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18 May 2020 | Story Dr Marinkie Madiope | Photo Sonia Small (Kaleidoscope Studios)
Dr Marinkie Madiope.

In IsiZulu, there is a saying that goes, ‘indlela inbuzwa kwa ba phambili’, which can be loosely translated into, ‘direction is asked for, from those who’ve walked the path’. According to the illustrious Credo Mutwa, in his seminal masterpiece, Indaba my Children, 

“these are the stories that old men and old women tell to boys and girls seated with open mouths around the spark-wreathed fires in the centres of the villages in the dark forests and on the aloe-scented plains of Africa. Under the gaze of the laughing stars the Old One sits, his kaross wrapped around his age-blasted shoulders, staring with rheumy eyes at the semi-circle of eager expectant faces before him – faces of those who have taken but a few steps along the dark and uncertain footpath called Life – faces of the ones yet oblivious to the pain of life’s bitter scourges – faces yet unmarked by furrows of bitterness, ill-health and anger – the fresh, pure, open faces of…children. The fire dances in the middle of the round clay fireplace like a virgin revelling in the simple joy of being alive. It devours the dry twigs and logs that a little girl is constantly feeding it, leaving nothing but glowing ashes. It mocks the silent sky with a redly luminous column of smoke against its starry face and by sending up short-lived stars of its own”|

As the birthplace of humankind, the motherland, homeland, and ancestral origin of everyone on the planet, Africa is a blessed, special, and beautiful continent. It is an expansive abode of rich diversity, striking complexities and ornate nuances and peculiarities, both in its people and in its biomes.

With approximately 2 100 languages spoken by more than 3 000 ethnic groups in our population of just over 1,3 billion individuals spread across 55 countries, Africa is culturally, philosophically, and linguistically a very wealthy land.
Our shared, priceless heritage is littered with shining examples of the excellence, resilience, ingenuity, fortitude of character, strength, spirit, and love of our people. We have adapted to desertification, unshackled ourselves from slavery, replenished ourselves from years of famine, battled deadly viral diseases, nursed ourselves out of internecine conflicts, liberated ourselves from colonial oppression, and together, through it all, held fast the inherited role we collectively hold as custodians of humanity.

As Enock Maregesi spiritedly states:
“We are the children of Nelson Mandela; we are the children of Kwame Nkrumah; we are the children of Haile Selassie; we are the children of Samora Machel; we are the children of Robert Mugabe; we are the children of Patrice Lumumba; we are the children of Julius Kambarage Nyerere. We know who we are!”

And in this reverent knowledge of who we are, where we come from and what we have experienced to bring us to this present day where we celebrate our languages, our customs, our traditions, our ethnicities, our similarities and differences, our uniqueness, our Africa, and by virtue of that, our Africanness, we not only remember, but resonate with the heart-stirring words of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, “I am not African because I was born in Africa, but because Africa was born in me!”

We are grateful for the providence with which our continent has been virtuously spared from the unprecedented eventualities that have become synonymous with the leap year of 2020. The onset of the global lockdowns following the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, averted a situation that could have escalated into a third world war; decreased the worldwide carbon emissions and pollution drastically; and served as a clarion call to unite humanity in the common goal of the preservation of human life. In spite of the hardships that came with re-adjusting our focus back to self-sufficiency, self-preservation through social distancing, and redefining what we term as essential, all of humankind has joined in remembering. Remembering how to do for self, remembering to care for those in need, remembering to cherish and respect the planet, and most importantly, remembering their African ancestry.

As we dutifully charter forth through the eternal passage of time, continuously evolving in conscious intelligence, consistently preserving human existence and steadily riding the throes of modernisation by globalisation, we invite all of humankind to take heed of our guidance, and ask for direction from those who have walked the path before. Let us illuminate the way forward for our planet by using the knowledge and ways that have been laboriously and painstakingly preserved for us by our forebearers though centuries of oppression, apartheid, discrimination, and derogation. 

We overcome. We inspire. We rise. We adapt. We thrive. It is our legacy to steer humankind back home, back to basics, back to mother earth. The historic events that have marked the first half of 2020 have highlighted to the world the inescapable importance of the cardinal African values of Ubuntu and a sustainable co-existence with nature. 

No, we are not African because we are born in Africa, we are Africans because Africa is born within us. Let us construct for the world a new model of being, a model of old, a model of nature, a model of our African nature.

On this Africa Day, go forth African child, and remember your sacred duty. Live your glorious destiny. Show the way for the rest of humanity. Mayibue!!!

Dr Marinkie Madiope is the Principal of the South Campus of the University of the Free State.

News Archive

UFS study on cell development in top international science journal
2008-09-16

A study from the University of the Free State (UFS) on how the change in the packaging of DNA with cell development influenced the expression of genes, will be published in this week’s early edition of the prestigious international, peer-reviewed science journal, the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS).

The PNAS journal has an impact factor of 10, which means that studies published in the journal are, on average, referred to by ten other scientific studies in a two year period. The South African Journal of Science, by comparison, has an impact factor of 0.7.

The UFS study, funded by the Wellcome Trust and the National Research Foundation (NRF), looked at how the change in the packaging of DNA with cell development influenced the expression of genes. It is very relevant to research on stem cells, an area of medicine that studies the possible use of undifferentiated cells to replace damaged tissue.

Prof. Hugh Patterton, of the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology at the UFS, who led the study, said: "We are extremely proud of this study. It was conceived in South Africa, it was performed in South Africa, the data were analysed in South Africa, and it was published from South Africa."

When a gene is expressed, the information encoded in the gene is used to manufacture a specific protein. In eukaryotes, which include humans, there is approximately 1m of DNA, containing the genes, in every cell. This length of DNA has to fit into a cell nucleus with a diameter of only about 10 micrometer. In order to fit the DNA into such a small volume, eukaryotic cells wrap their DNA onto successive protein balls, termed nucleosomes. Strings of nucleosomes, resembling a bead of pearls, is folded into a helix to form a chromatin fiber. The study from the UFS investigated how the binding of a specific protein, termed a linker histone, that binds to the length of DNA between nucleosomes, influenced the formation of the chromatin fiber and also the activity of genes.

"We found that the linker histone bound to chromatin in yeast, which we use as a model eukaryote, under conditions where virtually all the genes in the organism were inactive. It was widely believed that the binding of the linker histone caused the inactivation of genes. We studied the relationship between the amount of linker histone bound in the vicinity of each gene and the expression of that gene for all the genes in yeast, using genomic techniques. We made the surprising discovery that even through the linker histone preferentially bound to genes under conditions where the genes were shut off, this inactivation of genes was not caused by the binding of the linker histone and folding of the chromatin,” said Prof. Patterton.

He said: “Instead our data strongly suggested that the observed anti-correlation was due to the movement of enzymes along the DNA molecule, involved in processing the information in genes for the eventual manufacture of proteins. This movement of enzymes displaced the linker histones from the DNA. This finding now requires a rethink on aspects of how packaging of DNA influences gene activity."

Prof. Patterton said that his research group, using the Facility for Genomics and Proteomics as well as the Bioinformatics Node at the UFS, was currently busy with follow-up studies to understand how other proteins in nucleosomes affected the activities of genes, as well as with projects to understand how chemicals found in red wine and in green tea extended lifespan. "We are certainly having a marvelous time trying to understand the fundamental mechanisms of life, and the UFS is an exciting place to be if one was interested in studying life at the level of molecules," he said.


Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za  
18 September 2008
 

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