tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/rhodesmustfall-23991/articles#RhodesMustFall – The Conversation2022-10-11T14:04:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1921902022-10-11T14:04:32Z2022-10-11T14:04:32ZDecolonising education in South Africa – a reflection on a learning-teaching approach<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489103/original/file-20221011-17-7r5061.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Opening up spaces for students to talk to each other and to lecturers is a way to entrench education as a public good.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been seven years since students in South Africa began <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/student-protests-democratic-south-africa">protesting</a> in a bid to “Africanise” the country’s university curricula. They viewed what they were learning as too <a href="https://oxfordre.com/education/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-e-404">neoliberal</a> – characterised by Western values pushing the marketisation of education. They wanted universities to become more relevant to students in an African country and more connected to their own lives.</p>
<p>The students’ calls propelled “decolonisation” to the forefront of national (and even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall">international</a>) debate. Decolonisation in the university context involves dismantling the institutional practices and policies that uphold white supremacist, Western values. Since then there have been various initiatives at most of the country’s 26 public universities designed to change what students learn and how. </p>
<p>Every academic has their own opinion and their own approach. Mine, as a university educator who lectures future teachers, has been to adopt a teaching-learning approach called defamiliarisation.</p>
<p>The idea of defamiliarisation was coined by Russian literary theorist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Viktor-Shklovsky">Viktor Shklovsky</a>. It is a process of looking at things differently through art, poetry, or film so that you don’t see them automatically; Shklovsky said that you could look at something you know several times without really analysing it. </p>
<p>I have <a href="http://ersc.nmmu.ac.za/articles/ERSC_June_2018_SPEd_Waghid__Hibbert_Vol_7_pp_60-77.pdf">researched</a> and used defamiliarisation in my teaching since 2015, finding it a good place to contribute towards disrupting the sort of neoliberal curriculum student protesters opposed. If a curriculum doesn’t consider the humanistic side of learning, the system and institution can treat students as a form of human capital. That ultimately changes education from a public good to a commodity. </p>
<p>By approaching my classes using defamiliarisation, I have been able to help students think beyond the usual stories about history. Crucially, they have been put in charge of their learning. In this way, education is shored up as a public good.</p>
<h2>A space to speak openly</h2>
<p>So, what does defamiliarisation look like in practise? One example is an activity a colleague and I designed: we asked a group of students, as part of a lesson, to draw how they saw themselves and how they felt about being taught in English at the university. While English is widely spoken in South Africa, most of our students speak isiXhosa as their first language. </p>
<p>Even though the question was about the university, many of the students’ drawn answers were about society and their communities in reference to the university. These examples showed that, for these students, the community and the university are not separate. The question seemed to bring up deeper issues that neither the students nor I were aware of at the time.</p>
<p>For example, one of the students I talked to about her drawing creatively explained how her feelings were connected to her beliefs, culture, and context pertaining to the dominant and gendered power relations in her community, and at the school she had attended. </p>
<p>She drew two portraits of herself: on the left, a false representation at the school she attended, depicting the aesthetic beauty and success that came with being able to speak English fluently and with excellent grades; on the right, a portrait of her dormant natural beauty that held on to her culture and true identity.</p>
<p>Her drawing showed how she saw herself and how she thought the rest of society saw her. Her drawing showed her race, language, culture, gender, and a false representation of who she was in her school environment. </p>
<p>The student said that in her community, people often asked her about her race because she spoke in a dialect that she may have picked up at a former Model C (whites only during apartheid) school, and that was often associated with “white culture” in her community. </p>
<p>The defamiliarisation approach allowed this student to make her peers and me aware of her socio-cultural context and, more importantly, the challenges and subtleties of her identity and how she felt about them. By doing this activity, she, like many of her peers, could talk about herself creatively and effectively.</p>
<p>This approach developed students’ openness, compassion, sympathy and responsibility. </p>
<p>You could say that defamiliarisation gave the students the freedom to become their own narrators. It also allowed them to understand what their peers were going through and show compassion for them around instances of marginalisation in society. This, in my opinion, is crucial for aspiring educators to fully comprehend the range of experiences and viewpoints held by learners from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.</p>
<h2>Educators benefit, too</h2>
<p>I believe this kind of teaching was valuable and essential to assist students in developing the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours needed for critical global citizenship. It allowed them to communicate openly about victimisation and unjust treatment in South Africa. </p>
<p>Even though in some instances it made them feel uncomfortable, defamiliarisation was met with <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.20853/32-4-2922">mostly favourable reactions</a> from students. It helped them to open up about the challenges in their own lives. And I still use the approach today, mostly through the medium of film. For instance, I showed the <a href="https://www.showmax.com/eng/movie/69pli6p9-krotoa">movie</a> <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/krotoa-eva">Krotoa</a> to a different class. It examines the impact of Dutch colonisation on the culture and identity of the indigenous Khoi people of the Cape in the 17th century. </p>
<p>Defamiliarisation helps educators, too. I have reflected on my role as a university lecturer and, frankly, to question aspects of my teaching that seem dominant and obvious to my students but are just habitual to me. Learning about my students’ real-life experiences and sentiments helped me empathise with them and value their individuality. It helped us to connect in a meaningful way as equals. </p>
<p>Using this approach is a way for academics to return to the basics. That’s crucial if universities are to offer a curriculum that centres students’ needs as the primary focus of learning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192190/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zayd Waghid does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Putting students at the centre of their learning is a powerful tool for decolonising the classroom.Zayd Waghid, Associate professor, Cape Peninsula University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1487512020-11-08T09:11:55Z2020-11-08T09:11:55ZUnderstanding violent protest in South Africa and the difficult choice facing leaders<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365540/original/file-20201026-19-uiops5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A police van lies in flames after white farmers went on a rampage in Senekal, South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tracy Lee Stark/The Citizen.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Protests and social mobilisation are the lifeblood of democracy. They enable the discontent of citizens to be communicated to political elites between elections, and when intra-institutional processes have lost their efficacy. But <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/aug/24/protest-movement-failings-i-dont-believe-in-it-anymore">most protests never lead to sustainable change</a>. They peter out because of one or other reformist measure. Or they lose support because they tend to take on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world">violent overtones</a>.</p>
<p>Most protesters and leaders engage in peaceful mobilisation. But there are always some leaders and activists who are intent on violence. This is because protests and social movements always involve heterogeneous communities with multiple expressions, political factions and leaders. </p>
<p>Some of these expressions and political factions believe in violent direct action and behave accordingly in the protests. Add to this the opportunism of criminals who use the protests as a cover to conduct criminal activity, and it is not hard to imagine why protests can turn violent.</p>
<p>Much of this is reflected in the contemporary protests and social mobilisation around the world. All of the movements - <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/educator-resources/lesson-plans/black-lives-matter-from-hashtag-to-movement">#BlackLivesMatter</a>, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49317695">Hong Kong Democracy Movement</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/03/who-are-the-gilets-jaunes-and-what-do-they-want">Gilets Jaunes</a> in France, <a href="https://theconversation.com/feesmustfall-the-poster-child-for-new-forms-of-struggle-in-south-africa-68773">#FeesMustFall</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall">#RhodesMustFall</a> in South Africa - were in the main peaceful. But they nevertheless manifested in violent direct action on occasion.</p>
<p>Protest leaders often expressed disquiet and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VLtWdilSKI">dissociated themselves from the violence</a>. But on many occasions, they also excused the violence, suggesting that it could not be compared to that experienced by protesters at the hands of police or by the victims of oppression and exploitation. This may be true in most cases. But it evades the strategic issue that violence can often undermine and erode the legitimacy of protests. It creates the opportunity for police and security forces to repress the social action itself.</p>
<p>Protest leaders also often blame the violence on criminals or on aggressive police action. Again much of this is true. Criminals use protests to conduct criminal activity including, among others, looting and theft when the opportunity arises. Moreover, aggressive policing and repressive actions by security services can often turn the tide of peaceful protests and prompt violent acts by some protesters. </p>
<p>But these explanations do not account for all forms of violence in protests.</p>
<h2>Why peaceful protests turn violent</h2>
<p>Perhaps the foremost scholar on social movements and political violence is political scientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=utI_trMAAAAJ&hl=en">Donatella Della Porta</a>. She holds that violence in protests is a product of two distinct developments: aggressive police action and <a href="https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/cas_sites/sociology/pdf/EventfulProtest.pdf">political factionalisation</a>, in which distinct political groups try to dominate the leadership of social movements. The explanation of aggressive policing is uncontested by most progressive intellectuals. They often refer to it to explain the violence. But they often ignore the second explanation because it involves a collective self-reflection and a political confrontation with movement participants. </p>
<p>There is no doubt that in many of these movements, there are individual activists and political groupings who explicitly hold the view that <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-08-31-in-defence-of-black-violence/">violent action is legitimate</a>. They use the circumstances to actively drive such behaviour, as I explain in detail in Chapter 9 of my 2018 book, <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rebels-Rage-FeesMustFall-Adam-Habib-ebook/dp/B07P626QB4">Rebels and Rage</a></em>. </p>
<p>These proactive commitments from factions within these protest movements suggest that violence is as much internally driven from within the social movements as it is a response to the repressive actions of the police and security services.</p>
<p>This then necessitates a reflection on the strategic efficacy of violence as a means of sustainably achieving social justice outcomes. Of course, this reflection must be contextually grounded. It must be understood in the context of the democratic societies within which the protests occur. After all it is the democratic character of these societies, flawed as they may be, which establishes the parameters of legitimate political action and the consequences for the violations thereof.</p>
<h2>Rage versus violence</h2>
<p>Social mobilisation requires rage but not violence. When the two get confused, the cause of social justice itself may be delegitimised or defeated. Rage is important because it can inspire people, galvanise them, and as a result enable collective action against injustice. It also need not always lead to violence. Neither does it need to lead to emotionally driven acts of impulsiveness.</p>
<p>If there is a lesson to be learnt from the life of the late statesman <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>, it is that effective leadership of a social or political struggle requires an understanding of the political lay of the land. It also requires an assessment of the prevailing distribution of power among social forces, an acute grasp of the leverage available to political actors opposed to the social justice cause, and a plan for how to overcome these without compromising on the ultimate social outcome.</p>
<p>Much of the case of young activists for adopting violence as a strategic option is predicated on the presence of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/structural-violence">structural violence</a>. This refers to the prevailing economic and political conditions which produce not only deep social marginalisation within and across nations, but also the implicit racism that is codified in institutions and daily practices. </p>
<p>If there is such structural violence present, it is held, is there no legitimacy to acts of physical violence that are targeted to address the marginalisation and oppression? </p>
<h2>Social pact in a democracy</h2>
<p>The answer to this lies in the social pact that undergirds democratic society. Citizens <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190679545.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190679545-e-13">cede the authority of legitimate violence to the state</a> in exchange for security and rights. The alternative to this is that all bear the right to legitimate violence, thereby making society vulnerable to the rule of the strongest and the most forceful. The real victims of such an environment are the poorest and weakest in society.</p>
