Dreaming of another Nobel Prize for Africa

During this second week of October, the Royal Swedish Academy has begun announcing the would-be recipients of this year’s Nobel Prize. As this author writes, three potential recipients of the five original categories instituted by that Swedish entrepreneur Alfred Nobel have been named. The five categories are those of Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature and Peace. The Nobel for Economics we are made to understand is a latter day addition and a very noble one at that, thanks to the thoughtful generousity of the Sveriges Riksbank. However, the three recently announced Nobel Laureates to be are in Medicine, Physics and Chemistry and as one would expect, the Prizes have gone to Europe and America. This being the case, only three more categories are left to be announced and most probably the end of the week or early next week at most, will witness the publication of the complete list. A simple question has been turning in my mind ever since the first announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize winners was made which was that of Medicine awarded to the American trio of Mario R. Capecchi, Martin J. Evans and Oliver Smithies. I have not stopped asking myself when next an African would receive this arguably most respected, most prestigious and most coveted of all world’s prizes. When next and who is it going to be?

This writer is under no illusions to realize that Africa’s options with regards to the Nobel are severely limited. If memory serves, the Nobel Prize has so far been awarded to a handful of our own sons and daughters in the areas of Literature and Peace, with the former going to our own literary legend- Professor Wole Soyinka in 19986, the very first time for an African to be so honoured with the prize in that distinguished class. He was followed a few years later by the Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz who received his in the same category in 1988. The Nobel for Literature has since then been received by two other South Africans, Nadine Gordimer 1991 and John M. Coetzee 2003. A few other illustrious sons and daughters of Africa have also been honoured with the enviable prize but mostly if not all receiving the Nobel for Peace, an equally well respected and distinguished category on its own right. Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk were both honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, Kofi Annan and the United Nations 2001, Wangari Muta Maathai 2004, Muhammad ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2005.

Africa is yet to receive a Nobel for Medicine, Physics, Chemistry or even Economics. From the way things appear at the moment, it would require something of a miracle for an African living and working in Africa to win a Nobel in any of these core scientific areas. Not even Economics which is also a science though of a social nature. It is not going to happen any time soon if the truth is to be told. One only needs to visit our Universities, to pass through the corridors of our Medical departments and our Laboratories to agree with this writer. It is stating the obvious to say that our citadels of learning and ivory towers are mere walking shadows. The ghastly state of our Hospitals is a story for another day. All these taken into account, we would only be articulating what is common knowledge that we are most likely to still be light years behind the developed nations in their continued bid to accumulate Nobel Prizes.

We are well aware that the Nobel today has become another testimony to a country’s economic advancement, human development and technological superiority. It is considered to be something of a measure of the quality of physical, academic and intellectual life that a country affords. Little wonder then that almost all of the 2006 Nobel Prizes went to Americans who scooped all four of the six categories in which the prize is awarded, leaving only the prizes for Literature and Peace for the rest of the world to share. How considerate of them! In any case, who is not aware of America’s place and position in the world? Is it for nothing that they style themselves as the leader of the free world? Free world indeed! However, although the country remains one that some people love to hate and hate to love, it’s undeniable that the country is organized and well managed, much more than most. It has remained the envy of many and the object of people’s dreams. In a way, it is for most people the contemporary example of the biblical land flowing with milk and honey.

Be that as it may, the view has continued to gain currency among many young African intellectuals that a Nobel Prize in Medicine, Chemistry, Physics and Economics remains a pipe dream for any African who is born in Africa, studies entirely and works in Africa. Perhaps this could somehow explain what lies at the root of the continued quest by our young people for greener pastures abroad and the much talked about phenomenon of brain drain. The infrastructure for modern academic research and development is yet lacking in our institutions of learning hence our best and brightest minds have continued to leave in droves. Sadly, it doesn’t yet seem that the tide is about to change.

Some would definitely disagree with this view especially those who accuse the Swedish of continued Racism in deciding who gets awarded the Prize -an accusation that perhaps may have some substance to it- and those who claim that the Nobel is essentially a European Prize, given once in any rare while to a ‘worthy’ African, which may well be the case, but what can we do about that? Unfortunately, the west still calls the shots in many things and there’s nothing much anyone can do about that. Acquiring one’s educational qualifications and carrying out all of one’s academic researches in Africa which supposedly lacks the required facilities for 21^st century teaching and learning is evidently a baggage. Hence we have to make do with whatever we are given from our ‘limited options’ and whenever we are considered worthy to receive one. After all, each of the prizes is equal to the other in value, prestige and worth. Or isn’t it? Yet how I wish we had more slots.

Many have wondered why Chinua Achebe has not yet been awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature. Some including the writer for instance, have argued that Achebe has a wider global appeal and has accumulated far greater literary clout than the little known Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk that was the 2006 Nobel Laureate for Literature. Here is a man whose works have not only sold millions of copies but have also been translated into scores of languages. A man of such literary sagacity and one who has been acclaimed world wide surely deserves the Nobel. Turn it the other way round, the Nobel Laureates Commission deserves the added honour of counting such a man among their rank and file. Or is it somehow against the rule to have two Nobel Laureates in the same subject from the same country? It doesn’t seem like it. After all has South Africa not had two Nobel Laureates in Literature already? Would we all suffer from some ‘literary intellectual constipation’ should this dream of receiving yet another Nobel Prize in Nigeria become a reality? That doesn’t seem likely either. In any case, it is becoming increasingly difficult especially these days to resist the temptation of comparing ourselves with South Africa, and every time this comparism is made, it sounds appallingly naive to believe that we are still the ‘giant of Africa’. If we ever were, are we still?

• Alvan Amadi – United Kingdom 11 October, 2007.