Q: What might constitute a social vaccine? I know you’ve done a lot of work looking at traditions, cultures, norms and belief systems. Are there any that could shape or influence HIV/AIDS transmission either positively or negatively?

A: As you know, I have this paradigm about Africa, which thinks of it as a triple heritage with three legacies: the indigenous, the Islamic and the western. They have values that are not identical, so HIV can be affected differently according to which of these three legacies is operating in a society or in a group.

So, in my opinion, the first pre-condition for an effective social vaccine would be to recognise that triple heritage and the potential differences it poses for dealing with problems. For example on issues of sexual pluralism i.e. one person several partners, in the Islamic sector sexual pluralism within wedlock - polygamy, is still widely practised. In more Christianised sectors of African societies, one might find monogamy within wedlock and sexual pluralism outside wedlock; whilst among the indigenous Africans attitudes could go either way; people who observe afro-indigenous traditions rather than either Islam or Christianity.

In all three cases, whether people have multiple partners within wedlock or diverse relationships outside it, there are consequences for HIV and its spread. My own opinion is that pluralism within wedlock i.e. polygny or polygamy probably reduces the spread because the partners are specific whereas sexual pluralism outside of wedlock (which is unfortunately widely practised) carries greater risks.

Q: For a politician, is there any way of dealing with these three different legacies simultaneously or within one complex context?

A: Politicians can attempt to pursue policies that discourage or encourage cultural traditions will have to include a good deal of cultural consultation and education. Take for example the issue of child marriages: there are high incidences among Muslims, partly because imams are quite prepared to officiate, whilst incidences of child marriages among African Christians are reduced, partly because priests and pastors discourage them. The behaviour of the religious leaders can make a lot of difference as to whether it is practised or not practised.

On the issue of the sexual pluralism, I think there is a tendency among politicians now to go westernised on polygamy and have laws which discourage it, but these might not be safe. If policies force people to be monogamous at one level, then they could become promiscuous in other areas. Speaking as someone who has practised monogamy, but with no vested personal interest in it, I have grown up in families which are polygamous and believe that policies which try to enforce monogamy are counter-productive—policies which regulate polygamy in ways which are much more fairer to women would be much more sensible.

Q: Within this triple heritage, are there different attitudes to women?

A: Well, in all three traditions i.e. the indigenous, the Islamic and the western, the idea of genuine gender equality is still much more an aspiration than an actuality. The traditions differ in the inequalities of gender—for example, under indigenous traditions, women perform a wider variety of roles, but they own less than in either Islamic or Western traditions. So women are made custodians of fire, in charge of the main source of energy, (firewood) in the countryside; custodians of water so they are responsible for the family’s water supplies; custodians of earth because they are very often cultivators, farmers etc., as well as being mothers and housewives.

So women have a wider range of roles than under the other traditions, yet with regard to the rights of women to own property, land or livestock their position is also much weaker among the indigenous African traditions than under Islamic or western. In the case of Islamic traditions, women are less likely to be farmers, but can inherit and own land more easily than many women who are not Muslims can. In Zimbabwe for example, where there is a lot of struggle for land in defence of racial rights the struggle for gender rights over land is not as yet underway—women are allowed to cultivate but far less likely to own the land.

There are genuine differences in the norms of different societies. A politician confronted with the triple heritage within his country would need to find out how best to utilise what is best from each of the legacies and how best to cope with what is counter-productive in the traditions.

Q: If you had a crystal ball and you looked ahead twenty years, how do you see the triple heritage—particularly in regard to the attitudes to women—playing out?

A: I am fairly optimistic side. In Africa we are starting to recognise that gender issues have to change and that the rights of women have to be examined in a new light. We have very curious anomalies for example, Uganda appointed a woman as vice-president long before it was widespread in the western world including the United States. Over the last two decades, there is a much greater awareness of restoring some kind of gender balance, and the idea of having some kind of percentage for women in either legislature or party offices is beginning to catch on. There is more effort to appoint women for particular positions—sometimes explicitly, but more often more consciously. This change is not taking place fast enough, but the direction is correct.

Q: Would the direction be in terms of human rights as referred to in the West, or could there be an African alternative to that?

A: Many people respect human rights, but the vocabulary sounds so western that it may be a better idea to preach the same message—towards equality of women—but using a slightly different vocabulary that is less likely to generate opposition. A debate framed in terms of: “Half of the population is being under-utilised—Africa has problems feeding itself and moving in the direction of prosperity requires a more effective utilisation of the talents of both our women as well as our men” definitely has greater resonance than one framed purely in terms of human rights.

Human rights represents one of the pluses of westernisation—greater sensitivity to the rights of women—but I have always said that the vices of the powerful, acquire some of the prestige of power. That is the vices, not their virtues, acquire some of the prestige of power.

Many negative things from the West are beginning to take hold, such as the erosion of the discipline of marriage, decline of sexual fidelity, ease of divorce, more casual homosexuality, narcotics addiction (not just marijuana and pap which are long established traditionally in Africa both indigenous and Islamic, but cocaine, crack, heroine), the tourist sex industry and of course alcohol consumption, which is becoming more widespread even in traditionally sober Muslim societies. So the westernisation process does not include just the virtues of the West, but we should look more closely at possible adaptations that are right for our culture.

