This chapter contains sections titled: Institutionalized Philosophy Philosophy Before Apartheid Philosophy During Apartheid African Philosophy in South Africa Philosophy in Post‐Apartheid South Africa Conclusion.

South Africa's 1996 Constitution promises a measure of ‘social citizenship’ alongside formal political and legal equality. South Africa's public welfare and social policies may be less effective in ensuring social citizenship, through reducing insecurity and inequality, than those of the more established democracies, but they are far more effective than those of other ‘developing’ countries. The origins of social citizenship in South Africa lie in the early and mid-1940s, when the state first assumed responsibility for the welfare, (...) broadly understood, of all South Africans. The most significant achievement was the introduction of a universal old-age pension system. The importance of these initiatives has been largely overlooked. This has been in part because later scholars largely ignored the heterogeneity of liberal thought in South Africa in the mid-twentieth century, as followers of the ‘New Liberalism’ broke with the classical liberalism of John Stuart Mill and argued for a range of state interventions in social and economic life. In South Africa, as elsewhere, the Second World War provided a context in which revised liberal thought gave rise to major policy reforms, some of which were to survive even the election of a National Party government in 1948. (shrink)

Ubuntu has been defined as a moral quality of human beings, as a philosophy or an ethic, as African humanism, and as a worldview. This paper explores these definitions as conceptual tools for understanding the cultural, educational, and philosophical landscape of post-apartheid South Africa. Key to this understanding is the Althusserian concept of state apparatus. Louis Althusser divides the state apparatus into two forces: the repressive state apparatus (RSA); and the ideological state apparatus (ISA). RSAs curtail the (...) working classes, predominately through direct violence or the threat of violence, whereas ISAs function primarily by ideology, including forms of organised religion, the education system, family units, legal systems, trade unions, political parties, and media. This paper discusses the link between increasing inequality in post-apartheid South Africa and education, with specific reference to Althusser’s ISAs and the abuse of Ubuntu as a subterfuge for socio-economic inequality. (shrink)

As academic subject African philosophy is predominantly concerned with epistemology. It aims at re-presenting a lost body of authentic African thought. This apparently austere a-historical concern is framed by a grand narrative of liberation that cannot but politicise the quest for epistemological autonomy. By "politicise" I mean that the desire to re-cover an authentic African epistemology in order to establish African philosophy as autonomous subject, ironically re-iterates Western, enlightenment notions of the autonomous subject. Here, (...) in the pursuit of an autonomous subject the terms of historical oppression are necessarily duplicated in the terms of liberation. In this study I use the term disfigurement to refer to the double-bind - peculiar to post-coloniality - in which the African subject finds itself when it has to establish and affirm a sense of apartheid (in order to confirm the assumption of difference) by inventing its own autonomy in a way that ironically conflicts with an African conception of the autonomous subject. The transcendental concern with epistemological authenticity and autonomy - indicative of an oppressive desire for Western style autonomy - necessary as it may be in a post-colonial context, is placed in an ethical framework that seeks to remain faithful to the African dictum of identity and autonomy "I am because we are". Whereas the first three chapters are concerned with the transcendental question 'what is African philosophy?', the fourth and last chapter situates the ethical framework within which this question arises in the context of the recently "completed" South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (shrink)

In South Africa, the notion of an African Philosophy of Education emerged with the advent of post-apartheid education and the call for an educational philosophy that would reflect this renewal, a focus on Africa and its cultures, identities and values, and the new imperatives for education in a postcolonial and post-apartheid era. The idea of an African Philosophy of Education has been much debated in South Africa. Not only its content and purpose but (...) also its very possibility have been, and continue to be, the subject of understandably passionate exchanges. In this paper, after discussing some of the constitutive features of African Philosophy of Education, we indicate aspects with which we are sympathetic. Our central question is whether African Philosophy of Education is the revisioned, ‘typically African’ philosophy of education that it is claimed to be. We argue that it has revealed certain tendencies that are remarkably similar to characteristics of Fundamental Pedagogics, the repressive doctrine complicit in apartheid education that it claims to replace. More substantially still, African Philosophy of Education, by labeling itself uniquely and distinctly ‘African’, runs the risk of insulating itself not only from interaction with the wider world but also from any critical interrogation. (shrink)

This book explores the influence of ubuntu on South Africa’s post-apartheid transitional justice mechanism, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and—in contrast to ethnophilosophy—takes differences, historical developments, and social contexts seriously.

Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu is the Zulu version of a traditional African aphorism . Although with considerable loss of culture-specific meaning, it can be translated as: “A human being is a human being through other human beings.” Still, its meaning can be interpreted in various ways of which I would like to highlight only two, in accordance with the grammar of the central concept ‘Ubuntu’ which denotes both a state of being and one of becoming.Firstly, it can be interpreted as (...) a statement of fact about the human condition, i.e. as a descriptive claim about the social nature of human being and personal identity; even the constitutive relation between alterity and identity. Secondly, it can also be interpreted as a value-judgement, i.e. as a normative appreciation of social difference and human diversity; even as an imperative to expose ourselves to others, to encounter the difference of their humanness, in order to fully become our own. The meaning would then be — to paraphrase a translation of Ramose : To be human is to affirm one’s humanity by recognising the humanity of others in its infinite variety of content and form.CONCLUSION :The challenge of a philosophical understanding of the multi-cultural context of apartheid South Africa has still to be met. To meet this challenge is to try and trace the consequences of what it would mean if — to paraphrase Walzer — our crucial commonality is our particularity. Perhaps it will mean accepting that what we are and are becoming, our identity, escapes any reduction to the categories of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ and eludes a dialectical ‘aufhebung’ of their difference. This may be the case if what we are and are becoming involves the paradox of being and becoming ever more different in the realisation of our self-sameness. Our African aphorism speaks of this paradox and, in so doing, it draws a limit to our philosophical understanding and provides us with a rule of conduct: Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu! (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate whether the pursuit of group-based social equality should constitute a political goal or not. I explain that social equality refers to the mechanism for horizontal presentation of opportunities to individuals in a given society to express their abilities. It could also mean the right to vie, contest, compete or take advantage of certain opportunities or even to the freedom to pursue or obtain certain opportunities among free citizens in any society. I argue that the position (...) of the mainstream European South African population seems to be that this should be an individual-based exercise since the sectional policy of apartheid has been disestablished. However, the majority of native South Africans appear to hold that since the post-apartheid South African society is heavily lopsided that the pursuit of social equality, especially by the natives who experience great economic disadvantage as a political goal, should be group-based in order to address comprehensively the social and economic ills of apartheid. This groupbased approach is challenged by European South Africans who argue that it introduces another form of inequality that places them at a disadvantage. I will analyze the arguments on both sides and attempt to justify the group-based approach in the light of the post-apartheid peculiar circumstances of native South Africans. Keywords: social equality, political goal, individual, group, South African society, apartheid. (shrink)

Philosophy of Education in South Africa during the latter half of the 20th century was characterised by three ideological strands. The first was known as ‘Fundamental Pedagogics’, the second ‘Liberalism’, and the third ‘Liberation Socialism’ (i.e., Marxism/Freire). When apartheid formally ended in 1994 these strands lost their impetus and faded from educational debates, arguably because of the disappearance of apartheid itself, as the locus relative to which these ideological strands positioned themselves. This paper characterises these three positions and (...) some of their major proponents and ideas, and then present an overview of where philosophy of education in South Africa is now, nearly 30 years after apartheid. I suggest that since 1994 the strong, competing philosophical and ideological commitments that informed philosophy of education during apartheid have significantly dissipated, and have not been meaningfully replaced. Instead, education policy and curriculum are now arguably underpinned by neo-liberal concerns, and the results have been, and continue to be, an unmitigated disaster for schooling in South Africa. Part of the reason for this is because philosophy of education is much diminished, and no longer directly meaningfully contributes to, and informs, educational discourse, policy, teacher training and curriculum in South African schooling. (shrink)

During the 1980's and the early 1990's South Africa experienced disturbing political violence of an unprecedented scope, intensity and nature. It was disturbing because it entailed acts of horrifying brutality, notably the ‘necklace' and the massacre, all of this against the background of ‘civilized' and measured com promise and negotiation. It stubbornly continued despite the unbanning of the liberation political organisations, and the holding of ‘free and fair' elections in April 1994. And it was unprecedented in a whole range (...) of ways, but mainly because of the fact that it was intracommunal, or black- on- black, violence. It was the first time that Black political organisations had turned on each other rather than their white oppressors. For our purposes, what is interesting is the range of responses emanating from South African social scientists in explaining this new phenomenon. Historically, explaining Black political violence in South Africa has had a difficult time of it. Starting with Pierre van den Berghe in 1962, predictions of imminent revolution against the apartheid regime have been so regularly and frequently proved wrong, that a whole industry has arisen in explaining quiescence rather than violence. The first cluster of theories spawned by the 1976 schools uprising, as Frank Molteno noted in his 1979 review, were analytically disappointing, if not crudely racist. Subsequent overviews by Manganyi & du Toit in 1990, and Beinart in 1992 have born evidence of considerably greater sophistication.; Manganyi, N & A du Toit, ; Beinart, W ). Nevertheless, as I shall show, most have remained within quite conventional theoretical and structuralist parameters. Many have their roots in the earlier dominant Marxism of the 1970's. In this sense they tend towards structural and class determinism, towards absolutist notions of power, and absolutist moral judgement of both apartheid and the individuals associated, however indirectly, with it. In consequence, Black incumbents of apartheid structures were inevitably depicted as willess and powerless puppets dancing to the tune of omnipotent White masters. In this context, it was wrong to talk of black- on- black violence, since one side of this equation, in reality, represented white interests. Much of this analysis also started from quite easy notions of the origins of violence. In this view it was sufficient to show conflicts of interest, or contra diction, in order to conclude that violence had been adequately explained. Against this background the more hermeneutic contribution by André du Toit to the debate stands out as theoretically innovative, nuanced and bold. This is not to say that it is with out problems. But I do wish to present a picture of a social theorist of considerable imagination and subtletly. Looking back over these theories, it would be tempting to say that the first category of structuralist accounts, should be supplemented with the second category of hermeneutic, accounts. But simply adding theoretically discrepant accounts together is too easy. It is only when the whole notion of structure, employed in the first category, is rethought in post-structuralist form, that an integration of the two elements becomes feasible. This paper follows a Giddensian line in pursuing this reconceptualization. (shrink)

