CACS mourns Prof Muxe Nkondo

The Centre for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg joins the Nkondo family, the academic fraternity and South Africa at large in mourning the passing of Muxe Nkondo, a distinguished professor. Professor Nkondo died on 18 August 2024 at the age of 83. In his imposing career, Professor Nkondo was a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Venda, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of the North and Harvard Andrew Mellon Fellow in English.

CACS will fondly remember Professor Nkondo for his insights on how certain African value systems could form part of the bedrock of Africa’s interaction with the rest of the world. In 2017, Professor Nkondo wrote a paper arguing that Ubuntu should be promoted as public policy in Africa. More importantly, he argued that Ubuntu should not be understood as purely African and hence not applicable elsewhere. Ubuntu, per Professor Nkondo, is not merely African in origin, but is a ‘moral philosophy that can stand up to universal scrutiny and is universally justifiable.’

In his life and in his writings, we see in the late Professor one of Africa’s most passionate champions, a man who embodied the fact that Africa is of the world, and its value systems deserve the prestige that is accorded to the value systems that stem from other global players. We pledge to do our best to pick up where Prof Nkondo left off, and to put Africa at the centre of global affairs as a player of consequence rather than a participant on sufferance. May his soul rest in peace.

To download Prof Nkondo’s CACS Occasional Paper on Ubuntu as Public Policy, click here.