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The Centre for Gender and Africa Studies (CGAS) and the UFS will host an Africa Day Webinar on the topic, Reflections on Africa amidst Covid-19, to be delivered by Prof. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, renowned decolonial scholar. The title of his lecture is Revisiting the African idea of Africa during the moment of Covid-19 pandemic.
The crisis delivered by Coronavirus and Covid-19 invites Africans to rethink and even unthink the long-standing dependency on Europe and North America for help. What has dawned on Africa is the equally long-standing aspiration of self-reliance. What is emerging is a new African idea of Africa which takes responsibility for its own challenges. This new African idea of Africa challenges the Mudimbean idea of Africa embodied in the colonial library.
Thus this presentation reassesses how Africa has relied on its own historical experience, its own knowledge, and own people to confront Covid-19. What is of interest here is the proverbial wisdom of necessity being the source of invention. The presentation brings to the fore the decolonial turn as it gestures beyond crisis into post-Covid-19 world order. It ends with a call for decolonial love founded on new ethics of living together and new economies of care.
Bio of Prof Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatshen
Date: Tuesday, 26 May, 2020
Time: 14:00
Duration: 90 min max (45 min talk, 45 min Q&A)
The webinar can be accessed via one of the following links:
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Leadership is about people, Tsedu
2009-09-16
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Mr Mathatha Tsedu, Head of the Journalism Academy at Media24
Photo: Dries Myburgh |
Modern-day leaders have neither the inclination nor the will to lead the very people who have entrusted them with that responsibility, said Mr Mathatha Tsedu, Head of the Journalism Academy at Media24.
The former City Press editor delivered the 2nd King Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein last night.
He said the current state of leadership in South Africa was characterised by patronage and self-enrichment.
“The poorest of the poor and our affection for them extends only to public meetings where we mouth socialist slogans. But in reality we want nothing to do with them and they have to fend for themselves,” he said.
“Leadership has to be more than just the power of a mayor, premier, MEC or minister to dish out tenders to friends for projects that never get completed. Projects whose real legacy is the fact that the friend of the leader now drives a Hummer.”
He said leadership had to be about people but acknowledged the fact that it would not happen unless people themselves insisted on that.
“King Moshoeshoe teaches us that leadership is about taking decisions and taking risks. Not only as leaders but more especially as members of the community,” he said.
“We can address our critical challenges only if citizens’ groups, business, labour and broader civil society actively engage with the state to improve delivery and enforce an accountable government.”
He appealed to leaders to follow the example of King Moshoeshoe and always put people first, and involve them, in the decisions that they take.
“This is about concern for others and for self. It is about compassion in leadership and in society, it is about caring beyond own concerns. It is about being involved and engaged. These are the attributes that I feel King Moshoeshoe left us as a legacy of leadership. Leadership not only of the leaders but of the led,” he said.
Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt.stg@ufs.ac.za
10 September 2009
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