In our continuing coverage of the public lectures hosted by the Ujamaa Centre at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, we present Rev. Dr. Willy Mafuta’s talk on the current problem of xenophobia. The lectures and seminars hosted by the Ujamaa Centre focus on the complex and contextual realities of theological reflection in South Africa. The Ujamaa Centre identifies a number of major themes that highlight the Centre’s commitment to engage with inequalities by analysing and dismantling systems of power. These major themes include Social Movements and Change (People’s Theology); Governance and Masculinity, and Sexuality and HIV (Body Theology); Religion and Governance (Public Theology); Economic Justice and Work (Bread Theology); and African Perspectives on Ecology (Earth Theology). Ujamaa’s location within an academic institution means that it has the advantage of an audience that welcomes opportunities for reflecting on our work intellectually. The lectures have proven to be highly successful, with a variety of attendees from not only the university, but also from churches and local communities.
Rev. Dr. Willy Mafuta’s[1] lecture was given under the rubric of Public Theology. The Ujamaa Centre staff pointed out the multiple uses of the word “Bantuness,” inviting attendees to continue to reflect upon the meaning for themselves. We extend this invitation to our readers.
Reclamation of the Social Construction of “Bantuness”: The Politics of Identity and Xenophobia.
To you all, thanks for being here to rationalize with me in one of the pressing issues facing South Africa today – Xenophobia and in particular Afro-phobia.
I have experienced and observed the anger, rejection and fear of the other therefor I argue that to tackle Xenophobia one has to deconstruct the pathological “Bantuness” that Apartheid invented with its politics of inclusion and exclusion and re-appropriate it as new.
Let me start by putting things within the historical perspective of the construction of the South African collective identity. By all accounts, despite the great vision of the founding fathers of the South African National Congress which later became the ANC, John Dube, Salomon Plaatje, Pixley Kaseme, Walter Rubusana and many others, who envisioned a collective identity for all South Africans, and those who live in it, the construction of the South African identity has been on the politics of inclusion and exclusion.
In 1910, for example, when the Union of South Africa was created, it was a nation built on the grounds of racial exclusion and inclusion with competing national projects for white and blacks (Fatton 1986). Afrikaner leaders such as Louis Botha and Jan Smuts wanted a nation comprised exclusively of Afrikaners and English. Blacks were excluded (Fatton 1986). Other Afrikaner leaders such as Malan and Hertzog, from their part, wanted an exclusive nation of Afrikaners only. In fact, in 1913 both Malan and Hertzog formed the National Party that they claimed “represented the interests of a distinct Afrikaner nation” (Fatton 1986). This policy of exclusion and inclusion prompted black leaders to seek an alternative of their own. Yet, they too were divided on how to build it. While the ANC promoted a non–racial, non- exclusive nation, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) was of the belief that South Africans belonged only to the African people. To the PAC, “the multi-racial character of the South African nation was a contributing factor to the denigration of African identity and promoted a European heritage and tradition” (Fatton 1986).
When the National Party came to power in 1948, they wasted no time to legislate the politics of inclusion and exclusion. They called it “separate development.” What this entailed was to create racial and ethnic typifications with pathological connotations. They used what was known as “the pencil test “to create racial typifications, Blacks, coloured, Indians and whites. Because they couldn’t call blacks “Afrikans”, a typification that could have jeopardized their own naming as “Afrikaners” They called blacks at times as “Bantu” (Fatton 1986). Bantu had come to represent a racial category of people who lived in the periphery; Bantu incarnated the very referential of Apartheid as a social and racial class that was divinely predetermined to serve the white master. To this aim, they invented Bantu laws, Bantu education and many forms of pathological connotation to Bantu. Bantu didn’t represent a people from which the Ngunis came from. Bantu didn’t represent a people who migrated around one thousand BC from lake Thad and later from the basin of the democratic republic of the Congo South to the actual Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, and South Africa, carrying the very same DNA and speaking over 500 different languages. Bantu carries an affluent tradition, culture and cosmogony that in the eyes of the Afrikaners were not existent. To the Afrikaners, Bantu was a typification that fitted their narrative of inclusion and exclusion. They twisted it and turned it pathological to the point it was a shame to be called a Bantu.
What transpires, however, in the current and post- apartheid South Africa, is a trend whereby one doesn’t need to pursue, at any cost, the singularity of an overarching national identity. Rather allow multiple identities to emerge as typifications or particularizations of the collective national identity. In other words, sub-group identities/typifications such as race or ethnicity in South Africa have been all along processes of the superordinate/overarching national identity, and had never receded or weakened. What the current and post-apartheid South Africa gives them, however, is a second look, a new optic that might have escaped the eyes of many identity construction observers. Thus, a new society is emerging whereby more and more South Africans identify themselves with their racial and ethnic background while at the same time claim a national identity. In this new society, racial assertions such as Afrikaner, Coloured, Black, Indians and for that sake “Bantu” no longer signify antagonistic social positions as they once did under Apartheid (Chipkin, “Middle Class in Roodeport,” 83).
In his work on social mobility in the city of Roodepoort, Johannesburg, Chipkin gives an empirical plausibility in arguing that the post-colonial, post-Apartheid South Africa creates an environment where identity formation is being constructed no longer on bonds of inclusion and exclusion but on what he calls “common world” (Chipkin, “Middle Class in Roodepoort, Capitalism and Social Change in South Africa,” 83). In this sense, social categories of race or ethnicities do not dissipate. But what has changed, according to Chipkin, is the assertion of being “Afrikaner,” or “Coloured,” or Black, or “Indian.” Those assertions no longer signify antagonistic social positions as they once did under Apartheid. A new society is emerging in the present post-Apartheid South Africa, not in the sense of non-racial per se, but a new imagined community that is yet to be defined.
