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

Abstract

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.

Keywords

South Africa settler colonialism reconciliation decolonisation cultural linguistics cultural conceptualisations

Introduction

In the South Africa of the 1990s, ‘reconciliation’ was regarded as a vision and a means of enabling those who benefitted from and those who suffered under the system of apartheid to construct a peaceful and prosperous future together (Gibson, 2004: 117; Wüstenberg, 2014). More than two decades into the new dispensation, the structural inequalities are proving very difficult to overcome (Wale, 2014). This negatively affects the reconciliation process. One aspect of the multiracial realities in South Africa is the continued domination of White¹ or Western² culture. This is visible, for instance, in English being the lingua franca and in the education curricula. The long-term effects of centuries of settler colonialism appear to have been underestimated. This calls for new perspectives on the nature, possibilities and limitations of social change. The concept of ‘coloniality/decoloniality’ offers a framework which can help to make sense of interracial relationships and attempts of reconciliation. The related buzzword ‘decolonisation’ is filled with a variety of demands.³ Referring to Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s demand for deimperialisation alongside decolonisation (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2014: 39), Thesnaar (2017: 4) sees a responsibility of former colonisers of coming to terms with past and ongoing structures of domination by the West. Current attempts by White people in South Africa of doing so usually circle around acts of charity and ‘upliftment’ (see below). There is also a related discourse on restitution (see e.g. Swartz, 2016). What appears to be missing so far is a debate in White circles on the possibility of intentionally giving up privilege and power. This article proposes vulnerability as a possible response to calls for decolonisation, contributing to reconciliation at the same time by transforming cross-cultural relationships. I will use decolonisation to refer to a change in the way people relate to each other across boundaries of culture, race and class, reducing White or Western domination both on a structural and interpersonal level.

This paper is written from a White perspective with a White readership as the primary target group. It draws on an ongoing PhD project in sociology of religion investigating how reconciliation is imagined and practised in a multiracial, evangelical middle-class church in Cape Town, in the context of White structural privilege. I will use quotes taken from qualitative interviews with White church members. These were coupled with participant observation, informal conversations and the learning of isiXhosa as the main means of data gathering and analysis. If the wording in this paper may sound strangely German at times, this is probably due to my origin. It may underscore an argument made in this paper, that the cultural schemas we grew up with often influence our way of using language even when we express ourselves in another language.

South Africa: A Brief Historical Background and the Post-Apartheid Situation

South Africa has a history of 300 years of settler colonialism prior to the 46 years of apartheid (Feinstein, 2005). Coercion and legislature were used to secure European domination in politics and economy. People who were classified as other than White were not allowed to contribute or compete on equal terms. With regard to the influential Dutch Reformed Church, a contested decision was made at their 1857 synod: Even though they found it both ‘desirable and scriptural’ for Black, Coloured and White Christians to worship and practice communion together, for ‘the weakness of some’ they allowed for separation of communion and worship which led to entirely separate church bodies under the supervision and direction of White people (Elphick, 2012: 43–45). This development mirrored policies of segregation outside of the church which culminated in the establishment of the strict apartheid policies under a White Afrikaner government from 1948 onwards. The colonial economy with its aspect of labour migration had massive consequences for family life. People not classified as White were systematically hindered from thriving economically and politically.⁴ In attempts to ‘tidy up’ racially mixed areas, people were deprived of their homes and livelihoods. The slogan of ‘separate but equal development’ (Mazrui, 1993: 353) must have sounded like a mockery in the ears of those who were forced into and not allowed to leave precarious existences by a minority who had their geographic and cultural origins in another part of the world. All South African White people benefitted from this system which found its demise in 1994. After a long and violent struggle, South Africans who were not White finally gained equal rights.

Following the ideal of the ‘rainbow nation’, enormous strides have since been made towards racial integration. However, this usually remains restricted to public spaces (Hofmeyr and Govender, 2015: 7 in Thesnaar, 2012: 5). Durrheim and Dixon (2010: 285) observed that only a ‘minority of the Black population have moved into arenas previously dominated by Whites (higher positions in organizations, social spaces, universities, etc.), whereas the corresponding movement of Whites into areas dominated by Black people (e.g. townships) remains virtually nonexistent’. The majority of White people remain affluent while the majority of Black people remain poor, and many who used to be officially identified as Coloured or Indian are found between the extremes (Wale, 2014: 22).

In terms of language politics, South Africa decided to recognise 11 languages as official. However, while only 8% of South Africans identify as ‘White’ and around 9% as Coloured (Index mundi, 2018), their major languages English and Afrikaans dominate a large part of public life. School education in South Africa is ranked among the lowest in the world (The Economist, 2017) with many children having to study in languages foreign to them (Bloch, 2000: 2). African languages are held in very low regard. Teaching them to English or Afrikaans first-language speakers has not been made a priority. Interestingly, the lack of Black languages in education and business only recently sparked noticeable public criticism in the widespread university protests around free education and decolonisation (Mwaniki et al., 2018).

