africanvoice

Giving Africa Voice within Global
Governance: Oral History, Human Rights
and the United Nations (UN) Human
Rights Council
Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni
ASC Working Paper 73 / 2007
2
This paper was written while I was a Visiting Research Fellow (January-March 2007) at the African
Studies Centre (ASC) and it was presented at the International Conference on Human Rights and Social
Justice: Setting the Agenda for the United Nations Human Rights Council, 23-25 February 2007,
University of Winnipeg, Canada. I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Ineke van Kessel of ASC for reading
and commenting on the first draft of this paper.
Dr Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Studies at Monash
University, South Africa. E-mail: sgatsha@yahoo.co.uk or Sabelo.ndlovu@arts.monash.edu
African Studies Centre
P.O. Box 9555
2300 RB Leiden
The Netherlands
Telephone +31-71-5273372
Fax +31-71-5273344
E-mail asc@ascleiden.nl
Website http://www.ascleiden.nl
© Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2007
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Abstract
The setting up of the United Nations Human Rights Council with a responsibility for
promoting universal human rights at this crucial moment in human history must be
appreciated as long as it will manage to facilitate dialogue and in the process breaking the
strong bonds of Western hegemonic monologue and cultural imperialism. The current
universalism is not a product of democracy and consensus, but was largely created
through conquest and violence. The main crisis in the current human rights regime is that
it has taken the form of Euro-American neo-liberalism masquerading as universalism,
imposing its core values across the world as global values, and inevitably provoking
contestations and resistance. Universalism should take the form of an achievement of
progressive human efforts rather than a product of conquest and domination. Therefore,
the task of setting the agenda for the Human Rights Council must focus on seeking more
democratic ways of tapping into the diverse human voices and cultural diversities as
building blocks for common interests and common conceptions of human rights. The
challenge of re-imagining, recreating, remaking and reordering world governance in a
new fashion, necessarily calls for the inclusion of the voices of the subaltern who are
exposed to human rights violations across the world. The African continent and its people
occupy a ‘subaltern’ position in global politics where voices from the African continent
remain on the peripheries of global governance. Since the Human Rights Council is
envisaged to be a forum for dialogue on thematic issues on all human rights, Africans
need to seize the opportunity to be heard, rather than remaining as a problem to be
solved. This paper, therefore, seeks to present three key arguments that need to be taken
into account during the process of remaking of the world order and recreation of a new
global governance architecture. Firstly, it raises the key issue of the African continent and
the African people being perceived as a problem to be solved rather than a voice to be
heard within global politics. It calls for the African continent to transcend its current
‘subaltern position’ in international relations and make its voice heard within global
governance. Secondly, it make a case for the use of oral history as an ideal medium to
bring the voices of the subaltern to the notice of the Human Rights Council and as a key
methodology in the current endeavour to understand different situations of human rights
violations. Finally, it grapples with the important question of whose values and whose
voice should underpin the universal human rights discourse and global governance.
4
If the United Nations is to meet the expectations of men and women
everywhere—indeed, if the Organization is to take the cause of
human rights as seriously as those of security and development—
then Member States should agree to replace the Commission on
Human Rights with a smaller standing Human Rights Council.1
We are all interconnected. We are one. Let us work together and
learn from each other. Africa’s Wisdom calls! Are you ready to
listen with an open mind?2
If we were the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most
wealthy, the most powerful person-and then found all of a sudden
that we were alone on the planet, it wouldn’t amount to a hill of
beans!3
We have to show that our values are not Western, still less
American or Anglo-Saxon, but values in the common ownership of
humanity, universal values that should be the right of the global
citizen.4
In rejecting Western values, therefore, we are rejecting those
things that are not only foreign to us but that seek to destroy the
most cherished of our beliefs—that the corner-stone of society is
man himself—not just his welfare, not his material wellbeing but
man himself with all his ramifications. We reject the power-based
society of the Westerner that seems to be ever concerned with
perfecting their technological know how while losing out on their
spiritual dimension. We believe that in the long run that the special
contribution to the world by Africa will be in the field of human
relationship. The great powers of the world may have done
wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look, but the
great gift still has to come from Africa—giving the world a more
human face.5
Native society is not simply described as lacking in values…the
native represents not only the absence of values, but also the
negation of values…6
1 Report of the Secretary-General, ‘In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights
For All’ United Nations General Assembly A/59/2005 fifty-ninth session agenda items 45 and 55, p. 45.
2 Speech given by a South African dignitary under the theme ‘Aichi Expo 2005: The Wisdom of Africa:
What would the World be Like If there were no Africans on Earth?’ (Aichi, Japan, March 2005).
3 Bill Clinton, ‘All you need is Ubuntu,’ BBC News in
http://wwwnewsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazi...
4 Tony Blair, ‘A Battle for Global Values,’ in Foreign Affairs, (January/February 2007)
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101fessay8606/tony-blair/a-battle-for-global-v
5 Steve Biko, I write What I Like, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2002), pp. 46-47.
6 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1967), p. 32.
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Introduction
The former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan concluded his report
entitled, In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All,
by stating that:
At no time in human history have the fates of every woman, man and child been so
intertwined across the globe. We are united both by moral imperatives and by objective
interests. We can build a world in larger freedom—but to do it we must find common
ground and sustain collective action.7
It was within this spirit of searching for a common ground that Annan proposed the
establishment of the United Nations Human Rights Council, stating that:
The establishment of a Human Rights Council would reflect in concrete terms the
increasing importance being placed on human rights in our collective rhetoric. The
upgrading of the Commission on Human Rights into full-fledged Council would raise
human rights to the priority accorded to it in the Charter of the United Nations. Such a
structure would offer architectural and conceptual clarity, since the United Nations
already has Councils that deal with two other main purposes—security and development.8
The spirit underpinning the United Nations reform is that of recreating and remaking the
world order involving infusion of new progressive moral values into global governance
institutions and persuading global opinion leaders to realise the imperatives of an
interdependent world. The Human Rights Council is to be guided by the principles of
universality, impartiality, objectivity, non-selectivity, constructive global dialogue and
cooperation, with the following mandate, functions and responsibilities:
• Promotion of universal respect for the protection of all human rights and
fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any kind and in a fair and
equal manner.
• Addressing situations of violations of human rights, including gross and
systematic violations, and make recommendations thereon.
• Promotion of effective coordination and mainstreaming of human rights within
the United Nations system.
7 Report of the Secretary-General, ‘In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights
for All,’ United Nations General Assembly Fifty-Ninth Session Agenda Items 45 and 55, A/59/2005, p. 53.
