tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/achille-mbembe-18201/articles
Achille Mbembe – The Conversation
2021-05-06T13:27:59Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/156775
2021-05-06T13:27:59Z
2021-05-06T13:27:59Z
The #JerusalemaDanceChallenge showed how Pan African styles can be forged
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398995/original/file-20210505-19-13vr53b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fenómenos do Semba from Angola.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Fenómenos do Semba/Facebook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A year has passed since an Angolan dance troupe called <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fenomenosdosemba/?ref=page_internal">Fenómenos do Semba</a> released a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613A9d6Doac">video</a> of themselves dancing in a courtyard in Luanda to the South African hit song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCZVL_8D048"><em>Jerusalema</em></a> by Master KG. </p>
<p>With over 16 million YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613A9d6Doac">clicks</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-angolan-dancers-who-helped-south-african-anthem-jerusalema-go-global-148782">#JerusalemaDanceChallenge</a> swept the planet as social media users posted their own versions of the dance. </p>
<p>Its success has inspired me to offer some further reflections on the importance of the cultural meaning of this dance and its contribution to the creation of a Pan African aesthetic.</p>
<h2>How Angolans celebrate</h2>
<p>The dance video’s success is related to deep-rooted elements that might go unnoticed at first sight. But, taken together, they convey the joyous and proud expression of a collective identity.</p>
<p>Despite not being danced to Angolan music and using steps that stem from different kinetic codes, the video is still representative of the main elements of the Angolan way of celebrating: food, music, dance … and <em>brincadeiras</em> (joking around).</p>
<p>The dance takes place in a communal courtyard situated between Luandan buildings. This open but protective space in itself represents a specific way of living in a community. In the recent past of civil war, these places of mutual exchange allowed people to preserve family units, overcome collective trauma and protect local languages and cultures from the threat of colonialism. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/613A9d6Doac?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Angolan troupe Fenómenos do Semba’s Jerusalema dance challenge.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Writing on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fenomenosdosemba/?ref=page_internal">Facebook</a> about their video challenge, Adilson Maiza, the leader of Fenómenos do Semba, said: </p>
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<p>There is always a reason to be happy, always a reason to celebrate. </p>
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<p>This same spirit of gratitude found more concrete expression in the now famous troupe’s promotion of social initiatives. They have done things like distributing food in disadvantaged areas and promoting the foundation of the Angolan Dance Association for the promotion of dance in the country.</p>
<p>In this sense the presence of food is very relevant and it has surely contributed to the video’s success. It reveals the genuine character of the reunion and the spirit of contentment through the symbolic act of eating. Indeed, in Angola, getting together with family and friends has a social, political and spiritual value. This was pointed out by Angolan writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Ribas">Óscar Ribas</a> in his 1965 book <em><a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Izomba.html?id=UXoKAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">Izomba</a></em>, about the importance of recreational centres in Luanda. </p>
<p>The value of gatherings gained even greater importance during the long night curfews that were at times common during the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">civil war</a> (1975 to 2002). During this time dance and music seemed the only remedy to soothe a permanent fear. To the people who experienced the Angolan and South African reality of those years, the <em>Jerusalema</em> video is surely a reminder of the joy of being able to celebrate togetherness under any conditions.</p>
<h2>The dance</h2>
<p>The dance displayed in the video is commonly known as <em>Dança da Familia</em> (the Family Dance). It is not a traditional Angolan dance with a semiotic code. Nevertheless, it’s frequently danced at weddings and parties. It mainly consists of a short sequence of steps, repeated within the same structure. Anyone can introduce variations and personal touches (<em>toques</em>) to the sequence. In other words, it is not a choreography but rather the repetition of a scheme. </p>
<p>The idea of a choreography does not belong to the Angolan conception of dance. Rather, dance is improvised and repeated with simple variations answering to specific rhythmic calls. It’s never linked to a specific song.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hip-hop-and-pan-africanism-from-blitz-the-ambassador-to-beyonce-151680">Hip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé</a>
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<p>Angolan dance is a performative act rather than a product. It is always the result of the encounter of new movements with a traditional but permeable frame, and it represents a specific conception of society and life. </p>
<p>Angolan dance stems from the expression of a circumstance. Songs register popular dialogues and events of daily life. Gestures come from activities such as drying wheat, tilling the land or, in more urban scenarios, imitating a crippled man (<em>o coxo</em>) or defending the value of gender diversity. </p>
<p>The peculiarity of the <em>Jerusalema</em> dance lies in its sequence, proposed by one of the participants and repeated in the same way in four directions. It does so with the same steps and the same rotation at the end of any sequence, while able to be embellished with any specific groove proposed by the main dancers. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A television studio, a large camera foregrounded. In front of the cameras, a group of young men dances." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The troupe became well known in Angola, appearing on TV and working on social and dance initiatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Fenómenos do Semba/Facebook</span></span>
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<p>The dance’s character demonstrates the focal point of the dance transmission technique in many African contexts. This takes place in a playful context, without any formal teaching. It derives from a logic of movement developed over centuries and passed on through imitation and innovation.</p>
<p>Commonly danced in Angola and South Africa, but also in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Congo Republic, Cameroon and Zambia, <em>Dança da Família</em> could be defined as a “neotraditional” cultural product, borrowing the definition of British-Ghanaian philosopher, cultural theorist and novelist <a href="http://appiah.net/">Kwame Anthony Appiah</a>. </p>
<h2>The music</h2>
<p>The “dance structure” of <em>Dança da Familia</em> can be performed on different rhythms. During family celebrations this pattern is danced on more traditional rhythms like <a href="https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2018/12/the-roots-of-soukous">soukous</a> (or sakiss) and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/oct/08/pantsula-dance-south-africa-via-kanana">pantsula</a>, but also on <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/30/africa/coup-decale-ivory-coast/index.html">coupé decalé</a>, <a href="https://www.redbull.com/int-en/music/a-history-of-afropop-dance-crazes">azonto</a> or <a href="https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2020/05/21/best-afrobeats-dances-lockdown/">Afrobeat</a> songs, by those who do not know each rhythm’s dance code. </p>
<p>All these music styles are appreciated by different generations in various countries. This dance structure embeds their specific vocabularies, reshaping them into a new cultural product. <em>Dança da Familia</em> can be adapted to all these rhythms, which is why it is often used at West African weddings in the south of the region, where continuous exchanges between ethnic groups have created mixed family units and multicultural traditions. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-angolan-dancers-who-helped-south-african-anthem-jerusalema-go-global-148782">The Angolan dancers who helped South African anthem Jerusalema go global</a>
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<p>Similarly, contemporary styles like Afrobeat or <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/europe/portugal/lisbon/articles/a-brief-introduction-to-kuduro/">kuduro</a> travel across the globe via TV and social networks, carrying symbols and proposing modes of self-representation that drive cultural legitimacy and recognition. In this context the creation of codes is often based on the recreation of traditions – reinforcing what Cameroonian philosopher and author <a href="https://wiser.wits.ac.za/users/achille-mbembe">Achille Mbembe</a> affirmed by <a href="http://calternatives.org/resource/pdf/African%20Modes%20of%20Self-Writing.pdf">defining</a> African identity as mobile and reversible. </p>
<p>This has now achieved the dignity of specific aesthetic criteria, nourished by improvisation and by freedom of expression.</p>
<p>Through these elements, <em>Jerusalema</em>’s dance spontaneously promoted a more conscious concept of Africanity and sowed feelings of tolerance and contentment that have conquered international audiences.</p>
<p>This reminds me of the words of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-kwame-nkrumah-used-metaphor-as-a-political-weapon-against-colonialism-129379">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, former Ghanaian president:</p>
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<p>All the fair, brave words spoken about freedom that had been broadcast to the four corners of the earth took seed and grew where they had not been intended.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Francesca Negro is an independent researcher in Comparative Literature and Performance studies. She is affiliated researcher with The Centre for Comparative Studies at the University of Lisbon while collaborating as consultant and teacher with various international institution.</span></em></p>
A year later, it’s clear that the dance promotes a conscious concept of Africanity – sowing feelings of tolerance and contentment that have conquered international audiences.
