Abstract
Decolonising activism in South African is currently oscillating between social disillusionment (disillusionment about the ability to create a new South Africa by means of Constitutional Justice after twenty-two years of hope for a better life for all) and existential pain (internalised anger resulting from experiences of rejection and humiliating oppression). #MustFall campaigns have become vehicles for the expression of unarticulated feelings of inferiority, suppressed anger and cultural exclusion. It also reveals signs of new forms of racism and increasing exponents of black-white polarisation and xenophobic suspicion. The latter should not be interpreted merely in terms of local modes of radicalization and upcoming modes of political populism, but also against the background of new, global forms of “fear for the other” as expressed in the refugee paranoia and migrant crisis. It becomes a burning pastoral question for communities of faith how to penetrate the bottom line of a possible political cul de sac and cultural intolerance. The question is posed: What is meant by an ecclesial approach within the bleak situation of no-solution-at-all? Instead of a pessimistic retrotopia (back to the past) (Zygmunt Bauman) or an optimistic utopia (the pursuit of happiness in affluent societal projections), the perichoresis of compassionate being-with is explored within the theological parameters of oiktirmos, rḥm, ḥnn and pathē. It is argued that a pastoral mode of hospitable presence should be implied in order to penetrate the danger of a complete xenophobic deadlock in civil society.
Highlights
In a letter “To the Independence of Malaysia” (31st August, 1957), Queen Elizabeth II linked decolonisation to the notion of transition, namely from dependence to independence, from empire-control to sovereign freedom
Decolonising activism in South African is currently oscillating between social disillusionment and existential pain. #MustFall campaigns have become vehicles for the expression of unarticulated feelings of inferiority, suppressed anger and cultural exclusion
The question is posed: What is meant by an ecclesial approach within the bleak situation of no-solution-at-all? Instead of a pessimistic retrotopia (Zygmunt Bauman) or an optimistic utopia, the perichoresis of compassionate beingwith is explored within the theological parameters of oiktirmos, rḥm, ḥnn and pathē
Summary
In a letter “To the Independence of Malaysia” (31st August, 1957), Queen Elizabeth II linked decolonisation to the notion of transition, namely from dependence to independence, from empire-control to sovereign freedom (in Osterhammel 1997:112-117). The reason why San Juan (1999:11) asserts: “National identity, has always been the political and ideological effect of a managed consensus based on material inequality and hierarchical stratification.” Perhaps, this assertion explains why the ideology of the Rainbow Nation is busy becoming a fading mirage. Before we explore theological options, it is important to analyse and understand the undergirding anthropological assumptions in colonial thinking that contributed to prejudice and xenophobia. The latter should be interpreted within the wider global context of radicalised forms of cultural prejudice and suspicion against the influx of intruding, illegal refugees in North America, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa
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