I have first of all to render unto Caesar's.. .And this particular task gives me great satisfaction since it is not often that I find myself rendering anything unto this particular Caesar-beyond my income tax, that is-and that only because this Caesar takes what is his long before the residue touches my pocket. So let me pay my sincere compliments to the Nigerian Government for the stand it has taken over the principles and aspirations of this Colloquium.
This stand, I suggest, is best described as one of dynamic objectivity; dynamic in her efforts to sustain the mechanisms and scholastic integrity of the Colloquium, objective in its ability to sift out the political skullduggeries which, as we know only too well, perpetually bedevil gatherings of this kind in a world tom apart between mushroom ideologies. But it will be obvious also that it is more than my own personal satisfaction which prompts this tribute to the host government.
The position taken by her over this Colloquium lies at the heart of the very subject of my present contribution: The Scholar in African Society. Of late it has not been possible to discuss the situation of the scholar in our present African World without first checking (1) if any scholars would be at liberty to participate
(2) if even when such scholars have wisely located themselves in an accessible place, the host government will not submit to blackmail
and declare them prohibited immigrants or
(3) if one would not end up wishing that the first two alternatives had operated because, after the conference is over, some unfortunate egg-head is delivered in a diplomatic mail-bag to his own home government with the compliments of the hosts. We are able to say, confidently that none of the tiresome betrayals implied in those choices has taken place, or will take place at this Colloquium.
Now you would have seen a circulating monograph at this Colloquium, written by the Brazilian artist and scholar Abdias do Nascimento and titled, "Racial Democracy in Brazil ". The foreword to it was even written by me. That part of it to which I wish to call particular attention is on page 13 (roman numbering) and titled in memoriam. Abdias do Nascimento, in paying tribute to the late director of the Colloquium, quotes a portion of Zirimu's last letter to him. With do Nascimento's permission, I shall quote that passage:
"I'm sorry you hadn't heard from me. I have only a confession of failure to report. I haven't been able to get your paper accepted by the Establishment...
‘I'm convinced the material should be published...I still hope that the forces of history will work, will continue to work to bring to light what you so clearly say in your paper." End of quote.
Two nights before his death, I was with Pio Zirimu, I was entrusted with a letter from Abdias-probably his reply to the quoted one-for delivery to the late Colloquium Director. Because he was very physically uncomfortable-I had no idea of course how ill he was-I decided to hold over the letter till the following day when I also intended to discuss strategies with him. But I informed him of my impending Press Conference and this, I am consoled to recall, infused some excitement into him. I am informed by those who were with him on the last night that he kept calling for the papers because he wanted very much to read what I had said. Why is it necessary to present these details? Because certain agents have tried to slander his memory by allying him with the very forces of restriction against which we were fighting. The accusation has been made that Zirimu was upset by the fact that we were going to demand an adherence to the original spirit of the Colloquium that I was going to insist publicly on a safeguarding of its scholastic integrity.
A key organiser of the Colloquium, sitting at this very desk has been accused, in company with me of course, and others, of hastening Pio Zirimu to his grave by our uncompromising insistence. The Yoruba have a proverb for it : "Aj'egbodo nwa eni kun'ra". I shall render it as : the eater of garlic loves company.
I have accepted to stand on this platform today only because I believe passionately in the cause for which Zirimu fought. Also because my own government, the host government, responded resolutely to our appeal and did its best to ensure that those "aj'egbodo", the governmental yes-men of our continent, did not succeed in inundating the Colloquium with their creatures and parading them as the authentic intellectual and artistic voices of the black world. Of course the voices of governments are not altogether missing. No one in his right senses is suggesting that being a government representative precludes you from a capacity to contribute creatively and intellectually to an occasion like this. No, we are not that reductive in our thinking. But we do say that there are occasions when the artist and the scholar should and must take the initiative, the control, when the thinking individual should be liberated totally from the petty, parochial politics of the power systems of his own nation. And again, on our part, we concede that there is room also for the robots of leadership politics with their narrow schematism even on an occasion like this-let them all come, as long as debate is free, we shall contain them. This was Pio Zirimu's belief. This, incidentally, has been the belief of almost the entire Colloquium Division of this Festival, all of whom I have come to know very intimately.
For those who have wondered how the operations of the Festac organisation can conflict with the principles expressed or understood-of the host government, it is only necessary to recall that the International Secretariat is the executive, implementation mechanism for the central authourity of the Festival-the International Festival Committee. As is only natural within such an international body, it harbours both extremely dedicated men and women, fully competent and knowledgeable in their own specialities of whom Pio Zirimu was a prime example and, at the same time, a handful of philistines who had been successfuI1y infiltrated into the organisation for no other purpose than to serve interests decidedly inimical to those of the Black World.
Their motives have been complex and this is neither the time nor place to go into them. It was very fitting therefore that the Head of State should identify himself, his government, and this nation with the resolute, though not altogether successful stand which the late Pio Zirimu took against these agents of enemies of the Black W orId. And in continuation of his and other tributes to the memory of the Director of this Colloquium, I dedicate this lecture, "The Scholar in African Society" to the memory of Pio Zirimu.
And now, directly to the subject, let me assure you that by scholar I do not mean that justly maligned creature who devours musty tomes up the ivory tower and spews the undigested pages on the poor peasants below. I do not mean the university product who had earned diplomas and doctorates by tracing the accent on a vowel and followed its migration from prefix to declension endings. This is not to say of course that the university product is never a scholar. I assure you that I have met some. Nor do I subscribe either to the wildly romantic notion that the peasant is a natural sage, or scholar.
This is to submit one's intelligence to a simplistic reversal of colonial indoctrination, to deny that scholars and sages have existed in African society before the first European or Arab made his existence known. That, traditionally, a distinct social function has always been reserved for the scholar. If you identify specific social functions for a type of mind in society, you imply of course that not every member of society is gifted with, or has applied his energies to cultivating that type of mind. You differentiate between the social functions of one individual and another, you identify in various ways the existence of an intellectual group. (You will notice that I deliberately avoid that loaded expression 'class').
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