Parallel to Chipkin, Erasmus, in her efforts to counter the racialization category of the stratified South Africa, recommends that South Africans move beyond race categories by acknowledging race as normative and not as pathological. According to her, this acknowledgement allows one to move beyond denial and victimhood towards what she calls “ownership of complicity with racialized relations of power” (Erasmus, “Undoing the Yoke of “Race” in Religion and Society, 89). Erasmus argues that one cannot ignore or leave behind race categories, or become reductionist by embracing fatalistically racialized identities. One, however, should engage race and acknowledge the woundedness (shame, anger, guilt, hurt, humiliation, betrayal, fear, resentment) that comes with it (Ibid). Erasmus urges that racial identities be understood as relational rather than hierarchical. To do this, she contends, requires an internal challenge and compassion to understand one’s inner individual racism and that of others. Erasmus is adamant that the post-colonial, post-Apartheid era mitigates racialized identities that Apartheid invented. But to move beyond the yoke of race, and construct racial identities as relational one should have the courage to confront it head on (Ibid., 92). Churches certainly play a non- negligible role in this endeavor. They have the ability to foster an ethical environment where love, justice, reconciliation and care can deconstruct power imbalances in the society.
This new optic in the construction of the South African collective identity suggests to me that in order to curb afro-phobia, we need to de-apartheid our mind, we need to re-appropriate Bantuness and acknowledge it as normative. In other words, what I do not recommend is that Bantu be reclaimed or be re-appropriated on the grounds of common humanity (we are all humans) or on the grounds of “Africaness” (we are all Africans), not even on the grounds of Ubuntu, while all of this have values but I suggest that we re-appropriate Bantuness on the grounds of what I call “Philia- delphos” brotherhood or brotherness. This makes more sense to me and brings us closer as brothers and sisters who have the same origin and the same DNA. In this sense, someone who is, for example, from Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad, the Congo, Nigeria, this person carries the very same DNA of Bantuness with his South African brothers and sisters. Unless, I turn to a monster to murder my own brother, until then I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper.
Don’t misunderstand me, I get the economics of sharing scarce resources, I get the calculus of competition, I get the politics of legal and illegal immigrations , I get the politics discourse of politicians who claimed that South Africa hasn’t done much to explain the role others countries played during the aluta continua ( struggle). However I believe beyond these technicalities, beyond that rhetoric, the construction of South African collective identity should be on the regime of a common world, not on the inclusion and exclusion. Unless we reclaim our Bantuness and turn it to healthy connotation, we run the risk seven years down the road to face the very same afro-phobia that we are experiencing today.
I believe when the moral compass of the society is threatened, churches have the divine order to mobilize its prophetic expediency and proclaim a gospel of acceptance, tolerance and love. Churches should not be caught up in the lethargic state of mind and sit on the side walk while brothers and sisters are killing each other. The fear of “the other”, the rejection of the other, the anger towards the other who we think should not be included in the South African collective identity could only be overcome when we re-appropriate our Bantuness and when we love out loud. Violence does not cast our fear, but love eradicates hate.
Ujamaa Centre Public Lectures Year in Review:
In addition to the lectures below (hyperlinked to previous Blog posts where available), stay tuned for upcoming additions to the Ujamaa Centre Public Lecture Series!
On August 11, 2014 well-known evangelical Public Theologian and Social commentator, Rev. Jim Wallis, of the Sojourner Community in the United States, spoke about the importance of prophetic theology from his own context. In addition to being president, founder and editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, which has a combined print and electronic media readership of more than a quarter million, Rev. Wallis is also a New York Times bestselling author, public theologian, speaker, and international commentator on ethics and public life. He currently serves as the chair of the Global Agenda Council on Values of the World Economic Forum.
On August 26, 2014 Professor Allan Boesak was key-note speaker at the Annual Mzwandile Memorial Lecture. He spoke on the theme: “Just, Brave Men: Luthuli, Mandela and the Jericho Road.” Professor Allen Boesak is an eminent anti-apartheid activist, former president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the founding director of the Desmond Tutu Centre for Peace, Reconciliation and Global Justice Reconciliation and Global Justice at Butler University and Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana USA, and Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
At the Annual John Langalibalele Dube Memorial Lecture held on September 11, 2014, Dr Gcina Mhlophe spoke on Writing women, gendering history: “What would it mean to look at the 20th anniversary of South Africa’s democracy from the perspective of Nokuthela Dube?” Annual JL Dube Memorial lecture brought together academics, students and religious leaders to reflect on the contributions Nokuthela Dube. Dr Gcina Mhlophe employed a very creative style in lifting up the contribution of Nokuthela Dube to the building of the South African nation.
[1] Willy Mafuta was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He got his undergraduate degree in Theology from Universite Protestante au Congo (UPC) as well from the University of the Witswatesrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He holds a Master’s degree in Theology and Biblical Studies from Wheaton College and a Master’s degree in International Development from the University of Iowa. Willy holds a doctorate degree in Theology and Ethics (Th.D) from the University of South Africa, Pretoria and another doctoral degree in Religious Studies ( Ph.D) from the University of Ottawa, Ontario Canada. In addition, Willy holds a chaplaincy certificate for Clinical Pastoral Education from the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics. Willy is currently an associate research Fellow at the Institute of Religion and Governance, University of Kwazulu Natal, South Africa and affiliate Professor in International Studies at Coe College, Cedar Rapids. And he is a member of several academic associations included the American Academy of Religion (AAR).