 Let me start by welcoming everybody. My name is Wayne Dooling, and I'm a member of the School of History, Religions and Philosophies here at Celas. And I will be the chair of our afternoon panel, which is as its common theme on human rights and social justice. And I think every one of our speakers will touch on the issue facing every person on the planet today, which of course is the current COVID-19 pandemic. So our first speaker today is my colleague, Mesut Badarin. Mesut is professor of law here at Celas. He has published very widely on issues of Islamic law, and he is one of the founding editors of the Muslim World Journal of Human Rights, and has worked on the Human Rights, on the United Nations Human Rights Council. And the title of Mesut's talk is the COVID-19 pandemic and the right to the best attainable state of health in Africa. Thank you very much, Mesut, if you could speak for 10 minutes or so, we can. Thank you very much, Wayne, for that introduction. And I also welcome my co-panelist for this session. I have 10 minutes to speak, so I'll just try to be as brief as possible. I'll be speaking against the background of the abstract, which is in the book here. So I would not want to go over that again. But I want to say that, I mean, these are just reflections against the background that we have a course in the School of Law and Development in Africa, which we have been running for, I mean, about 11 years now. My colleague Farid Abanda teaches on it, we have another colleague who teaches on this module. Now in that module, we look at how law can contribute to development in Africa, and we look at development from the perspective of human development, economic development, and I mean, socio-political development. Now, I'm being conscious of the importance of human capital. I have a perspective that human development is the real catalyst for both economic and socio-political development. And I also, and when we look at human development, we look at issues of human rights. And I have a position that actually the right to health, the right to attainable state of health is actually the most important aspect of human development. Because we find out that, I mean, there is an African Nigerian proverb, actually, I hope you will not be bored by my many Nigerian proverbs, some philosophies that I'll be putting forward. There's a proverb in Nigeria that says that, a sick person is only concerned about one thing, to get well. So similarly, you find out that, I mean, the English proverb, health is wealth. And we have seen this in relation to the havoc that COVID-19 has created in the economies, in socio-political situation, of many different countries, I mean, today. Now, I mean, I look at it from the perspective of an article I wrote in 2010, in relation to law and development in Africa. And I critiqued the dependency strategy of most African countries to the global north in respect of almost everything. I mean, even in relation to health and everything. Then I advocate strongly a theory of self-reliance for African countries. Against that, I describe self-reliance as individual self-reliance, collective self-reliance, and also look at it in relation to international cooperation. Now, in human rights circles, a lot of the time, when we look at Africa and some of the things that, I mean, we look upon to improve, we always talk about, I mean, international cooperation. We talk about it a lot. And that is where we look at. And when we are talking about inequalities in the global system, we talk a lot about a relation to international cooperation. I believe my colleague will be talking much about that. But the other aspect of it, which I want to emphasize in relation to self-reliance, I want to suggest that in looking at the contested spaces, we also need to talk much more about individual self-reliance and collective. That is individual African countries do what they need to do. And also at the regional level, collectively doing what they need to do. Again, I base this on a Nigerian proverb that says that if you have a heavy load, it is the owner of the heavy load who tries to lift it first before others will come to help him to lift it. So, I mean, in looking at the contested spaces and issue of identity, I think it's quite essential that we look at that point of view as well. Now, in relation to health issues, we have been here before. I mean, when there are epidemics, we find these debates all the time about, I mean, where will the assistance come from? I mean, during the HIV epidemic, during Ebola, there were these issues about, for example, the global not doing much about, I mean, providing the international cooperation that is needed. And many African countries have to struggle a lot. So my perspective, I've been reflecting over this. And when the pandemic, COVID-19 pandemic occurred, we all know there were a lot of social media discussion. And what really triggered me was, I mean, I was, I mean, part of many discussions when the issue of the vaccine was being discussed, people were talking about Africa being at the end of the line in relation to getting the vaccine and things like that. People were saying so many things. One person, I mean, said something, I mean, apparently not an African. It was on Facebook, not very, I mean, politically correct. He said Africans don't have a choice anyway. I mean, because you find out that, I mean, the conspiracy theorists were also talking about the fact that the vaccine will harm Africans and all these things were going on. And people were saying that, you know, I mean, we don't want the vaccine in Africa and things like that. And somebody just said, well, Africans don't have an option anyway. Do you have an option? Can you produce your own vaccine? It was very prominent to me when that treatment was made. And somebody said, well, I mean, apparently a Nigerian. He said, look, Africans, even if you cannot produce vaccine, we are independent. And he said a Nigerian proverb again. He said, if somebody eating, sees me while he was eating and he frowns, I will shame him by not eating when he invites me. You know, and another said, no, rather than not saying that we will not eat, I'll cook my own food, you know, in order to shame him. So if we look at it from those points of view, it triggered my mind that, well, where are we in relation to solving this pandemic from an African perspective? I mean, on the concept of self-reliance, which I talked about earlier. Now, so when the Madagascar president announced that I mean, they have found an African herbal remedy for COVID-19, it was controversial. But then, as I said in my abstract, it also put Africa on the, African traditional medicine on the scene for discussion. Now, in relation to the contested spaces, we all know, I mean, a theme of this symposium, that there's no doubt that the use of traditional medicine is common heritage, I mean, in all African countries. And a lot of the time, you find out that, I mean, we find it contesting this space in many parts of Africa with conventional Western medicine. Now, I mean, one scholar indicates that actually where African traditional medicine is now is one of the results of colonialism. He indicates, and I quote him, he said, a century of colonialism, cultural imperialism held back the development of African traditional healthcare in general, and medicines in particular, you know? He said, during several centuries of conquest and invasion, European systems of medicine were introduced by colonizers. So pre-existing African systems were stigmatized and marginalized, end of quote. Now, this still has an impact today, because if you look in the literature, I did a little bit of research, I mean, about this. I'm not into science or medical, but I mean, from a legal point of view, I, when I look at it, you find out that, I mean, this still remains, because in most of the literature, you find out that, I mean, African traditional medicine is usually referred to as alternative or complementary medicine. Now, if you look at it from that point of, language also is important. When you talk about complementary medicine or alternative medicine, then it puts it at the back burner, whereby, I mean, to develop it becomes really very, very, very strong. Now, the World Health Organization have actually indicated that, I mean, up to 80% of the population