Introduction | Afrika Study Centre | The Marcus-Garvey Pan-Afrikan Institute | Structure | The Functioning of the MPAI
Collaborative Research Projects | Buildings and Site Photos

Introduction

The search for the development of Afrikan knowledge systems and make it part of the mainstream knowledge systems has defied Afrikanists and those advocating for a paradigm change that accommodates systems throughout the world. In Afrika, the need for change towards an alternative vision is a burning one since it is connected with the realisation that existing knowledge systems are not responsive to Afrika's needs and that a peoples' self-understanding and self-identity is crucial to their reinvigoration and "rebirth," hence the call for an African Renaissance.

The need to create a Pan-Afrikan University that addresses this need has also been a long-standing project, which has been envisioned by many Pan-Afrikanists and Afrikan nationalists of varying orientations over many years. However, the project has never been realised - a fact that goes to demonstrate the continuing hold of Western epistemology, paradigms and ideologies over the continent. This has resulted in the hijacking of the Pan-Afrikan unity project as well as the failure to realise the aspirations of the Afrikan people under self-determination. Today, the current processes of globalisation, which is resulting in the increasing marginalisation of the ordinary people in the global system, is threatening these aspirations even more. If Afrika is to recover its memory and regain its own confidence to pursue their own project of transformation in the global economy, they need to look at their own achievements over time, which were disowned by the Eurocentric hegemonic project of knowledge domination.

Afrikan independence did not resolve the problem of dependence on the former metropolitan powers. On the contrary, the first attempts to transform the University Colleges established by the colonial powers into instruments of Afrikan independence and nation building failed because of this continuing colonial interest to maintain Western cultural domination over the continent. This domination has been made possible through the special relationships that were first created between the new University Colleges and the University of London, French Universities and other European metropolitan Universities.

Thus the post-colonial Afrikan University came to be structured in the image of the Greek-European University dedicated to pursuing "high quality academic standards" based on Greek and Latin classics. Attempts to establish "African Studies" and centres in a number of countries became another way of reasserting the Western epistemology, dominated by "Africanists" in different centres of world education and in Africa itself. Afrikans could not look at themselves through their own eyes. "Experts" of different kinds overwhelmed them.

The Afrikan elites who were educated in these neo-colonial Universities became the proponents of the same paradigms and ideologies, insisting that Afrikan Universities should continue to uphold "high academic standards" comparable to those of "world-class" Universities without ensuring that these high standards were used to develop Afrikan knowledge and societies to new high levels. They failed to ensure that Afrikan Universities served the interests of the Afrikan people as well as developing Afrikan academic standards comparable to those in other countries of the world.