Unisa Press

SAUTI

Moral and Spiritual Challenges Facing 21st Century Africa

Author: MM Mamabolo
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About the book

Sauti! (Swahili for ‘Voice!’) is a new note in the call for Africa to extricate itself from its colonial past and create a unique identity in consonance with its own culture. In these pages, Matoane Mamabolo makes a cultural and spiritual journey enquiring into the future of the African continent, a journey that will resonate with scholars, politicians and thinking people, both Africans and non Africans. Well researched and written, this study is detailed, meticulous, challenging, informative, and thought provoking. Its focus is on creating a framework in which Africans can grapple spiritually and intellectually with questions relating to their beliefs and hopes – and in ways that are intelligible to Africans and relevant to their social-cultural contexts.

In a thorough review of the more serious contemporary social, religious and cultural problems that the continent is facing, the author analyses the challenges facing Africa in an interesting new way, and provides suggestions for successful decolonisation, as well as reflecting on the status of African ideas in a globalised world. This study will prove useful as a reference and handbook for students and lecturers of African Renaissance studies, politics, theology, African philosophy and the social sciences

Table of content

Contents

1 African philosophy and contemporary African experience 1

Of the four trends of African philosophy A post-ethnological age in African philosophy A new identity for African philosophy Africa and the question of modernity Race and identity in contemporary Africa The quest for an analytical approach in African philosophy Conclusion

2 The Africanisation of languages and communication 40

The construction of reality through the medium of language Beyond logocentrism and Western linguistic hegemony A brief contemporary sociolinguistic profile of African countries Semiotics and linguistic Africanisation

3 The discontents of Eurocentrism 56

Eurocentrism’s prejudices about Africa Ruminations on Orientalism as a species of Eurocentrism

4 African ethical challenges in the contemporary world 75

Neo-humanism as an ethical challenge Ethical challenges on the African continent and in the Diaspora Africa’s normative responsibility towards the environment On the responsibility for thinking justice

5 African development and revolutions in science 97

On creative theorising in the African scientific enterprise Africa’s possible contribution to scientific innovation Revolutions in science important for contemporary Africa

6 Africa and the aesthetic logic of globalisation 119

Notes 139 Bibliography 157 Glossary 169 Index 173