in Africa rely on traditional medicine. And because of, I mean, the fact that it is accessible, it is, I mean, accessible, it is acceptable to especially people in the rural areas. So my question as I raise in the abstract is that, well, if you want to be self-reliant, if African countries want to use the self-reliance and make these arguments of contesting, you know, space and also projecting the identity, are African countries a little ready? This discussion was hard during Ebola, during HIV, is African countries really ready to say that, well, they are ready for international cooperation to assist this to happen? Now, looking at, I mean, the materials, one will be able to see that, and one could talk about positive initiatives, particularly from the international cooperation point of view. Now, the World Health Organization has been doing so much with, I mean, with the African Union. And I was really quite a little bit surprised to find out that actually the African Union itself had an action on a decade of traditional medicine, development of traditional medicine from 2001 to 2010. But my research on this indicated that it was just passed, maybe on paper, because I mean, there wasn't anything, there was no real outcome out of it. Although today, as I said in my abstract, there are more than 30 research institutes on traditional African medicine in many parts of Africa, in many parts of Africa. And the AU and the World Health Organization are really collaborating in various ways in that regard. Now, just recently, actually, I mean, based on COVID-19, the World Health Organization and the African Union established a regional expert committee on traditional medicine for COVID-19, COVID-19. In other to pass, maybe, and they have adopted a chart, actually, and also protocols in relation to, I mean, clinical trials to move, I mean, traditional medicine into clinical trials. And in relation to what do you call it? I mean, collective self-reliance. We see many African countries coming together to assist in that regard. I mean, I mean, solidarizing with Madagascar on this. But there are problems. With regard to international community, one will see that there has to be a lot of effort is being done. But in relation to this perspective of self-reliance, I found some little bit of problems in that regard. And the main problem is, I mean, the debate about clinical trials. Now, many have talked about the fact that, well, if African countries want traditional medicine, African medicine to be put at the same par with conventional medicine, then it has to be subjected to the same standards of clinical trials as conventional modern medicine. Now, research have indicated that although, I mean, there is a lot of interest in research on traditional health by medicine in Africa, there's very little of its clinical trials. And that is where I feel that perhaps, and when we talk about contested spaces, I mean, Africans are really pushing for African traditional medicine. There's a lot of work to be done in relation to clinical trials. One author indicated that there are over 1,200, I mean, plant species, which are reportedly used for treatment of malaria. Only 13 of them have undergone clinical trials. And out of the many, I mean, laboratory tests that have been done, clinical trials, only one single one have been approved. And they talk about so many difficulties in relation to clinical trials. People don't want to come forward. Now, for example, a lot of the time, I mean, the traditional medicine practitioners themselves, I mean, their cooperation and also, I mean, government are funding in that regard. So I want to say that, I mean, in talking about, I mean, the contested spaces, and also my self-reliance of Africans in relation to these specific issues, rather than looking at theoretical issues, you know? I've seen so much about theory, but in relation to practice, you know, claiming our role in the contested space, I think the areas of health are quite important. And African traditional medicine really provides a way by which this can be done. If, for example, we look in what to ensure that particularly our own role of trying to lift the load first before the international community will come to help us in order to get this through. So these are my thoughts on it. I still have some little bit of views around there, but I know I have only 10 minutes. So I will stop now, perhaps maybe during question time, we can be able to have a discussion. Thank you so much, Wayne. And thanks for your listening. Thank you very much for your question. Our next speaker is my colleague, yet so is Farida Bender, Farida long-time colleague. Farida is professor of law and has worked very widely on issues of human rights and also issues of migration, specifically on women, law and human rights. I'm more recently on issues of science, I think, Farida. And no, but this is the... Literature. Science and literature, human rights and literature. But Farida's title today is, Who benefits from the right to science? So thank you very much, Farida. Thank you very much, Wayne. Following my brother, Massoud, since he's been quoting House of Proverbs, I have my own book of Proverbs. House of Proverbs. God gives blessings to all men. If man had to distribute, the many would go without. And actually it's a very nice lead-in to our talk because it's about who benefits from the scientific progress. And so God has given us all life, but not all of us are benefiting from scientific progress. And that's because humankind, rather than man, humankind is in charge of distribution. So very quickly, I think I'm gonna talk very quickly about, literally very quickly, about the right to benefit from scientific progress, which is the human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Covenant as well, a UN Covenant. But actually I wanted to start off with a story. And the story I wanted to tell you about is this year we're celebrating the centenary of a birth of a woman called Henrietta Lacks. And Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman who developed aggressive cervical cancer in 1957. And as part of her diagnosis, they took cells from her. And they discovered that these cells were to quote the journal Nature, that her cells had an extraordinary capacity to survive and reproduce. To reproduce, they were in essence immortal. And in this importality, they actually started to use her cells for the development of cancer technologies, IVF, and her cells have been used by biotech companies. And what was interesting is until a biographer called Rebecca Skloot wrote a book about her. Her family had never benefited from the use of her cells. Biotech companies had made millions. And it struck me that actually the story of Henrietta Lacks is in itself a good metaphor for where we are now, which is about whose bodies are used in the development of scientific research and who gets to benefit from that scientific research. And I think it's important to note that it's not the first time that specifically here, I'm going to talk about kind of black bodies have been used during the HIV AIDS pandemic that we all experienced, especially those of us from Southern Africa. We saw that the development entry retrovirals didn't reach us as quickly. Accessing the virupin, if we hadn't had access to India and generic drugs, I don't know what would have happened to us and to the babies that were being born. So there is something that says that although some of these drugs have been trialed on us, we haven't been the beneficiaries. And one would have thought that by now one would have learned something in terms of ethics, the ethics of care, mutual obligations, duties to each other. But clearly what the vaccine rollout has shown is that it's not the case. So I remember this time probably we were unrolling from epidemic into pandemic around now. And I remember the publisher of my book saying, can you write an afterward? And I had to write an afterward. And one of the things, the last page I said, I hope that by the time this is out, there will be a vaccine developed and that it will be freely given and that Africa would not be left behind. And what do we find? Well, the rollout has started, but Africa has been left behind. Specifically 80 plus percent of available vaccines have been brought up by the third world, I mean by the first