The Reconciliation Narrative in South Africa and Its Shortcomings

The concept of societal reconciliation is fundamentally concerned with the (re-)building of relationships on both an individual and a communal level, as opposed to the formal or political resolution of a given conflict (Bloomfield, 2003: 11, 13; Lederach, 2001: 195). In the post-apartheid state, the reconciliation impetus moved people to seek a ‘non-racial’ (Alexander, 2001) or ‘transformed’ South Africa, based on values such as ‘equity’, ‘equal opportunities’ (Marcuse, 1995) and ‘inclusion’ (Erasmus, 2005: 140). This often translated into creating ‘diverse’, multicultural spaces. Nearly 25 years after apartheid, the public discourse on reconciliation, which had been embodied by Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, has all but vanished. Reconciliation is nowadays regarded ambivalently if not to say sceptically by many in the country. While it is acknowledged that there has been progress since apartheid ended, the reconciliation project has met significant challenges, constraints and limitations (Lefko-Everett et al. 2016). The South African Reconciliation Barometer found ‘that agreement over the desirability of creating a unified nation has declined overall, from 73 per cent in 2003 to 55 per cent in 2013’ (Lefko-Everett et al., 2016: 17). After the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) completed its work in 1998, ‘reconciliation has [. . .] slipped off the main agenda of the nation’ (Thesnaar, 2012: 215).

This raises the question why this is so. It seems that the concept of societal reconciliation with its theories and lessons learned refers mainly to contexts which have recently experienced violent conflict. The nature of reconciliation and what is desirable and feasible may be very different if the context is not (only) recent violent conflict but the aftermath of settler colonialism (cf. Moses, 2011). In South Africa, we are faced with both. There is a lack of clarity about the scope in time and magnitude of the divided past which reconciliation in South Africa is to address: The TRC only focussed on the crimes committed during apartheid (Bundy, 2000: 16), and yet apartheid was but the culmination of 300 years of colonialism and the subjugation of all those who were not identified as ‘purely’ European in origin. The problem was not only that the TRC was focused too narrowly in determining who should be classified as victim (Mamdani, 2000) but maybe even more importantly that apartheid was treated in isolation from ‘the underlying structures and processes that have determined our identities and patterned our society’ (Bundy, 2000: 20).

This has significant consequences for the process of national reconciliation. Bar-Tal regards ‘[s]uccessful conflict resolution’ as ‘a determinative factor; without it, reconciliation cannot advance’ (2000: 361). If the consequences of European settler colonialism in South Africa are understood as the basic conflict which needs to be transformed and the opposing parties reconciled, it has never been formally settled. Huyse (2003a: 67f.) holds that people who enjoyed advantages ‘as a result of the offences of others’ or who did not act ‘when witnessing violations of human rights’ can be classified as ‘indirect offenders’ or ‘indirect beneficiaries’ of the conflict. He points out the need for accountability on their part for reconciliation processes, which is all the more relevant in cases where these benefits are continuing in the form of enormous structural inequalities as in South Africa.

Reconciliation theorists have suggested a number of measures to advance reconciliation processes, including thorough analyses of ‘the underlying causes of conflict’ (Fletcher et al., 2009: 220 in Fischer, 2011: 423), overcoming power asymmetries (Kriesberg, 2007: 254 in Fischer, 2011: 417), a change of attitudes among perpetrators and beneficiaries (Chapman, 2009: 162f.) as well as public apologies including ‘full and unqualified acceptance of responsibility’ and ‘a clear commitment to change’ (Huyse, 2003b: 31).

What this means in respect of the legacy of settler colonialism and apartheid remains an open question. The question Mamdani regarded as left unanswered by the TRC remains pertinent and applies to colonialism as well: ‘How will those who continue to be the beneficiaries of apartheid, a substantial minority, and those who continue to be its victims, the majority, live together?’ (2000: 59).

The reality appears to have sunk in, that reconciliation alone is insufficient to genuinely overcome the racial divisions of the past. Whereas till 15 years ago only few people linked reconciliation to ‘issues of socioeconomic justice’, in 2013 a majority of the Black population made this connection – while only a minority of the White population shared this view (Lefko-Everett et al., 2016: 17).⁵ For Erasmus and Garuba, occurrences like ‘the #FeesMustFall movement, chronic protests for basic rights and services, and the Marikana massacre’ in 2013 are indicators of a need for deeper engagement with persisting inequalities. The view that reconciliation in South Africa needs to encompass issues of justice and transformation alongside the ‘mere’ (re-)building of relationships is largely shared, for instance, by van der Westhuizen (2016b: 168) and Thesnaar (2017: 3).

It may therefore not be surprising that the notions of ‘transformation’ and ‘decolonisation’ are nowadays more prominent than the perhaps lofty ideal of reconciliation. However, although some of these terms may at times appear more prominent than others, they do not lose their interconnection. One could say that while reconciliation acknowledges and seeks to heal the oppression and dehumanisation of people in the past, transformation and decolonisation acknowledge the ongoing consequences of this past. Transformation is therefore concerned with creating conditions under which reconciled relationships are enabled that include the notions of equality and justice (van der Westhuizen, 2016b: 171).

Popular Attempts at Working for Transformation and Reconciliation

I will now present some attitudes and strategies that people employ to bring about ‘transformation’ and thus to work for reconciliation.

