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We must assess: are we operating on the basis of still being divided? Or: are we operating on the basis of reconciliation, and negotiating the meaning of the Constitution for us to live as a South African Nation, guided by Ubuntu?By Mongane Wally Serote
Lowe. That is a Setswana word. It means the beginning of the beginning. The context within which it is used is: Lowe fa mantswe a ne a sale metsi; in the beginning of the beginning when the rocks and boulders were still wet. That is when things, no matter what they were – they could be shaped.
I begin there because that is the challenge from which we, Africans, black or white, must begin. This implies, when is it, when did life for Africans begin; when did we shape culture and history; when did we shape the African finger print, the African heritage: Egypt? Ethiopia?
Once, during my many discussions with the outstanding South African scholar, the late Phillip Tobias, I asked him, why is it that in his work the most researched about people are the black Africans? His answer was: “because you are the cradle of humankind.” At that point, he confirmed that life is four billion years old; I also later heard that the evidence for this is in some rocks which are found in Barberton, in Mpumalanga, which contain a singular cell which is proof to this fact. We were in the process of building Freedom Park at the time. Tobias also told me that most scientists in the world, both natural and social scientists, agree on this matter. What would this mean to all of us as South Africans, if we were all conscious of these facts, especially at this juncture when the nation has reached the mature age of 22 years?
The histories of both Egypt and Ethiopia do also offer a window through which we can peep, through scholarship, and find the roots of African philosophy which pre-date western civilisation; which, however, is not common knowledge in our nation. The existence of the Kingdoms of Mapungubwe and Thulamela, which predate the arrival of any western influence in South Africa, are not common knowledge in the country either.
In the 22 years of our Nation, these matters have been exposed. That has been done. We must therefore search from a different direction, for what can complement what is already known. However, I offer this evidence here, to add a reference point which must contribute to what we mean when we refer to issues of transition to the social transformation for South Africa to go through a renaissance, to become an African country in our minds, spirit and body as Africans.
The preserved history, culture and heritage of Egypt and Ethiopia have enabled us to trail blaze and construct the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of our being African (AC ANTA DIOP Feb, 1974). As a result, we have arrived at a body of thought and philosophical tapestries which will offer us a reference point which we can use so that we can know ourselves in the context of this twenty- First century world. As the law of relativity demands, we are therefore also put in a position to know the other: of Asia, Latin America and the world. We can therefore arrive at knowing and at understanding that while there may be Chinese, Indian and Western civilisations and therefore philosophies, there is also an African philosophy. This find is extremely important for the liberation of the dark skinned peoples of the world; and it will emancipate, even at this late hour, not only the dark skinned people, but humanity as a whole, one can hope, from a barbarism which held hostage human civilisations for centuries.
The question is: who are we?
If we move from an understanding and acceptance of the fact that we can find more than just a clue of African philosophy among the three African Civilisations, namely: Bantu, Sahel and Mahgreb, and the African diaspora wherever it is, together with those of the European and Asian diaspora which now reside on the African continent as their home, we will then have taken strides away from tribalism, prejudice, discrimination, injustice, oppression and exploitation of human beings by other human beings. We will be on course to a future which commits us to the fact that the human being comes first.
We will have created a humane culture – Ubuntu – and therefore be under obligation to develop, promote,
defend and protect it for humanity together with other peoples, on the basis of the promotion of the diversity of life in all its different forms. History has also proved that even as we arrive at this finding, there will still be the other who will remain relentless in seeking a superior place above all others. Therefore the shift must be to find what must be done, to create a culture of tolerance for the other, to understand and accommodate the other. Their negating the whole, is a necessary dynamic for the growth of the whole for as long as it does not violently oppose the whole. That is the dialectic. That is, it is necessary to tolerate the other, but it is also important to keep searching for the humaneness of both.
