‘Pressing need for stability at UCT’
STABILITY at UCT is needed urgently, the Higher Education and Training Department says.
This follows three months of protests by students.
Khaye Nkwanyana, spokesperson for Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande, said yesterday while the ministry preferred not to comment on the internal processes at UCT, stability was urgent.
UCT and Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) – a movement which consists of students and staff from the university – have been embroiled in conflict since March. The conflict began after student activist Chumani Maxwele flung human excrement on to a statue of Cecil John Rhodes.
His action spurred the formation of RMF, protests to fast-track transformation at UCT and the eventual removal of the statue.
Maxwele has since been suspended twice – after his initial suspension was lifted – for allegedly racially abusing and threatening a lecturer. RMF has also faced disciplinary action after occupying UCT’s Bremner Building in March, then Avenue House on April 29.
RMF had requested a meeting space and UCT temporarily provided Avenue Hall with a view to replacing it with a permanent space. The occupiers of Avenue House were charged, but then granted amnesty for all protest-related activities up to May 18.
Four students opted to stay in the building and were then suspended.
RMF then handed UCT management a document which listed the names of 240 students and staff members who stood in solidarity with those suspended.
The document, according to UCT spokesperson Kylie Hatton, claimed “support and were complicit in the occupation of Avenue House”, and exhorted the university authorities to charge the 240 along with the four others. UCT responded by issuing those on the list admission of guilt pleas last week.
Hatton said that if the students pleaded guilty, they would skip appearing before a tribunal, but would be reprimanded with 10 hours of community service at UCT.
Dr Mamphela Ramphele, the first black and first female vice-chancellor of UCT, between 1996 and 2000, refused to be drawn on the matter yesterday. “Dr Ramphele will not be offering comment on this story,” said her spokesperson, Rorisang Tshabalala.
Maxwele said: “We are being politically silenced by the university. They will never succeed. This is the project towards African revolution.”
RMF spokesperson Kealeboga Ramaru said RMF was due to meet last night to discuss the way forward.
We need to find smarter ways to reach out to each other. Everyone has a role to play
THE recent difficulties at UCT show that even some of our established universities are still grappling with fundamental questions about their purpose in post-1994 South Africa.
UCT was not impacted by the mergers of a decade ago which protected it from adverse political interference and instability that afflicted many of the institutions that were forced to merge. The mergers opened these universities to scrutiny, but also political agendas and opportunism in ways that UCT was not subjected to.
As 1994 approached, many historically privileged universities shifted uneasily, and grappled to show their mettle in the new South Africa. Wits University, for example, famously actively recruited a black deputy vice-chancellor, with disastrous consequences.
UKZN did not learn from this piece of history. UCT has already had two black vice-chancellors. I don’t believe that UCT has been complacent about change. It has been vigilant about the changing higher education landscape in South Africa, and has been engaging within and without to position itself optimally in post-apartheid South Africa.
UCT’s approach, post-1994, was to strive to being a world-class university. It has been able to attract world-class academics, including black African academics. However, not many of whom are South African.
The overall student population is low, a little over 20 000; the tutorial classes are therefore small, the teaching excellent, and this institution has been able to attract the best students across all disciplines from across the country and the continent. UCT’s academic structures are solid.
It has a functional senate and an intelligent leadership which is com- mitted to South African issues and development. UCT excels in research, teaching and community engagement by whichever way you wish to measure this.
UCT is paying significant attention to transformation, even if the results at face value do not readily reflect this, and there are reasons for this. It refuses to window dress. It has been leading this effort and quietly getting on with the job without the propaganda that we have seen elsewhere.
There are programmes to affirm black African academics, and there is strong support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
So, why the crisis? While UCT should be the envy of many other universities in the country and internationally, too, why is this institution facing difficulties? Why is being excellent not good enough for South Africa? Why could UCT, despite its great successes, still have a rocky road ahead?
UCT has strong liberal traditions and has staked its claims very highly on a culture of academic excellence. However, this is bound to come under more political fire in the future, as has happened elsewhere in the country where the pursuit of academic excellence has been interpreted, mainly by political types, as being anti-transformation.
I believe that UCT must stand its ground very firmly in terms of its commitment to the ideals of the university in the face of increased political pressure and expediency, and populism. In this regard, UCT is a leading light for other universities to follow.
Having followed the discussions over the months, it is clear to me that the issue of cultural alienation by black staff and students at UCT needs to be recognised and addressed. Given our divided past along racial lines, culture clash is a reality in South Africa today. We cannot wish it away. We don’t laugh at the same things.
We need to find smarter ways to reach out to each other. Each individual has a role to play. We all want a sense of belonging, but we also need to be wary of those who use cultural precepts for advantage, a matter that the Afrikaner nationalists used to great effect, and ultimately to their downfall. Remember the Codesa debates on group rights versus individual rights?
This brings me to the subject of history, which in this context should really be seen to being “our story” rather than somebody else’s story. It is time that we embraced our collective history as our own. We have a painful and difficult history, but it is our story, warts and all, and we are all responsible for moving into the future together.
We need an understanding of our past to reckon with our circumstances of today, to grow into the future. I cannot see how wiping out the symbols of our past is helpful, especially at a time when we have shown that we are not so capable of learning from the past. We have been repeating our mistakes.
History is out there, casting an indelible mark on the past, and cannot be simply eradicated. And nor should we try. It is the interpretation of the past that helps us develop understandings for our future, and it is here that our history has the greatest value beyond mere symbols.
UCT is not entirely out of the woods as yet, and needs careful stew- ardship, nurturing and discussion, and debate to ensure that it continues to play its rightful part in South Africa.
There needs to be a renewed commitment from all levels within the institution and from amongst all voices and stakeholders to the international standing of this institution; there needs to be a more rational analysis of the transformational journey at UCT and a shared understanding of what more needs to be done; and more effort needs to be made at developing social cohesion at this institution.
An independent panel looking into these aspects could be a useful departure point for discussions on the future of UCT.