world or the global North. And I who live in London have lived in a country that has now got three times the amount of vaccines that it needs. The Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was tested, including on South African bodies and also on Brazilian bodies. And yet the question is, you would have thought that South Africa, Brazil, anybody else who participated in the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccination would have been automatically the first to get off the first roll-off, but that hasn't been the case. And this leads one to ask, well, why, how does this come about? And it's not as if human rights hasn't actually addressed this because I started my talk by talking about the fact that we have the right to benefit from scientific progress in UDHR, Declaration of Human Rights and also the Economic, Social, Cultural Rights Covenant. And there is a committee that oversees the Economic, Social, Cultural Rights Covenant. And that's called, we'll just call it the committee for now. And human rights committees have the ability to write interpretive statements. And these interpretive statements are called general comments. So immediately after the roll-out, I mean, after the epidemic was moving to pandemic, the UN Economic, Social, Cultural Rights Committee actually issued a general comment number 25, specifically on a right to benefit from scientific progress. And they said in the, and I'll look through some of the things that they said in the general comment to show that we have normative standards. And so they said that they should be joined cooperation and research. And the poor state should not just be expected to be the ones who provide the bodies but not necessarily the benefits. And they said that there was a duty to ensure that the benefits of scientific progress are accessible and affordable to all. They said that discrimination isn't permitted. And it said that we needed to overcome inequalities and pay attention to the disadvantaged. The folk, the committee focuses on this idea of international cooperation. And it says that pandemics are a crucial example of the need for scientific international cooperation to face transnational threats. And the COVID is a transnational threat. So this requires that the WHO should be supported both politically and financially. And not as the Trump government chose to do to have its funding cut mid pandemic. It also talks about this issue of extraterritoriality, the importance of states paying attention to the actions of their private companies which are registered within their jurisdictions. And so states are required to regulate and monitor the conduct of multinational companies over which they can exercise control. Yeah, and so this includes ensuring the company's exercise due diligence and that includes the prevention of harm and the fact that everybody should be able to participate in the benefit of scientific progress. And so for those of you who are thinking, yes, but they're never going to agree to give up their profits, it's worth noting that the committee does actually acknowledge that there is something called intellectual property. And it says though that patents give patent holders a temporary exclusive right to exploit the product or services that they've invented. They can determine the price for these products and services, but, and this is what the committee says, if the prices are set very high, access to these products and services becomes impossible for low income persons or developing countries as has happened with new medicines that are essential for the health and life of persons with certain diseases. So the committee says we have to strike a balance. And we have to strike a balance between the rights of intellectual property for the patent holder and also the needs of people. And it specifically says it reiterates that ultimately intellectual property is a social product and has a social function. And consequently, states parties have a duty to prevent unreasonably high access costs for essential medicines. And so they need to be prevented from undermining the rights of large segments of the population to health, food and other things. And so we've reached the end because I know we're pushed for time. And so one of the things that I think one finds is from Henrietta Lacks to the Tuskegee Airmen to the HIV crisis, the one group of people who seem to be disproportionately impacted who always seem to be at the back of the queue. And that includes with this COVAX, which is supposed to be a WHO-led initiative. I mean, the first African country to get COVAX, I think was Ghana and this was just this week, tells us something about the right to benefit from scientific progress, not being a universal right. It tells us something about macro inequalities. It tells us, people from the global South, that our lives don't matter, even though our bodies are used in the scientific research. And I think that's deeply problematic. And I just wanted to finish then. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Farida. I think we're still provoking. Our next speaker is Christina Chari-Masondo, who comes to us from the University of Cazuli-Natal. Christina wears very many hats. She's a senior lecturer of economic history and development at UK ZLN. She's also an ordained pastor, an apostle and bishop of the people of God, Christian missionaries international. She's worked fairly extensively in issues of socio-environmental concerns and indigenous knowledge. And we'll be speaking to us today on COVID-19 and the implications of a forced industrial revolution transposing higher education on the African child in South Africa. Thank you very much, Christina. Thank you very much, Wayne, for introducing me. Before I start with my presentation today, I think it's very important to explain where this talk that I'm going to focus on comes from. It comes from a paper that I wrote with a colleague who is in education, Ms. Nkabela. It was published in December, 2020. It was after COVID, after the Minister of Higher Education in South Africa came on TV and he said to all of us as education is that since we have COVID and we have to implement online teaching, it's very important that no child must be left behind. So we became troubled and we then wrote a paper on the implications of what the Minister of Education said in that paper. I realized that there were gaps that we left behind and the gaps are based on the paper that I'm going to talk about today. The implications of the forced industrial revolution, principles in higher education on the African child in South Africa during the era of COVID-19. I heard my brother and sister, they spoke about Proverbs. I'm also a Proverbs lady today. So my proverb is umuntuakala for pedagogy. It basically says we cannot dispose people. It is linked with human rights issues in African philosophy. It is linked with a social justice. When COVID-19 started, you know we, the whole country was put on a spotlight, you know, because of the fact that we have a lot of vast economic inequalities in Africa. And this indicates that indeed there's a failure of post-independence governments to address developmental challenges in underprivileged areas. Hence the title for the symposium is about contested spaces. And this is about contested spaces because you look at African spaces, African areas, you discover that the governments, the colonialists, they see that they are appropriate for African people, but Africans who live in such areas, they feel that they are not humanized by the spaces they live in because of lack of infrastructure. So then hence there are perpetual colonial pedagogies. And with this presentation, I argue that time has come for the globe to embrace what I call migrated pedagogies because now I'm excited because, you know, the whole globe is forced by COVID-19 to embrace decolonization because now we are going back to African culture where we go back to the indigenous classroom which happened in the homestead. So now it's Africanized. Now because of my great pedagogies, we have embraced online teaching and it is also combined with Africanized pedagogy. Globally, there is perpetuation of the idea of Africa as a protein. That means Africa being ludicrous, Africa being primitive. As I said that our governments after independence, you can see little improvement