A Humanist in Africa. Letters to Colin M. Morris

Kaunda, Kenneth D.

doi:10.5771/0506-7286-1969-4-522

Cited by 7 publications

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“…Kenneth Kaunda characterized traditional society as a mutual society, organized to satisfy the basic human needs of all its members, where individualism was discouraged (Kaunda 1966). That society was also an accepting community and did not take failure in a rigid, absolute sense.…”

Section: Tribal Norms In Traditional Africamentioning

confidence: 96%

Status to contract society: Africa's integrity crisis

Wamala

2008

Journal of Global Ethics

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This paper argues for the need for a better grounded theoretical understanding of the integrity crisis facing much of sub-Saharan Africa. Many of Africa's problems are not unique or peculiar to the region. The paper locates Africa's integrity crisis in the social historical situation characterized by what we term the tribesperson in transition, a phenomenon where people find themselves caught up in tensions, conflicts and anxieties as they attempt to transit from the traditional to the modern. These conflicts, tensions and anxieties create the integrity crisis we are witnessing. Problems are exacerbated by the fact that even the very states themselves are bifurcated along the lines of modern versus tribal/ethnic. Failure to develop national consensus on moral matters, a reluctance of modern states to meet their obligations to their people, and failure to incorporate moral virtues from tribal society into modern contract societies are some of the problems exacerbating the moral problem the region faces. We offer related ideas as avenues to solutions.

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Section: Tribal Norms In Traditional Africamentioning

confidence: 96%

Status to contract society: Africa's integrity crisis

Wamala

2008

Journal of Global Ethics

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“…In spite the distortions of capitalism, remnants of communal social relations still exists in some rural African societies (Fagunwa 2014). By the way, the slight existence of these remnants has been overblown by a fraction of Africanist scholars (Kaunda 1967). To these scholars, the "African traditional society" still exists.…”

Section: Conceptualizing An African Epistemology: Ubuntumentioning

confidence: 99%

Ubuntu: Revisiting an Endangered African Philosophy in Quest of a Pan-Africanist Revolutionary Ideology

Fagunwa

2019

Genealogy

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In the final analysis, Kwame Nkrumah advanced that pan-Africanism must be about the unity of African masses under socialist governments. However, the concept of pan-Africanism in recent times has been misconstrued in the most treacherous manner. On one hand, the concept has been reduced to a “dansiki-wearing” competition by a layer of cultural nationalists; and on the other hand, it has been reduced to a “Black capitalism” bourgeois agenda. In spite of the apparent failures of capitalism, bourgeois economists like Nigeria’s Tony Elumelu, have been peddling a purported refined capitalist system under the ambiance of “Africapitalism”, as a stimulant for economic growth and development in Africa. Under the pretense of a “pan-African” agenda, bourgeois economists have been touting this neoliberal agenda across the continent and beyond, for self-serving purposes. The danger this portends is the detachment of pan-Africanism from its socialist agenda. Indeed, existing works on African personality have showed the nexus between a pre-colonial communal relationship and socialism. The Sotho epistemology, Ubuntu, is undoubtedly a product of this ancient communal relationship. Ubuntu expresses the humanistic tendencies that are fast going into extinction in today’s individualistic society. Ultimately, the withering of Ubuntu is not unconnected to the dominance of capitalism. The economic system through alienation has not just distorted the relationship among humans, but also between humans and nature. This study thus argues that Ubuntu as a value system is a material product of pre-feudal African society; and that because of this trajectory, Ubuntu must be reassessed as a potential social force for resistance that can pave the way for the emergence of a scientific socialist African society. Ubuntu is not scientific socialism and vice-versa, but the value system if properly understood can lay the foundation towards the birth of the former.

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“…When one takes the African environment seriously, life is viewed as an essential ingredient of our being human within the dynamics of human relationships (Kaunda 1967).…”

Section: Life Within the Framework Of African Spiritualities: Intercumentioning

confidence: 99%

Practical theology as life science: Fides <i>Quaerens Vivendi</i> and its connection to Hebrew thinking (Hālak)

Louw

2017

In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi

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The term practical theology is complex and, due to many different religious and cultural settings, a many layered concept. During the past 40 years the paradigm in theory formation for an academic and disciplinary approach to practical theology shifted from the clerical and ecclesial paradigm of ministerial actions to experiences of faith with the emphasis on an empirical based epistemology. Rather than a deductive approach, the shift is towards a more inductive approach within the methodological framework of phenomenology. Currently, in the international discourse on theory formation, there is a tendency towards a hermeneutical approach with the focus on the networking, relational dynamics of civil society Thus, the attempt to describe practical theology as a kind of ‘life science’ (the concern for the mundane and existential reality of everyday life – Alltagsreligion). Within the context of African spiritualties, with its emphasis on the communal dynamics of vital, human relationships, the focus on lifestyles becomes vital. In light of an ontology of life (l’energie spirituelle – Henri Bergson), the notion of fides quaerens vivendi [faith seeking lifestyles] is researched. With reference to the theory of complexification and chaosmos as well as the impact thereof on different theories in life sciences, the connection between sapientia and the vivid praxis of God is critically explored. The focus of this article is on the question: What is the impact of an ontology of life on both praxis thinking and theological reflection? Instead of the Cartesian framework of causative definitions, the notion of the ‘infinition of God’ is proposed within the praxis of Hebrew, wisdom thinking.

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A Humanist in Africa. Letters to Colin M. Morris

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Status to contract society: Africa's integrity crisis

Status to contract society: Africa's integrity crisis

Ubuntu: Revisiting an Endangered African Philosophy in Quest of a Pan-Africanist Revolutionary Ideology

Practical theology as life science: Fides <i>Quaerens Vivendi</i> and its connection to Hebrew thinking (Hālak)

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