The insistence here is and must be in the “fruits” of a humane culture which becomes a “determinant of history”, developing, growing and becoming able to defend itself and convince its opposition to seek the humanness of itself and of the other too. We do so for ourselves as the other, clear that we must abide by the constant of life: that because the universe is dynamic and therefore always susceptible to change, change is a permanent dynamic of the universe. The philosophical expression of the law of relativity demands that we Africans, even blacks in the broadest definition of that word, must know ourselves, and that is the only condition to know the other. More than that, the purpose for this must be that we intend to take strides towards what other civilisations, whose presence has been understood and accepted, failed to do: namely, to make practical peace for humanity.
This philosophical context must be the anchor upon which the socio economic system is based – the system which must rebirth, re-awaken and re-emerge the African people, the African continent and the African Diaspora.
For the purposes of this article, I wish to focus on Bantu civilisation. In the context of South Africa, that means: Basotho, Bapedi, Batswana, AmaZulu, AmaXhosa, AmaNdebele, AmaSwati, VhaVenda and VhaTsonga. This is why I began this article through Lowe. But in understanding Lowe, I must also note and understand the concept of change as well as the dynamism of change as a concept. That is because I am trying to contribute, by creating both a cultural reference point and a pilot project, as part of a whole on the continent, which must be used to engage the whole. It must be clear that the reference and the pilot are a mere part of the whole. They are a means to approach and understand the whole.
Bantu languages are an inherent and intrinsic carrier of the Bantu culture, history and heritage through which African knowledge has been formulated and expressed for the whole world to witness, know and be educated by. However, as soon as I state this, I must hasten to also state that one of the most important projects which must carry the objective knowledges of the world and catapult them through a different and beneficial trajectory is and will be ensuring that the education systems of our continent remember that Africa as a whole was consciously and deliberately under- developed.
Besides having to go back to Lowe, the other most important challenge is to accept and implement urgently the processes, programmes and projects which are informed by an understanding that as Bantu people we evolved a cultural reference point whose intrinsic value is Botho/ Ubuntu. This philosophical context must be the anchor upon which the socio economic system is based – the system which must rebirth, re-awaken and re-emerge the African people, the African continent and the African Diaspora.
Is this a possibility in the twenty rst century? Power seems to shift from the arch-imperialists – Europe and America – as Africa, Latin America, China and India enter the global economic space which is in their favour, and which can weaken the aggression and the great reliance on military force as a means of diplomacy by the other? Is this the historic moment, when this emerging bloc must collectively probe deeper to know what is humanness and how to persuade the other to find its own and practise it?
The other must be carefully de ned. The other cannot, from an African point of view, mean nations, but must mean administrations, as also the other in the African context must mean the people of the African Continent, the diaspora and the peace and freedom loving people of the world. These two extremes form a very important reference point for how Africa must rise to take its place in the world affairs of humanity.
African Universities must, instead of fulfilling the objectives of the West, through the promotion of western chauvinism, break away from western discourse, meaning also neoliberalism, and take responsibility, to prepare future leaders of our continent through Lowe. In other words, the issue with regards to African universities, is: how on the one hand, based on Lowe, must the concept and philosophy of Motho ke motho ka batho be unravelled and practised? On the other: how must it also be defended, not to be undermined, as it was in the fifteenth century? How must it be anchored on the means of its resources which are organised to protect, process and promote it?
A deep knowledge of African languages by future African leaders is extremely important. This provides for a genuine discussion, debate and dialogue between conventional and organic African intellectuals. A starting point for this possibility could be that all South African universities must have a mandatory course for junior degrees to do a comparative study of both the idioms and proverbs of any one of the nine major African languages of South Africa. This would be in search of the wisdom and knowledge carried and buried within them, finding those which overlap, those which are a stand-alone and those which are ambivalent. The other main gain of that venture would be to provide the first opportunity for these future thought leaders to create an African DNA which equips and grounds them within the context they have to live in, develop and create as leaders. This would also be an opportunity to learn from whatever choice one makes from the nine languages, with the objective of negating tribalism. It would also create an opportunity for the thought leaders, who, knowing who they are, will be keen to know the other. They will do so in their own right; in this way, the leaders will be creating African philosophy in search of knowledge, truth and the creation of a point of reference, in search of living a life of quality and creating a liveable environment and world.
