{"id":4593,"date":"2014-02-09T15:47:03","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T13:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/?p=4593"},"modified":"2014-02-09T15:47:03","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T13:47:03","slug":"victory-for-african-knowledge-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/index.php\/2014\/02\/09\/victory-for-african-knowledge-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"Victory for African Knowledge Systems"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sanfomas\"<\/a>By Serge St-Arneault, M.Afr<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/address>\n
I was privileged to be in South Africa when the funeral of Nelson Mandela took place. But I was attracted by an unusual article published by The Sunday Independent newspaper on the 22nd<\/sup> December 2013.<\/span><\/em><\/address>\n
\u201cThe Supreme Court of Appeal has taken a giant step in recognising the wisdom of our ancestors, and the upliftment of indigenous beliefs\u201d wrote Annelie de Wet. In short, it is about a case whereby the Court gave justice to Johanna Mmoledi (46), a sangoma, who won against her former employer. She was fired for taking a month\u2019s unpaid leave in order to finish her thwasa process \u2013 an African spriritual\/psyshological healing process followed by initiation.<\/span><\/em><\/address>\n
\"Sunday_Independent_(South_Africa)\"<\/a>The Court acknowledged that \u201cMmoledi\u2019s ailment does fit in with the pre-existing African knowledge system of ukubizwa (the ancestral call, manifesting as a set of objectivity known psychological and physical ailments) and thwasa\u2026\u201d Even though, the judgment seems to maintain a narrow reduced definition of African traditional healing (ATH) as a \u201cbelief system\u201d, the door has been opened whereby an employer runs \u201ca serious risk by dismissing employees\u2019 cultural issues summarily without trying to understand their import\u201d.<\/span><\/em><\/address>\n
\u201cYet western psychologists are \u2018objective\u2019 enough to appear as expert witnesses. And they are professionals who uphold the reality of unseen forces such as the psyche, or the unconstious \u2013 just like sangomas upholding unseen ancestral forces.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/address>\n
Beyond this labour case dispute, this saga shows that \u201cknowledge of the subjectivity and fluidity of proples\u2019 most cherished assumptions \u2013 even what is called scientific evidence – removes the basis for intellectual imperialism in a multi-cultural society.\u201d What a victory indeed!<\/span><\/em><\/address>\n
In other words, \u201cseen from a therapeutic point of view, ancestral practices, through ritual and ceremony, offer a most powerful and healing entrance into the universal human unconscious.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/address>\n
\"Dreams_Fenza_book\"<\/a>In my view, this article supports the research published by FENZA published in January 2013 entitled \u201cDreams. Where do Biblical, Zambian and Western Approaches Meet?\u201d More specifically, the fifth chapter entitled \u201cZambian approaches to dreams and Western psychology: towards a pastoral approach\u201d by Bernhard Udelhoven<\/a>, makes a significant contribution in our worldwide perception by saying that \u201cattempts to positively combine Western and Zambian approaches in a way that remains true and respectful to the different understandings of human life, start maybe by nature from a postmodern paradigm: building on assumptions of epistemological pluralism (meaning an awareness that no single theoretical framework can explain reality in its totality), different theoretical foundations \u2013 even when they seem to be mutually exclusive \u2013 are allowed to stand side by side so as to come to a fuller appreciation of reality.\u201d (page 80)<\/span><\/em><\/address>\n
Full article from the newspaper – PDF<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Serge St-Arneault, M.Afr I was privileged to be in South Africa when the funeral of Nelson Mandela took place. But I was attracted by an unusual article published by The Sunday Independent newspaper on the 22nd December 2013. \u201cThe Supreme Court of Appeal has taken a giant step in recognising the wisdom of our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28],"tags":[69,74,112,113,120,181,1021,1265,1394,1423],"class_list":["post-4593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publications","tag-african-knowledge-systems","tag-african-traditional-healing","tag-ancestral-beliefs","tag-ancestral-practices","tag-annelie-de-wet","tag-belief-system","tag-multi-cultural-society","tag-sangoma","tag-thwasa-process","tag-universal-human-unconscious"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mafrsaprovince.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}