Lecture Room 4

Hullo people, Here is the not so good news. I have not yet got the details about what our prof is suffering from.

“In order to feel comfortable among
educated people, to be at home and happy
with them, one must be cultured to a
certain extent.”

“Everyone who is seriously
involved in the pursuit of
science becomes convinced
that some spirit is manifest
in the laws of the universe,
one that is vastly superior
to that of man.” Albert Einstein.

Transcript of former President Thabo Mbeki’s address at the beginning of a five-day Summer School on Decoloniality hosted by Unisa’s College of Human Sciences (CHS) in collaboration with the Archie Mafeje Research Institute for Applied Social Policy (AMRI), the Institute of Global Dialogue (IGD) and the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute (TMALI).

Thank you very much Professor Makhanya, I have always wanted an opportunity to ask a question, I notice that there are a number of us here, men who are putting on caps in the house. Why do you wear caps in the house?

As we grew up, one of the things that we knew was that even when you have to greet someone, you take off your hat as a sign of respect. It is not in a rally where we have our hats on as we chant, long live the ANC! I think it is a bad habit to have a hat on in the house, as a man.

I asked Sabelo here; Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni why it was necessary for Professor Makhanya to introduce me in such a glorious way, and Sabelo said it was because of protocol. I want to advise Professor Makhanya, we have a phrase that we have learnt from the West Africans, It is a simple phrase, you just say “ all protocol observed,” it helps to avoid long introductions Professor.

Let me join Professor Makhanya to thank and welcome our friends, the Professors who came from outside the continent to help us discuss this important topic that is before us today. Ramon, Nelson, Tiffany and Kwame thank you very much for coming to lead us in terms of this Summer School.

As I said to you when we were in that room at the back, I am not going to make any keynote address, Professor Makhanya has made a good keynote address, and I think Professor Moeketsi has also given a half of that keynote address. I find no need to make yet another one.

As we all know, in my previous life I was a political activist in the political sphere, not a politician, politicians are quiet another animal. Coming from there, quite honestly if I am to talk about Africa, I would say we have a great need for progressive scholarship, a scholarship that will help us bring progressive change in our continent. For many years we have sought this scholarship that will produce a progressive Africa that will meet the challenges that it faces.

For many decades, we have been bothered a lot as Africans by the challenge of violence and instability in Africa. For many decades I must say, we still have not succeeded to bring an end to violence and to instability in Africa. We must indeed ask ourselves the question, why have we not succeeded to bring stability and peace to our continent? There has been all this violence in Mali, violence in the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and recently South Sudan. Why are we unable to bring an end to these conflicts?

I always ask myself whether it is because of this question of Coloniality, and that maybe our progressive scholarship has yet to apply its mind to this question. Perhaps the paradigms that we use have not come up to answer this question clearly; maybe we have used the wrong intellectual tools.

These conflicts and the destruction to our lives have continued, not for a lack of trying on our part. We have attempted all sorts of interventions to achieve peace, security and stability. One goes to bed on Monday, only to wake up on Tuesday to discover that another conflict has erupted in another part of our continent, and this has been going on for many decades.

For many decades again, we have been trying to eradicate poverty and combat underdevelopment in Africa. You will remember that the eradication of poverty and the combatting of underdevelopment were a very central objective of our liberation struggles in Africa. As a disappointing reverse to our expectations, we continue to witness increasing rather than reducing poverty. There is persistent underdevelopment in Africa that is accompanied by wide disparities in terms of access to income and wealth for our people. The question arises therefore, why are we not making the progress......................

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.