to resuscitate and reinvent some forms of knowledge? Maybe decolonization is a fuzzy concept and needs more context or focus?

Dr Leyla Tavernaro-Haidarian describes the value of a decolonization lens as well as it limits – as an adversative strategy which itself may imbibe colonial logics. She suggests it be married with a philosophy such as ubuntu so that decolonization involves “fighting against” and dismantling unjust colonial systems and constructively creating futures for the common good. Conference participants and this article refer to concepts and philosophies that are affirming and aspirational in nature and that inform and shape decolonisation processes, for example: kwimenya, ubuntu, umoja, “doing Africa,” conviviality, incompleteness, and Bilchiinsi, the Dagbaŋ philosophy of respecting the human dignity of interlocutors.

And there are other existing and emerging African-inspired concepts and philosophies to help forge and weave the way forward. However, George Sefa Dei and Chizoba Imoka argue that “It is impossible to have a sincere reflection about the question of development without an anti-colonial lens.” They suggest asking questions such as these:

What sort of development should be taking place in our communities today? Whose knowledge informs this development? To what extent is the vision of development that is advanced aligned to and grounded in the indigenous epistemologies, histories and the aspirations of local people? How are community members coming to learn and use multiple lenses of critical inquiry to understand the processes of colonization and the impact on social development?

W.E.B. Du Bois came to realize how “the silence and neglect of science can let truth utterly disappear or even be unconsciously distorted.” Thus, the necessity of reconstituting history, seeking truth and teaching our children to do so as well. Bernard Fonlon argued that the worst effect of colonialism was the wresting of African cultural genius and initiative from African hands. Wangari Maathai stressed “how crucial it is to return constantly to our cultural heritage.” And elaborated:

If believing that God is on Mount Kenya is what helps people conserve their mountain, I say that’s okay. If people still believed this, they would not have allowed illegal logging or clear-cutting of the forests.

It is not, however, just a matter of going back in time. But going back to fetch what is needed in a forward-looking manner (Sankofa). The new cord is attached to the old (West African proverb). Philosopher Paulin Hountondji argued that, to end extraversion and dependence, there must be a “methodical reappropriation of one’s own knowledge and know-how as much as the appropriation of all the available knowledge in the world.” He also urged scholars of his time to go beyond theory and abstraction to “take concrete measures to justify their sociopolitical existence and relevance.” If young people are “unable to breathe” because they cannot see themselves in society’s institutions, we must do something.

Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, University of Ghana, did something, as President of the African Studies Association of Africa, to shift consciousness and inspire critical thinking and action. Professor Toussaint Murhula of Université Loyola du Congo, in his response to Prof. Ampofo, called for support as the new ASAA President by affirming that good leadership requires the contribution of the wider society.

In the current context of androcentric legislatures, can policies be advanced to fight persistent and prevalent forms of gender-based violence and promote equality and inclusion?

To begin to wrap up, in a forward-looking fashion, let me share from The Africa I Want, a collection of poems by Fatma Adam, which book I received from the author at the 3rd ASAA conference in Nairobi, in October 2019. Her poem, “The Story of Her Hands,” is about lines on the hands of a woman, which tell the story of her struggles. They show where she spends most of her days, holding the responsibility of the entire family on her shoulders. The lines on her hands tell the story of a woman who longed to hold a pen. They show the opportunities that slipped through her fingers and the unveiled secrets she holds deep within her heart. They show the reasons why she keeps on moving with love to change her destiny.

Who can study and write about Africa? And how? These are questions that many researchers and writers ask. “If you use a western lens, stay away,” I heard someone say at the ASAA conference session on African studies centres as enablers of (de)colonization. “Check your lenses. Understand race. No one would mention it when I studied at Cambridge,” said one participant.

Positionality and approach matter not only between Africa and the West but also within Africa. In the very last session of the conference, it was advanced that unpacking the inherent power dynamics within Southern-based knowledge systems is equally important, to avoid mimicking systems of exclusion and inequalities of the current knowledge agenda. For example, speakers observed that because research is more resourced in South Africa than in some other African countries, South African-based researchers should question their positionality and check their privilege. Participants in the session suggested: “Let local spaces speak. Understand and share the perspectives of people in those spaces. See the world thru their eyes. Let the local values guide. Rather than coming with ‘South Africanism’.” A US scholar, Regina Fuller, reflected on Twitter on her positionality: “As a Junior scholar in African Studies, questions I have are How can I conduct ethical, feminist ethnographic gender sexualities research in Africa? How do I grapple with my positionality as black US Scholar? #ASAA2022.”

