Kyriarchy and the Ever-Consuming Proverbial “Kraal of the Heart”? Casting a Bosadi Gaze on South Africa, Post-Independence

Abstract

The Northern Sotho proverb, lešaka la pelo, ga le tlale—literally, “the kraal of a (human) heart does not get full”—has the tenor that foregrounds the human tendency to be greedy and self-serving. In a nutshell, the more material goods one acquires, the more one would like to have. Taking my cue from the honoree, Dr. Mercy Amba Oduyoye, who taught us that African proverbs with androcentric undertones may be used to resist and challenge patriarchy (read: kyriarchy in the present text), this essay is an attempt to sketch a brief herstory of the situation of African-South African women in apartheid South Africa, and the role (albeit, relatively speaking, not always celebrated) which they played in the struggle against the policy of apartheid. Specifically, if one casts a bosadi (womanhood-redefined) gaze at women’s situation in the post-apartheid era (28 years later), an era that has been characterized by among other things, self-serving, greedy, and corrupt leaders, it becomes evident that these women, basically, continue to receive the short end of the stick. Yet the God who was proclaimed by black theologians and liberationist biblical scholars in apartheid South Africa, One that was proclaimed by the Circle of Concern African Women Theologians, including Oduyoye, takes sides with the oppressed. There is, accordingly, a call for justice-seeking leaders to dismantle kyriarchy by defeating the temptation to fill the ever-consuming proverbial kraal of the heart, thus humanizing South Africa again.