As an example, here is one of the proverbs from Setswana:
“Phokoje go tshela ee dithetsana” this is a Setswana proverb. Basically, it states a truth, which becomes a philosophical knowledge which guides understanding about nature. The first and most important observation emanating from a study of the animal kingdom is that the leanness and meanness of this animal, the jackal, enables it to walk long distances propelled also by its cunning; secondly, it brings with it, when it appears from this long and tortuous distant walk positive results; third that the result is that it has solved through its keeping its leanness, and by its meanness and being cunning, a solution to a very grave problem, that of thirst – a killer; fourth, through its search in a parched terrain punished by drought, the jackal has survived, the sign of its survival against hardship and near extinction, is the touch of wet mud on its whiskers. It did find water to drink and quench its thirst! Humans can survive in a drought. That is the final message, though very silent. There are characteristics, and knowledge which humans can learn from the jackal, which they must innovate and through which they can survive as the jackal did through its cunning.
The message from this one line proverb states that there are many elements, which can enable the finding of solutions to challenges:
leanness of sacrifice; meanness of overcoming challenges through single mindedness; and focus and challenging and discovering inherent and intrinsic characteristics within own being, creativity and creation. Here is another proverb:
”Tlou ga e sitwe/iimelwee ke soka sa yone.” One of the most disturbing observations of an elephant, may be that its trunk is cumbersome, awkward and almost out of place. Why is it like that, could creation not have made things better and easier than that? All elephants know what that trunk is for; they know a lot about its multi-usage, they even become playful through it, or even lethal, or use it most creatively. The trunk, the proverb challenges us to know, is one of its strongest body parts. This, even to the extent that, the trunk gives elephants unique strength and reach. Yes, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but can the beholder also distort, miss the essence of things, can the elephant and its trunk teach us matters, issues beyond what we see and think if we use other means of observation? The elephant carries its trunk with the greatest ease, unaware of its weight. Do humans carry their challenges with great ease, unaware of their being cumbersome and being a burden?
A University curriculum which creates the basis of education on the study of African languages is the beginning of an African university. As it partners with the Lexicographical committees which have been created by the Pan South African Language Board – Pansalb – the objective must be to elevate the nine languages to twenty- first century vocabularies, parlance and articulation to contribute to world discourse as also it arms the future leaders of the continent, with the culture, philosophy and knowledge which creates a seamless relationship between the masses – the organic intellectuals – and the conventional intellectuals. In other words, it must create the possibilities of a partnership to overcome the challenges facing the nation and the continent.
A new discourse, emanating from the foundation of the continent, and therefore an African indigenous knowledge understanding will emerge with indigenous solutions to the challenges of its subjective conditions but also to the objective reality of the world in the twenty-first century. This must not mean the total discarding of other knowledges, but that opportunities arise to also borrow and innovate ideas from elsewhere. Which is what Ubuntu/Botho means: We develop our own Ubuntu, and so also contribute to the possibility of Botho with the other, so that we can live side by side. Botho is a holistic approach to life in its various forms.
The concept of Go aana is a Bantu concept which also contributes to this holistic manner of living life. The length and breadth of the continent has created symbolisms which articulate and con rm the diverse identity of people, the common pool of these symbols being borrowed from the animal Kingdom. The concept of totems is a concept which clari es the identity of people. There are Khoisan languages and therefore also different clans, some of whose totem is a butter y. There are some among AmaXhosa, whose totem is bees. That is, there are among the nine African languages in South Africa clans which ‘aana’ all kinds of different animals, and according to what they aana, so their lives are shaped.
The Bakwana, a clan among Bapedi, as an example, in praise of themselves, and therefore also in dictating to themselves how they will carry their dignity, integrity and their lives, say about themselves: baa apara metsi; those whose parts of the body are so ambidextrous as to wear water as clothes are worn, and it never ever spills. When what they aana, the crocodile – which wears water – opens its mouth wide, laying its teeth bare, they say: “Kena, ga e lome” – come in, you are welcome, you will not be hurt here; that is how they display their generosity and their being magnanimous; but also too they show you a bit of how humorous they can be and are. This is not to overlook the viciousness of the crocodile and its teeth. In this humour there is also a sternness and firmness which is an expression of their anticipating that the visitor must respect their ways. This is an expression of their defence of who they are; they are able to defend themselves and their essence.
