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uBuntu, Pluralism and the Responsibility of Legal Academics to the New South Africa

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Abstract

Neo-liberalism often reduces pluralism to a social fact based on the collapse of the big ideals that once claimed to stand in for the ideal of humanity. Tolerance of inevitable value diversity is all that can be offered by the rationalized modern western state. This understanding of pluralism is completely inadequate in the post colony. Ernst Cassirer offers a philosophical understanding of symbolic plurality that allows us to respect divergent symbolic forms, including myth and religion. This understanding of pluralism opens the space for respect for the customary law and the great indigenous ideals such as uBuntu which has often been denigrated as mythical and thus outdated or, worse yet, not law at all. This denigration is inseparable from colonial violence, and demands a process of transculturation as integral to this struggle to transform the new South Africa into a society that lives up to the Constitution’s call for the respect of all of its citizens. This respect can only be done if there are serious economic reforms and a challenge to the hegemonic neo-liberal capitalism.

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Notes

  1. Berkowitz (2005).

  2. See generally Berkowitz (2005).

  3. I have endeavoured to explain Cassirer’s re-writing of the Kantian notion of schema. See generally Cornell (2007, pp. 82–86).

  4. See generally Cassirer (1953) to note the ways in which symbolic forms ranging from myth to science are captured and illuminated through careful readings of the ways in which these symbolic forms of the larger world are explained in careful detail. See my discussion of Ernst Cassirer in Cornell (2007, Chap. 4).

  5. Himonga (1997, pp. 78–79).

  6. A Sangoma is variously described as a holy man or woman, a skilled diviner and healer within the tradition of the Zulu and Ndebele native people.

  7. Berkowitz (2005, p. ix).

  8. Berkowitz (2005, p. xii).

  9. Kabir Bavikatte, ‘Spiritualizing the Law’ (report on field work, on file with the author), p. 6.

  10. ‘The Importance of the Role of UBuntu’ in Justice Today Vol. 3/2008, p. 8.

  11. UBuntu project was began by the author in 2003 with a generous support by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advance Study. The project began with extensive interviews in township, which are currently continuing. The author, together with the co-coordinator of project Madoda Sionyela, is at work on the book which will put together the results of the project.

  12. Henry (2000, pp. 11–12).

  13. Port Elizabeth Municipality v Various Occupiers 2004 (12) BCLR 1268 (CC).

  14. Port Elizabeth Municipality v Various Occupiers 2004 (12) BCLR 1268 (CC), para 14.

  15. Port Elizabeth Municipality v Various Occupiers, para 32.

  16. Port Elizabeth Municipality v Various Occupiers, para 37.

  17. Kabir Bavikatte, ‘Spiritualising the Law’ (report on field work, on file with the author), p. 16.

  18. Hylton White, ‘The Dwelling of Culture Construction and Alienation in the Post-Apartheid Moment’ (unpublished with the author), p. 19.

  19. Comaroff and Comaroff (2000, pp. 291–343, at p. 299).

  20. Nhlapo (2000, p. 136 at p. 146).

  21. Cover (1983 at pp. 1513–1515).

  22. Comaroff and Comaroff (2003, p. 459).

  23. Todorov (1984).

  24. Julian Jonker, Language Policy in Postcolonial Jurisdictions: the role of legal education (paper on file with the author).

  25. See Rawls (1996, pp. 133–172).

  26. This interpretation of section 10 arose in a discussion with Justice Ackermann.

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  1. Department of Private Law, University of Cape Town, South Middle Campus of Woolsack Drive, Rosebank, Cape Town, South Africa

    Drucilla Cornell

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  1. Drucilla Cornell
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Correspondence to Drucilla Cornell.

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Cornell, D. uBuntu, Pluralism and the Responsibility of Legal Academics to the New South Africa. Law Critique 20, 43–58 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-008-9041-y

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