<p>Yet what does one do if political factions or individuals resort to violence in a peaceful protest? This after all is one of the major challenges that confront leaders of protests. Most of them are committed to peaceful social mobilisation, but are confronted with individuals or political factions who violate the peaceful character of the mobilisation – either proactively or as a response to aggressive police action. </p>
<p>The protest leaders have to then engage in a rearguard battle in which they have to explain why there is violence accompanying the protest, even though they have expressed a commitment to peaceful social mobilisation. Inevitably the leaders come off as unconvincing or duplicitous or as making excuses for the violence.</p>
<p>Of course those who are committed to violent direct action are aware of this reluctance by protest leaders to identify them. They realise that most protest leaders will not identify the perpetrators of violence because they would not want to be seen as abetting the authorities. </p>
<p>The perpetrators of violence can then behave in a manner that explicitly defies the collective underlying principles of the protest without having to fear any sanction. Essentially the political norms disable the incentive structure for political factions to abide by the strategic principle of peaceful social action.</p>
<p>The only way out of this dilemma is to change the rules. Leaders must either explicitly exclude political factions or individuals who are committed to violent social action. Or they must make explicitly clear that they will identify those who violate the principle of nonviolence that serves as the guiding philosophy of the protest. </p>
<p>Of course the political factions or individuals are unlikely to meekly accept this state of affairs. But leaders are going to have to explicitly manage this political challenge by openly debating the issue with movement participants, explaining why this is necessary for the success of the protest itself. Otherwise, such leaders will forever remain hostage to factions and small unaccountable political groups who serve as parasites on the progressive social cause.</p>
<p>This then is the challenge for protest leaders. </p>
<h2>Exercising leadership</h2>
<p>Political leadership sometimes requires difficult choices. Such difficult choices are not simply required from those leading institutions and governments. It is sometimes also demanded of leaders of social movements. This is particularly true when individual acts of violence can compromise the outcomes of the protest itself.</p>
<p>Protest leaders have a choice: either they allow acts of violence and, therefore, play to a political script not of their own making, or they act in a manner that keeps the social mobilisation on a path that they have explicitly chosen. This is especially important because the alternative path will not only erode the broader legitimacy of the cause. It will also provoke reactions that could undermine the protest and the sustainability of the social justice outcome. </p>
<p>This choice of enabling or containing political violence is, therefore, the central strategic challenge confronting the political leadership of contemporary protests both in South Africa and around the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Habib does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are individual activists and political groupings who believe violent action is legitimate and use the circumstances to actively drive such behaviour.Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1392382020-05-24T07:49:03Z2020-05-24T07:49:03ZCompendium of new research celebrates African solutions to national and global problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337030/original/file-20200522-124845-8cyoxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of outgoing Senegalese President Macky Sall cheer during a rally ahead of presidential elections in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Seyllou/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.gov.za/AfricaDay2020">Africa Day</a> celebrates the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963. It’s all about <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/african-liberation-day-celebration-resistance">recognising</a>, as the First Congress of Independent African States held in 1958 in Ghana put it, “the determination of the people of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation”. Indeed, it was previously called African Liberation Day. </p>
<p>The continent is now formally free of colonial rule. Nevertheless, the aim of remembering and furthering the fight for self determination remains relevant as ever. This year has seen Africa – once again – characterised as a set of helpless states that face devastation by the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<p>Such lifeless and homogenising depictions fail to recognise the ability of African communities and governments to overcome major health challenges such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-nigeria-beat-the-ebola-virus-in-three-months-41372">Ebola</a>. They also ignore the remarkably varied and dynamic – and in many cases effective – response of different groups and individuals to the COVID-19 pandemic. As Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola recently <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-colonialism-africa/">put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Africa is not waiting to be saved from the coronavirus.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A new major publication – the <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/page/african-politics/the-oxford-encyclopedia-of-african-politics">Oxford Encyclopaedia of African Politics</a> – contains many important chapters that make the same point on a wide variety of topics. With 122 authors, 109 articles and more than a million words, it is one of the largest volumes on African politics ever published. </p>
<p>Chapter after chapter shows the ability of leaders, intellectuals and activists to find their own solutions to national and global problems.</p>
<h2>Recognising African agency</h2>
<p>All too often, the achievements of African countries are overlooked. Conflict and controversy make for more attention-grabbing headlines than peace and democracy. Yet, while the continent features more than its fair share of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/authoritarian-africa-9780190279653?cc=gb&lang=en&">authoritarian repression</a>, in some respects African countries are leading the way.</p>
<p>As political scientist Mamoudou Gazibo points out, countries like Ghana and Senegal became democracies despite the fact that they faced a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?redir_esc=y&id=JVmtCAAAQBAJ&q=agains+the+odds#v=snippet&q=agains%20the%20odds&f=false">particularly challenging context</a>. They lacked the kind of national wealth, strong state and large middle class that many theories suggest are necessary for a smooth transition out of authoritarian rule. Yet they have proved that <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-702">democracy is feasible in Africa</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, Liberia and Sierra Leone should also be seen as remarkable – but not, as is usually the case, because they had horrific civil wars. Instead they should be recognised for overcoming extreme and prolonged violence to forge a pathway back to democracy. In addition to maintaining political stability, both countries have experienced peaceful <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-the-change-of-power-in-sierra-leone-is-a-big-win-for-the-people/a-43269230">transfers of power</a> via the ballot box.</p>
<p>In all these cases a combination of good leadership, institution building, and the support of ordinary people for democratic values has enabled African states to change their futures for the better. </p>
<p>Yet this story is rarely told.</p>
<p>One reason is that stories like this don’t fit with the popular narrative that democracy is somehow “unAfrican”. In other words, that modern governance was introduced to the continent by the West. </p>
<p>This is not only untrue. It also turns history on its head.</p>
<p>As political scientist Kidane Mengisteab <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-1347">shows</a> in one of the chapters of the book, in many countries “traditional institutions of governance” featured important checks and balances on how power could be exercised. These measures were typically destroyed, eroded, or radically transformed by colonial rule. This paved the way for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-colonial-rule-predisposed-africa-to-fragile-authoritarianism-126114">emergence of authoritarian regimes</a> after independence.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Similarly, multiparty elections were not reintroduced in Africa in the early 1990s simply because the UK and the US decided this was a good idea. These freedoms and rights were <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/422153?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">fought for</a> by activists, opposition leaders, trade unionists, religious leaders and ordinary citizens who risked their personal safety to bring down authoritarian governments. Some paid with their lives.</p>
<h2>Recognising African genius</h2>
<p>A major casualty of the tendency to overlook the creativity and contributions of African leaders and intellectuals is the neglect of African political thought. Africa has produced some of the most thoughtful and articulate leaders in the world on how political systems can best be designed. These have included <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3819276?casa_token=4ihOwPICM8cAAAAA:tuJTaO6aWc2YH22kj6GBoPdo211VsS1syG1Wqex_4V2QGqZwKy5sM8TLSP9esDopBollzQxv76yD2nfykzJVQCa28jlP9zhwpnMBxJzpeGztfOtx0qu7#metadata_info_tab_contents">Kwame Nkrumah, Tom Mboya and Leopold Senghor</a>. Yet the continent is often treated as if it is devoid of interesting political ideas and ideologies.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-kwame-nkrumah-used-metaphor-as-a-political-weapon-against-colonialism-129379">How Kwame Nkrumah used metaphor as a political weapon against colonialism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>This is one reason why many African intellectuals have been attracted to the idea of the African renaissance. In his chapter <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-720">Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni</a> describes this as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a ‘re-membering’ of a continent and a people who have suffered from ‘dismembering’ effects of colonialism and ‘coloniality’. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This concept continues to inspire both ideas and action, and fed into the #rhodesmustfall and “decolonize the university” campaigns that began in South Africa and had ripple effects across the world. </p>
<p>Yet despite this, African contributions continue to be downplayed – even within intellectual movements that are supposed to be all about breaking down racist assumptions and hierarchies. Take post-colonial theory, which analyses the enduring legacies of colonialism and disavows Eurocentric master-narratives. It is often said that African intellectuals have played a minor role in developing post-colonial critiques. Yet <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-830">Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin</a>, an expert in gender studies and critical race theory identifies</p>
<blockquote>
<p>African thinkers and activists who are intellectual antecedents to the post-colonial thought that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is often overlooked, she points out, because some – though by no means all – of those working in these frameworks have been “dismissive of African theorising”.</p>
<h2>Recognising African leadership</h2>
<p>The path-breaking leadership shown by many African countries has also been criminally overlooked. When asked to name two of the most advanced and progressive constitutions in the world, how many people would say Kenya and South Africa? Outside of the continent, my guess would be almost no one. Yet as legal and constitutional expert <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-1324">Muno Ndulo argues</a>, the constitutions introduced in these countries over the last years 30 years enshrine democratic norms and values. They also go well beyond their European and North American counterparts by institutionalising socio-economic rights (South Africa) and the principle of citizen participation in the budget making process (Kenya).</p>
<p>While including a clause in a constitution doesn’t mean that it is automatically respected, historically marginalised groups have mobilised creatively to demand the rights they are supposed to enjoy under the law. African women, for example, are not waiting for others to save them from patriarchy. They are mobilising across the continent to claim their rights. According to <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-852">Robtel Pailey</a>, an activist, academic and author,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>African women have simultaneously embraced and challenged cultural and socio-economic norms to claim and secure citizenship rights, resources and representation. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Recognising African diversity</h2>
<p>These are, of course, just a small number of the stories that deserve to be told. The encyclopaedia includes articles on everything from political parties and elections to the role of China and migration, oil and religion. But despite featuring a chapter on every sub-region, political institution, and major trend, there is still so much more that needs to be said about a continent that is remarkably diverse.</p>
<p>That is one reason why we should celebrate <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/continent-brilliant-free-african-journalism/">the showcasing</a> of the voices of African journalists and researchers, and share them far and wide. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00007046">Nelson Mandela once said</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139238/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nic Cheeseman is the editor of the volume discussed in this article.</span></em></p>Africa is now formally free of colonial rule. Yet, the aim of remembering and furthering the fight for self determination remains relevant as ever.Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1313362020-02-24T13:17:25Z2020-02-24T13:17:25ZHow South African universities can tap into the continent’s knowledge systems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315736/original/file-20200217-11005-3auxxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Africa has a rich history and insights that can balance Eurocentric schools of thought in higher education. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s higher education sector has experienced <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/police-intervene-in-uwc-campus-protest-20200207">turmoil</a> in recent years. Some of it stems from students’ financial woes. Some relates to experiences of <a href="https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/2542">alienation</a> in the country’s universities. </p>
<p>Some students, most of them black, have also rebelled against what they see as Eurocentric instruction. As a result, South Africa’s academic institutions are starting to recognise they can’t exclude African knowledge traditions and histories from their curricula. </p>
