ARTICLE
TITLE

Unshackling the chains of coloniality: Reimagining decoloniality, Africanisation and Reformation for a non-racial South Africa

SUMMARY

AbstractRacial divisions, polarisation and tensions are on the rise in South Africa today. A democratic dream of a rainbow nation remains just a dream with racism continuing to raise its ugly head in the democratic South Africa, to the detriment of the rainbow dream of a united South Africa. This article seeks to probe whether South Africans should continue to sing the song of racial reconciliation in the light of the continued racial tensions and post-colonial and post-apartheid legacies and stereotypes that continue to manifest in our private and public spaces. Based on an examination of the decoloniality project, Africanisation and Reformation, through literature study, the article calls for the decoloniality of faith in an effort to craft a vision for a non-racial society. This vision not only takes the importance of the redeeming memories of the 500 years of Reformation seriously, but also the notion of Africanisation and, in particular, the use of the African value systems in shaping and reconstructing a non-racial South Africa. This article taps into the resourcefulness of the Reformed faith in South Africa, as articulated in the theologies of Snyman, Tshaka and Botha, and applies them to South African discourses of decoloniality.

 Articles related

Johann-Albrecht Meylahn    

AbstractThe last few years the young democratic South Africa’s history has been characterised byservice delivery protests and industrial action which is becoming increasingly violentas epitomised by Marikana. Is the violence that accompanies industrial a... see more


Johan M. Strijdom    

AbstractA critical examination of the history of theories and uses of concepts such as ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’ in the academic study of religion in imperial, colonial and postcolonial contexts is particularly urgent in our time with its demands to decol... see more


Arnau van Wyngaard    

AbstractThis article covers the time from 1652 onwards when employees of the Dutch East India Company – most of whom were members of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands – arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in present South Africa. With time, a new churc... see more


Markus Cromhout    

AbstractAvoiding ethnic tension and conflict in South Africa: What can we learn from Paul’s experience?The dream of a ‘rainbow nation’ in South Africa appears to be on the wane as ethnic tension and conflict seem to simmer just beneath the surface. This ... see more


P.J. van der Merwe    

AbstractThe ideal of theological training of candidates for the ministry of the Dutch Reformed Church (NHK) found its first (formal) expression in 1884. Difficult ecclesiastical, social and economic circumstances (including the consequences of the First ... see more