“It is impossible to have a sincere reflection about the question of development without an anti-colonial lens.”

As author of this piece, what is my positionality, related to the ASAA discussions? I became interested in Africa at the University of Kansas, through a visiting professor of political science from Sierra Leone, who made West African realities come alive and sparked my interest to know more. I later studied literature, art, and history at the University of Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire. When working in international and comparative studies at the University of Iowa, I took a course on African history where we read novels to learn history.

This humanistic and holistic approach to understanding history through stories of people and their communities resonated with me. Since then I promote, on both sides of the Atlantic, the writing and publication of personal stories and reflections that might otherwise go unheard and that, in their sharing, make us more humxn. I recognize my privilege as a white cis able-bodied woman who can “waltz” into certain situations and spaces. I also recognize the continual work it takes to decolonize myself – my attitudes, outlooks, and behaviours. I believe that decolonization requires efforts from people of all colours and abilities and parts of the world. Some sisters and brothers might suggest that I should “stay in my lane”, knowing that my knowledge of different African languages is minimal and that the way I describe ubuntu and other concepts may be lacking as well. Like any piece of knowledge production, this writing is open to critique and conversation. I do envision a world in which colonial mind-sets, hierarchies, and structures are recognized, questioned, and dismantled – for more equitable and convivial ways of relating, for the benefit of current and future generations. We are bound up together in the colonial project. How do we free each other from its grip? As Harry Garuba says, there is “no easy walk to education and freedom.” But we must each do our part.

Through a quick and non-comprehensive “tour” of sessions of the April 2022 African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) conference, we have tried to show that decolonization, more than jargon or a mere buzzword, is a process in progress. However, like Prof. Anthony Diala of the University of the Western Cape said in the session about gatekeeping and enabling (de)colonization, “the reality of coloniality makes a mockery of decolonization.”

In the face of very real colonial legacies, various organizations work with greater and lesser degrees of intentionality. For some people and organizations, decolonization may just be talk or political correctness. Others are going beyond important, necessary and challenging conversations to collectively develop strategies and frameworks and put in place initiatives to shift thinking and power in academia and institutions and structures of everyday life – for greater inclusion and participation and with regard for African sociocultural, political and historical processes.

Is decolonization more than a buzzword? We have suggested that it is and needs to be. However, some may continue to insist that decolonisation is poison to be avoided to the degree that it promotes a spirit of opposition in humxn endeavours. Others may suggest the concept is fuzzy – a catch-all net that buzzes and fuzzes busily around the real issues of bringing about a shared humanity and consciousness of the hierarchies that pose a formidable challenge to attaining sustainable equality and dignity for all and sundry.

Colonization and its extractive and dehumanizing processes were entrenched over centuries. Resistance to colonization existed during the slave trade, movements for flag independence in the 20th century, and calls for transformation in post-apartheid South Africa and the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements and continues to exist in renewed calls for integration and pan-Africanism in a spirit of ubuntu. As much as colonial structures, processes and mind-sets persist, they are being questioned, undone, and reshaped.

At one of the ASAA conference sessions, Aïdas Sanogo, lecturer and researcher at Centre Universitaire de Manga in Burkina Faso, explains that “The students I teach are more impatient than I was at their age.” This provides reason for hope. The intergenerational conversations and queries and affirmations of Global Africa’s next generation suggest that the project of Africa, building on ancestral foundations in a spirit of conviviality and incompleteness, is very much on the move. But is the urgency felt and the movement swift enough? Some argue that decolonisation is impossible, “but we must make her possible.”

Thanks to all those who took the time to read and comment this article. I take the time to do the same for others, in a spirit of give and take, of learning, and of continual co-construction. I take responsibility for any errors in relating what I heard at the ASAA conference and interpreting subsequent readings.

After years of complaint about being “overwhelmed” by trickles of new arrivals, Europe has absorbed millions of refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine virtually overnight. However, the solidarity that underpins this dramatic turnaround would appear to exclude non-Europeans.

Europe’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees marks an historic departure from its increasingly restrictive stance towards asylum seekers in recent years. With the exception of Angela Merkel’s bold but isolated welcome of displaced Syrians (which generated a considerable backlash), efforts to elicit empathy for people escaping conflict zones have been met with indifference —and at times outright hostility — since the so-called migration “crisis” in 2015. Escalating border patrols and illegal “pushbacks” intercepting would-be asylum claimants have defined an ever-hardening border regime that led numerous commentators to pronounce the “end of asylum” prior to Russia’s invasion.

