South Africa Today Research Articles

Dear Mr Sobukwe: examining Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe’s pan-African vision and how it has influenced youth movements in South Africa today

Pan-Africanism is experiencing a resurgence amongst young people in post-1994 South Africa. In this article, I explore how people across different generations interpret the legacy of a critical figure in South African history, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. The participants in this research and I represent a sliver in the changing interpretations of Sobukwe’s legacy in South Africa after 1994. I have chosen an epistolary form as the key organising framework to share my ethnographic research, mirroring Sobukwe’s own prolific letter writing practice throughout his life. The article presents letters written by two participants in my research to Sobukwe, followed by a response letter from me. This forms a dialogical conversation between me, the researcher, the participants in my research and Robert Sobukwe. The research essay contains elements of auto-ethnography, allowing me to engage closely with how Sobukwe has impacted my own thinking about justice in South Africa. I focus on education, a key tenet in Sobukwe’s pan-Africanist vision. The article shows the ongoing erasure of Black liberation fighters from contemporary South Africa and the impact of coloniality in education.

Something about us with us: a reflection of disability studies within psychology in South Africa

Despite the fact that disability makes up the largest minority in the world, training in psychology in South Africa today does not give viable mention to the challenges associated to living with disability. Indeed, disability studies and psychology have had an awkward relationship for various reasons, resulting in lack of engagement with disability rights issues in the field of South African psychology. The article discusses what we see as the hiddenness of disability in and from South African psychology, despite disability’s argued centrality to South Africa’s history and present. After presenting key issues in the history of disability rights both globally and locally, the article moves to discuss the tendency of silencing disabled academics and of disability studies within psychology in the country. The stories of two disabled psychologists and academics are shared to illustrate how society is controlled along biopolitical lines, namely that of compulsory able-bodiedness, resulting in the continued silencing of disabled psychology academics; and the continued binary of ‘us vs them’, the able-bodied versus disabled, remains. Arguably, focusing on disability oppression and exclusion provides a way into understanding other forms of exclusion and oppression, including racial and gender oppression. We need to continue to integrate psychology and disability studies by celebrating disabled psychologists and encouraging psychological reflections on disabled experiences. Psychology cannot continue to allow disabled people to be silenced.

The Silence of Lukewarm Churches in South Africa Today: A Theo-ethical Analysis of the Implications of the Zondo Commission for the Church

This article attempts to engage theologically with the implications of the findings of the State Capture Commission (commonly known as the Zondo Commission) for the church in South Africa today. The article is the product of a presentation by the author at the contact session of the Northern Theological Seminary (NTS) of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa. Initially, the author was in a conundrum because, legally, the church as an institution was not involved in so-called “state capture.” However, after careful consideration, it became clear that the church in South Africa had failed in its task as “the maker of conscience” (Batten 1902) or moral compass. Hence, this article is guided by the notion of “lukewarm” that is found in the Bible to refer to the conduct of the church in relation to so-called state capture in South Africa. The article explores the history of state capture and the politics thereof, as well as the role of the church in relation to state capture.

By another's death?

In South Africa, the rhetoric of reconciliation is complex and contested. Indeed, reconciliation itself is viewed as “a controversial symbol”. In part, this may have to do with the different ways in which theological and social, political understandings drive the conceptualisation of reconciliation in South Africa. Within the theological tradition, salvation has long been portrayed by way of the metaphor of reconciliation, and many theologians have engaged the fruitful but potentially confusing difference in assumptions regarding what reconciliation is and requires of us. For a thicker, more robust theological concept of reconciliation, it may be important to consider what the intended use is of this complex notion when employed as a soteriological concept. This article explores David Kelsey’s portrayal of reconciliation by another’s death with some suggestions for contours of a soteriological grammar of reconciliation that could shape more lifegiving ways of speaking about reconciliation in South Africa today.

