Pan African Consciousness Renaissance

Recently I was invited by Unisa - The University of South Africa as an adjudicator for academic staff being nominated for innovative and exceptional approaches to tuition, module design, assessment, student support, transformation and scholarship. As a team, we examined PoE’s (Portfolios of Evidence) and engaged in a rigorous scoring process based on a number of criteria to select winners. The standard was impressively high and a great number of innovative solutions were presented. It felt unfair to only select a few, when several submissions were of such high quality. fThe awards were presented at the Teaching and Learning Festival hosted at UNISA. The theme for the awards was “Educating for Social Justice”.

On a critical note, the experience left me pondering on at least two problematic aspects of the role of Afrikan academics: The level of critical engagement with “theoretical foundations", and the approach to “Africanization”.

There is a disturbing tendency among Afrikan academics to accept the theories that are presented as foundational to academic disciplines without interrogating the worldviews they have been conceptualized within. Some may desire to skip what is seen as being “overly critical” – but omitting this duty makes you complicit, not only in protecting western/invasive truths, but literally silencing/incapacitating Afrikan epistemologies. Our subconsciousness has been trained to conclude that the absence of Afrikan-centered knowledge must logically derive from its inability to describe the worlds we want to interrogate. The desire of any Western-rooted institution is to make the Black employer an alibi and a willing perpetrator in its culture of violence.

Also, I shiver when Afrikan academics use terms like “decolonization”, “de-Westernization” and “Africanization”, while, in fact, they are describing diversity, inclusivity and broadening the academic traditions. To diversify and open up spaces are not necessarily part of a critical engagement, nor an Afrikan-centered initiative. The practice of decolonizing is brutal and never liked, because it disrupts and breaks institutional rules in ways that are experienced as provocative and violating to the colonial assets we are expected to protect. To Africanize – for real, for real – is to engage boldly with aspects that academic institutions were never intending to internalize.

I am not raising these questions to appear clever and pushing down on hard working Sisters and Brothers in the Afrikan University. I am fully aware of the dynamics most Afrikan academics need to confront on a daily basis; and I appreciate the many who stand their grown, put down their feet and deliver for the Afrikan collective. But I am equally concerned about the work for “social justice”, which fails to attack the systemic foundation the traditions of injustice are built on; especially within institutions that often gives us the illusion that they are genuinely working to dismantle them…. – while, actually, being an integral part.

HONORING OUR SISTERS! Do not forget to tune in to Ebukhosini Solutions' Dialogue Webinar later today: THE ROLE OF AFRIKAN WOMEN IN THE LIBERATION STRUGGLE.

Warrior Sisters, Mhlahlo and Wéma Ragophala will provoke our thoughts; thereafter the mic is opened to all Black voices who want to speak truth to power. The dialogue will be hosted by PitsiRa Ragophala, director of eBukhosini Solutions.

Date and time:
Wednesday 28 August 2024
From 18:00 - 19:30 (SAST)

Theme/Topic:
The Role of Afrikan Women in the Liberation Struggle; Past, Present and Future

Platform:
Zoom / Facebook Live
Send DM to +27 67 249 9818 to receive the Zoom link for this dialogue. Or watch Live on Facebook: Ebukhosini Solutions.