Mahmood Mamdani is one of Africa’s most prominent contemporary thinkers and a leading critical voice in postcolonial studies, African politics, and human rights. As a scholar, historian, and public intellectual, Mamdani has dedicated his life to examining the complexities of power, violence, and governance in Africa and challenging dominant narratives that often simplify or distort the continent’s history. His work focuses on deconstructing the legacy of colonialism in institutions and mindsets, analysing the nature of conflicts in Africa, and offering insights on building more just societies.
Mahmood Mamdani was born in 1946 in Kampala, Uganda, to a family of Indian descent. His childhood and youth witnessed a turbulent period in Uganda’s history, as the country navigated pre-independence and post-independence challenges. Mamdani left Uganda to study in the United States, where he earned a BA from the University of Pittsburgh, an MA from Tufts University, and a PhD from Harvard University. This period of study in the West was crucial in shaping his analytical tools, but he never separated himself from his African affiliation and commitment to the continent’s issues.
Mamdani returned to Uganda in the 1970s to work as a lecturer at Makerere University, one of East Africa’s most prestigious universities. However, his stay was short-lived due to political unrest and the repression of Idi Amin’s regime, forcing him to leave the country once again. This personal experience profoundly influenced his research interests, leading him to analyse the nature of power and political violence in post-colonial contexts.
Mahmood Mamdani views colonialism as an ongoing structure of power, laws, institutions, and even ways of thinking that continue to shape African societies today. His most notable contributions in this regard include “Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism” (1996): This book is a foundational work in postcolonial studies. In it, Mamdani presents the theory of the “indirect colonial state” applied by Britain in most of its African colonies. Mamdani argues that this state did not create a uniform system of citizenship but rather a dual system. The first system is the urban citizen who enjoys certain civil and political rights in cities subject to European civil law.
The second system is the rural subjects, who are subject to the authority of colonially appointed “chiefs,” who govern according to “customary law,” often adapted or fabricated to serve colonial interests. This division leads to a profound problem in post-independence Africa: how can a unified democratic state be built when a large portion of the population has become accustomed to an unelected, authoritarian system of government in rural areas? Mamdani makes a compelling argument that this divide between “citizen” and “subject” is at the heart of many conflicts and political tensions in contemporary Africa.
Another of Mamdani’s works is “When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda” (2001). In this book, he offers a groundbreaking analysis of the causes of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Mamdani rejects simplistic explanations that focus on historically rooted “tribal hatred.” Instead, he argues that the conflict between Hutu and Tutsi was not an inherently ethnic conflict in the Western sense but rather a product of Belgian colonialism, which artificially defined, categorised, and solidified these identities and created a system of governance based on these divisions. Mamdani explains how colonialism transformed “ethnic groups” into “races” with different privileges and how policies of “indirect rule” entrenched the power of the Tutsi minority over the Hutu majority. After independence, the competition for power within these artificial identities led to an escalation of violence, as the “victims” (Hutus subjected to colonial oppression) became “killers” in the context of political violence.
In addition to his historical and political analyses, Mamdani has been deeply engaged in debates on human rights and transitional justice in Africa. He offers a critical perspective on transitional justice, which is often imposed from the outside (particularly by the West), and argues that it may not always be appropriate for African contexts.
Mamdani argues that Western models of transitional justice (such as war crimes trials) often focus on holding individuals accountable, neglecting the structural and historical causes of conflict. He advocates for justice models that emphasise reconciliation, institutional reform, and addressing historical injustices, rather than simply searching for individual scapegoats.
In his analysis of the South African experience, Mamdani praised the Truth and Reconciliation Commission but also criticised some aspects of it, suggesting that it may have focused on personal forgiveness at the expense of structural justice.
In works such as “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror” (2004), Mamdani expands his analysis of power and violence to include a global context. He argues that “terrorism” is not an inherently Islamic phenomenon but rather a product of Western policies, particularly their support for dictatorships in the Muslim world, their military interventions, and the nurturing of jihadist movements for Cold War purposes.
In addition to his writing, Mahmood Mamdani has played a pivotal role in academic institutions. He founded and directed the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) in Uganda, transforming it into a leading research centre in Africa. He has also held senior academic positions at prestigious universities such as Columbia University in New York, where he currently holds the Herbert Lehman Chair in Government Studies.
Mamdani’s research methodology is rigorous and in-depth, and he is known for his extensive use of archives, field interviews, and critical historical analysis. He encourages his students and colleagues to move beyond Western conceptual frameworks and develop theories based on the African experience.