8 Report of the Secretary-General, ‘In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights
for All: Addendum: Human Rights Council: Explanatory Notes by the Secretary-General’ in United
Nations General Assembly A/59/2005/Add.1 Fifty-ninth session Agenda items 45 and 55.
6
• Promotion of human rights education and learning as well as advisory services,
technical assistance and capacity-building.
• Serving as a forum for dialogue on thematic issues on all human rights.
• Making recommendations to the General Assembly for the further development of
international law in the field of human rights.
• Promotion of the full implementation of human rights obligations undertaken by
States and follow-up to the goals and commitments related to the promotion and
protection of human rights emanating from United Nations conferences and
summits.
• Undertaking a universal periodic review of fulfilment by each state of its human
rights obligations and commitments, based on objective and reliable information.
• Contribution through dialogue and cooperation toward prevention of human rights
violations and responding promptly to human rights emergencies.
• Assuming the role and responsibilities of the Commission on Human Rights.
• Working together in the field of human rights with governments, regional
organisations, national human rights institutions and civil society.
• Submission of an annual report to the General Assembly.9
The issue of dialogue is emphasised as well as the spirit of inclusiveness and cooperation.
It is also interesting to note that these reforms at global level are taking place at a time
when Africa and Africans are engaged in what has come to be known as the African
Renaissance that include recovery of positive African values and wisdom from the
African past as well a vigorous struggle to make the African voice heard throughout the
councils of the world affairs and claiming a space for a permanent seat (s) at the United
Nations. African leaders like Thabo Mbeki of South Africa are raising the issue of the
African voice within the ‘larger freedom.’ African leaders are caught up in very invidious
position where they have resist Western domination at many fronts while at the same
time asserting common humanity. They are in agreement with Kofi Annan that:
Larger freedom implies that men and women everywhere have the right to be governed
by their own consent, under law, in a society where all individuals can, without
9 Resolution adopted by the General Assembly 60/251: Human Rights Council, 3 April 2006.
7
discrimination or retribution, speak, worship and associate freely. They must also be free
from want—so that the death sentences of extreme poverty and infectious diseases are
lifted from their lives—and free from fear—so that their lives and livelihoods are not
ripped apart by violence and war.10
There is very strong discourse that is pushing the point that for far too long, the African
continent has occupied a ‘subaltern position’ in global power relations where its voice
has not been taken seriously and that Western hegemony must be decentred.11 African
values have been ignored during earlier formulations of global declarations including
even the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. This African
reality was partly captured by Kofi Annan when he wrote that ‘we must recognise
Africa’s special needs’ because the continent is affected by global problems of
development, human rights and security ‘disproportionately.’12 Yes, one need to add that
Africa must not just be taken as a problem to be solved but must also be seen as a
contributor to positive global development. It has values that could give meaning to the
fullness of human society.
This reality has provoked some African scholars like Abdul Karim Bangura and many
others to think of what is now popularly known as ‘African solutions to African
problems.’ In line with this vision, African scholars are re-visiting African history in their
search for best practices to underpin their systems of governance. They wish to see their
values incorporated into global human rights instruments and declarations. Bangura has
concluded that ‘a re-examination of African history reveals that traditional Africans
possessed a strong sense of justice and a deep respect for law and human rights.’13 This
argument stand in strategic contradiction to the traditional racist stereotypes whose key
contours were that pre-colonial Africans were essentially savages who lacked civilised
10 Report of the Secretary-General, ‘In Larger Freedom,’ p. 5.
11 C. A. Diop, The African Origin of Civilisation, (Lawrence Hill, Chicago, 1974), S. Frederic (ed.),
Enduring Western Civilization, (Praeger, Westport, 2005) and Chinweizu, The West and the Rest of Us,
(Vintage Press, Buffalo, 1975).
12 Ibid., p. 23.
13 Abdul Karim Bangura, ‘African Peace Paradigms,’ (Unpublished paper presented at a seminar on peace,
South Africa, 2006), p. 11. See also Bangura, ‘Ubuntology: An African Educational Paradigm that
Transcends Pedagogy, Andragogy, Ergonagy, and Heutalogy,’ in Journal of Third World Studies, xxii, 2,
(2005), pp. 13-53.
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codes of behaviour and that primitive Africans were guided largely by instinct without
any overarching social convention.
In a recent book edited by Adekeye Adebajo and Helen Scanlon entitled, A Dialogue of
the Deaf: Essays on Africa and the United Nations, a number of African contributors
emphasised the point that ‘if we are to have a UN that is truly representative of all its
members, then the African perspective must be more adequately enunciated and
understood than has previously been the case.’14 In a foreword to this book, Archbishop
Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town argued that:
For far too long, the UN system has benefited the wealthy at the expense of the poor, and
the powerful at the expense of the weak. The challenge to the whole UN system in the
twenty-first century is to put people first-and especially those who most need protection,
assistance, support, or perhaps even a voice.15
The essence of the debate in Africa at the moment is that for far too long, Africa has been
treated as a problem to be solved than a voice to be heard. The UN reform process that
was initiated by Kofi Annan and that began in September 2005 was seen as an opportune
moment to try and break the fifty-year monologue and the ‘dialogue of the deaf between
the rich North and the global South.’16 An edited volume by Pindelani Mathoma, Greg
Mills and John Stremlau, entitled, Putting People First: African Priorities for the UN
Millennium Assembly made a similar call for a better treatment of Africa in global
politics.17 The issue of the African voice to be recognised is a major concern that needs
urgent attention in this century where the issue of finding a common ground is burning.
This is a point well captured by Helen Scanlon in her conclusion to A Dialogue of the
Deaf where she said:
African voices raised during the formulation of any future reform initiatives are
imperative, as any new model for global governance will affect the lives of Africa’s 800
million people.18
14 The Most Reverend Njongonkulu Ndugane, Archbishop of Cape Town, ‘Foreword’ in Adekeye Adebajo
and Helen Scanlon (eds.), A Dialogue of the Deaf: Essays on Africa and the United Nations, (Fanele and
the Centre for Conflict Resolution, Cape Town, 2006), p. xiii.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Pindelani Mathoma, Greg Mills and John Stremlau (eds.), Putting People First: African Priorities for the
UN Millennium Assembly, (South African Institute of International Affairs, Johannesburg, 2000).
18 Helen Scanlon, ‘Conclusion,’ in A. Adebajo and H. Scanlon (eds.), A Dialogue of the Deaf, p. 281.
9
These African voices dovetail with the equally very vocal and very critical voices from
other parts of the human globe about the inadequacies of a post-enlightenment modernity.
