Start a private Orania University

COULD someone please inform the convocation of Stellenbosch University (SU) that this is 2017 and not 1976.

Their intention to challenge the decision of SU that the medium of instruction at that university be English is taking us back to the dark days.

Like all public institutions in the land, SU is funded and subsidised by the taxes of all South Africans, and not just the Afrikaans-speaking ones. Thus, no impediments (such as language of tuition) should be put in place to limit access to SU.

Their specious argument that Afrikaans is being marginalised has no truth in it. If they care to look at facts with unjaundiced eyes, they will see that Afrikaans enjoys the same protection as any other language in South Africa. In fact, even to this day Afrikaans holds a higher status than any of the indigenous languages.

If the convocation of SU wishes to have a university where their language will reign supreme, they should start a private university. I’m sure Carel Boshoff IV would happily give them a piece of land in Orania.

There they can fly the old flag and appoint that vile crooner who likes to sing Die Stem at his concerts to be the chancellor.

It is a good thing the younger generation of Afrikaans-speaking South Africans do not have a chip on their shoulders regarding their language.

Although they love it and are proud of it, they do not see the need to be divisive by shouting and frothing at the mouth demanding that their language be granted special privileges.

Apropos of language policy, I strongly condemn the decision by the University of KwaZulu-Natal that all students be forced to take a module in Zulu. That is as abominable and unhelpful as what the convocation of SU is doing.

Shame on the Ministry of Education that it did not oppose this, because surely if, say, the University of Free State had decided that all their students should take an Afrikaans module, the communist in charge of Higher Education would have been up in arms. Garsfontein, Pretoria