By Neo Kolane
Two friends, one a comedian Jeremiah Lebea and the other a historian Sean Maliehe will be launching a Rethinking Lesotho Book Series soon.
The two gentlemen also aim at creating a Rethinking Lesotho Book Club to support local writers, especially the youth in producing their manuscripts.
Rethinking Lesotho Series will share content on various aspects of Lesotho’s Economy, society, culture and politics.
Speaking with theReporter this week Lebea said the idea of Rethinking Lesotho began in April 2020.
Lebea said the series will publish monographs and edited book volumes on Lesotho.
“Our aim is to also compile and publish presentations through an edited bookvolume. We value original scholarly contributions that can be shared with the wider public, academic institutions and the global community interested in studies on Lesotho and Africa by local and international scholars.
“With a vibrant editorial board, the series will subject potential publications to a peer-review process.
“This component will focus on fictional work written in Sesotho, English and other marginalised languages such as Sephuthi and isiXhosa.
“Basically, this is how we envision the future of Rethinking Lesotho. However, these are initiatives that we will implement strategically over a period of time,” Lebea said.
On his side Maliehe said as an informal non-profit making movement, the two are cognisant of various challenges that they will face towards the attainment of these goals.
He believes that the two of them will achieve the objectives in time, as the advances made with the public seminar series being guiding examples that the future is filled with infinite possibilities.
“This is not just an inspirational subjectivity but a realisation that the series developed out of certain forms of pragmatism and good will.
“What we know now is that there are various scholars, writers and artists that require platforms that support their expression anddevelopment. Rethinking Lesotho is one of the many ways that this can be realised over time.
“We saw Rethinking Lesotho as an ideal platform to facilitate discussions between these two spheres. Our observation had another critical component, a neglect of what we considered marginal voices of women, youth, LGBTIQ groups, people living with disabilities and others.
“We sought to bring to the fore, the obscured realities of these groups. The seminar series became an attempt to rethink Lesotho’s society, the past, present and future.
“Established in a context of unfavourable political, social and economic conditions, the aim of the series was then to launch critical conversations among the youth in pursuit of social justice and democracy.
“Various moments in the history of the country reinforced our convictions that these marginal groups could play a significant role in imagining, discussing and fighting for a more just society.
“We hinged our discussions on empirical and theoretical works of various established and emerging scholars within and outside the country,” Maliehe said.
Jeremiah holds a Bachelors of Arts Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the National University of Lesotho. He is a stand-up comedian, brand ambassador and radio presenter in Lesotho.
He has his own comedy platform known as Gags and Music. He currently has a radio show,
TheWeekendCrossOver, on Sky Alpha Radio — the first and only digital radio in the
country.
Sean holds a Doctoral Degree in history from the University of Pretoria. He is an African economic historian.
He works on the economic history of Lesotho, development of mobile money in South Africa in Diepsloot and Lesotho, political and social life of money, and the history of the Southern African Customs Union with specific emphasis on relations between Lesotho and South Africa between the 1890s and 1960s.
Jeremiah Lebea can be contacted on +266 -5033 1367 and Sean Maliehe on +266 5843- 1338