The most prominent position is to give people access to what is called ‘development’ – to ‘lift them up’ from their precarious situations, to provide ‘good’ education and infrastructure. This, people hope, would also increase racial integration and transformation. Both private and public actors work with this approach. For instance, the government has been very active in increasing the number of previously disadvantaged people at institutions of higher education. However, the improved access to those institutions by People of Colour was not matched by equally high graduation rates (Leibowitz and Bozalek, 2014: 97; Machingambi, 2011: 17). Reasons for the latter may be found in a lack of adequate academic or social preparation of students for the environment in which they are then supposed to function (cf. Hurst, 2016; Khanyile, 2017; Rusznyak, 2014).

Many of those private individuals who are privileged are involved in some kind of ‘social justice’ activity: They sponsor students, help individuals with housing, get themselves involved in what is called ‘skills teaching’ in poor areas or ‘community development’, sacrifice time as tutors or volunteer in advocacy for the marginalised. Motivations appear to range from general philanthropy to a recognition of inequalities as injustices, so as attempted restitution.⁶

Given the exclusionary practices of apartheid, it may not be surprising that attempts are being made to rectify the injustices of the past through a change in the demographics of businesses, education and also churches. What is striking in all of the above, though, is that the standard remains what the standard used to be for most White people only: middle-class aspirations (according to a White perspective), the ability to function in the capitalist system (hence the teaching of skills) and ‘good’ education – the basis of which is of course English and secular⁷ and the ‘good’ schools are usually those that used to be exclusively for Whites. Indigenous African languages are treated as a nice to have but are in reality regarded as dispensable, given the already overfull curriculum and seemingly more fundamental challenges like poor levels of teaching and infrastructure as well as teachers not turning up at class.⁸

In the case of churches, there are many parallels. Many White and many Black churches remain unaffected by the racial integration happening in other parts of society, like major businesses or universities. But there are churches that are indeed trying to be more representative of the demographics of the country or the city. Those are basically of two kinds: churches whose congregations used to be largely White in the past and those that were founded with a multicultural vision after apartheid. Both appear to be driven by a sincere desire to overcome past racial division to build genuine relationships cross culturally. But again, the cultural standard of these churches remains White, middle-class, with Western theology taught in English. It is churches that are based on ‘White culture’, on the ‘White standard’ that are attracting young people from different races. With the term ‘White standard’, I refer to White South African English and cultural expressions of worship but also to social institutions and relating to one another as well as to what I call ‘worldview’. Meeting on these terms makes it difficult for White people to engage closely with traditional African worldview and value systems and thus to allow for a more profound cultural diversification of the spaces concerned. I use ‘worldview’ to mean the way reality is perceived and categorised, which is generally very different between European or Western and African culture(s). Whereas the Western world since the Renaissance has been progressively marked by a ‘secularization of knowledge’ (Ogunnaike, 2016: 785) arising from a dualistic view of reality, this perspective is in stark contrast to what is commonly labelled ‘African philosophy’, which is often described as ‘holistic’ (see e.g. ter Haar and Ellis, 2006a: 354) or ‘monistic’ (Harries, 2013b: 247f.; Ogot, 1999: 10; Rakotsoane, 2010: 3). These terms refer to a perceived oneness of what Westerners would call the spiritual world and material reality, where ‘cause and effect is not confined to the material realm’ (Harries, 2013b: 247).

Some churches that have a desire to be diverse and inclusive assist people from poorer parts of the city with transport to come to their gatherings in the predominantly White suburbs (Bowers du Toit and Nkomo, 2014: 8). The structure which is often found is that disadvantaged people are moving ‘upwards’ so to speak, where they can have fellowship with those who for various reasons are economically and socially privileged. This approach to reconciliation and transformation may facilitate encounters of people from different race and class backgrounds. One must be mindful of two things, though: Firstly, it comes at a comparatively lower cost to the ones who are privileged. Secondly, it does not challenge the underlying structures and divisions of class, space and often culture which usually have a racial dimension as well. Instead, it risks creating or perpetuating dependence (Harries, 2010: 329, 2013b: 246 f.), turning White people into patrons of African clients (Harries, 2018b: 4), as well as cultural alienation. The recent university protests appear to confirm the latter.

In a number of evangelical churches, an attitude can be found that ‘our’ (evangelical) reading of the gospel is the only one acceptable, as seen in the words of this White man:

I believe there is only one way to understand God and if one has received true Bible teaching then you would only understand God in the right manner, so if someone comes along from a different culture and says I believe this is how we are to understand God, but it goes against what we believe and we believe we are true and we unashamedly say that, do we minister to that person in the way that Christ would or do we say, okay let’s go along with yours even though we know it is not really theologically sound, but in the interest of cultural diversity, you know, so there is only one path. (20 September 2019)

Some give the gospel the label ‘trans-cultural’ while usually referring to their own understanding of the gospel. Interestingly, the same people are often very critical of indigenous African expressions of Christianity.⁹ A major reason for that, I suggest, is found in an uneasiness with cultural difference. Out of fear that cultural difference may be essentialised, i.e. intrinsically linked to skin colour or apartheid classification as Black, which could lead to accusations of racism, the difference is constructed as being theological in nature and then rejected as wrong. There is little risk of accusation of racism if the dispute takes place on a theological level.

The fact that it is culturally White churches that are appealing to people from other ‘racial’ backgrounds is an interesting observation in light of recent calls for decolonisation. It is conspicuous, though, in light of the vision of a ‘non-racial’ society these people are following, that a similar movement by White people into Black spaces and places does not take place (cf. Durrheim and Dixon, 2010: 285). This seems to be part of a broader pattern reflecting migration movements worldwide. One could infer that bridging the divides of race seems to be easier than bridging those of class, cultural practices, language, theology and space.