This modernity is on trial because of its failure to curb the scourge of violence and war,
to protect children and women from the effects of war, to protect the rights of indigenous
peoples, and to guarantee democracy to all people, rich and poor. Worse still, the
twentieth century saw the largest number of violent conflicts including two world wars as
well as the Cold War conflagration that was not so cold at all in Africa.19 While the
twentieth century began as a century of promise and hope in world history, with
technological revolutions and a belief in the possibility of human emancipation, it was
equally the bloodiest century dominated by several of the most brutal states and brutal
leaders the world has ever known.20
The current human desire across the world is to make the twenty-first century better than
the twentieth century in terms of respect for human rights, tolerance of diversity and
respect for difference. This was put clearly by Kofi Annan as part of what he termed
larger freedom and where ‘our guiding light must be the needs and hopes of peoples
everywhere.’21 This is a very big challenge before humanity, requiring intellectual and
political capital to respond to such pertinent questions as:
• Which democratic mechanisms/methodologies are to be utilised in creating more
inclusive global governance institutions?
• Which values and wisdoms from across the world should be harnessed to inform
ethos of global governance?
• Whose values should inform the ethos of global governance?
• How do we cater for the voices of the subaltern and make sure their views are
taken on board as we set the agenda for the UN Human Rights Council?
• Is it possible to establish a foundational truth for this millennium?
19 John R. Hinde, Jacob Burchardt and the Crisis of Modernity, (McGill-Queen’s University Press,
Montreal, 2000) and Gunther H. Lenz and Kurt L. Shell (eds.), Crisis of Modernity: Recent Critical
Theories of Culture and Society in the United States and West Germany, (Westview Press, Boulder, 1986).
20 One can think of fascist leaders in Germany and Italy, of Idi Amin in Uganda and other African dictators,
military regimes in Latin America, the list is just endless.
21 Report of Secretary General, ‘In Larger Freedom,’ p. 5.
10
In my analysis what is central in all this human endeavour to create humane society is the
issue of values which has become very significant in this global age. Indeed if the race/
colour line was the fundamental problem of the twentieth century as argued by William
Du Bois, the twenty-first century’s major problem is that of the ‘culture line’ involving
clash of values, clash of cultures as well as clash of civilisations, as well as coalescence
of some into global common values.22 Samuel P. Huntington was the first scholar to put
the issue of culture/civilization into the global high table of politics as he was forecasting
on the nature of post-Cold War conflicts. Since the publication of his book Clash of
Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order, many other scholars as well as
politicians have confirmed the significance of culture/values/civilizations in shaping
contemporary politics. One of Africa’s well known academics and global intellectual
luminary, Ali Mazrui has recently reinforced the fact that racial distinctions are on the
decline and underlined that the culture line is pervading the human globe.23 The debate
on values/cultures/civilizations has been joined by politicians too.
In a recent article entitled A Battle for Global Values, the British Prime Minister Tony
Blair captured the centrality of values in contemporary struggles including even the ‘war
against terrorism’ that developed in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 disaster. He
defined this war on terror as a battle for values and one that can only be won by the
triumph of tolerance and liberty.24 Blair made a number of controversial but important
arguments that are relevant to the broader debate on universality of human rights as
global values. He pointed out that Euro-American/Anglo-Saxon values represented
humanity’s progress throughout the ages and that these values were fought for and
defended over time. According to him, globalisation is a positive process in that it begets
interdependence and that interdependence underlay the necessity for a common value
system. The key task of the ‘civilized’ world according to Blair, was to demonstrate that
Euro-American values were not ‘Western, still less American or Anglo-Saxon, but values
22 Samuel P. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, (Simon & Schuster,
New York, 1996).
23 A. Mazrui, ‘Africa in the New World Disorder,’ (Public seminar presentation, University of London,
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 15 January 2007.
24 Tony Blair, ‘A Battle for Global Values,’ in Foreign Affairs, (January/February 2007)
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101fessay8606/tony-blair/a-battle-for-global-v...
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in the common ownership of humanity, universal values that should be the right of the
global citizen.’ To Tony Blair, universal application of global values was the answer to
poverty, injustice, and terrorism across the world. He emphasised that the struggle for
global values has to be applied not selectively but to the whole global agenda. He defined
the current global struggles crystallising around the mantra of ‘war on terror’ as a clash
about civilization and not a clash between civilisations.25 These are interesting
arguments that demonstrate the desire by the West to universalise their conceptions of
rights and democracy as global values. This is the West’s common answer to the question
of whose values should underpin global governance systems and institutions. It is a
purely arrogant and hegemonic answer bereft of reflexivity and empathy for other
civilizations, cultures/values that can be equally useful in the formulation of global
systems of governance.
The discourse and the debate on values it itself very controversial and sometimes very
flawed but at the same time very central in human search for a common ground. The
discourse becomes very controversial when the ‘happy-clappy’ neo-liberal agenda and its
democracy and human rights as global values is used even to invade weak nations by
stronger ones and to hide extremely cruel and violent acts such as the occupation of Iraq
by the West. On the other hand, its great to have common values to underpin the coexistence
of human being within the global village.
It is against this background that my contribution to the theme of Oral History and
Human Rights will encompass the central issues of values as I map out how oral history
could be positively harnessed to advance the cause of human rights and in the process try
to bridge the gap between academia and activism. I will discuss three cases where oral
history was utilised to highlight human rights issues, including one instance where oral
testimonies and oral submissions led to the crafting of a very democratic freedom charter.
That way I hope to inspire human rights activists to realise that oral history could be
positively used to influence public opinion and policy making.
25 Ibid.
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Oral History and the Power of Oracy in Africa
Human rights violations are not part of popular history and the human rights discourse
itself is not yet part of popular history. Human rights violations are part of hidden
histories, known by victims and perpetrators only. Those who violated human rights do
not want their acts to be known because human-ness does not accept heinous acts as
normal. Most violations of human rights are not only surrounded by secrecy, but are also
accompanied by silences on the part of victims. Silences are induced at various levels: by
mental oppression, government surveillances, human resignation to fate, and lack of
communication outlets to make testimonies.
Most human rights violations exist as part of memory of the violated groups, violated
communities and violated individuals. Most oppressive regimes deliberately destroy all
their records implicating them in human rights violations and commissions of enquiry on
human rights violations are never made public.26 This means that written record is not
ideally suitable as a medium to understand cases of human rights violations. On the other
hand, oral history is very useful for this purpose.