The former South African first black President’s vision aimed to unite and fight racial tensions and inequalities by introducing and envisioning a South Africa for all who live in it. However, twenty-five years later, the post-apartheid South Africa is riddled with cancerous ills such as racial inequality, racism, and failure to bridge the gap between the poor and the rich. This paper will attest to the notion that the 1994 rainbow nation ideology is dead because racial (...) inequality is still a norm, and that the implication of the negotiated settlement has preserved racial inequality and its core racist foundations. The ideology of the “rainbow nation” has failed to erode racial inequality in South Africa. It has failed to close the gap between the poor and the rich and most importantly, the “rainbow nation” ideology has shown that it was a one-sided concord dependent on whose privilege matters most and not a collective view to addressing racial inequality. Black South Africans have, therefore, continued to bear the brunt of poverty, unemployment and inequality compared to white South fricans. I argue that the “rainbow nation” has failed to address racial inequality and build the imperative ideology of sameness and togetherness. I will employ a standard method of applied analytical philosophy to perform this task, which is grounded in critical conceptual analysis and systematic rational argumentation. (shrink)

Racism is an issue which the activism of the Black Methodist Consultation was set to address during the South African apartheid rule, a view which black theologians and church historians generally accept. This observation brought to mind, in turn, the influence that the Black Consciousness philosophy and the black theology of liberation had on the establishment of the BMC. Recounting such an influence, this article provides a reflection on the formation of the BMC in 1975. In such (...) a reflection, the hypothesis is that the prophetic voice of the BMC is crucial in post-apartheid South Africa. Firstly, the interconnectedness of the Black Consciousness philosophy, the black theology of liberation and the BMC is highlighted. Secondly, the article proceeds to navigate the possible prophetic voice of the BMC in post- apartheid South Africa. In the end, this article sees the BMC as a crucial interlocutor of liberation in present South Africa. (shrink)

To practice philosophy is to be part of a conversation, and this autobiography is a conversation about Mabogo Percy More’s experiences as a black African philosopher in South Africa. Not only is this a conversation about philosophy, but it is also a conversation with philosophy as a profession, its interlocutors, and the philosophical canon. Moreover, it is an account of the philosophers both living and dead who have informed More’s worldview, matched with his lived experience. (...) More specifically, as he himself says, this is “an autobiography of a black philosopher in apartheid and apartheid South Africa and its academic institutions”. (shrink)

In spite of much candid protest and overt criticism against the service delivery record and corruption of the South African government, the governing party, the African National Congress, once again secured a persuasive victory in the 2014 national elections. This situation begs the question whether the ballot box is really the only efficient instrument for disgruntled voters to influence government policy and behaviour. This article examines the possibilities that the mobilisation of civil society offers in this regard. (...) The central theoretical argument is that civil society can be an important instrument through which the citizenry can exercise their critical function with regard to the government in an effort to address poor service delivery and corruption and to influence government policy. Christian organisations can play a crucial role in this process. Two examples of past efficient action by civil society serve to illustrate this argument. With the assistance of churches and Christian organisations,these organisations profoundly influenced government policy and are consequently presented as models for action today. The first example is the ‘United Democratic Front’ that forced the pre-1994 South African apartheid government to a negotiated settlement despite the strict security laws that the state utilised to keep the UDF in check. The second example is the ‘Treatment Action Campaign’ that forced the post-1994 Thabo Mbeki government to adopt a policy of free provision of antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive patients. These two influential civil organisations offer models of how civil society can act as critical watchdog. In future, these models can be used to mobilise civil society, including churches and Christian organisations, to act correctively in defining and enacting government policy, despite the ANC’s strong position in government and the large majority that the governing party can secure at the voting polls. (shrink)

It has frequently been argued that the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was committed to restorative justice (RJ), and that RJ has deep historical roots in African indigenous cultures by virtue of its congruence both with ubuntu and with African indigenous justice systems (AIJS). In this article, I look into the question of what RJ is. I also present the finding that the term ‘restorative justice’ appears only in transcripts of three public TRC hearings, and the hypothesis (...) that the TRC first really began to take notice of the term ‘restorative justice’ after April 1997, when the South African Law Commission published an Issue Paper dealing with RJ. Furthermore, I show that neither the connection between RJ and ubuntu nor the connection between RJ and AIJS is as straightforward and unproblematic as often assumed. (shrink)