What consequences does such an orientation have for the process of reconciling people to each other? It seems that the contemporary socio-economic structures are not challenged in this way. Rather they risk being reaffirmed and solidified. The same applies to social divisions, leaving the hierarchy intact where White people generally find themselves on top and serve as the standard many others aspire to. ‘Transformation’ and ‘reconciliation’ of this kind seem to communicate to disadvantaged people of other races that community with White people is possible – if White people’s requirements in terms of language, living standard and theology are met first.

Conceptualising Reconciliation With Decolonisation

To be fair, many aspire to the English language and ‘White culture’, hence the movement in this direction (Bloch, 2000: 4; Hadebe, 2013; private conversations). However, theories of ‘coloniality/decoloniality’ allow us to take on another perspective: one where this movement may also be seen as an expression of Western hegemony. Coloniality refers to asymmetric, Euro-North American-centric power structures as a consequence of and surviving colonialism and being part and parcel of modernity itself (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015: 487f.). The terms ‘decoloniality’ and ‘decolonisation’ as used in this article are distinguished from former processes of anti-colonialism and political liberation. It is understood as deconstructing and reconfiguring the persisting power structures of coloniality. These are not limited to but include powerful and supposedly universal hierarchies of epistemology, knowledge and language (Grosfoguel, 2011: 16-17 in Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015: 487). Compared to other settler colonies, South Africa seems to be a unique ‘laboratory’ where such linguistic and cultural domination is realised in a context where indigenous populations are in the majority (cf. Moses, 2011: 145 f.).

Prevalent ‘Anglonormativity’ (Christie and McKinney, 2017: 7; also cf. Webb, 2002: 153), for instance, can be regarded as part of the ongoing coloniality, because a Western language with its Western worldview is upheld as the standard everyone has to conform to. Hence Erasmus and Garuba propose a reversal in the ways in which reconciliation is sought: ‘The politics of language in contemporary South Africa challenges the idea that dialogue is the foundation for repairing its brutal history [. . .]. The evidence suggests the opposite: repair is the foundation for intersubjective dialogue’ (Erasmus and Garuba, 2016: 350). For this repair to happen, interventions need to escape the structures of coloniality which mark the approaches to transformation and reconciliation presented earlier. People need to be mindful of the risk of perpetuating coloniality within the very context in which they attempt to bridge and diminish social hierarchies. Churches and Christians may want to reconsider their attempts of ‘lifting people up to where we are’ in light of a growing critique of secular, cross-cultural development interventions which often remain ignorant of the spiritual dimensions of beneficiaries’ lives (cf. ter Haar and Ellis, 2006a, b). This need of coming to terms with structures of coloniality refers both to South Africa and to relationships on an international scale. Aid and development organisations often reflect similar norms and attitudes, which rarely challenge power differentials or the fact that Western norms are often taken for granted.

What could an alternative strategy look like? While the prominent calls for decolonisation at South African universities often focus on changes in institutional structures and curricula, it so far seems to have remained unclear what decolonisation might mean on an individual level in society at large, especially for White people. In the following I will make some suggestions which I would like to be understood as an invitation to a debate. Let us consider what vulnerability might have to contribute to decolonisation and reconciliation in the current South African context – which can be regarded as being marked by ‘coloniality’ inside and outside of the church.

Vulnerability: Possible Contributions to Both Decolonisation and Reconciliation

Definition and Source of Concept of Vulnerability

In the following, vulnerability shall broadly be understood as a means of cultural contextualisation, more specifically for White people to be working in the languages and with the financial and material resources of socio-economically less privileged people. This may imply a refusal of high-status or leadership positions for the sake of subordinating to the people one works with. All of that is especially relevant to Christian ministry, mission and/or development work, involving people from different cultural backgrounds. I take this definition from the working principles of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission (AVM)¹⁰ who advocate an engagement in global Christian mission from a position of ‘humble vulnerability’ with the intention of avoiding cultural domination by and dependence on Westerners. There are numerous examples for attitudes of humility and vulnerability to be found in the Bible. One of the most prominent is certainly the ‘victim-missionary’ Paul as described by David Bosch (Bosch, 1992: 209). Paul wrote in 2 Cor 12:10 (NIV) ‘. . . for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong’. Bosch regards this as a pertinent message ‘to the church in Corinth, a church which is sorely tempted to follow the “high road” offered by the “super-apostles”, the road of success and power and progress, the road of proving the validity of the Christian faith by conducting divine beauty contests’ (Bosch, 1992: 209). When engaging in cross-cultural work today, be it Christian or ‘secular’,¹¹ Christians might want to reconsider both the attitude just described that marked early Christian mission work as well as the importance of giving attention to matters of worldview and religion (cf. Mangalwadi, 2011; ter Haar and Ellis, 2006b).

What difference would it make for decolonisation and reconciliation in South Africa if more White people engaged with People of Colour in their languages, with their own resources and not from a position of power? And what could that look like? On a side note, I want to acknowledge that some might argue that many White people already engage with Coloured people in their language – which often is Afrikaans. However, White people sometimes experience apprehension against mixing with Coloured people in a school context lest children be influenced by their particular way of speaking.¹² Thus, it seems more correct to speak of different languages or language varieties, with White English and White Afrikaans on the top of the hierarchy. Nevertheless, in terms of effectively engaging other worldviews, the major challenge seems to be for White (and Coloured) people to build relationships through Black languages.