of infrastructure. As put by Mudimbe, that Africa is wrapped in the ongoing paradigm of difference that demotes its standing in world affairs and questions its influence on human civilization, progress and development. And for me, the paradigm of difference is a central theme of coloniality which replicated a Africa that was and is considered primitive underdeveloped and scientific and irrational. I believe that African governments have to embrace this philosophy of umundu aga lacha and ensure that we start improving African areas. You know, our response to COVID-19 was like a knee-jerk, you know, reaction to a crisis. It is so painful because we opted online teaching which is good, but we never looked at pedagogies that can humanize those African students who are marginalized. But we need to take into account challenges of underprivileged students who live in areas that have infrastructure that is unreliable electricity also. Some areas are not even electrified and there is internet connectivity problems. There are areas in South Africa without electricity and students find it difficult to connect. Online pedagogies aligned with the current thought industrial revolution, which Davis argues, it refers to the advent of cyber physical system involving entirely new capabilities of people and machines which is touching virtually every side of our daily life, affecting how people relate to technology and altering how and where people work. Hence, I said, now it's migrated pedagogies in teaching and learning. Unfortunately, as I said, African students and some Black students, they're experiencing lack of infrastructure and it's difficult for them to engage in online teaching. Now let us talk about higher education and fourth industrial revolution in the context of COVID-19. You know, when you look at our universities and Africa as a whole, we inherited from the apartheid regime and the prior government's challenge of infrastructure is many universities were separated according to race, whereby whites were allotted higher funding than blacks. As a result, many poor students are alienated in the context of COVID-19 because no access to basics that can assist them in teaching and learning in accordance with the online teaching pedagogy. Students argue that, the ones that I teach as I will mention in my reflection, they argue that it is difficult to work at home because the homes where they live, many of them are in rural context and some of them in those rural context, they're overcrowded. And while they are busy with their work, they complain that they have to even do their chores while they are busy with lectures. And literature on higher education and COVID-19 and also the fourth industrial revolution also explains that it is very important that transformation occurs because at the moment transformation is very slow in the 21st century. Students experience what Thibon says is existential inequality, which is a rejection of equal acknowledgement and respect and is a powerful source of humiliation, dignity, autonomy. Hence Fraser regards this existential inequality as the politics of misrecognition. For me, this misrecognition is about the killing of other knowledges. And also the fact that when these, our governments became liberated, they never looked at how to improve the African areas. So this paper then suggests that pedagogies that do not embrace the students context are adhering to social injustice and violate human rights as they dispose students. Balala abbandi, balala abafundi, they dispose students. An effective pedagogy has to align with student settings. Knowledge and beliefs, when we teach is very important. An effective lecturer, effective teacher has to look at the context of a student so that they can align their teaching. As explicitly argued by Ndohu Gajeni that while African people continue to make history after the colonial encounters and even under direct colonialism, they were no longer able to do so outside coloniality. Hence I argued at the beginning that even our governments, they see that African people don't deserve the best. Hence the areas are not given up. Now I want us to focus on the principles of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I'll only tease out two for the purpose of this presentation. The principle of the Fourth Industrial Revolution emphasizes that for us to engage in Fourth Industrial Revolution is very important that we have data. There is infrastructure like electricity, connectivity must be there and also reliable. Unfortunately, Mthanga and Muloi have indicated that in African countries, principle of infrastructure to support Fourth Industrial Revolution is a serious challenge because of high cost of data, connectivity, and unreliable electricity. This conclusion is also constant with several studies like Adnan and Var Daniel. They certainly claim that lack of access to fast, affordable and reliable internet connections hindered the pros of online learning among Africans and in African areas. Another important principle that Squab and David mentioned is the fact that issue of Fourth Industrial Revolution is about what it means to be human. Hence, and Sakeris argues that Fourth Industrial Revolution will result in advancing humanism and democracy and improving accountable innovation and consequently adaptiveness as well as decoding technological development that will be inclusive and render creative opportunities for all citizens. My problem is that unfortunately in Africa, the principle of humanization that comes with Fourth Industrial Revolution, as Squab and David have argued, is not so. As Mthanga and Muloi have argued that the Fourth Industrial Revolution, model dehumanization, as many Africans living under resource spaces which affects participation in online teaching. Now let us talk about the problem that my brother and sister spoke about earlier, but mine is Umuntu Agalasha. And I saw a solution for this online teaching that maybe it has to embrace this problem and also align the pedagogy of Umuntu Agalasha. Because as is a lot of students, they feel that they are disposed by Lahiriwe. This Umuntu Agalasha pedagogy is a decolonial take on future pedagogies by incorporating lessons from African history and experience. It is a pedagogy that come against the notion of knowledge restructuring and embraces identities of all students. As suggested by Indovuga Jenny, decolonization must robustly engage with Euro-North American-centric epistemology that continues to sideline knowledge from other parts of the world that is more relevant to the realities of the struggling peoples of Africa. So the problem of Umuntu Agalasha and the pedagogy of Umuntu Agalasha in fact that there is intrinsic work in each person, whether they come from poverty-stricken areas, whatever, but everyone is important and cannot be disposed. The said proverb condones social justice and human rights for all, implying that in terms of Fourth Industrial Revolution, equality must be realized and implemented. So this pedagogy is inclusive. Again, what is important about Umuntu Agalasha, it is part of Ubuntu. Ubuntu draws from these values, love. So with this Umuntu Agalasha pedagogy, it implies that students have to be loved. When you love someone, you ensure that there is success, you support them. Care, it implies that we cannot dispose them. The fact that they cannot have connectivity like my university, I will say it is implementing Umuntu Agalasha because they assist students with network, those who don't have connectivity, they call them to be accommodated in our university. Participation, because with the values of Ubuntu, participation is key. If students are enrolled in higher education, there's no connectivity at home. We have to be creative and ensure that they engage in online teaching. Another important fact about Umuntu Agalasha, Ubuntu is respect. Respecting people by improving their areas, as I spoke about contested spaces, and also Umuntu Agalasha and the concept of Ubuntu is about equality. So Umuntu Agalasha pedagogy, in relation with the fourth industrial revolution and higher education, contests the suffering of Africans against what Galaga all infers as an estrangement and deprivation that was implemented through a combination of colonial policies that were through indirect and direct rule, compulsory particularization