Against this backdrop, solidarity with refugees in countries as diverse as Hungary and Denmark has been something of a revelation. After years of internal wrangling and inaction over how to share the “burden” of asylum applications, policy has been dramatically overhauled by the decisive implementation of the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive (TPD), granting millions of Ukrainian refugees right of residency with access to work and education outside their homeland. A comparable shift in Britain has led liberal commentators to proclaim, “The spasm of xenophobia that was spread by the Brexiteers has lifted”.

How to explain this so-called U-turn? For charity workers and activists accustomed to combatting negative perceptions of asylum seekers in Europe, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has ushered in a strangely disorienting scenario. On the one hand, the protection and dignity of displaced persons that they have long called for has arrived with bells on. After years of complaint about being “overwhelmed” by trickles of new arrivals, millions have been absorbed virtually overnight without a peep. On the other, the “solidarity” that underpins this dramatic turnaround would appear to exclude non-Europeans.

The very same border guards consigning asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Eritrea to detention or possible death by “push-back” into freezing cold forests are distributing soups and blankets to Ukrainians offered safe passage. Long after animals were evacuated from Ukrainian zoos, Asians and Africans are reported to be languishing in the EU’s Zhuravychi facility, close enough to the warzone to hear artillery and explosions. Such facts, together with scenes of non-white students being obstructed from reaching safety, raise the question of whether what we are witnessing is in fact a turning point at all, and not merely the latest chapter of an older story of European racism.

Migration researchers and policymakers have interpreted these differences technically, citing other factors: geographic proximity, legislative frameworks that give Ukrainians greater legal access to enter the EU, cultural, historical, ethnic and religious affinities that bind them to neighbouring Christian societies. Echoing the liberal centre of European politics, these voices insist the “opening of refugee corridors to Ukraine’s neighbours has little to do with race”.

Asians and Africans are reported to be languishing in the EU’s Zhuravychi facility, close enough to the warzone to hear artillery and explosions.

That the “legislative frameworks” privileging Ukrainians over migrants from the Global South might themselves be part of a racialized migration system is rarely considered by exponents of this technocratic analysis. Nor do they take into account the role of racial ideology in forging the so-called “ethnic, cultural and religious affinities” that bind white Europeans against groups deemed alien, summed up by Polish member of parliament Dominik Tarczynski before the current conflict: “We’ve taken over two million Ukrainians in Poland. We will not receive even one Muslim . . . This is why our government was elected; this is why Poland is so safe”. As for “geography”: how does proximity explain the greater willingness of Britain and Italy to receive Ukrainians rather than the Africans and Asians they seek to repel? Or, for that matter, the enthusiasm of the United States?

Statements professing solidarity with Ukrainians for their “blonde hair” and “blue eyes” did the rounds on social media during the early weeks of the conflict. Race is also at play, however, in subtler enunciations of difference — above all, the presumed contrast between the “economic” motivations of “illegal” entrants with the “political” drivers of Ukrainian flight. The propensity of Westerners to identify Ukrainian affluence as a basis of empathy underlines the class-based dimensions of race. The feeling that “they are just like us” because they travel with suitcases, own cars and live in cities like “our own” is intimately related to the perception of Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans as covetous imposters who could never have been middle-class, and therefore had nothing to lose from the wars that plague their wretched countries of origin.

It is of course true that many of those who seek asylum in Northwestern Europe are fleeing marginalization and encampment in “safe countries”, in addition to the dangers that uprooted them from their countries of origin. The entanglement of “economic”, “political”, and indeed other motivations in each individual’s decision to move is beyond doubt. But the EU’s own recognition rates underline just how many non-Europeans who apply for asylum are in fact “authentic” refugees: last year 81 per cent of Eritrean asylum applicants were accorded protection; 79 per cent of Yemenis, and in October-November, over 90 per cent of Afghans. Britain’s processes of adjudication confirm a majority (around two-thirds) of all those who apply for asylum in the UK are entitled. All of which suggests the lack of empathy with these groups is about more than objectively observable difference.

Viral footage of African students prevented from boarding trains at gunpoint makes a similar point. Even as they fled a warzone alongside millions of other “genuine” (white) political exiles, a tiny trickle of highly educated, middle-class non-white people were pulled aside by Europe’s asylum system for less-than-equal treatment. To explain such blatantly racialized filtration away via legalistic reasoning or talk of geography is disingenuous. It also requires a short memory. Broaden the picture to encompass what we’ve learned about “traveling while Black” in other recent emergencies, and the curtailment of these students’ movement reflects a pattern.

