Theory/Theatre

The Conscience of Thomas More: An Introduction to Equity in Modernity

“…In the realm of early modern ideas, equity moves in the highest company. 75 As a popular institution, the Tudor Chancery, as we have seen, offered an alternative forum for adjudication and remedy unavailable at Common Law. This lack at the heart of the Common Law led to the 'mass defection' of litigants from the common law court to Chancery, which Georg Behrens argues, did not abate under More's Chancellorship but sped up.…”

“…There was a sixteenth-century culture saturated in Equity as a 'powerful concept' that More would undoubtedly have appreciated and understood. 74 'Notions of equity play a prominent part in discourses that have or seek to have influence on major social conflicts and issues', Mark Fortier explains, continuing:…”

“…23 Further, More did not claim conscience as a personal standard 'but an objective one', hence its independence from 'the king's prerogative or the individual magistrate.' 24 Harold Potter maintains that the ecclesiastical Chancellors, of which More was arguably the last in vocation and spirit if not precisely in his training, 'tended naturally to derive their ideas from the conceptions of the canonists. These conceptions depended upon the theory that the law of God governed the universe, and hence His law and the law of nature and reason, which were nearly synonymous, predominated the rules of any State.'…”

Colonial Alienation and Postcolonial Marginality in African Drama: Implications for Lasting Peace in Africa

“…The term post colonialism implies both a situation coming after colonialism: both an ongoing liberation and an ongoing oppression. 12 Evidently, weak, selfish, greedy and inefficient African leadership class is the aftermath of colonialism that led to bad governance in postcolonial Africa. Since the colonist had no intention to leave, or come up with a genuine plan to develop Africa; politicians and African public servants were caught napping when the mantle of leadership suddenly fell on them as heir apparent to the African throne forcefully vacated by the colonial masters.…”