Q: What kind of impact does urbanisation have on this whole cycle of westernisation?

A: Urbanisation plays a big role—the trouble with Africa is that very often there is urbanisation without industrialisation. There has been movement of populations to the cities without the accompanying industrial production that characterised the Industrial Revolution in western history, which was usually linked to increasing capacity to produce industrially. So urbanisation brings us some of the potential dangers of rapid dislocation, and rapid erosion of traditional values without some of the pluses which occurred with western industrialism in its early years. Unfortunately sometimes we think of modernisation as urbanisation or as industrialisation, but in Africa the industrialisation part is still very weak.

The question is whether one can have urbanisation-modernisation without westernisation. This used to be a major cultural headache all over Africa, but of course it is not unique to Africa; recently Pres. Bush gave a speech saying that modernisation was not westernisation. He wanted to reassure the Middle East in terms of his plans, yet the central point he was making is definitely an important one.

In the history of non-African, non-western societies, I have been intrigued by two paradigms—one Japanese, the other Turkish. The Japanese paradigm took place after the 1868 Meiji Restoration, when the Japanese asked themselves whether they could economically modernise without culturally westernising. At that stage the Japanese said: yes, we can pursue western technique and retain Japanese spirit and it became the slogan—Western technique and Japanese spirit. 

For much of the following period, from the late 1860s until the end of World War II, this formed the basic strategy of Japanese transformation; how to learn from the West, the techniques of production and industrialisation without abandoning the essence of Japanese culture within their society.

By contrast, in Turkey under the rule of Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, they asked themselves the same question: “Can we economically modernise without culturally westernising?” Ataturk and the Turks said no—cultural westernisation was necessary in order to modernise economically. Even things that did not seem directly relevant for production were westernised; such as adoption of the Roman alphabet instead of the Arabic alphabet, discouraging Muslim dress and establishing militantly secular political order.

In Turkey there are far less tolerance for aspects of Islam than in the United States: women wearing scarves run the risk of being ostracised or losing their jobs. So the Turks adopted the idea that there could be no modernity without westernisation.

The rest of Africa is faced with this paradigm, although it is not always presented as such. In reality the question is whether a country can grow modern without going western, or the opposite – that it is impossible. In reality Africa adopted the worst of both worlds—we westernised without modernising; so we assimilated those aspects of Western culture which very often were non-productive, so that the situation is now that Kenyans like myself speak far better English than  Koreans, but Korea has become the 12th industrial power in the world. One major reason is that the things the Koreans learnt from the West were not just how well to speak a Western language but much more production- related western skills etc.

This paradigm exposes many serious questions: whether the erosion of the discipline of marriage will continue as a consequence of modernisation, or whether it can be stemmed; whether we can avoid open gay behaviour, or whether it violates human rights; whether the culture of consumption can be controlled without detriment to our economies? These are real dilemmas.

As you probably know I have recently been appointed Chancellor of the Jomo Kenyatta University. The reason why I mention it is that it a university of technology and agriculture. It is the sort of place where I hope to raise issues of this kind - introduce cultural issues in a university that is primarily designed to promote technology and agricultural skills. Paradoxically, Jomo Kenyatta University is substantially supported by the Japanese—another link with a highly industrialised non-western society.

In terms of my views on education, I certainly think we should establish two links:
One, make our Education systems much more relevant for economic production
And secondly, reduce the gap between education we give and the culture from which we spring

There are not really African universities in Africa, western universities are the norm. Most of these are replicas of the West and struggling to Africanise them becomes part of the need to handle the situation. So this is why we have to make our education institutions more relevant for production and certainly more relevant for the cultures of the societies they are supposed to serve. This is definitely something I have been preaching repeatedly in different African countries and while there has been some progress, it is not enough. We now teach more African history than we did at the time of independence, but we don’t teach many more African languages. More often than not, departments of religious studies teach very little about indigenous belief systems—they teach either Islam or Christianity.

Q: How would you see the role of women or the gender issue in education?

A: The first issue is to make sure that there is adequate access to education for women. When I was a child, the Islamic culture was reluctant to let women pursue much higher education as they believed there was a serious risk of loss of religious identity and moral discipline. This attitude has changed a lot, and now Muslims allow their daughters to climb the educational ladder. That’s important—access to education.

The second issue is whether we appoint women to professorial jobs and administrative jobs – to date women are very under-represented and there isn’t even as yet an effort being made to recruit more women as a matter of policy, except in lower levels of education.

The third issue regards what is taught, not just who teaches—restoring gender balance in what is taught to society; i.e. not history as made excessively by men, religion postured in ways which imply masculinity as the sacred norm, God as king in an almost masculine sense etc., with no attempt to gender sensitivity with regard to content. A possible exception is literature, where some progress has been made in paying attention to African women novelists and poets but in most of the other disciplines there is not even an awareness of the need to strike a gender balance.