To explain such blatantly racialized filtration away via legalistic reasoning or talk of geography is disingenuous.

As recently as November 2021, blanket flight bans were imposed on African countries following the discovery of the Omicron coronavirus variant by South African scientists. Racist photographic imagery and grotesque cartoons depicting the virus as Black figures in boats appeared in the European press. Nigeria and South Africa, two of the most affluent and politically influential nations in the African continent were powerless to protect the right of their middle-classes to cross international borders. “Had the first Covid-19 virus . . . originated in Africa,” remarked Dr Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija, an African Union vaccine expert, “it is clear the world would have locked us away and thrown away the key.”

Her words reflect an unspoken truth about Africa’s lowly position in the hierarchy that underpins international mobility. Yet, discriminatory policies and practices in Europe are just one pillar of this system. Another rests on mobility from and within the African continent itself, which is increasingly the site of exported European migration controls, a phenomenon known as “externalization”. Just how deeply the two are entwined was illustrated by the recent unveiling of Britain’s Rwanda deal, which envisages the deportation of “irregular migrants” without processing their asylum applications.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s framing of the plan to the British press began with a lengthy preamble on Britain’s proud history of refugee protection, including its recent acceptance of Ukrainians. He then presented the UK’s intention to export unwanted arrivals to Africa as a means of preserving its capacity for compassionate action. In spelling out the relationship between embracing some and removing others, he couldn’t have been clearer: Britain’s generous acceptance of Ukrainian and other “genuine” refugees is dependent on the successful removal of false pretenders via externalization.

This effective bifurcation of asylum seekers into (white) Europeans and non-whites from Asia and Africa is not a peculiarly British phenomenon. Denmark, which just passed an expedited law to ease Ukrainians’ access to labour markets and schools, is in the process of forging a similar arrangement of its own with Rwanda. The first European country to officially restrict migrants and refugees classified as “non-western” last year, it will not apply its “jewellery law” — passed in 2016 to allow confiscation of valuables from refugees claiming asylum — to Ukrainians. Syrians, in response to whose arrival the law was invented, witnessed their own rights of asylum revoked just months ago. Damascus was declared a safe country amidst Denmark’s drive to rid its territory of unwanted “ghettos”, but legal challenges have complicated the government’s attempts to force them to return. As for the EU, which has done so much to support the acceptance and integration of Ukrainians in recent months, it was reported on April 6th that the Commission is now proposing to levy punitive trade tariffs on countries that do not accept the return of citizens who have illegally entered Europe. A move that would tie trade to migration policy sounds less of a U-turn than a continuation of the hardening regime pursued by “fortress Europe” since the 1990s.

Denmark, which just passed an expedited law to ease Ukrainians’ access to labour markets and schools, is in the process of forging a similar arrangement of its own with Rwanda.

Could we be heading for a world in which Syrians, along with other Arab, Asian and African asylum seekers alike will be deported from Europe to the African continent to accommodate “genuine” refugees? If so, what does this mean, and how did we get here?

More than racism, geography, or indeed any of the other factors listed above, the revival of European asylum policy to address the plight of Ukrainians has been framed geopolitically. Putin’s misadventure, according to security experts and aficionados, presents a more flagrant, clear-cut breach of legal and political norms than other messier conflicts around the world. As a threat to the territorial integrity of a nation-state, the invasion undermines a sacred principle of the Westphalian international order: national sovereignty. Ukraine’s women and children, according to this view, embody the stakes of a universal struggle waged by their gallant menfolk.

Revealingly, Sir Tony Blair, whose punditry is otherwise ubiquitous these days, is nowhere to be seen making this point. The gist of those who do is that Ukraine and its human casualties matter for global order in a way other conflicts and theirs do not. Whatever one makes of the threat posed by Putin, this kind of rationale misses the whole point of refugee protection: to ensure fair treatment for those whose claims to asylum might be prejudiced by such distortive considerations, which, within a just legal order, cannot determine who receives protection, and who does not.

Sensing the need for a less Hobbesian, value-based argument to justify the elevation of Ukraine above other conflicts, Europe’s liberal centre has expanded on what this particular national liberation struggle means for people: “This is not only an attack on Ukraine”, tweeted Ursula von der Leyen on March 10th: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “a defining moment for the European Union”, because “it is an attack on people’s freedom to choose their own destiny. The very principle our Union is based on.”

