On Writing from a Postcolonial Perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sindiwe Magona
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
White People ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Her Family ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Total Absence ◽  
The Times ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
Sindiwe Magona ◽  
History Books

Sindiwe Magona started writing in pursuit of agency as opposed to victimhood. With no training in writing, she felt nonetheless she could paint a much better, more realistic picture than what she found in stories of her people written by white people, to say nothing of how history books represented black Africans or “Bantu” as the terminology of the day went. Another fact that pushed her to dare to write was the almost total absence of records left to her generation by the preceding one. She wanted to close that lacuna. Her first book, To My Children’s Children, was published in 1990 when she was almost fifty years old. Magona wrote the autobiography as a record of life lived in a specific period, by specific people, using hers as an example. The book references other lives, not only that of her family. The cultural milieu and the overarching theme, given the times, however, is of the oppressive system of apartheid—legalized racism. Memory represents not only what is remembered but the inescapable past as represented by the still felt, still visible, still “performing” insights, ideas, ideology, actions, and reactions of South Africans almost a quarter of a century since the end of apartheid came with the first democratic elections of April 27, 1994. Each of her books—four novels, two collections of short stories, two autobiographies, two published plays, three biographies, a book of poetry, as well as her articles, essays, and talks—gives evidence of Magona’s witness of what happens, how it happens, and its observed or acknowledged consequences. She takes the journey further, exploring the inner meanings of the observed. The inner lives of victims and perpetrators, of oppressed and oppressor, and all the other binaries of which she is aware concern her. She set out to write, to leave a record for all posterity, not only black posterity, for it is her firm belief, hope, and prayer that, ere long, humanity will find itself, regain its former oneness or sense of belonging, and understand there are no races but one, the human race.

Agree to Disagree: Towards A Peaceful Co-Existence amongst Multi-Religious Community (Setuju untuk Tidak Bersetuju: Kearah Kehidupan Aman Ber-sama Dikalangan Masyarakat Berbilang Agama)

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 248-267
Author(s):  
Maulana Akbar Shah @ U Tun Aung ◽  
Mohammed Farid Ali ◽  
Muhammad Adil Khan Afridi
Keyword(s):  
Hard Work ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Living Together ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Right

Abstract Since the number of intricate problems with regard to peace and security faced by mankind on our sphere has been greater than what they can bear, the survival of human race on earth becomes a significant priority to be contemplated. Despite hard work and continued effort rendered by many experts, they face more serious issues and their resolutions are far from reality. It is because, in the author’s mind, rights and responsibilities are not properly observed. Particularly, in the area of religion people have lack of respecting the right of others and most of the times they are irresponsible. Every individual has their own choices according to their culture and belief which may not be acceptable to others. If every individual allows others to enjoy at their own choice while observing his own belief and tradition, we all can live in this world peacefully. This concept of living together with individual choice while respecting other’s choice may be called the concept of “agree to disagree” according to the author’s work. This ideology, which is yet to be well observed in our society, can surely replace violence with peaceful co-existence in the multi-religious and multi-cultural societies.   Keywords: Agree to Disagree, Mankind, Religious Dispute, Multi-Cultural Societies, peaceful Co-Existence. Abstrak Sejak masalah berkaitan dengan keharmonian dan keselamatan yang dialami manusia melebihi yang boleh ditanggung, kehidupan manusia di dunia ini menjadi satu keutamaan  yang perlu dipertimbangkan. Walaupun banyak usaha dan langkah diambil oleh pihak pakar, mereka mengalami masalah lain yang lebih serius dan resolusi mereka adalah jauh dari matlamat. Ini kerana, dalam minda pengarang, hak dan tanggungjawab tidak diperhatikan dengan betul. Terutamanya dalam hal agama, orang kekurangan kehormatan terhadap hak orang lain dan kebanyakkannya adalah tidak bertanggungjawab. Setiap individu mempunyai kepercayaan dan hak masing-masing yang tidak boleh diterima oleh yang lain. Jika setiap individu membenarkan yang lain untuk mempunyai kepercayaan dan hak masing-masing, manusia semua boleh hidup dengan aman. Konsep ini boleh dipanggil sebagai konsep “setuju untuk tidak bersetuju” menurut kajian pengarang. Ideologi ini, yang masih belum diperhatikan dengan sepenuhnya dalam masyarakat kita, pasti boleh menggantikan keganasan dengan kehidupan aman bersama dalam masyarakat berbilang kaum dan budaya. Kata Kunci: Setuju untuk Tidak Bersetuju, Manusia, Pertikaian Agama, Masyarakat Berbilang Agama, Kehidupan Aman Bersama.

scholarly journals Hegemonic Domination of White over Black in “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison

sjesr ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-34
Author(s):  
Irfan Mehmood ◽  
Dr. Komal Ansari ◽  
Dr. M. K. Sangi
Keyword(s):  
Black Community ◽  
Toni Morrison ◽  
White Men ◽  
The Other ◽  
White People ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Safe Delivery ◽  
Bluest Eye ◽  
Self Reliance

