Mandela and Mqhayi's Stars

in The Faculty of Science at Nelson Mandela University is in the curriculum renewal process and seeks to imbue its graduates with attributes consistent with Dalibunga as an inspiration. This Faculty aspires to be a world-class, engaged, transdisciplinary African Faculty of Science that responds to socioeconomic and environmental challenges. This vision is consistent with Mandela University’s ambition to be a dynamic African university recognised for its leadership in generating cutting-edge knowledge for a sustainable future. What is most significant about this curriculum renewal process is the Africanization of the curricula in ways that also represent Mandela’s name as a social figure – Mandela.

A common question for projects like this would be, “What Would Madiba Do?” – WWMD. Or perhaps, What Did Mandela Say? – WDMS. And, possibly, since we are human beings and Homo sapiens, we would be more disposed to approach this question from a ‘being’ perspective. What character attributes make a Mandela Uni Science Graduate? One cannot help but venture into a dark room, hoping to find a matchstick here and a candle there. Then, one can illuminate the room by scratching the matchstick against the walls. This is about mixing resources with creativity to attend to contemporary challenges.  

If we wanted to reference Mandela and guide African epistemes of scientific knowledge, we would have to understand more than the man’s psyche but his social and environmental context. This approach frees us from being constrained within the man as an individual but as a being among other beings, which then becomes Ubuntu in practice. One naturally has to place Mandela within cultural literature and culture to get a broader outlook and contextual references of who he was. For example, the Xhosa calendar names refer to Botany, Zoology and Astronomy – perhaps an in-depth study can reveal even more scientific knowledge.

For example, one of Nelson Mandela’s favourite poems was A Silimela, written by Poet Laureate Krune Mqhayi (1875-1945), and Jeff Opland’s Xhosa Literature records it: Spoken and Printed Words, published in 2018. The poem concludes by saying, “Bizan’ izizwe kuza kwabiw’ iinkwenkwezi. Iinkwenkwezi mazabiwe (Summon the nations to apportion stars. Let the stars be apportioned). Mqhayi then apportioned Canopus (Canzibe) to be shared by the Sothos, Tswanas, and Chopi. He then allocates Orion’s Belt (Makroza) to be shared between AmaZulu, amaSwati, amaTshopi (Chopi) and Shangaan people (Tsonga). He then grudgingly yet generously offers Venus (iKhwezi lokusa) to the British, the Germans and the Boers. Perhaps favourably, Pleiades (Silimela) is allocated to the house of Phalo as the stars measure the passages of years. Sixty years later, Mandela was recorded beaming with pride and enchanted by the depth of Mqhayi’s knowledge and his captivating live performance when he recited the Xhosa poem in Healdtown back in 1938.

Furthermore, the broader Nguni people and other African groups are no different in offering the field of science its scientific intellectual heritage that was previously regarded as backwards, non-universal or local, and at best, just vernacular studies as opposed to science. In a nutshell, the scientific Mandela should be seen as a concentration of African thought exploding from the tip of Africa into a constellation of African Epistemology of Humanitarian Science that mirrors the international touchstone of democracy born of the House of Phalo—a new kind of the Big Bang. In so doing, the Faculty of Science democratises knowledge and provides an inclusive approach that includes all the indigenous peoples of the Cape, chief among whom are the noble Khoi people and the knowledge they still keep concealed for us, which I am yet to learn much about.

The work of the now-retired Uganda-born Mandela University Honourary Doctor, Professor Catherine Odora Hoppers, who now remains in Gulu, upon being appointed by the then President Thabo Mbeki, facilitated the foundational two-year discussions with the country’s scientists in Robben Island, which led to the Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) policy in South Africa would be helpful for reference.

It is possible to conduct science dealing with bread-and-butter issues that alleviate poverty and inequality while maintaining intense, deep physical scientific research that explores astronomy and earth science. Professor Azwinndini Muronga, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research tasked with Innovation and Internationalisation at Mandela Uni, believes the discoveries of the frontier scientific studies leave many positive spinoffs that address socioeconomic needs. Our leaders can then leverage these spinoffs and/or support creative entrepreneurs to champion such solutions to society.  

Biko teaches us that “The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look, but the great gift still has to come from Africa - giving the world a more human face”. The face of Mandela enables the Academy to usher in this new dispensation that does not rely on industrial military complexes to advance humankind, but a science with a human face – a Mandellic Science.

It is therefore not inconceivable that as the Faculty of Science at Nelson Mandela University makes a call that echoes Mqhayi where “…kuzakwabiwa iinkwenkwezi…”. uDalibunga, who the Poet Laureate once inspired, now inspires the next generation of African scientists who will tread the corners of the earth bringing ’a more human face’. In so doing, and to borrow from Plato, positively affirms the aphorism: Like Mandela, Like Science.

 BY: OLWAM MNQWAZI

** Edited version published by The Herald Newspaper on 12 May 2025