It is then important to ensure that there are a wide range of opportunities for educated women. We need to address the wider issues—why do women gain their education, apart from making them better mothers—and try to diversify the opportunities available to them and let them make choices within their own aspirations and the needs of their families.

Education used to be regarded as number one priority, with western donors prepared to invest a good deal in primary, and higher, education, but levels of priority have declined. Universities fell out of favour with western donors and the emphasis is now on improving literacy levels. African governments have also themselves to blame- they have neglected universities, accelerating the brain drain by not having systems of recognition for talent and not paying out staff sufficiently well so that they are constantly looking for opportunities elsewhere - in the Middle East or in Europe or in Canada and in the United States, or southern Africa, especially South Africa which pays better salaries. Education is grossly under-funded.

This is not unique to Africa, but it is particularly bad—in some countries teachers don’t get paid for months. Unlike twenty years ago, there is now no way that professorial salaries in Uganda or Kenya could generate anything more than low levels of employment or make it possible for professors to be researchers for any substantial part of their work, a real misallocation of resources.

Q: Are there specific societal groups that are opposing modernisation or westernisation?

A: In my opinion, there is not enough opposition. In the United States I see more criticism of the Eurocentric nature of education than on African campuses. People don’t seem to resent excessive Eurocentrism in African universities, unlike many on American campuses who call for greater diversity of content and re-interpretation of history etc.

The biggest stumbling block to marrying modernisation with indigenous culture has been the inadequate interest in African languages. Unless we have effective language policy making African languages acquire a capacity for modernity, acquire a capacity for technological discourse, acquire a capacity for scientific effectiveness, we will not be able to marry modernity with indigenous culture.

The language sectors that are paramount are grossly neglected in much of Africa—South Africa may recognise nearly a dozen languages as official languages, but what does it mean? Tanzania has gone further than most in attempting to use Kiswahili for levels of education, but their policy to make Kiswahili a more effective language of science is still unclear. When we look at the successful Asian countries, like Japan, South Korea and even Singapore, there is much greater attention to indigenous culture and languages in order to perform well.

My message is that it is important to have a model of modernisation that is compatible with African culture. None of the major disciplines can be discussed between African scholars (including myself) in languages that are not European in origin, and this gap will have to be addressed before we can sufficiently link our cultures with African approaches to modernity.

Q: Is there a lack of interest in scientific technical discourse?

A: There is certainly not enough interest, in part because we haven’t related scientific discourse adequately to areas of technological productivity within Africa. We keep on learning from the West but not necessarily applying our knowledge to Africa. This is another gap—between knowledge of the theory and its utilisation for the benefit of society, and we are much slower on the second one than with the first. We can become competent scientists and Africa has produced competent scientists but not enough in the direction of productivity for the society.

Q: Can religious practises be catalysed to create some kind of transformative leadership within the religious sphere?

A: Modernisation should not be regarded as inevitable secularisation—the reduction of relevance of religion in the modern world. The question is—can we have a process of modernisation which still incorporates a good deal of religion. The answer is yes, as much as it depends on the type of religious leaders—some are more aware of the need to adapt than others.

Certainly with regard to the Islamic traditions we discussed, they have been particularly slow in relating to changing times with sacred constants. There is a lot of debate questioning the need for an Islamic reformation—fundamental re-examination of Islamic values and adapting values culturally and historically relative to what was proclaimed fourteen centuries ago to modern circumstances. There is currently a debate as to whether human history is part of divine revelation i.e. does God reveal himself in instalments and therefore if He does, we should really recognise the new instalments as of value and not just what was revealed centuries ago.

Personally, I hope modernisation can be attained without embarking on excessive secularisation. It is going to be difficult because many religious leaders are conservative and reluctant to touch the sacred in the light of the changing times, but it is still worth trying because a world without a sense of transcendence is a poorer world and perhaps even a dangerous world.

Q: With regard to the triple identity—are there new societal groupings that could emerge and could there be different or multiple concepts of identity or affiliation?

A: Identities do change and they can be fluid—some identities are more fluid than others but all of them are subject to changing circumstances. Cultural identities are more fluid than racial or ethnic identities. People can change within their culture across a decade, but it is substantially much more difficult for people to cease seeing themselves as Baganda, Kikuyu or Yoruba in less than a century or so.

With regard to types of leadership, it is true that Africa has produced many leaders that are excessively tied to constants like ethnicity and membership of religions and not enough leaders who are tied to more fluid economic identities like social class. Class structures are much weaker in Africa than ethnic structures and class structures (in the modern world at any rate) are more fluid than ethnic structures. Leadership that is informed economically is still relatively rare, whereas leadership that is very sensitive to race and ethnicity is perhaps excessively omni-present in Africa.

There have also been real thinkers as well as leaders - we had a good crop of them at the beginning of independence with people like Julius Nyerere, Leopold Sedar Senghor and Kwame Nkrumah. These were all philosopher presidents eager to propose theories and ideas and whilst there are few of them visible right now, this does not mean that there are few of them on the scene right now, but I think that doesn’t mean that the combination of intellectual leadership and political leadership will not re-emerge.