This paper explores the incongruence between white South Africans’ pre- and post-apartheid experiences of home and identity, of which a wave of emigration is arguably a result. Among the commonest reasons given for emigrating are crime and affirmative action; however, this paper uncovers a deeper motivation for emigration using Charles Taylor’s concept of the social imaginary and Martin Heidegger’s concept of dwelling. The skewed social imaginary maintained by apartheid created an unrealistic sense of dwelling for most white South (...) Africans. After 1994, the conditions supporting this imaginary disintegrated. Many white South Africans feel so strong a sense of unease they can no longer dwell in the country. Many try to escape through emigration, but carry unresolved questions of identity and belonging to their new “homes.”. (shrink)

Underscoring recurrent calls for the decolonization of university curricula in South Africa are underexplored presumptions that by only disrupting theoretical content, universities might release themselves from a colonialist grasp, that continues to dominate and distort higher education discourse. While it might be the case that certain theories hold enormous authoritative, ‘truthful’ sway, as propagated through Western interpretations and norms, there are inherent problems in exclusively approaching the decolonization project as a content-based hurdle, removed from the subjectivities of students’ social, (...) lived, and learning realities. The argument advanced in this article is that until the epistemic harm of colonialism and apartheid are afforded careful recognition and attention—as in focusing on the lived experiences, realities, and stories of individuals—the hard work of delegitimizing coloniality, and its implicit structures of hegemonies and binaries cannot unfold. In addressing these harms, I commence by describing some of the contexts of epistemic harm, promulgated through colonialism and apartheid. This is followed by a consideration of decolonization, both as theory and practice-within-context. Here, I also foreground the #Rhodesmustfall campaign, as a particular moment of painful clarity about why decolonization, as well as transformation, has faltered in higher education in South Africa. In the second half, I focus on the necessity of prioritizing storytelling as a deep manifestation of decolonization. Stories, I maintain, provide access into unknown lives, and can subvert the invisible, normative framings, which dictate how we live in this world. As a manifestation of decolonization, students’ stories hold profound implications for the recognition and affirmation of pluralist identities, histories, knowledge, values, and world-views. (shrink)

Review of Du Bois, Francois and Antje du Bois-Pedain (eds.) Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

In the South African debate about the role of the media in the new South African society, the African moral philosophy ubuntuism is from time to time raised as a framework for African normative media theory. Up till now, the possibility of using ubuntuism as a normative framework can, however, not yet be described as a focused effort to develop a comprehensive theory on the basis of which media performance could be measured from (...) ‘an African perspective’. Rather, the topic of ubuntuism as normative media theory should be seen in the context of the African Renaissance as part of an intellectual quest to rediscover and re-establish idealized values of traditional African culture and communities and to apply it to contemporary phenomena such as the media. However, given South Africa's history of apartheid in which Christian nationalism was misused as a moral philosophy to mobilize a patriotic media in the service of volk and vaderland, it is not too early to ask critical questions about ubuntuism as a possible framework for normative media theory. Such questioning is the purpose of this article. Against the background of a postmodern and a postcolonial perspective on normative theory, questions related to the following are raised: the expediency of ubuntuism in the context of changed African cultural values, the distinctiveness of ubuntuism as an African moral philosophy, the vulnerability of moral philosophy to political misuse, ubuntuism in the context of the future of normative theory in a globalized world and changed media environment, and, the implications of ubuntuism for journalism practice. It is concluded that ubuntuism may pose a threat to freedom of expression. Given the nature of contemporary South African society and its media system, a postmodern emphasis on diversity and pluralism as the cornerstone of future normative theory is supported. (shrink)

Since the international community has offered their nearly unanimous condemnation of the system of apartheid in the Republic of South Africa, the topic of this essay might seem moot. However, the involvement and cooperation with the South African government of numerous governments, businesses, and other institutions suggest that those condemnations do not constitute the final word - certainly not politically, nor, perhaps, morally.

South African missiology has seen a shift in its praxis since the late 20th century. David J. Bosch made a crucial contribution in this regard. The shift includes mission as a contextualised praxis and agency. In mission studies, agency has become necessary in postcolonial mission, primarily because of the loss of identity of the oppressed in colonised countries. Through contextual theologies of liberation, African theology, Black Theology of Liberation and postcolonial studies, theologians were able to reflect on (...) the human dignity of the colonised. However, there are still significant efforts needed in this quest, and therefore, the praxis cycle used in missiology is useful to also assess effects on the oppressed and marginalised through the emerging context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). In the task of doing mission in the world differently, the questions that missiologists ask are important. The emergence of the 4IR aims to merge the biological with the technological and will bring more challenges to mission work in Africa. This will bring upon us the responsibility to reflect on the notion of human agency, the theologies espoused in such a time and missiologists’ contextual lenses and strategies employed. These should have to be carefully considered especially in a post-apartheid context. The researcher will, therefore, use the commonly used praxis cycle in missiological research to explore through a Socratic (questioning) approach what the implications will be for missiologists and mission agents in the quest of transforming church and the post-apartheid society.Contribution: Though there has emerged a few theological contributions from missiology, there has not been a missiological contribution on the 4IR. The author therefore uses one of the theological methods in the discipline to put on the table the imperative questions that those doing missiological research should pose in the context of the 4IR. (shrink)