Unlike many of the attempts to ‘transform’ South African society, the above-mentioned principles of vulnerability have the potential to build relationships across racial and class divides. This would challenge the underlying and pervasive power structures and the dependence these create. With such vulnerability, those with linguistic and economic power would start to give up their privileges and become dependent themselves. They disempower themselves and thereby empower others. I suggest that this has the potential to change both relationships and social structures – i.e. be beneficial to reconciliation and transformation in a decolonising way. I will now illustrate how this might play out.

Living and Working in South Africa Using the Resources of Less Privileged People

In South Africa, as in most of the English-speaking world, colonialism led to a system where everything to do with Whiteness and White culture was deemed ‘being fully human’. Everything to do with Black culture, Indian, Chinese or ‘mixed race’, on the other hand, was considered as essentially subhuman, uncivilised, of lesser value.¹³ Consciousness of this dynamic in South Africa can bring about a powerful effect if White people make themselves vulnerable: A woman who learned Xhosa for two years at school uses it now to at least speak to the Xhosa people she meets at the shops or at the garage. A White staff member in a Christian organisation ‘dared’ venture into townships and slept in the shacks of people he visited. White, middle-class Christians gave up their estate in the leafy suburbs to move to a part of the city that is known for its narrow streets, drugs, crime and violence, in order to live with the local Coloured population that happens to be largely Muslim.¹⁴

Such decisions and actions do not instantly change social structures on a large scale. But they require White people to distance themselves from the standards of White culture. Those who have been denied their human dignity for so long can experience White people’s leaving their cultural comfort zone as an acknowledgement of their own dignity and humanity.¹⁵ We can call these ‘symbolic benefits’ of living vulnerably, as defined earlier. These benefits are essentially about status.

Making use of the means other people live with may mean taking minibus taxis, buses or local trains instead of using (or owning!) a car. This creates the potential of having fellowship with people whom privileged White people would not otherwise meet. It can also connect people around common experiences – be it the laughs shared over the special atmosphere on crammed trains with its bustling petty traders, joyful musicians and admonishing preachers, or the shared frustrations over dysfunctional, slow-moving, even at times dangerous transport. Using public transport is a refusal of status, which allows one to encounter others on a more level playing field. Making use of the means other people live with may mean accepting the hospitality of people who live in less fancy accommodations than oneself. Instead of oneself being host and giving people who are financially less well off a ‘treat’, one can honour others by allowing them to serve one in their space.

These are but a few examples of ways to live and work with the resources of less privileged people. To seriously bridge spatial and class divides, I suppose more radical measures may have to be taken by those who find themselves higher up on the social ladder. My own experience is that those tiny little ways of trying to disempower oneself in terms of resources open up new ways of building community. Very importantly in South Africa, they also prevent one from being blind to what are everyday realities for a great part of the population. This can lead one to lament and to remind oneself that whatever one counts as one’s belongings or privileges should not be taken for granted. This attitude has the potential to deepen vulnerable engagement with others and to seek ways in which one can give up even more privileges.

Using Local Languages

When it comes to using the languages of other people, we are still dealing with status but – perhaps more importantly – we talk about opportunities for improved intercultural comprehension and communication. This is not to be underestimated; it often remains eclipsed in South Africa due to monolingual interaction by White people based on Western philosophical assumptions and ‘cultural conceptualisations’. Cultural linguists understand ‘cultural conceptualisations [as being] entrenched or embedded in many features of human languages’ (Sharifian, 2017b: 30). On that basis we can assume that the cultural schemas of ‘dualistic’ and ‘monistic’ worldviews (in admittedly simplified terms) have made their marks on languages of European and African origins, respectively. Cultural schemas embedded in languages are not automatically replaced by those of another culture when learning another language, but are often retained (cf. Harries, 2013a: 116; Kirkpatrick, 2015: 460; Sharifian, 2017b: 177). However, since these cultural schemas are then ‘hidden’ behind seemingly ‘correct’ or ‘standard’ English or Afrikaans, frequent misunderstandings are likely to happen in communication with speakers of Western English who are not well acquainted with the language and worldview of their African interlocutors.

As mentioned earlier, using Black African languages is commonly regarded as unnecessary in South Africa. I suggest that some reasons for this lie in the assumption that translation is generally possible and in the fact that the cultural dimension of language is downplayed or even ignored, as illustrated in the following statement by a White woman:

. . . within the church, you need to have a main language that people then know, okay, this is the language we’re going to be preaching in. This is the language we’re going to be mainly talking in because that’s a powerful tool in order for learning and growth to happen within a church, so I think using English as the main language, I wouldn’t see that as cultural dominance so much as it’s a necessary tool for doing what the church is trying to do . . . (20 September 2019)

This attitude ignores the myriad ways in which the languages we grow up with are intertwined with cultural cognition. While Ricœur is convinced of the possibility of translation to an extent where he regards it as the singular constitutive factor of the human race (Ricœur, 1995: 4), he is also adamant that for translation to become a reality requires immersion in another culture which includes learning the other language (Ricœur, 1995: 4: 5).¹⁶ Relying on people from an African background to acquire English for effective cross-cultural communication means assuming or even expecting them to learn it based on exposure to Western cultural settings. Many people do not have such opportunity and as a result risk being regarded as inferior or incompetent for not meeting the ‘White standard’. What is more, even where people are afforded such opportunity, it may mean the opposite of what Kwenda calls ‘cultural justice’. This is the case where – e.g. through language ideologies – ‘people are forced [. . .] to submit to the burdensome condition of suspending – or more permanently surrendering – what they naturally take for granted, and then begin to depend on what someone else takes for granted’ (Kwenda, 2003: 70).

