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25 May 2020 | Story Prof Danie Brand | Photo iStock
We are indeed privileged to have this paper from Prof Toyin Falola to include in our celebrations of Africa Day. Toyin Falola is a world-renowned African. A scholar of African history and African studies, he holds the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas, Austin. He has published, as author or editor, more than 100 scholarly books on topics ranging from diaspora, migration, empire and globalization to intellectual history, international relations, religion and culture. He has been awarded seven honorary doctorates and has received, among many other awards, the Distinguished Africanist Award from the African Studies Association, the Ibadan Foundation Award for Professional Excellence in Scholarship and the Cheikh Anta Diop Award for Excellence in African Studies. He served as Vice President of UNESCO’s International Scientific Committee, Slave Route Project from 2011 – 2015 and currently is a member of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellows Programme and the International Committee of the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute at UNISA.

In this wide-ranging paper, originally presented as keynote address at the Visions of African Unity (1930s – 2018) conference at the University of the Free State, Prof Falola begins with a tour of the intellectual history of ideas of African Continentalism (Pan-Africanism / African Unity), from Henry Sylvester Williams, through WEB du Bois, Marcus Garvey, George Padmore and Julius Nyerere, to Kwame Nkrumah. He then describes the current institutional landscape of African unity and present-day intellectual versions of African Continentalism. Asking, and answering the question ‘Why must Africa unite?’, he then proceeds, on the basis of a consideration of more contemporary intellectual versions of African continentalism such as Black Consciousness, Black Nationalism, Afropolitanism, and now Afrofuturism (which he depicts as ‘ideological dispensations of true African cultural recovery and re-orientation’), to propose a disaggregated approach to contemporary African unity that is not fixated on global-Northern models. This means that unity should (re)start small, working territorially from regional units toward a continental unit, on the one hand; and on the other, seeking unity and cooperation around discrete substantive themes, from the more obvious and traditional, such as economic policy, global politics and a reformed unified political and military system, to the less, such as common educational policy, synergizing science and technology with African culture(s) and language, culture and literary exchange.

We thank him for the gift.

News Archive

UFS academic discusses Dutch, Afrikaans and African languages
2006-05-22

During the colloquium presented in Belgium by the Province Antwerp were from the left Prof Pol Cuvelier (University of Antwerp), Prof Theo du Plessis (Director: Unit for Language Management at the UFS), Mr Ludo Helsen (Permanent Deputy: Province of Antwerp) and Mr Jean-Pierre Rondas (Flemish radio journalist).

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UFS academic discusses Dutch, Afrikaans and African languages at international conference

Prof Theo du Plessis, Director of the Unit for Language Management at the University of the Free State (UFS), was the main speaker at a colloquium titled “Routes:  Where to now? - Een traject van het Nederlands naar het Afrikaans en de Afrikatalen”, which was recently presented by the Province Antwerp in Belgium.

 The aim of the colloquium was to discuss the future cooperation in the field of language between the Province Antwerp and South Africa. 

 The Province Antwerp is already involved with projects in South Africa.  One of these projects is the Multilingual Information Development Programme (MIDP), a partnership project between the UFS and the Free State Province that is mainly funded by the Province Antwerp. 

 The project has been running since 1999 and was recently in the news with the presentation of a symposium on multilingualism and exclusion on the Main Campus of the UFS.  It is hoped that the Routes colloquium will indicate new stages on which can be added to the already successful cooperation in the area of language.

 Prof Du Plessis’s presentation titled “Nederlands, Afrikaans en die Afrikatale – kan samewerking slaag? Die geval MIDP in die Vrystaat”, investigated the successes that have been made with the MIDP.  He discussed two possible approaches to cooperation in the areas of language, that of a sentimentalistic  approach against an instrumentalistic approach. 

Cooperation in the first approach makes language the aim.  In the second approach language is used as a means to a greater aim.  According to Prof du Plessis the first approach is driven by a romantisised idea about the relation between the Flemish and Afrikaans speaking people, which may unfortunately polarise the position of Afrikaans in South Africa even further.

 He argues that, given the time that we are in, the second approach will deliver more constructive results as language can among others be used for to further  democracy in South Africa.   This can happen by cooperation in the institutionalising of multilingualism in our society.  The more languages are used in education, law and government administration, the more we can be assured a successful democracy.

 The Routes colloquium was facilitated by the well-known Flemish radio journalist, Jean-Pierre Rondas. About twenty South African and Flemish language specialists took part in the colloquium.  Dr Fritz Kok, outgoing chief executive officer of the ATKV took part in the opening ceremony and Dr Neville Alexander from the University of Cape Town and well-known activist for multilingualism in South Africa was also one of the main speakers.

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