and getterization. Talking about my reflection, I'm going to be short. I think my turn is almost up. My reflection, the students that I'm talking about in my reflection, they are my honours students from last year. Our first second semester ended now in January. So many of these students, economically, they are poor and they come from a rural context. So these students, they are African, all of them, they're around 24. And as this second semester, I decided to, because I teach economic history. So this is part of, you know, issues of economics. So we started engaging in how, how are your experiences when it comes to online teaching? And many of them want to, to an extent of saying, we feel as if we are being disposed because our areas, when we live in, we don't have connectivity. And with, you know, in terms of that, it means also that even the online, it is difficult because of connectivity. So then also when it comes to the process it comes to the problems of online teaching. Many students also mentioned that because one, even those who are in locations, the electricity is unreliable. Lack of infrastructure. Some don't even own smartphones. Some complain about the laptops that they have that are of low quality because some of them as they are in honours, they got their laptops when they were doing undergrad. So those laptops, they complain that they are, they are of low quality. And December, January, to show that online is also disposing some of the African students who live in these areas that are underdeveloped that lack infrastructure, reliable and lack infrastructure. We have catch up, as I said, my university embraces, they make it a point that they assist students. So what we did is that unfortunately, it was December, they had to go home. So we had catch up for them. Many of them could not engage in catch up because of the areas they live in. Now my way forward. My way forward. Sorry, Christina. Could I, could I please also just to draw to a close in the next minute or so? Okay. My way forward. One is going back to our roots. When I say our African roots, that it is very important that we embrace the African classroom. And as, you know, in a globalized manner, we also embrace online. It's very important that we embrace this pedagogy that focuses on social justice. As a conclusion, it is very important to adhere to the principles of fourth industrial revolution as our government also to ensure that they improve our area so that our students can be embraced. And also as researchers, it's very important to be robust, to be radical and apologetic when we write because the government is listening and they read. Sometimes they will ask us to come up with resolutions. I believe social justice will okay. That's why I propose on to Agala for a pedagogy as a teaching a pedagogy that can be a utilized alongside the online teaching. Thank you. Thank you very much, Christina. In fact touched on some of the things that for either days, but let me move on. And before I do so, can I please sort of remind members of the audience and they could type their questions in the Q&A window that we have. Our next speaker is Lukano Nguni from the University of Kuzuru, Natal. Lukano has worked on various fields and amongst other things. He is a lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and is also a researcher of the at the Moorish web relations unit at the University of Kuzuru, Natal. He works on issues of conflict and conflict resolution and issues of transformation. He will speak to us today on observing social distancing in the time of COVID-19 and for telling prospects of social justice. Thank you very much, Lukano. Thank you, Wayne, for the kind welcome. I will try and be very mindful of the time that I have with you. Of course, it's interesting to reflect today given that on the 18th of February, it was the world day of social justice as per the United Nations and embracing the importance of pursuing the struggles under the social justice banner. Of course, this is not a new concept that I want to unpack in terms of social distancing in the time of COVID-19 because sociologists and social scientists have been grappling with this term. At least some will say it's far back as the early 20th century in about 1903 with Jean-Cabriel de Tade, a French philosopher. But of course, as this phenomenon of social distance continues to be unpacked and grappled with by scholars, activists and political roleplayers alike, there seems to be disagreement really as to what should we focus on. But I don't think it's necessarily the disagreement that is important but perhaps the broadness of the space of social distance that we talk about. So we've got elements where we talk about effective social distance questions of how people within a group tend to feel or perceptively feel about each other. We've got issues around interactive social distance but of course we do know that we also have a social economic divide that leads to social distance and that's where we enter concepts of class and marginalization of people within a society. And often in our context here in South Africa we have seen the concept of social distance being used by political actors to speak of the gap between those who are governed and the governors. And so this talks about power dynamics inherent within society and of course it determines the lines of accountability the lines of responsiveness of governance because when there is social distance between those who are governed and the governors it tends of course to precipitate into issues of unresponsive governance and at times a great distance between decision makers when they decide what they ought to do in society rather than embracing concepts of participatory democracy and making sure that there is a consultative framework in place. As I was thinking about this presentation and of course this conference in general when we talk about contested spaces and issues of asymmetric power relations and of course in those contested spaces we deal with questions of identity and becoming and being I was sent back to a conference I attended in the Vatican with the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in 2017 and the theme of that conference was towards a participatory society new roads to social and cultural integration so in the social sciences this idea of contested spaces which ought to express itself in forms of social and cultural integration because of problems that we encounter in the spaces of social and economic exclusions which of course talks to the creation of in-groups and out-groups and of course you then if you come from a developmental perspective as I do you also have to contend with questions of the core and the periphery who is in the core and the core being the determining power base of life in many forms if you look at it from a resources perspective the core is where the raw materials tend to accrue and then they get beneficiated and then they are sent back to the periphery as finished goods of course you can also look at it in terms of intellectual engagement where the core represents the place where people in the periphery migrate towards and that's why we talk about in areas because there's disproportionate bargaining power in the society where the core can attract magnetically towards itself all that is prestigious be it intellectually or otherwise so these are the concepts that we try and unpack in social sciences we have been doing this for a long time and that's where the issue of social distance or social distancing came in as a point of curiosity for me because when the pandemic started some people sort of said to the World Health Organization it's not social distancing that you are talking about perhaps you should talk about physical distancing because once you talk about social distancing you may be entering issues of breakage in social solidarity a breakage in terms of Dr. Kareem Masondo talking about Ubuntu those concepts wherein we come and rally towards each other to be there for one another to comfort each other but I want to propose that sociologists alarmed by this concept of social distancing as part of the non-pharmaceutical interventions proposed to us by the health sciences in fact they might have been too early of the building blocks to defend that perhaps let's not use social distancing rather use physical