Biblical discourses and the construction of genders and sexualities in contemporary South Africa: A decolonial analysis

The constructions of genders and sexualities in different global spaces continue to be influenced by Christian and imperial ideologies. In Africa, genders and sexualities were (mis)construed by colonial and missionary enterprises, and they continue to be defined according to Eurocentric terms and perceptions. This has produced ‘modern sexual repression’. The use of Biblical discourses to construct African genders and sexualities is one way that this repression is mirrored in South Africa. Because of this, African genders and sexualities are marginalised, treated as taboo and depicted as backward and uncivilised, thus, promoting hegemonic heteronormative and monogamous marriages. This article examined how Biblical discourses contributed to this narrative. It further advanced a call for transforming this dominant narrative by engaging theology, gender and sexuality studies and socio-political sciences from the premise of a multidisciplinary epoch. The decolonial motif, with a focus on delinking African genders and sexualities from the Western agenda of sexual repression, serves as the theoretical framework for this research. On the other hand, race, gender and sexuality serve as lenses used to better understand the phenomenon and to explore the use of biblical discourses in this context. Thus, the article makes use of a secondary research approach to carry out this task.Contribution: This article seeks to add to the body of knowledge that endeavours to change the way that biblical discourses are used in South Africa today to construct a narrative that represses non-normative genders and sexualities.

The Church of Nazarene in Khayelitsha: Developing a missional spatial consciousness with special reference to COVID-19

The legacy of apartheid spatial planning can still be seen in the dynamics of spaces in South Africa today. The elite (according to research is racialised and mostly white people) lives in well-located city areas, close to economic activity and rule social life that defines cities as stated in 2016 by the Socio Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI). Alternatively, mostly black South Africans are confined to urban margins in densified and poorly serviced areas, with low rates of home ownership. The effects of these policies extend beyond the urban nature, as spaces on the margin by design tend to have fewer opportunities for education compared to urban areas, and there are spatial limits to black business ownership. This article seeks to discuss a case study on a church’s use of space during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), to show an inclusionary spatial dynamic that may be used in South African spaces. Firstly, it presents an overview of the unequal spatial dynamics in South Africa, particularly Cape Town, and dynamics during COVID-19. Secondly, it provides a historical overview of the Church of the Nazarene and its foundational beliefs. Moreover, it discusses a case study of renewed spatial dynamic in church using the Church of the Nazarene in Khayelitsha. Furthermore, the case study will be used to show the innovative way they reached their community during this time. The final part will discuss how this inclusive spatial dynamic reveals an innovative dynamic in the concept of the missional church, one that goes beyond the going out contextually, but allowing the outside in as well.Contribution: This article discusses the new spatial dynamic of the missional church which inspires inclusivity. The article uses literature around space, COVID-19, mission studies and church history. Furthermore, a semi-structured interview with a church leader at the Church of the Nazarene in Khayelitsha is used for a contextual case study.

Making sense of the labour movement as we confront the burden of the future

Professor MONIQUE MARKS presents a unique take on the new challenges and opportunities facing the labour movement in South Africa today. In a speech she gave at the 1973 Durban Strikes 50th Remembrance last year to celebrate the significance and the gains of the ‘Durban Moment,’1 she emphasised the need to provide hope and a sense of belonging to those currently relegated to the margins of society.

Prominent discourses in South African education from the perspective of community psychology: Challenges and opportunities for youth liberation and well-being

Community psychology takes an explicitly political stance by identifying where power lies and how it is exercised in ways that maintain privilege and discrimination against particular groups. From this perspective, we consider the challenges facing school education in South Africa today. Education is positioned as an important site for the liberation and well-being of our country's majority. However, the state of education is marked by persistent inequalities. From a Foucauldian perspective, this paper presents a meta-synthesis of school education literature and identifies prominent discourses circulating around the country's basic education sector: the discourses of democracy, human rights, and good governance; rights; development; scarce skills; the crisis in education; and privatisation are discussed. We consider the role of these discourses in the wider social processes of legitimation and power in education, and subjective implications for youth. We note the various ways in which discourses responsibilise youth and surrounding stakeholders, and how others position them as resources for the neoliberal capitalist economy. We argue for the role of counter-discourses and a collective emancipatory perspective to advance transformational educational change and embrace opportunities in the future.

Six decades of Moltmann’s Theology of Hope and tangible hope in South Africa today

Moltmann’s Theology of Hope still resonates in theological discourses 60 years after the publication of his epoch-making book containing this concept. At a time of fading hope among South Africans, a revisitation of Moltmann’s pattern of reasoning holds the promise of reward. This article focuses on the quest for raising tangible hope in South Africa and the possible contribution of the Theology of Hope in this regard. The central theoretical argument here will be that the failure of hope in South Africa is caused by the fact that hope continues to be viewed in terms of the event of liberation (1994), and not in terms of a liberating process as the Theology of Hope proposes. To unpack this hypothesis and provide preliminary responses to the matters raised here and others, the study revisits Moltmann’s Theology of Hope as centred on the recurrent interpretations and applications that it has received in political theologies. The aim is to translate the core idea of the Theology of Hope into tangible hope for desponding South Africans today.Contribution: This research proposes that hope founded in the sign of the reign of the moving God, such as instances of love, goodness, truth-telling, fair jurisprudence and caring for the poor, which are discernible in South Africa today, are valuable and plausible building blocks for the creation of continuous tangible hope. The hope that rests in the actions of the moving God is of greater value than that residing in a single historic event. The 1994 liberation event, lauded by many as the great cause of perennial hope, has faded away in recent years and turned into a pervasive despondency within the South African community.

