Ubuntu: Reflections from eThembeni

by  Joel Pearson, Thinking Africa Newsletter

Life is arduous for the people of eThembeni informal settlement on the outskirts of Grahamstown. They live without electricity, and water must be collected from one of only a few taps which frequently run dry. Last year, a couple died in a shack fire that community members were unable to fight because there were no taps nearby. Fire trucks could not enter the settlement because there is no adequate road leading into it. The region’s dry, hot summers are felt most acutely here, and winter rains turn the sparsely-vegetated plateau on which people have built their houses into a muddy deluge. It should be no surprise that promises made by well-meaning visitors are received with an air of scepticism – they seldom materialise. And indeed promises have come from many, most enthusiastically from the politicians who make the rounds as election season approaches, giving full assurance that “service delivery” will happen tomorrow, that a brighter future awaits. The people of eThembeni are still waiting.

Achille Mbembe to deliver a second “Thinking Africa” Public Lecture

Prof Achille Mbembe is to deliver the Second Annual Rhodes University Thinking Africa Project Public Lecture on  "Frantz Fanon on the Subject of Emancipation"  to be held  on 12 July, 2012 at the Rhodes Eden Grove Red Lecture Complex.

by Sarah-Jane Bradfield, Rhodes University Website

Prof Mbembe, who was born in the Cameroon, studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, and has held appointments at a number of the leading universities in the world, is widely considered to be one of the most significant African academics writing today, along with Mahmood Mamdani and VY Mudimbe.

Programme for the Second Annual Thinking Africa Colloquium

1. The Second Annual Public Lecture delivered by: Achille Mbembe, Thursday

12 July, 2012. Eden Grove Red. 7pm.

Title: "Frantz Fanon on the Subject of Emancipation".

2. Thinking Africa Colloquium: Ubuntu: Curating the Archive

Dates: 13, 14 and 15 July 2012

Venue: Continuing Education Centre (CEC)

Time: 9am-5pm

Politics of Grieving

by Drucilla Cornell, Social Text, May 2011

In my work, I have defended a nonviolent ethic through Derrida and Levinas, which begins with the commandment, "thou shall not kill." But this ethic certainly does not end there. My book The Philosophy of the Limit gives us a sustained defense of such an ethic, as does my most recent book, Moral Images of Freedom. Such an ethic, however, need not advocate a politics of nonviolent violence; indeed sometimes, such an ethic is, paradoxically, actually a mandate for certain kinds of violent political action.

Revolutionary Ubuntu

Everyone in the world is facing a deep economic crisis, and beyond that a crisis of imagination. Few now think of a new wave of struggle that can raise our hopes and aspirations to fight for a society free of all forms of exploitation. This is why we publish this pamphlet.

The wretched of the earth are speaking. The Zapatistas. The colonial workers in Martinique and Guadaloupe. The peasants of Nepal and Bolivia.