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The Steve Biko Lectures in Philosophy
The Steve Biko Lectures in Philosophy
March 2015 -November 2016
“We believe that in the long run the special contribution to the world by Africa will be in this field of human relationships. The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look, but the great gift still has to come from Africa – giving the world a more human face.”
-Steve Biko, Some African Cultural Concepts
The dehumanizing effects of the South African apartheid regime offered Steve Biko a privileged insight into the general working of the project of Western modernity and of its uncompromising colonial expansion – a colonization of ideas, bodies, and territories – since the 17th century.
The modernization of Western economic and political structures, the rise of individualism and of the principles of negative liberty brought in their wake the loss of the authority of tradition and of its substantive values.This has led authors such as Hegel, Marx, Arendt, Habermas, McIntyre and Deleuze to think of alternative possibilities of human relationships that transcend the terms set by the model of the self-interested and calculating subject. Biko’s call for the humanization of the oppressed also targeted the notion of the liberal subject.Inspired by the ethical notion of Ubuntu, meaning that “one should become more human by communing with other human beings”, this humanization would offer the world a new way of thinking about human relationships, a new kind of Sittlichkeit.
The aim of this lecture series is to continue this interrogation and critique of modernity from the epistemic standpoint that Steve Biko’s life and thought represents and symbolizes. This is a standpoint that is at once developed inside the hierarchy of the system, colonized by its norms, and yet formulates a perspective outside of it as the oppressed other.
Our six invited speakers will address themes that have a direct bearing on the political and cultural situation that a post-colonial and post-apartheid society such as South Africa tends to find itself in, a situation that is exceptionalfor casting light on the limits of the project of modernity.Our speakers will address issues including the nature of political subjectivity, tradition, and community; liberalism, politics, and religion; memory, forgiveness and trauma;the constitution of personal, racial, cultural and political identities; the rationalization of society and technological progress; and the discourse of humanism, agency and empowerment.
Our six speakers will be engaging on these themes with leading scholars based in South African institutions, with an exchange between characteristically sub-Saharan and Continental perspectives.
Lecture series organized by the Centre for Phenomenology in South Africa, the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, the French Institute of South Africa and with the support of the Steve Biko Foundation.
The Steve Biko Lectures in Philosophy March 2015 -November 2016 “We believe that in the long run the special contribution to the w...
Faith Bandler
A leading campaigner for Aboriginal rights from the 1950s through the 1980s, Faith Bandler was the daughter of Pacific Islander, Peter Mussing, brought to Queensland from the island of Ambrym in the then New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and an Australian-born mother, Ida Venno, of Indian-Scottish descent, who taught her the importance of education, self respect and elegant dress.
Bandler was born in 1918, one of eight children and raised in the small community of Tumbulgum in northern New South Wales and later Murwillumbah, where she attended high school. The schoolyard was the site of harassment and racial abuse.
In her adult life, Bandler became best known as the charismatic speaker and broadcaster, who advocated a 'Yes' vote in the 1967 referendum, which was overwhelmingly successful, with more than 90 per cent of Australians agreeing to end constitutional discrimination against Indigenous peoples.
Her father was taken as a boy in 1883 from Biap, on the island of AMbrym. His kidnapping was part of 'blackbirding', the practice which brought cheap labour to help establish the Austrailian sugar industry. He was later known as Peter Mussing, a lay preacher and worked on a banana plantation outside Murwillumbah. However, Bandler's father died when she was just five years old.
Bandler's childhood memories of her father's stories became the basis of her first novel, Wacvie, published in 1977. Her second novel Welou: My Brother documents, as the title suggests, her brother Walter's life growing up in Australia as a boy torn between two different cultures. It was published in 1984.
The Mussing children understood their father's situation in terms of the well known narrative of American slavery. They were inspired in their political campaigns for freedom from the racial discrimination they experienced in the local cinemas, hotels and shops, by the American publications of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People ( NAACP) and by the songs of Paul Robeson, which Bandler also heard when she didn't attend school one day to see the legendary film, Showboat, in the local picture theatre. As a young adult, Bandler would drive her car to Sydney airport to meet Robeson on his first trip to Australia in 1960.
Thirty years later, when Bandler left the north coast to live in Sydney, and joined, on the outbreak of war, the Australian Women's Land Army and worked in rural New South Wales picking cherries. Here she had her first taste of independence and modern urban life. After the war she became involved in the left wing pacifist circles of King's Cross, leading to her participation in the Margaret Walker Dance Group and a trip to the International Youth Congress in Berlin, in 1951. There she was the leading performer in the so-called 'The Dance of the Aboriginal Girl', based on a poem about racial discrimination in the South of the United States called 'The Merry Go Round' by the popular Harlem Renaissance writer, Langston Hughes.
After her return from Europe, Bandler met her future husband Hans Bandler through their shared love of classical music. Hans Bandler was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who had been incarcerated in Dachau and Buchenwald before escaping to the United Kingdom and then Australia. They married in 1952 and their daughter Lilon was born in 1954.