Financial impact of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on Small, Micro and Medium enterprises in the restaurant industry (Gauteng)

Purpose: The study presents a comparison of the financial impact of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on Gauteng-based SMMEs in the restaurant industries using a South-African bank’s point-of-sale (POS) de-identified data. Research: The positivist research philosophy was preferred. Due to, the participating bank's existing data, quantitative research method applied. This research study comprised both exploratory and descriptive objectives. It was longitudinal in nature because it investigated the financial impact of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on Gauteng-based SMMEs in the restaurant industry over time (April-May 2020 and April-May 2021). The longitudinal time horizon was from April 2020 to May 2021 (a year into the lockdown period). Results: The study found that the restaurant industry was adversely financially impacted, based on turnover sales transacted through POS devices during the two periods of April to May 2020 and April to May 2021. According to the study, during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown periods Gauteng-based SMMEs relied heavily on the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), such as POS devices, for customer payments. Conclusions: Based on a monthly turnover comparison the restaurant industry had the second-highest turnover, following the supermarket industry with the highest turnover. When the alert level 5 lockdown was declared on March 23, 2020, some restaurants shut down temporarily while others adjusted their operational protocols to safeguard their employees and customers. Study originality: However, the restaurant industry turnovers increased in 2021 compared to 2020, indicating that there was some adaptation or rather innovation around mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic challenges. Practical implications: Restaurants took additional measures by persuading consumers to order ‘takeaways’ online through delivery App platforms. The restaurant industry COVID-19 digital strategies remain relevant in South Africa today even after the removal of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions because customers still make use of these digital services.

Artist Spotlight: A Tribute to the Work of Sylvia Magogo Glasser: Dancer, Dance Educator, Choreographer, Social Activist, and Visionary

It is a great honor to offer this article as a tribute to the enduring impact of Sylvia Glasser’s breakthrough accomplishments in promoting dance education and performance in the South African context. This article is based upon interviews with Sylvia, who currently lives in Sydney, Australia, as well as some of her colleagues and former students. In addition, it draws upon writings, websites, and articles that describe her work. I am struck by the humility of this extraordinary and numinous person who has influenced several generations of performers, students, educators, and dancers. She has challenged and broken down stereotypes and barriers during the apartheid years in South Africa and has irrevocably changed the landscape of South African dance with her introduction of the methodology of Afro-Fusion into the dance world beginning in the late 1970s. As the founder of the Moving into Dance Mophatong (MID) Training Program and Dance Company, Sylvia was the CEO, the fundraiser, the choreographer, and the driving force behind this momentous accomplishment. Along the way, she gathered and trained a group of accomplished dancers, educators, administrators, and choreographers. The work of MID continues and remains a living and iconic force in contemporary dance in South Africa today.

Prophets, Kings, and Vulnerability in South Africa Today

Can the Bible, specifically, the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, contribute to cultural and socio-political issues prevalent in South Africa today? The struggle today can be linked to the inability of the government to respond to issues such as poverty, unemployment and the provision of basic services, such as water, sanitation and electricity. Can churches make such a contribution, not only by criticising but also by being a part of the solutions to these issues? In seeking answers to the questions posed above, can we learn anything from the tensions between prophets and kings in the time of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible that can be applied to the current situation in South Africa? How, in other words, did they navigate some of their cultural and socio-political differences, and what can we learn or gain from their wisdom and practices? This contribution investigates important passages in Deuteronomy and the interaction between kings and prophets in the different periods in the history of Israel- in the former and latter prophets. It is not the role of churches to engage in politics. They should, however, remain true to their faith and live and preach as a witness in and to society. The safeguarding of the rights of the people, social justice or the lack thereof, must be an important part of this witness.

