Abstract:
The unprecedented cultural consciousness after decades of black cultural suppression in the
South African public life since the 1990s summons us to the need to harness African ecclesiopolitical
symbols in public life. This task is executed at a time when the notions of inter alia,
spirituality and Imvuselelo are at the heart of the combustion chambers of our public and political
life. Imvuselelo is a thermometer of decolonialist rebellion – the militant spirituality linked with
Tiyo Soga – and is a self-combustion escape route in instances of black African epistemicide and
violence. The heuristic device of iziko (fireplace) is employed to illuminate and locate the reestablishment
and anamnestic praxis of protological life-giving foundations of spirituality in the
African universe in our interpretation of Imvuselelo. The notion of imvuselelo is illuminated
through iziko to debunk the incompatibilities, disharmonies, incongruences and conflagrations
of virtual spirituality in its capture and domestication of the resources of the downtrodden.
