Jansen’s take on racism at SU off the mark — Taalraad

Trust Jonathan Jansen to take his usual sledgehammer rhetoric onto sensitive and nuanced terrain: The HRC’s report on English-only policies and practices at certain residences at the University of Stellenbosch (US) (“Commission report should be tossed on grounds of skimpy evidence alone”, March 23).

In this, he abuses the very Kampepe Report that he uses to support his own arguments.

The HRC’s report found that students’ linguistic rights were disregarded by the imposition of English-only practices at several residences at SU.

They held the university responsible for this and recommended that measures aimed at inclusion be balanced with the protection of students’ language rights.

Jansen, however, considers the HRC Report to be incompetent. According to him there is “slim to no evidence the complaints are valid”.

He also claims there are no English-only policies at the residences, thereby implying that the discriminatory language practices did not occur, or were ephemeral at best.

When the English-only story broke in 2022, the Afrikaanse Taalraad (Afrikaans Language Council) interviewed several students from four residences who explained in detail how they were prohibited from using Afrikaans in commons areas — even in the privacy of their own rooms or when with their parents.

We know this happened at certain residences in 2023 as well.

Contrary to what Jansen claims, English-only policies did (or do) exist at several residences, something with which the HRC concurs. Residence leaders admitted as much and thought there was nothing wrong with it.

The complaints to the HRC, therefore, are not allegations, Professor, but thoroughly confirmed. Cherry-picking from the Kampepe commission’s report about racism at SU does not change this reality.

Why deny the emotional impact these incidents had on Afrikaans students of all races? Why deny that practices such as these make many of them feel stigmatised and unwelcome at SU?

A common feature in our interviews with the students was that they — sometimes their parents as well — often felt too intimidated to make public statements about their experiences.

Right or wrong, they feared retribution by the residences or the university — just like the HRC reported.

It therefore does not surprise that the HRC refused to make public any details about their interviewees, a practice also followed by the Kampepe commission of inquiry about racism at SU. The complaints received are the tip of the iceberg.

Also, contrary to what Jansen claims, the Kampepe commission did not conclude that the Afrikaans “language has also played a fundamental role in hindering transformation at the university”.

This was a perception reported during one of the submissions to the commission. Kampepe’s own conclusions are far more nuanced than the good professor lets on.

So, the Kampepe and HRC reports did not come to opposite conclusions as Jansen claims. Despite very different points of departure they could even be said to complement one another in some ways.

Jansen next questions the motives of the complainants, arguing they are “driven by an undisguised effort to restore the Afrikaans dominant culture at a university established for Afrikaners.” Any dissatisfaction with language at the university is the work of ideological “right-wing activists”.

Says who? I don’t know of a single Afrikaans organisation that pursues this objective, a demeaning stereotype that also Kampepe rejects.

Apart from the fact that the speakers of Afrikaans have certain linguistic rights, Afrikaans is not an exclusively white issue as Jansen so bluntly claims.

Many students of colour from the Northern Cape, for instance, do feel marginalised by English-only practices wherever they occur. They feel alienated and stay silent — a mirror image of the experience of some black students regarding Afrikaans.

English is a useful language that we should all strive to master — which does not make it the “common language” as Jansen claims.

English does not include everybody and English-only constitutes a major threat to inclusion in sectors ranging from education, through to the legal system and our economy. Flexible multilingual solutions are needed for proper inclusion of those otherwise marginalised by unilingual practices.

Jansen seems obsessed with the zombie of Afrikaner nationalism.

Even vestigial traces of Afrikaans, a language spoken by millions of South Africans, seems to offend.

This myopia leads Jansen to question the competence of the HRC which, according to him, seems to have been “captured by the narrow interests of ideologues”.

The HRC has become “the handmaid of Afrikaans rightwing activists” and SU should challenge the HRC Report in court. How absurd.

Jansen claims to have “checked in” with a number of “senior judges in SA”, who uniformly find the HRC Report “laughable”.

A few judges? How many? Who are they? Why do they find the finding laughable? Might other judges disagree with them?

When it comes to language, Jansen aims at a brachial zerosum game — exactly what the HRC ruling manages to avoid.