Working with the Australian Peace Council, Bandler met the courageous Aboriginal activist, Pearl Gibbs, with whom she formed, in 1956, the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship, which played a key role in launching in 1957 at the Sydney Town Hall, the petition campaign to the federal government requesting a referendum on the sections of the constitution that discriminated against Aborigines. The ten year mobilisation that ensued, for which Bandler provided tireless leadership was just as important to achieving the vital amendments to the constitution as was the referendum vote in 1967.
At the same time Bandler became involved with the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), formed in 1958, with which the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship was affiliated.
In the 1970s Bandler turned to an investigation of the history of her father's people and the role of South Sea Islanders, as they were then termed, in developing the north of Queensland and in particular the sugar industry. She embarked on a trip to Vanuatu and met up with her father's relatives. She also documented their lives and exploitative experience at the hands of traffickers in labour and the sugar cane growers. She became an active member of the Women's Electoral Lobby after it was founded in 1972.
By the 1970s, Bandler was a much loved public figure, who testified to the long history of racist oppression in Australia, provided an example of courage and grace in overcoming racism and serving as a moral beacon to the cause of social justice, human rights and equal opportunity for all.
She received numerous awards and honours. In testament to her moral leadership of the nation she was awarded the Human Rights Medal from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission in 1997. In 2000, Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace prize winner and former President of South Africa presented Bandler on behalf of the Sydney Peace Foundation, with a 'Meritorious Award in Honour and Gratitude for a Life of Courageous Advocacy for Justice and for Indigenous People, for Human Rights, for Love and Reconciliation'. In 2009, Faith was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest honour by Governor General Quentin Bryce In 2009.
Hans passed on, and at the age of 96 in February 2015, Bandler died.
Bandler's published works include:
·
Bandler, Faith
(1977). Wacvie. Adelaide: Rigby.
·
Bandler, Faith;
Fox, Len (1980). Marani in Australia. Adelaide: Rigby.
·
Bandler, Faith;
Fox, Len (editors) (1983). The Time was Ripe: A History of the
Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship. Chippendale: Alternative Publishing
Cooperative.
·
Bandler, Faith
(1984). Welou, My Brother. Glebe: Wild & Woolley.
·
Bandler, Faith
(1989). Turning the tide : a personal history of the Federal Council
for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Canberra:
Aboriginal Studies Press.
Sources:
http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0231b.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_Bandler
A leading campaigner for Aboriginal rights from the 1950s through the 1980s, Faith Bandler was the daughter of Pacific Islander, Peter...
Sister Carol
Carol Theresa East, known by her stage name of Sister Carol, is a Jamaican-born American reggae recording artist and actress. She has used several other stage names, including Black Cinderella and Mother Culture.
Sister Carol was born on the 15th of January 1959 in Denham Town, Kingston, Jamaica. Her formative years were spent at St Anne’s Primary School and Mico-Practicing All-Age School.
It was Sister Carol’s father, Howard East, who introduced her to the Jamaican music scene. Howard East was a Senior Engineer at Radio Jamaica Rediffusion, the number one radio station during that time and he contributed to recording sessions at Studio One and Treasure Isle Sound.
At the age of 14, Sister Carol and her family immigrated to Brooklyn, New York in the US. Here, she studied at the City College of New York, and in 1984 she obtained a B.Sc. degree in education. In the same year she gave birth to her first child. Around that time she met Brigadier Jerry, a Jamaican DJ, who encouraged her to try dancehall style, rather than singing.
After winning competitions in New York and Jamaica, she toured with The Meditations, a reggae vocal harmony group, which was once the backup vocals for Bob Marley. Her first album, Liberation for Africa, was released in 1983, and the Pan-Africanist themes of emancipation and decolonisation are evident in the songs ‘Liberation for Africans’ and ‘Shackles’. Also on the album is the song ‘Black Woman’, a song that simultaneously highlights the struggle and praises being both black.
However, it was Sister Carol’s second album, Black Cinderella, released in 1984 that catapulted her into stardom. Sister Carol had this to say about the song, ‘Black Cinderella’, titled after the album of the same name:
"Well, back in Jamaica growing up as a youth, whenever I recognised things that I'm against, like there's a lot of political crime in the area, sometimes shooting involved with politics, things like discrimination and racism, things that I identified in my youth that I didn't like. I immediately saw them as the stepsisters or my stepmother, relating back to the same story as the book. I always felt like Cinderella, not being able to have the chance to do or to have certain things I might have desired as a child. I was never really seeking a Prince Charming, per se, to redeem me; I was more looking for something to happen by the Creator. And I knew that it would always be music, because as a youth, that's what brought joy to me, the music, every time."
During this time she dominated the music scene winning the coveted “Best Female DJ” for five consecutive years from 1983 – 1987. With these accolades behind her she established her own “Black Cinderella Record Label” in 1989.
Sister Carol went on to release eleven more albums, and in each album conscious and feminist messages remained present. For example, the album ISIS, released in 1999, Sister Carol stresses the importance of supporting women, a group which is “endangered.”