I would like to give three examples from Christian faith practice of what differences in cultural cognition might entail and how the sole reliance on a White English perspective can become confusing:

Faithfulness

How does God show his faithfulness? Is it mainly by seeing his people through difficult times, remaining loyal to them despite their disloyalty and sin – as in a Western understanding of the term? Or is it mainly by blessing his people holistically, including material benefits – which can be an African understanding of faithfulness as seen through White eyes?¹⁷

The Holy Spirit and the Preacher

Who is the Holy Spirit and how can one know that God speaks through the preacher?¹⁸ Is the Holy Spirit simply the name for the invisible presence of God in this world? Do we simply trust that God is with the preacher, because the Bible ‘tells us’ that every believer has the Holy Spirit – as in the Reformed Protestant tradition in the West? Or is the Holy Spirit one among many spirits – which influence the way we relate to ‘him’ (if the Holy Spirit is male. . .)? And does the Holy Spirit manifest ‘himself’ in the emotional response the preacher is able to stir up among his listeners? In this case, if I as a listener do not allow myself to get excited about what is being preached, I might be hindering the Holy Spirit from moving. . .

Ancestral Worship

While many White Christians would probably acknowledge limited understanding of relating to one’s ancestors as an aspect of African tradition and worldview, it often does not prevent them from feeling strongly that worshipping the ancestors (as it is often phrased) is incompatible with the Christian faith.¹⁹ This quote by a White woman may serve as an example:

What is very necessary is that if you come across somebody in your congregation and you happen to be the shepherd of those sheep and you see there is somebody with a broken leg or a disbelief or a misbelief or whatever is limping like, example, the ancestors need to be at peace. You need to be very loud and very clear and you need to speak in capital letters and you need to repeat that ever so often. (21 May 2019)

In fact, both words of ancestral worship would have to be put in inverted commas. This is because using the notion as is conceals the fact that both ‘ancestors’ and ‘worship’ may have very different connotations if used by a Xhosa person as compared to a Western English speaker. While from a Western point of view, ancestors are one’s forebearers who used to be alive but are now dead, with no natural way of connecting or communicating with them, the izinyanya (in Xhosa) are understood differently. Like in English, the term refers to people who used to be alive in the Western sense of the word. However, one could say they are not dead in the same way as use of Western English implies. Here, we are faced with a difference in categories between an African and a Western worldview which finds expression through language. Izinyanya are usually regarded as exerting an ongoing influence on the world of the living because relationships do not come to an end through death (Nürnberger, 2007: 25). They can be experienced directly, e.g. through dreams, or indirectly through events they cause or might cause in the case of wrong behaviour which disrespects them. How one relates to them therefore matters. The need to maintain the communal infrastructure (Nürnberger, 2007: 25) involving both the living and the izinyanya is for Xhosa people no more imagined than the fear of potentially being shamed publicly for English people. Both are invisible but constitute a powerful force influencing the present.²⁰

Ukunqula is routinely translated using the English term ‘worship’. It encompasses a range of ways by which Xhosa people relate to the izinyanya they experience as part of their reality – the acknowledgement of their presence and their influence on ‘this world’, communication with them, trusting them (ukuthemba), honouring and respecting them as well as attempts to please or not to anger them, which can all be summarised under ukuhlonipha.²¹ The latter is not restricted to offering ritual (animal) sacrifices. These may be what is often imagined by Westerners when it comes to ‘worshipping’ the ‘ancestors’ although even ‘sacrifice’ may be an illegitimate term to use since its use in Western English has strong non-African cultural foundations.

Speaking about izinyanya therefore evokes an entire worldview system different to a modern-day Western one. As a result, addressing or even criticising ‘ancestral worship’ in English by cultural outsiders falls short if ukunqula izinyanya implies a universal expectation of relating to members of one’s community. And even if people felt a cultural transformation was warranted, the starting point for engagement would need to be defined in terms that are part and parcel of the worldview system of the people concerned.

The Potential of Vulnerability

It should have become evident that language is neither neutral nor acultural. Having English as the lingua franca, in a sense, does facilitate cross-cultural contact. However, as we have seen, the likelihood is great for misunderstandings to arise due to differences in cultural conceptualisations. For more White people to become aware of cultural differences through the learning of African languages could contribute enormously to mutual acceptance and appreciation of ways of thinking, speaking and doing things which White people are sometimes quick to judge or may find confounding.

While making oneself vulnerable implies risks of getting hurt or wounded, the same vulnerability has the potential to heal social wounds: If people are willing to give up some of their privileges in terms of languages, living standard and power, it will enable relationships to be built not only across ‘the colour line’ but across the divides of class and space as well. Hence vulnerability can help (re)build community in hitherto rarely seen ways.

