Ali A. Mazrui (1933–2014) A great man, a great scholar

Abstract

In November 2012, Ali Mazrui wrote an article titled “Barack Obama: A great man, not yet a great president.” He said Barack Obama was a great man but we would have to wait and see if he would become a great president. That is a fair point, I think; but let me also venture to say this. We would not have to wait any longer to say Ali A. Mazrui was a great man and a great scholar. Now some reflections on this man of ideas—a beautiful mind. The mathematical genius depicted in the 2001 Oscars-winning eponymous movie is called “a beautiful mind”. And so was Ali A. Mazrui—a beautiful mind. It was this mind which inspired me to write my first book P aradig m Lost, Paradigm Regained: The W orldvie w of Ali A. Mazrui (2002), with a Foreword by Kazuto Suzuki, a rising Japanese academic/diplomat and former colleague of mine at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. So, here was an Ethiopian Oromo in Japan, writing his first book, about a Kenyan in the United States; and the Ethiopian had even never met the Kenyan before he wrote the book. Such was my passion for Mazrui’s scholarship—a passion which, now I understand, is shared by so many in Africa and around the world.