The paradoxical meanings of the artifact owls (Athene noctua) at the University of South Africa: An impediment to transformation, decolonization, and Africanization discourse

• Author: Aneesah Khan,Modise Moseki,Mavhungu Abel Mafukata
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1965
• Date: 01 November 2019
• Published date: 01 November 2019

ACADEMIC PAPER

The paradoxical meanings of the artifact owls (Athene noctua)

at the University of South Africa: An impediment to

transformation, decolonization, and Africanization discourse

Mavhungu Abel Mafukata |Modise Moseki |Aneesah Khan

Department of Development Studies,

University of South Africa, Pretoria, South

Africa

Correspondence

Mavhungu Abel Mafukata, Department of

Development Studies, University of South

Africa, Office 4‐15 Theo Van Wijk Building,

01 Preller Street, Unisarand, Pretoria,

South Africa.

Email: mafukma@unisa.ac.za

This paper interprets the expressions embedded in the artifact Owls displayed at the

Theo Van Wijk building of the University of South Africa (Unisa) in relation to the

university's transformation, decolonization, and Africanization discourse. These arti-

facts are said to depict Unisa as a space of wisdom; this in terms of Greek mythology

and philosophy. The use of Greek mythology and philosophy in a university meant

to be promoting African values, systems, and beliefs contradicts the university's

transformation, decolonization, and Africanization discourse. Philosophical inquiry

was adopted to intellectually interpret what these artifact Owls expressed. The paper

found that these Owls are a point of contestation and conflict between Western and

African cultures. The perpetual display of these Owls upholds and sustains tendencies

of colonialism and apartheid although discarding Africannes. Unisa is reduced into a

Western‐centric space of little and irrelevant significance for the postapartheid

democratic state. These artifact Owls must be removed and replaced by an African‐

friendly symbolism of wisdom. Sankambe could be the best option.

1|INTRODUCTION

This paper is about the artifact Owls (Athene noctua) displayed at the

Theo Van Wijk building of the University of South Africa (Unisa).

The displayed Owls at the Theo van Wijk building might not necessar-

ily be the issue. The issue is however what these Owls “silently”com-

municate to the Unisa community on daily basis. These Owls stand

displayed there to mean something. They are not ordinary and inno-

cent artifacts as some might want to believe. That these Owls

expressed something could be theorized from what Lloyd Warner

once opined when he said “built spaces, décor, and so forth are all

symbolic objects which refer to the manners and morals …and express

the significance of the people and their way of life, [evoking] senti-

ments about who they are and …justifying [a] vision of the [meaning]

of their world”(Yanow, 2004). Unisa's Owl artifacts are symbols that

“speak”on behalf of certain people and philosophical orientations.

Consensus among those who study Africa is that artifactial symbols

have been used over so many years by Westernism to express West-

ern ideologies, philosophies, and thoughts—especially in colonial

Africa. On this, Lebakeng (2018) argued “African public spaces were

flooded with Westernisms, including Western symbols, names, aes-

thetical preferences, and academic thought; the price for African peo-

ple being epistemicide.”Westernism captured and centered global

philosophy on Eurocentrism and, in particular, Greek philosophy in

pure attempt to reduce other philosophies into nonentities. Greek phi-

losophy accords itself the status of a global conqueror of all other phi-

losophies despite the fact that, among others, Greek philosophy might

have in fact developed and evolved from the influence and cultural

materiality of Ancient Egypt in Africa (Anakwue, 2017). This attempt,

which Anakwue (2017) labels “European travesty of history,”had

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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any

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© 2019 The Authors Journal of Public Affairs Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Received: 4 April 2019 Accepted: 22 April 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1965

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1965.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1965

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of10