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What does it mean to love Africa?

21 May 2020 | Story Prof Karin van Marle | Photo Anja Aucamp

Prof Karin van Marle_edit — Prof Karin van Marle

In the build-up to Africa Day, I noticed – among others – the slogan ‘I love Africa’ flashing in neon colours that reminded me of music videos seen on MTV in the 1980s. The idea of Africa being loved not only by those living on the continent, but also by the rest of the world, had some moments in the same decade – with pop stars coming together, for example in USA for Africa and the UK version, Band Aid. Although these attempts might have warmed some hearts, it exposed the failure of this kind of sentimentality to contribute much to the continent. Can we think of how to love and engage with the continent in a different way?

Hannah Arendt, in her Thinking journal, contemplated the question, ‘why is it so difficult to love the world.' In response to a letter from her friend and mentor, Karl Jaspers in 1955, in which he wrote to her, “You bring with you shared memories of a lost past. You bring the wide world as it is today,” she wrote “Yes, I would like to bring the wide world to you this time. I’ve begun so late, really only in recent years, to truly love the world that I shall be able to do that now. Out of gratitude I want to call my book on political theories Amor Mundi” (1985: 264). Linked to the idea of loving the world in Arendt’s work, is also that of sharing the world with each other. Arendt famously accused Nazi Adolf Eichmann of refusing to share the world with others. For the purpose of Africa Day on 25 May, I revisited these notions of loving and sharing as reflected by Arendt. I raised the question – what does it mean to love Africa and to share the continent with others?

For Arendt, the love of the world, and linked to it – the idea of solidarity – is something quite different from equality, care, and sentiment. Love of the world, for her, entails a critical engagement with the world. What could such a love mean in relation to Africa?

In the prologue to The human condition (1958: 5), she underscores the importance of thought and her concern about thoughtlessness, which she describes as “the heedless recklessness or hopeless confusion or complacent repetition of ‘truths’ that have become trivial and empty”. She sets out that the central theme of the book is to focus on ‘what we are doing’ and that ‘the activity of thinking’ is left out of this work. In other works, Arendt turns to the importance of thinking and, in fact, commentators have noted an ongoing tension in her work between the life of action and the life of the mind. To love the world seems to include both a thorough engagement with what we are doing and a deep contemplation of what it is that we are doing. What has always struck me in her work, is the insistence on thinking and thinking anew each time, instead of merely following what is regarded as ‘truths’. Part of what it could mean to love Africa, is not to accept or repeat trivialities and not to become complacent, but to continuously search for new ways to understand and to respond.

A tension that accompanies the tension between a life of action and a life of thinking, is that between being with others and being alone. Human plurality is for Arendt ‘the basic condition of both action and speech’ (1958:175). Becoming part of the world is like ‘a second birth’ which takes place neither by ‘necessity’ nor by ‘utility’, but by taking ‘initiative’ (177). This birth or new beginning brings forth an ‘unexpectedness’ and ‘happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability’. Where the latter always ‘amounts to a certainty’, new beginnings ‘always appear in the guise of a miracle’ (178). It is by way of action that we become part of the world, share the world with others, and become entangled in the ‘web of relationships’ (181). Of course, for Arendt we always begin again, and the possibility for new ways of doing and forging new relationships is always there.

Antjie Krog (2015:219) remembers Thabo Mbeki’s speech on the day the Constitution was adopted. “On an occasion such as this, we should, perhaps, start from the beginning. So, let me begin. I am an African. I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land.” She praises Mbeki for considering the idea of ‘being ruled’ rather than ‘being a ruler’. She finds in his speech a “kind of radical relational enfoldedness with the land” that is vastly different from most discussions from all sides of the spectrum on land. To what extent are those of us living in Africa thinking differently and innovatively, for example about land, and about how we share it with others. How can we think anew about current discourses on the African Renaissance and also decolonisation?

Arendt is clear on the importance of solitude. She underscores the importance of thinking, and slow thinking, and obtaining distance from others, and from the world of action in order to do that. In her way, she was very wary of a certain kind of solidarity based on sentimentality. Engaged citizenship, for her, is always accompanied by a critical self-reflection. Arendt (2003) warned against the urge to act in haste without thinking; she warned against withering ‘under the weight of immediacy’. In a world and a continent with so many dire needs demanding attention and action, this does not mean that we should not act with urgency, but it underscores the importance of well-thought-out responses, of not falling back on old answers.

In short, loving Africa demands of us to engage critically, not to fall back on recipes and formulas, and not to follow rules blindly; it asks us to always begin again; to seek not only for new answers, but also for new questions.

This article was written by Prof Karin van Marle, Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law

News Archive

State of our campuses: UFS closes campuses until Friday 28 October 2016 to readjust academic programme

2016-10-15

UFS announces strategy for completion of the 2016 academic year

Agreement between UFS management and student leadership in relation to residences

After almost four weeks of student protests about fees at the University of the Free State (UFS) and the subsequent suspension of the academic programme and closing of campuses, the senior leadership announced on 14 October 2016 a strategy to ensure that students will be able to complete the 2016 academic year.

The university on 13 October 2016 announced that it will shut down its Bloemfontein and South Campuses until 28 October 2016 for crucial and complex arrangements to be put in place to readjust the academic calendar and ensure that all students can complete their studies. The senior leadership did, however, make it clear that the university will not be shutting down for the remainder of 2016.