Generally, we want certain ethical claims to be unconditionally true. One such claim is “Apartheid was unjust”. In this paper, I discuss a group of South African post-structuralist philosophers who call their view Critical Complexity (CC). Because of post-structuralism’s radical contextualism, CCists can only claim that things are ‘as if’ Apartheid was unjust. They cannot claim that Apartheid was unconditionally unjust. Many will find this unsatisfying. I argue that a naturalised or Darwinian notion of rationality can help CCists (...) (and perhaps post-structuralists in general) in this regard. This kind of rationality is what has come to be known as embodied rationality. We employ embodied rationality when navigating the ecological and social domains. It has, though, been co-opted for navigating the ethical domain. We can, then, claim that Apartheid was unconditionally unjust because it is embodied rational to do so. This does not involve embracing the kind of Cartesian rationality that CCists rightly reject. (shrink)

This essay highlights the root causes of the pervasive discomfort with Africanness common among a significant portion of the South African population. It claims that this collective national psyche manifests as a dysfunctional self-identity, and is therefore akin to a psychosocial malaise we propose to name “the Limpopo River Fever”. The root cause of this pathological psycho-political culture, we venture to demonstrate, is the historical process of a systematic self-orientation away from Africa, perceived as “Africa north of the (...) Limpopo River”. This psychosis as presently manifesting as what is distinctly an Afrophobia, and not mere xenophobia, I argue, has principally been nurtured since the 1950s by the ascendency of an anti-Africanist ideology within the national liberation movement, the African National Congress, which has subsequently been the governing party since the defeat of the apartheid regime in 1994. It is concluded that even historic efforts at redirecting the South African body-politic toward a pan-African consciousness which evolved around Thabo Mbeki during his presidency could not achieve the aspired re-Africanisation of South African society. Keywords: Afrophobia, South Africa, Xenophobia, Pan-Africanism, ANC. (shrink)

In this important new book, leading Black philosopher Mabogo More reflects on his life and career in apartheid South African. The book explores Africana existentialism in relation to issues of race, identity, liberation, freedom, alienation, responsibility and bad faith and includes key essays from More's corpus alongside his philosophical memoir.

This paper deals with the issue of collective responsibility in the aftermath of apartheid. For the purposes of this paper I assume that there is such a thing as collective responsibility and, given this assumption, I show that determining precisely which the relevant responsible groups are is by no means a straightforward task. There are at least three models that are used in the literature to determine which collectives specifically are responsible. The three standard models used for determining collective responsibility (...) also show us in what ways individuals forming part of each collective are responsible. For instance, some individuals will be responsible for decisions made and others for benefits accrued. An important conclusion of this investigation is that responsible groups cannot clearly be divided along racial lines although race clearly does play an important role. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 27 2008: pp. 340-352. (shrink)

For philosophers of education who hold on to the optimistic hope that democracy education can play a part in halting the decline of democracy, Davids and Waghid point the way towards its potential contribution when approached by making inclusion foundational to democratic education. Taking a poststructuralist approach as the best way to articulate an expanded conception of inclusion, this book makes the case that there is an urgent need for a reconsidered conception of democratic education that appropriately addresses race, ethnicity (...) and gender. This review's critical appreciation of Davids and Waghids book explores their analysis of inclusion, noting its illuminating use of examples of exclusion in South African education which are also relevant to wider contexts beyond the specificities of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. In raising some questions about their arguments, I express reservations about the book's predominant focus on race, ethnicity and gender as markers of identity. This is at the expense of class and material exclusion—and hence of distributive justice as a dimension of democratic inclusion. The review concludes with a discussion of how philosophy of education itself might be democratically inclusive, in response to the authors' account of whiteness and their experiences of exclusion. (shrink)

