part of no part

* first published:     http://www.groundup.news/article/ekapa-and-zama-zamas-fight-over-mining-rights/   “I was an armed robber” he tells me without a hint of bravado or exaggeration. “But after I was released from prison I wanted to work and provide for my family. But there were no jobs for a convict and so I ended up mining as a Zama-Zama.” Today, after years of panning the dry and dusty floors of the diamond rich floors  outside Kimberly, this zama-zama, together with over a thousand other desperate individuals, have managed to avoid a life of crime, maintained their dignity, and have peacefully eked out a living from the wealthy abundance of the South African land. Their humble hope is to keep their family’s fed and clothed, even if this means working for weeks and months without any income, living in harsh conditions with only a shack as protection, with no access to water or to ablution facilities, while having to defend their meagre possessions ...

This article first appeared in the Star and online at  http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/opinion/poor-deserve-more-than-theatre-2085857 “Why, shortly after the evening I told you about, I discovered something. When I would leave a blind man on the sidewalk to which I had convoyed him, I used to tip my hat to him. Obviously the hat tipping wasn’t intended for him, since he couldn’t see it. To whom was it addressed? To the public. After playing my part, I would take the bow. Not bad, eh?” These are the words of Jean-Baptiste, the key character in the Albert Camus novel The Fall , which explores the existential crises of a successful lawyer, who through three key events comes to see himself as duplicitous and hypocritical. The realisation that his whole life has been lived in hypocrisy and denial precipitates an emotional and intellectual crisis. Jean-Batiste initially resists the realisation that he has lived hypocritically and selfishly. He argues with himself over hi...

The hells we have lived through and live through still, Have sharpened our senses and toughened our will. The night has been long. ………….. The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain We are a going-on people who will rise again. And still we rise.  Maya Angelou Over the last year our society has been gripped by a resurgent enthusiasm of a radical student generation that have demanded the end to “business as usual” as a response to the growing inequality of our society and especially its manifestation in our institutions of higher learning. Recognising their limited options to influence the growing middle class acceptance of the neoliberal status quo, while being intensely aware of the history and potential of student movements to catalyse social and political transformation, they instinctively realised that they were facing a monolithic conglomeration of interests that would not be easily moved. The sheer intransigence of the institutional gu...

Introduction. The ongoing efforts to develop and reclaim the rightful place of an African Philosophy within the global context, especially within the aftermath of a universalising colonial project of domination and control, has moved from the abstract production of knowledge to congeal into a fully-fledged philosophical, political and economic movement by Africans to re-appropriate control over the right to “ define for themselves who they are and who they should be ”  (Mbeki, 1998) , but which broadly still rests with the ex –colonial powers of the West  and which is realised through the irresistible imperative towards globalisation based on the metaphysical narrative derived solely from the European experience. This movement of thought and political will has a long history of dialectical engagement, stemming from the visionary articulation by Cheikh Anta Diop in his 1948 essay “ When Can We Talk of an African Renaissance ?” The dialectical process of renewal /r...

“The only valid knowledge that contributes to the human understanding of the world is that of empirically-based, Western science.” This brief refelction will seek to critically evaluate the claim that empirically –based Western science is the only valid methodology of knowledge production that contributes to the understanding of the world by considering the efficacy of empirically based knowledge production and then to counter pose this methodology against the feminist philosophy of science perspective. Empiricism Empiricism, stresses the fundamental role of experience (Alston, 1998), and starts from the understanding that all knowledge is ultimately based on experience. While empiricism stems from the Logical Positivists school of thought, they however reject the corresponding version of the Superiority of Reason thesis (Markie, 2015). Alston explains that empiricism always assumes a hierarchical form, in which the lowest level are derived directly from experience, and h...

In this brief essay, we will attempt to define the term “indigenous knowledge” and consider its significance and centrality to African Philosophy. In order to do this we will seek to clarify the individual concepts of knowledge as epistemology as well as the concept of indigeneity using mainly the analysis put forward by Dismas Masolo. We will also briefly consider question of African epistemology as put forward by Kaphagawani and Malherbe. This essay proceeds from the understanding that the question of the existence of an African Philosophy has long been settled and that it follows that an African Epistemology must exist. Our concern in this essay is to draw out its connection and relation to the concept of “Indigenous knowledge” Finally we will conclude with a reflection on the significance of indigenous knowledge to African Philosophy. Epistemology In a narrow sense epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief and in a broader sense is concerned with how...

Introduction. “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” —Edward Said (2003) as quoted by  (Whyte, 2016) “Third Worldism” and the idea of political development as a modern social science, which can be utilised in the effort to assist or advance the globalisation of the world community, cannot be divorced from the broader debates raging in society today and in fact are central to those debates in many ways. The question of whether this discourse has assisted and contributed to world political development, whether as a sustainable solution or whether as part of the challenges faced by the world today, remains largely unanswered by the establishment academia, despite the bold suggestion by some that we have reached the end of history and its culmination in a particular western understanding of political development, namely the particular type of lib...