The animal kingdom has shaped characters, has instilled style, habits and manners among all the nine African languages and various sub-clans to the extent that they have shaped dances, manners of behaviour, manners of fighting or camou aging and ways of life. They have shaped philosophies, beliefs, healing systems, IKS, morality, ethics and have also been a source for building Leloko – so called extended families – communities, societies and Nations. Cumulatively and collectively, underneath the idioms and proverbs carrying the weight of the lives of these nine languages and numerous clans, is a tapestry of philosophy of the Bantu people.
The length and breadth of the continent, has created symbolisms which articulate and con rm the diverse identity of people, the common pool of these symbols being borrowed from the animal Kingdom.
”//hapo ge//hapo tama/ haohasib dis tamas ka I bo”: A dream is not a dream until it is a dream of the community. That is a Khoisan proverb.
Here, among the Khoisan, a people who were declared to be an issue of genocide, one of the oldest languages of the world, articulated democracy shaped in reality from dreams. The cruel irony here is that the knowledge they so displayed, the culture of being totally one with nature, and transforming that to ways of life, living and the manner to explore its meaning through the furtherance of knowledge, and creating history; their being one with their environment to the extent of being a humble people, because they aspired to be one with everything in nature; and their having learnt all kinds of methods for survival became not matters and issues which the human race thought to turn into living treasures and being advantageous to human kind; but it became a reason for their being sentenced by European settlers in South Africa to be decimated. The basis for African Indigenous Knowledge Systems, (IKS) which is anchored on the life experiences of the Khoi is:
“... the processes of creating knowledge infinitely from a spiritual belief and activities point of view of a people; gathering that knowledge to order and organise it, within the context of their environment and culture, to further create more knowledge, to access more knowledge, to improve the quality of life and to ensure that the environment and culture they live in and through can be liveable...”
This deFInition, which I derived from my over twenty years of working in this area of IKS tests time as to whether this knowledge must change and if it does, how and why – given that change is a constant in the universe.
A structure called the IKS Secretariat, through which the exploration of IKS was conducted in the democratic Parliament of our country in the nineties, partnered with the then University of the North to research IKS technology by elding 63 young students in three villages. This research demonstrated that there are IK technologies. They come from a context which is spiritual, of knowledge, expertise, culture, history, skills, systems and so on: they are unique to their environment and culture, and therefore they are indigenous; they emanate from knowledge and other related systems. That is how the Indigenous Knowledge System was arrived at. And so IKS is unique, but also, it overlaps with other knowledges.
Further analysis revealed that IKS yields different categories: social, institutional, technological, biodiversity and liberatory Processes: it is cultural, as it is natural and social, it is scientiFIc, it is created on a holistic basis if not categorised. This IKS emanates from various institutions: e.g. male and female – male is five in one institutions as is female; bojale, bogwera; (male and female initiation) bogosi, bongaka, leloko, morafe, and so on. The point here is that in order for IKS to develop people, it must do so in the languages through which it is derived, to ensure that its content is continuously informed by its context.
Is language so important?
Language is a carrier of culture, and culture is a carrier of language; this establishes a complementarity which imbues the content and the context with symbiotic dependence and therefore development and relevance and appropriateness to its community to develop things. It is these “things” which have shaped civilisations, but it is also these “things” which have created wealth and shaped communities, societies, nations and continents. It is the manner in which these “things” are organised, the relevance of their being organised in relation to communities and also, in whose ownership these things are located and biased that has shaped the power of nations and continents. The colonised and the colonisers are shaped by these things, and it is these things which shape the character of the litmus test about the destinies of people and nations. It is these “things” as they interact with people and as people interact with them which result in articulating a culture of a people.
