Proliferate to Abolish: Mazrui’s Perspective on Nuclear Disarmament

Abstract

Africa’s perspectives on nuclear weapons (and other world-order issues) remain largely unexplored. They are, therefore, little known or not known at all. This essay seeks to take a modest step to fill the gap by bringing into focus the nuclear discourse of the Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui—a forgotten “classic,” many of whose ideas have stood the test of time and might even help us to better understand the nature of the challenges of global nuclear disarmament as well as think creatively about solutions. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, Mazrui was a passionate and foremost proponent of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Africa and the Middle East. However, he never advocated this for its own sake but only as a means of achieving the most fundamental and desirable goal of global nuclear disarmament. A dose of the disease, in Mazrui’s view, must be used as a part of the necessary cure. Hence his idea—“proliferate to abolish.”