The Struggle to Decolonise the Academy
African Black religious spirituality continues to be undermined, ridiculed, marginalised, and rejected by South African universities. It is consistently viewed with contempt, suspicion, and intellectual inferiority. This reality cannot be divorced from the historical truth that universities in South Africa are themselves products of colonialism and apartheid. Their institutional cultures, epistemologies, and spiritual frameworks remain deeply rooted in colonial Christocentric worldviews, while African belief systems are systematically delegitimised.
South African universities remain overwhelmingly centred on colonial Christianity, while African spirituality is treated as primitive, irrational, demonic, or unworthy of institutional recognition. Yet, according to the biblical narrative, particularly the book of Exodus, God is revealed as being on the side of the oppressed, the marginalised, and the poor. Jesus Christ himself dined with sinners and those excluded by society. He did not restrict his table to believers who conformed to a particular religious orthodoxy. In contrast, South African universities refuse to “eat at the same table” with students and staff who practise authentic African spiritual belief systems, treating them as sinners and outsiders.
Staff and students are effectively coerced into conforming to Eurocentric models of spiritual, emotional, psychological, and sociological care, particularly through Student and Staff Counselling Services. These services are grounded in Western epistemologies and largely ignore African traditions, cosmologies, healing practices, and spiritual worldviews. African spirituality is rendered invisible, irrelevant, or incompatible with academic life.
Many universities provide synagogues, chapels, mosques, or dedicated prayer venues for Christians, Jews, and Muslims. However, no sacred spaces are provided for African religious practices. There are no institutional spaces where African students and staff can practise healing and spiritual renewal through belief systems such as uMusamo, Taelo ya badimo, iNdumba, Bodimong, iGandzelo, ku phahla, mphahlo, mphaso, Thukula, or eBuhlante, among many others. These practices often require home shrines, altars, or sacred outdoor spaces.
For many African spiritual practitioners, healing involves burning incense, using snuff, brewing traditional beer, lighting candles, and communing with God through the ancestors. These are not superstitions; they are sacred practices that sustain identity, dignity, and well-being. Rastafarians, too, remain among the most marginalised and ignored religious groups within South African universities, further exposing the myth of institutional diversity and inclusivity.
African spiritual spaces are not merely ritualistic; they provide guidance, remembrance, healing, support, and ancestral veneration, connecting African people with the divine. Denying these spaces is an act of spiritual violence.
African students and staff cannot continue to suffer in silence while universities perpetuate systemic religious oppression. According to Black Theology and Liberation Theology, any system that dehumanises people and denies them spiritual expression stands in opposition to God’s justice. Universities selectively legitimise only those African people whose spirituality is considered “civilised,” acceptable, or aligned with colonial theology, thereby denying the full humanity of others.
Neutrality and indecision in the face of injustice are not neutral at all. They are political choices. The silence of universities is deliberate and oppressive. African religious rights are taken for granted, dismissed as evil, demonic, or satanic, ironically, even within institutions managed by Black executive leadership. Historically Black Universities (HBUs) are among the worst offenders. These institutions should, by their very nature, be leaders in religious and epistemic diversity. Instead, they reproduce colonial religious oppression. HBUs have become symbols of contradiction: institutions that claim Black identity while promoting only colonial white theology and epistemology.
The exclusion of African belief systems reveals that universities remain committed to the centrality of colonial Christianity. What is often referred to as “secularism” is nothing more than colonial Christianity in disguise. By denying African spiritual safe spaces, South African universities commit a moral and theological injustice. They silence knowledge systems that could meaningfully contribute to scholarship, healing, and epistemic diversity.
Black students and staff whose spiritual belief systems are ridiculed, erased, and discarded into the dustbin of history experience profound alienation. Universities that undermine African spirituality are betraying the very principles of Black consciousness, Black power, and liberation theology. They stand in opposition to God’s justice as articulated through the lived experiences of the oppressed.
The decolonisation of universities cannot be achieved without the decolonisation of spirituality. Anything less is intellectual dishonesty.
Dr Sefoko Ramoshaba is a social justice advocate committed to community empowerment, the preservation of people’s legacies, and community engagement as a form of civic activism.