Francesca Negro, Associate research scientist, Universidade de Lisboa
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/147517
2020-10-12T14:34:59Z
2020-10-12T14:34:59Z
Anxiety in Johannesburg: new views on a global south city
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362431/original/file-20201008-20-16a7azi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">iStock/Getty Images Plus</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Within the media and popular culture of the global north, cities like Johannesburg, South Africa, are often presented as a site of trouble. They’re the source of the immigrants, drugs, violence, poverty, disease and environmental crisis that worry nervous citizens of more “developed” cities. </p>
<p>Even when they take centre stage in international media production, global south cities like Johannesburg are laden with fear or fantasy. Think of the films <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/18121?show=full"><em>District 9</em></a> with its slavering Nigerian gangsters, the homeless genius of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436591003701117"><em>Slumdog Millionaire</em></a> or <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/fq/article-abstract/72/4/46/42347"><em>Roma</em></a>’s contentedly familial domestic worker. In so many instances, these urban spaces – vibrant, changeable, challenging, new – appear as nothing more than locations for the fluffy imaginaries or collective fears of the north.</p>
<p>In his book <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Liquid+Times%3A+Living+in+an+Age+of+Uncertainty-p-9780745639864"><em>Liquid Times</em></a>, the philosopher Zygmunt Bauman calls fear “arguably the most sinister of the demons nesting in the open societies of our time”. He writes of fear as a palpable monster that stalks the lives of late modern subjects in a world where the centres of power are diffuse and remote. </p>
<p>Fear is, indeed, one way of describing this condition. But anxiety is perhaps more useful, suggesting a feeling that is persistent, low-level and even, in psychologist <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10130950.2001.9675996">Kopano Ratele</a>’s term, “objectless”. Anxiety is ever-present. It does not depend on particular triggers. It is easily spread and shared, passed around on the wind, like a rumour, like a virus.</p>
<h2>The elusive metropolis</h2>
<p>Anxiety in Johannesburg is nothing new. Despite its intermittent glamour, the city has always felt unstable for those who live in it. South Africa’s largest and wealthiest urban centre, it is also deeply unequal and striated by the spatial markers of apartheid. According to urban planning professor <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/city-of-extremes/">Martin J. Murray</a>, it </p>
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<p>leads a double life. The city is a paradigmatic exemplar of first world glamour and excess and third world improvement and degradation. It is simultaneously a global marketplace of speculative investment integrally linked to the world economy via globalising space of flows. </p>
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<p>Black migrants who were once forced into urban labour by law now face the same conditions because of poverty, unemployment and rural underdevelopment. Fears of hunger and violence mesh with a neoliberal fear of failure, of being left behind in a rapidly changing world, painfully symbolised by the city’s “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00020184.2017.1285670">branded skyline</a>”. White suburbanites who once quailed from imaginary communists now invest enthusiastically in <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/pa7nek/smart-cctv-networks-are-driving-an-ai-powered-apartheid-in-south-africa">security technologies</a> and report passers-by to <a href="https://suburbanfear.tumblr.com/">armed private guards</a>. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DyLUwOcR5pk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">District 9 (2009) presents a fearful image of Johannesburg and of Nigerians.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In all parts of the city, from malls to taxi ranks to alleys, <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/pdf/Gender%20Based%20Violence%20in%20South%20Africa%20-%20A%20Brief%20Review.pdf">women</a> worry whether they will make it home safely – or if at <a href="https://connect.springerpub.com/content/sgrvv/24/4/546">home</a>, whether they will make it through the night. From <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2014.988057?casa_token=s9QI3p_pcWwAAAAA%3A6j18Fc0kHj5niV8BTfT1tQ-OmMIzjk5Ge9eURk5g1ADairxvlI_AfHT_C1a7JhPwfcZ1pe2IJktwSg">hawkers</a> in the central business district to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org.za/site/wp-content/uploads/Final-ReportOpenSecrets_Bankers_Reduced.pdf">grifters</a> in the banking malls, nothing seems entirely fixed or reliable in this elusive metropolis. And yet conditions of anxiety <em>within</em> Johannesburg are seldom discussed by scholars. </p>
<h2>Anxious Joburg</h2>
<p>Like any other city of the south, life in Johannesburg is fraught with the feelings that are central to modernity. What then does it mean that a city like Johannesburg so casually connotes anxiety to the north? And more importantly, if fearful emotion is the base layer of the modern age, as Bauman argues, what does it mean that we think more of anxiety <em>about</em> southern cities than <em>in</em> them? </p>
<p>In order to properly understand city life we need to account for its emotional landscapes. We must ask what it means to be an anxious modern citizen, subject to the same epistemological insecurities as people elsewhere, in a location that is often represented as inherently unstable.</p>
<p>These are some of the question that we asked of contributors to our new book <em><a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/anxious-joburg/">Anxious Joburg</a></em>, a set of essays and reflections that consider the intimate inner lives of Johannesburg. Rather than classifying it as a list of developmental and economic problems to be solved, these scholars, artists and storytellers consider what it <em>feels like</em> to live in this complicated city. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-covid-19-inspire-a-new-way-of-planning-african-cities-145933">Can COVID-19 inspire a new way of planning African cities?</a>
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<p>A broad range of people and experiences are explored, among them inner-city religious communities, young women who navigate perilous taxi mobility, nervous white middle classes, transgender migrants coping with South Africa’s aggressive border regime and people scraping a precarious living on the city’s outskirts. </p>
<p>From the gated community of Dainfern in the north to the township of Soweto in the south, from the liminal suburbs of Melville and Yeoville to the back rooms of Cyrildene and the apartment buildings of Hillbrow and the central business district, <em>Anxious Joburg</em> investigates the city’s complex affects from multiple positions. It invokes a range of theoretical approaches – among them visual art, cultural studies, psychology and anthropology – to argue for the central role of emotion in understanding urban life in the global south.</p>
<h2>Emotion and urban life</h2>
<p>When city forms are lumped together as merely the source of dangers that worry the north, it becomes difficult to grasp the current shape of the urban, which is likely to reach its ultimate expression in the expanding mega-cities of the south. As academics Sarah Nuttall and Achille Mbembe <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/johannesburg-the-elusive-metropolis/">argue</a>, we must develop ways of reading African cities that are no longer “dominated by the metanarrative of urbanisation, modernisation and crisis”. </p>
<p>Part of this work requires us to consider intimate experiences of daily life. After all, as cultural theorist <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Cultural-Politics-of-Emotion/Ahmed/p/book/9781138805033">Sara Ahmed</a> explains, </p>
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<p>Emotions should not be regarded as psychological states, but as social and cultural practices. </p>
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<p>In southern cities, as elsewhere, emotions are performative and collective and have social and political consequences.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362443/original/file-20201008-14-1k1g6p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
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<p>Johannesburg is not the most anxious or the most dangerous city in the world. It is not unique or uniquely terrifying. However its global reputation, spectacular racist history and propensity for siege architecture make it a hugely valuable site for thinking about how anxiety structures contemporary life for denizens of the southern city. </p>
<p><em>The new book <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/anxious-joburg/">Anxious Joburg</a>: The Inner Lives of a Global South City is available from <a href="http://witspress.co.za">Wits University Press</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147517/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicky Falkof receives funding from the Mellon Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cobus van Staden is affiliated with the non-profit China-Africa Project and a think tank, the South African Institute of International Affairs.</span></em></p>
Johannesburg is not the most anxious or dangerous city in the world, but its global reputation, history and architecture make it a valuable site for thinking about how anxiety structures our lives.
