Holistic, sustainable change being lost
WEEKS since UCT student Chumani Maxwele threw human excrement at the Cecil John Rhodes statue on Upper Campus to protest the institution’s inadequate transformational progress in dealing with the long shadow of colonial- and apartheid-era racism, several students, staff and alumni have joined the cause. A sense of deep-seated pain and alienation has emerged stemming from the university’s exclusionary narrative.
On March 16, UCT management, in participation with the Student Representative Council (SRC), hosted a discussion around heritage, signage and symbolism at the institution.
Although the discussion series had been planned since last year, the context changed to focus on the #RhodesMustFall debate. Before the discussion ended with the SRC staging a walkout, SRC president Ramabina Mahapa said UCT’s institutional culture continues to be “centred around a white, Westernised, middle-class, heterosexual, male experience” and, consequently, the SRC and other involved parties are taking a hardline approach to the topic and wanted to see the statues removed.
In his statement Mahapa reveals that, over and above UCT’s perceived insufficient transformation, true inclusion in UCT’s institutional narrative is limited to a small percentage of the student populace and illustrates that broad-base transformation is necessary across UCT.
This enlightened view of equality and transformation, however, soon flattens out into a white vs black racial argument. By reducing the transformation debate as such, protesters elide the deep entanglement race has with numerous other factors, including class, gender and sexuality, and lose sight of a holistic, sustainable transformation for all.
In an open letter to high-ranking university officials, nine former UCT SRC presidents (acting within the 1999-2014 period) proudly supported the statue’s removal. In the letter these leaders acknowledge that “removing the statue is not a panacea”, but insist that its removal would stand as a symbolic marker of transformational progress at UCT.
Similar sentiments are echoed in another open letter by UCT student protester Rekgotsofetse “Kgotsi” Chikane to the Archbishop Ndungane in which he calls for “transformation that we can see”.
For anyone who subscribes to the ideals of democracy it is axiomatic that transformation that is tangible and self-evident is the golden ideal. However, this transformation needs to be the result of insightful and robust debate, the application of progressive policies, and maintained through a variety of formal and informal support structures. Without this framework the visible symbols of transformation are revealed to be little more than window dressing and societal fissures are reinforced.
This was revealed to be the case when, in mid-2014, UCT took a significant step towards gender transformation and launched gender-neutral bathrooms on campus.
The toilets, marked with a genderneutral symbol and advertised as being “for everyone, regardless of gender, identity or expression”, garnered the university much praise from the gay community (both on and off campus) for its recognition of gender diversity, the symbolic inclusion of gender non-conformists into the institutional narrative, and providing a safe, stigma-free environment for these students.
In reality, however, the situation is neither that simple nor elegant.
Tucked away on the bottom floor of the Leslie Social Science Building on Upper Campus, the ridicule and stigmatisation that is attached to gender diversity continues to be highlighted.
Individuals using these bathrooms are gawked at by sniggering students and the bathroom is occasionally tagged with derogatory graffiti bordering on hate speech. This “symbolic gesture” is soon undermined by the daily experience of living with the constant threat of culturally sanctioned physical and psychological violence.
For many students and staff the 2010 RainbowUCT “Closet” project incident is still a fresh and traumatic memory, a reminder of the inferiority of gay individuals at UCT. As part of a celebration of South Africa’s achievements in advancing civil rights, RainbowUCT, a student organisation promoting sexual diversity and human rights, installed a large pink box – symbolic of a closet, a metaphor still inextricably tied to gay sexual identity – on Jameson Plaza on which students could write their personal testimonies and attitudes towards sexual diversity.
Just hours after the launch somebody expressed their opinion by setting the box alight. Despite the impressive relaunch attended by high-ranking UCT officials, the message was clear: it is neither safe nor stigma-free to be gay at UCT.
These homophobic displays are not discrete, isolated events that can be written off as the radical behaviour of conservatives or religious fanatics not yet accustomed to the university’s liberal ethos or the country’s progressive constitution. This mentality is a stain running through UCT’s institutional narrative.
All UCT buildings and facilities are listed in two comprehensive registers on their website. Each entry on these lists is accompanied by a blurb outlining the historical significance of the individual it is named in honour of. Within the Register of Building Names, the description accompanying Dullah Omar Hall – a student residence on Main Road, Rosebank – describes Dr Abdullah Mohamed Omar as “an antiapartheid activist, member of the Unity Movement before joining the United Democratic Front, former political prisoner, lawyer, the first Minister of Justice of democratic South Africa and a UCT graduate”.
Omar was an active citizen, promoter and defender of social justice, a public servant and a fully fledged Capetonian, having lived in Observatory, District Six and Rylands. He was a leader, role model and proud alumnus of UCT. This is true: Omar was an invaluable asset to the antiapartheid struggle and key in the growth of our fledgling democracy.
What it omits, however, is that the social justice and civil rights Omar fought for did not include gay rights. It does not reveal that in 1997, in his capacity of minister of justice, he opposed a court application to the decriminalisation of same-sex sexual conduct. Whether forgotten or omitted, this part of his legacy is omitted and a sterilised, utopian view is used to justify Omar’s public glorification at UCT.
To complicate matters, several figureheads from the Rhodes protest, citing the institution’s strategic goal “of advancing UCT as an Afropolitan university”, have called for the rejection of Eurocentrism and the “Africanisation” of UCT.
But what does this really mean in a context where, despite the growing wealth of proof to the contrary, being gender nonconforming is labelled as “un-African” and “unnatural”? In a context where such extreme homophobia and gender power relations results in violence and death? How does this envisaged Afropolitan UCT nurture transformation on all levels ensure inclusivity and equality for all?
This is not an attempt to equate centuries of racial bigotry under colonial rule and apartheid with the struggle for gay rights. Rather, it is a bid to highlight that no single historical figure can be representative of every individual.
Dullah Omar, much like Cecil John Rhodes, was a product of his time and he should be seen and engaged within this context. Individuals like Simon Nkoli and Zackie Achmat are examples of strong characters who were both anti-apartheid activists and promoted gay rights, but the glorification of these individuals alone excludes students identifying as female, as heterosexual male, as transgender, as white, from the institutional narrative.
If this protest is to have the Cecil John Rhodes statue removed is successful, how sustainable is the precedent it will set?
We need to remember that countries and cultures are in a continuous state of growth and change. If in the years to come qualms arise about the legacy and legitimacy of another memorialised individual – someone revealed to have been misogynistic, homophobic, promoting anti-miscegenation laws, a cut-throat capitalist, a fraud, whatever the case may be – does removing this individual and their associated unsettling history from public view assist us in healing the divisions of the past and lead us to reconciliation?
We could use this moment to acknowledge both the celebratory and disturbing facets of our history. Instead of removing unwanted history from view in an attempt at visible transformation, use this knowledge to embrace and foster the freedoms enshrined in our constitution and implement genuine transformation for all, in line with the ideals of the new South Africa.
Muller is a Master’s student at the Centre for African Studies, UCT