“Undoing the Laws of the Universe”: Reading Jeanne-Marie Jackson’s The African Novel of Ideas after #FeesMustFall

Abstract

On October 12, 2016, #FeesMustFall student leaders at the University of Cape Town gathered to discuss the decolonization of science. A video-recording of this event offers an illuminating perspective of the high-stakes involved in the decolonial debate: “If I personally were committed to enforcing decolonization,” declares the primary speaker, “science as a whole is a product of Western modernity and the whole thing should be scratched off.”1 Despite the ensuing laughter, the speaker continues, insisting that “we have to restart science from... an African perspective, from our perspective of how we’ve experienced science.”2 She then proceeds to develop this idea with reference to a place in Kwazulu-Natal where people believe that it is possible, through black magic or witchcraft, “to send lightning to strike someone,” before clinching her pointwith the challenging question: “Can you explain that scientifically?”3 Amid the concatenation of voices raised either in affirmation or protest in response to the speaker’s claim, a member of the audience can be heard saying, “It’s not true.”4 At this point, the chair calls the audience to order and addresses the voice of dissent directly. “When we started this,” she begins, “we agreed on