Amilcar Cabral was murdered to stop him from reshaping the culture of the people of Guinea Bissau and of Africans wherever we are, for their betterment and for their best future out of colonialism into freedom. He left us a legacy, which it is now time, if not long overdue, to examine: this is how he de ned culture:
“Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history, by the positive or negative influence it exerts on the evolution of relationships between (human beings) and their environment among groups of (human beings) within a society as well as among different societies.”
That is Cabral’s gift to the generation which rules the continent presently, even here in South Africa. What is the “fruit” of our history of struggle, how has the culture of our struggle for freedom been a “determinant” for Africans on the continent, in South Africa and in the diaspora? There was a philosophy of life, which the indigenous people, as with all other human beings, had to formulate, experiment on, study and live by; like every other human being, those on the continent, and those who were enslaved and removed from their places of birth against their wills, with brutal force, and held under the circumstances of absolute abnormality, to continue living, they too had to almost begin to reinvent culture, history, heritage and being. These are the pasts which we have to examine because a life not examined is not worth living, as philosophers have stated.
On the other hand, the First people of America and the Khoisan who were almost obliterated from the earth had no chance to reinvent themselves. And therefore whatever was left, of those who survived, which is a mere semblance of them, and their adjusting to everything foreign about them, besides defining them almost as being outside of life, in their being reintegrated because they were not exterminated, those moments define them as foreigners in their current life even if they are in a land of their birth. The brand new circumstance gave them no choice but to imbibe the language of their captors. Their captors almost managed to decimate them. The almost here, must mean, those who remain, were genocided out of their context, and therefore
are permanently almost lost. All the captured whether as citizens, slaves, or resettled remnants of the exterminated citizens, because they never are a part of the whole, do speak English, do speak Afrikaans but that English and that Afrikaans is different and at times deliberately so from the original. And therefore there is English and English and English in the land, as there is Afrikaans and Afrikaans and Afrikaans in the land.
If it is true that to ensure that our languages are spoken in our country is too expensive, would it be otherwise if we said then that the alternative is that all South Africans must speak whatever their language is, but that, in order for us to build a non-racial African nation in South Africa all South Africans must learn Swahili? That by doing so our reference will still be Bantu and that we will still be contributing to the unity of Africans, for the possibility to develop people so that they can develop the “things” referred to above?
One of the two has to apply here, if it is true that Language is a carrier of culture; that culture is the carrier of language. It is when a context, depending on the ordering and organisation of access to “productive forces” and the products they produce happen in a society, a nation. But also, more importantly, if “culture is the fruit of a people’s history” and if “culture is a determinant of history” would these guarantee the emergence of a nation from Southern Africa, which together with East Africa, contribute to a possible emergence of a united Africa, and an enriched African renaissance culture to shape a new consciousness expressed through a common national purpose? Such a culture seems to be in the Cuban consciousness for Cuba and the internationalist culture which that small country, which is a visible and big country executes everywhere in the world? There is an example of possibilities!
There is a body of thought out there, outside of the West, which is not only different, but whose meaning will always shore up the schisms and gulfs between non-South and non- North. This non-black and non-white issue is like that, it is a philosophy of the other and the other. One is a world belonging to a past which conquered history, culture, heritage, IKS from everyone, everywhere, and created massive empires and Kingdoms at the expense of humanity; the other is the world which holds for dear life, after losing everything humane; clings at humanness and being de ned by everything else the same as being betwixt death and life but is awakening. The parlance and the context and content about when will these twain meet smells like burning human flesh, thick smoke and wails like utter chaos. It has happened. It happened in Africa when the greatest crime in history was committed – the slave trade; ask all of Asia, Latin America and the Middle East if we speak about the past, if we speak about the present we must ask, will this madness ever come to an end: ask Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya, ask Eastern Europe. Is it true that there is a philosophy called “regime change”?