Vulnerability Contested and Opposed

We have seen potential benefits of having more White people relate to others in their languages and becoming vulnerable in material ways as well. However, it seems the odds are against seriously considering those principles in South Africa. Among others I will focus on church contexts as I highlight the challenges of vulnerability.

Different Degrees of Vulnerability

First of all, what is experienced as vulnerability may be quite different from what has been described above: Owning a nice flat in a modest, White suburb can be seen as quite a sacrifice, even a threat to the well-being of one’s children – in a context where the norm for White families is to own a house. Learning a Black language may be understood as doing a few classes in order to be able to engage in a little small talk with people – because the prospect of really learning a complex and very foreign tongue is far too daunting. Even visiting places in townships may by many White South Africans be regarded as an adventure that needs to be carefully considered and safely undertaken. The subjective feeling of many White people is that they are already vulnerable in many ways – especially at a time when the White political right sees itself more and more under threat.²² Asking for more risks running against a wall.

Engaging in Indigenous Languages

The persisting language ideology has it that English is regarded not just as necessary but as sufficient communication across cultures. That languages have aspects which cannot be translated is denied or tacitly ignored.

Black South African languages are usually difficult to learn for White South Africans. Learning would require serious commitment in terms of time and socialising across spatial and class divides. That would be a challenge. In Cape Town, most White people live in the city centre or suburbs, where it is almost impossible to immerse oneself in Xhosa-speaking communities. Learning their language properly would involve living in a township or at least spending time there on a regular basis. How does one incorporate that into a busy family and work life?

Even if people were willing to engage others in local languages – which one should it be? Many spaces already feature speakers of a great variety of language backgrounds. While there is a – somewhat low-key – debate on language harmonisation which could reduce the effective number of (South) African languages (cf. Prah, 2002), it seems a utopia for White people in South Africa to engage in multiple African languages. And as mentioned before, Black languages are not a priority during one’s school career.

What would it mean in those multicultural spaces to work in a culturally contextualised way? Is it possible at all? The risk is that the sheer complexity might push people back to what is seemingly easiest – to stick to what is English and to what appears as the natural way of doing things, because of its cultural dominance.

Perceived Threat to One’s Theological Convictions of ‘Biblical Universality’

Participating in multiracial church communities in South Africa usually means being presented with a theology which has its foundations and origins in Western settings and Western ways of thinking.²³ Attempts at contextualisation are usually based on a perception of historical realities and societal issues in South Africa as seen through Western eyes. Learning indigenous languages and getting to know the contexts better where they are used will invariably result in being introduced to a worldview different to a Western one. This may result in the realisation that the doctrine which has hitherto been held as ‘universal’ or plainly ‘biblical’ (sometimes described as acultural or trans-cultural) will be understood differently. One might discover that what is considered irrelevant or doctrinally false in one’s own Western perspective may be crucial from an African point of view (cf. Harries, 2018a). Especially in some conservative circles this might give cause for theological discomfort and concern, as expressed in the views of this White woman:

If you think about what you really want is you want to trust the preaching of God’s word. So, and I’m thinking in the African context, I think the nervousness we often have is around maybe the African traditional, so Zionism and all the other flavours of Christianity and the prosperity gospel and how that’s so pervasive in some of the churches. And the other little flavours that have remained and been blended [. . .] I think that would be a challenge. (22 August 2019)

Such barriers for deep intercultural encounters would not only be a hindrance to an enhanced appreciation of cultural difference and therefore to a more profound kind of reconciliation but could also block otherwise fruitful missionary engagement. Conservative, evangelical churches often have a strong focus on evangelism and mission. When these are carried out by deeply engaging another culture and worldview through the connected language, they have the potential to be truly transformative. If this transformation is what is desired, mission objectives and strategies will have to shift. Sustainable transformation occurs when communities become able to run their own affairs. For this to happen, churches need to be empowered – or allowed – to develop theology which is rooted in their respective contexts of worldview, language and cultural practices. Since Western and African contexts usually differ, theology in Africa is bound to be different from theology in the West in order to be relevant to its African context.²⁴ If sending churches fail to recognise the legitimacy of such, vulnerability will seem to lead to error. Since vulnerability could contribute greatly to realising the missionary visions of these churches, it could be considered a tragic misunderstanding from their perspective if such mission in vulnerability was shied away from for the fear of compromising on truth.

Living and Working With People’s Own Resources Only

Regarding the suggested exclusive use by an outsider of people’s own resources, South Africa is faced with a dilemma. The massive socio-economic inequalities between different ‘racial groups’ are in part a direct result of the governance by White people in the past. How could one, considering those historical injustices, argue against material restitution? A balance might have to be struck here: On the one hand, there could be a focus on rightful restitution on a structural level. On the other hand, especially when it comes to building interpersonal relationships, the emphasis could be more on ‘giving up’ (wealth) instead of ‘handing over’. In this way, the long-term beneficiaries of apartheid would relinquish at least some of their privileges, while avoiding new problems in terms of power, status and dependency, through building relationships based on money. Giving up privileges would also open up the opportunity of reciprocal relationships and increased interdependence across race and class divides, thus contributing further to reconciliation.

A serious challenge for White South Africans in this respect could be that decisions taken in order to live more vulnerably would probably have consequences on educational and professional careers of their family members. However, the greater the cost, the more convincing and powerful the testimony regarding decolonisation and reconciliation.