Just how committed Europe is to ideals of sovereignty and democratic freedom beyond the Global North is evident in the “externalization” of its borders. An approach to migration policy that relies upon the willingness and capacity of sending and transit states to prevent irregular migratory outflows to Europe whilst accepting the “return” of deportees and “voluntarily” repatriated migrants, externalization has been the preferred strategy of the EU and individual European countries seeking to rid their shores of undocumented arrivals from Africa for close to a decade. Advanced under the umbrella of “cooperation”, it was ramped up in 2015 via the EU’s Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), launched to tackle the “root causes of irregular migration” holistically through development, job creation, and by creating legal pathways of mobility.

The single largest tranche of funding — around a quarter of the EUTF’s five billion Euros — has been spent on “migration management”, the meaning of which was analysed by a study that compared the rhetoric of cooperation agreements with policy implementation. It found that between 2005 and 2016, European discourse on “managing” the movement of people obscured a reality of restriction: when it came to action, the EU’s focus was on halting all migration from Africa to Europe — so much so that the number of first time visas for employment of African citizens was reduced by approximately 80 per cent between 2010 and 2016. Six years on, this remains the pattern. In a recent webinar, Professor Mehari Taddele Maru, a leading analyst of EU-Africa cooperation on migration, described the anticipation of African policymakers for regular migratory alternatives that seem never to materialize: waiting for the EU’s legal pathways is “like waiting for Godot”.

Externalization has been heavily criticized by civil society actors in both Africa and Europe, who view it as a form of domination through which a powerful economic block advances its agenda over “partners” on unequal footing, for the most part bilaterally. The inequality at its heart is reflected in disregard for the sovereignty of African nation-states. A fortnight before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson suggested sending EU border forces to Senegal, a country whose constitution upholds the right of its citizens to migrate and settle abroad. The proposal, which would see Frontex — the EU’s border and coastguard agency — operating on non-European territory for the first time, was promptly greenlighted by Dakar for technical discussions. Bilateral “cooperation” led by individual member states has raised similar protest given the power imbalance that underlies agreements with countries such as Niger, one of the poorest nations in the world, which was persuaded to host an Italian military mission to support increasingly militarized attempts to combat irregular migration in 2018.

Just how committed Europe is to ideals of sovereignty and democratic freedom beyond the Global North is evident in the “externalization” of its borders.

Aside from the symbolic connotations of European police making arrests on African soil, opposition to externalization stems from the lack of transparency and accountability that often accompanies this type of collaboration, which critics view as undemocratic. Predicated upon opaque, high-level deliberations between foreign powers and political elites that are seldom subject to meaningful public debate or participation by civil society, externalization is associated with the adoption of donor-oriented policies in exchange for funds spent without oversight. It is revealing that European overtures are least successful in contexts such as Gambia, where the government’s accountability to the electorate has prevented its acceptance of returnees from Europe, and Tunisia, where civil society raised concerns about EU attempts to create disembarkation zones.

In so far as externalization has succeeded in stemming the flow of emigration from Africa, it has done so by bolstering the coercive capacities and border controls of countries such as Libya, with grave consequences for human rights. From 2017, Italy and the EU’s empowerment of the quasi-military Libyan Coastguard through provision of funding and equipment contributed to the development of a sadistic, state-sponsored machinery of emigration control linked to industrial-scale trafficking by militias. Thousands of migrants and asylum seekers, some of whose interception was enabled by European aerial surveillance, were systematically extorted in a network of black prisons where excessive force, violent abuse, murder and rape are known to have occurred. The UN is currently investigating reports of mass graves filled with the bodies of migrants in the desert city of Beni Walid.

A less extreme version of this story unfolded in Sudan, where EU finance for President Omar al-Bashir’s border police was linked with human rights abuses committed by the army’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a reincarnation of the Janjaweed paramilitary group, accused of war crimes during the Darfur conflict. In Niger, a clampdown on smuggling since 2015 led to the adoption of longer, riskier, more expensive routes through Chad and Sudan, increasing the scope for police forces to extract bribes for facilitation. Migrants now pay more, and experience greater danger to reach the same destinations. In each case, the effect of EU support for state-led crusades against smuggling has been to render migrants more vulnerable.

Proponents of externalization (who rarely refer to it as such), like to claim it is part of a collaborative project that improves migration governance in African states by strengthening their capacity for border-management. National-state sovereignty is in fact reinforced, they argue, by enabling African policymakers and officials to administer mobility with support from migration agencies such as the IOM and UNHCR, and by building border posts and installing new architectures of computerization to digitize the identities of citizens and migrants alike. Through technology transfer and training, Europe is professionalizing the management of mobile populations in Africa, all in the spirit of “cooperation”.

