The forms of knowledge spoken of by Ousseina Alidou and Alamin M. Mazrui (1999) are built on European culture and tradition and delivered in European languages. The forms of knowledge that could empower the underprivileged in Africa would have to be built on African culture and tradition and be delivered in African languages. A genuine concern for social justice and democracy should lead African political leaders to work for strengthening the use of African languages. Donor pressure as well as the impact of the capital-led market economy, often called globalization, however, works to retain the European languages. Ali-dou and Mazrui (1999) focus on the ex-colonial (which they term “imperial”) languages as promoters of intellectual dependency to the detriment of democratic development in South Africa specifically and in North-South relations generally. Writing from so-called francophone Africa, Paulin Djité (1990) argues:
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Brock-Utne, B. (2008). Language and Democracy in Africa. In: Holsinger, D.B., Jacob, W.J. (eds) Inequality in Education. CERC Studies in Comparative Education, vol 24. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2652-1_7
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