South Africa's principal corporate governance report aspires to an 'inclusive' approach to corporate governance, in which companies are clearly advised to consider the interests of a variety of stakeholders. Yet, in common with many other countries, there is little discussion of the theoretical foundations and assumptions implicit in the recommended approach to corporate governance. The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of corporate governance and the corporate environment in South Africa in terms of existing theory (...) and models of corporate governance, and to provide a critique based on a consideration of traditional African values and the socio-economic necessities of post-apartheid South Africa. The result is the identification of an incompatibility between the current corporate environment in South Africa and the given exposition of African values. Some prospects for change are then identified. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, William Kentridge has consolidated a worldwide reputation as an artist of great verve and scope. He is arguably most widely known for his series of 10 animated films drawn over a period of 22 years, and set in his home city of Johannesburg. Originally conceived as a distraction, something to fill the gaps between exhibitions, the films have magnificently exceeded their brief, establishing instead one of the great characters in contemporary fiction: Soho EcksteinHighveld mining magnate, (...) and Kentridge s alter ego. The timeline of the films covers South Africa s transition from apartheid to democracy. The specific events and crises comprising the country s political transformation form the backdrop to the story unfolding across the screen, but the films are not "about" political events. Instead the saga traces a different and parallel arcSoho s gradual awakening from capitalist blockhead and cuckold to sober penitent, coming to terms with his own frailties and the first signs of mortalityand it is this human quality that gives the films their power and enduring appeal. Matthew Kentridge has witnessed, from first beginnings, the evolution of William Kentridge s technique, themes and ideas. From his unique and privileged vantage point, he has watched the transformation of Soho from individualistic South African megalomaniac into a kind of late-twentieth-century Everyman. This book is his response. This volume also incorporates an element of augmented reality, which readers can explore using their smartphones or tablets, making the book an even more enriching experience.". (shrink)

In South Africa, disability grant allocation has been under review and tensions are evident in government rhetoric stressing welfare provision on the one hand, and encouraging on the other. This ambiguity is traced down to the level of grant negotiations between doctors and in a psychiatry clinic in Khayelitsha. Here embodies the distress associated with harsh circumstances and is deemed by supplicants as sufficient to secure a grant. The paper illustrates how national discourses influence the presentation and experience of (...) suffering and the way in which doctors mediate diagnoses. The implications of local understandings of for expectations of the post-apartheid state are explored. (shrink)

Marxist Philosophy as an explanation of social reality has, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, been largely neglected. However, some philosophers have contended that it may still be relevant to explain today’s social reality. In this article, I wish to demonstrate precisely that Marxist philosophy can be relevant to understand social reality. To carry out this task, I show that Marxist philosophy of law can offer a sound explanation of Animal law in South Africa. My (...) argument is that South African law is a superstructure that reinforces the power of the animal farming industry in South Africa. That is, the hidden purpose of the law is to benefit the industry. In order to argue for this, I present two sets of arguments. The first set argues that the law facilitates the functioning of the animal farming industry. In the second set of arguments I contend that the law socialises individuals into approving the methods of slaughtering by the animal farming industry. (shrink)

In Apartheid South Africa, eugenic notions formed an underlying justification for the superiority of the white race over Africans, through the works of international eugenicists like Galton and Pearson, and locally through prominent South African eugenicist H. B. Fantham. These ideas are expressed and elaborated upon in Emevwo Biakalo's essay ‘Categories of Cross-Cultural Cognition and the African Condition’. His work serves particularly to highlight that the mind and cognitive processes of Africans were considered very different from (...) their white counterparts, and thus they would require different approaches to education. I demonstrate here how these views served as part of the underlying justification for Apartheid in South Africa, particularly in Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd's insistence on creating separate and distinct educational systems for different races. This eugenic legacy is still visible in South Africa's radically unequal education system to this day. (shrink)

This article attributes the conception of 'freedom-without-power' which dominates contemporary Western political philosophy to a reification of social agency that mystifies contexts of human capacities and achievements. It suggests that Plato's analogy between the structure of the soul and the polis shows how freedom is a consequence, rather than a condition, of political relations, mediated by inter-subjective contestation. From this basis, the article draws on the work of Raymond Geuss to argue against pre-political ethical frameworks in political philosophy, (...) in favour of a more contextually sensitive, self-critical approach to ethics. Such reciprocal ethical-political integration addresses problems of ideological complicity that may arise if freedom is discretely abstracted from history and power in political philosophy. Finally, the article roughly reconstructs a critical account of African identity from writings of Steven Biko to illuminate symptoms of 'meritocratic apartheid' in South Africa today which Thad Metz's influential pre-political conception of ubuntu obscures, by abstracting the figure of African personhood from politically significant historical conditions. (shrink)

Traditional healing and the use of traditional medicines were historically banned by the South African apartheid government. The dawn of democracy saw a change in the laws, which gave freedom to the traditional African practices. Nevertheless, many South Africans are still divided between Western- and traditional African philosophies. This qualitative study, therefore, employed the hermeneutic phenomenological method to investigate the status of traditional healing in the Limpopo province of South Africa. Data collection was done (...) through interviews, and data were analysed thematically. The results suggest that the work done by traditional healers remains marginalised and undermined despite them contributing to the country’s healthcare system. Traditional healers remain unregulated and often left to work on their own under difficult conditions. It is recommended that government play an active role in ensuring that healers are formally incorporated into the country’s healthcare system, which will benefit both the healers and the communities they serve.Contribution: The study investigates the current status of traditional healing in South Africa and highlights that despite having laws that support traditional healing in the country, the practice remains marginalised and healers are working on their own and not within the country’s healthcare system as it is supposed to be. The study is linked to the scope of the journal because it investigates a topic that borders on oral history and indigenous religious practices of South Africans. (shrink)