<p>Apartheid in South Africa <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/20610">excluded</a> black people from most universities. Twenty five years after the end of apartheid, power relations still reflect inequalities and colonial values. As scholars Ronelle Carolissen and Peace Kiguwa <a href="https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/2542/1788">argue</a>, experiences of alienation or belonging are shaped by power relations within institutions. As they <a href="https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/2542/1788">argue</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In South Africa black students… despite (their) legitimate student status… continue to experience their rights within universities as conditional, contingent, marginal and circumscribed by the terms of the other. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This sense of exclusion has its roots in the country’s past. Many students are the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057925.2018.1479185?casa_token=Uq3NjiyWQqYAAAAA%3A_XxSPWIqXibQ9On83WmIcg17HnqN9xPW80U9j_BkndvAApSpb8Y-mOjjnlnAmd7RaHZOatTf7cYbdA">first in their family</a> to go to university. Their parents and the generations before them were excluded from higher education, or were unable to afford it. This means that many students aren’t accustomed to tertiary institutional cultures. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/68">research</a> aimed to find sources of knowledge that help create more inclusive curricula and learning experiences. The goal was to help students feel they belong in South Africa’s universities. </p>
<p>For example, precolonial <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/691090/summary">social and economic organisation</a> seldom features in commerce and political science curricula. And knowledge about trade, agriculture and economics during Africa’s precolonial phase is overshadowed by models inherited from the Global North. </p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333981459_Applying_Ayittey's_Indigenous_African_Institutions_to_generate_epistemic_plurality_in_the_curriculum">study</a> considered possible roles that African knowledge systems could play in diversifying knowledge in universities. I found a useful resource in the form of a <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Indigenous_African_Institutions.html?id=NLC0AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">book</a> about indigenous African institutions by the Ghanaian scholar George Ayittey.</p>
<p>Ayittey is a rich source of African history and insights that can balance Eurocentric modes of knowledge generation. His book highlights African ways of using human and natural resources in all kinds of activity, from agriculture to communal governance, trade or medicine. Examples include: </p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Social sciences:</strong> Africa has rich and ample examples of poetry and oral histories accessed through <em>izibongi</em> (praise poets) and elders. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Trade:</strong> Reviving precolonial and cross-border trading nodes could stimulate economic growth and reopen dormant African markets that were used for centuries. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Medicine:</strong> Traditional healers have ancient knowledge of plants which researchers can study.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In well-researched detail, Ayittey sets out the thinking behind social organisation as well as scientific and social pursuits in every region of the continent. He shows how Africa’s precolonial societies were not all alike. Community structures were diverse and ranged from hunter-gatherers to monarchies and village confederacies. </p>
<p>Few scholars have matched the comprehensiveness of Ayittey’s book. He has been invited to <a href="https://www.ted.com/speakers/george_ayittey">economic forums</a> around the world by people who want to learn more about African knowledge systems. Organisations such as the <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/african-solutions-to-african-problems">Institute for Security Studies</a> recognise his contribution to the reconstruction of Africa’s social systems. They also note that indigenous ways of organisation have the potential to help prevent and resolve conflict. </p>
<p>Exposing students to this knowledge will give them a greater appreciation of local systems. It will counter any idea of precolonial Africa as a continent that lacks philosophy, culture and systems of social organisation. </p>
<h2>University’s responsibilities</h2>
<p>African universities have a responsibility to resurrect the continent’s <a href="https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/viewFile/127/207">knowledge archives</a>. Not only can they share knowledge practices as highlighted by Ayittey’s book, academics can use <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2989/16073614.2016.1250350?casa_token=ibnVeNRAgUMAAAAA:5dEafvzIxx35o6gGx3tDon0M8RXODHAql4aWY4q8_wAzrddPaKUDoFUOUnMTcNwtttEf5pXAPYuTVQ">multiple languages</a> in teaching and learning. Allowing students to incorporate their own languages into coursework can help students access the African knowledge archive. </p>
<p>Languages reflect <a href="https://termcoord.eu/2017/03/what-is-the-relationship-between-language-and-culture/">cultures</a>. By welcoming all South African languages, university curricula can reduce students’ experiences of alienation and cultivate an environment of community. </p>
<h2>Going forward</h2>
<p>Ayittey’s book is only one perspective of precolonial Africa. But it reintroduces principles of social and knowledge organisation that were lost in South African universities. </p>
<p>But curricula that draw on Ayittey’s text shouldn’t be presented in an exclusive way. African knowledge and precolonial modes of organisation should be taught alongside philosophies and theories that are used by established scholars worldwide. </p>
<p>Applying Ayittey’s text to mainstream instruction is only one of the methods curriculum designers and instructors can use. But it’s a good resource for incorporating African knowledge systems and organisation into learning experiences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131336/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oscar Oliver Eybers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How African knowledge systems can be incorporated into higher education.Oscar Oliver Eybers, Lecturer in Academic Literacy, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1206152019-07-25T09:06:39Z2019-07-25T09:06:39ZUniversities in South Africa need to rediscover their higher purpose<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285296/original/file-20190723-110187-165debr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The demand for free higher education is one of the key factors that have led to competing waves of thinking and organisation in the sector. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For over two decades South African higher education has been dominated by three successive and contending waves of thinking and organisation. They are: <a href="https://ifaaza.org/2017/06/27/neoliberalism-and-the-crisis-in-higher-education-in-south-africa/">neo-liberal managerialism</a> the <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/ersc/v7nspe/01.pdf">decolonialisation of knowledge</a>
and, most recently, the idea of a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-04-15-universities-have-pivotal-role-to-play-in-fourth-industrial-revolution/">Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)</a>. </p>
<p>By promising to “transform” higher education, each has taken centre stage at universities – or sections of them – by pledging greater value for the taxpayer (neo-liberalism); social emancipation (decolonisation); or greater access to employment (4IR).</p>
<p>The first wave follows Ronald Reagan’s “reform” of the Californian system which saw decreased state funding for universities. This was taken up by UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Her funding policies encouraged British universities <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7rs23">to adopt</a> business management practices. It also involved gearing degree offerings to the requirements of “the market”. </p>
<p>In South Africa, the second was symbolised by the March 2015 protest at University of Cape Town over the stature of Cecil John Rhodes. The movement has been marked by (sometimes violent) demands for a reform of curriculum away from the western “canon” and towards African epistemologies. Politically, it has been characterised by demands for <a href="https://africasacountry.com/author/michael-nassen-smith?fbclid=IwAR0eVWvAqVuQLzG6m2Ak5zXTTMpHXCqnEK9gifLFmiZCNUrB4v5oF1Opgcc">free higher-education</a>.</p>
<p>The third has been propagated by the World Economic Forum and across the world by the champions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the digital revolution. In South Africa this wave has been promoted especially by the University of Johannesburg. This perspective holds that AI and machine-learning will dominate knowledge and knowledge-creating deep into the present century. All academic disciplines should, therefore, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj34cmAwsjjAhW7TBUIHcFID6QQFjAAegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.weforum.org%2Fabout%2Fthe-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab&usg=AOvVaw3kwk4_AkuLByXbZTLohp_8">be geared to this end</a>.</p>
<p>But there has been very little public discussion about the contradictions between the three moments.</p>
<p>South African higher education remains remarkably detached from society. Its loss of a social purpose can be seen as the erosion of the public and civic vitality which once fuelled the anti-apartheid struggle. Today, its mission has shrunk. </p>
<h2>Why is there this disconnect?</h2>
<p>The answer is simply that policies and incentives disadvantage the deep connection with the communities in which universities are located. They also emphasise peer-reviewed articles in internationally ranked journals as the measure of excellence. And they lead to a focus on educating students for high-paying jobs. They have little to do with positioning the welfare of society at the core of their scholarship, teaching, and public connections. </p>
<p>Put differently, higher education in the country doesn’t fulfil its <a href="https://www.aacu.org/crucible">civic potential</a>. It has no real social purpose.</p>
<p>There are contrasting examples internationally. For instance, <a href="https://www.u-tokai.ac.jp/english/">Tokai University</a>, the leading STEM university in Japan, has a vision and mission grown from its founder’s philosophy – Professor Shigeyoshi Matsumae. His life goal was to create a university where young people and faculty would have sustained, deep interactions with <a href="https://www.u-tokai.ac.jp/english/about/founder.html">social purpose</a>. </p>
<p>Tokai University is implementing this philosophy. It has intensive citizenship education on all eight of its regional campuses for 7,000 entering first year students. It plans to expand this to 30,000. </p>
<h2>The true purpose of universities</h2>
<p>In the minds of faculty, administrators, government and business leaders, South African universities service two important, but limited, activities.</p>
<p>The first is to prepare students for jobs. The second is to conduct research that treats social communities more as objects of study than as knowledge partners. This approach excludes the development and support of civic agency from scholarly purpose. </p>
<p>Even disciplines that encourage research aimed at enhancing well-being – economics, is <a href="https://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2013/05/what-is-wrong-and-right-in-economics.html">the best and worst example</a>
– are deeply flawed. The emphasis is on technical skills and emulating models of prosperity that are based on individual rational choice as the motivator of human agency. </p>
<p>The hard truth is that higher education contributes to societal erosion when expert-knows-best approaches displace civic agency. This is because experts are often far removed from the needs of community development. </p>
<p>Alarmingly, too, teaching and research with public purpose have been squeezed out. </p>
<p>Higher education which prepares students for res publica – for the community – or in local terms, <em>ubuntu</em> – the community-confirming idea that we are human because of other humans – has been replaced. Instead what South Africa has is education suited for a res idiotica – in the Greek, a private and isolated person. </p>
<h2>What can be done?</h2>
<p>Fortunately, a growing literature points towards strands of <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/university-press/book/9780826520364">civic revival in higher education</a>. And there are a growing number of examples of a recovery of civic and democratic purposes in higher education.</p>
<p>Moreover, two broad streams of thinking are establishing new platforms for exchange, experiment, and social change. One is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field that has emerged under the broad rubric of<a href="https://www.bttop.org/resources/publications/civic-studies"> “Civic Studies”</a>. </p>
<p>This encourages research and real-world projects which integrate empirical, cultural, and political knowledge as resources for community agency, societal co-creation and human flourishing. One example is the US-based <a href="https://www.margainc.com/aitf/">Anchor Institution Task Force</a>. This involves more than 700 universities and colleges which use their economic, physical and educational resources for community development. </p>
<p>One of the key elements of civic studies is public work, a framework of social action developed in partnership with other organisations. These include the <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/university-press/book/9780826522177">Institute for Democracy</a> in South Africa and other international partners. </p>
<p>Cultural evolution is the other stream. This provides resources for civic reconstruction of higher education. Key to this approach is the <a href="http://evonomics.com/the-only-woman-to-win-the-nobel-prize-economics-debunked/">work</a> of the late Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom, a co-founder of civic studies. Working with a network of international colleagues on collective governance of common pool resources, she refuted the rational individualism which has held sway over a great deal of social science across the world. </p>
<p>Her work helped in the <a href="https://wtf.tw/ref/ostrom_1990.pdf">translation</a> of cultural evolution science to meet the challenges of improving human societies.</p>
<p>Civic studies and cultural evolution show that human societies can succeed through cooperative efforts within and across groups. But this is only possible when members understand and pursue their interests with conscious regard for the well-being of all.</p>
<p>Higher education needs to take on this insight because it’s indispensable for revitalising human agency, flourishing communities, and active democracy. </p>