Others are more sceptical about the value of surveilling, assigning and binding African populations to national-state territories through what is, after all, an EU-driven project to concretize borders drawn up by Europeans in the previous century. In West Africa, externalization is imbricated within a gambit of multilateral counter-terrorism measures. Financial, military, and technological support have poured into securitizing hubs along Niger’s borders. With Frontex at the forefront of collating biometric information about African bodies in these laboratories of digital governance, it seems reasonable to assume data could be used to return and confine Africans on the move to their countries of origin.

Externalization is associated with the adoption of donor-oriented policies in exchange for funds spent without oversight.

More than just keeping Africans in Africa, however, externalization threatens to undermine intra-African mobility, which accounts for by far the largest proportion of international African migration. Consider: Nigeriens, Malians, Burkinabès, Ivorians, and others formerly employed in the trans-Sahelian transit economic hubs shut down by the EU’s anti-smuggling drive, are members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), whose Common Approach on Migration legitimates freedom of movement for citizens across the region. Collateral damage in the war against ‘trafficking’, these traders and transporters might wonder: what right does a union of states thousands of miles away have to shut down a busy crossroads of intra-African migration integral to their livelihoods? Similarly, nomadic and pastoral populations whose lives have depended on seasonal, cross-border migration for centuries, and  transnational populations such as Somalis in northern Kenya being turned into “machine-readable” refugees might feel similarly ambivalent at Europe’s support for “better migration governance”. Intervention of this kind, whatever its intentions, has a tendency to add bureaucratic layers to “migration management”, formalizing previously porous or unregulated spaces, creating de facto restrictions and inhibiting traditional patterns of trade and transhumance.

Herein lies the troubling essence of externalization, a project that protects the integrity of migration and asylum systems in Europe by undermining prosperity, mobility and human rights in Africa. Bilateral cooperation led by the EU contains a special layer of hypocrisy given the block’s espousal of regional integration and human mobility between neighbouring states in Europe: in its own backyard, it celebrates cultural exchange through schemes such as ERASMUS and Schengen’s integrated trans-national labour market. In Africa, it dissuades young people from emigration through “information campaigns” and promotes nationally self-contained development projects that implore them to stay put, stigmatizing mobility and shrinking their horizons of travel in the name of tackling (irregular) migration’s “root causes”.

If the EU’s approach to externalization involves maintaining the appearance of value-based cooperation and includes broader consultation, for example with the African Union, no such parameters constrain individual Western countries engaged in secretive, bilateral talks to secure the reception of deportees. Pioneered by Israel, which quietly used Rwanda and Uganda to rid its territory of African “infiltrators” for several years from 2013, this type of externalization makes little pretence at submitting itself to public scrutiny. Neither African country publicly acknowledged their receipt of unknown numbers of Eritreans and Sudanese. The scheme came to light in 2018 when Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government attempted to ramp up repatriations through increasingly coercive measures, embarrassing both Rwanda and Uganda, which to this day, deny colluding in the removal and transfer of African asylum seekers from Israel under degrading and illegal conditions.

Given the covert nature of this type of sordid transactional migration diplomacy, the detail of what gets proposed for barter is mysterious, though leaks suggest offerings go well beyond the usual development aid. Israel reportedly extended assistance in Defence to Uganda and Rwanda. Earlier this year, Denmark was credibly reported to have tried to give Rwanda 250,000 COVID-19 vaccines to host asylum processing centres. Despite being rejected, this last “donation” underscores the depths to which this type of exchange can sink: exploiting an African country’s inferior access to life-saving medical technology during a pandemic as a basis of negotiation.

Bilateral cooperation led by the EU contains a special layer of hypocrisy given the block’s espousal of regional integration and human mobility between neighbouring states in Europe.

Against this background, Britain’s agreement with Rwanda feels more like a place we’ve been headed to than a diplomatic breakthrough. That’s not to deny elements of genuine innovation in Home Office Priti Patel’s proposition, which goes further than Australian-style “offshore processing” and Israel’s undocumented deportations. Crucially, the scheme does not envisage the re-entry of successful asylum applicants. The radical aspect, then, is Britain’s not-so-tacit admission that it doesn’t actually matter whether individuals are “genuine” refugees. (The possibility they might be is acknowledged by the plan’s offer of safe haven in Rwanda.) Instead, their fates hinge on whether they arrived by legal invitation. Here too, the plans break new ground, in that the government has been unusually candid about the typical profile of those they wish to see removed without UK asylum processing. “Only adult males would be sent to Rwanda,” Welsh Secretary Simon Hart briefed the press. A subsequent statement by the Home Office has cast some doubt over whether such a rule would in fact apply, but there’s little doubt whom the new order would target. Like talk of “economic motivations”, gender too now functions as a language of difference that signifies non-European identity without referring to it explicitly.

