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{
    "id": 494741,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/494741/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 189,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murungi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 93,
        "legal_name": "Kiraitu Murungi",
        "slug": "kiraitu-murungi"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I know that our friend, Sen. (Dr.) Zani, is a lecturer at the university. Of course, we really commend her and all the scholars in this Senate. But I was very careful in the language that I used; I said “some” and you are not included in that category. Madam Temporary Speaker, there are some people who have been talking about democracy but they do not believe in democracy. There are other academicians who are academicians for hire. If the donors call them and tell them “this is where the funding for this year is, we would like research to be done along this area,” even if they do not believe in what they are supposed to come out with, they will listen to what those who are paying them want to be the outcomes and then they will proceed and do research – I would call it “kangaroo” research because it is done to justify what their paymasters want. So, that is what I meant by people not believing or practicing what they teach. We had very many cases like this in the 1990s. You saw a lot of professors coming out in defense of the one party rule and even saying there was democracy within the one party rule when all of us knew that it was not possible. We knew that it was a contradiction in terms for there to be democracy in an undemocratic situation. So, Prof. Ali Mazrui at least voted with his feet; he left this country when he found that there was no space for him to align his briefs and the realities of East Africa. Madam Temporary Speaker, if you look at Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s book, there is a photograph of Prof. Ali Mazrui carrying a huge placard in London during a demonstration protesting the detention of Ngugi wa Thiong’o without trial, I think in 1978 or thereabouts. So, this is the thing I am talking about; a committed scholar. Prof. Mazrui was not a leftist; he was not a Marxist, which was inferred those days. He The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}