Oral history can be defined at many levels including historiographical, epistemological
and methodological perspectives. The most common one is the methodological
perspective where it is understood as a source of history that needs to be handled with
extreme care since oral sources are different from written sources of history. Oral history
is here defined in strategic-instrumentalist political terms where it directly assumes the
role of an important weapon/instrument within human rights struggles. It become very
useful to tap into the emancipatory power of oracy as the weapon of the violated. Oracy
is here defined in strategic-instrumentalist-political terms of deploying the spoken word
for purposes of exposing situations of human rights violations and forms of oppression by
the subaltern. Here oral history takes the form of a deliberate strategy that is directed at
making the voices of the subaltern heard and their concerns taken from being private into
the public domain. Oral history then takes a combative form targeted at particular
26 The cases in point are that of the fate of the Dumbutshena and Chihabakwe Commissions launched by
the ZANU-PF governments in the 1980s to investigate Fifth Brigade atrocities in Matabeleland and the
Midlands regions.
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situations of oppression and breaking some silences about particular events. Gayatri
Spivak defines the subaltern as people who have been equally instrumental in history as
the Europeans and Americans, but have been under-represented, their voices
disarticulated and their histories, values and wisdom decentred from mainstream
knowledge.27 Since the time of inscription of colonialism on African soil, Africans have
suffered from voiceless-ness at global level.
To change this situation, oral historians need to deploy oral history in strategicinstrumentalist,
directed and combative terms so as to enable the subaltern to rearticulated
its voice. Only this way can oral history constitute itself as a democratic way
of reconstructing the history of the marginalised and disarticulated communities. The
Indian Subaltern Studies Series initiated by the historian Ranajit Guha and others have
proven beyond doubt that the subaltern has no archives and that orality is their only
power.28 Strategic essentialism is needed here. It is a strategy of deliberately representing
of a group in a particular strategic way to achieve particular objectives.29 Strategic
essentialism is positively subversive of dominant discourses and is a useful weapon for
the subaltern whose voice is rarely listened to or even captured. Since one of the
challenges before us is how to capture the voices of the excluded, the poor, the vulnerable
and the abused in order to factor them into the agenda of the United Nations Human
Rights Council, this conception of oral history in strategic-instrumentalist terms makes
oral history a useful instrument of enabling the subaltern to speak and be heard. The
Italian oral historian, A. Portelli pointed out that the value of oral history is in the
‘construction of suppressed memories’ of non-hegemonic groups.30
The conception and definition of oral history adopted here can be termed activist
definition as opposed to the common academic methodological and historiographical
27 Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds.), Marxism
and the Interpretation of Culture, (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1998).
28 Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies 1: Writings on South Asian History and Society, (Oxford
University Press, Delhi, 1982) Paula Hamilton, ‘The Oral Historian As Memorist,’ in The Oral History
Review, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Winter-Spring 2005).
29 G.C. Spivak, The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, (Routledge, London, 1990).
30 A. Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastalli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History, (SUNY
Press, New, 1991)
14
treatment of oral history in non-political and non-strategic terms. The publication of Jan
Vansina’s ground breaking book, Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology in
196531, inaugurated the feverish considerations of oral history in methodological and
historiographical terms that has passed through three stages that can be summarised as:
• Giving Africa a history involving de-centering and countering Eurocentric
narrations of Africa history and in the process establishing the modern discipline
of African History in the 1960s.
• Capturing African lives and experiences involving the use of individual oral
testimonies to construct African social history
• The focus on African imaginations, African voices and authenticity.32
When Vansina wrote his book there was a general belief that African societies were oral
societies. Vansina was quick to articulate this argument saying ‘many African
civilisations were to a great extent civilisations of the spoken word.’33 In the present age
literacy and orality co-exist in Africa and other parts of the world. One needs to be very
careful not to fall into the trap of constructing Africans as ‘oral’ people and other people
as ‘literate’ people. Here the ‘oral’ is taken as the main voice of the subaltern and it does
not have any connotations of inferiority and lack of civilisation.34 What is emphasised is
the issue of power differentials responsible for making African voices remain in the
peripheries of global governance.
Commenting on the significance of the book Voices of the Poor from Many Lands,
Muhammad Yunus, had this to say:
I have a very strong feeling that we don’t care to know about the poor. We not only don’t
know about the poor, worse still, we love to make up our own stories to build our
favourite theories around them. We keep our selves in a comfortable position by
fortifying ourselves with these theories…We have trained our eyes not to see them,
31 Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology, (University of Wisconsin Press,
Madison, 1965).
32 This historiography of oral history emerges clearly from the organization/themes of a recent book by
Luise White, Stephan F. Miescher, and David W. Cohen (eds.). African Words, African Voices: Critical
Practices in Oral History, (Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2001).
33 Jan Vansina, ‘Oral History and Its Methodology,’ in Joseph Ki-Zerbo (ed.), Methodology and African
History: UNESCO General History of Africa Volume 1, (UNESCO, Paris, 1981), p. 28.
34 Isabel Hofmeyr, ‘Wailing for Purity’ : Oral Studies in Southern African Studies,’ in African Studies, Vol.
54, No. 2, (1995), pp. 16-31.
15
trained our ears not to hear them. When we want to hear them, we make sure we hear
them the way we wish to hear them.35
For the subaltern to be heard there is need for effective and strategic use of oracy to
pothole dominant discourses. Oracy is defined by Austin Bukenya as the skilful,
confident, and productive use of the spoken word mainly by the disadvantaged, exploited,
and oppressed groups like women for purposes of empowerment.36 Oracy has useful
implications for African struggles to transcend marginalisation and lack of voice at global
level. As noted by Bukenya:
Oracy implies not only the ability to speak, but also to manage, marshal and deploy the
spoken word efficiently, for specific purposes, in specific context. Command of the
spoken word means just that: power. Productive oracy would entail self-definition, selfassertion,
negotiation of relationships, resolution of conflicts, claiming of rights, and
indictment of their violation.
Oracy is not just words. It is holistic communication. It is attitude, it is posture, it is
voice, expression, gesture, movement. It is also access to, and entitlement to, contexts,
discourses and technologies.37
I agree with Bukenya that Africa and Africans are currently suffering from ‘systematic
de-oracisation.’38 Africa is a ‘silenced continent’ with a majority of ‘silenced’ people.
Oracy is the key to breaking the boundaries of monologue or the dialogue of the deaf that
Africa and Africans are subjected to at the global level. Breaking the silence entails
harnessing oral history to capture the views and voices of the excluded and marginalised
groups.
