Africa’s rich history celebrated at dialogue in Cape Town

Africa’s rich history and its contribution to various aspects of society were celebrated at a dialogue at Century City in Cape Town. A number of delegates, in traditional attire, discussed ways to return the continent to its spirituality, culture, and religion, before colonial times.

The gathering also marked the seventh Mzuvukile Mbiza Memorial Lecture.

Mbiza described as an activist and unifier:

Born in Paarl in 1947, Mzuvukile Slabbert “Steve” Mbiza would later lecture at the University of Cape Town in the department of African languages. This after completing a BA degree at the University of Fort Hare, and teaching at I.D Mkhize High school in Gugulethu.

Mbiza’s son, Dr Uzwi-Lezwe Radebe delivered the keynote address during the lecture. He says all sectors of society have a role to play in restoring Africa to its former glory, which it held before it was colonised. Radebe says Africans should work hard to find ways to return the continent to its spirituality, culture, and religion, which was present before colonial times.

“When we talk restoration, we are talking of all sectors. We need to restore all sectors. We had people from agriculture, we had the business talking about township economy, etc. So it’s all our responsibility and we need restoration in all sectors. All sectors should stand up and do something instead of crying and waiting for government and things to happen, but we all should take the initiative to stand up and do something in order to restore ourselves.”

A moderated panel discussion aimed at challenging the notion that Africa was a dark continent, without spirituality or culture prior to colonisation was held. President of the Icamagu Spirituality, Professor Nokuzola Mndende was one of the speakers.

“When we were liberated it was said that all cultures are equal, all languages are equal now what we want to do today is that we can say yes they are equal but there are those who are more equal than others, and ours was taken forcefully from the center to the margin so before we are talking about equality. We made moves to take our African culture and languages from the margin back to the center so that is why the conference is talking about a journey towards the restoration of African culture and African languages.”

A former Xhosa student of Mbiza, who is now a senior lecturer in the Department of African Language Studies at the University of Cape Town, Tessa Dowling, says Mbiza was a passionate and principled educator.

“I think he was a person with immense gifts, gifts of being able to reach out to people who knew nothing, because often that’s a frustration, that people don’t know anything and that he reached out to us, white people, aged 25 as I was at the time, not having grown up in the Eastern Cape being completely blank and saying you can do it. I think he was inspirational in saying to anyone you can do it so that incredible inspiration to make you love the language and to make you believe in yourself.”