Abstract:
This contribution grapples with the question: Is there a relationship between Steve Biko’s ‘quest
for a true humanity’ or, differently put, his search for South Africa’s ‘human face’ and Vuyani
Vellem’s quest for an African spirituality? Our proposition is that there is such a relationship.
This discussion is framed overall by two other questions: What is the relevance of this ‘quest’
within the present South African context, what is its contribution to the global situation and,
fundamentally, what is the contribution black liberation theology can make to these discourses? In
the course of this exploration, we engage the concepts of Africanisation and Afrocentricity,
colonisation, coloniality and decoloniality, and we ask whether a true Afro-pluralism is
possible without a true African indigeneity. These concepts, we shall argue, are tools
of struggle, not only in confronting colonisation and coloniality but also in battling
imperialism, in the form I discuss here: the politics of vulgarity. I contend that an African
spirituality, Biko’s ‘gift’ from Africa to the world, is the most appropriate vessel for that
very gift.
CONTRIBUTION: This article serves as commemoration of the contribution the late Professor
Vuyani Vellem made to the qualitative substantiation of black theology liberation in South
Africa. It demonstrates the powerful way in which Afro-pluralism enhances the contranarrative of imperialism and colonialism.
