The meaning of sharing under marketised education: an Ubu-ntu perspective

Abstract

Reading his-story (history), her-story and our story from the perspective of Mother Africa reduced from her original position of Mater Preciosa, (the cradle of humanity: a precious Mother), to a Mater Dolorosa (a mother of sorrows) through conquest in the unjust wars of Western colonialism, our argument is that education – the bearer of the Western epistemological paradigm – continues to be primarily in the service of protecting and promoting the enslavement of politically independent Africa. Our thesis is that this service ought to be terminated because it is unethical. There is no reason to suppose that unlike other empires before it, the dominant unholy trinity of economicide, epistemicide and religicide perpetrated against Africa is an eternal order of things under capitalism. We adopt the philosophy of ubu-ntu to elaborate on our thesis. We will focus specifically on the marketisation of education taking examples mainly from conqueror South Africa[1] and the Covid 19 pandemic.

[1] The appellation, conqueror South Africa is historically legitimate and ethically justified.