Despite the astronomical cost, bureaucratic and legal complexity of the scheme, which is unlikely to be implemented any time soon, its significance as a barometer of right-wing European attitudes to migration and asylum from Asia and Africa could not be clearer: A government that airlifted dogs from Kabul during the chaos of Western withdrawal last year, is this year rolling out a legal framework for Britons to (literally) open their homes to Ukrainian women and children. Simultaneously, it is planning large-scale expulsion of predominantly male, non-European asylum seekers to Africa.

Like talk of “economic motivations”, gender too now functions as a language of difference that signifies non-European identity without referring to it explicitly.

If any of this sounds like a U-turn, the direction of travel is toward the original Eurocentric scope of the Refugee Convention, which, at its inception in 1951, was designed to protect Europeans uprooted by the Second World War. Like the still largely colonial world of that era, today’s European system of migration and asylum governance offers sanctuary to Europeans whilst saying little about Europe’s responsibility to displaced populations elsewhere. With climate catastrophe looming, we can see where such a framework might lead. Perhaps, in years to come, the period between 1990 and 2022 will be retrospectively viewed as an historically exceptional interval during which Europe received significant numbers of asylum seekers from Asia and Africa. Its increasing reluctance to do so over these three decades, manifested in the rise of openly racist, xenophobic political parties and externalization policies, would appear to be culminating in the present bifurcation, catalysed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

What does this mean for Africa? Achille Mbembe has described European migration policy as wanting to turn Africa into a “Bantustan”. Yet the Rwanda plan envisages a curious and unprecedented multiracial role for Africa as a point of disembarkation, not just for Sudanese, Eritreans, Maghrebi and other cohorts of the continent’s own returnees, but Asians from just about anywhere else. Some of these exiles may have transited Africa en route to Europe; others are being offered one-way tickets to a country they’ve never visited, and whose credentials to safely host and integrate refugees have been questioned by leading asylum and human rights experts.

Denmark was credibly reported to have tried to give Rwanda 250,000 COVID-19 vaccines to host asylum processing centres.

The Tories are spinning this, as one might expect, in terms that flatter Rwanda as a safe and stable country with a powerful economy — evidence that Africa is held in high esteem. Their scorn for the unwanted human surplus they’re shipping from their shores suggests they feel otherwise. Notwithstanding Rwanda’s status as a dynamic economy (though not as strong as is being suggested), the plan brings to mind Lawrence Summers’ infamous 1991 World Bank memo about the “impeccable” economic logic behind “dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country”. Like European diplomats pushing externalization over the last decade or so, Summers too had Africa in his sights — not because he viewed it on equal terms, but because he saw it as the ideal cite of expulsion to absorb that which is unwanted or discarded by the rich world.

Needless to say, European policymakers preaching democracy and anti-imperialism against the tyranny of Putin would firmly dispute any such suggestion. Whatever their commitment to these values in Europe, the global direction of migration policy more broadly suggests the sovereignty and freedom they have in mind when calling for protection of Ukrainian refugees is rather different from that which is envisaged for non-Europeans they wish to keep in/send to Africa, where  the post-colony is being fashioned, , into a receptor and container of bodies and aspirations.

None of this is to lessen the case against Russian territorial imperialism and its associated crimes, which are rightly being condemned in the strongest possible terms. Nor is it to question Ukrainians’ right to protection. They deserve all the political and material support they have received and more. Indeed, given the complex position of East Europeans within the Northwest European racial imaginary, and its well-known fickle tolerance for strangers in general, it would be misplaced to assume their position is secure, or to exaggerate their privilege within an international migration system that treats all displaced persons inadequately. Incidentally, the “welcome” of the hollowed-out British state, which is sourcing out a significant proportion of the burden of hosting Ukrainians onto society, actually risks placing individuals in situations of vulnerability within private homes. Without questioning the generosity of the vast majority of those extending support within communities, the motives behind the enthusiasm of a small minority of those who wish to shelter East European women could well be less than innocent, a possibility not lost on refugee charities that have expressed well-grounded concerns about the dangers of trafficking.

