Good morning. It is a Sylvia Tamale day. Decolonization and Afro-Feminism will be launched today. 9am EST, 2pm WAT, 4pm EAT.

https://facebook.com/events/s/decolonization-and-afro-femini/752516101987766/?ti=cl

RIGHT ON TIME

@firozem welcomes everybody to the Decolonization and Afro-Feminism launch

Join, via Facebook Live https://www.facebook.com/darajapress/videos/771537373414497/

Charmaine Pereira asks Sylvia Tamale to tell us how she started on the project.

Sylvia Tamale: "I am 58 years old, and in 2022 I plan to retire from an academic career. I am hoping the book serves as a trans-disciplinary text."

"We think we are educated yet what we are doing is perpetuating systems of power in law, language, education, etc."

Pereira: Can you tell us about the cover?

Tamale: I even asked my artist-son to design something for me, which was good but not it. Then one day, I fell upon this image, which I knew, was it. Then we contacted the artist for permission, and she granted it, without payment.

Pereira: What inspired you to use the term Afro-Feminism in the singular?

Tamale: I chose the term Afro-Feminism to encompass all the strands of decolonial feminism. Afro-Feminism is not limited to addressing oppression based on gender, alone.

Afro-Feminism strives for radical transformation.

Whether British imperialists adopted direct rule, settler colonialism or indirect rule, the purpose was the same: exploitation and oppression of natives. All these forms were brutal and exploitative. It was really substance over form. I do not focus on differences in methods.

You can also join, in the Decolonization and Afro-Feminism launch via YouTube as well ...

Pereira: How do you think Ubuntu can be used to undermine patriarchal privilege and privileges of many kinds?

Tamale: I prefer using the intersectional term, patriarchal capitalism. They are like Siamese twins, they support each other.

The moral and ethical foundation of capitalism is based on exploitation and oppression of women, while that of ubuntu is based on compassion and collectivism. Ubuntu is a philosophy, it is also a way of life that is well understood in most African traditions.

In the book, I urge African feminists to revitalize and repurpose the values enshrined in ubuntu, e.g. humaneness, communitarianism and egalitarianism. Ubuntu represents possibilities for and about our humanity as African people, we need to inculcate these in our children.

If you denigrate others, you are also dehumanizing yourself. You are because they are.

Tamale: Thinking intersectionally means that you are always aware of the multiple identities and experiences that people have and the various levels of privilege that people have.

Tamale: We should embrace the complementary attributes that our heterogeneity as African people bring to the development and liberation of our continent in the spirit of ubuntu.

Pereira: You critique the whole notion of universalism in human rights. Why is universality of human rights such a problem?

Tamale: A closer look at universality from the lens of decoloniality reveals the historical smudges of coloniality on the concept of gender equality.

Sylvia Tamale: I strongly believe that African feminists should adopt strategies that reflect Afrocentric values like ubuntu.

The African university is really a relic of colonialism. It was constructed by men for men and today you still see that power in the hierarchies of the academy. It is always a game of push and pull for women to voice the legitimacy of their work, esp. feminist work.

Sarah Mukasa (YouTube comment): L​ovely to be here with everyone. The book is expansive and so wonderfully written. Congratulations, Sylvia.

Pereira observes that the book is stylistically well done, there is poetry at the beginning and end of chapters, for example.

In the book, I give the example of the Marcus Garvey Pan Afrikan university, based in Mbale, which was started by Prof. Dani Wadada Nabudere, who experimented with the idea of transdisciplinarity. They have lecture halls but they also have community sites of knowledge.

The problem is that our regulatory bodies for education still think in the colonial framework. The National Council for Higher Education for example hasn't granted an operation license to the Marcus Garvey Pan Afrikan University because it does not fit the colonial framework.

We need to be aware of what transdisciplinarity is, and understand that these silos of disciplines engender coloniality and move away from it. I have a niece who did Mathematics up to university. Everyone was rooting for her because with Maths, you can solve all problems!

Sylvia Tamale: We need to understand that having a law degree does not make you the wisest person in the world, you are actually very ignorant.

@Kuukuwa_ (Facebook comment): Such an important point Prof - re African Universities made by (white) men for men.

Sylvia Tamale: I really think that it is criminal to commodify knowledge. None of us can claim to the original creator of knowledge. There is no genius on earth that can claim to know everything. If you copy one author, that is plagiarism. If you copy many, that is research.

It is one thing for publishers to recoup costs as printing, typesetting, etc and another to make profit from intellectual commons. For me, it is extremely important that my book is available, available to the reading public for free.

Oshun Oya (Facebook comment): My PhD experience led me to a near existential crisis when I realised my law degree wasn't everything. There was a lot more I needed to know from political science, social sciences and even anthropology.

@firozem asks Pereira for her important take-aways from the book.

Pereira: It is a huge book. It is important because of its theme. It is something that has been referred to in passing in many different contexts, what independence means, decolonizing the mind ala Ngugi ...

Beyond that, we haven't had a book by an African feminist bringing those dimensions together. In doing so, Sylvia has shown how her activism is critical to the intellectual work that she does. That you can't separate them if you want to produce transformative work.

You need to get away from a situation where we think that feminists disagreeing, engaging in debate is them attacking one another. What matters here is to show that in the end, we diminish ourselves when we take a competitive approach.

Pereira: I think the book is ground-breaking and that is why people should read it.

Sarah Mukasa asks about the range of Tamale's references and bibliography, often denied recognition.

Tamale: That was very deliberate. How can you write about decolonization and decoloniality and not make effort to find writings and arguments made by Africans?

There is a richness of arguments made by Africans. It wasn't as hard. You have to make a deliberate effort to find this knowledge. It is not just looking for African publications for the sake, because it is an African who wrote this, it must be decolonial, no.

The same thing with women: it is not that because something is said by a woman, it is feminist, no.

Claris Mafumbo (YouTube comment): ​The repurposing of African culture for feminist activism is an interesting area and I am glad this has drawn an eye towards it.