Public Lecture - Recovering the Indigenous African Knowledge Systems

I was privileged to attend a lecture, titled Recovering the Indigenous African Knowledge Systems for Youth Development, given by Professor Mathole Motshekga at the National Library of South Africa (NLSA), Pretoria campus on 25 November 2020. The audience were filled by various information workers such as teachers, librarians and the media. As an information worker myself, studying Library and Information Science and working in a library, I was glad and excited to be present.

When I first read the title, I expected a lecture explaining how all Africans, no matter what race or ethnicity, can work together to recover these indigenous knowledge systems which can be used to help the youth in upliftment, better living and more harmony. Instead, there was a quasi-religious cultural exposition on how (black) Africans forgot their roots and how everything that does not sound like it is from a (black) African language should be changed. Now I have no problem with ‘returning to our roots’ and with some changes. In fact, it irritates me when someone still refers to OR Tambo International Airport as Jan Smuts Airport. Bear with me as I explain the main points of the lecture and how I felt.

The basis of Prof. Motshekga’s lecture was that indigenous knowledge systems can only be useful if Africans understand where they come from. This understanding includes the meaning of place names, the importance of the mother tongue and the origins of African Traditional Religion. It was clear that Prof. Motshekga is a traditionalist in every sense of the word even while he made extensive use of modern technology and encourage the spreading of his ideas via social media. My love for all things religious, however, made me sat up straight and listen more closely to what was being said.

With regards to place names Prof. Motshekga made two main points. Firstly, he suggested that most African place names in use all over Africa are Greek corruptions of the original. The meaning of the original names shows the importance of the mother within the African Knowledge Systems. The mother is the first teacher of the children and the grandmother is the keeper of the stories which teach the way to correct living. Here he made a connection with African Traditional Religion to which I will turn in a while.

Secondly, he suggested that especially Afrikaans names for places, rivers and mountains as well as the name of the country be changed to original African names showing the original roots of African sacredness. One of the names which clearly irritates Prof. Motshekga is the use of the word ‘Mzansi’ for South Africa as he says it only means ‘south’ and thus have no deeper meaning. But the core of his irritation was focused on Afrikaans place names and I quote: “We cannot go to the Netherlands and name a river there with an African name, and so the rivers in South Africa should have African names and not Afrikaans names”.

Now this will make any Afrikaans speaking person angry, as it should, and I was angry but for quite different reasons. As I said, I do not mind some changes, but Prof. Motshekga made two vital mistakes here. First, he denied that I or my language are African and secondly, he confused my language with Dutch. This was very subtle racism – I felt like the professor could say anything he wanted as he earlier declared that racism is a sickness and that all humans no matter what color are spirit within. As one of the only two white people in the audience – what was I going to say or do? White people are already in Africa for hundreds of years, I agree that my ancestors had no right to do some of the things they did, but I disagree that this makes me guilty or that it makes me inherently European. I am an African not just because my language started in Africa (despite various European loan words), and it is totally different from Dutch, but also because I was born here and know nothing at all about living in Europe.

Trevor Noah made a joke about African Americans saying that they should go ‘home’ to Africa. Trevor replied: “We’re not waiting”. I have never heard white South Africans saying anything remotely similar but even if they did, I am sure that Europeans would gave a similar answer to that of Trevor. It is ridiculous to suggest that Afrikaans is not an African language just as it is ridiculous to say ‘Africa for (black) Africans’. To argue in this way is to argue that more than half the people in the world of all races and ethnicities are not where they belong and that the mistakes of our collective ancestors are somehow ours to bear.

Prof. Motshekga continued to urge the African youth, and by now it was clear that he focused on one race and not on citizens of the continent, to return to their mother tongue – to write in their own language, and to understand the original meanings contained within the languages. He commented that an African who knows English (he also mentioned Greek) is not necessarily educated as the person may know nothing of his or her own heritage and language. With this I could readily agree with.

Lastly, regarding African Traditional Religion, I felt that Prof. Motshekga were extremely insulting towards Christianity and Islam. I have no problem with criticizing the various religions, but I disagree with insulting anyone’s beliefs. For instance, while explaining African Traditional Religion as opposed to Christianity, he mocked the Roman Catholic tradition of making the cross. Despite this he had some remarkably interesting ideas: He showed that Africans had their own religion and philosophy long before colonization (I happen to agree with him here as the colonizers thought the Africans were without religion just because they did not have a Holy Book or specific places where they all went to worship together). In fact, there were African empires on the same level of those of ancient China 36000 years before the creation of Adam and Eve. He went further and declared that both Moses and Jesus were what we would call ‘coloureds’ as their parents were from Africa and that the name ‘Mary’ is a corruption of a name that pointed back to the African Queen or the Rain Goddess. Some of these ideas reminded me of the ideas of Credo Mutwa and David Ick and I could not help expecting Prof. Motshekga to start telling us that white people were aliens from outer space trying to take over the world. Very interestingly, he said that the ancient religion of the Sabians, mentioned in the Quran, were an African religion in which the Queen of Sheba (some believe she was an Ethiopian queen and others that she was from the Arabian Peninsula), who at one stage visited King Solomon, were worshipped as the great Goddess.

In the end only a few things, in my humble opinion, were relevant for African Knowledge Systems: - First, Africans should respect the mother (and therefore women in general) as the ones who give us our knowledge, the ones who teach us. In this regard Prof. Motshekga said that Gender Based Violence (GBV) is a deplorable situation which have its origins in the misunderstanding of who we, as Africans, are and the fact that in ancient times it was the woman who oversaw the household and politics, not the man. I rather liked this but know that those from the Abrahamic faiths will have big problems with the notion. There is still long and difficult conversations to be had about how some of our most basic beliefs led some of us to act in horrible ways. Secondly, young Africans should return to their homes in the rural villages where they should ask their grandparents and other elders to tell them the stories of Africa. In this way, he said, we will find African solutions for African problems. Europe does not understand Africa and therefore Africans should not think that they know something when they are fluent in English. Lastly, he encouraged the African youth to write in their own languages and publish as much as possible. I am not sure if I totally agree with this last point. My own mother tongue is Afrikaans, but I know and understand that the lingua franca is English. Thus, if I want my ideas to be read by as many people as possible then I must write mainly in English. On the other hand, I agree that this does not mean I should forget my language and perhaps sometimes I should write something exclusively for the entertainment and knowledge of Afrikaans speaking people.

This counts for all languages of all peoples and not only in Africa. I really hope and pray that we will all learn to live in harmony, peace and love together with each other and that we will use our knowledge systems to help each other. This said, I do not think that Prof. Motshekga is as harmonious and all-inclusive as he would like to believe himself to be.