THE statue of Afrikaner
mining magnate Jannie Marais on Stellenbosch University’s Rooi Plein as ‘a reminder of hegemonic, authoritarian whiteness’ was among issues under the spotlight at a recent panel discussion on memorials at South African universities, hosted by the Stellenbosch University Museum.
THE statue of Afrikaner mogul and philanthropist Jannie Marais on Stellenbosch University’s Rooiplein, placed there as “a reminder of hegemonic, authoritarian whiteness”, was among issues under the spotlight at a frank panel discussion during a webinar hosted by the Stellenbosch University Museum.
During the discussion, titled, Memorials beyond apartheid at South African universities, professor of visual studies at the university, Lize van Robbroeck, spoke of the Jannie Marais statue.
Mining magnate Johannes Henoch (Jannie) Marais co-founded media conglomerate Naspers, and donated £100 000 towards establishing Stellenbosch University upon his death in 1915.
“The sculpture of Jannie Marais on our Rooiplein; most students don’t actually recognise him or know what role he played. But the visual semiotic is certainly one of white male authority,” Van Robbroeck said.
“The size is enormous. He’s raised on a pedestal. He dominates the Rooiplein. He looks stern and austere, like an authoritarian white male figure. So the responses to this kind of visual semiotic serve as a constant reminder of the hegemonic and authoritarian whiteness that continues to haunt particularly post-settler colonies, such as South Africa.”
She added that similar concerns were being raised in other post-settler states: “It’s not a coincidence, I think, that these revolts are coming up in all the former settler states such as Canada, the United States, New Zealand, et cetera.”
In recent years, the #rhodesmustfall movement brought the issue of transformation and how it plays out through memorialisation at South African universities, into sharp focus.
Head of the University of the Witwatersrand’s History Workshop, Professor Noor Nieftagodien, voiced concern over the “neoliberal managerialist ways at South African universities”, highlighting the planned Sibanye-Stillwater renaming. In 2019, mining group Sibanye-Stillwater bought the Lonmin mine, the setting of the 2012 Marikana massacre.
According to Mining Weekly, Wits and Sibanye-Stillwater signed a memorandum of understanding in August, stipulating that the mining giant will provide R52 million to enhance Wits’ faculty of engineering over 10 years. Subsequently, a bridge is to be named in Sibanye-Stillwater’s honour, with the unveiling earmarked for October next year.
Nieftagodien said: “Our universities have become more neoliberal, more managerialist; students are increasingly seen simply as clients. The drive to online teaching is less about a need to use technology to augment our teaching, and more about income.
“What one sees is a kind of acceleration of conservative politics and policies at universities, while adopting the kind of symbolisms of decolonisation.
“So in 2022, 10 years after the Marikana massacre, this university is renaming one of its most iconic structures after the mining company that ultimately had control over the mine at which the Marikana massacre happened. And when the university was confronted by the argument that this is a bad idea, it appeared that they were prepared to make political compromises in trying to attract funding from the biggest mining company in southern Africa.”
Van Robbroeck conceded that there were no simple solutions.
“I recognise that this is a very hard place,” she said. “That we are between a rock and a hard place, because universities are underfunded.
“State subsidisation of universities all over the world is declining rapidly. Increasingly it’s the private sector that also contributes towards the funding of universities. And for that reason, obviously something like redressing colonial inequities has to happen against these economic imperatives. So, I’m not saying it’s an easy problem to solve.”
Speakers agreed that continued visual redress is critically important; however, they highlighted the importance of transformation going beyond the visual, too.
Professor Leslie Witz from the department of history at UWC, reflected on the importance of keeping history “open to contestation”.
“I would argue that the thing about history is to keep it contested,” said Witz.
“To not put a finite, definite version in place. But to keep it open to contradictions, contrasts and contestation. I think that’s one of the problems with memorials, that they seek to cast things in stone. They seek to say: ‘this is the history’.
“I suppose the question is, why are people so afraid of losing their history? Do you need something cast in stone to make things remembered?”