<p>It will also re-frame scholarship, teaching and public engagements. This needs to be in pursuit of ensuring that scholarship becomes an integral part <em>of</em> democratic life, not simply as a partner <em>with</em> society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s universities are detached from society because of a waning public and civic sector that once fueled the anti-apartheid struggle. Here’s what can be done.Peter Vale, Senior research fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of PretoriaHarry Boyte, Senior Scholar in Public Work Philosophy, Augsburg UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1180972019-06-27T07:42:39Z2019-06-27T07:42:39ZExtent of institutional racism in British universities revealed through hidden stories<p>“So how’s it going at work?” It’s a common question. The kind of question which normally opens a nice warm catch up between friends. But if you are a non-white academic, the question carries a different connotation.</p>
<p>You might respond to it with an eye-roll and a sigh, which tells your friend what they already know – work isn’t going well at all. For years I have been having this same conversation. It begins with that question. And just like that, we share.</p>
<p>We share the all too recognisable stories of racism. The frustrations and the relief that we are not alone, paranoid, or being unreasonable. These conversations equipped me mentally, they prepared me practically, and in doing so they have helped me to survive my workplace for the past 12 years.</p>
<p>But as I continued in my academic career, I soon got to thinking about all those people who were unable to share, who haven’t had the luxury of having others to speak to, who have felt alone, excluded and isolated. And so the foundations of my research began, as I sought to speak to those silent voices who as yet have not had the opportunity to fully communicate the depth and complexity of their answer to the question: “So how is work?”</p>
<h2>Endemic racism</h2>
<p>The fact is everyday racism is hiding behind a string of superficial tag lines that have come to brand universities across the UK. Myths about the “liberal” university can often be seen touted in marketing brochures, job announcements, and website pages, promoting the values and responsibilities of the institution.</p>
<p><strong>Myth 1: Universities encourage inclusivity and diversity</strong></p>
<p><strong>Myth 2: Universities invest in non-white academics</strong></p>
<p><strong>Myth 3: Universities are “post-racial”</strong></p>
<p><strong>Myth 4: Universities desire curriculum reform</strong></p>
<p><strong>Myth 5: Universities are committed to race equality</strong></p>
<p>Beyond these false advertising scams, the real message is clear and simple: racism in British universities is endemic. Academic research has pointed to this fact for <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Institutional-Racism-Higher-Education-Ian/dp/1858563135">well over a decade</a>. Alongside the studies, there is also a catalogue of data that explicitly shows the bleak prospects for non-white academics. For example, statistics around Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) representation in universities continue to demonstrate that non-white academics are marginalised from British universities.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>This article is part of Conversation Insights</strong></em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/introducing-conversation-insights-a-new-team-that-seeks-scoops-from-interdisciplinary-research-107119">Insights team</a> generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges. In generating these narratives we hope to bring areas of interdisciplinary research to a wider audience.</em></p>
<p><em>You can read more Insights stories <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Data generated from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) in 2012-2013 revealed that out of 17,880 professors, <a href="https://www.runnymedetrust.org/blog/the-experiences-of-black-and-minority-ethnic-academics">only 85 were black</a>, 950 were Asian, 365 were “other” (including mixed race). The majority of 15,200 were white.</p>
<p>In terms of black female professors, there are <a href="https://www.runnymedetrust.org/news/594/272/Black-Students-Must-do-Better-than-White-Students-to-get-into-University.html">just 17 in the entire British university system</a>. And in January 2017, for the third year in a row, HESA figures recorded <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jan/19/british-universities-employ-no-black-academics-in-top-roles-figures-show">no black academics in the elite staff category</a> of managers, directors and senior officials in 2015-2016.</p>
<p>As a result of this skewed landscape, non-white academics are on the whole less likely to be shortlisted, appointed, or promoted in comparison to their white counterparts. In addition to this, it has been reported that BME academics at top universities across Britain earn on average <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46473269">26% less than their white colleagues</a>.</p>
<p>The data is therefore showing us that very little has been done to encourage progress and racial equality in British universities. The failure of senior managers to accept or even acknowledge the existence of systematic racism operating in their universities, departments and boardrooms is where the heart of the problem lies. My research exposes the <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030142834">entrenched practices</a> of structural and everyday forms of racism in the white academy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/race-and-academia-diversity-among-uk-university-students-and-leaders-24988">Race and academia: diversity among UK university students and leaders</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Personal stories of racism</h2>
<p>I conducted 20 in-depth interviews ranging from early career, mid-career, and advanced career academics, working either as lecturers or researchers, on permanent, part-time or fixed-term contracts. I spoke with a fairly equal mix of male and female respondents, and they came from a range of racial, ethno-national, and religious groups based at Russell Group and post-1992 universities across Britain.</p>
<p>The research is a collection of different voices. These people shared with me their pain, their strength, their challenges, their courage, and their resistance to racism in the academy. Whether in their office, or in a coffee shop, the conversations flowed. For some, it was like they needed the space to finally get things off their chest – a kind of therapy session, where they could speak about their experiences in the academy.</p>
<p>There were tears, sometimes from them, and at other times from me. There was also a sense of defiance, perseverance, and hope. Some conversations were particularly emotional and harder than others. On some occasions, hours and even days after they had taken place, I found myself replaying their experiences in my head, overcome with a deep feeling of sadness that our bodies had all been injured in some way or another by systemic, structural, and symbolic manifestations of racism in our universities. </p>
<h2>‘Liberal’ racism</h2>
<p>Subtle practices of racism in the form of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/microaggressions-in-everyday-life/201010/racial-microaggressions-in-everyday-life">micro-aggressions</a> are often more challenging because they operate against the common sense understanding of racism as easily identifiable. My interviews reveal the way in which <a href="http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20180406-the-tiny-ways-youre-offensive---and-you-dont-even-know-it">micro-aggressions</a> – the everyday slights and indignities non-white people encounter all the time – are intensely bound up with forms of structural “liberal” racism.</p>
<p>In the British university setting, liberal racism is perhaps the most dominant form of racism practised by white faculty staff members. For Eduardo Bonilla Silva, <a href="https://sociology.duke.edu/people/eduardo-bonilla-silva">professor of Sociology at Duke University</a>, liberal racism – or what he characterises as “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Racism-without-Racists-Color-blind-Persistence/dp/1442202181">colourblind racism</a>” – takes the form “racism lite” or “smiling face discrimination”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1140564431325278209"}"></div></p>
<p>What is essentially being described here is the idea of the “post-racial” which signals an apparent “end” of racism. This post-racial logic has steadily cemented itself into the very culture of our universities. The idea that we are “over race” is precisely how racism is sustained. This manifests itself in the dismissal or trivialisation of racism and operates to both facilitate and embolden it. The liberal, post-racial culture of denial, which my interviewees say is operating in British universities, has meant the daily realities of racism experienced by non-white academics are obscured, as white faculty members are unable to conceive themselves as perpetrators of racism.</p>
<p>As one said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Racism is much more insidious in HE (Higher Education). It’s this idea that they don’t want to look bad that gets to me the most. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The notion that white colleagues are more nuanced in their exercise of racism – as they are keen to present themselves as “nice”, “respectable” and “tolerant” people –- was also echoed by another respondent: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>People in academia are a bit smarter, they’re more subtle and they understand what they can’t say. Everything is just a bit more institutionalised. But you get the sense that it’s also the place where things are unchecked. I think in general people try to be nice and they want to be nice but they have all these ingrained biases. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘Sometimes it’s just so damn subtle’</h2>
<p>My participants frequently felt that such enactments of liberal racism produced hidden forms of differential treatment, which in most cases could not be placed as direct discrimination due to their very subtleties. Another academic told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The problem with the day-to-day encounters of racism is that it’s difficult to pinpoint them down. I’ve felt that I’ve not been included a number of times, or I am the last person to be consulted on something. Sometimes it’s just so damn subtle. It’s in the gestures, it’s in what’s not said. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Feelings of otherness, marginality, and white discomfort around difference, were all common, everyday experiences. Those I spoke to shared examples of their names being mispronounced by white staff members, being mistaken for the only other academic of colour in the department and being made to feel both visible and invisible at the same time.</p>
<p>These daily realities are indicative of the racism lurking beneath the “liberal” university, in which white colleagues like to claim that they are tolerant, and certainly not racist. But the examples given by my interviewees show that when confronted with these situations they can only revert back to their ingrained biases.</p>
<p>My participants went on to point out that the lack of other minorities within the institution produced feelings of alienation and discomfort as they were positioned as “outsiders”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I always feel like an outsider in the academy … like I am the only one … my experience of the academy is that I’m a black man in a white world. All it takes is for you to go to a meeting and you immediately realise that the one thing that is missing here is colour – there is no colour … it’s a colourless environment.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280957/original/file-20190624-97766-zjael4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280957/original/file-20190624-97766-zjael4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280957/original/file-20190624-97766-zjael4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280957/original/file-20190624-97766-zjael4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280957/original/file-20190624-97766-zjael4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280957/original/file-20190624-97766-zjael4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280957/original/file-20190624-97766-zjael4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Are universities truly ‘post-racial’?.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/faculty-lecture-workshop-audience-hall-academic-240564688?src=rfLqlt-wRjbidbNSdpPTiQ-1-45&studio=1">Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Teaching and decolonising the curriculum</h2>
<p>The classroom is often thought to represent a “safe space” that encourages critical learning and the exchange of ideas. But it would be naive to simply suggest the classroom is free from antagonism because it sits within the broader university environment which is structured by institutional racism. </p>
<p>In fact, my research demonstrates how the classroom can often become a key site in which white students may express feelings of resentment and guilt, as well as a place to confront their privilege. One respondent recalled: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A white male undergraduate student challenged me on a series of issues when I explained the topic of political violence. He started to ask questions and make points that were Islamophobic. He was talking about child molestation by the Prophet Muhammad, how Islam had been a religion spread by the sword, how Muslims believed in female genital mutilation, and so on. I was constantly having to explain and defend a religion of over a billion people, because somehow in the eyes of the student, I was Islam. So I found that to be a really uncomfortable experience.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All my participants said they were made to feel as though they lacked authority and credibility by many of their students. The notion of having to “prove” themselves was an experience that came up time and again. These incidents demonstrate the insidious workings of racism at play, whereby non-white academics have to almost always go the extra mile to prove their competence.</p>
<p>For example, another participant recalled how students “snigger”, “roll their eyes” and walk out of their classes and how uncomfortable this makes them:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I start sweating, I start rushing my material and I just want to get it over with because it’s such a horrible experience. They make out over and over again that I don’t know what I’m talking about, or that I’m biased and it makes me extremely uncomfortable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From direct insults, to accusations of being biased, my interviews reveal that for some non-white academics, teaching can be a challenging experience. By being made to feel as though they lack authority or having to prove themselves, non-white academics encounter disruptive behaviour that is fundamentally racialised in nature.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whiteness-characterises-higher-education-institutions-so-why-are-we-surprised-by-racism-93147">Whiteness characterises higher education institutions – so why are we surprised by racism?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The inability of the <a href="https://thetab.com/uk/2017/08/31/russell-group-unis-have-a-serious-diversity-problem-these-are-the-ones-with-the-fewest-bme-students-46742">largely white student body</a> to critically reflect upon their own histories, practices, and structures of oppression is symptomatic of white privilege, white entitlement and a lack of awareness of other cultures in general.</p>