Every human being is beautiful with his own colour and appearance. No colour makes one beautiful but the white people of America have propagated the idea of white beauty as a tool of their politics to show themselves superior to the blacks. They focused on the colour because to be white for a black is unattainable as it is biological. They also tried to create self-hatred among the blacks by spreading the white ideology. They hegemonized the blacks to accept the concept of white beauty by using advertisements, media, actors and education. They also forced the blacks to be considered as ugly creating the least opportunities in the work places for the black community of America; alienating them from the society and torturing them both mentally and physically. As in The Bluest Eye, Pecola and her family are the worst victims of white men’s politics. Pecola together with her family members is both mentally and physically tortured and tormented to accept the white ideology. However, Pecola and her mother have accepted the white ideology and Pecola has mostly desired to get the bluest eye. On the other hand, Claudia resisted against the white men and their ideology. At the end, Pecola has accepted the baby of Cholly Breedlove as a token of love and self-reliance and both Claudia and Frieda wish to have the safe delivery of it. Therefore, in this article I would like to show that how the white men employed their evil intention of using the colour for dominating the blacks in America as a part of power politics, and also show black people’s reaction toward the white ideology with reference to The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

scholarly journals Liberation and Redistribution: Social Grants, Commercial Insurance, and Religious Riches in South Africa

2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Bähre
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Government Expenditure ◽  
Social Assistance ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black Economic Empowerment ◽  
Social Grants ◽  
National Reconstruction ◽  
Democratic Elections

South Africa's liberation, marked by the first democratic elections of 1994, ushered in an unprecedented expansion of large-scale redistributive arrangements. In the post-apartheid period, the collection of money into a central fund administered anonymously and bureaucratically has gained social and political importance, particularly for poor and lower-middle-class Africans. This is most evident in a rapid expansion of government social assistance—from 1997 to 2006 the number of beneficiaries of social grants increased from three to almost eleven million, and today at least a quarter of South African households receive welfare payments. Social assistance “has been the fastest-growing category of government expenditure since 2001, and now amounts to R70 billion [almost US$7 billion in 2006] a year, about 3.4 percent of gross domestic product.” The centrality of redistribution is clear in current debates over the establishment of a Basic Income Grant (BIG) for all South Africans. Political liberation has also brought an increase in redistribution through development projects such as the National Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) grants.

scholarly journals The skewed social image of white South Africans in Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist

2020 ◽  
Vol 189 ◽  
pp. 03031
Author(s):  
Xiangting Chen
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
White Identity ◽  
African Society ◽  
White People ◽  
Social Image ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
South African Society ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black South African ◽  
The Social

-In this article he examines the social identity crisis of White South Africans in Nadine Gordimer’s “The Conservationist”. Gordimer describes the psychology, social deformities and human distortions of the repressed white people in post-colonial South Africa. At that time, white South Africans were tortured by colonial guilt and racial contradictions. While recognizing the culture of their European ancestors, they wanted to integrate into the black South African society. This paper analyzes the decline of South African white identity and the phenomenon of white exodus from the perspective of the protagonist’s thoughts and behaviors, and combines the political and social problems during those days.

A Foolish Proposal? Vulnerability as an Alternative Attempt to Contribute to Decolonisation and Reconciliation in Post-Colonial South Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-159
Author(s):  
Marcus Grohmann
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Living Standard ◽  
White People ◽  
Alternative Response ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Strong Position ◽  
Interpersonal Level

Reconciliation in South Africa is often taken to mean the creation of culturally diverse communities. In reality, though, the multicultural often turns out to be multiracial only with People of Colour being included in White-dominated spaces. Likewise, socio-economic transformation means raising people’s chances to attain a living standard more equal to that of the bulk of the White population. In both cases, the strong position of White people in sociocultural and socio-economic terms remains largely untouched. Hence the calls for decolonisation which seem to render the reconciliation discourse dispensable. Vulnerability by White South Africans is proposed as an alternative response to ongoing inequalities which – it is suggested – could contribute to both decolonisation and reconciliation on an interpersonal level. Likely objections to such a proposal are considered before making a case for vulnerability as an appropriate Christian way of living, particularly in the context of former settler colonialism.

Blake and Hamann

2018 ◽  
pp. 125-150
Author(s):  
Alexander Regier
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Human Race ◽  
The Past ◽  
Poetic Expression ◽  
The Times

This chapter contextualizes Blake’s and Hamann’s radical propositions about language and reason. For them, language is both ‘the mother of reason and revelation’ but ‘also the centre point of the misunderstanding of reason with itself’. In contrast to the emerging Lockean philosophical status quo of the times, they reject any functional account of language, and instead argue that poetry lies at the origin of all creative thinking (‘poetry is the mother-tongue of the human race’). Blake and Hamann create an account of language (the ‘uterus of thought’) that presents poetic expression as the most concentrated and truthful way of generating meaning, not just in the past, but also today. Crucially, for Blake and Hamann, language and reason are inextricably connected, suggesting that thinking itself is poetical. In their exorbitant epistemology and ontology, Blake and Hamann emerge as two major critics of the eighteenth-century linguistic thinking and philosophy.