distancing for all intents and purposes what the lockdowns did for us was in actual fact to introduce social distancing and to reimagine socialization in actual fact as the lockdowns went on in the sense you had a situation where we had to isolate stay at home, quarantine not go to work and of course then we had to rethink how do we socialize but also other intervening factors began to be real was that if you are in a social space and there is physical distancing but people consume alcohol over time observers were saying people tend to let go of their masks, people tend to let go of their 1.5 meter social distancing and they want to be closer they want to dance together they want to hug each other because now they have been lubricated by these beverages they have imbibed on so in fact it became necessary for us to socially distance in order to fight the pandemic to organize less activities less events we started with a number of people that can attend a funeral because we did not want too many people in the same area I mean if you look in the South African context we began to talk about no night vigils something that is so important to some people as a form of solidarity sympathizing together showing empathy and ensuring that emotionally we are there for each other and that is the message that has been done by the loss and the bereavement also I want to propose that social distancing in terms of the health sciences perspective as a non-pharmaceutical intervention then did in fact take root as much as we may have firstly what is this is physical distancing we are calling for it became necessary to socially distance the higher the risk for the spread of the virus and then what we now have to look towards is what are the effects of the health sciences version of social distancing on the social distance that I say we have been grappling within the social sciences as far back as the early 20th century and I make some propositions which I mean I'm still drawing in terms of other people who have written on this I mean even the likes of Arondati Roy have tried to talk around the pandemic and what it probably represents I mean at some point she calls it a portal into a new imagined world and whether or not we are being too optimistic when we talk about COVID-19 as a portal to a new world because this concept of social distance then becomes a serious point of curiosity because it talks to a lot of the values that are important in the social justice space those values being issues of I said solidarity earlier but you want to make sure that there is trust, there is care there is morality in the struggle towards social justice unfortunately these are habitual values that tend to be created if we co-create and if we co-exist in a space of commons as some people would call it unfortunately what the pandemic has done all people that can connect are ourselves who are somewhat in terms of marginality not at the periphery we are quite at the core we've got connectivity it's even worse if you talk about the continent of Africa where I am where about 60% to 69% of the continent being without electricity meaning that they cannot enjoy this virtual space that I do I'm not even talking about questions of data and connectivity just electricity and of course I often say we know what we usually say that in darkness all sorts of things tend to thrive so when physically materially there is that darkness without electricity we can already imagine that people are socially distanced from the core that is the world so when I see there your mic is on I'm going to wrap up and just say some of the areas that I'm now concerned about is to say this social distancing as a non-pharmaceutical intervention has probably done more damage in terms of achieving social justice in the world today because we too have become now on the margins even from those communities we used to travel to the communities we could service with the little disposable income that we had and of course as some of the colleagues spoke about you know vaccine distribution and what the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez calls our biggest moral test as the world in terms of that distribution it's quite clear to me that by virtue of the social distancing from a health sciences perspective we have become removed and uprooted from the communities which we used to be within and I think for that reason we need to start beginning a reconciliation of the social distance that we were experiencing pre-COVID and understanding what harm and to what extent we have affected social distancing through the non-pharmaceutical interventions from a health sciences thank you very much thank you very much Antonio your presentation is incredibly thought provoking and of course speaks to all the presentations that we've had thus far so our next speaker is Janet Mutuki and Janet will speak to us about the issues of marginalisation COVID-19 and social justice Janet is a senior lecturer in gender studies in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Kozulimetal and she's been actively involved in finding innovative ways of teaching and ways of collaborating and publishing with students her research interests lie at the intersection of gender transnationalism development extensively in all of these areas so thank you very much Janet we look forward to hearing your talk thank you Wayne good afternoon everyone I'll go right into my topic the full title of my presentation is the implications of COVID-19 on marginalisation and social justice amongst asylum seekers living in South Africa in this presentation I focus on the physiological and social vulnerabilities of asylum seekers living in South Africa while underscoring the centrality of social justice in the pandemic context I will also look at some possible ways of navigating the intersecting spheres of health, economic and social systems in order to mitigate marginalisation with the fall over parted in 1994 South Africa has seen an increase in all categories of new forms of migration that includes asylum seekers from across sub-Saharan Africa by 2011 the country had become the largest recipient of asylum applications in the world with more than 207,000 applications out of a total of 839,000 globally as reported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees currently it is estimated that there are about 266,000 and 700 refugees and asylum seekers who have sought international protection in South Africa out of this number 78,000 at 398 are recognized refugees and asylum seekers South Africa is an appealing destination for asylum seekers from sub-Saharan Africa due to its strong legal and human rights framework for refugees and asylum seeker rights and this can be seen through its 1998 refugee act which actually has an asylum policy now despite the progressive laws and policies around rights of asylum seekers there is a huge gap in the implementation of these policies this has then resulted in a largely unsuccessful asylum management process the asylum seeker status then becomes a very uncertain and isolating phenomenon which is exacerbated by the lengthy procedures of obtaining asylum documents as well as renewing them further the asylum documents do not necessarily lead to improved living conditions or socioeconomic status as a result asylum seekers face numerous challenges some of which include lack of employment and education of opportunities lack of access to public healthcare services they also face integration and social cohesion challenges which are reflected in the violence and tensions that exist between them and the local communities the coronavirus disease has further exacerbated the marginalization experiences of asylum seekers the lockdown containment measures put in place to curb the spread of the disease worsened their conditions asylum seekers whose only source of income is in the informal sectors have thus seen their livelihood sources diminish and this is even more so for women asylum seekers who are reliant on this informal income for paying rent for paying bills as well as providing food for their families the South African government has put place has put some systems in place and they have put some relief mechanisms in place to assist small and informal businesses and the most vulnerable this have however only been extended to local citizens living asylum seekers