<p>This suggests the need for universities to take seriously calls to decolonise the curriculum as a way to dismantle discourses and practices that reaffirm white superiority. Currently, intellectual agendas in British universities operate to maintain a narrow, inward looking perspective that reinforces the logics of <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/574/57454/orientalism/9780141187426.html">Orientalism</a> (the Western attitude that views Eastern societies as exotic, primitive, and inferior).</p>
<p>The call to decolonise seeks to equip students with more complex and critical understandings of global debates and issues as a way to generate more productive and insightful accounts, beyond eurocentric narratives. Decolonising the curriculum is vital to both the transformation of higher education and the development of inclusive, non-hostile spaces where difference is respected, not denigrated. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1141718949664567304"}"></div></p>
<h2>Career progression</h2>
<p>On the surface, universities have strutted out various strategies that seem to <a href="https://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/">promote positive action around equality</a>.</p>
<p>But beneath these jamborees the reality is dire. My respondents shared their experiences of being unsupported in applications for promotion, a lack of mentoring, job insecurity, and an overwhelming sense of being undervalued. The obstacles and challenges that they have encountered in relation to hiring practices and career progression are immense and for the most part <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/90-of-black-staff-at-uk-s-colleges-at-universities-facing-barriers-to-promotion-a6860661.html">appear impossible to overcome</a>. One of my interviewees said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t get the support networks, I don’t get the mentoring, but I get overburdened with teaching. I don’t see a future where I will progress. I see my white colleagues being encouraged, but that never seems to happen to me. There really is no support. It’s dismal. </p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-post-racial-british-society-remains-a-myth-even-in-universities-93607">Why a post-racial British society remains a myth – even in universities</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Both my research and my own personal experience have shown that non-white academics are at a real loss without proper mentoring. It is so often the case that we go to other non-white academics (externally and informally), who take on mentoring in an unofficial capacity. This support has often been crucial for us, however, at the same time – as my respondents pointed out – it is utterly disgraceful that they have had to actively seek support in other places as a result of their own institutions failing to provide them with sufficient or appropriate mentoring.</p>
<p>Feelings of being “expendable” or “disposable” were common across my interviewees who frequently said employment opportunities tended to be “rigged” in favour of white candidates.</p>
<p>The inability to access (white) hidden rules or (white) hidden networks was a common experience across my interviews. The academics felt their future prospects, particularly in terms of promotion, were negatively impacted as a consequence. One said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve always struggled to know what the rules are. I’ve gone to sessions on what you need to do to get promoted, but I think there’s a whole set of hidden rules that I don’t know or that I can’t find out and that’s frustrating.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It comes as no surprise then that many of my respondents, despite having all the skills and knowledge, often found themselves continuously blocked from promotion and career advancement opportunities that were frequently afforded to their less established, white peers. </p>
<p>Another respondent commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I know people are less experienced than me, who might have a similar role, but are on higher pay and at a higher grade. I look at the rate at which white colleagues are promoted and I often think how have they got that? I thought promotion was to be based on your value and what you put in, and it seems that isn’t the case. This is definitely about race.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile another academic said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have to be exceptional just to be ordinary. And I’m so sad this has manifested in higher education the way that it has. There’s no reprieve for us, there’s no meritocracy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Discriminatory practices are entrenched within the university environment. My respondents felt that no amount of achievements could surpass whiteness, in other words, meritocracy in the academy is a myth. If non-white academics are to feel truly valued and supported then a series of structural, intellectual, and ethical obligations, must be implemented in higher education to ensure advancement and inclusion for all.</p>
<p>There must be a commitment across the university sector that recognises racism as a fundamentally structural issue. This means engaging with strategies that actively promote the inclusion of non-white academics <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/15/chelsea-kwakye-and-ore-ogunbiyi-taking-up-space-merky-books-interview">and students</a> (including those who are classified as international) to ensure that their needs are being addressed appropriately. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280984/original/file-20190624-97745-1cu0wfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280984/original/file-20190624-97745-1cu0wfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280984/original/file-20190624-97745-1cu0wfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280984/original/file-20190624-97745-1cu0wfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280984/original/file-20190624-97745-1cu0wfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280984/original/file-20190624-97745-1cu0wfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280984/original/file-20190624-97745-1cu0wfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Universities need to take steps to live up to their liberal reputations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-glasgow-scotland-uk-644108704?src=tPCsPpkTfAYOkFS-poFIww-1-0&studio=1">CappaPhoto/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those of us from non-white backgrounds working and studying within British universities are quite simply fed up of the racism that we continue to endure on a daily basis. If universities are serious about tackling racism, discrimination and under-representation they must take the following steps. </p>
<p>1) Senior management must set annual targets to increase BME representation. To ensure this process is formalised, they must implement a systematic monitoring unit to measure hiring rates of BME staff and student admissions against targets. Regular audits of the data must be made available to all staff and failure to meet quotas should result in penalties.</p>
<p>2) Race equality needs to be on the agenda in every department across every university in the UK. Management committee meetings must report on these issues as a standing item to demonstrate the work that they are doing to tackle institutional racism.</p>
<p>3) Mentoring schemes for new and current BME staff members need be formalised, and they should be partnered with a colleague who is sensitive and fully committed to supporting their needs around career progression and personal development.</p>
<p>4) Promotions committees must take equality issues into special consideration for BME applicants.</p>
<p>5) An independent ombudsman must be established who can properly investigate racist and other discriminatory practices.</p>
<p>6) A commitment to decolonising the curriculum must be led by university management. </p>
<p>7) University and departmental policies on race equality must be fully implemented and formally reviewed and updated on an annual basis.</p>
<p>For too long, non-white academics have been absent from the conversation. We need to feel like we are included within the debate and that our voices matter. The day-to-day and structural racist operations of the university need to be systematically reviewed and these failures need to be addressed seriously. Race equality must be practised in the academy, not just preached. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Katy Sian’s new book <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030142834">Navigating Institutional Racism in British Universities</a> is published by Palgrave Macmillan.</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
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<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-neuroscience-of-terrorism-how-we-convinced-a-group-of-radicals-to-let-us-scan-their-brains-114855?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The neuroscience of terrorism: how we convinced a group of radicals to let us scan their brains</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/they-put-a-few-coins-in-your-hands-to-drop-a-baby-in-you-265-stories-of-haitian-children-abandoned-by-un-fathers-114854?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">‘They put a few coins in your hands to drop a baby in you’ – 265 stories of Haitian children abandoned by UN fathers</a></em></p></li>
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</ul>
<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is based on my recently published book: Navigating Institutional Racism in British Universities, Palgrave Macmillan. </span></em></p>It’s time race equality was practised in the academy, not just preached.Katy Sian, Lecturer in Sociology, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1171032019-05-14T14:33:47Z2019-05-14T14:33:47ZThe background story to a statue of Gandhi and the University of Ghana<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274343/original/file-20190514-60537-167evc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1000%2C541&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gandhi's statue, which sat in this quad at the University of Ghana, caused great controversy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">TG23/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In December 2018, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/14/racist-gandhi-statue-removed-from-university-of-ghana">was removed</a> from the University of Ghana’s campus in response to protests from students and staff. They argued that the Indian activist had been a racist who denigrated black Africans. Professor Ernest Aryeetey was the university’s Vice-Chancellor when the statue was erected. Here, he explains how the university made the decision to accept the statue, a gift from the Indian government, in 2016.</em></p>
<p>I received a request in early 2016 through my secretary that the Indian High Commissioner would like to come and see me. We knew each other quite well from several events at which we’d met. When he came, he indicated that the President of India was going to pay <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pranab-mukherjee-first-indian-president-to-visit-ghana/story-pZf5c3tE6QTKxJKnYmKSxK.html">a state visit</a> to Ghana, and wanted to visit our university. </p>
<p>He also informed me that it was customary for the President to make a presentation to the people of any country he visited. Traditionally, this had been a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, world famous for his role as the father and architect of <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/india-and-pakistan-win-independence">Indian independence in 1947</a>. My first thought was, “Is the President going to carry a statue all the way from New Delhi to Accra?” The answer was “yes”. </p>
<p>The High Commissioner informed me that the visit and the gift had already been discussed and agreed with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the President of Ghana. We ended the meeting with me assuring him that we would think about it and get back to him.</p>
<p>I used the time to read quite a bit about Gandhi and came to understand better what he stood for. </p>
<h2>Gandhi</h2>
<p>I learned that he was 23 years old when he went to South Africa and lived there for many years. I read things attributed to him that were undoubtedly racist under any circumstance. </p>
<p>I read how he referred to blacks as “kaffirs” in some of his early writings and immediately remembered that <a href="http://www.cilt.uct.ac.za/usr/cci/publications/aria/download_issues/2004/2004_MS4.pdf">derogatory expression</a> from my reading of the Christian leader <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Prester-John-legendary-ruler">Prester John</a> at school. It was obvious to me that in the early days, he saw his fight to liberate Indians from oppressive laws imposed by white men, as being different from that of the struggle of the black man. </p>
<p>I also read that he later joined hands with some black groups to resist white oppression. As I read more and more about him, I couldn’t help seeing that the Gandhi that came to the attention of the world in the 1930s and 1940s, and gave the British Empire so many headaches, was very different from the young lawyer who had arrived in South Africa a few years after leaving the UK. </p>
<p>I understood that Gandhi was celebrated for the things he taught the world in his later years, through his writings, ideas and lifestyle. He was celebrated for seeking peace for all the peoples of the world.</p>
<p>Having understood the context of Gandhi’s fame and renown, I had no difficulty in informing a meeting of the senior management of the university that I thought we should accept the request. There was some resistance, but ultimately the meeting decided that the statue was acceptable to the university. It was to be located at the recreational quadrangle behind the Balme Library.</p>
<h2>Some dissent</h2>
<p>A couple of weeks after the President’s visit and the statue’s unveiling, I saw an email on the university’s mail system questioning the appropriateness of having the statue of Gandhi on the campus. The main argument was that Gandhi was racist. A few others responded, echoing this belief.</p>
<p>Rather uncharacteristically, I decided to respond. I knew full well how such misinformation could get out of hand. I had also experienced first-hand at South Africa’s University of Cape Town how the “Rhodes must fall” campaign had been hijacked by self-seekers. </p>
<p>So I wrote a carefully crafted response on the intranet, and also indicated to the authors of the misinformation that I was ready to debate them. It was obvious that they were not used to debates, even though they were on a university campus. They were used to sending out poor opinions and no one questioning them. After my intervention the misinformation fizzled out.</p>
<p>I completed my term as Vice-Chancellor in July 2016. Weeks later, the issue flared up again and the statue was ultimately removed.</p>
