Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

How to Do Things With Words

Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism

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Transforming Mission Paradigm Shifts In Theology Of Mission

After our likeness: the church as the image of the Trinity

Background: Despite its acceptability, the term disability has not been able to shirk the sense of incompleteness, lack, deprivation and incapacitation embodied in the prefix ‘dis-’. The current wave of anti-discrimination on disability issues, calls for constant re-examination of the language and the appellations we use in respect of people with disabilities. Objectives: The aim of this study is to subject the term disability to some relevancy litmus test with a view to prevent it from acquiring Lyotard’s ‘grand narrative’ and to propose and argue for the term ‘differently abled’ because of its transformative and anti-discriminatory slant. Method: The study took the form of a literature review using the optic of Derrida’s hierarchy of binaries and the Sesotho proverb, ‘ Bitso-lebe-ke seromo ’, (A bad name is ominous) to explore the connotations of the term disability as a disenfranchising social construct. Results: Read through the lens of Derrida’s idea of difference, disability as a concept has no inherent meaning and its meaning derives from its being differentiated from other concepts. Viewed through the lens of Bitso-lebe-ke seromo and read in the context of its deep symbolical significance, the term disability holds immense spiritual power. Conclusion: The study concludes that the term disability or disabled is exclusionary, stigmatizing, and anti-transformational. As such it embodies imperfection, incapacitation and inferiority. Not only is it ominous, it places upon people with disability the perpetual mark of unattractiveness. Against this background the term differently abled seems to convey more empowering overtones than the term disability.

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Being differently abled: disability through the lens of hierarchy of binaries and Bitso-lebe-ke Seromo

Disability has remained on the fringes of research in Africa in general and Southern Africa in particular, especially in the field of theology. Its glaring absence constitutes an indictment against both church and society, revealing in the process both the church’s and society’s penchant for a dependence paradigm which has been the paradigm with respect to issues of disabilities and people with disabilities. Using the participatory method with its proclivity for bringing to the fore the voice of the ‘other’ and the marginalised, both the dependence and independence paradigms within the context of disability are put under scrutiny. In the process and through the voice of people with disabilities, the practical theological paradigm of interdependence emerges as the most appropriate and friendliest one, as it resonates with both the New Testament notion of koinonia through love and the African notion of botho through interconnection. The practical theology of holding each other in arms resonates with the theology of embrace that has been popularised by Volf within the context of much hatred and alienation. All these different dimensions of the theology of interdependence become the bedrock for inclusive and respectful treatment of each other irrespective of race, gender,

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From dependence to interdependence: Towards a practical theology of disability

Using the refining optics of postcolonial hermeneutics, this paper is an attempt to show how missionary legacies, in the form of musical texts, have been and remain a talisman of imperialistic endeavors. They reflect, as it were, the superiority of the colonizing culture and religion while at the same time demonizing and promoting negative stereotypes about Africans (Mosotho) and their world. Specifically, this paper represents a reconstruction of the image of a colonial African (Mosotho) savage as depicted by the missionaries in their musical texts as contained in the Lifela tsa Sione and Lifela tsa Bakriste, in order to justify the necessity of Christianity as a superior form of life. The flipside of this reconstructive endeavor is the creation of space for the emergence of a voice that had been drowned out by Eurocentric ideological hegemony. The release of this voice provides an opportunity to re-label and re-define a Mosotho Christian’s identity through word and song.

Postcolonial Reading of Nineteenth-Century Missionaries’ Musical Texts

The influence of the great Roman Empire on almost every facet of life in the first century Mediterranean world can hardly be ignored. It comes as no surprise therefore that the gospels, which took shape within this context, reflect the machinations of the empire which guarded, jealously, any attempt to oppose or subvert the military, economic, political and ideological imperium it enjoyed over its colonies. The presence of the governor, military and the Sanhedrin, in the gospel of Matthew, all connive to expose the pervasiveness of the empire under the dual aspects of materiality and ideology. Applying the optics of post-colonial, imperialist hermeneutics on the Matthean unit of Jesus’ arrest and trial, this article seeks to show how 1) the imperial machinations of the first Mediterranean world shaped the collective memory of the Matthean Christians; 2) how this collective memory interfaces with the manner in which the same imperium – no matter how hybridised it may be – is kept alive in our day; 3) how the potent mix of the pervasiveness of the Roman Empire and masculinity within which it is entrenched, are prolonged in the modern day Christian society.

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Imperialism, christian identity and masculinity: post-colonial interpretation of jesus’ arrest and trial in the gospel of matthew

In 18th and 19th century Southern Africa, European colonial and cultural imperialism was met with a variety of responses by the indigenous people. Some overtly and violently resisted, others ‘collaborated’ or sought ‘accommodation’ within the system, while others resorted to hidden forms of resistance. While we know a lot about the overt forms of resistance, we still know little about those who resorted to mimicry and sly civility and those who occupied a ‘third space’ – liminality – as a form of subverting and resisting the colonial onslaught. These strategies are at one in their subversion, mockery, and distabilizing effect on the culture and authority of the colonizer. King Moshoeshoe I, the founder of the Basotho nation, used these strategies to write himself and his people into existence in the face of colonial intrusion. This paper, therefore, seeks to demonstrate how mimicry, sly civility and occupying an ‘in-between’ or unhomely positions were employed by Moshoeshoe I as strategies to not only make nonsense of alien beliefs and practices but also preserve their ways of living, worshiping, and knowing as well as survive the onslaught of Western theological and cultural domination. Yet, where we can, we also highlight the precarity of some of King Moshoeshoe I’s strategies and decisions. 

Paul Leshota

Papers

Being differently abled: disability through the lens of hierarchy of binaries and Bitso-lebe-ke Seromo

From dependence to interdependence: Towards a practical theology of disability

Postcolonial Reading of Nineteenth-Century Missionaries’ Musical Texts

Imperialism, christian identity and masculinity: post-colonial interpretation of jesus’ arrest and trial in the gospel of matthew

Subverting the hegemony of Western ‘theological’ and cultural domination: King Moshoeshoe I and ‘hidden transcripts’ of resistance