No teaching and learning activities at undergraduate and honours level will be offered between 17 October and 28 October 2016. The university will re-start teaching and learning at undergraduate and honours level in the first week of November 2016.

However, teaching and learning will not take place in the classrooms during November 2016, but through a different mode of delivery that consists of a combination of printed and recorded lectures, study materials and learning aids that will be provided by the university and delivered through Blackboard. In this manner no attempts at disrupting the rest of the academic year will affect our students’ academic programme. Students, however, will sit for the exam on campus.

Students in residence accommodation can return to campus as from 29 October 2016 and it is recommended that students who do not have off-campus internet access return to campus in order to access study material to complete the academic year.A new timetable for exams is still being developed and will be communicated as soon as the arrangements have been finalised.

Faculties have been differently affected by the loss of teaching time. Some faculties like the Faculty of Law have completed their curriculum, while other faculties like the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences require more teaching time. Some faculties, like the Faculty of Health Sciences, cannot do teaching through alternative modes of delivery.

The needs of the different faculties have been taken into account for developing a rescue plan to complete the 2016 academic year.

The Faculty of Health Sciences will continue its classes and clinical rotations as normal for all three schools on the Bloemfontein Campus and in the relevant hospitals. All students registered in programmes in the Faculty of Health Sciences will stay in residences for the full period of their studies and exams. Final-year medical students will graduate in December 2016 as expected.
In the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, final-year students for the Certificate in the Theory of Accounting (CTA) will stay on campus during October through to December 2016 and their classes and tests will not change.
Arrangements for all other faculties and programmes are being prepared and within the next week, students and parents/guardians will receive communication about how curriculum content will be completed and when the final exams will take place.
The university is extending the academic year so that we can recuperate all the lost teaching and learning time. The qualifications conferred on the 2016 class will be of the same quality and standards as all UFS qualifications.

The UFS is and will remain a fundamentally contact teaching and learning education university. However, under the current circumstances faced not only by the UFS, but higher-education institutions across the country, the best way of ensuring the integrity of the academic programmes in most faculties is by using an alternative way of teaching and learning. Other South African universities have chosen the same approach to be able to complete the academic year.

Instead of students going to class, they will have content delivered to them where they are (library, computer labs, their own computers, etc.) through Blackboard and printed and electronic material. This is a different way of learning but students will be carefully guided and supported.

Faculties are currently preparing all the necessary materials and instructions to support student learning.Standards and quality will be the same as if students were attending classes. Some faculties require practical laboratory work as part of their curriculum. The exam timetable will be adapted for these students to be able to complete their practical work when the academic activities commences in November 2016. The relevant faculties will communicate the schedule of practical work directly to the students.

Students in their final year will complete their studies during 2016. It is possible that in some cases the graduation ceremony for these students will be in June 2017 instead of April 2017. This will not prejudice students with bursaries, or committed employment in law firms or other businesses. The university will provide the necessary academic transcripts as proof of the completion of the relevant qualifications. None of these changes will affect postgraduate students.

The university will maintain regular communication with students and parents/guardians to update them on the new exams timetable.Faculties will communicate directly with students about issues related to their programmes.

“One of the areas in which significant progress was made, is that we were able to agree on a basis for stability with student leaders. The student protests occurred during an important time in the university’s academic calendar and the readjustment of our academic programme has put tremendous pressure on academic and support services staff, and created anxieties for parents,” said Prof Nicky Morgan, Acting Rector of the UFS.

“The senior leadership restates its commitment to free education as well as its willingness to stand together with students and other public universities to impress on government the urgency to decide on a time frame for the roll-out of free higher education for the poor and missing middle. We will use the next two weeks to meet with the leadership of Universities South Africa to coordinate collective action in this regard. We will furthermore also roll out a series of activities to inform and educate students and the general public on different models and experiences of providing free higher education,” he said.

The strategy to readjust the 2016 academic year is applicable to students on the Bloemfontein and South Campuses.

Released by:
Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Brand Management)
Telephone: +27 51 401 2584 | +27 83 645 2454
Email: news@ufs.ac.za | loaderl@ufs.ac.za
Fax: +27 51 444 6393

State of our campuses #15: UFS closes campuses until Friday 28 October 2016 to readjust academic programme

State of our campuses #14: All academic activities on UFS campuses remain suspended on 13 and 14 October 2016

State of our campuses #13: Availability of information about plans for remainder of UFS 2016 calendar year

State of our campuses #12: All academic activities at UFS campuses suspended for 11 and 12 October 2016

State of our campuses #11: Academic activities on UFS campuses continue

State of our campuses #10: Impact of non-completion of the 2016 academic year on UFS students

State of our campuses #9: Academic programme on all UFS campuses to resume on Monday 10 October 2016

State of our campuses #8: UFS extends vacation as from 28 September until 7 October 2016, 28 September 2016

State of our campuses #7: All three UFS campuses will be closed today, 27 September 2016.

State of our campuses #6: All UFS campuses reopen on Tuesday 27 September 2016

State of our campuses #5: UFS campuses to remain closed on Monday 26 September 2016

State of our campuses #4: Decisions about the UFS academic calendar

State of our campuses #3: UFS campuses closed until Friday 23 September 2016

State of our campuses #2: UFS Bloemfontein and South Campuses closed on Tuesday 20 September 2016 (19 September 2016)

State of our campuses #1: Academic activities suspended on UFS Bloemfontein Campus (19 September 2016)

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