Transcript Biographical Details - University of South Africa

TRADITIONS
Apartheid of the Heart:
Beyond the
fractured legacy
Umesh Bawa
Department of Psychology
University of the Western Cape
South Africa
Traditional Gifts
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The Colonial Gift of enslavement
History repeats itself
The Tradition of Patriarchy
Psyches under siege
Beyond the Bequeathed Legacy
Apartheid of the Heart
New fractures
The Colonial Gift of Enslavement
Structured and ordered system of regulated
relationships
 Manichean world of compartmentalised
opposites
 The Master and Slave Dialectic
 The Tradition of Servitude
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- intergenerational transmission of oppression
- values of intergenerational acquiescence
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History repeats itself
– Neo-colonial puppetry
– Repeated patterns of social and gendered
relationships
The Tradition of Patriarchy and
Male Violence
Evidence of violence against women and
children
The tradition of patriarchy and male
dominance
The tradition of irresponsiblity-be a man, take
responsibility
Fathers to sons- on being a man
The complicity of mothers
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Failing to encourage accountability
The culture of gang violence
Apartheid of the Heart
Confront the internalised and externalised
mechanisms of oppression
 The tradition of revenge
 The tradition of entitlement
 Rx: Preventive and intensive intervention
for individuals , families and communities
at risk
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– Parenting support, drug and alcohol
interventions, violence prevention
Beyond the bequeathed legacy
All men are not created equal
 ? Why are all men not perpertrators
 Risk factors (Dawes et al.)
– Unsupported single female parents
– context of long term poverty
– Substance abuse and violence
– Isolated parents
– Neglected children
 Protective factors
– Early good family relationship
– Education and an ideology of hope
 Services needed at early intervention
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New Fractures
Psyches under siege
 The culture of impunity
 The internalised oppressor
 The Tradition of Reconciliation and Forced
Forgiveness
 The tradition of Revenge
 The Culture of Entitlement
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If there is no
struggle, there is no
progress. Those who
profess to favour
freedom, but
depreciate agitation;
are men who want
crops without
ploughing the soil.
They want the ocean
without the angry
roar of its many
angry waters.
 Frederick Douglas