Sister Carol has also starred in films; she appeared in the Jonathan Demme films; Something Wild (1986), Married to the Mob (1988), and Rachel Getting Married (2008, to name a few.
A true testament of her resilient spirit and energy spans over thirty-five years in a male dominated industry, Sister Carol is a trailblazer for women in reggae. Her music carries a social message for people all over the world. Her message is rich with cultural heritage and infused with a vital social consciousness that permeates every aspect of life in the new millennium, hence her title as “Mother Culture.”
Her prolific music career includes over 12 albums, a Grammy nomination for “Best Reggae Album” in 1997, “Most Outstanding Reggae Artist” two consecutive years 1997 and 1998, and “Queen of Reggae” in 2000 in Detroit Michigan, New York City Council Proclamation celebrating Jamaica’s 39th year of independence. Also honouring Jamaicans in New York for outstanding cultural contribution to life in the city of New York in 2001, Institute of Caribbean Studies Wash. DC – “Cultural Heritage Award for Excellence in Music” in 2004, “Lifetime Achievement” in 2008 in Columbus Ohio, “Roots Women in Reggae” 2009 to name just a few.
Sources:
Carol Theresa East, known by her stage name of Sister Carol, is a Jamaican-born American reggae recording artist and actress. She ...
Winston 'Burning Spear' Rodney
Burning Spear, was born Winston Rodney on 1 March 1945 in Saint Ann's Bay, Saint Ann, Jamaica. As a young man he listened to the R&B, soul and jazz music transmitted by the US radio stations whose broadcasts reached Jamaica.
Rodney was deeply influenced as a young man by the views of the political activist Marcus Garvey, especially with regard to the exploration of the themes of Pan-Africanism and self-determination. In 1969, Bob Marley, who was also from Saint Ann, advised Rodney to approach Coxsone Dodd's Studio One label after Rodney sought his advice during a casual conversation. Rodney recalls the conversation, "Bob was walking with a donkey and some buckets full of plants, just heading back to his farm, and I told him I was interested in getting involved in the music business," Rodney recalled. "He could tell I was serious, so he says to me, 'OK, just drop by Studio One' [Marley's recording studio]."
Burning Spear was originally Rodney's group, named after a military award given by Jomo Kenyatta, the first President of an independent Kenya. Rodney and bass singer Rupert Willington auditioned for Dodd in 1969 which led to the release of their debut single ‘Door Peep’. They were then joined by tenor Delroy Hinds. The trio recorded several more singles, and two albums, before they moved on to work with Jack Ruby in 1975. Their first recording with Ruby, "Marcus Garvey" an immediate hit, and was followed by ‘Slavery Days’.
The song, ‘Slavery Days’, which is included in their 1975 album, Marcus Garvey (1975), is a prime example of how in reggae music, race and common suffering is the rallying focus of a pan-African anti-colonial agitation. ‘Slavery Days’ is grounded in historical memories of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonial exploitation of Africa.
After the release of Marcus Garvey with Island Records, Rodney to set up his own Burning Music label for future releases where he would have full control, although further releases followed on Island including Garvey's Ghost.
In late 1976, Rodney split from both Ruby and group members Willington and Hinds, and from that point on used the name Burning Spear as a solo artist. Dry and Heavy followed in 1977, self-produced but still on Island. He performed with the British reggae group Aswad, who also were his backing band on his studio album, Social Living released in 1978.
In 1980, Rodney left Island Records and set up the Burning Music Production Company which he signed to EMI debuting on the label with the album Hail H.I.M. In 1982, Rodney signed with Heartbeat Records with a series of well-received albums following, including the 1985 Grammy-nominated Resistance. From the title of the album it is clear that even in the 80s, Rodney still had a message to Black people around the world: that is to resist.
He returned to Island in the early 1990s, releasing two albums before rejoining Heartbeat. When Heartbeat ceased releasing new material after some years, Burning Music took matters into their own hands and began to release music solely through their own imprint. Albums released by Heartbeat through an agreement with Burning Music include: The World Should Know (1993), Rasta Business (1995), Appointment with His Majesty (1997) and Calling Rastafari (1999) which was the last completed album to be solely pressed by an outside label.
Calling Rastafari brought his first Grammy Award in 2000, a feat which he repeated with Jah Is Real in 2009.
In 2002, he and his wife, Sonia Rodney who has produced a number of his albums, restarted Burning Music Records, giving him a greater degree of artistic control. Since the mid-1990s, he has been based in Queens, New York.
Burning Spear was awarded the Order of Distinction in the rank of Officer on 15 October 2007.
For nearly four decades and more than 25 albums, Rodney has carried the torch of the gospel of political activist Marcus Garvey, promoting self-determination and self-reliance for African descendants through lyrics and rhythms that truly deliver the messages of peace and love to all.
Sources:
http://articles.latimes.com/1997/aug/27/entertainment/ca-26181
Burning Spear, was born Winston Rodney on 1 March 1945 in Saint Ann's Bay, Saint Ann, Jamaica. As a young man he listened to the R...
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