and refugees at a physiological level the asylum seekers are at a greater risk of contracting the virus due to limited access to nutritional food options and healthcare resources many of them live in crowded conditions and the scale of the outbreak could be massive particularly for this vulnerable group the lockdown has also exposed asylum seeking and refugee women to increasing risk of sexual and gender based violence for these women homes are often also sites of abuse and violence and their homes are not actually strictly homes most of them staying in formal settlements so these are sites of abuse and violence in the current crisis stress over the uncertainty of sustainable future livelihoods has also led to increased cases of domestic violence the support this category has unfortunately lately been left to the civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations these organizations have put in some efforts to alleviate hunger and provide some relief to the economic situation of the asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants these efforts are however not sustainable without government support government on the other hand also faces daunting challenges in the ability to wholly manage this crisis they have challenges such as physical shortfalls among others so we see that there are challenges in offering support to this category of the population on many fronts the United Nations has proposed some four basic tenets that could drive efforts to support migrants and also include asylum seekers and refugees in this era of COVID-19 the first tenet is that the exclusion is costly in the long run whereas the inclusion pays off for everyone the second tenet is that the response to COVID-19 and protecting the human rights of migrants are not mutually exclusive you don't have to accomplish one at the expense of the other both can be accomplished at the same time the third tenet is that everyone is safe until everyone is safe the fourth one is that migrants are actually part of the solution to the crisis of managing the pandemic the international labour organisation also confirms that the inclusion of migrants in national COVID-19 policy responses can help to ensure the realisation of equality and social justice so in my paper I then argue that living out this category of asylum seekers out of the national response safety nets may lead to negative coping strategies and secondary health concerns Schalatech advances that work on coronavirus cannot actually be limited to the level of virology and improving health systems and this is in agreement with the previous speaker that social sciences actually play a huge role in the management of this crisis Schalatech further advances that work on coronavirus should employ feminist, human rights based, intersectional and justice oriented analysis to counter issues of marginalisation and social justice in dealing with the pandemic the particular difficulties that female asylum seekers face reaffirm the need for practical and sensitive application of international domestic gender guidelines so in in the paper I recommend that measures be put in place by relevant authorities to provide a safety net for asylum seekers as a start the South African government could consider a regularisation of asylum seekers particularly those who have been in the procedure for over 10 years as an exceptional measure to assist in the current context I would also in agreement with Mookubang argue that equality and social justice for asylum seekers is a collaborative effort which can be achieved by engaging with and including migrant-led organisations civil society organisations international organisations and as well as researchers working with migrant groups and this would work together towards developing programmes that consider migrants so there that's my conclusion thank you very much I think I have not taken the 10 minutes thank you very much that was very interesting thank you for sticking to time and we have one more speaker thank you very much for bearing with us we've got a packed programme this afternoon we're running slightly over time so our last speaker is Pradangili Zondi from the University of Kozulina Pradangili has worked quite widely in various areas and worked for the South African government in the Department of Social Development amongst others and she currently works on issues of development HIV AIDS and women's programmes research interests are in policy development as well as the implementation of gender-based violence and diaspora studies so thank you very much Pradangili if you could speak to us on your topic which is unpacking marginalisation and social justice in the advent of COVID-19 in South Africa good afternoon and thank you for having me in this virtual space I was hoping that I would be able to share my slides because I'll be talking through a PowerPoint presentation however I'm not sure whether I'm being disadvantaged by me being skilled in technological advancement or it requires that I'm granted permission by the host I think we may need to grant you permission but can I ask Angelica Yes I think you can share your screen Pradangili if you do share screen you should be able to share I just want to make you aware that we literally have about five minutes seven minutes thank you can you let me try to exit okay I think if you just do share screen from the bottom of the screen the green it says host disabled participants screening sharing okay that's strange she's not a co-host Angelica so she won't be a co-host yes can you make me a co-host right now I'm sorry about that please try again now should work now is my PowerPoint presentation audible to all of us we can't see your screen not yet no oh lord I'm not sure what is happening but in the interest of time allow me to just make a presentation but it was going to be of great importance that I take you through to some of the images which I think would have amplified the discussion in some of the critical issues that I wanted to to put across which I have also covered in the abstract that I provided the topic that I'm looking at I also recall when discussing it with a colleague of mine are you having an interest in this political economic issue and my response to a colleague of mine was that there is no topic that is not anthropological because any political economic issue touches at the heart of the society the heart of human beings as well at the heart of individuals and if those issues are not discussed we will then have an amount of societies of families whose voices have not been given the space as a result will have political stakeholders who would often break about having done exceptionally well just because it is within their level of thinking that they feel that they have actually responded to societal issues or to family issues without having informed by voices of people that are directly affected so the title of my presentation goes as unpacking marginalization and social justice in the advent of COVID-19 in South Africa meets in reality the context is within COVID-19 but the presentation would not but I will just appreciate COVID-19 for having created a provocative thought for me to question the extent to which South Africans either as citizens as well as by which have been born in South Africa as well as being active voters and the extent to which they have been historically incurred the burden of being marginalized or perhaps begin to appreciate if there has been a space through which they have begun to celebrate social justice or also learn if they are still trapped in the cage of poverty and social injustices so in a lot of scholarship anthropologists have also focused in embarking in a lot of ethnographic studies with the hope of categorizing what remains a myth and what remains a reality so from an anthropological lens marginalization is a condition and a process that present individuals and groups from full participation in social economic which are endured by a wider group or a wider society and when a person or a group of people is marginalized it means that they are denied significant involvement in mainstream economy political, cultural as well as social activity and we know that from the times of colonial era in South Africa a larger proportion of the population in South Africa experienced marginalization but from there the