Ask Gbagbo – Why is he in the International Criminal Court (ICC) – who took him there and why? There is an underlying philosophy here, and it is eloquently articulated by one of the IKS categories, the liberatory processes; a trove of knowledge, a philosophy expressing the manner in which Africans did everything under the sun, to express what they thought was a simple truth, which could be heard and understood – We are people, we are well when we live within the context of peace and freedom. This understanding is articulated well within the African Primary Institution – Leloko.
Look at this, one institution of Africans, which is not dissimilar to other institutions which are created by human beings – Leloko: African primary institution. This is an institution which consists of ve in one individuals, whether a man or a woman. A man/ woman has de nite responsibilities: as malome/rakgadi, rangoane/mangoane; as Rra/Mme and as ntatemogolo/ mmemogolo. The first responsibility of all these elders is to ensure that the children receive love, eat, learn the culture and about the heritage and eventually about life. Leloko is the institution where the children/little ones are educated: motho ke motho ka batho ba bang. Leloko is an IKS institution within which the concept of Ubuntu is conceptualised, and through drill and practise is incubated, innovated and is forever a point of relationship within the institution.
The complementarity between Rra/ Mme and Ntatemogolo/Mmemogolo in terms of the children is that the former disciplines and the latter gives the children the experience of love; both impart issues of culture and heritage, respect, being polite, knowing humility and practising it, and also most important Botho/ Ubuntu.
Every child relates to many people at the same time, at all times and in specific ways according to their responsibilities and hierarchy in the institution. The older siblings take full responsibility for the little ones to behave, to be honest, as also, through drill and practice, they are assigned chores as girls or as boys by the adults, and the elders. The little ones learn to respect, to obey, to be honest. They are also consciously and deliberately sensitised to the hierarchy of the institution, the responsibility to ensure that they know that they are expected to contribute to happiness and joy in the house by being guided through the rules of the institution. There is also what is called “botsalano ba maikeletso” relations which are not necessarily of bloodline, but created to extend, to substitute or purely because the individuals are older, or senior in the family or community.
The manner of behaviour inside and outside the institution is guided by the rules of the institution which are passed from generation to generation, also, through word of mouth. That is where matters began in the beginning of the ideal, and that is where the Bantu within the African being: Amazulu, AmaXhosa, AmaSwati, AmaNdebele, Basotho, Bapedi, Batswana, Vhavenda, and VhaTsonga have been cultured; there are the South African Indians, there are the Coloureds, there are the Afrikaaners and there are the South African English. If we go by what the National Political Negotiations achieved in the nineties, by creating the possibility for the development of a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic Nation, from a past Nation which was divided by colonialism and apartheid, we must assess: are we operating on the basis of still being divided? Or: are we operating on the basis of reconciliation, and negotiating the meaning of the Constitution for us to live as a South African Nation, guided by Ubuntu?
These questions are important. What are we reconciling, and has that been reconciled? How will that be measured and assessed? In other words are there still the other and the other? The history, culture, heritage of the non-white as described in the sketch, reference and pilot above, must be put on the National agenda and discussed by the Nation and adopted as a programme for transformation – what Madiba called the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) of the Soul in South Africa in the nineties. This as a way to manage on the basis of the constitution, international law and also especially Ubuntu: the other negotiates for the humanness of the other, and the other also negotiates for the humanity of the other to create a possibility to live a quality life and to create a liveable world environment for all.
The issue here is no longer who is wrong and who is right if we still follow the precedent and processes created through the negotiation processes of Codesa. The issue is that the land belongs to all South Africans, and that the triple plagues of our society which also plague the whole of the continent – poverty, inequality and unemployment – must be addressed with immediate effect by all and by all means necessary. In other words, there is the state of the other and the other. Therefore, the issues raised here are an agenda for the one side of the other, which must be discussed with the other. A National agenda must be arrived at for transformation, on this basis.
An important initiative, a National Dialogue, called for by the Albert Luthuli Foundation, the OR and Adelaide Tambo Foundation, the Sobukwe Foundation, the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, the Tutu Foundation, the Helen Suzman Foundation, the FW De Klerk Foundation and the Umlambo Foundation should be fully supported.
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