Pityana calls for renaming of Union Buildings
BUSINESSMAN and activist Sipho Pityana has called for the Union Buildings to be renamed after the country’s first democratic president‚ Nelson Mandela.
Speaking in his capacity as the University of Cape Town council chairman, Pityana told guests who gathered for a graduation ceremony yesterday that it was ironic that the government had renamed only part of the colonial-era building after Mandela.
“Yet the name of the Union Building itself remains as it is in memory of the four provinces in 1910 that excluded blacks‚” Pityana said.
He called this a subordination of a real icon and symbol of a united South Africa.
“It is upon you as the new generation of intellectuals to share these lessons with society‚ point out the irony and insist that the Union Buildings be named Nelson Mandela House.”
He said South Africans should not continue to live with symbols of an oppressive past, overshadowing the diverse and inclusive future that they sought as a new society.
“We need to do the same about the many other oppressive symbols‚” he said.
Similarly‚ the country needed a tough conversation on how it funded education.
“Of course the Freedom Charter‚ which is the reference point‚ is clear ‘the doors of learning shall be open to all’, and so they should. And yet‚ societal inequality made that dream a mirage.”
He said research showed that 60% of South Africa’s university students came from the wealthiest 30% of schools in the country‚ meaning as much as half of the university funding in South Africa went to the richest 10% of the population. Speaking about UCT‚ he said the institution had done many positive things to transform‚ citing the demographic profile of the student body having changed beyond recognition since 1994.
“Our approach to everything we do should have changed similarly‚ from teaching and learning to research‚ student life‚ our community outreach and others.”
He said the expectation of the institution was that the new majority would adapt to the dominant culture they found at UCT but it found it had been an alienating and marginalising experience for many.
Pityana said because of what they found‚ the centrepiece of their new transformation agenda was to forge an inclusive identity and recognising the change in profile.