Nicky Falkof, Associate professor, University of the Witwatersrand
Cobus van Staden, Senior Researcher: China-Africa: South African Institute of International Affairs, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/136940
2020-05-20T19:04:03Z
2020-05-20T19:04:03Z
India’s treatment of Muslims and migrants puts lives at risk during COVID-19
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335785/original/file-20200518-83348-1gr20od.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5472%2C3530&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police stop migrants from moving in Mumbai during the COVID-19 lockdown on April 28, 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In India, the second most populous country in the world, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51839944">COVID-19 pandemic</a> has exposed pre-existing fault lines of inequality and communalism, exposing current problems with the country’s political and social structures. </p>
<p>Prevailing political conditions in India were already unstable prior to COVID-19 and the government has been ill-equipped to deal with the public health crisis.</p>
<p>The ultra-nationalist Indian government under Narendra Modi passed the controversial <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/18/india-clamps-down-against-citizenship-law-protests">Citizenship Amendment Act</a> in December that guaranteed fast-track citizenship to some minority groups from neighbouring countries but explicitly barred Muslims from it. </p>
<p>In August 2019, Article 370 of the Indian constitution that extended special status to the Muslim majority state of Jammu and Kashmir <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/kashmir-special-status-explained-articles-370-35a-190805054643431.html">was scrapped</a>, and a communications blackout was imposed that has continued to this date. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/india-uses-coronavirus-pandemic-to-exploit-human-rights-in-kashmir-137682">India uses coronavirus pandemic to exploit human rights in Kashmir</a>
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<p>With the help of these two policy and legislative moves, the current Indian government has been successful in creating an entire underclass of citizenry, mostly Muslims. </p>
<p>I would argue that the current administration has bestowed upon itself what Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe called <a href="https://criticallegalthinking.com/2020/03/02/achille-mbembe-necropolitics/">necropolitical power</a>: the capacity to dictate who may live and who must die. </p>
<p>In India, this power is particularly reinforced amid the COVID-19 crisis.</p>
<h2>Apathy during COVID-19</h2>
<p>India’s Modi government has been successful in scapegoating, discriminating against and repressing minorities. This has enabled conditions that could expose many minorities to a greater threat from this crisis. </p>
<p>The coronavirus pandemic has further reinforced pre-existing societal divisions. The poor who are <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/india-mumbai-social-distancing-coronavirus-lockdown.html">unable to practise social distancing</a> have become targets for the spread of COVID-19 as they gather in large groups for basic necessities. Pandemic anxiety in the country has also manifested in bigotry and prejudice against Muslims <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/world/asia/india-coronavirus-muslims-bigotry.html">who have been blamed</a> for the spread of the virus. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335778/original/file-20200518-83384-1p5pe1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335778/original/file-20200518-83384-1p5pe1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335778/original/file-20200518-83384-1p5pe1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335778/original/file-20200518-83384-1p5pe1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335778/original/file-20200518-83384-1p5pe1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335778/original/file-20200518-83384-1p5pe1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335778/original/file-20200518-83384-1p5pe1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A group of Muslims travel in the back of a truck during a nationwide lockdown to control the spread of coronavirus, in New Delhi, India, on May 1, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Manish Swarup)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Indian administration has also used the pandemic as an opportunity to crack down on <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/gautam-navlakha-and-anand-teltumbde-surrender-before-nia-in-bhima-koregaon-case/story-6ma0gGIFBY5ln3ADwp46dO.html">political dissidents</a>. Lockdown measures in the country have also led to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52086274">sudden displacement</a> of migrant workers from large urban centres. </p>
<p>India’s manoeuvres during the pandemic have reached totalitarian levels that continue to feed into its nationalist agenda. Islamophobic tropes are evident from the manner in which the spread of COVID-19 in the country has been framed along religious lines. </p>
<p>Contrary to many calling the pandemic a great equalizer, the crisis has led to formulations of the dangerous other. It has created elemental fears of the pandemic that is squarely blamed on specific communities. Many Muslims have also been reportedly <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-muslims-rejected-indian-hospital-a9474161.html">turned away</a> from testing centres and health clinics due to such fears. </p>
<h2>Demonization of the poor</h2>
<p>India’s response to the pandemic has also increased the demonization of the poor who are at the mercy of the state’s draconian policy moves. In a country, where more than 90 per cent of <a href="https://www.livemint.com/news/india/for-90-workers-in-india-s-informal-economy-there-s-no-shelter-from-covid-19-11585878029468.html">the workforce</a> is involved in the informal or “unorganized” sector of the economy, the pandemic has added greater uncertainty to the future of many who were put out of work. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335784/original/file-20200518-83388-1nc9kis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335784/original/file-20200518-83388-1nc9kis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335784/original/file-20200518-83388-1nc9kis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335784/original/file-20200518-83388-1nc9kis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335784/original/file-20200518-83388-1nc9kis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335784/original/file-20200518-83388-1nc9kis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335784/original/file-20200518-83388-1nc9kis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this May 4, 2020, photo, migrant workers trying to return to their villages hundreds of miles away jump a fence as they walk through a highway during a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of new coronavirus on the outskirts of Hyderabad, India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Migrant labourers in the country have been caught in an intractable state of limbo as they attempt to <a href="http://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20200512-india-migrants-jobless-road-deaths-starvation">get home</a> by any means possible. Migrant workers represent the inextricable lifeline of many cities in India. Domestic labourers include restaurant workers, construction workers and taxi drivers, and Indians have witnessed their ubiquity during the COVID-19 crisis. </p>
<p>But the pandemic has also exposed the complex realities of many labourers who barely survive in a country that is wedded to neoliberal globalization and the hazards of late-stage capitalism. They have been viewed solely as a means of capitalist exploitation and sites of extraction.</p>
<p>The rampant disregard for the poor and their welfare is also on display with the way they are being dealt with by law enforcement amid coronavirus lockdowns. Migrant labourers who are attempting to escape joblessness and hunger <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/03/31/india-migrants-sprayed-coronavirus-orig-jk.cnn">are being sprayed</a> with disinfectant and brutalized.</p>
<p>Many labourers, in their attempt to leave large urban centres to reach their homes in rural India, have been compelled to undertake perilous journeys on foot and <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/aurangabad/maharashtra-train-runs-over-a-dozen-migrant-workers-in-aurangabad/articleshow/75614987.cms">have died</a> since the lockdown measures <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/india-nationwide-coronavirus-lockdown-extended-3-modi-200414045543730.html">were implemented</a>.</p>
<h2>Minorities carry the burden</h2>
<p>The response to the pandemic has failed to acknowledge the welfare of many people on the margins in India, and has consistently subjected them to systemic regimes of discrimination and government regulation. </p>
<p>Minority groups and many on the verge of economic destitution have been placed in a regime of hierarchy that illustrates the government’s ability to regiment and justify the marginalization of the less fortunate. </p>
<p>Minority groups in India have carried the burden of embracing the realities of ultra-nationalist and capital-focused agenda of nation-building. During times of crises, large factions of India’s population have chosen to scapegoat and demonize the other. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335781/original/file-20200518-83380-q04d4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335781/original/file-20200518-83380-q04d4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335781/original/file-20200518-83380-q04d4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335781/original/file-20200518-83380-q04d4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335781/original/file-20200518-83380-q04d4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335781/original/file-20200518-83380-q04d4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335781/original/file-20200518-83380-q04d4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this April 2020 photo, migrant workers look out from the window of a shanty during lockdown to control the coronavirus pandemic in Mumbai, India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The apathy and contempt for those on the margins is evident from the level of impact the crisis has had on minorities. In a country that is administered by divisions and fragmentation, minorities are perpetually vulnerable. Some Indians have also expressed an entrenched sense of derision and an <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/the-pandemic-exposes-indias-two-worlds/609838/">inability to empathize</a> with those who face such barriers.</p>
<p>The unfortunate reality of this pandemic is that it takes a crisis of this magnitude to lay bare the deep inequalities that have persisted for years in India. It is critical that a greater transnational solidarity is built to overcome this crisis with empathy and compassion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay Ramasubramanyam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
During the COVID-19 pandemic, India’s Narendra Modi government has been successful in scapegoating, discriminating against and marginalizing minorities, putting lives at greater risk.