Apartheid’s ‘rape crisis’: understanding and addressing sexual violence in South Africa, 1970s–1990s

ABSTRACT Although rape in South Africa today is commonly framed as a post-apartheid ‘crisis’, neither sexual violence nor public concern about it in the country is new. This article explores an earlier period of ‘rape crisis’ from the 1970s to early 1990s, when sexual violence became a key topic of discussion amongst apartheid politicians, Black community leaders, feminist activists, and ordinary men and women. Focusing on the township of Soweto, it examines why public concern about sexual violence emerged during this period and how rape was conceptualised and responded to. It demonstrates how multiple and often competing social and political agendas constrained attempts to understand and address sexual violence in the country’s townships: the growth of feminist activism; the intensification of the liberation struggle and attempts to repress it; public panic about crime; and shifting gender power dynamics. These divergent responses to rape reveal the challenges of addressing sexual violence within the contexts of anti-racist movements and competing political struggles. Exploring these longer histories not only addresses a gap in South African historiography, but also helps to develop a more global and comparative understanding of how gender, race, and class intersect in producing conceptualisations of rape and responses to it.

Rereading the story of Hagar in Genesis 16:1-16 as a narrative of prejudice in South Africa.

The present research is a rereading of the Hagar narrative in view of prejudice in South Africa. Some previous contributions on the Hagar narrative have tended to pursue either exegetical or hermeneutic route. The present research comprises an eight-tier structure. However, the Hagar narrative is explored in lieu of the following two foci. First, a critical exegesis of the Hagar narrative (Genesis 16:1-16) is given. The critical exegesis is a verse-by-verse analysis of the narrative. The analysis seeks to present clarity for the readership where some ambiguity and inconsistency occur in the narrative. For example, the study interrogates the flight of a pregnant Hagar from Sarah in Mamre and travels a journey of approximately 340km to Shur at the border with Egypt. Other misunderstood parts of the text include the enslavement, marriage and mistreatment of Hagar by Abraham and Sarah. Second, a rereading of the Hagar story as a narrative of prejudice in South Africa is explored. It is argued that the attempt is not to regard the narrative as a historical reality and that Hagar will not be discussed as a historical figure. On the contrary, the present study examines the concepts and themes in the Hagar narrative considering the perceived oppression and prejudice devastating post-apartheid South Africa today. The study argues that South Africa has not successfully dismantled apartheid policies by the dawning of majority rule; unemployment, poverty and abortion continue to depict the ‘rainbow nation’ in a bad light. For example, legalization of abortion contradicts the African Ubuntu philosophy. Hence, “…Return to thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands” (Genesis 16:9) suggests a perpetuity of apartheid policies. However, a rereading of the Hebrew phrase translated as “The well of him that lives and sees” (see Genesis 16:14), portrays Hagar envisioning triumph and a dispensation of euphoria beyond her situation of deprivation and prejudice. The study is, therefore, poised towards a feminist discussion of Hagar as an African mother (wife) who was jettisoned to take care of the young children solely and single-handedly. The study utilizes a contextual content analysis as an approach in which secondary data analysis on the Hagar narrative will be explored in light of the biblical text as the primary source. The study revolves around a symbolic interactionism theory.

Shifting sands of the past and the present in drama of the New South Africa: Neil Coppen’s Tin Bucket Drum and Nadia Davids’ What Remains

The experimental pedigree of South African drama of the anti-apartheid period requires no introduction. This pedigree was established during the years of anti-apartheid playwriting of the 1970s and 80s when South Africa’s iniquitous politics of race relations was put under the spotlight on local and world stages. This was achieved through the work of playwrights such as Mbongeni Ngema, Percy Mtwa, Athol Fugard and Matsemela Manaka, among others. This paper focuses on the drama of the post-apartheid era to argue that three decades after the formal end of apartheid, some of the most recent plays from South Africa have adopted themes and styles that draw from an atavistic recourse to the stylistics and experimental drama of apartheid era protest plays to address new challenges which are steeped in continuing social injustice. The paper adopts the climatic metaphor of shifting sands to analyse how post-apartheid drama simultaneously crosses and integrates aesthetic borders to create innovative and complex narratives which bring together the craft of African storytelling theatre, dance and choreography that are in turn infused with multi-media as social commentary. The paper focuses on Neil Coppen’s Tin Bucket Drum and Nadia Davids’ What Remains as examples of the continuing provenance of experimental aesthetic border crossing in the drama of South Africa today. This aesthetic border crossing deploys new forms of multimedia as decentring social critique in post-apartheid South Africa. The paper showcases how Nadia Davids and Neil Coppen use the past and the present both literally and metaphorically to craft intriguing contemporary dramas in which incident and character come together as profound metaphors of the country’s on-going struggle to reconcile a troubled past with an imagined future.