Reminisces of Participants in the Struggle against Apartheid about Studying in the USSR (1960s–1980s)

2021 ◽  
pp. 191
Author(s):  
Daria A. Turianitsa
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
South African ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
White People ◽  
South Africans ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Racial Perceptions ◽  
Freedom Fighters ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Thabo Mbeki

This article is a review of South African cadets’ and students’ memoirs that received political or/and military education in the Soviet Union as a part of Soviet assistance in solidarity against the apartheid. Most of them were fighters of the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) “Umkhonto we Sizwe”. This paper examines and cites the curious aspects of Soviet life noted by the arriving students, among whom was the ex-President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki, as well as many former and current high-ranking authorities of this country. It is worth saying that the authors of the published recollections highlighted not only the positive aspects of their stay in the Soviet Union, but also did mentioned some negative sides, thus providing a more “complete” picture. However, one should not forget that in many ways the description of certain events was directly related to the student’s outlook and could differ from the real state of affairs. The authors of this article were especially interested in what trainees expected to see in the USSR, how their relations with Soviet citizens were built, and what experience they kept in mind at the end of their studies. The authors tried, partially quoting the memoirs of some freedom fighters, to answer these questions. It is worth pointing out that as one of the main results of cooperation Soviet officers and other instructors, by their own example, were able to change the racial perceptions of South Africans by showing how “white” people could be.  

scholarly journals Prediction of an epidemic with Machine Learning and Covid-19 Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 245 ◽  
pp. 03041
Author(s):  
Fang Wenhui ◽  
Wang Yihui ◽  
Lu Zhipeng
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
Machine Learning Techniques ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Infected People ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Specific Virus ◽  
Public Health Challenge ◽  
The Times

The human race has already overcome many epidemics such as smallpox, SARS, and Black Death with vaccines or cures. As the number of infected people climes up to 10 million due to the new coronavirus in 2020, the human race faced another public health challenge. Because of the strong infectivity of the new coronavirus, humans have not won this fight after half a year. During the times of defeating these viruses, humans sacrificed not only wealth but also lives. Apart from many tribulations, human race also has great development in on technology. Machine learning method was invented and applied in many fields such as robotics, healthcare, and medicine. Since the transmission of a virus is related to social factors such as the percentage of college degree, and population density, there is a model built in this article that only related to outside factors such as health insurance coverage to predict that when the climax of an epidemic will arrive by using machine learning techniques and data related to Covid-19. Since the model does not take transmissibility of one specific virus, this model can apply to any epidemics to forecast the peak with enough data.

scholarly journals Barbara Gołajewska-Chudzikiewicz, Świat, którego już nie ma

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 143-198
Author(s):  
Jakub Gałęziowski
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Her Family ◽  
General Government ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Manor House ◽  
Landed Gentry ◽  
The Times ◽  
The City

The biographical account of Barbara Gołajewska-Chudzikiewicz was recorded in 2007 as a part of the documentary project “The Forgotten Witnesses to the 20th century” run by the KARTA Centre and the History Meeting House. The narrator tells the story of her life, as well as the story of her family, starting in 1918. As the material is very extensive, in this publication only the fragments regarding the years 1918–1945 are presented. The narrative, in a manner typical for landed gentry of the Kielce region, contains a description of Ms Gołajewska-Chudzikiewicz’s childhood and family life in a small landed estate of Bieganów in the times of the Second Polish Republic. It gives insight into the course of her education, upbringing of children and young people in a landowning family, relations between the servants and the landowners, everyday life in the manor house, along with civilization difficulties, celebrating of holidays, the manor-village relations, and finally the general way the landed family functioned between the countryside and the city. The next important part of the narrative starts with the outbreak of WWII and conveys the everyday life of the manor under German occupation in the General-Government. The narrator describes the functions of the Polish manor in occupation conditions: helping and giving shelter to those displaced from the territories incorporated to the Third Reich, helping the Warsaw Uprising fugitive fighters, active participation in the Home Army structures, and relations with the German invader, as well as food and clothes extortions run by armed groups of unknown provenance, and confrontation with the Soviet army entering from the East.

scholarly journals Complexities of Polish migrant's citizenship attributions in the context of Brexit and the Scottish Independence Referendums

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-402
Author(s):  
Emilia Pietka-Nykaza ◽  
Derek McGhee
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Eu Referendum ◽  
Run Up ◽  
The Times ◽  
Scottish Independence ◽  
Political Uncertainties

This article focuses on the experiences of Scotland's largest foreign-born minority group, namely Poles, in the run-up to the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 and subsequently the UK's EU Referendum. Through exploring Polish migrant residents initial responses and experiences with regard to both referendums, this article (1) outlines perspectives on blurred and contested boundaries and formations of citizenships and (2) the implications of complex and changing relations between citizenship attributions (e.g. political participation, legal status of citizenship and sense of belonging) on the process of citizenship formation. This article therefore offers a greater understanding of the transformation of traditional state-centric concepts of citizenship rights into the shifting borders and character of citizenship formation during the times of political uncertainties.

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