Progressive voices within Europe and the West have called for the generosity shown to Ukrainians to be extended to other groups. Optimistically, perhaps, they imagine the outpouring of support for refugees in Ukraine as the potential starting point for a genuine U-turn in asylum policy — one that would acknowledge the humanity, needs and entitlements of all displaced persons, irrespective of origin or geopolitical salience. If such a scenario seems unlikely in Poland and Hungary, it may well be that in other countries, the hostility of prominent actors and voices towards non-European asylum seekers is not quite as widely shared by all parts of society as policymakers seem to believe. An Ipsos survey conducted before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine found a majority of Brits backed giving refuge to those fleeing war, suggesting the bifurcation scenario being advanced by political elites, in which racism and externalization reconfigure asylum and migration in ways that threaten to introduce an apartheid in global mobility, is neither necessary nor inevitable.

The plan brings to mind Lawrence Summers’ infamous 1991 World Bank memo about the “impeccable” economic logic behind “dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country”.

As for progressive voices within Africa: policymakers, officials, intellectuals, experts and civil society will not be waiting for Europe to reach particular conclusions about international migration and asylum from Africa to Europe. Nor will they wait for Europe to extend the generosity it has shown to Ukrainians to the people of their respective regions, within which most African migration takes place. Even before the West was faced with the burden of absorbing the largest exodus since World War II, its externalization agenda in Africa was criticized for lack of attention to intra-African migration and displacement. Given its new strategic priorities, increased costs of living and the Western media’s uninterrupted focus on the war in Ukraine, it seems less likely than ever such attention will finally materialize. If anything, there are already signs that Europe’s disproportionate fixation with Russia’s invasion is resulting in the direction of funding away from humanitarian crises in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, for instance, where acute hunger linked with climate change is contributing to internal displacement.

In the longer term, the strength of political and diplomatic resistance to the troubling aspects of Europe’s externalization agenda will depend in some measure on the African Union. The latter has been critical of Europe’s evasion of its responsibilities to accept immigration from Africa whilst offering its own genuinely exciting vision (2063) for intra-African migration, which unapologetically advocates free movement as a pathway to peace and prosperity. Together with East and West Africa’s respective regional political communities, IGAD and ECOWAS, the AU could continue to be a vehicle for progressive change. Historically, in its incarnation as the OAU, it has led the world in refugee protection by broadening the original Eurocentric focus of the Refugee Convention in 1969, and again in 2012, when the Kampala Convention on internal migration was signed. Leading analysts of East Africa and the Horn of Africa point out that the region is exemplary in the extent of protections provided by states and institutions to displaced persons. This is not to suggest they don’t have their own problems. Shrinking space for asylum in Kenya and Tanzania, for instance, has led to threats of camp closures and repatriation. South Africa, where immigration and asylum have been politicized in toxic ways with violent consequences, is wracked with xenophobia. It is to point out, rather, that they have little to learn from Europe.

The motives behind the enthusiasm of a small minority of those who wish to shelter East European women could well be less than innocent.

The agency of African society will also be asserted through the policies of individual African states, particularly where democracy and civil society are most vibrant. It is no coincidence that EU overtures have been least successful in contexts where governments are accountable for their migration policies to civil society and electorates — that is, where greater degrees of popular sovereignty and democratic culture are in evidence.

Finally, the role of the African diaspora had a noticeable impact during the Ukraine crisis, not least the actions of social worker Tokunbo Koiki, Barrister Patricia Daley and medical student Korrine Sky studying in Ukraine, who together formed a humanitarian social organization, BL4BL (Black Women for Black Lives), that raised funds to support the evacuation of Black students caught up in the warzone. In drawing attention to the neglect and in many cases, discrimination that led to the abandonment of these individuals, BL4BL made a powerful connection that points to the ways in which the global Black Lives Matter movement could in years to come expand into opposition against policies that have led to the suffering of migrants from and within Africa. The deaths and disappearances of tens of thousands who attempted to cross the Mediterranean or the Niger desert during the peak years of externalization since 2015 have thus far figured surprisingly little in debates about migration policy, except where their tragedy is used to stigmatize irregular migration and vilify “traffickers”, justifying evermore draconian controls without addressing the single biggest “root cause” of irregular migration — the absence of legal pathways to migrate. Despite the transformative impact of BLM in so many other spheres of life within the West, a certain disconnect exists between its advances and the field of migration, where, as noted earlier, experts who stubbornly downplay the importance of racism tend to dominate the conversation.

This article is published in collaboration with the Heinrich Boll Foundation.

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