Giving Up Power and Influence – a Serious Suggestion?

Another interesting aspect of the principles for vulnerability in South Africa as understood by the AVM is the call to not work from positions of power. A refusal of positions of influence by White people for many seems unnatural – and this in itself may be telling. The common sentiment seems to be: Isn’t it White people who have something to offer who can teach others? But then, how can they teach effectively without a deep knowledge of another culture and language? Would it not always be teaching to follow White ways of doing things? Hence the demand for increased use of indigenous languages in education as brought forward during the university protests.

In a church context, what would it mean for White people to give up influence? Multiracial churches where White people do not play decisive roles are hard to come by. Could giving up power mean for people to start attending a church that is culturally foreign to them, where they do not understand how people speak, behave and live? Would they be getting from church what they perceive as their needs – and would that church not be teaching things that go against their beliefs? Why would they do that – and what would be the vision required to do it?

Taking all of this into account, it seems utopian that principles of vulnerability would be applied broadly in any other than a very rudimentary way. Nevertheless, there are reasons why we should not be too quick to discard them.

Defying the Challenges: Why Vulnerability Should Still Be Considered by White South African Christians

In his powerful book The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race, Willie James Jennings elucidates how the concept of race became deeply entangled with Christian theology through colonialism and mission. He explains why he stays away from the topic of ‘reconciliation’: ‘. . . I am convinced that before we theologians can interpret the depths of the divine action of reconciliation we must first articulate the profound deformities of Christian intimacy and identity in modernity. [. . .] In truth, it is not at all clear that most Christians are ready to imagine reconciliation’ (Jennings, 2010: 10). He then goes on to analyse how power was abused and theologically justified and possible intercultural relationships permanently distorted in the history of the emerging and expanding Christian West. Coming to terms with this painful history would involve a quest for ‘a new form of communion with the possibility of a new kind of cultural intimacy between peoples that might yield a new cultural politic’ (Jennings, 2010: 265). In a similar vein, David Bosch recognised the sheer costliness of reconciliation, yet saw the church as an alternative, reconciled community having the potential to contribute to liberation (cf. van Wyngaard, 2013: 92 f.).

A kind of reconciliation that does not ‘simply [paper] over deep seated differences’ (Bosch, 1978: 101 in Wyngaard, 2013: 94) seems to be one that requires vulnerability. Vulnerability, in terms of reliance on the language and resources of the other, this paper has shown, has the potential to contribute to deeper fellowship between people, dealing with power differences in the process and in this way contributing to decolonisation. To this potential, I would like to add the call by the White South African sociologist Sharlene Swartz, who argues for a change of perspective regarding transformation in South Africa. Instead of ‘doing good’ – helping disadvantaged people with an attitude of ‘altruistic’ or ‘benevolent’ charity – she advocates for ‘making good’ (Swartz, 2016: 147). This involves recognising that the current inequalities, including the privileges of White people, are to a large extent a result of the injustices of the past. As it was shown, trying to mend the past in conventional ways usually works according to the charity or ‘upliftment’ model, contributing at times to dependency, patronage and cultural alienation. Practiced vulnerability, as was suggested in this paper, could be regarded as one way of ‘making good’. It would open up possibilities of interdependence and thus contribute to the healing of society. Practiced vulnerability would require a positionality of humility which would involve learning to live counterculturally in our world governed by the pursuit of status, consumerism and power. Vulnerability means a ‘downward orientation’ in many ways, instead of trying to keep up with what society seems to demand.

The needs of coming to terms with a racialised past as well as recognising moral duties can certainly be advanced as arguments for a lifestyle of vulnerability. It should not be underestimated, though, that exploring indigenous languages and aspects of African people’s ways of life through intentional vulnerable engagement could truly bring great reward – transformation, in South African lingo. Indigenous languages and ways of life are by many nowadays considered simply dysfunctional or irrelevant. Seriously investing oneself in increased cross-cultural understanding promises enormous positive consequences. The rarely admitted but prevalent idea of the racial inferiority of Black people and their ways of living might be abandoned, or even reversed if ‘White culture’ were no longer taken as the norm. Indeed, we should consider, what price we want people to pay for the ignorance of cultures and languages of others in a culturally diverse country and, indeed, world.

Christians may find encouragement in Bosch’s realisation that ‘[t]rue church growth, it would seem, takes place not where Christians call the shots, but where they suffer and perform their mission in weakness’ (Bosch, 1992: 203). South Africa is a context where – from a White perspective – the opposite of vulnerability oftentimes governed interracial relations in the past. Vulnerability, therefore, may not just embody the hope for genuine Christian transformation of relationships, but also be an appropriate contextual response to the challenges of South African society.

Footnotes

Author’s Note

A version of this paper was first presented orally at the conference entitled Vulnerable Mission: What It Is and Why We Need It, held at All Nations Christian College, UK, 31 May to 2 June 2018.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Marcus Grohmann

Notes

Author biography

Marcus Grohmann holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in cultural anthropology and development sociology from the University of Bayreuth, Germany. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Jena Centre for Reconciliation Studies, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany, and affiliated to the Faculty of Theology, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. His research interests comprise the role of churches in conflict and reconciliation in South Africa, Rwanda and the DR Kongo as well as the relationship between language, worldview and theology.

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