Fundamento te´ orico

The Post-Liberation theology addresses aspects of economic imbalances and all forms of discrimination. It is the main task of post-modernity, post-colonialism, post feminism and other post theologies to transform the present situation in order to have one liberated world. According to Musa Dube, post-colonialism is not about dwelling on the crime of the past and their continuation, but about seeking transformation for liberation in the modern world.¹⁰² We are not forgetting the past, instead we learnt from it and we continue tolearn from it. This will help us not to repeat the same mistakes.That goes together with Dube’s argument that

the term post colonial subjects describes people whose perception of each other and of economic, political, and cultural relationships cannot be separated from the global impact and constructions of Western/modern imperialism, which still remain potent forms ofneo-colonialism, military arrogance, and globalization.¹⁰³

Therefore, post-colonial people are people who should be willing to forgive one another, totally reconciled from the bottom of their hearts, willing to share God’s earthly resources, willing to cooperate with one another regardless of class, colour, tribe, ready to fight and stand against any injustice perpetrated in humanity and the physical organic environment.

There are countries which still experience difficulties after political independence. Those difficulties include acceptance between the then oppressors and the oppressed. For instance in the Republic of Namibia, Bishop Zephania Kameeta says:

we thank God that colonialism has been terminated and

102 Dube2000,16

103 Dube 2000,16

ended in our country. But it is also regrettable that colonial attitudes and a slave mentality are prevalent in Namibia…It is still practice that in most business places, e.g. shops, banks, restaurants, and also in some government offices in the Afrikaans

language blacks are addressed as “jy” and “jou”, while whites are addressed as “U”. We cannot credibly and honestly proclaim liberation and reconciliation in a free Namibia without seriously addressing these anti-human attitudes.¹⁰⁴

That is also the casein countries which got independence earlier than Namibia and South Africa. In Botswana, which is believed to be non-racial, similar stories of racism are prevalent. In an interview with a young woman named Ms Ida Mogorosi working for a white couple as a domestic worker in Gaborone, she said that her employer uses racist language against her whenever she makes a mistake, and sometimes he justuttersrude remarks. Her story goes as follows;

My boss always makes racistcomments against Botswana people. He always says that they are lazy;

they sleep with everybody like animals.¹⁰⁵

This kind of attitude is still happening in our region. We still have a long way to go in order toachieve the goal of liberating African people. Kameeta argues that if we do not address these issues very seriously,

we will allow the legacy of colonialism and apartheid to continue unhindered in the liberated Namibia and to be inherited by generations yet unborn.¹⁰⁶

104 Kameeta 2006, 82

105 Mogorosi in an interview on 26th March 2006, in Gaborone

Another factual truth is that this is not only done by white people in Africa, it is also done by blacks to other blacks. Those are colonial-injected and brainwashed blacks. The situation may cause more devastation to African humanity. Post-liberation theology should not only deal with the syndrome of black and white, but also with classes in black societies. Those classes create ill-treatment among black people. This is not how transformation from colonialism to modern independent Africa should happen and be practised.

Today in our region we experience a very unique situation in which people living with HIV/AIDS are stigmatised. This is a wrong attitude in African communities which should not be entertained. Where is the concept of Ubuntu? Africans are people who use a holistic approach to deal with issues. Africans take illness and calamity as breaking up of the wholeness of life and that illness is experienced as a disturbance in the society as a whole.¹⁰⁷ If a person is sick, the whole family and community is sick too. It has been a surprising and shameful situation in Southern Africa that people living with HIV/AIDS are stigmatised. The issue here is, whetherwe are transforming from worse to better or vice versa.

The Post-Liberation theology is obliged to help the transformation process in Southern Africa to move accordingly without taking a one-sided method. A method is needed for bringing together the African world-view, what was good and evil during the colonial period and challenges of today into dialogue at an equal level. There is no way we can only blame colonialism, closing our eyes on the good things it brought for the continent.

We should also see what we can improve from what colonialism left behind. Many black Africans still uphold that old African traditional life is an ideal and should be revisited.

People in the country side are calling for areturn to traditional life. In an interview with a headman of a rural village in Botswana, the headman argued that:

…the challenges we face today cannot end unless we

106 Kameeta 2006,82

107 Ter Haar 1992,168

return to our own African traditional way of living.

Ancestors are not happy with all these new changes.¹⁰⁸

It is clear that we cannot totally return to that life in today’s context. Theology should search for what was lost which was good or evil in African traditional norms and values of life. The next step will be to take out what is good and applicable to the modern life in the region today. There are sayings that the good traditional lifetyle which was practised during olden days was the best. The question shall be whether this can be applicable today? There are limited ways of avoiding the western life influence in Africa. It will be advisable for the African world-view, western life-style and current life-style in Africa which is mixed up to enter into intensive discussion and find out how they can be practised together for the benefit of society at large. The discussion will engage the society in socio-political and economic development. The society should be part of the transformation process of the life-style in Africa.

Theology from the region is calling for the Theanthropocosmic principle to be used in thetransformation process. Thetransformation of the human life-style goes hand in hand with people’s social, political, economic and spiritual life. Post liberation theology is a theology of transformation. Its task is to transform society for the better. Therefore to do theology needs a community with different forms of involvement, different experiences and angles of insight, variously gifted, which invests time and energy in uncovering the terms of situations faced and searching the scriptures for light on them, which thus learns to live in the world under the discipline of the world attentive to the Spirit.¹⁰⁹ That is community work.It is an exercise that needs everybody to participate.God’s people are the only possible theological community.