Oracy as part of purposeful communication of pertinent issues and an aspect of dialogue
forms an indispensable tool of putting African issues on the global table where global
systems are crafted. Unless oral history is deployed strategically and in a directed way it
may remain a mere source of history. But strategically deployed, oral history forms one
of the few democratic ways of capturing African voices, particularly of the subaltern that
35 See back page of Deepa Narayan and Patti Petesch (eds.), Voices of the Poor from Many Lands, (World
Bank and Oxford University Press, New York, 2002).
36 Austin Bukenya, ‘Oracy and Female Empowerment in Africa’ in Russell H. Kaschulla (ed.), African
Oral Literature: Functions in Contemporary Contexts, (New Africa Books, Claremont, 2001), pp.32-38.
37 Ibid, p. 33. See also P. Zirimu and A. Bukenya, ‘Oracy as a Skill and Tool for African Development,’
(Unpublished paper presented at the Colloquium on African Art and Culture: Festival African Art and
Culture (TESTAC’77), Lagos, Nigeria, 1977).
38 Ibid, p. 32.
16
are globally marginalised and silenced. Since the subaltern has no archives, all their
concerns can only be well captured through their oral testimonies. That way oral history
could be fruitfully used to transcend tyrannies of the written record and its elitist form.
Strategically deployed, oral history is ideally placed to tape directly into the concerns,
wishes and aspirations of the marginalised and oppressed peoples across the world. Oral
history has the potential to capture stories seldom heard during crises such as war,
famine, and floods. Using oral history strategically enables one to break the boundaries of
silence surrounding violated individuals, groups and communities without an official
media to communicate their experiences to the wider world.
Oral History for the Advancement of Human Rights Agenda
The process of oral history can be a medium of social and personal change in itself. Its
emphasis is not so much the hard, cold, and dry facts but more of the soft, warm, moist
aspects of human experience and social relations.39 As noted by Mark Libin oral history
enables those concerned with human rights violations and protection to capture voices of
victims and even perpetrators without ‘mediation, preserving moving registers of
emotion—voices cracking with tears, voices lowered in shame or raised in anger—that
render the speaker present and knowable to the listener.’40 Oral historians can play a very
significant role within human rights movements through capturing the realities of human
rights violations, including capturing the emotions, anger and shame involved in the
speeches of victims and perpetrators and recording these in videos, CDs and cassettes.
Example 1: Exposing Modern Slavery
The interesting modern example is the work of Zoe Todd and Kevin Bales, academics at
Harvard University who in an endeavour to bridge the gap between academia and
activism, have targeted the oppressive institution of modern slavery and strategically
deployed oral history in capturing the testimonies of slaving people including child
soldiers, sex slaves, domestic slaves, factory slaves, and agricultural slaves to produce a
39 ‘Oral Histories: The Biographical Background of the Collective,’ in http://www.stefanszczelkun.
org.uk/phd900.htm
40 Mark Libin, ‘Can the Subaltern Be Heard? Response and Responsibility in South Africa’s Human Spirit’
in Textual Practice, Vol. 17, No. 1, (2003), p. 125.
17
ground breaking book entitled To Plead Our Own Cause: Narratives of Modern Slavery
containing direct voices of 100 slaves from around the world and helping to publicise
their plight.41 Trodd and Bales strategically deployed oral history in a directed and target
specific way in order to inform the world about the existence of around 27 million slaves
in the world today. They also exposed the hidden dynamics of modern slavery.42
Example 2: Drafting a Democratic Charter of Rights
The second example of how oral history was used to advance the cause of human
emancipation is that of drafting of the Freedom Charter in South Africa that became a
testament of the oppressed people of South Africa’s aspiration for a non-racial and
democratic society. The processes involved in the drafting of the Freedom Charter in
1955 are very instructive to us as we grapple with the setting of the agenda of the United
Nations Human Rights Council. The methodology that was adopted was very democratic
and inclusive of the views of many people. This how the Chartists put it:
We, the political leaders of our people, would not simply give a directive as to the
meaning of freedom. We would consult the people to tell us. They would draw up a
Freedom Charter as a guide for us. We would consult the people in town and country, in
every occupation, and across all the race and colour barriers of oppression. We would ask
what shape they wish to give the freedom that was coming. And finally, we would
compile what they demanded into a single Charter…We were asking people to draw up
their own constitution for the future…We were going to ask them to speak of freedom
and its meaning. And finally, we were going to ask them to send delegates to vote for that
Charter of the future…43
Oral history was strategically and positively deployed as an instrument to solicit for the
voices of the people about their political future and nature of governance they preferred.
Despite the limits imposed by the apartheid regime, the Chartists were able to come up
with one of the most democratic Charters the world has never seen before because of the
democratic route they took to draft the charter. The important lesson to learn from the
way the Freedom Charter was drafted is that of inclusion of the voices of different people
41 Zoe Trodd and Kevin Bales, To Plead Our Own Cause: Narratives of Modern Slavery, (Cornell
University Press, USA, 2007).
42 ‘Oral history project uses captive voices to fight modern slavery,’ in
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/10.26/05-slavenarrative.html.
43 ‘The Demands of the Freedom Charter: Drawing Up the Demands of the Freedom Charter Adopted at the
Congress of the People on June 26, 1955 published in Sechaba, June 1976 in
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/campaigns/cop/demands.html.
18
and capturing different interests into a charter. The people of South Africa were afforded
an opportunity to use their oracy in shaping the nature of ‘the good life that they seek for
themselves and their children’ and the people responded enthusiastically to this
democratic way of shaping the future and made sure their visions were captured. Three
thousand delegates approved the final document after it had been read section by section,
in three languages.44
During the transition from apartheid to democracy, again the subaltern in South Africa
were given an opportunity through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to
use their oracy to relate the stories of their oppression as the basis of redressing the
wrongs of the past. Silence on the atrocities of both the liberation movement (s) and the
apartheid regime was broken and a new rainbow nation was born.45
Example 3: Breaking Silence Surrounding Genocide
The third example is of how oral history could be used in breaking the silence
surrounding a genocidal act by a state. Between 1980 and 1987, the state of Zimbabwe
deployed and unleashed the notorious Fifth Brigade into Matabeleland and the Midlands
regions where the minority Ndebele ethnic group resides. The army was said to be
fighting against dissidents but the operation took the form of ethnic cleansing as well as
the political dimension of violently crushing the opposition PF-ZAPU led by Dr Joshua
Nkomo.46 The Fifth Brigade operated under conditions of curfew and the media was
barred from covering the activities of the military. Under the cover of curfew the Fifth
Brigade committed serious atrocities including burying some people alive, bayoneting
pregnant women, shooting school children, razing out homes and villages, burning some
inside their houses and raping a lot of women.47 Ex-ZIPRA combatants (those who had
44 ‘The Charter of our singing tomorrows’ in http://www.joburg.org.za/2005/june/june24_history.stm
45 Sarah Nuttal and Carli Coetzee (eds.) Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa,
(Oxford University Press, Cape Town, 1998) and Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the
Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa, (Jonathan Cape, London, 1998). See also South Africa’s
Human Spirit: An Oral Memoir of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 5 Volumes, (SABC,
Johannesburg, 2000).
