Date of Award
5-6-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Publisher
Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Sacred Theology (STD)
Director
Julie Hanlon Rubio
Abstract
Comparable to the person battered and left for dead and lying by the roadside, the poor in Zambia epitomized by the story of Regina Mukuka Nyirenda, a former civil servant, attest to the socioeconomic, political, and gender injustice ordinary suffer despite Zambia being a constitutional democracy and a Christian nation since 1991. Although, in theory, it ascribes to the dignity and rights of everyone without discriminating, the liberalist human rights regime (framework) underlying Zambia’s constitutional laws since colonialism promotes the flourishing of the elite neoliberalist class while perpetuating socioeconomic, political, and gender injustice. Conversely, it undermines the thriving of the victims of injustice and marginalizes them from substantive democratic political decision-making for their flourishing, the common good, and democratic polity. This dissertation seeks to promote social justice in solidarity with Zambia’s anawim using Augustine’s social love operational in the two cities in dialogue with mutual solidarity (ukwikatana) according to Ubuntu philosophy (ubwananyina) in the light of CTS’s call to social action on behalf of the poor using the paradigm of seeing, judging, and acting according to the signs of the times. I encapsulate the synergy of these three prisms in the African Ubuntu aphorism: “Your pain is my pain; my wealth is your wealth; your salvation is my salvation,” or what I express in short, Ubuntu solidarity for equal flourishing. Zambia’s democracy should promote democratic rights and social justice to be genuine. The Constitution must not only be shaped by the thin, rational, liberalist human rights tradition but also by the thick, communitarian one. It should be ethical and relevant to the people’s cultural context, aspirations, and experiences. Through a contextualized theology, the local Roman Catholic Church must participate actively in democratic polity by promoting civic education and shared action using cultural values for the message to be impactful: ubwananyina (familyhood) and ukwikatana (mutual solidarity).
Recommended Citation
Nyirenda, Boyd Kapyung, "Reimagining Constitutional Democracy for Human Flourishing: A Re-reading of Augustine’s Social Love, Ubuntu Ethics, and CST for the Zambian" (2024). Jesuit School of Theology Dissertations. 125.
https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/jst_dissertations/125