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Thoko Didiza (Programme Director), Prof. Vizikhungo Mzamane (Project Leader and General Editor: ESAACH), and Prof. Nomthetho Simelane (Former Lecturer in Political Science: University of Swaziland) paid tribute to a great Pan-Africanist at the 2013 Archie Mafeje Annual Memorial Lecture.

The Annual Archie Mafeje Memorial Lecture Series celebrates the memory of an inspiring figure who worked tirelessly to highlight the importance of being an African through self-knowledge, self-control and self-emancipation.

Paying tribute at the 2013 event hosted by Unisa’s Archie Mafeje Research Institute (AMRI), in collaboration with the Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA), were Professor Nomthetho Simelane, former Lecturer in Political Science, Department of Political Administrative Studies, University of Swaziland, who delivered the memorial lecture, and Professor Vizikhungo Mzamane, Project Leader and General Editor: Encyclopaedia of South African Arts, Culture and Heritage (ESAACH) and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Fort Hare.

What emerged was an endearing picture of the great Pan-Africanist as a fascinating man, “this tall man who loved himself so much, but loved Africans even more”.

“His own worst enemy”, “a difficult individual” who could be “exasperating and insulting”, Mafeje was also an erudite scholar who was intellectually rigorous and who placed Africa at the epicentre of his research.

Speaking on Mafeje’s legacy of an African perspective based on the understanding of local context, Simelane said that the social science community had to realise that the majority of the continent’s population lived in a very different world to that of researchers. “Social science research must not only be available but accessible to that population.” She asserted that it was needful for researchers to ask what the obstacles were to the wider distribution of their research findings. One way, she said, for people to be made beneficiaries of this social science research, was for AMRI and other research institutes to contribute innovative solutions to its dissemination.

In his opening address Professor Greg Cuthbertson, Executive Dean of the College of Graduate Studies, said that the CGS finds itself at the beginning of a new era with the appointment of two Directors: Professor Michele Havenga, School of Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Studies (SIRGS), and Professor Lesiba Teffo, School of Transdisciplinary Research Institutes (STRI).

As Professor Cuthbertson pointed out, new leadership brings to an entity new opportunities, and quite often, new priorities and a new focus.  The College was thus looking forward with anticipation to the new focus and direction of the CGS.  2013 will be remembered as a year of innovation, renewal and excellence.

Prof Michele Havenga

Prof Lesiba Teffo

Prof Barbara Rudo Gaidzanwa (Dean: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Zimbabwe), Prof Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Head: AMRI), Dr Thandi Sidzumo-Mazibuko (Executive Director: Diversity Management, Equity & Transformation) & Prof Lesiba Joseph Teffo (Head: IARS)

 Archie Mafeje’s ideals continue to permeate Unisa, as was evident at the Archie Mafeje Research Institute (AMRI) Symposium Series which was held on 3 October 2012 to celebrate and share the legacies of this academic stalwart. The event was held under the theme “Critical enquiry into African knowledge production and epistemological systems, with the aim of generating endogenous Afrocentric perspectives and paradigms”.

In welcoming the guests, Prof Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Head: AMRI, defined Mafeje as an African intellectual and combative cadre who never wavered in his analysis of African issues from an Afrocentric standpoint. “The world is facing a crisis that the combative intellectual Archie Mafeje and a few other critical academics foresaw coming,” said Ndlovu-Gatsheni. He added that after this realisation, Mafeje – together with other combative intellectuals – paved the way for a de-colonial turn, indicating the direction of post-Euro-American epistemological hegemony.

In her keynote address, Prof Barbara Rudo Gaidzanwa, Dean: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Zimbabwe, defined Archie Mafeje as a luminary in the African social science firmament. In her paper, Gaidzanwa raised critical questions regarding the theme. She asked: How do we mobilise to produce endogenous knowledges and Afrocentric perspectives that can help us understand and generate better strategies for reconstituting better African societies beyond colonialism? And how do we mobilise Africans to understand the historical relationships between Africans, before, during and after colonialism? “It is important to deal with these issues if we are to maintain and strengthen the values of social and economic strength based on economic production and solidarity, and construct workable forms of cooperation based on our past, present and the imperatives of our futures which need to guarantee our common prosperity and wellbeing,” she said. “We have to discard all that is not African when we aim to transform our continent.”

Gaidzanwa said that she has been reading Mafeje for a long time. She went on to touch on issues of inclusivism and exclusivism, and said that the apartheid South Africa was an oppressor to the native residents. “They were considered to be uncivilized and lacking European origins,” she said. These sentiments were based on the assumptions that closeness to European origin conferred superior status, thus creating divisions between various groups of peoples who inhabited South Africa, the geographic entity.” She said that while a lot has been achieved to abolish apartheid, “there is still an unfinished struggle against colonialism that has also infected South Africans of the ancestries of the native peoples who are not descended from Europeans… This refers not only to South Africa but to many African countries,” she concluded.

Other speakers at the event included Prof Catherine Odora-Hoppers, Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation SA Research Chair in Development Education and Co-Director, Pascal International Observatory; and Prof Mammo Muchie, SARChI Chair Holder at the Institute for Economic Research on Innovation (IERI), Technical University of Tshwane.

*Written by Trevor Khanyile