46 J. Alexander at al, Violence and Memory: One Hundred Years in the ‘Dark Forest of Matabeleland,
(Weaver Press, Harare, 2000).
47 Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, ‘The Post-Colonial State and Matabeleland: Regional Perceptions of Civil-
Military Relations, 1980-2002,’ in R. Williams, G. Cawthra and D. Abrahams (eds.), Ourselves to Know:
19
fought for independence under ZAPU) and their leaders were hunted and killed. An
estimated twenty thousand Ndebele speaking people were killed and some disappeared
up to today. Total silence surrounded these events as the government was quick to
dismiss any reports that the army was randomly killing every Ndebele speaking person
under the pretext of fighting the dissidents. The silence was broken in 1997 with the
publication of Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace: A Report on the Disturbances
in Matabeleland and the Midlands, 1980-1988 by the Catholic Commission for Justice
and Peace (CCJP) and the Legal Resources Foundation (LRF).48 These two human rights
non-governmental organisations used oral history to gather information on the operations
of the Fifth Brigade and the experiences of the Ndebele speaking people. They focused
on one district in each province where the Fifth Brigade operated and carried in depth
oral interviews with the victims of the Fifth Brigade and produced a very detailed report.
In their justification for writing the report , this is how they put it:
People who live in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands know only too well what
happened to them during the 1980s. Their lives were affected in serious ways by both
government troops and also by dissidents and youth brigades at this time. However, most
people from other parts of Zimbabwe still have no idea what it was like for those who
were suffering. They have no idea how people still suffer as a result of the violence that
took place. People who were affected also do not have ways of talking to people in other
parts of the country about what happened. Ordinary people all over Zimbabwe need to
know what happened during those years in their country.49
This example demonstrates how oral history could be used to put pressure on the
government to account for its activities. With the publication and production of over 2000
copies of Breaking the Silence, silence on the Matabeleland genocide was broken and
became known. Because this episode was not part of popular knowledge, and in 1999
during the burial of Joshua Nkomo, President Mugabe came nearer to apologizing to the
people of Matabeleland when he described the whole thing as a time of madness which
must not be allowed to happen again. The three examples detailed above demonstrate
how oral history could be harnessed to advance the cause of human rights and
democracy.
Civil Military Relations and Defence Transformation in Southern Africa, (Institute for Security Studies,
Pretoria, 2003).
48 CCJP and LRF Report, Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace: A Report on the Disturbances in
Matabeleland and the Midlands, 1980-1988, (CCJP and LRF, Harare, 1997).
49 Ibid.
20
Strategic Essentialism and African Values
Kuan-Hsing Chen, a specialist in Asian cultural studies argued that:
Without re-inventing tradition, we have no ground to stand on; without roots, we do not
know where we have come from; without critical spirit, we will only flow with the
dominant currents to become reactive and reactionary.’50
Also making the case for strategic essentialism in African struggles for position in global
politics is the acclaimed Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe, who argued that:
You have all heard of African personality; of African democracy, of the African way to
socialism, of negritude, and so on. They are all props we have fashioned at different times
to help us get on our feet again. Once we are up we shall not need any of them any more.
But for the moment it is in the nature of things that we may need to counter racism with
what Jean-Paul Sartre has called an anti-racist racism, to announce not just that we are as
good as the next man but that we are better.51
Despite the fact that nobody these days doubt the fact that culture is a dynamic entity
which makes and remakes itself continuously and that there are no pure cultures, the
West still continues to strategically essentialise their values and globalising them as
common human values and spreading them as universal truth through books, newspapers,
radio and television. The same Western media is engaged in feverish negative
representation of Africa and Africans. The African continent featured on CNN is a tragic
one with starving women and children, with incurable diseases, and an abode of civil
wars. This Western hegemonic idea has been articulated clearly by the British Prime
Minister Tony Blair in a recent article on the battle for global values where he stated that:
We have to show that our values are not Western, still less American or Anglo-Saxon,
but values in the common ownership of humanity, universal values that should be the
right of the global citizen.52
Such thinking is seen by Africans as neo-liberal imperialism. Again such hegemonic and
essentialist thinking feed and reinforce bifurcation and polarisation of human-rights
discourse into universalism versus cultural relativism. For Africans to regain their dignity
50 Kuan-Hsing Chen, ‘Introduction: The Decolonization Question,’ in Kuan-Hsing Chen (ed.), Trajectories:
Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, (Taylor and Francis, London, 1998), p. 8.
51 Chinua Achebe quoted in Bart Moore-Gilbert, Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics, (Verso
Publishers, London, 1997), p. 179.
52 Blair, ‘A Battle for Global Values.’
21
and for them to project their voice at the global level, they have to solidify their identity
and mobilise their values just like all human being the world over. Strategic essentialism
becomes useful as a power issue whereby the West has the privilege to define its identity
and its values and to deploy these strategically to remain on the top of the ladder of
global power configuration. As noted by many scholars including V. Y. Mudimbe,
African identity and values have been defined and invented by others.53 The debate on
essentialism become very political when some scholars become very quick to deny Africa
and Africans the opportunity to define their own identity and values. When Africans
begin to project and present their own identity and distil values from their history and
culture, they are quickly told that theirs are inventions of colonialism.
Even the adoption of the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights [Banjul Charter]
in 1981 as an attempt to bridge the gap between the forces of universalism and the forces
of cultural relativism by Africans was subjected to serious criticism. Although there are
some like Pal Ahluwalia who saw sense in the adoption of such a charter to the extent of
writing that:
What is different about the African Charter is that it is a unique document which seeks to
include African values whilst recognising the importance of the internationally accepted
declarations and covenants of human rights.54
The criticisms have included the following:
• Its emphasis on collective rights rather than individual rights.
