BY PROFESSOR JEFFREY FADIMAN

In this new excerpt from his book “Sixty-one years on safari—How a White American carries on his decades-long love affair with Africa,” Jeffrey Fadiman, a professor of Global Marketing at San Jose State University in California, and a Language and Area Specialist for Eastern and Southern Africa, shares an intrinsically African value he learned while teaching at The University of Zululand six decades ago

And there I was.  The only White American Professor in Unizul–The University of Zululand. Every day my classes filled. They sat in seats, on the floor, against windows, jammed in doors. The room roasted. There were scores of them, easily over 100, ONCE 200. Calling attendance was impossible. Written exams were a problem. Who did I give them to, and how did they write them—standing? Sitting in a window? on their laps?

Their questions before each exam were a second problem. “Nkosi (sir), may we share the answers during the exam? “NO!” I laughed. “That’ s cheating.” “But Nkosi,” came the patient reply from at least 12 of them, “that’s cruel. We are all brothers and sisters. We want everyone to pass. Why shouldn’t we all help each other?”

That was a serious question, representing a widely-held world view—an African world view–presented in an African classroom. This is no fairy tale. I enforced my American world view and they took exams in resentful silence. But, I have thought about their question ever since. If I ask American students “why” they cannot share answers on a test, they simply laugh, unable to consider any world view but ours–but what if the Zulu have a point?

Also click here to read: In Uganda the day JFK was shot

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Jeffrey A. Fadiman, 85, is a professor of Global Marketing at San Jose State University in California, and a Language and Area Specialist for Eastern and Southern Africa. A graduate of Stanford University with two years at the Universities of Vienna and Free Berlin, this Fulbright scholar taught both U.S. and global marketing tactics at South Africa’s University of Zululand. He first experienced Africa in 1960 by canoeing up the Niger River to Timbuktu. Thereafter, he lived in Meru, Kenya, where he rediscovered the traditional history of the Meru tribe, which had been crushed by British Colonialism. Fifty years later, the Meru accepted him as the first White Elder of their nation. Professor Fadiman has supported both Tanzanian AIDS orphans and the schools to which he sent books, pens, paper, and hope.

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