In this article, I will argue that early post-Apartheid South Africa adopted certain neoliberal principles which compromised the efforts to combat economic inequality. In particular, I will show that the economic policies that South Africa adopted during its early democracy reflect core neoliberal principles which promote a neoliberal political rationality. These economic policies indicate a pivotal approach from the African National Congress government in addressing economic inequality in South Africa. The dramatic shift from traditional Marxist policies (...) to neoliberal policies reveals the significant influence of a neoliberal global market system during South Africa’s early democracy. However, the neoliberal policies failed to address the problem of economic inequality in South Africa. Instead, these policies seem to have deepened the existing economic inequality in contemporary South African society. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay explores the question of what sorts of relations morality permits, requires, or forbids nations, businesses, and individuals to have with South Africa and South Africans. After reflecting on the immorality of apartheid and rebutting several defences of it, the essay turns its attention to several questions that bear on the assessment of foreign policy toward South Africa. The final sections discuss how individuals ought to respond to South African apartheid, focusing on collective (...) boycotts and personal abstentions. The essay critically assesses various proposed boycotts and weighs the significance of symbolic protests of apartheid. (shrink)

This paper was largely written by the General Manager for People and Conservation in South African National Parks , with a contribution by an anthropologist studying the post-apartheid transition of Kruger National Park. Our purpose is to engage in an ongoing discussion aimed at equitable best practice and community empowerment in social research and protected areas by bringing together context informed, insider and outsider perspectives. It is not intended to offer a conclusive account of people and park dynamics (...) in SANParks. The paper begins with an overview of the establishment of protected areas in South Africa. It then traces conservation philosophies and management principles from 1900 to the present. We then examine the move towards community involvement with conservation areas, outlining the impacts of the World Conservation Strategy and the Brundtland Report. This leads into a discussion of the development of Social Ecology within SANParks, evaluating the successes and failures of consultative efforts with indigenous communities. Lastly, we describe recent moves to include cultural heritage and indigenous knowledge into the programmatics of park management. (shrink)

The legacy of Steve Biko remains to this day a “contested” legacy, not only on account of his reputation as a political activist but also because of a profound scepticism regarding the philosophical status and integrity of his thought. This article seeks to engage with Steve Biko, the philosopher, not only to debunk the position that seeks to reduce his thinking to the level of mere political activism, given his identification with the Black Consciousness Movement and the radicalism of black (...) student politics, but also – more importantly – to demonstrate that his appropriation of Black Consciousness philosophy is deeply rooted in an African humanist philosophy that provides the normative context for his interrogation of white supremacy in colonial-apartheid South Africa. (shrink)

Euzhan Palcy’s film A Dry White Season, set in apartheid South Africa, portrays a resistance not intended to lead to victimhood, yet leads to the death of the Afrikaans protagonist, Benjamin Du Toit. The narrative follows Ben as they are educated about Black South Africans’ suffering under apartheid, their growing activism and simultaneous increasing victimization beside that of their Black friends. I first examine how early political critics of the film thought it stressed the victimization of the white (...) character at the expense of that of the Black characters. Next, I interpret the film by considering how Palcy’s aims, the influence of their compatriot Aimé Césaire’s anticolonial views, and the details of the film’s structure, illuminate the film’s philosophical insights into victimization and resistance. I show how the film’s representation of Ben’s secondary victimization and witnessing highlights the victimization of apartheid. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications of uses of the word ‘we’ in post-apartheid South African fiction. ‘We’ in these novels is typically a contested linguistic site – which tells of the loss of inherited communities, and reflects the ethically complex negotiations of a ‘we’ perhaps still to come. Yet if the internal narratives assert a loss of community, each event of the novel’s being-read inaugurates a new ‘community’ of readers. The paper considers the ethical implications of the act (...) of reading a literary text in post-apartheid South Africa. In the course of the argument, I draw links between African philosophies of community, and Jean-Luc Nancy’s proposition that ‘I’ does not precede ‘we’. Thus I suggest some ways in which philosophies from Africa contribute towards current debates about ‘we’ in contemporary continental philosophy. (shrink)

This paper represents the first attempt to apply vertical equity principles to the South African health sector. A vertical equity approach, which recognises that different groups have different starting points and therefore require differential treatment, appears to offer an appropriate basis for considering how best to redress the vast inequities which exist in post-Apartheid South Africa. Vertical equity principles are applied in critically analysing two areas of recent policy action which are particularlyrelevant to health sector equity in (...) South Africa, namely public-private sector cross-subsidies and the allocation of government resources between provinces. Despite a strong political commitment to redressing historical inequities, recent government policy actions in these two areas appear to fall short of desirable goals when viewed through a vertical equity lens. In particular, policies since the first democratic elections in 1994 have done little to reduce the extent of government subsidies to the private health sector, which serves a minority of the population. In addition, recent proposals for a Social Health Insurance will allow minimal cross-subsidies between high- and low-income earners and would not adequately redress the currently inequitable public-private cross-subsidies. With respect to the allocation of government resources between provinces, a vertical equity approach would suggest that the most historically dis-advantaged provinces have an even greater claim on government resources than reflected in the current formula, as developed by the Department of Finance. This paper also considers the potential benefits of engaging with societal views in determining what constitutes dis-advantage in the South African context, in order to identify those who should receive priority in resource allocation decisions. It concludes with a review of a number of practical steps that can be taken to draw vertical equity principles into policy action. (shrink)