• Its emphasis on performance of duties by every African.
• Reduction of rights protection to those defined in national law.
• No clear restraint upon governments’ power even to create human rights
unconscious laws.55
The criticism also touched on the powerlessness of implementing agencies such as the
African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the power vested in the
53 V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa, (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1998).
54 Pal Ahluwalia, Politics and Post-Colonial Theory: African Inflections, (Routledge, London and New
York, 2001), p. 94.
55 Claude E. Welch, ‘The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights,’ in Human Rights
Quarterly, Volume 14, No.1, (1992), pp. 43-61.
22
Assembly (of Heads of State), a political body that was not likely to be an enthusiastic
guardian of human rights.56 While some of the criticisms were valid, the key problem is
that Western scholars and politicians are fond of saying the right things for wrong reasons
about initiatives from Africa. The philosophy permeating western thought is that nothing
positive could come from the ‘dark continent.’
Any endeavour to raise issues of African values and African identity faces serious
resistance from the anti-essentialist scholars. These scholars go to the extent of doubting
whether there is anything like Africa in the first place. The anti-essentialists are quick to
raise issues of differentiation and heterogeneity within Africa. The anti-essentialist
scholars raise such questions as:
• Does Africa exist as a homogenous cultural entity from Cape to Cairo?
• Is there anything like common African values and African wisdom?
• Who defines African values and African wisdom?
Taking an anti-essentialist position Terence Ranger raised the issue of invention of
tradition, arguing that what exists as African oral tradition, African custom, African
culture, African wisdom and African values is in reality re-inventions of colonialism as
well as African reconstructions. Ranger added that:
As for historians, they have at least a double task. They have to free themselves from the
illusion that the African custom recorded by officials or by many anthropologists is any
sort of guide to the African past. But they also need to appreciate how much invented
traditions of all kinds have to do with the history of Africa in the twentieth century and
strive to produce better founded accounts of them….57
One needs to pose a challenging question here that if colonialists were free to re-invent
African traditions and re-define African values for instrumentalist colonial purposes, is it
not only very pertinent for Africans to be given a chance to define themselves and their
values for purposes of liberating themselves from colonial yoke? Are values and
identities not at the centre of power struggles? Is naming not part of claiming something
56 Thomas Buergenthal, International Human Rights in a Nutshell, (West Publishing, New York, 1988).
57 Ibid. See also Terence Ranger, ‘The Invention of Tradition Revisited: The Case of Colonial Africa,’ in
Terence Ranger and Olufemi Vaughan (eds.), Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-Century Africa,
(Macmillan, London, 1993), pp. 62-111.
23
as one’s own? Is denying Africans the chance to present their own identity and define
their values not part of the broader politics of keeping Africans in a ‘subaltern position’
within global power politics?
The issue at stake is power differentials here. When Africans begin to assert their
identity, their history, and their values in positive terms compared to the colonial strategic
appropriations, re-inventions and re-deployment African traditions and values for
purposes of disempowerment, those who have claimed for themselves superiority of their
cultures and values begin to shake and to take anti-essentialist defensive positions.
Richness of African traditions and values need to be mobilised in this current struggle to
position Africa within global politics.
What is crucial to note is that as people across the world become critical of modernity
and as they imagine a new future, the issue of which values should guide society becomes
very pertinent. On the African continent, the idea of African Renaissance is predicated on
using insights from pre-colonial past, African traditions and African culture to inform the
Africa struggles for development and for continental ascendancy into the centre of global
power politics. This African drive for space in global governance has seen the emergence
of scholars committed to recovery of progressive aspects of African history, African
values and African culture to assist in the solution of intractable problems of conflict for
instance. Vasu Gounden, the Director of the African Centre for the Constructive
Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) based in South Africa, writing a foreword to Jannie
Malan’s book Conflict Resolution Wisdom from Africa and stated that:
We have held a firm belief, for a long time, that Africa has a rich heritage and history,
supplemented by a colourful oral tradition that is pregnant with knowledge and expertise.
We do not therefore have to look far for the answers to our challenges. Our problem
today is that the intrusion of modernity and its attendant features, especially the
gravitation of communities to urban life, has robbed the oral tradition of its utility as a
tool for transferring centuries of useful life experiences and communal approaches to
problem solving.58
58 Jannie Malan, Conflict Resolution Wisdom from Africa, (ACCORD, Durban, 1997), p. 4.
24
The beginning of the new millennium inspired many people across the globe who hoped
for re-invention of human values in order to realise broader human rights and democracy.
Cascading from this optimism was the expectation of a new human rights regime that was
more inclusive and effective than the previous one that was spoiled by Cold War
conflagration and proxy war across the world. This optimistic mood carried the world
leaders to New York for United Nations’ Millennium Summit where they adopted United
Nations Millennium Declaration stated that:
We believe that the central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalisation
becomes a positive force for all the world’s people…Only through broad and sustained
efforts to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, can
globalisation be made fully inclusive and equitable. These efforts must include policies
and measures, at the global level, which correspond to the needs of developing countries
and economies in transition and are formulated and implemented with their effective
participation.59
It was against this era of optimism that United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) boldly stated that ‘developed in a state-centred world, the international system
of human rights protection is suited to post-war era, not the era of globalisation.’60 Three
key criticism were levelled against current human rights universe. First is the narrow
legalist conception, which allows only states to be parties to the conventions, meant to
protect human rights. What we currently have is a state-centred human rights regime.
This approach has failed to capture the existential variety of non-state actors capable of
gross and systematic human rights violations as well as protection of human rights. What
is needed is to transcend this narrow state-centric conception of human rights through
‘giving voice and choice to the powerless within power structures.’61 The second major
problem is identified by Michael Goodhart and he locates it directly within the classical
liberal theory of human rights and it relates to the ‘artificial separation of the ‘public’ and
‘private’ realms. This has led to the ‘exclusion of non-state actors and left some people,
especially women, particularly vulnerable and subject to violations by private actors who
59 United Nations Millennium Declaration.
60 UNDP, Human Development Report, 2000, p. 43.
61 George J. Andreopoulos, Zehra F. Kabasa Arat, and Peter Juviler, ‘Introduction,’ in G. J. Andreopoulos
at al (eds.) Non-State Actors in the Human Rights Universe, (Kumarian Press, Bloomfield, 2006), pp. xviiixiv.
25
dominate not only the public but also the private domain, including family.’62 The third
problem was raised by anthropologists who since the drafting of the Universal
Declaration in 1948 have remained critical of universalisation of human values based on
Western civilisation.
