Advancing democracy, social justice
This is an edited version of the inaugural address by the Nelson Mandela University’s new chancellor, former minister for public service and administration GERALDINE FRASER-MOLEKETI
I AM deeply humbled by the confidence that Nelson Mandela University (NMU) has shown in women to lead this key institution in the Eastern Cape, the Home of Legends, at such a critical time for higher education and for our formative, developmental nation. This is the only South African university to have three unapologetically strong women at the helm.
(I am) deeply humbled, with my revolutionary flag at half-mast following the recent losses of our Mother of the Nation Mam' uWinnie Madikizela, who was born in Bizana, and Dr Zola Skweyiya, who was schooled in the Eastern Cape. They are just two of a constellation of stars in whose footsteps we follow in this most inspirational, enigmatic and giving of provinces.
From Sarah Baartman to Charlotte Maxeke and Albertina Sisulu, Olive Schreiner, Walter Sisulu, OR Tambo, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Raymond Mhlaba, Joe Gqabi, Alfred Nzo, Steve Biko, Robert Sobukwe, Chris Hani (assassinated in April, 25 years ago), Thabo Mbeki and Aunty Sophie Williams-De Bruyn… which other region in the world can claim to have produced a list of icons and leaders of this stature?
Not to mention our namesake, Nelson Mandela. Many years ago, as one of the younger members of his cabinet, I answered to him; and I must confess, today, I cannot help but still feel accountable as I am installed as the chancellor of Nelson Mandela University.
This week we celebrate the 24th anniversary of Madiba's installation as our first democratically elected president, mindful that our journey is just beginning.
Where are we headed? We are inspired by Africa's rich academic traditions that can be traced back to Europe's medieval period, and by Madiba's reconnection journey through 16 African countries 55 years ago in defiance of the then-government's best efforts to stifle African heritage. It is our goal to become a giant continental edifice of intellectual inquiry and advancement… a transdisciplinary centre of excellence.
As titular head, I look forward to working with vice-chancellor Prof Sibongile Muthwa and chairperson of council Ambassador Nozipho January-Bardill. As Ngozi Chimamanda said: “I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.”
In 1963, British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper infamously said: “It is fashionable to speak today as if European history were devalued: as if historians, in the past, have paid too much attention to it; and as if, nowadays, we should pay less. Undergraduates, seduced, as always, by the changing breath of journalistic fashion, demand that they should be taught the history of black Africa. Perhaps, in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none, or very little: there is only the history of the Europeans in Africa. The rest is largely darkness, like the history of pre-European, pre-Columbian America. And darkness is not a subject for history.” Yet history records that:
The Alexandrian academy and its famous library were founded in Egypt in 331BC, attracting eminent mathematicians such as Euclid and Archimedes.
The Al-Quarawiyyin University was established in Fez, Morocco, in 859AD – by a woman, Fatima al-Fihri. It is the oldest existing, continually operating, and the first degree-awarding educational institution in the world.
Al-Azhar University was founded in Cairo, Egypt, in 970AD, offering its students studies of the Qur'an and Islamic law, along with logic, grammar, rhetoric and astronomy.
The University of Timbuktu, or University of Sankore, was established around 1100AD, with funding from a wealthy Mandinka woman. It was a world-renowned centre of learning, attracting 25 000 students from Africa and the Mediterranean.
Kwame Nkrumah, speaking at his installation as the first chancellor of the University of Ghana in 1961, lamented: “If the University of Sankore had not been destroyed, if Professor Ahmed Baba, author of 40 historical works, had not had his works and his university destroyed, if the University of Sankore as it was in 1591 had survived the ravage of foreign invasions, the academic and cultural history of Africa might have been different from what it is today.”
Professor Mahmood Mamdani, once at UCT and now attached to universities in Uganda and the US, is considered a leading thinker on decolonising education. Asked on a return visit to UCT in 2017 to define what decolonising education meant, he responded with an example of his pedagogical approach at Makerere University.
He requires his PhD students to identify a colonial text regarded as a key reference point by Western academics. The students are challenged to understand the language of the people referred to in the text, and are not allowed to graduate unless they have research proficiency in two other languages besides English. Then he asks the students to analyse the author's assumptions on what information is relevant.
“What categories is he/she utilising to validate certain information and invalidate other information? And then I say to them: ‘Now you use the same information and give me a different narrative than the author.; That's decolonisation,” he said.
“We do not want to be slaves,” Ghanaian language expert Professor Kwesi Prah said in a paper presented at the University of Botswana in 2009, “neither do we want to compete with Shakespeare in his own language. We cannot profitably do this. If we try to do this, we will be perpetual second-rate Englishmen, not Africans, Walter Bagehot's ‘unfit men and beaten races'.”
President Mandela described racism as, “a blight on the human conscience”. Many years later, just last month, in fact, a white woman became the first South African to be sentenced to a prison term for the use of racist language of a nature reminiscent of the worst periods of our past. The sad reality, we all know, is that Vicky Momberg is not the last bigot in our midst. And it's not just the bigotry that should alarm us, but also the affliction of entitlement to continue enjoying the best resources our country has to offer to the continued exclusion of the overwhelming majority of citizens.
Non-racialism is a key principle of the Freedom Charter, our constitution and university. The principle should not be confused with colour-blindness, the post-race society, or the expunction of differentiated racial experiences. But transformation does not begin and end there…
If we fail to accelerate, comprehensively, addressing apartheid power relations in our land – socially, psychologically, educationally and economically – we render non-racialism vulnerable and run the risk of threatening the realisation of a transformative developmental state. Maintaining the colonial status quo is tantamount to booby-trapping our nation's future.
Transformation is not about charity; it does not equate to a lowering of standards, corruption, or the punishment or exclusion of any particular group. It does not infer inferiority or a lowering of standards, but superiority, progress and sustainability. It is a process we must engage in, and we must emerge fairer, more compassionate, and with a greater sense of pride, equity and justice. It is not just desirable; it is a necessity.
The transformation required of our universities straddles every aspect of their existence, from admission policies, fields of study and curricula to pedagogical approaches, the demographics of staff and student bodies and the quality of their output. And we must confront issues of gender and feminism as well.
We would like to develop a higher proportion of black, and women, postgraduate students at NMU without reducing the number of white, or male postgrads, for example. And we'd like more of them to be entering the auditing profession and contributing to the development of a new global and national environment of ethical governance – to span both the public and private sectors.
Nelson Mandela University is very well-positioned to lead the development of new knowledge and reduce dependencies on received doctrine. We have a bold footprint, nationally and globally, in transdisciplinary endeavours including the ocean sciences, where our work is regarded as pioneering. By contributing as we are to deepening understanding of sustainability across the broad spectrum of natural sciences, we advance democracy and social justice.
Through curricula and co-curricular interventions we become the citizen-makers we aspire to be, developing graduates as responsible and democratic human beings who contribute to addressing global challenges in innovative and transdisciplinary ways… citizens who contribute to our country and our changing world.