By Zulumathabo Zulu © 2017
Note: This scholarly paper to be delivered at a Decolonisation Conference at the North West University – Potchestroom in South Africa.
Abstract
In one case, there exists an array of knowledges in the schools; in the churches and in the institutions of higher learning that is unable to reflect the dialectics of the demographic tapestry with respect to all peoples of the land. In another case, there exists a plethora of knowledges in the underground schools; in the oral tradition and in the literary culture that reflects the true knowledge of cosmology that predates the advent of the ECC (Euro-Christian colonial) system but this knowledge is prohibited from entering the historiographical annals of officialdom. The unintended effect of this embargo of knowledge is to engender knowledge segregation instead of knowledge aggregation. This knowledge segregation makes an incredible persistence in spite of the euphoric advent of the glorious appearing of the rainbow nation in1994 to an extent that it gives birth to another revolutionary uprising by the militant students in October 2015 under the banner of #FeesMustFallMovement at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg before spreading, like a wild blaze, to other South African universities.
A Revolutionary Uprising of the #FeesMustFall students at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg on Thursday October 15, 2015. Picture credit: Mail & Guardian.
Hitherto, the indigenous knowledge of the land has been marginalized and subjected to the indignity of scarcity and moral decay effectively depriving everyone else of a rightful access to the richness of its teachings and the opportunity to contribute positively to the fabric of the new democratic society. Hereafter, we intend to democratise access to all knowledges and to decolonise the modalities of knowledge production as instructed by the #FeesMustFallMovement which calls for the knowledge producers and the pedagogues to produce and to teach more of pre-colonial knowledge of the indigenous peoples including the stories of the erudite ancestors who have gone before.
This scholarly paper, draws from the existing body of scientific knowledge and the African origin of knowledge to make a propositional statement towards the construction of a unified theory of existing knowledges so that every citizen of this beautiful land can benefit from a decolonised and democratised knowledgebase. In accordance with this new strategic imperative, we tackle the practical questions of decolonisation by taking an erudite page from the African metaphysical science in the Free State where we conducted a proctored and independent research on the knowledge producing capacities; the modalities and the axioms of the Basotho.
Madisebo University 