Anthropologists like Melville Herskovits criticised ‘what they perceived as the
ethnocentric extension of absolutist Western values’ during the drafting of the United
Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1947. Herskovits in particular urged
the international community ‘to respect cultural differences.’63 In 1947, the American
Anthropological Association issued a ‘Statement on Human Rights’ that was submitted to
the UN Commission on Human Rights, emphasising Western cultural biases in the Draft
UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights:
It will not be convincing to the Indonesian, the African, the Indian, the Chinese, if it lies
on the same plane as like documents of the earlier period. The rights of man in the
Twentieth Century cannot be circumscribed by the standards of any single culture or be
dictated by the aspirations of any single people.64
Supporting the stand taken by earlier anthropologists, Richard A. Wilson recently added
that, ‘In so doing, he [Herskovits] defined the roles of the anthropologists as advocates of
indigenous peoples who would defend them from attempts by international agencies such
as the UN to globalise a set of ‘western’ moral values.’65 However, since the days of
Herskovits, anthropologists have moved away from the simple rejection of global values
and norms to a position where they appreciate the argument of universalisation of human
rights value based on the appreciation of the reality concerning ‘globalisation of cultural,
economic, and political processes.’66 The idea of a ‘post-cultural world’ facilitated by
economic and commercial transactions, global communications, transnational movements
62 Michael Goodhart, ‘Human Rights and Non -State Actors: Theoretical Puzzles,’ in G. J. Andreopoulos at
al (eds.) Non-State Actors in the Human Rights Universe, (Kumarian Press, Bloomfield, 2006), pp. 23-30.
63Richard A. Wilson, ‘Human Rights, Culture and Context: An Introduction,’ in Richard A. Wilson (ed.),
Human Rights, Culture and Culture: Anthropological Perspective, (Pluto Press, London, 1997), p. 1-2.
64 Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, ‘Statement on Human Rights,’ in
American Anthropologist, Volume 49, (1947), p. 543.
65 Ibid.
66 Ngwabi Bhebe and Terence Ranger, ‘ General Introduction,’ in N. Bhebe and T. Ranger (eds.), The
Historical Dimensions of Democracy and Human Rights in Zimbabwe: Volume One: Pre-Colonial and
Colonial Legacies, (University of Zimbabwe Publications, Harare, 2001), pp. xiii-xiv.
26
of capital, and huge movements of populations has come to be accepted by
anthropologists. They advocate for ‘contextualisation, interpretation and negotiation’ of a
multiplicity of values ‘into and with local situations.’ Hence, Wilson concluded that:
Thus our study of human rights becomes an exploration of how rights-based normative
discourses are produced, translated, and materialised in a variety of contexts.67
Alongside acceptance of globalisation, African leaders are also pushing the agenda of
African Renaissance pivoted on recovery of positive aspects of African civilisation,
African culture, and African wisdom in the re-making of Africa.68 One of the widely
discussed key contours of African culture that is permeating the ethos of African
Renaissance is the discourse of ‘ubuntu’ as a value that Africa offers to the world.
Ubuntu means humanness that has crystallised around African communal solidarity.
Ubuntu encapsulates the key idea that the self is defined in terms of relationships to
others and that happiness and fulfilment are to be found within these relations. It enables
human beings to acknowledge and appreciate unity in their humanity despite
differences.69 The Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Archbishop Desmond Tutu stated that:
Africans have this thing called UBUNTU…the essence of being human, it is part of the
gift that Africa will give the world. It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being
willing to go an extra mile for the sake of others. We believe a person is person through
another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up and inextricable in yours. When
I dehumanise you, I inexorably dehumanise myself. The solitary human being is a
contradiction in terms and, therefore, you seek to work for the common good because
your humanity comes into its own community, in belonging.70
Ubuntu is an ideology of reciprocity, a ‘tradition of giving something to the people as
well as taxing them.’ It entails a sub-ideology of limitation on the powers of authority and
of respect for the rights of humans.71 This ideology of ubuntu is said to permeates the
broad spectrum of African civilisations spread across the continent. Like all ideologies
the world over, ubuntu was articulated in varied idioms and varied languages. The
67 Wilson, ‘Human Rights, Culture and Context: An Introduction,’ pp. 8-14.
68 Mose Oke, ‘Cultural Nostalgia: A Philosophical Critique of Appeals to the Past in Theories of Re-
Making Africa,’ in Nordic Journal of African Studies, 15 (3), 2006, pp. 332-343.
69 Workineh Kelbessa, ‘Re-Mapping Global Realities: The Necessity of Including African and Other ‘Third
World’ Voices,’ (Paper presented at International Conference on ‘Crisis in Africa at the Beginning of this
Millennium: The Response of Philosophy, Science and Religion at Seat of Wisdom Seminary, Owerri,
Nigeria, March 21-25 March 2006), p.9.
70 Quoted in Mukanda Mulemfo, Thabo Mbeki and the African Renaissance, (Actual Press (Pty) Ltd,
Pretoria, 2000), pp. 57-58.
71 Stanlake Samkange and Tommie Samkange, Hunhuism or Ubuntuism: A Zimbabwe Indigenous
Philosophy, (Graham Publishers, Salisbury, 1979).
27
Sotho/Tswana traditions that emphasised the maxim that ‘a chief is a chief because of the
people’ speaks directly to the African notions of governance, justice, and the
government’s duties to the people.
Similarly, the institution of kgotla among the Tswana has direct relevance to the notions
of direct democracy, justice, equality and tolerance.72 Among Nguni societies two
popular proverbs captured their conceptions of human relations and the relations of the
ruler to the ruled. These were umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (a human being is a human
being because of the people) and inkosi yinkosi ngabantu (a king is a king because of the
people). In short, what permeated and was central in human relations was the human
being. Even those with power enjoyed that power because of the people. Without the
people there is no king. This public ideology underpinned contours of reciprocity,
solidarity, communality, legitimacy and accountability. The emphasis was on
interdependence of human beings. All this was underwritten by a strong kinship ideology
and the nation as an extended family under a revered but accountable leader. The current
global village must be re-imagined as an extended family underwritten by human kinship
ideology, then such problems as racism, exclusion, oppression, xenophobia, exploitation
can be minimal. The liberal fashioned world emphasising individuality over
collective/communal rights has created selfishness, exploitative impulses as opposed to
human brotherhood and sisterhood consonant with the notion of a global village and the
spirit of interdependence among human beings.
However, anti-essentialist have even dismissed the discourse of ubuntu as just n

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