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October 20, 2014

Influential Kenyan Scholar Ali Mazrui Dead at 81 
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The renowned Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui has died at the age of 81. For
nearly half a century, he was considered an intellectual giant in
African studies. In 2005, Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines named
him among the top 100 public intellectuals in the world. He was the
author or co-author of more than 20 books on African politics,
international political culture and political Islam, including "Islam
Between Globalization and Counterterrorism." In 2009, Ali Mazrui spoke
to Democracy Now! about the election of President Barack Obama, the
first black president in the Western world. He talked about his hopes
for the nascent Obama presidency.

Ali Mazrui: "At the moment, I'm not optimistic that he'll necessarily be
just a peacemaking president with the conflicts that are on. So my dream
was he will be the first president not to start a conflict, not that he
would be the first president not to preside over a war, because he's
inheriting two wars, anyhow. And then, with one of them, the
Afghanistan, he's not planning to end it, really. He's planning to
escalate it for a while, so that is disappointing. So my prayer was
slightly different, that I don't want him to start a war with Iran. I
hope he wouldn't start a war with Syria. He would be mad if he started a
war with North Korea, you see? So, in general, I hope he won't start any
war and break this idea that a commander-in-chief has to be engaged in
an actual war to be a credible president of the United States."

 

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