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From a pre-colonial to a COVID-19/post- university

25 May 2020 | Story Dr Munyaradzi Mushonga | Photo Supplied

Dr Mushonga_edit — Dr Munyaradzi Mushonga

As we virtually celebrate Africa Month in 2020, it is worth reflecting on the journey of the African university as a reminder of where we are coming from, where we are today, and where we are going. The emergence and development of university education in Africa can be conceptualised in four distinct phases, namely the pre-colonial university (before 1900), the colonial university (1900-c.1960), the developmental (post-colonial) university (1961-c.1980), and the market (entrepreneurial)/crisis-era university (1980-present). If we follow this scheme, with the Coronavirus and COVID-19 in our midst, the African university is entering the fifth phase. Just a week into the pandemic, African universities were already experimenting with various online learning and teaching approaches to keep the academic programme afloat, away from the walled university.

Higher education on the African continent long antedates the establishment of Western-style universities in the 19th century and is traceable to the 3rd century BC. The oldest university still in existence is Al-Azhar in Egypt, founded in 969 AD. It is regarded as one of the leading Islamic HE institutions in the world today. Not only did the idea of higher learning begin in Africa, but the spread of universities into “Western Europe was mainly through the traffic of knowledge and ideas that flowed across the Strait of Gibraltar from North Africa” (Tisani, 2005:2).

Colonial universities were a product of the European colonisation of Africa and most of these emerged after the Second World War. Their mandate was to reorient European colonies through the idea of ‘colonial development’ as well as to “cultivate and sustain indigenous elites” moulded along European traditions; elites that would be crucial in maintaining links with the former colonial powers after the departure of the physical empire from Africa (Munene, 2010:400). Thus, colonial universities were among the major instruments and vehicles of cultural westernisation and assimilation, bent on removing the hard disk of previous African knowledge and memory, and downloading into it a software of European memory. Today, the continent remains dominated by universities shaped by the logics of colonialism. It is this resilient colonial university that decoloniality seeks to disrupt and to plant in its place an African university steeped in epistemologies of the Global South.

Following the retreat of the physical empire, African states established development-orientated universities. It was readily accepted that HE was capable of contributing to the social, cultural, and economic development of Africa. As such, many universities were initially generously funded and supported by the state. However, this commitment only lasted for about a decade or so. The ‘independence’ university was overly concerned with first – ‘Africanising’ the public service, and second – with the anti-colonialist aspiration of taking over and ‘Africanising’ positions within the institution. The more nationalism turned into a state project, the more pressure there was on the developmentalist university to implement a state-determined and state-driven agenda, and the more this happened, “the more critical thought was taken as subversive of the national project” (Mamdani, 2008). Resultantly, the university lost its original mandate and the international policy environment did not help matters, as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund suggested that ‘Africa did not need university education’ and called for the privatisation of public universities.

The fate of the ‘developmental university’ was sealed in 1990 when the World Conference on Education for All prioritised elementary education. The increasing frustration with the perceived failure of the ‘developmental university’ on the one hand, and changed Western priorities and the inevitable influence of Western aid and Western academic organisations on the other hand, gave rise to the market (entrepreneurial)/crisis-era university. Since the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s, many African universities have been under pressure to liberalise, following the retreat of the state in the provision of education. This led to various forms of disputes and contestations (#FeesMustFall is one of them) – contestations centred on the meaning, purpose, and mission of an African university (Zeleza and Olukoshi, 2004:1) in a fast decolonising yet liberalising environment.

Today, with the Coronavirus and COVID-19 in our midst, one thing is certain – the pandemic will have a lasting impact on all national institutions, the African university included. It is not possible to predict the kind of university that might emerge both during and beyond the pandemic. However, the following questions might help us imagine such a university. What kind of university do we have (now/today)? What kind of university do we want? What kind of university do we need? What kind of university can we afford? These are transhistorical questions that have informed all previous versions of the university. Clearly, the COVID-19 pandemic is sure to give birth to another crisis-era university. While such a university will be dictated by the prevailing socio-economic and socio-political ideologies and landscapes shaped by the pandemic, we should also refuse to allow the pandemic to define such a university for us. The COVID-19 pandemic should only be used as a stage for a ‘great leap’ forward. The pandemic offers the African university a fresh start. Yet, we must, as some Kovsies have already cautioned, guard against the temptation to respond to crises in particularist and isolationist fashions. It is time to overcome. It is time to unite. It is time to grab the bull by the horns. It is time for Africa’s place in the sun. #ONEAFRICA.

This article was written by Dr Munyaradzi Mushonga, Programme Director: Africa Studies, Centre for Gender and Africa Studies

News Archive

Media: ANC can learn a lesson from Moshoeshoe

2006-05-20

27/05/2006 20:32 - (SA)
ANC can learn a lesson from Moshoeshoe
ON 2004, the University of the Free State turned 100 years old. As part of its centenary celebrations, the idea of the Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture was mooted as part of another idea: to promote the study of the meaning of Moshoeshoe.

