Serithi/Isidima: Reflections on Human Dignity in South Africa From a Black African1 Perspective

Vellem, Vuyani Shadrack

doi:10.7833/104-0-173

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Police brutality strips the human dignity of people and there is a need for human dignity to be restored in the culture of policing. Ubuntu is imperative to restore human dignity (Vellem, 2010). The restoration of human dignity is both for the members of the SAPS and the community.…”

Section: Restoration Of Human Dignitymentioning

confidence: 99%

New wine into old wineskins: A theological reflection on police brutality in South Africa

Mokoena

2023

pharosjot

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South Africa is one of the most violent countries in the world with different types of violence associated with crime, gender-based violence, and sexual violence amongst others. While the South African Police Service (SAPS) is supposed to protect the most vulnerable victims of violence in communities, they are also the perpetrators of violence in various forms of police brutality such as using excessive force and torture which leads to death in some cases. Police brutality is not a new phenomenon in South Africa; the South African Police (SAP) during apartheid was para-military and known for its brutality. It was transformed into SAPS in democratic South Africa to regard human dignity in policing. However, police brutality is still a major problem, especially towards the poor in society. This was also evident during the COVID-19 lockdown as South Africa was one of the top countries that had the most brutal lockdown enforcement in the world. This article provides a theological reflection on police brutality from the biblical text Mark 2:18-22 ‘…no one pours new wine into old wineskins…’ This article argues that the SAPS has not transformed regarding policing that upholds human dignity. It argues that SAPS is losing confidence in communities as wounds of the past are re-emerging. This article proposes Ubuntu in the SAPS for its transformation and emphasises collaborative efforts to combat police brutality, heal wounds, and restore human dignity.

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Section: Restoration Of Human Dignitymentioning

confidence: 99%

New wine into old wineskins: A theological reflection on police brutality in South Africa

Mokoena

2023

pharosjot

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Positioning LGBTIQ as the human sexuality agenda for black theology of liberation – Reflection on Vuyani Vellem’s black theology of liberation

Duncan

2020

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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Healing the Cartesian wound: Towards a re-membering pedagogy in theological education in South Africa

Love

2022

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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A decolonial practice and understanding of education (whether theological or otherwise) requires engaging, subverting, deposing and reimagining a whole ecology of imaginaries, practices, structures, institutionalities, traditions, power asymmetries etc.: a task that is far beyond the capacities of any individual, community or even generation. Cognisant of this reality, the article foregrounds the question of pedagogy in theological education (but only as an integral part of the colonial/decolonial ecology of education) and argues that in so far as our pedagogies in theological education treat students primarily as ‘thinking creatures’, we are engaging in a dis-membering pedagogy that reproduces the coloniality of being. I identify a Cartesian anthropology (‘ego cogito sum’) – engendering a host of dualisms giving artificial supremacy to certain dimensions of reality over others – as a key animating source of dis-membering pedagogies. Drawing on the ‘pedagogical excess’ (i.e. underexplored pedagogical themes) in the theological anthropology of Simon Maimela in conversation with pedagogical visions that cohere and extend his anthropological commitments, I argue that a re-membering pedagogy is, at minimum: a pedagogy of performative action, embodiment and (community based) liminality. I argue throughout the article that in the work of re-sourcing our animating anthropologies and re-imagining our pedagogies, we are engaged in the healing work of re-membering that which coloniality has torn apart: theory and practice, mind and body, the individual and relationality, the student and the teacher, the theological school and society.Contribution: This article outlines my attempts to theoretically and theologically ground (and extend) my espoused pedagogical commitments forged at the intersection of my community work and teaching as a theological educator in an undergraduate BTh programme. This article invites other theological educators to become conscious of the theological anthropology that their espoused pedagogical commitments assume and reflect on the pedagogical commitments that their theological anthropology entails, especially as it relates to the ongoing calls for the Africanisation/decolonisation of theological education in South Africa.

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Serithi/Isidima: Reflections on Human Dignity in South Africa From a Black African1 Perspective

Abstract: This paper engages in a critical

Cited by 4 publications

References 5 publications

New wine into old wineskins: A theological reflection on police brutality in South Africa

New wine into old wineskins: A theological reflection on police brutality in South Africa

Positioning LGBTIQ as the human sexuality agenda for black theology of liberation – Reflection on Vuyani Vellem’s black theology of liberation

Healing the Cartesian wound: Towards a re-membering pedagogy in theological education in South Africa

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