In this article, I shall evaluate critically the democratic citizenship education project in South Africa to ascertain whether the patriotic sentiments expressed in the Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy (2001) are in conflict with the achievement of reconciliation and nation building (specifically peace and friendship) after decades of apartheid rule. My first argument is that, although it seems as if the teaching of patriotism through the Department of Education's democratic citizenship agenda in South African schools is (...) a laudable initiative that can contribute toward establishing a definitive break with our apartheid past, the expression of blind patriotic sentiments (such as pledging allegiance to one's country and its citizens only) as articulated in the Manifesto can potentially marginalise others (immigrant communities) as the country endeavours to build its fledgling democracy. My second argument is that the intended democratic form of patriotism of the Department of Education can possibly be undermined by cultivating a culture of ‘safe expression’, which could slow down the country's quest for reconciliation and nation building. (shrink)

There has been an increase in research that focuses on female adolescents and adult women concerns relating to body image and dieting concerns. However, research on body and dieting concerns of specifically pre-adolescents is still a neglected area of research in comparison with female adolescents and adult women. Pre-adolescents are either research participants as part of a group, which includes younger children, or part of a group of adolescents. This article addresses the body and dieting concerns of pre-adolescent females as (...) a group on their own. A qualitative study was conducted, and data were collected by using a vignette with semi-structured questions. The data were analysed by using a thematic analysis. The results indicated that although the girls presented a ‘polite’ discourse that all girls should be accepted irrespective of weight, when they were futher engaged with during the interviews this was not reflective of their world view. Negative attributes were projected onto the heavier girl in the vignette, and the discourse of acceptance was linked to feelings of pity and sympathy as fat girls were ‘handicapped’ albeit not because of their own doing. Thin girls were linked to positive traits, such as kind, happy and with leadership potential. The pre-teens in the sample were all very familiar with terms related to food restrictions (dieting), and a number of them had indulged in dieting behaviour to lose weight. The research was conducted in one province in South Africa and provides baseline data for a bigger study, which includes other provinces, as well as girls from rural areas and girls from schools in poorer urban areas. The results indicated that the pre-teen girls have internalised gendered notions of what it means to be female and being thin is integrally linked to what patriarchy has constructed as the ideal female body. Contribution: This article is grounded within the discipline of Psychology. However, the scholarly contribution it intersects with include the disciplines of Public Health, Education and Gender Studies. It provides and engages a discourse at the intersections of the Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines, contributing to knowledge which is interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. (shrink)

How can we ameliorate the current immigration policies toward Mexican people immigrating to the United States? This study re-examines how the development of scenarios assisted South Africa to dismantle apartheid without engaging in a bloody civil war. Following the scenario approach, we articulate positions taken by different interest groups involved in the debate concerning immigration from Mexico. Next, we formulate a set of scenarios which are evaluated as to how well each contributes to the well-being of the populace both (...) of Mexico and of the United States. The South African scenario model has proven to be an effective tool in times of political disagreement. It fosters a common language among competing groups, non-hierarchal communication among groups, and acknowledgement of the concerns of each group involved. (shrink)

In South Africa there is widespread recognition amongst university educators that the new outcomes‐based education system can prevent instrumental thinking, particularly in view of OBE's agenda to encourage critical learning. However, what these educators do not necessarily take into account is that many students are not always ready to deal with critical learning because of the apparent persistence of instrumental thinking at some universities in South Africa. Simply put, many students seem to be quite willing to be taught (...) about some of the ends of education, rather than the reasons behind these ends. With this idea of desired student learning in mind, in this article, I argue that it has become necessary to fulfil the promise of democratic justice on the African continent through educating for friendship, rather than perpetuating uncritical modes of learning which could further extend the violation of human dignity on the African continent. Reflecting on several moments in my classroom pedagogy and conversations with colleagues at different universities, I firstly argue that critical learning cannot be blind to prescriptiveness, since students have to be made attentive in some way to the public realm of a democratic post‐apartheid South Africa and post‐colonial Africa. In short, they have to be taught what it means to be democratically just. Thereafter, I argue that teaching students about democratic justice can entail critical learning and, hence, be non‐instrumental, provided that university educators become more responsible educators. Finally, I examine how actions can potentially fulfil the democratic justice project, the success of which is so desperately needed on the African content. (shrink)