Makerere hosts Mbeki for high-level Africa discourse
Makerere University Chancellor Prof Mondo Kagonyera hands over an award to a student during the 62nd graduation at the university Freedom Square yesterday. The university will tomorrow host Mr Mbeki and other academics for a plethora of debate on Africa. Photo by Faiswal Kasirye
What you need to know:
For Africa. The debate is one of five key discourses planned by MISR as part of its “intellectual and physical renovation” initiated by Prof. Mamdani two years ago.
Former South African president Thabo Mbeki will lead a high-level intellectual discourse that kicks off tomorrow discussing the character and challenges of post-cold war Africa at Makerere University.
Mr Mbeki, South Africa’s second post-apartheid leader, is expected to deliver a key note address as part of a workshop hosted by the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) before fielding questions in a public Q&A session.
According to Professor Mahmood Mamdani, the MISR executive director, the debate is informed by recent developments in Africa, as seen in Libya and Ivory Coast where regime changes were direct results of external interventions rather than internal reform.
“Part of the challenge we face is that a lot of the opposition (on the continent) are giving up hope for internal reform and beginning to look at external intervention as the only way to change,” said Prof. Mamdani in an interview with this newspaper yesterday. “We would like to shape this debate.”
African academics set
Describing Mr Mbeki as a man who combines diplomacy and statesmanship, Prof. Mamdani said the ex-South African leader was the perfect guest to grace MISR’s debate because he has been “central to promoting negotiation in deeply divided societies” such as Sudan, Zimbabwe and Ivory Coast.
Mr Mbeki will share a platform with a host of celebrated academics discussing topics that include Western intervention in Africa, new directions in international order, international criminal law, and case studies of Somalia and Zimbabwe.
They include Abdi Samatar, Professor of Geography at University of Minnesota, Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at Tufts University, Kaari Betty Murungi, a feminist lawyer with expertise in international human rights law and transitional justice and Siba N’Zatioula Grovogui, professor of international relations theory and law at The John Hopkins University.
The debate is one of five key discourses planned by MISR as part of its “intellectual and physical renovation” initiated by Prof. Mamdani two years ago.
The institute, which was previously a standalone research centre, now combines research with post-graduate education and is expected to launch a five-year interdisciplinary PhD programme in Social Studies on January 28.