<p>There is still no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the University of Ghana had the authority to take the decision it did to accept and erect the statue. The proper procedures were followed. And the country’s government fully endorsed our actions.</p>
<h2>The issue of racism</h2>
<p>I have come to view the experiences of Gandhi as very similar to the <a href="http://www1.cbn.com/biblestudy/how-saul-became-the-apostle-paul">transformation of Saul into Paul in the Bible</a>. Once I accept the conversion of Paul, I can very easily forgive the early Gandhi. There are no explicit accounts of a transformation like Saul’s, but the tone of Gandhi’s writings changed significantly over time.</p>
<p>The young lawyer made what I would easily describe as very racist remarks in his campaign to gain more rights for the Indian in South Africa. He showed very little interest in the affliction of the black man and believed that the black man’s fight was different from that of Indians. </p>
<p>When he left South Africa and returned to India, and came face to face with the Indian caste system, he saw it as being as dehumanising as what Indians and black people went through in South Africa. He found the poor Indian to be not any better off than the Indians in South Africa. </p>
<p>In his writings about self-government and independence, he emphasised peaceful coexistence with all races. He spent time teaching people how to resist oppression in a peaceful way. It is this pursuit of peaceful coexistence of the races that caught the world’s respect and attention. This is what attracted Martin Luther King to his ideas. It is this same ideal that he shared with Nelson Mandela. Indeed, this is what inspired Ghana’s own <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/nkrumah-kwame">Kwame Nkrumah</a> to speak about what he learned from Gandhi.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ernest Aryeetey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gandhi was celebrated for the things he taught the world in his later years, through his writings, ideas and lifestyle. He was celebrated for seeking peace for all the peoples of the world.Ernest Aryeetey, Professor of Economics, University of GhanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1095822019-01-10T13:36:09Z2019-01-10T13:36:09ZThe University of Cape Town’s recent history matters as much as its past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253047/original/file-20190109-32151-1kcarwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UCT will honour Sarah Baartman by naming a hall after her.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The crown jewel in <a href="http://www.uct.ac.za/">University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s)</a> symmetrically pleasing main campus is its hall. The campus lies in linear regularity against the iconic backdrop of Devil’s Peak, part of the spectacular mountain range that circles the city. The triangular parapet of the hall reaches for the peak even as its steps cascade down towards the busy streets of Rondebosch, the suburb below. </p>
<p>With UCT ranking as the <a href="http://www.uct.ac.za/main/research/rankings">top university on the continent</a>, this stock image has come to symbolise more than just one campus, but African excellence itself.</p>
<p>The physical view of the campus changed forever in 2015, with the removal of the brooding statue of British colonialist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a> at the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32236922">foot of the staircase</a>. Now, in 2019, the scene will change symbolically too. Jameson Memorial Hall stands, but its name falls: going forward, it will be known as the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/uct-renames-jammie-memorial-hall-to-sarah-baartman-hall-20181213">Sarah Baartman Hall</a>. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/sara-saartjie-baartman">Baartman</a>, a Khoi woman sold into slavery and eventually exhibited as a curiosity in England in the late 18th Century, has long been a powerful symbolic figure in contemporary South Africa. This remarkable UCT turnabout moves the commemoration narrative. As the <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2018-12-13-renaming-memorial-hall-sarah-baartman-hall">official UCT announcement</a> notes, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is fitting that Baartman, a victim of colonial inhumanity, should replace a perpetrator of colonial crimes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The announcement was made by incoming Vice-Chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng in her December 2018 robing ceremony. It had, in fact, been in the works from <a href="https://theconversation.com/decolonisation-debate-is-a-chance-to-rethink-the-role-of-universities-63840">2015’s Fallism protest movement</a>. At the time then-Vice-Chancellor Max Price created a task team and <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2016-06-23-council-agrees-to-change-name-of-jameson-hall">invited renaming suggestions</a>. At that point, Jameson Hall, named after Rhodes’ political ally <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dr-leander-starr-jameson">Leander Starr Jameson</a>, was temporarily given the generic placeholder of Memorial Hall. This was a gesture to the centrality of institutional memory, but strategically vague as to what kind of memory that should be.</p>
<p>Now, after extensive consultation both within the university community and with Khoi community representatives, the decision has been made. It’s one the university itself is naming “potent” and “historic.” But how radical is it?</p>
<p>It’s undoubtedly encouraging - more than that, exciting - to see UCT nail their colours to the mast in what feels like an embrace of structural transformation, not to mention a powerful signal of a commitment to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-will-take-critical-thorough-scrutiny-to-truly-decolonise-knowledge-78477">decolonial</a> agenda.</p>
<p>Yet I have reservations.</p>
<h2>A much deeper problem</h2>
<p>Let us be frank: Sarah Baartman Hall is not named as an abstract decolonial gesture. It’s not a simple symbolic reference to a closed chapter of history, chosen at random from hundreds of alumni submissions. It is so named explicitly because of the direct trauma that people of colour experienced from the ongoing campus exhibition of an underclad statue of Baartman from 2000 to 2018 in the Science and Technology section of the main library. The statue stood not 200 metres from the main hall. </p>
<p>These are not marginal concerns: in response to <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/quarrel-over-sarah-baartman-sculpture-at-uct-20180303">escalating and often powerfully performative campus protests</a>, the UCT public artworks committee held an interactive exhibition of the statue last year entitled <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2018-09-21-dignifying-sarah-baartman">“Sarah ‘Saartjie’ Baartman: a Call to Respond.”</a></p>
<p>More, the Hall is named because of the repeated strategies students adopted, including the use of the statue to expose, as it were, the hostility of an under-transformed university environment where they themselves continued to feel unwelcome, a curiosity. The statue, by Willie Bester, was exhibited as recently as October 4 last year. The uneasy campus culture is ongoing.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Barbour</span></span>
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<p>There surely can be no Sarah Baartman Hall without acknowledgement of Sarah Baartman’s entwined history with the land – and legacy – of Rhodes at the institution. Yet these potent contestations are entirely absent from the <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2018-12-13-renaming-memorial-hall-sarah-baartman-hall">university’s announcement</a> of the name change. This frames Baartman’s “humiliation” as ending in 2002 with the restitution of her remains from France’s <em>Musée de l'Homme</em> and <a href="http://www.baviaans.net/listing/sarah-bartman">ceremonial interment in Hankey, Eastern Cape </a>.</p>
<p>There is no mention of Bester’s statue, no mention of the countless protests, debates and performative interventions staged around the symbolism of Baartman’s body that have marked the past 18 years of campus engagement with the statue.</p>
<p>Baartman’s name can be elevated to the highest point of the campus, but if it is not accepted that her legacy is built into every brick, each classroom and every interaction, the honour is more than hollow, it is inappropriate. Baartman has, after all, been the figurehead for countless ideologies, both in and out of her time. To place her historic name on a building while eliding the contemporary pain that prompted this naming from its origin story is to make Sarah Baartman once again an object to gaze at in a centre of learning.</p>
<h2>The alternative</h2>
<p>But that doesn’t have to be the case. For this gesture to stand in the spirit for which it was clearly (and commendably) chosen, the university must own its own institutional complicity in Baartman’s – and South Africa’s – loaded history and institutional culture that continue to alienate students and staff of colour from fully being at home on campus. To move forward meaningfully there must be a frank acknowledgement that Rhodes’ legacy did not end in 2015 and a clear commitment to practical as well as symbolic change.</p>
<p>The naming decision has garnered overwhelmingly positive responses, with graduating students taking to social media in droves, expressing what it meant to them to graduate in a hall bearing the name of Baartman. I certainly share this joy. But we shouldn’t let the renaming of a hall overshadow the need for careful institutional and self-examination. </p>
<p>The Vice Chancellor has demonstrated a powerful understanding of being the change she wants to see at UCT. Her donation of part of her inauguration budget to pay student debt was a remarkable combination of symbolic and deeply practical gesture. Under her leadership, the university must surely be best placed to open up space for transformation, not close down debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carla Lever receives funding from the American Society of Theatre Research (ASTR) to research statue-based protest and performance in SA and the US. She is a research fellow at the University of Cape Town, examining protest, spectacle and commemoration in Cape Town.</span></em></p>Sarah Baartman’s name can be elevated to the highest point of the University of Cape Town’s campus, but if her legacy isn’t built into each classroom and interaction the honour is hollow.Carla Lever, Research Fellow at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/931472018-03-09T17:28:54Z2018-03-09T17:28:54ZWhiteness characterises higher education institutions – so why are we surprised by racism?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209730/original/file-20180309-30983-ccpomn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cambridge-england-may-13-row-statues-290245856?src=1NRuP1zDP7T5VrLGjvXE7g-1-70"> PlusONE / Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rufaro Chisango, a black student at Nottingham Trent University, <a href="https://twitter.com/rufarochisango_/status/971452205181161472">tweeted a video</a> of students chanting “we hate the blacks” outside of her dorm. This shockingly racist abuse has quite rightly drawn <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/08/we-hate-black-people-british-university-student-films-racial-slurs-outside-her-bedroom/?utm_term=.bf459d8b5047">widespread condemnation</a>. </p>
<p>Whenever someone does something explicitly racist, it’s often framed as an <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-kenski/racism-is-not-isolated_b_8106230.html">isolated incident</a>. This doesn’t just misrepresent the experiences of black and minority ethnic (or BAME) students, <a href="https://www.nus.org.uk/en/news/racism-widespread-across-uk-education-system-report-shows/">who face racism in many forms</a> on a daily basis – it obscures the structural and institutional nature of racism. </p>
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<p>It’s important and necessary to reprimand the offending students. But that’s the easy part. To make meaningful change, interventions need to go to the roots of the problem. Although the number of BAME students attending university <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/analysis/HEinEngland/students/">is increasing far quicker</a> than white students, black students report <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ethnic-minority-students-less-satisfied-university-experience">lower levels of satisfaction</a> than other racial groups. They are also <a href="https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/bme_summit_final_report.pdf">more likely to “drop out”</a>, and have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/28/white-students-better-degrees-minorities-same-grades-universities">lower attainment levels</a> than their white peers – even when they enter university with the same grades. </p>
<p>The outcomes and experiences of black students in academia are symptomatic of institutions where white power structures have long dominated. This makes black students and staff seem out of place and lays the ground for experiences such as Chisango’s. Over the past few years, student-led campaigns have gone to great pains to point out the mechanisms that maintain the whiteness of higher education. Perhaps those of us committed to change should listen.</p>
<h2>Race and representation</h2>
<p>The student-led “<a href="https://www.nus.org.uk/en/news/why-is-my-curriculum-white/">Why is my Curriculum White?</a>” campaign has challenged the white and euro-centric nature of the curricula in higher education. One interviewee for the campaign recalled an undergraduate modern history course, which covered the topic of empire over a week, looking at the economic competition between European countries, with all of her readings reportedly written by white academics. She is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/06/how-britains-old-empire-lives-on-in-universities">not alone</a>. In a <a href="https://www.nus.org.uk/en/news/racism-widespread-across-uk-education-system-report-shows/">2011 report </a> conducted by the NUS, almost half of black students noted a lack of diversity in their curriculum. </p>
<p>Overwhelmingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-take-the-curriculum-back-from-dead-white-men-40268">white, male canons</a> are too often the norm in universities, making it seem like intellectual thought is the preserve of white people. Blackness, then, appears not to belong in universities. </p>
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<p>In the Why Isn’t my Professor Black campaign, students have drawn our attention to the <a href="https://robbieshilliam.wordpress.com/2016/07/10/black-academia-1-2/">lack of black professors</a> – and particularly black women professors – and the problems that arise from such under-representation. Only <a href="https://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/equality-higher-education-statistical-report-2015/">1.19% of British staff</a> on academic contracts are black – far less than the proportion of black people in the broader population, which is 3.3%. </p>