This lecture comes at a critical point in South Africa's still-new democracy. There are indications that the value of public engagement that Moshoeshoe prized highly through his lipitso [community gatherings], and now also a prized feature in our democracy, may be under serious threat. It is for this reason that I would like to dedicate this lecture to all those in our country and elsewhere who daily or weekly, or however frequently, have had the courage to express their considered opinions on pressing matters facing our society. They may be columnists, editors, commentators, artists of all kinds, academics and writers of letters to the editor, non-violent protesters with their placards and cartoonists who put a mirror in front of our eyes.

There is a remarkable story of how Moshoeshoe dealt with Mzilikazi, the aggressor who attacked Thaba Bosiu and failed. So when Mzilikazi retreated from Thaba Bosiu with a bruised ego after failing to take over the mountain, Moshoeshoe, in an unexpected turn of events, sent him cattle to return home bruised but grateful for the generosity of a victorious target of his aggression. At least he would not starve along the way. It was a devastating act of magnanimity which signalled a phenomenal role change.

"If only you had asked," Moshoeshoe seemed to be saying, "I could have given you some cattle. Have them anyway."

It was impossible for Mzilikazi not to have felt ashamed. At the same time, he could still present himself to his people as one who was so feared that even in defeat he was given cattle. At any rate, he never returned.

I look at our situation in South Africa and find that the wisdom of Moshoeshoe's method produced one of the defining moments that led to South Africa's momentous transition to democracy. Part of Nelson Mandela's legacy is precisely this: what I have called counter-intuitive leadership and the immense possibilities it offers for re-imagining whole societies.

A number of events in the past 12 months have made me wonder whether we are faced with a new situation that may have arisen. An increasing number of highly intelligent, sensitive and highly committed South Africans across the class, racial and cultural spectrum confess to feeling uncertain and vulnerable as never before since 1994. When indomitable optimists confess to having a sense of things unhinging, the misery of anxiety spreads. It must have something to do with an accumulation of events that convey the sense of impending implosion. It is the sense that events are spiralling out of control and no one among the leadership of the country seems to have a handle on things.

I should mention the one event that has dominated the national scene continuously for many months now. It is, of course, the trying events around the recent trial and acquittal of Jacob Zuma. The aftermath continues to dominate the news and public discourse. What, really, have we learnt or are learning from it all? It is probably too early to tell. Yet the drama seems far from over, promising to keep us all without relief, and in a state of anguish. It seems poised to reveal more faultlines in our national life than answers and solutions.

We need a mechanism that will affirm the different positions of the contestants validating their honesty in a way that will give the public confidence that real solutions are possible. It is this kind of openness, which never comes easily, that leads to breakthrough solutions, of the kind Moshoeshoe's wisdom symbolises.

Who will take this courageous step? What is clear is that a complex democracy like South Africa's cannot survive a single authority. Only multiple authorities within a constitutional framework have a real chance. I want to press this matter further.

Could it be that part of the problem is that we are unable to deal with the notion of "opposition". We are horrified that any of us could become "the opposition". In reality, it is time we began to anticipate the arrival of a moment when there was no longer a single [overwhelmingly] dominant political force as is currently the case. Such is the course of change. The measure of the maturity of the current political environment will be in how it can create conditions that anticipate that moment rather than ones that seek to prevent it. This is the formidable challenge of a popular post-apartheid political movement.

Can it conceptually anticipate a future when it is no longer overwhelmingly in control, in the form in which it currently is and resist, counter-intuitively, the temptation to prevent such an eventuality? Successfully resisting such an option would enable its current vision and its ultimate legacy to our country to manifest itself in different articulations of itself, which then contend for social influence.

In this way, the vision never really dies, it simply evolves into higher, more complex forms of itself. If the resulting versions are what is called "the opposition" that should not be such a bad thing - unless we want to invent another name for it. The image of flying ants going off to start other similar settlements is not so inappropriate.

I do not wish to suggest that the nuptial flights of the alliance partners are about to occur: only that it is a mark of leadership foresight to anticipate them conceptually. Any political movement that has visions of itself as a perpetual entity should look at the compelling evidence of history. Few have survived those defining moments when they should have been more elastic, and that because they were not, did not live to see the next day.

I believe we may have reached a moment not fundamentally different from the sobering, yet uplifting and vision-making, nation-building realities that led to Kempton Park in the early 1990s. The difference between then and now is that the black majority is not facing white compatriots across the negotiating table. Rather, it is facing itself: perhaps really for the first time since 1994. It is not a time for repeating old platitudes. Could we apply to ourselves the same degree of inventiveness and rigorous negotiation we displayed up to the adoption or our Constitution?

Morena Moshoeshoe faced similarly formative challenges. He seems to have been a great listener. No problem was too insignificant that it could not be addressed. He seems to have networked actively across the spectrum of society. He seems to have kept a close eye on the world beyond Lesotho, forming strong friendships and alliances, weighing his options constantly. He seems to have had patience and forbearance. He had tons of data before him before he could propose the unexpected. He tells us across the years that moments of renewal demand no less.

This is an editied version of the inaugural Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture presented by Univeristy of Cape Town vice-chancellor Professor Ndebele at the University of the Free State on Thursday. Perspectives on Leadership Challenges In South Africa

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