Fort Hare deserves much better name
WILLIAM Shakespeare’s lyrical tale of lovers “What’s in a name” in Romeo and Juliet was brought to mind recently by the visit to South Africa and East London by the esteemed professor of African languages, Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
The University of Fort Hare was going to be a natural choice for Wa Thiong’o because of the institution’s contribution to the prestige, honour and bravery associated with the development of the intelligentsia which played a key role in the liberation of the masses of our country. Credit should be given to Fort Hare for establishing itself as what liberation icon Robert Sobukwe would call a “barometer of African thought”.
The first time Professor Ngugi visited Fort Hare was between 1992 and 1993 in Alice. It was an era characterised by blood, sweat and tears. Professor Mziwoxolo Sirayi and the likes of the late Mr Basil Somhlahlo, Professor Ntobeko Maqashalala had actually hosted him there.
Wa Thiong’o’s visit to a Fort Hare of the “oppression” era and to a Fort Hare of the “liberated” era is an indictment on us as Africans for our failure to transform institutions of national heritage to mirror the change from past to present.
Names are known to immortalise the role of particular institutions or individuals in a particular epoch. For the UFH to have retained its status demonstrates poverty of ideas. I mention this because the call to rename Fort Hare leaves out an important narrative that Lieutenant-Colonel Hare, after whom Fort Hare is named, was actually a butcher of African people and a bloodthirsty colonial governor.
The name “fort” originates from the military fort established to launch attacks by the British colonial army against Xhosa communities living in the area. LieutenantColonel Hare was the head of the 27th Regiment of the British colonial forces. In particular, the fort was used during the 7th Frontier War in 1851, which came in the wake of accusations that one of King Ngqika’s subjects by the name of Tsili had stolen an axe in Grahamstown.
This so-called “theft” was used as the pretext to launch a major attack involving about 2 000 colonial troops. The primary method that the colonial forces used in prosecuting this particular one was that of a scorched earth policy, which involved the burning of crops, theft of cattle and the indiscriminate killing of women and children.
Xhosa communities who were under King Ngqika and his sons such as Sandile, Tyhali and Jongumsobomvu Maqoma owe their dispossession, poverty and diseases that followed after that directly to Lieutenant-Colonel Hare.
To the British, wherever they are, for Fort Hare to remain as it is, it is a crowning glory whereas to the gallant fighters under King Ngqika and his current descendants, it is similar to rubbing salt into the wound.
Generations later, another gallant fighter was to grace the banks and shores of the Tyhume river under an academic programme: Sobukwe. He had a vision to transform Fort Hare into a citadel and powerhouse of African thought.
In his speech as student representative council president on October 21 1949, Sobukwe had this to say: “And we are told that in ten years’ time we might become an independent university. Are we to understand by that an African University predominantly guided by European thought and strongly influenced by European staff?
“I said last year that Fort Hare must be to the African what Stellenbosch [University] is to the Afrikaner. It must be the barometer of African thought … But the important thing is that Stellenbosch is not only the expression of Afrikaner thought and feeling but it is also the embodiment of their aspiration. So also must Fort Hare express and lead African thought.”
The myth that the name Fort Hare is ingrained in the minds of the people should be dismissed with all the contempt it deserves. The University of Fort Hare does not deserve a name so pregnant with the injustices of the past like that of Lieutenant-Colonel Hare. Pasika Nontshiza is a former councillor of the King Sabata Dalindyebo (KSD) Municipality. He writes in his personal capacity.