<p>The whiteness of the teaching staff reinforces the whiteness of the curricula, which both work to reinforce the association between whiteness and intellect. All this contributes to the conditions that make racism possible in higher education. </p>
<h2>Rocking the foundations</h2>
<p>Student campaigns have also brought attention to some of the ways that the myth of white intellectual superiority is perpetuated on campuses worldwide. #RhodesMustFall campaigners highlighted Cecil Rhodes’ role in histories of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-cecil-john-rhodes-said-in-his-will-about-who-should-get-scholarships-53172">racism, colonialism and genocide</a>. In so doing, those students have shown that their institution simply does not treat racism and colonialism with the seriousness that it deserves. </p>
<p>As those campaigners <a href="https://rmfoxford.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/041115rmfpressrelease1.pdf">called for</a> a more diverse curriculum and greater BAME representation in the teaching force, there was a clear sense that these different issues were interlinked, and acted to reinforce the university as a space for white people – but not for people of colour.</p>
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<p>The “I, too, am” campaign started at Harvard in 2017, before quickly spreading to UK campuses – most notably Oxford. Holding up boards that noted the derogatory slights and snubs – known as “microaggressions” – faced by BAME students on a daily basis, the campaigners sought to <a href="http://itooamoxford.tumblr.com/">highlight that</a> “in their daily encounters at Oxford, students of colour are made to feel different and othered from the Oxford community”. </p>
<p>These microaggressions occur partly as a consequence of the whiteness that characterises higher education institutions – and, in turn, they act to reaffirm those conditions. Many students of colour are acutely aware of these cycles, which is why they demand that discussions about race should be taken seriously, and that meaningful changes should occur. </p>
<p>By looking again at the campaigns led by student of colour over the past few years, we can begin to see more clearly the institutional conditions that give rise to abhorrent racist incidents. To meaningfully tackle racism in higher education, we must listen when students point out how universities create conditions where black students are seen as being out of place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Remi Joseph-Salisbury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Student-led campaigns have been calling out racism in universities for years. After a shocking incident at Nottingham Trent University, perhaps we should start to listen.Remi Joseph-Salisbury, Senior Lecturer, Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/813062017-08-21T19:03:04Z2017-08-21T19:03:04ZSouth African universities need to rethink how they invest their millions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182109/original/file-20170815-26751-103xl1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Rhodes Must Fall movement accused the University of Cape Town of having blood on its hands for investing in the mining company Lonmin. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Barbour/flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Universities are no longer simply institutions of learning. Over the past 50 years, they have also become important players in global financial markets. They have become institutional investors. </p>
<p>Universities have to decide what to do with the pension fund contributions of their staff. They also receive large monetary donations from alumni and other private donors. This money – millions, sometimes billions of dollars – goes into university investment funds. These can be managed internally or delegated to investment managers. </p>
<p>Harvard University in the US has the biggest endowment fund in the world with <a href="https://thebestschools.org/features/richest-universities-endowments-generosity-research/">USD$32.7 billion</a>, while university endowment funds in the UK hold between <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/analysis-which-university-has-the-deepest-pockets/163860.article">£2.5 million and £1 billion</a>. Pension funds in the US and UK are even more substantial. For example, the California University pension fund boasts more than <a href="https://www.towerswatson.com/en-GB/Insights/IC-Types/Survey-Research-Results/2015/09/The-worlds-300-largest-pension-funds-year-end-2014">USD$70 billion</a>.</p>
<p>University funds in southern Africa are much smaller, but some are still significant. According to our calculations, the universities with the largest endowments are all in South Africa, with the top five representing a little less than USD$1 billion collectively. The pension funds of the top 10 universities in the region come to around USD$3,6 billion. </p>
<p>The question of how universities choose to invest all this money is increasingly coming under scrutiny. In the <a href="https://gofossilfree.org/commitments/">US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand</a> universities’ pension funds and endowment funds are starting to align their investment portfolios with the social concerns of their students and staff.</p>
<h2>Putting assets to work for a better world</h2>
<p>In the 1970s student and staff activists at US universities put serious pressure on their managements to stop investing in companies involved in the Vietnam war or, later on, in apartheid South Africa.</p>
<p>Today climate change is the issue that’s increasingly dominating the activist agenda on university campuses. Since 2012, <a href="https://350.org/">350.org</a>, a climate change activist movement, has been pushing for total <a href="https://fossilfreesa.org.za/">disinvestment from fossil fuels</a> – with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/22/leonardo-dicaprio-joins-26tn-fossil-fuel-divestment-movement">some significant victories </a>. Student activists in the US have also called successfully for disinvestment from <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-uc-divestment-prisons-20151226-story.html">prisons</a>.</p>
<p>In 2005 the UN established a responsible investment coalition called the <a href="https://www.unpri.org/">Principles for Responsible Investment</a>. Signatories pledge to invest according to <a href="https://www.unpri.org/about">six principles</a>, aiming to achieve long-term sustainable investment returns and benefits for society as a whole. So far over 1000 investment managers <a href="https://www.unpri.org/directory/">have signed up</a>, making it the biggest coalition of this kind in the world.</p>
<p>A few academic institutions have signed up too. Harvard’s USD$35 billion <a href="http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/04/harvard-to-sign-on-to-united-nations-supported-principles-for-responsible-investment/">University Endowment Scheme</a> joined in 2014. And at least four retirement funds, endowment funds or foundations linked to tertiary education institutions in the US and Europe <a href="https://www.unpri.org/signatory-directory/?co=&sta=3%2C5&sti=&sts=&sa=join&si=join&ss=join&q=">signed up</a> this year. As was the case with Harvard, this has often happened under pressure from student activists. </p>
<h2>Progress at South African universities</h2>
<p>So far no universities in South Africa or Africa have signed the principles. But there are signs that the idea of responsible investment is starting to gain some traction – especially within the heightened activism at South African universities.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://fossilfreesa.org.za/">South Africa fossil free disinvestment campaign</a> has made significant progress at the University of Cape Town. After a four-year campaign, the university’s convocation of alumni and students this year voted to <a href="https://fossilfreesa.org.za/2017/03/02/coal-oil-and-gas-investments-to-be-phased-out-uct-convocation-votes/">support a motion</a> to disinvest from fossil fuels.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/03/28/395608605/why-south-african-students-say-the-statue-of-rhodes-must-fall">Rhodes Must Fall</a> movement also brought the issue of workers’ exploitation into focus. It accused leadership at the University of Cape Town of having <a href="http://www.groundup.org.za/article/rhodes-must-fall-uct-lonmin-and-pension-funds_3263/">blood on its hands</a> for being invested in Lonmin at the time of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana Massacre</a>.</p>
<p>This was closely followed by nationwide <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2016-10-10-feesmustfall-the-eye-of-the-hurricane/#.WZLXtoSGOM8">Fees Must Fall</a> protests. Protesters called on government to provide free education for all. In doing so, they challenged the idea that universities should operate as businesses according to free market principles. They also challenged the role of the university in society by calling for decolonisation of the institution.</p>
<p>Since then the University of Cape Town’s council <a href="https://fossilfreesa.org.za/about/uct-campaign-timeline/">has agreed</a> to design a responsible investment policy. This makes it the first known Southern African university to do so.</p>
<h2>Paradigm shift</h2>
<p>For this movement to truly take off in Southern Africa’s universities, there needs to be a paradigm shift at the level of university management.</p>
<p>As stressed by the <a href="http://www.ucop.edu/investment-office/_files/sustainable-investment-framework.pdf">University of California</a>, becoming a responsible investor is not about giving up on financial returns. Rather it’s about finding ways to achieve these while addressing societal challenges and opportunities. A responsible investor can decide to disinvest from environmentally and socially harmful sectors, but also to support new investment opportunities such as renewable energy. </p>
<p>An institutional investor that takes its responsibility towards future generations seriously should reflect on its values to take informed decisions on how financial returns can be better achieved. Fortunately it’s becoming easier to do this thanks to a surge in innovative investment strategies and funds that seek to achieve both good financial returns and positive social impacts. The <a href="http://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/impact-barometer">African Investing for Impact Barometer</a> – a research project that we run for the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UCT Graduate School of Business – charts the rise of opportunities like this and shows that impact investing on the continent is booming. </p>
<p>This trend, combined with activism, can persuade universities to become more proactive, creative and responsible investors. </p>
<p>Student and staff activists have clearly begun to interrogate the links between social and environmental issues and their universities’ investment choices. For university management, these questions present an opportunity to think about how their investment portfolios can be used address the social concerns of their students and staff. Universities – being both institutional investors and places of education – can ultimately find improved investment solutions that create a more sustainable future for the generations of learners to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Giamporcaro receives funding from Government of Flanders</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Xolisa Dhlamini is on a Bertha Scholarship for his PhD Studies funded by the Bertha Centre, a specialized unit within the UCT Graduate School of Business. Xolisa volunteers as a member of the investment subcommittee at the Institute for Retirement Funds Africa (IRFA). </span></em></p>Universities have the power to transform society not just through how they operate their campuses, but also through how they invest their endowments and pensions funds.Stephanie Giamporcaro, Associate professor UCT GSB / Readership Responsible and Sustainable Finance NTU NBS, University of Cape TownXolisa Dhlamini, PhD Candidate and Bertha Scholar and Researcher, UCT Graduate School of Business, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/821802017-08-16T16:22:38Z2017-08-16T16:22:38ZThe end of South African universities?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182060/original/file-20170815-29240-lzkmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa needs reflective leadership at its universities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Atherstone/flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jonathan Jansen, vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State in South Africa until a year ago, has written a book on the country’s higher education sector. <a href="http://www.tafelberg.com/Books/19964">As by Fire – The End of the South African University</a> is one of a number of recent books that set out to make sense of the current crisis in South African universities. </p>
<p>The crisis began in early 2015 with the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2015-03-26-rhodesmustfall-protest-spreads-to-other-campuses">#RhodesMustFall protests</a> and gained momentum over the course of 2015. These protests fuelled, and eventually overtook the national <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/world/africa/fees-must-fall-anatomy-of-the-student-protests-in-south-africa.html">#FeesMustFall movement</a>. The underlying economic, cultural and political issues that drove the protests remain largely unresolved. </p>
<p>As by Fire is structured around three main questions: What in fact happened? Why did it happen? And what does the protest crisis mean for the future of South African universities? </p>
<p>Jansen draws on his own experience as well as interviews with 11 vice-chancellors in the country. His conclusion is: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In a nutshell, there is no future, and </p>
<p>What we are witnessing is a full system meltdown.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are several problems with Jansen’s apocalyptic thesis. </p>
<h2>An irresponsible thesis</h2>
<p>Firstly, for a scholar of Jansen’s calibre, the analysis lacks a broad comparative perspective. His main reference point is the story of failing universities on the rest of the continent. </p>
<p>Jansen doesn’t make any comparisons to <a href="http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/812719/">student protests across the globe</a> – in Hong Kong, Canada, Chile, the UK, the US and Turkey, to name a few. These were also characterised by occupations of leaderless movements, threats of violence by police and militant students, reassertion of identity politics in curriculum and political stalemate.</p>
<p>A more thorough comparative analysis of what is happening in South Africa in relation to continental and global trends could have led to a more constructive conclusion that posed a range of future scenarios instead of a single “no future” story.</p>
<p>The more serious problem with Jansen’s “no future” thesis is that it’s irresponsible. Someone of Jansen’s profile has tremendous power to shape the narrative. And how South Africans interpret the events of the past two years shapes how the sector will go forward. In other words, his conclusion has consequences. Why would academics stay if they believed Jansen’s predictions with the certainty that he projects them? Why would students apply? Why would donors invest? </p>