Jay Ramasubramanyam, Doctoral Candidate, Law and Legal Studies, Carleton University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/138840
2020-05-19T14:27:17Z
2020-05-19T14:27:17Z
Colonial amnesia and Germany’s efforts to achieve ‘internal liberation’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336018/original/file-20200519-152292-nulqys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters in Berlin demand that the 1904-1908 mass killings in Namibia be recognised as the first genocide committed by Germany.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied/Courtesy of Joachim Zeller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Speaking at the 75th commemoration of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/european-leaders-mark-heroics-of-war-generation-after-75-years">VE (Victory in Europe) Day</a>, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier <a href="https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Reden/2020/05/200508-75-Jahre-Ende-WKII-Englisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile">said</a> it was a day of liberation “imposed from outside”, by Allied military forces, including the Soviets. But as he stated, “internal liberation”, the coming to terms with the heritage of dictatorship and above all the horrific mass crimes, remained “a long and painful process”.</p>
<p>In 1985 the West German head of state, Richard von Weizsäcker, for the first time used the term “liberation” for the <a href="https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Reden/2015/02/150202-RvW-Rede-8-Mai-1985-englisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile">unconditional surrender of German troops</a> that marked the end of the second world war in Europe. This sparked considerable protest and controversy, a sign that even as late as the mid-1980s, Germany was having difficulty coming to terms with its past.</p>
<p>Steinmeier’s more consistent plea to “accept our historic responsibility” met broad consensus. “Internal liberation” had come some way – leaving aside comparatively weak statements by the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/afd-what-you-need-to-know-about-germanys-far-right-party/a-37208199">right-wing Alternative für Deutschland</a>.</p>
<p>The culture of remembrance, concerning also dire aspects of the past, that’s been engendered in Germany is viewed by many as exemplary. But it nevertheless has some grave shortcomings. Notably, the remembrance of <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz">Auschwitz</a> as a substantial part of German state rationale has come about through a halting and conflicting process. For all its merits, still, by virtually singling out the Shoah (the genocide of the Jews in Europe), it marginalises and disregards other mass crimes of the Nazi period. </p>
<p>As recalled during the VE-Day anniversary, such elision from memory includes over 30 million victims of the war against the Soviet Union and the occupation of eastern territories in what are today Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldavia, Poland and the Baltic states. This blank spot relates to an ingrained culture in Germany of discrimination against Slavic people and refuses to acknowledge the crimes perpetrated by the millions of <a href="https://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/1136440.ns-zeit-die-wehrmacht-warrs-auch.html?sstr=Hannes%7CHeer">ordinary German soldiers</a>.</p>
<p>Another glaring lacuna concerns Germany’s past as a colonial power. This period lasted from <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/German_colonial_empire">1884 to 1919</a>. Despite the relatively short duration, this experience had a great impact on Germany’s violent trajectory during the first half of the 20th century. Since 1945, however, this history has been largely forgotten.</p>
<p>Today many Germans are not even aware that their country once ruled colonies in Africa, Oceania and China. Such public amnesia about <a href="https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Standpunkte/Standpunkte_9-2018.pdf">Germany’s colonial past</a> does not imply only a lack of knowledge. Rather it manifests in the refusal to acknowledge the practice of German colonialism and countenance the consequences. </p>
<p>A prominent case is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/has-the-relationship-between-namibia-and-germany-sunk-to-a-new-low-121329">genocide of 1904-1908 in then South West Africa</a>. Germany admitted the fact in 2015. But bilateral negotiations with Namibia <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14623528.2020.1750823">have not yet reached any result</a>.</p>
<h2>Selective amnesia</h2>
<p>Complacency about German culture of remembrance tends to isolate the Shoah as the mainstay of canonised public memory. There was a period when the entire field of comparative genocide studies was scrutinised as undermining the singularity of the Shoah. American political scientist and historian <a href="https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/genocide-theory-search-knowledge-and-quest-meaning.html">Henry Huttenbach</a> pointed to the imbalance</p>
<blockquote>
<p>that the Holocaust became the paradigm for all genocides by default.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This also eroded the vital call of “Never Again” by the survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp <a href="https://www.blurb.com/b/828859-never-again-buchenwald">in 1945</a>. If comparison is tabooed, the Holocaust cannot stand as a warning that organised mass extinction might yet be repeated. </p>
<p>But, unfortunately, we have to stand guard against the very real possibility of current and future cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.</p>
<p>The persistent lack of awareness was shown once again in a mid-2019 foreign ministry <a href="https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/blob/2298392/633d49372b71cb6fafd36c1f064c102c/transitional-justice-data.pdf">position paper on transitional justice</a>. It “advocates a comprehensive understanding of confronting past injustices” and refers to “reparations and compensation for National Socialist injustices”. It suggests that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Germany can provide information about basic requirements, problems and mechanisms for the development of state and civil-society reparation efforts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Strikingly, however, the term “colonialism” does not feature even once in the 32 pages.</p>
<p>Rather, German diplomacy is seen as aggressively keeping things apart. This attitude is self-congratulatory and discriminating at one and the same time. </p>
<h2>Namibian genocide</h2>
<p>The issue was epitomised when Ruprecht Polenz, the German special envoy in the negotiations with the Namibian government about the consequences of the genocide, met a delegation of Namibian descendants of genocide survivors in 2016. They challenged him for not being part of the negotiations. They pointed out that Germany had negotiated with other non-state agencies, such as <a href="https://www.bpb.de/apuz/162883/wiedergutmachung-in-deutschland-19451990-ein-ueberblick?p=all">the Jewish Claims Conference</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336022/original/file-20200519-152284-f31qfv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graves of forced labourers from a concentration in Lüderitz, Namibia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reinhart Kössler</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Polenz stressed that it was inappropriate to draw comparisons in cases such as genocide. But at the same time he pointed out that the Holocaust was qualitatively different from the genocide in Namibia. The meeting exploded in protest by the Namibian delegates – and <a href="http://genocide-namibia.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/PRESS-RELEASE-NOV-2016.pdf">a walkout</a>. They saw disrespect in belittling what happened to their ancestors as well as discriminating against them as Africans.</p>
<p>Already in 2001, Namibia’s foreign minister, Theo-Ben Gurirab, commented at the <a href="https://nhri.ohchr.org/EN/Themes/Racial/Pages/2001-World-Conference-Against-Racism.aspx">World Conference Against Racism</a> on the lack of a German apology to Namibians in contradistinction to Europeans. He concluded that if there was a problem in apologising because Namibians were black, <a href="http://www.freiburg-postkolonial.de/Seiten/melber-reconciliation2006.htm">that would be racist</a>.</p>
<h2>The challenges of ‘internal liberation’</h2>
<p>German memory politics and practices are not quite as exemplary as the Foreign Office would like to make us believe. In fact, the engagement with the violent past particularly of the first half of the 20th century is an ongoing and painful as well as conflictual process. Inasmuch as this process has been seen to consecutively encompass crimes and victim groups that had been silenced before, such an observation can only underline the magnitude of the task.</p>
<p>The urgency of addressing such challenge emerges from revisionist efforts, spearheaded by the Alternative für Deutschland. The group’s honorary chairman, Alexander Gauland, infamously termed Nazi rule as “bird’s shit” in comparison to <a href="https://www.afdbundestag.de/wortlaut-der-umstrittenen-passage-der-rede-von-alexander-gauland/">Germany’s “successful” history</a>.</p>
<p>The party has drawn up a parliamentary draft resolution calling for a positive reassessment of <a href="https://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/19/157/1915784.pdf">colonialism’s modernising achievements</a>. It makes explicit reference to a 2018 statement by the personal representative of the <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2019/01/a-technocratic-reformulation-of-colonialism">German Chancellor for Africa</a>. He maintained that German colonialism contributed to liberate the African continent from archaic structures.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/surviving-genocide-a-voice-from-colonial-namibia-at-the-turn-of-the-last-century-130546">Surviving genocide: a voice from colonial Namibia at the turn of the last century</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These developments show that there are limits to Germany’s accomplishment of coming to terms with its violent past. This was also reflected in the vigorous objection by German officials to <a href="https://wiser.wits.ac.za/users/achille-mbembe">Achille Mbembe</a>, the Cameroonian philosopher and political theorist, being invited as keynote speaker at this year’s Ruhrtriennale, a renowned cultural festival. He had been asked to address the issue of <a href="https://presse.ruhrtriennale.de/pressreleases/ruhrtriennale-2020-beschliesst-die-zwischenzeit-mit-internationalem-programm-2983369">“Reparation”</a>.</p>
<p>A deputy of the Liberal Party in the <a href="https://fdp.fraktion.nrw/sites/default/files/uploads/2020/03/25/offenerbrieflorenzdeutschanstefaniecarpwegenachillembembe-ruhrtriennale2020.pdf">North Rhine Westphalia Diet</a> alleged that Mbembe had refuted Israel’s right to exist as a state, and had “relativised” the Holocaust by comparing the practices of separation under apartheid with the Palestinian situation. The federal government’s antisemitism commissioner <a href="https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/german-antisemitism-commissioner-rejects-bds-academic-at-festival-624577">joined this
protest</a>.</p>
<p>This intervention sparked a controversy that stands as a warning that the postcolonial situation of Germany is very much at stake. By reducing the conflict to issues of antisemitism, it has been trapped in the pitfalls of colonial amnesia. But inner liberation remains hard work. It means conflict and pain, and it must never end.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber has been a member of SWAPO since 1974.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Reinhart Kössler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The culture of remembrance in Germany is viewed by many as exemplary. But it has some grave shortcomings.
Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria
Reinhart Kössler, Professor in Political Science, University of Freiburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123613
2019-09-19T12:08:26Z
2019-09-19T12:08:26Z
Xenophobia puts South Africa’s moral authority in Africa at risk
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292949/original/file-20190918-187980-3pvu0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African civil society and private citizens march in protest against xenophobic violence in Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Yeshiel Panchia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-Africa/2019-09-16-watch-ramaphosa-booed-at-mugabes-funeral-in-zimbabwe/">heckled</a> during the recent funeral service of Zimbabwe’s erstwhile leader Robert Mugabe. It was easy to guess why. When he stood to speak, Ramaphosa apologised for weeks of violence in his country <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-a-new-narrative-could-tackle-anti-migrant-crisis-123145">targeted</a> at non-national Africans. </p>
<p>Immediately after this apology, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4en12UC9to">heckling turned into cheers</a>. His apology, a stroke of ingenuity, defused the tension. But it didn’t answer the key question that philosopher and political theorist <a href="https://www.nrf.ac.za/content/professor-achille-mbembe">Achille Mbembe</a> <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2015/04/achille-mbembe-writes-about-xenophobic-south-africa">once asked</a> in relation to xenophobic violence in South Africa:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When we say ‘South Africa’, is ‘Africa’ an idea or simply a geographical accident? </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Pan-Africanism</h2>
<p>To many, the answer appears pretty obvious: recent events that have seen people baying for the blood of “foreigners” makes the meaning of Africa in South Africa meaningless.</p>
<p>Importantly though, xenophobia is not a uniquely South African phenomenon. Nor is it simply a question of violence against non-national Africans. It is the consequences of the historical burden that colonialism has bequeathed the continent. This refers to colonially determined borders. </p>
<p>These borders separated African people into different nationalities. They were maintained after Africa’s independence. This spawned nationalisms. Xenophobia is the function of the contests of these nationalisms. As the British social scientist Michael Billig explains in his book, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Banal_Nationalism.html?id=Y5A7CgAAQBAJ">Banal Nationalism</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the triumph of a particular nationalism is seldom achieved without the defeat of alternative nationalisms and other ways of imagining peoplehood.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Xenophobia negates the spirit of <a href="https://theconversation.com/sobukwes-pan-africanist-dream-an-elusive-idea-that-refuses-to-die-52601">pan-Africanism</a>, especially its laudable ideal that Africans share a mutual bond regardless of their geographical location. </p>
<p>That xenophobic incidents are increasing in post-apartheid South Africa is unexpected. In its formative years as a democracy since 1994, the country had assumed the leadership of the <a href="http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/mbeki.html">African Renaissance cause</a>. It was championed by former South African President of Thabo Mbeki who advocated pan-African <a href="Http://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/file%20uploads%20/10.1.1.548.1968.pdf">“cohesion of economics, culture, growth and development”</a>. </p>
<p>Mbeki eloquently <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=eYmUDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT235&lpg=PT235&dq=atomistic+nation-state,+zero+sum+%5Btheir%5D+sovereignty,+and+%5Brecognise+their+interdependence&source=bl&ots=NM8GXUpN2L&sig=ACfU3U1cyA7bFXvt2F2rESQwT_svhMXmKQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjk-si44tfkAhXeSxUIHSo9BasQ6AEwAHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=atomistic%20nation-state%2C%20zero%20sum%20%5Btheir%5D%20sovereignty%2C%20and%20%5Brecognise%20their%20interdependence&f=false">stated</a> that, for African countries to assert their influence in global affairs, their governments should</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(forego their) “atomistic nation-state, zero sum sovereignty, and recognise their interdependence”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Why then do impulses of aggressive patriotism exist in the post-apartheid South Africa? Shouldn’t this pan-African disposition have foregrounded the term “Africa” in “South Africa” as an idea. Shouldn’t it even have shaped the country’s nation-building and state formation project?</p>
<h2>South Africanness and Afrophobia</h2>
<p>Xenophobia and pan-Africanism are antinomies. They have opposite implications on state formation and nation-building. </p>
<p>Xenophobia is a function of insularity – lack of interest in others’ culture, outside one’s own experience. South Africa’s insularity was facilitated by the fact that it was a pariah state for many years. The apartheid system’s strong border control played a role, too. The country internalised the intolerance of difference. This explains its social disorientation, suspicious of foreigners as <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/1133-mapping-the-%20nation">“unknown others”</a>. </p>
<p>In many instances, non-national Africans <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/files%20uploads%20/10.1.1.548.1968.pdf">are the primary target of this suspicion</a>. They are, therefore, more likely to be on the receiving end of xenophobic violence. </p>
<p>An appropriate term for this is afrophobia. This is the dehumanising of people of African descent, and in the diaspora, because of their physiques, colour of their skins and behaviours. </p>
<p>The post-apartheid project of nation-building is the by-product of the contradiction of insularity agitating for “South Africanness”, and the African Renaissance as an all-embracing crystallisation of the consciousness of the whole of Africa’s people.</p>
<p>A system of organising society in which individual rights and freedoms are protected, and the markets are left to their own devices, spawned insular nationhood. This trumps the pursuit of a common African identity. It is because of this that, as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-research-reveals-about-drivers-of-anti-immigrant-hate-crime-in-south-africa-123097">socio-economic grievances of the nationals</a> increase, largely because of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.co.za/economic-growth-first-quarter-of-2019-2019-6">economy’s poor performance</a>, nationalism morphs into jingoism. The non-nationals become scapegoats. </p>
<p>Often, the consequences of this, as laid bare in the streets of Gauteng province, are pernicious. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, because of this, South Africa’s moral authority, which it earned after it became a democracy by playing a prominent role in Africa, is at stake. Hence its government is at pains to accept that <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-09-10-government-details-anti-crime-plan">xenophobia exists</a>, and that it has been on the rise in the post-apartheid South Africa. </p>
<p>Of course, in some instances this phenomenon is opportunistically used to obscure the criminal activities of some non-national Africans in the country. But the suggestion by some in government that attacks on foreign nationals are sheer criminality rather than xenophobia is not cutting ice. </p>
<p>Some South Africans <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/09/10/10-of-12-xenophobia-victims-were-south-african-mapisa-nqakula">also became the victims</a> in <a href="https://theconversation.com/xenophobia-time-for-cool-heads-to-prevail-in-nigeria-and-south-africa-123053">retaliatory attacks</a>.</p>
<p>Coupled with calls that South Africa should be shunned, all these beget a cycle of internecine hostilities. These fracture economic, political and social relations. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, dissociation is not a solution. It’s a cop-out. If South Africa were to become a pariah state – again – whose interest would be served, and to what end? Wouldn’t it be those who, in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/berlin-conference">Berlin Conference of 1884-1885</a>, negotiated the rules about the scramble for Africa? </p>
<p>Their borders that balkanised Africa continue to stoke interstate acrimony. The xenophobic flare-ups in South Africa should be understood as the cumulative effect of this <a href="http://ukznpress.bookslive.co.za/blog/2012/01/17/read-an-excerpt-from-adekeye-adebajos-the-curse-of-berlin/">historical burden</a>.</p>
<h2>What needs to happen</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa sent special envoys to the countries whose citizens were mostly affected by xenophobic violence – Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia – <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/ramaphosa-deploys-special-envoys-to-african-heads-of-state-over-tensions-in-south-africa-20190915">to mend relations</a>. This is a good diplomatic gesture.</p>
<p>However, this shouldn’t simply be a charm offensive, but instead a deliberate pursuit to give meaning to the term “Africa” in “South Africa”, which has waned after Mbeki’s presidency. South Africa should reclaim its leading role in Africa’s renaissance.</p>
<p>Re-imagining the future of Africa requires true commitment to pan-Africanism, anchored in the African philosophy of <em>ubuntu</em> (humanism), which <a href="https://www.ttbook.org/interview/i-am-because-we-are-african-philosophy-ubuntu">decrees</a> that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am because we are. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The pan-Africanism spirit shouldn’t be fostered only in the African leadership and diplomatic circles, and used for political expediency. It should be part of the psyche of society and become a lived daily experience.</p>
<p>Xenophobia is a function of attitude. It thus requires the intervention of social institutions, such as universities, to mainstream pan-Africanism as a philosophy in their curricula and teaching. </p>
<p>It is important to shape the characters of students, who are future leaders, to understand that human co-existence is not a function of nationality, but of humanity. This should be part of the decoloniality agenda in Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mashupye Herbert Maserumule received funding from the National Research Foundation(NRF) for his postgraduate studies. He is the chief editor of the Journal of Public Administration and the former President of the South African Association of Public Administration and Management(SAAPAM). The Journal he edits belongs to this learned society. </span></em></p>
Xenophobia negates the spirit of pan-Africanism, especially its ideal that Africans share a mutual bond, regardless of their geographical location.
Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/93095
2018-03-13T08:41:25Z
2018-03-13T08:41:25Z
Black people beware: don’t let Black Panther joy mask Hollywood’s racism
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210053/original/file-20180313-30975-lnv556.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black Panther.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> ©Marvel Studios 2018</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="http://marvel.com/movies/movie/224/black_panther">Black Panther</a></em> director/co-writer <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/ryan-coogler-why-i-needed-to-make-black-panther-w517100">Ryan Coogler</a> has given black people throughout the world an imagined Africa that has been wholeheartedly embraced, <a href="http://variety.com/2018/film/news/black-panther-billion-global-box-office-1202723326/">earning</a> over USD$1 billion dollars globally so far. This embrace is due, primarily, to the presentation of so many beautiful, black bodies onscreen, including an extravagant representation of fierce, and fashionable, black women.</p>
<p>Also appealing is the portrayal of an Africa of independent authority, spiritual alertness, respect and veneration of ancestors and relationship with animals and plants. This is a portrayal of Africa that is hungered for, especially by ancestrally orphaned African Americans. It is deeply satisfying to view.</p>
<p>But at the same time, it raises questions alert black viewers would be doing themselves a disservice to avoid posing.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://marvel.com/blackpanther#/">Black Panther</a></em> appears within a broad Hollywood tradition, with over 100 years of history, that portrays Africa as wild, weirdly exotic, and mysterious, and Africans as tribal savages, backwards and subordinate. The framing of Africa and Africans in this way has served to provide the world, including Africans themselves, with a perception of Africa and African people that justified the “saving” and “civilising” mission of Westerners who desired to maintain a colonising influence over the continent.</p>
<p>Hollywood’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/movies/hollywood-separate-and-unequal.html">history of racism</a> triggers the question, why was the first black superhero identified as an African and a quasi-animal? When the original <em>Black Panther</em> comic appeared in the sixties, featuring a black person who was not inferiorised was groundbreaking. </p>
<p>However, creating an African black panther was unusual. Unusual because it was the <em>Black Panther</em> alone who was not American, and who was instead assigned an African identity. And also unusual because the sixties Marvel universe of superheroes consisted of human-modified characters – Hulk, Iron Man, Thor – and insect characters – Ant Man, Wasp and Spider Man – but not animal characters, other than <em>Black Panther</em>. </p>
<p>Almost 20 years ago philosopher Achille Mbembe astutely commented on this troubling and recurring phenomenon. He wrote, in <em><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520204355">On the Postcolony</a></em>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>discourse on Africa is almost always deployed in the framework (or on the fringes) of a meta-text about the animal — to be exact, about the beast: its experience, its world, and its spectacle.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether well-intentioned or malicious, the imagination that intertwines the African and the beast has become so commonplace in our minds that it’s hardly questioned. However, when white supremacy is again being boldly asserted in the world, people of African descent who have historically been dehumanised and relegated to the status of animal, must question this association. Especially instances, as in <em>Black Panther</em>, when the association of the African and the howling gorilla is made so explicitly.</p>
<h2>The not so super superhero</h2>
<p>It’s also noteworthy that the first black man superhero was curiously un-superhero like. The character T'Challa did not possess the scientific brilliance of Tony Stark, who is <em>Ironman</em>‘s genius creator and alter ego. T'Challa’s essence was not transformed at the genetic level such that his body, his selfness, became superhuman and superpowerful, like Bruce Banner’s does when he is transformed into the <em>Hulk</em>. T'Challa was not born a god, like blue-eyed, blonde-haired <em>Thor</em>, the Asgardian god of thunder who wields an enchanted hammer that enables him to fly.</p>
<p>Despite T'Challa’s imbibing of the purple flower potion, viewers never witnessed his transformation from human to superhero. He only dons a powerful suit. Why was <em>Black Panther</em> not written in such a way as to imbue a black man with true superhero dynamism?</p>
<p>Then there are the villains. In Hollywood, there are certain villains that must always be villains, such as Nazis. Then there are heroes, such as white men, who must always be depicted as, in some way, heroic.</p>
<p>The story of Western neo-imperialist resource extraction from Africa is well known. However, in <em>Black Panther</em>, the CIA, who is often the true <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36303327">enemy of Africa</a>, has been transformed into the imaginary state of Wakanda’s friend. It is Africans themselves who are depicted as those who hoard mineral wealth to the detriment of the world.</p>
<p>Why in a film about the <em>Black Panther</em>, who is a black African man, must an actual enemy of African life, go unnamed and an alternate enemy, <em>Killmonger</em>, be manufactured? </p>
<p>Does T'Challa not encounter disrespect on European streets, or suspicion on entering high-end shops, or threats from police on US soil like his black brethren? If he does, then why must there be the creation of hostilities between Pan Africans, when their real-life interests against regime changing global capital and white supremacy are aligned?</p>
<h2>Trojan Horse</h2>
<p>In other words, Hollywood will allow the world of the <em>Black Panther</em> to be black, only if that world defers to white fragility and does not hurt white people’s feelings. Blackness is allowed only if that blackness likes and supports the values that white people like and support. And only to the extent that black people, though they look good, also exhibit deep cultural flaws.</p>
<p>Why are global audiences led to associate the power and strength of black men with black-on-black hostility and violence? Why must there be the implicit suggestion to audiences that African governance inexorably leads to African tribal warfare?</p>
<p>Philosopher Frantz Fanon <a href="http://www.critical-theory.com/frantz-fanon-argues-no-being-through-others-for-people-of-color-in-1952/">wrote</a> a generation ago that black people must not only be black, but that they “must be black in relation to the white man”. This necessity of avoiding global black reality, in deference to white sensibilities, is the film’s super problem.</p>
<p>Hollywood has historically adhered to a racist narrative that portrays black people as inferior. Black people dare not believe that they are being presented with a film that proves that Hollywood now, suddenly, holds them in high esteem. Though the <em>Black Panther</em> film is sumptuous, it is a Trojan Horse. Black people must be careful lest black joy at the gift of the film, blinds to the destructive ideologies embedded within it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alease A. Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Hollywood will allow the world of the Black Panther to be black, only if it doesn’t hurt white people’s feelings.
