PAGE 11 From Neoliberalism to PanAfricanism: Towards Reconstructing an Eastern African Discourse ** 1 By Issa G. Shivji * 2 Introduction The purpose of this short intervention is to review the state of interaction between our universities in East Africa so far as intellectual debate is concerned. If in the process I refer somewhat passionately to the debates of the 60s and 70s, it is not out of nostalgia but to draw inspiration. And we need this inspiration given the state of intellectual inertia and marketisation of academia that has set in with the invasion of neoliberal agenda in our universities. At the end I am also making a modest proposal as to how we may use the vantage point of this Workshop to start about reflecting on the mechanisms to kickstart the process of an Eastern African Discourse. But the academics that we are, I must provide the background and the context, albeit in somewhat disjointed sketches. The Nationalist Period Sketches of the political context With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that the immediate postindependence period was one of great expectations and equally great political turmoil. The anticolonial struggles that picked up after World War II came to fruition in Africa in the sixties. Ghana got its independence in 1957 and Nkrumah picked up the flag of PanAfricanism in his great passion for African Unity. Born in the midst of cold war, signs of any autonomous nationalism by independent states attracted the wrath of superpowers. Western intervention in the running and changing of regimes in Africa was rampant. The 1 **Thanks to Natasha Shivji for reading and enlivening the radical in me. 2 * Professor of Law, University of Dar es Salaam