A Review on Pharmacy Practice in South Africa—A Higher Education Perspective

In April 1994, South Africa underwent the most significant change in its recent history with the disbandment of the policy of apartheid and the attendant race-based politics, which affected most aspects of the country and, of relevance to this review, the education, health delivery, and career choices that race groups could pursue. In the past 28 years, the South African government has tried to implement policies in order to advance political and socioeconomic shifts toward a more equitable society. The healthcare sector was an early target for transformation that was aimed at increasing access to services and the expansion of primary healthcare and hospital facilities to previously underserved areas. This paper seeks to discuss these changes in broad terms, but with specific reference to general health care and pharmacy practice in particular. It will look at the changes in the legislative framework and pharmacy education and factors impacting the pharmacy practices in South Africa over the past 28 years. A discussion of the critical issues that have affected the profession in the last three decades will also be delineated, and future prospects for the profession as a whole, in terms of pharmacy practice and perspectives, will be discussed. We review the current aspects of the pharmacy profession in South Africa today and how the education of those future professionals is a major contribution to the pharmaceutical climate.

The push and pull factors of teaching as a profession – The perceptions and expectations of student teachers

Research has shown that despite the teaching profession being labelled an unattractive career, student teachers’ enrolment in South Africa continues to rise annually. This study seeks to investigate why student teachers enrol for teaching in South Africa today. 222 first year student teachers enrolled for education in a South African university participated in the study, which looked at the perceptions and expectations of student teachers in South Africa. A 91-item questionnaire was used to collect data, and the results indicate that these student teachers have more positive perceptions and expectations on the teaching profession than expected. The study recommends improvements in the education and training environment in South Africa in the form of introducing tax relief measures for teachers; intensified capacity building, and skilling of educators; re-imagining educators’ professional identity through improved professional virtue; improving safety and security in schooling environments; lessening what the author regard as pure administrative functions of teachers which add to the teaching workload; and having in place effective and sustainable infrastructure development programmes.

Thomas Pringle: “the beginning of a future that has not arrived”

In his recent (2020) book, Matthew Shum offers an important rereading of the life, work and contemporary significance of Thomas Pringle, the Scottish South African poet and activist. The book’s challenge stems from three interrelated lines of energy. First is the author’s tracking of Pringle through the three locations of his activity: Scotland, the Cape, London. Second is the argument that Pringle was not from birth or early conviction the liberal champion he is remembered as in South Africa. Third, Shum warns against seeking in Pringle a model for the settler presence in post-colonial South Africa today. A comparison with two near-contemporary Scottish poets, fellow “Borderers”, who both also had colonial experience, leads this essay to a conclusion that acknowledges Shum’s account of the challenge our reading of Pringle offers to South Africa today.

Contemplating the future of "development communication" in South Africa today

This arlicle offers some reffections on the state of developmentcommunication in South Africa, and suggests that closer attention needs topaid to the theoretical underpinnings of communication for development'practices, the emerging institutional contexts and the capacity building thatis required in a rapid change situation. It suggests that academics and practitioners need to find a middle waythrough the 'anything goes' and 'developmentalism' poles of the debateabout how best to use communication for development. particularly in thelight of the new Government Communications and Information Serviceand the Poverly and Inequality Report.

MOTIVATING LAW STUDENTS TO WRITE LIKE LAWYERS: CONTEXTUALISING LEARNING IN THE “WRITE IT LIKE A LAWYER” CASE STUDY

This article explores the incorporation of contextualisation as a teaching method in legal writing programmes in South African law schools. The article argues that teaching legal writing using contextualisation can take students on a transformative journey as they learn how to write like lawyers. This will enhance student comprehension and motivation, inspiring them to engage critically with the learning materials and encouraging them to transform both on a personal level and in the context of practising law within South Africa’s constitutional dispensation. This concept is examined through the lens of a case study on a legal writing programme, the “Write it Like a Lawyer” [WiLL] programme implemented at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, in 2019. The article begins by emphasising the importance of critical thinking and student motivation when teaching students how to write persuasively. It then goes on to describe the significance of transformative, values-based teaching in South Africa today. The article concludes with recommendations for further research that could be carried out to inform the implementation of future legal writing programmes in South African law schools.