Alease A. Brown, Ph.D Candidate, Southern Africa, Theology & Violence, Stellenbosch University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/90713
2018-01-30T15:10:14Z
2018-01-30T15:10:14Z
Achille Mbembe on how to restore the humanity stolen by racism
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203978/original/file-20180130-107694-1wr3y5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>African philosopher, <a href="https://wiser.wits.ac.za/users/achille-mbembe">Achille Mbembe</a>, has gained an enviable reputation as a scholar that challenges the tenets of modernity. Some aspects of modernity Mbembe is known to challenge are characterised by the move towards more capitalistic economies, an increase in social stratifications and the universalisation of Western European thought. From <a href="http://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/on-private-indirect-government">“On Private Indirect Government”</a> (2000) to his recent book, <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/critique-of-black-reason/">“Critique of Black Reason”</a> (2017), his interest has always been on how the world can account for the construction and consequences of race and racism. </p>
<p>In “Critique of Black Reason” Mbembe challenges us to rethink the present with the view of charting a future that, according to Mbembe, will differ from the past and the present.</p>
<p>A key interest of the book is on how race and racism have played a role in how the modern world is organised. However much the world might have benefited from modernity, what is unavoidable is the integral role of race and racism in the construction of modernity. This is why for Mbembe it is of utmost importance that we examine this aspect of modernity as it continues to exclude subjects and create new and old victims that are “the wretched of the earth”. </p>
<p>He writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>race, operating over the past centuries as a fundamental category that is at once material and phantasmic, has been at the root of catastrophe, the cause of extraordinary psychic destruction and of innumerable crimes and massacres.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Mbembe, the construction of race emanates from the symbolic. It accounts for the ways in which subjects live and where they live. It explains the kinds of debates that prohibit – or allow them – to lead meaningful lives.</p>
<h2>Age of Reason</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203766/original/file-20180129-100923-ni4qyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203766/original/file-20180129-100923-ni4qyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203766/original/file-20180129-100923-ni4qyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203766/original/file-20180129-100923-ni4qyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203766/original/file-20180129-100923-ni4qyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203766/original/file-20180129-100923-ni4qyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203766/original/file-20180129-100923-ni4qyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover of ‘Critique of Black Reason’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The book focuses more on how discourses of race and other differences emerged in the eighteenth century during what is popularly known as the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/enlightenment">Age of Reason</a> or the Enlightenment. </p>
<p>This was a period in which science, philosophy and other disciplines, and social debates, constructed differences between people.This was driven by two factors: material interests and an unwillingness to live with the unfamiliar. Mbembe’s book takes to task this idea of Enlightenment to show how it is responsible for the construction of race and racism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Black Man is the one (or the thing) that one sees when one sees nothing, when one understands nothing, and above all, when one wishes to understand nothing. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This, for Mbembe, is not coincidental. This is because,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the term ‘Black’ was the product of a social and technological machine tightly linked to the emergence and globalisation of capitalism. It was invented to signify exclusion, brutalisation, and degradation, to point to a limit constantly conjured and abhorred. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Capitalism, from this perspective, is only possible because it’s exclusionary. For much of our contemporary history, this has been through the discourse of race.</p>
<h2>History of Africa</h2>
<p>Africa is the continent where most “black” people live. Mbembe’s book therefore looks into the history of Africa and how it has been used, and abused, as the antithesis of Western modernity. Since the West depends on the “rest” in order to construct itself, it is not surprising, Mbembe writes, that,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>when Africa comes up, correspondence between words, images, and the thing itself matters very little. It is not necessary for the name to correspond to the thing, or for the thing to respond to its name.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is because,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>when one says the word ‘Africa’ one generally abdicates all responsibility.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And it is in this abdication of responsibility that Mbembe argues for a different way of being in the world, and of living with others that are different from oneself. </p>
<p>While, then, the word Africa might speak to a historical and present suffering, there is also something in the word, Mbembe writes, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>that judges the world and calls for reparation, restitution, and justice. Its spectral presence in the world can be understood only as part of a critique of race.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mbembe argues that while race and racism still play an important role in the present, it is also clear that there is a “Becoming Black of the world” that has to do with the numerous forms of exclusion and violence that haunt the contemporary.</p>
<p>For instance, Mbembe writes, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If yesterday’s drama of the subject was exploitation by capital, the tragedy of the multitude today is that they are unable to be exploited at all. They are abandoned subjects relegated to the role of a ‘superfluous humanity.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>To be hopeful</h2>
<p>How, then, does one continue to live, and to be hopeful, when it seems as though the history of the world is a history of depredation and cruelty? To answer this question, Mbembe turns to philosopher <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-fanon-continues-to-resonate-more-than-half-a-century-after-algerias-independence-43508">Frantz Fanon</a> (as he does in much of the book) and writes that one of the important lessons that he taught us is,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the idea that in every human subject there is something indomitable and fundamentally intangible that no domination - no matter what form it takes - can eliminate, contain, or suppress, at least not completely.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is here that the possibility of a different future is possible.</p>
<p>This is because for Mbembe,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>until we have eliminated racism from our current lives and imagination, we will have to continue to struggle for the creation of a world beyond - race. But to achieve it, to sit down at a table to which everyone has been invited, we must undertake an exacting political and ethical critique of racism and of the ideologies of difference…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And that is precisely what this book does.</p>
<p>In bringing together thinkers us such as Fanon, <a href="http://science.jrank.org/pages/7919/Negritude.html">Aime Cesaire</a>, <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/the-philosophy-of-friedrich-nietzsche-explained-with-8-bit-video-games.html">Friedrich Nietzsche</a>, <a href="http://marcusgarvey.com/?p=225">Marcus Garvey</a>, <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.co.za/scholar?q=Michel+Foucault+philosophy&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmsfS49vzYAhXKAsAKHUSPAwoQgQMIJDAA">Michel Foucault</a> and many others, “Critique of Black Reason” is an impressive book. It offers readers insight into how the construction of race and racism underpins our understanding of modernity and therefore of the world we inhabit. </p>
<p>More than this though, it challenges readers to undo forms of exclusionary thinking that still haunt the ways we live. It is only in doing this, according to Mbembe, that we can,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>restore the humanity stolen from those who have historically been subjected to processes of abstraction and objectification. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Critique of Black Reason” is an illuminating and brilliant addition to Mbembe’s corpus. It is the kind of book, I suspect, that will become compulsory reading for undergraduate and graduate classes worldwide.</p>
<p><em>“Critique of Black Reason” is published by Wits University Press</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90713/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Manosa Nthunya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
“Critique of Black Reason” offers readers insight into how the construction of race and racism underpins our understanding of modernity.
Manosa Nthunya, PhD Candidate, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/51163
2015-11-30T04:34:44Z
2015-11-30T04:34:44Z
How academic staff development can contribute to changing universities
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103050/original/image-20151124-18227-w2r54f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tertiary institutions in South Africa, like the University of Cape Town (pictured here), are in a state of flux and change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It seems almost certain that South Africa’s universities cannot return to “business as usual” after the student protests that marked 2015. Some <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-protests-it-cant-be-business-as-usual-at-south-africas-universities-50548">have asked</a> what academics will learn from the protests and how they will - or won’t - alter their practice in classrooms.</p>
<p>Another question arises: how do those tasked with the role of being academic staff developers work in productive ways with university teachers to decolonise institutional cultures? This includes the knowledge drawn on in curricula and the ways in which teaching and student assessment happens.</p>
<p>Historically, the project of academic development in South Africa has been to contribute to social justice . It has been successful in some contexts, <a href="http://www.africansunmedia.co.za/Sun-e-Shop/tabid/78/ProductId/313/Default.aspx">significantly shifting</a> aspects of teaching and learning. But it has clearly not led to the large scale change that was envisioned in policy documents developed in the years immediately after apartheid ended. </p>
<p>This moment in the country’s higher education history offers an important opportunity for both academics and academic developers to rethink how they understand the purposes of a university and how, as a sector, they go about their business</p>
<h2>Tough questions</h2>
<p>Students and academics at the forefront of the movement to decolonise South African universities have drawn attention to structural and cultural factors the continue to exclude the majority from the knowledge project. There is a need for greater recognition of the fact that teaching and learning is not just about knowledge. In essence, it’s an ontological project too - it’s about an entire way of being. These are inextricably linked because of the country’s long history of social and economic exclusion.</p>
<p>It’s against this backdrop that academic developers need to reconceptualise how they work with academic staff. For instance, they could encourage and help academics to create spaces for genuine and critical dialogue with students about knowledge, course design, teaching methods, assessment and ways of engaging with students. In many institutions there is an existing culture of eliciting feedback from students on teaching and courses. However, this often amounts to ‘student satisfaction’ surveys which don’t ask the important questions or encourage dialogue.</p>
<p>There is a tricky line to walk. Academic developers must respect individuals’ disciplinary expertise, but still ask searching questions about the kind of knowledge they are imparting. They could ask academics to consider the following: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Why do you only draw knowledge from Europe, the USA, the Western world or the Global North? </p></li>
<li><p>Can you use examples of how this knowledge is used in Africa? </p></li>
<li><p>How is this knowledge linked to the histories of different students in your class? How does it validate their lives? </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Academics should be encouraged to engage with critiques of their disciplines and heed philosopher Achille Mbembe’s <a href="http://wiser.wits.ac.za/system/files/Achille%20Mbembe%20-%20Decolonizing%20Knowledge%20and%20the%20Question%20of%20the%20Archive.pdf">warning</a> about the dangers of drawing only from the traditional canon, which consists mainly of the knowledge of the powerful.</p>
<p>If academic developers are serious about contributing meaningfully to South Africa’s “decolonising turn” they have to be prepared to engage in courageous conversations. These might challenge academics’ deeply held beliefs and their strong disciplinary identities. They might also lead to an environment in which students are heard, listened to, understood and can thrive. This creates the space for students regardless of background or history to - in Mbembe’s words - say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is my home. I am not an outsider here. I do not have to beg or to apologise to be here. I belong here.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Exploring their own role</h2>
<p>Academic developers need to ask themselves whether they have been sufficiently critical of their own practices. Have they paid sufficient attention to what it feels like to be the only or one of a few black lecturers in a department? Have they asked questions about why young black lecturers <a href="http://www.universitiessa.ac.za/sites/www.universitiessa.ac.za/files/2011-%20HESA%20Building%20the%20Next%20Generation%20of%20Academics_0.pdf">leave institutions</a>? Have they created a sufficiently safe yet challenging space for the lecturers with whom they work? </p>
<p>They, too, need to move away from only drawing on theorists mainly from the UK and Australasia. Now is the time for them to do much more research that results in theories and concepts which are applicable to Africa’s academic staff development needs.</p>
<p>As the field has strengthened in some contexts, so some academic developers have come to occupy powerful roles. Some are deans and deputy vice-chancellors in their institutions. These key agents are now in a position to influence their colleagues not to just accept the status quo but to interrogate issues related to institutional identity and resistance to change. They are also in a position to ask critical questions about structures like teaching and learning centres. They can question who the academic developers are and whether they are responding appropriately to the changed context since the student protests in 2015.</p>
<h2>No more business as usual</h2>
<p>Academic developers must acknowledge to themselves and convince the academics with whom they work that education is never neutral. It is always underpinned by a political agenda. It can’t be business as usual. All those involved in higher education need to urgently consider the implications of a rapidly shifting political agenda. They need to apply their minds collectively and individually to what it means to ‘decolonise’ higher education in general and in specific disciplines.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
South Africa’s universities are in a state of upheaval. Academic developers must rethink their own purpose and how they work with academics in this environment to foster positive change.
