Dignity and ubuntu the way to go
That the all-white panel on South African identity at the annual meeting of the philosophical community caused consternation is understandable (“Philosophers at war over colonial bias”, February 10).
It seems some of these philosophers think they can see and judge what we mere mortals cannot: our own experience of identity. Yet they are blinded to their own identity, their whiteness has become invisible to them.
I think of Paulo Freire (the “image” of the oppressor is internalised by the oppressed) and Frantz Fanon (Black Skins, White Masks), and I think of Steve Biko (who pointed out that white people need “white consciousness”) and Desmond Tutu, who articulated ubuntu: my human dignity is realised through respect for your human dignity or, put another way, umuntu, ngumuntu, ngabantu (a person is a person through other people).
We can’t talk about racism, sexism, African philosophy or African identity with any authority unless it is grounded in an understanding of our socioeconomic, political-historical and ethical position with regard to power, possessions and privilege. It is our own eyes that gaze at other human beings and “other” them.
Yes, this might result in white guilt — or black guilt — because we have failed to address the injustices of the past and acknowledge how present injustice is perpetuated.
We all have multiple identities, both personal and social, that can be challenged and defended, or that we can accept as fluid and changeable — because our lives change.
Judith Butler, a feminist philosopher, talks about “performative” identity. In South Africa, our memory of racial identity still runs deep and is still enacted through structures and systems that have their own institutional memory.
When an “identity” gets stuck on to us by sociohistorical memory, arising from an oppressive past, it is difficult to see how we can move from a sense of guilt or powerlessness to a sense of responsibility without violence.
We need to affirm our individual and group identities as positive and strong, and work to uphold the dignity of all.
The tendency is for the dominant to use their own “superior”, more privileged and “authoritative” perspective, even in academia, to dehumanise others. This causes a reaction.
Yet philosophical wisdom (“phronesis”) comes through reflexivity, an attentiveness to who I am in relation to who you are — ubuntu. The crisis in the African philosophical community and in universities because of the call for a decolonised education is an opportunity to reconsider our assumptions, our “certain certainties”.
As our roles change, so do our identities. We each have a basic human right to express our individual and group identities in our contexts, even in academia. It seems that when we lose the right to express our identity our own way, in our own cultural and philosophical framework, we are all impoverished.