Since 1995 the South African Constitutional Court has contended that it would no
longer entertain only Western thought and legal thinking but also African law and
legal thinking as the values of all sections of society must be taken into account
in South Africaâs open and democratic society. The Court acknowledged ubuntu
as part of South Africaâs jurisprudence and fused Western and African
jurisprudence into a new South African ârainbowâ jurisprudence. But beneath this
miraculous fusion lies a volatile philosophical relationship of two ancient
patriarchal philosophies which resulted in the erosion of African values and
innumerable injustices against the African Other.
Like Greek philosophy, Western philosophy has always been plagued by
philosophical prejudice towards women, slaves and barbarians. Racism,
however, only entered the equation of Western philosophy when the West had to
justify their trade in twenty million African men, women and children as African
chattel slaves in the seventeenth century. This crime against humanity was
justified in the name of Christianity by philosophers and clergy alike. Whilst the
Enlightenment philosophers proclaimed human equality and individual liberties in
the eighteenth century they also fuelled a ânew racismâ which stereotyped
Africans as inferior and subhuman. Not only did the Otherness of Africans result
in racial segregation in the United States of America in 1883, it also legitimised
Western colonisation of the âDark Continentâ. Under the banner of the cross,
Western colonial powers embarked on their Christian civilising mission of the
African continent: destroying African trade patterns, ancestral lands, self
government, tribal systems, African law, cultures, belief systems and values. It
was, however, not these factors, the colonial genocides in Congo Free State and
German South-West Africa or Apartheid South Africaâs crime against humanity
which resulted in the lingering inferiority complex Africans experience on the
African continent, but the most destructive weapon wielded by the West: the
âcultural bombâ, which eroded African values. The publication of Templeâs Bantu Philosophy in 1945 did not only bring proof
that traditional Africans have a collective philosophy but also sparked a heated
international and national philosophical debate. In an attempt to structure the
discourse on African philosophy Oruka introduced his six trends in African
philosophy. According to Oruka, ethnophilosophy (or ubuntu) represents the
collective philosophy, or ubuntu, of either an African community or Africa as a
whole; sage philosophy illustrates that rational thought prevails in philosophical
sages; political philosophy contains the liberation philosophies of African leaders
who envisaged the rekindling of eroded traditional African values; Negritude is
described as the âsum total of African valuesâ; professional African philosophy is
African philosophy in the strict sense produced by African philosophers; the
hermeneutical approach attempts to reconstruct African reality in post-colonial
Africa; and the literary trend illustrates the devastating effect of Western
subjugation of the African Other. The debate on African philosophy illustrates that
there is no homogenous way of African thinking and that professional African
philosophers, modern Africans, African theologians and African feminists reject
traditional African modes of thought.
The Constitutional Court claims ubuntu values are in line with the Constitution in
general and the Bill of Rights in particular but this study brings evidence to the
contrary. Not only are ubuntu values represented in traditional Africaâs closed,
strong communitarian societies unique and not universal, but ubuntu âmoral
philosophyâ proves to be a religious philosophy. Whilst sec. 15(1) of the
Constitution guarantees freedom of religion one has to question why the Court
entertains a religious philosophy such as ubuntu in its deliberations and not other
religious philosophies.
The Constitutional Court, African Renaissance, the Moral Regeneration
Movement, the Ubuntu Pledge, the Heartlines Project and other programmes
throughout South Africa aspire to revive ubuntuâs eroded traditional African
values. African feminists, African theologians and modern Africans reveal that ubuntu fuels inequalities, sexism and xenophobia and that ubuntu does not
comply with sec. 39(1) of the Constitution. Ubuntu is neither in line with
international or regional human rights and gender mechanisms nor âthe
Constitution in general and the Bill of Rights in particularâ.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-03272009-095125 |
| Date | 27 March 2009 |
| Creators | Keevy, Ilze |
| Contributors | Prof AWG Raath |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-03272009-095125/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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