Jo-Anne Vorster, Senior lecturer, Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning, Rhodes University
Lynn Quinn, Associate Professor of Higher Education Studies. Head of Department of the Centre for Higher Education, Research, Teaching and Learning, Rhodes University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/43799
2015-06-29T15:15:27Z
2015-06-29T15:15:27Z
What discerning book thieves tell us about a country’s reading culture
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86360/original/image-20150625-12990-ax2ltn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Book theft in South Africa has recently been under the spotlight.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The catalogue of the Johannesburg Public Library in South Africa contains a poignant entry – “Biko, Steve. Long 0verdue”.</p>
<p>The entry refers to <a href="http://www.siyathanda.org.za/attachments/article/101/60167474-I-Write-What-I-Like-Steve-Biko.pdf">I Write What I Like</a>, a volume of collected writings by <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-biko">Steve Biko</a>, the <a href="http://azapo.org.za/about-azapo/black-consciousness/">Black Consciousness</a> leader tortured to death in police custody in 1977. The library used to have six copies of the volume but they have all been borrowed and never returned.</p>
<h2>Pirates of the book world</h2>
<p>Other public libraries in Gauteng, one of South Africa nine provinces and its economic hub, have similar stories to tell. Their copies of Biko have long been kidnapped. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86364/original/image-20150625-12970-1k7eg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86364/original/image-20150625-12970-1k7eg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86364/original/image-20150625-12970-1k7eg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86364/original/image-20150625-12970-1k7eg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86364/original/image-20150625-12970-1k7eg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86364/original/image-20150625-12970-1k7eg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86364/original/image-20150625-12970-1k7eg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86364/original/image-20150625-12970-1k7eg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Others writers too are routinely abducted by “bookaneers”. Two current favourites are the political philosophers, <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/fanon/">Frantz Fanon</a> and <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/on-the-postcolony/">Achille Mbembe</a>. The University of South Africa library keeps Fanon’s major titles in what it calls a “high-risk archive”. Judging from library records, Mbembe’s works are often checked out but not returned.</p>
<p>Book theft in South Africa has recently been under the spotlight. Last month, Jacana publishers ran a “Hot Reads campaign” featuring their titles that are most frequently shoplifted from South African bookshops. The list is dominated by titles on African political history and biography, including Biko, with some self-help titles thrown in.</p>
<p>In some cases, the patterns of biblio-shoplifting are predictable. <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2015/05/17/bible-top-of-sa-book-thieves-best-stealer-list">Bibles</a>, religious and self-help books are stolen for resale. This theft reaches across all levels of society – from vagrants stealing newspapers for bedding to book-dealers lifting rare editions from libraries and bookstores.</p>
<p>Yet not all shoplifters pilfer to resell. Those purloining Biko, Fanon and Mbembe want to read them so badly that they will steal them.</p>
<h2>Whose reading culture?</h2>
<p>Can these “bookaneers” teach us anything about reading cultures in South Africa? Can they throw light on the discussions about the white-domination of the literary system that recently surfaced around the <a href="http://flf.bookslive.co.za/">Franschoek Literary Festival</a>?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86363/original/image-20150625-13008-qns5f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86363/original/image-20150625-13008-qns5f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86363/original/image-20150625-13008-qns5f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86363/original/image-20150625-13008-qns5f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86363/original/image-20150625-13008-qns5f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86363/original/image-20150625-13008-qns5f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1171&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86363/original/image-20150625-13008-qns5f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1171&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86363/original/image-20150625-13008-qns5f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1171&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The novelist <a href="http://panmacmillan.bookslive.co.za/blog/2015/06/23/mandla-langa-says-thando-mgqolozana-is-following-in-bikos-footsteps-and-calls-for-national-writers-conference/">Thando Mgqolozana</a> famously walked out of the festival and the white establishment that it embodies. His exit sparked a debate on “decolonising South African literature”. Dovetailing with the <a href="http://rhodesmustfall.co.za/">Rhodes Must Fall</a> campaign at the University of Cape Town, these discussions have <a href="http://bookslive.co.za/blog/2015/06/15/the-model-needs-to-be-slashed-pumla-dineo-gqola-on-south-africas-white-literary-system/">ranged widely</a>, touching on the structures of publishing, the size of the book market, library funding and the state of education.</p>
<p>One strand in these debates dealt with a recurring theme: the supposed lack of a reading culture in South Africa. This colonial chestnut has been around for a long time and has its roots in imperial ideas where the book was a symbol of English authority but also a “gift” to help “civilise” colonised subjects. These subjects could supposedly never possess the book in the same way as those who had brought it and to whom it apparently “belonged”.</p>
<p>These ideas persist into the present, apparent among those who can only understand a reading culture as what white middle-class folks do. Any other modes of book consumption don’t seem to count as reading.</p>
<p>This narrow view of reading culture has been blown apart as scholars have begun exploring the rich histories of reading in South Africa. Archie Dick’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/History-Africas-Reading-Cultures-Studies/dp/1442615923/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435138966&sr=1-2&keywords=archie+dick">The Hidden History of South Africa’s Book and Reading Cultures</a> documents common readers excluded by racist structures, actively or passively prevented from reading, but managing to read nonetheless. The book presents a rich cast of characters – slaves, soldiers, political prisoners, township activists, political exiles – and ingenious ways in which they managed to read against the odds.</p>
<p>From a different perspective, Peter McDonald’s <a href="http://www.theliteraturepolice.com/">The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences</a> examines the workings of the censorship board and how it formed and deformed ideas about what literature is or should be. </p>
<p>Rachel Matteau interviewed people who read <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/11776">banned material</a> clandestinely under apartheid and discussed how and where they hid books and how they shared them. </p>
<p>Recently, Caroline Davis and David Johnson’s <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-book-in-africa-caroline-davis/">The Book in Africa: Critical Debates</a> decolonises older, colonially shaped accounts of books and reading in Africa. These focus mainly on Christian mission presses while overlooking the pre-colonial Muslim traditions of manuscript book production.</p>
<h2>Reading culture revisited</h2>
<p>The figure of the “bookaneer” looks back to one particular mode of passionate political reading under apartheid – in trade unions, university residences, community groups, debating and discussion groups, people read material deeply, closely and carefully. Much of this material was banned and was passed clandestinely from hand to hand. Dog-eared photocopies circulated among trusted associates.</p>
<p>In these clandestine settings, books became common property. They resembled the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1520346?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">samizdat</a> or self-published literature in the Soviet Union, a widespread system of underground publishing generally produced on typewriters with carbon paper and passed from hand to hand. </p>
<p>In such contexts of oppression, appropriating books for political ends made sense. This attitude was widespread in radical circles across the world. The famous US anarchist Abbie Hoffman, active in the 1960 and 1970s, produced a volume entitled <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/184085.Steal_This_Book">Steal this Book</a>. </p>
<p>Like readers under apartheid, present-day bookaneers are grappling with pressing political issues. As the Rhodes Must Fall campaign demonstrated, these issues have a strong <a href="http://azapo.org.za/about-azapo/black-consciousness/">Black Consciousness</a> element and address themes of psychological liberation and experiential questions of confronting white domination.</p>
<p>The “kidnapped” writers – Fanon, Biko and Mbembe – deal with the residues of colonial and apartheid violence through psychic questions of the self. These books speak to a new generation in existential and psychic idioms that resonate with the struggles of the present. </p>
<p>In keeping with radical political cultures across the world, readers have turned these books into common property. They have created a particular reading subculture in South Africa that joins a long legacy of inventive and insouciant modes of reading.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Isabel Hofmeyr receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>
The late Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko and political philosophers Frantz Fanon and Achille Mbembe top the list of writers who get routinely abducted by discerning pirates of the book world.
Isabel Hofmeyr, Professor of African Literature, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.