upper-grade era continued to also subject to the population proportion to experience another increased amount of marginalization as they were excluded from economic activities but then some of the good things that I also pick from the upper-grade era is that in as much as there was poverty but the extent or the trend of poverty was not as exacerbated as of now during the democratic era social justice was meant to have been celebrated as from the onset of the democratic dispensation and again what did the South African government intended to realize with the thought that it was a policy step was that each South African irrespective of the geographical area, gender race they should then begin to celebrate or they deserve economic, political and social rights and these social rights imply that you will not be hindered just because you are black or green or orange but you should also equally celebrate what the orange person has historically celebrated so what they needed to do was that they position to themselves as a responsive government to ensure that equality becomes the social identity of all South Africans but what has happened historically moving from the colonial apartheid right to the contemporary days of democracy we see that nothing has changed and I know that to those who aspire to a common say by the African-led government as they often say they've got a good story to tell they would then say think that I'm somehow bitter just because for me I don't think there is a good story to tell simple because there's still a persisting economic gap between people one of the the images that I hope I was hoping to present was to show the economic disparities amongst people where we see people in the category of being white continue to be having more economic or having an economic advantage compared to black people who are still at a very low level of the economic emancipation and again I was hoping to also take you through an image which is also depicting the gap between the employment which has also been experienced by people whom the democratic government had hoped to release from the cage of poverty because what Ustala and Dumatonti have said that marginalization becomes a reality just because of a nexus of vectors and poverty and employment is a result contributed to that gap or experience of marginalization then it is worrying that the South African government continues to say they have a good story to tell if you analyze the population pyramid of South Africa as a country there is a population that seems to be out of the economic institution and they are heavily dependent on the grant hence I thought that it is time we create spaces from which we will anthropologically understand whether does the provision of social solidarity grant within the brackets of 350 to 400 implying marginalization or it serves as a social justice which ensures the distribution of wealth from those who were historically excluded does the provision of social grants mean accelerated economic opportunities to people does it really privileges serve as a privilege to societies or individuals and the extent to which it does give meaningful economic support and if it ever does get people a number of our household above the poverty line so this paper is hoping to put across voices of people who are then made to think that they are born free and also expect that the government will do everything for them and they have because of I would say non-responsive policies they have now become statistics of unemployed people so I'm hoping that giving them open spaces they will then be able to offer their voice with regards to the extent to which these social grants mean to them is it the identity that they would want to embrace up until they die is it the economic support that they would need from the government who said during the democratic dispensation that it will create social economic activities where each and every person will be an economic human being so I would also want to gather from them if marginalization and social injustices remain ameet as they would possibly maybe buy into the thinking of the government which says they have a good story to tell or they will then be in the space where they will say marginalization and social injustices is still a reality even during the contemporary time I would also create an opportunity for them to also from their daily experiences of being unemployed people to also contribute to what forming policy responses that would make them economically active not only for them just because they would have to identify democracy but for them to be able to live the life that is not restricted by not being economically active so I believe that by creating such spaces of conversion political structures and leaders will then listen to what people want to receive as an ideal social economic social justice intervention maybe if we create these spaces it would stop to think that in any given situation like we've been in the COVID-19 where government should have said it is time that we revise our economic our economic interventions instead he then thought that people need to survive because of this grant provision so now it is time that we give them space to say to guide what government should do on their behalf because in case they cannot do anything this paper will also enlist variables that indicate how the social grant has marginalized if it has ever or un-marginalized people it will also it will also conclude whether it is South Africans especially the ones that have been categorized as one free if they have pride in what has been made as their economic provision or they still wanting to have a revised social economic interventions from government in conclusion as a South African I also pride to see if South Africa I conclude by saying if South Africa is to pride itself as a democratic space for all marginalization social injustices injustices should not be the symbolic identity of South Africa and this cannot be disputed that if you see a young person in South Africa the first thing that comes to mind is that you know for a fact that he or she is surviving on a grant and she or he is unemployed and lastly I would like to conclude by saying that public policies should be seen responsive to historical economic issues of South African just because it is clear that from the times of the colonial era right up to the contemporary time there has been no change if change has has okayed it hasn't been maximized to the benefit of people who are during voting times are trusted to cast their votes with the hope that their life will change thank you so much I hope I was within the given time thank you very much we unfortunately very close to the edge of our lot of time in fact we over our lot of time and our next panel is due to start at quarter past two in five minutes time so I don't think that I'll have time to address questions or like a lot I don't think I'll have time to ask the panel to address questions although I must draw your attention to the fact that we do have questions and some of our panelists have answered those questions if you could just kind of have a look at the Q&A window you'll see a bit of discussion between some of the people who've asked questions and the panelists who answered them so I think we will have to draw further on to say in conclusion just in response to Balangili's presentation about marginalization of course historians especially know that what pandemics do is that they reveal underlying social forces that are often not visible during normal times and I'm not actually sure that the pandemic has done that for South Africa to the extent that the marginalization like you speak of Balangili I wonder to what extent the pandemic has revealed what was blatantly obvious before so I think the challenge for us is to see what exactly do we now know that we didn't know you know 15 months ago but thank you very much to all our panelists for an incredibly interesting set of papers and I will draw the session to a close now and please ask you to join us I think I'm going to have to ask us to postpone the start of our next panel just by a few minutes we do to start at Court of Pass so I am going to propose that we start at 20 pass just so that we some of us can stick to our legs and have a glass of water and we'll be with you very soon thank you very much