1st Edition
Global Africa Profiles in Courage, Creativity, and Cruelty
This book of 100 essays written over the last three post-apartheid decades provides profiles of pan-African figures, mostly from Africa and its diaspora in the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean. It covers the most important figures of “Global Africa” — and some important non-African personalities — encompassing diverse historical and political figures, technocrats, activists, writers, public intellectuals, musical and film artists, and sporting figures. These include: Cecil Rhodes, Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Mobutu Sese Seko, Idi Amin, Barack Obama, Margaret Thatcher, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Adebayo Adedeji, Martin Luther King Jr., Wangari Maathai, Ruth First, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Bell Hooks, Buchi Emecheta, Ali Mazrui, Edward Said, Angela Davis, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Burna Boy, Asa, Muhammad Ali, Pelé, Eusébio, Diego Maradona, Viv Richards, Jonah Lomu, Hakeem Olajuwon, and many others.
Print edition not for sale in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction
I. HISTORICAL FIGURES
1. Cecil Rhodes’s Crumbling Legacy
2. Was Mahatma Gandhi a Racist?
3. Revisiting Woodrow Wilson’s Liberal Legacy
II.POLITICAL FIGURES
4. Kwame Nkrumah: Africa’s Philosopher-King
5. Albert Luthuli: The Nobel Black Moses
6. Nelson Mandela: Pan-African Prophet
7. Thabo Mbeki: Africa’s New Philosopher-King
8. Thabo Mbeki: Remembering the Renaissance Man
9. Thabo Mbeki’s Xenophobia Denialism
10. Thabo Mbeki and Nelson Mandela: The Policy Wonk and the Patriarch
11. Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma: The Lion and the Jewel
12. Kenneth Kaunda: Farewell to Zambia’s Founding Father
13. The Fall of Robert Mugabe
14. F.W. de Klerk: A Nobel without Honour?
15. Olusegun Obasanjo: The Emperor’s New Clothes
16. Jerry Rawlings: The Death and Deification of ‘Junior Jesus’
17. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: The Iron Lady of Liberia
18. Meles Zenawi: Philosopher-King or Pragmatic Autocrat?
19. Abiy Ahmed: Ethiopia’s Nobel Intellectual Soldier
20. Mobutu Sese Seko: The Sick Man of Africa
21. Idi Amin: The Making of a Warrior God
22. Daniel arap Moi: A Ruthless Dictator
23. Paul Kagame and Wole Soyinka: The President and the Playwright
24. Qaddafi’s Monarchical Delusions
25. Obama, Clinton, and Africa
26. Obama’s Six Deadly Sins
27. Obama, Gandhi, and Egypt
28. Obama’s Africa Legacy
29. Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Donald Trump and Boris Johnson
30. Trump’s African ‘Shithole’ is Commonplace in America
31. Margaret Thatcher’s Black Mischief
33. The Trial of Tony Blair
34. The Strange Reappearance of Nicolas Sarkozy
35. Madeleine Albright: Remembering the First Female American Secretary of State
36. Colin Powell: The Reluctant Jamaican-American Warrior
III. TECHNOCRATS
37. Boutros-Ghali’s Huge Contribution to Egypt and the World
38. Boutros Boutros-Ghali: Afro-Arab Prophet, Pharaoh, and Pope
39. Kofi Annan: African Prophet or American Poodle?
40. Adebayo Adedeji: Farewell to Africa’s Cassandra
41. Adebayo Adedeji and Jean Monnet: The Fathers of African and European Integration
42. Raúl Prebisch and the Building of Latin America
43. Ibrahim Gambari: The Aristocratic Scholar-Diplomat
44. Lakhdar Brahimi: An Algerian Troubleshooter
45. Augustine Mahiga: A Tanzanian Peacemaker
46. Margaret Vogt: Africa Loses an Unflagging Peacemaker
47. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: Nigeria’s Iron Lady
48. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: A Super-Technocrat in Geneva
49. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma: The Alchemist
50. Naledi Pandor: South Africa’s New Diplomatic Troubleshooter
51. Mamphela Ramphele: Defender of the Status Quo at UCT
52. Eloho Otobo: Farewell to a Pan-African Peacebuilder
IV. ACTIVISTS
53. Remembering Martin Luther King Jr
54. John Lewis: The Last of the Mohicans
55. Wangari Maathai: Kenya’s Earth Mother
56. A Wreath for Saro-Wiwa
57. Denis Mukwege: Ennobling ‘Doctor Miracle’
58. Ruth First’s Pan-African Martyrdom
59. Mahlangu’s Moving Martyrdom
60. Kaye Whiteman: Ode to an Obituarist
61. Tor Sellström: A Cosmopolitan Swedish Freedom Fighter
V. WRITERS
62. A Tale of Two Continents: Dickensian Africa
63. Chinua Achebe: Farewell to Africa’s Griot
64. Soyinka’s Horseman: Who’s Afraid of Elesin Oba?
65. Wole Soyinka v. Caroline Davis: The CIA Controversy
66. James Baldwin: The Strange Persistence of Racism
67. Remembering Maya Angelou
68. Toni Morrison: America’s Black Bard
69. Bell Hooks: The Iconoclastic Feminist Scholar-Activist
70. Buchi Emecheta: Africa’s Literary Mother Courage
71. John Pepper Clark: Africa’s Protean Pioneer
VI. PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS
72. Ali Mazrui: Farewell the Trumpets for Prophet of Pax Africana
73. Edward Said: Pioneer of Post-Colonial Studies
74. Abiola Irele: The Last Prophet of Négritude
75. Chris Wanjala: Kenya’s Pan-African Griot
76. Thandika Mkandawire: The Afropolitan Intellectual
77. Raufu Mustapha: An Organic Intellectual
78. Angela Davis: A Life of Struggle
79. Three Prophets of Reparations: Randall Robinson, Hilary Beckles, and Ade Ajayi
VII. ARTISTS
80. Abami Eda: Fela’s Enduring Legacy
81. Bob Marley: Rebel with a Cause
82. Michael Jackson: The Strange Disappearance of the Moonwalker
83. Burna Boy: The Afropolitan Troubadour
84. Asa: Nigeria’s Songbird
85. Measuring Sidney Poitier’s Life
86. Cynthia Erivo: Building Bridges to the Diaspora
VIII. SPORTING FIGURES
87. Muhammad Ali: King of the World
88. Pelé: The Greatest Footballer of All Time
89. Eusébio: The King is Dead, Long Live the King!
90. The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Diego Maradona
91. George Weah: The Genius of King George
92. Samuel Eto’o: Cameroon’s Indomitable Lion
93. The Ivorian Pearl: The Life and Times of Didier Drogba
94. Africa’s Golden Generation: Salah, Mané, and Aubameyang
95. The Golden Age of West Indian Cricket
96. Jesse Owens’s Race
97. Jonah Lomu: Rugby’s First Global Superstar
98. The Greatness of Rafa Nadal
99. The Age of Hakeem
100. Flaming Flamingo: The Life and Times of Israel Adebajo
Notes
Index
Biography
Adekeye Adebajo is senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship (CAS) in South Africa. He is the author of eight books including The Curse of Berlin: Africa after the Cold War; and editor/co-editor of 10 books including The Pan-African Pantheon: Prophets, Poets, and Philosophers. He holds a doctorate from Oxford University in England where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and is a columnist for Business Day (South Africa), the Guardian (Nigeria), and the Gleaner (Jamaica).
‘This is a powerful, precise, passionate, and painful anthology that will stand the test of time for its truthfulness. It is a work that erupts like a monument to the sacrifice and heroism of that humanity which flows through black civilization like the never-ending Nile in the night.'
- - Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor, University of the West Indies
‘With his quintessentially Pan-African worldview, Adekeye Adebajo has deftly rendered the kaleidoscopic landscape of African achievement. It is not without crippling threats and disappointing reversals. But resistance to tyrants and female empowerment make visible the resilience to bounce back.’
- - Professor Pearl T. Robinson, Tufts University, Massachusetts
‘Immensely fluent, readable, and accessible. Adekeye Adebajo’s scholarship is impeccable, his reading of multiple sources is evident, and the historical perspective he provides is essential for an analysis of the contemporary era. This book is unique in its scope and broad canvas. I do not know of a collection of profiles that is similarly expansive.’
- - Maureen Isaacson, Former books editor, the Sunday Independent, South Africa
