Open Letter to African Intellectuals

Open Letter to African Intellectuals By Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire (Uganda) The tag, ‘intellectual’ in reference to Africa refers to a certain type: western educated and visible in western media, may be published in the West and maybe teaching at a western university. Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire writes to this type of African Intellectual. Dear contemporary African Intellectuals, We find your names on lists published in western media, among the top African Public Intellectuals, sometimes among the lists of Global Thinkers. And we celebrate. ‘Our’ thinkers are shaping the world, we say. You appear in TIME’s lists of Influential People. You have theorised about important things. About the end of capitalist hegemony. About the failure of the African state. About the representations of Africanness. About the rise of Afro-capitalism. About many things your Western audiences find very captivating. And this is why they rank you highly alongside their own intellectuals. You are i