<p>In the final few paragraphs Jansen attempts to wave a small flag of hope by appealing to civic action under the banners of free education for the poor and the right to education for all. This is an unconvincing attempt to end the book on a happier note.</p>
<h2>An important perspective on leadership</h2>
<p>What the book does offer is a view of university leaders under crisis – a close-up, zoomed-in, largely unedited perspective of 11 VC’s “under fire”, in some cases, literally. This is why the book will be of interest to anyone in higher education management.</p>
<p>The extensive literature of higher education leadership and management needs more of this kind of “in the trenches” study – leaders describing in their own words what it feels like to be flattened between a rock and a hard place, managing competing and contradictory demands from all sides while always under the watch of an unsympathetic media. </p>
<p>The book presents a view of leaders in a lose-lose situation, required to make on-the-spot judgement calls. The reader gets a close-up view of the ways in which they worked tirelessly to defend their institutions and were battered from every side. And Jansen is right to expose the extreme pressure and the personal costs that the VCs and their families paid. The accounts expose both their vulnerability and their resilience. </p>
<p>Jansen concludes by arguing that what’s needed more than ever before is </p>
<blockquote>
<p>university leadership that is both compassionate in speaking to the student heart and competent in leading our universities in a demanding world of teaching, research, and public duty.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The missed opportunity of the book is that Jansen doesn’t explicitly extract from his interviewees what that compassionate competence looks like. In retrospect, what do they think they did right? What do they regret? What did they learn as leaders in crisis about the complexities of leading a university community at this stage of South Africa’s democracy?</p>
<p>Rebecca Solnit, American activist and author of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/15/rebecca-solnit-hope-in-the-dark-new-essay-embrace-unknown">Hope in the Dark</a>, writes of the times we are living in that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>this is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It’s also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What South Africa’s universities need from their leaders now is not prophecies of doom, but deeper reflection on the transformative potential of this difficult historical moment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82180/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suellen Shay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Former vice-chancellor Jonathan Jansen argues that there is no future for South African universities.Suellen Shay, Dean and Associate Professor, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/823292017-08-10T17:25:09Z2017-08-10T17:25:09ZWarhol in Africa: contradictions, complications and conflicts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181662/original/file-20170810-27661-14c6iy0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Warhol exhibition inspired thousands of selfies at the opening.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WAM</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the evening of 26 July, over 5,000 people streamed into Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg to attend the opening of its <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/wam/exhibitions/">latest exhibition</a>, Warhol Unscreened: Artworks from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Collection. <a href="https://www.warhol.org/">Andy Warhol</a>, an American artist known for his images of pop culture, celebrities and everyday objects, is arguably the person who invented fame and celebrity in the art world.</p>
<p>At the very least, Warhol is credited with coining the term “15 minutes of fame” after his <a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fifteen-minutes-of-fame.html">statement</a> that appeared in a programme for an exhibition in 1968.:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Warhol’s own world-fame has lasted decidedly longer. Almost 50 years later, he is still popular enough to pull unprecedented crowds to a museum on the southern tip of a continent that he never visited. </p>
<p>The Wits Art Museum show, which spans two floors, features many of Warhol’s iconic screen prints including a Marilyn and set of Campbell’s Soup Cans. And despite having seen these images in a hundred books, on t-shirts and mugs and countless TV and computer screens, it’s hard to not feel bewitched by the actual objects. </p>
<p>For one, they are much larger than expected and the surface quality of the print is so much more impressive in real life. Perhaps this reference is a ghost of some high school art history text book past, but Walter Benjamin’s <a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm">“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”</a> comes to mind. Published in 1936, German philosopher, <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/features/walter-benjamin.html">Benjamin</a>, differentiated between the original and the copy. He argued that the actual artwork has an “aura” that is complicated once a work is mass-distributed via reproduction. </p>
<p><a href="https://frankfurtschool.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/summary-the-work-of-art-in-the-age-of-mechanical-reproduction/">For Benjamin</a>, the aura is diminished by the copy, though he does not posit this as a negative effect. Rather, the death of the aura allows the viewer a different kind of subjectivity: one which is open to the politicisation of art. </p>
<h2>The fragile surface of the American dream</h2>
<p>Of course, in the context of mid-20th century America, Warhol’s works were political. They commented on capitalism and mass consumption. They commented on advertising and the fragile surface of the American dream advertised on larger-than-life billboards.</p>
<p>The process of screen printing is rooted in the very practice and effect of reproduction. What is fascinating, however, is that the blur between the original and the copy doesn’t seem to be at the forefront of the minds of visitors to the WAM exhibition. </p>
<p>Most of the works shown are one of an edition of 250 odd prints. In other words, these are “diluted” originals. They’re limited editions yes, but not in any way unique except for the small number marking the edition. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the cult of genius that Warhol embodies, and which is clearly still inscribed onto the surface of these famous works, inspired thousands of selfies at the opening. Interestingly, the act of reproducing the images again — even viewing them through an additional screen in the form of cell phone cameras — seemed to be the mode through which the audience engaged. Warhol clearly had a prophetic grip on what the future indeed does look like.</p>
<h2>Why is Warhol popular in Africa?</h2>
<p>If we are to consider Benjamin’s prophecies too, it’s intriguing that the political context of post-apartheid South Africa manifests in small ways in the exhibition. Wits Art Museum has been under pressure in the last few years, caught in the <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/Trending/another-black-curator-speaks-out-20160520">crossfire of debates</a> around what constitutes African art, who has the power to decide and how narratives are constructed, mediated and authored.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181663/original/file-20170810-27661-lu3l1a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181663/original/file-20170810-27661-lu3l1a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181663/original/file-20170810-27661-lu3l1a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181663/original/file-20170810-27661-lu3l1a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181663/original/file-20170810-27661-lu3l1a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181663/original/file-20170810-27661-lu3l1a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181663/original/file-20170810-27661-lu3l1a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The curators set up several ‘feedback’ installations at the Warhol exhibition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WAM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Increasingly, the museum is being challenged to show more African artists, contemporary and historical, rather than international blockbusters. The curators’ understandable self-consciousness of these issues comes through in several “feedback” installations, which ask the audience to consider the appropriateness of the Warhol exhibit in an African art museum. One of the panels asks: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why do you think WAM should be showing the work of Andy Warhol? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And this is the question, right? Why is Warhol still so popular (in Africa) after the post-colonial turn? How do we reconcile the massive popularity of an exhibition of artworks by a dead white man, when Wits University, where the museum is located, is caught in the (sometimes violent) conflict of decoloniality? </p>
<p>Furthermore, as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%23FeesMustFall">#FeesMustFall</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%23RhodesMustFall">#RhodesMustFall</a> student protest movements continue to unfold, how does the blatantly western capitalist flavour of these works go unnoticed as young people Instagram their participation in this spectacle? How is the late-capitalist neoliberal agenda screened or unscreened?</p>
<p>Un-ironically, the exhibition is sponsored by and comes from the collection of the Bank of America. But since Wits Art Museum couldn’t afford the copyright fees, the invitation and marketing of the show features imitation screen prints by local South African artists. </p>
<p>This exhibition embodies so many of the contradictions, complications and conflicts in both art and society in contemporary South Africa. What interrogation or translation of the exhibition can we look forward to as exams loom closer and universities brace for a possible third wave of protests? I look forward to reading the responses accumulated on the feedback panels in two months’ time.</p>
<p><em>Warhol Unscreened: Artworks from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Collection runs until 8 October 2017</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stacey Vorster does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Andy Warhol exhibition embodies so many of the contradictions, complications and conflicts in both art and society in contemporary South Africa.Stacey Vorster, Lecturer in History of Art, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/795142017-06-15T13:43:35Z2017-06-15T13:43:35ZYoung South Africans aren’t apathetic, just fed up with formal politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174002/original/file-20170615-3453-tz20z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children marching on the
anniversary of the Soweto uprising.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s youth-led movements such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/feesmustfall-the-poster-child-for-new-forms-of-struggle-in-south-africa-68773?sa=google&sq=fees+must+fall&sr=8">#FeesMustFall</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-student-protests-are-about-much-more-than-just-feesmustfall-49776?sa=google&sq=RhodesMustFall&sr=5">#RhodesMustFall</a> provided contrasting view to perceptions that young people are apathetic and disinterested in the future of their country. But the protests didn’t quite dispel concerns about their lack of political involvement, particularly during elections where there’s been <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/131652/this-is-the-biggest-reason-why-young-south-africans-arent-voting-next-week/">low youth voter turnout</a>. </p>
<p>So we asked young people what they thought about politics. Our research involved focus groups with South Africans aged between 15 and 25 years of age from very different backgrounds. Sampled areas ranged from the rural Eastern Cape, to peri-urban Orange Farm and middle class Kensington, a Johannesburg suburb, amongst others. </p>
<p>Our findings challenge the widely reported perception that young people in South Africa are despondent and don’t care about politics or their role as citizens. What emerged from our research was a picture of young people with strongly defined opinions and knowledge of current affairs. Many said they were involved in some kind of civic activity. </p>
<p>All of the participants expressed a distrust of formal politics. But they also said they have a keen interest in the future of the country and are staking their claim in forging that future, albeit in different and new ways. </p>
<p>What was clear from the research is that young South Africans are engaging with politics very differently to the way in which young people got involved in the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">1976 Soweto uprising</a>. They have found new platforms and ways to share information, make their voices heard and ultimately be politically engaged on the back of growing internet based communication, especially social media. </p>
<p>In 1976 young people taught South Africa that they can’t be ignored. They are a powerful force that can shift the course of a country’s future. Today’s youth are no different. They are interested and engaged. </p>
<h2>Distrust of formal politics</h2>
<p>The people in our focus groups expressed distrust of formal political mechanisms such as voting, demonstrations, and membership of political parties. </p>
<p>Most indicated that they held little faith in the current leadership of the country. They found political leaders to be self-serving and disinterested in them and their communities. While they enjoyed watching parliament in action, this was because it provided entertainment value rather than serious content.</p>
<p>The discussions laid bare why many young people don’t vote. Most expressed alienation from all of South Africa’s political leaders. They said they didn’t know who they could trust or which political party would serve their interests. </p>
<p>As one put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well, there’s ANC, an old promising party who is no longer keeping its promises, then follows the DA which is led and dominated by white people and you’d think when they are in power they may neglect us and care for whites only and also there is Malema who we think is going to corrupt us, so you just think it’s better not to vote.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They also said they didn’t see any point in voting given that there seemed to be little relation between what politicians said they would do versus what they actually did. A common sentiment is reflected in these quotes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is the point in voting? Nothing ever changes anyway. </p>
<p>We are not going to vote either because it’s not going to make a difference.</p>
<p>Personally for me I would vote for a party that I have seen making the biggest difference but everyone is fighting in parliament and they are not going out and making the difference that they are supposed to. And when it comes to voting time then all the municipalities jump up and start to do what they were supposed to do. I think that’s the thing. We don’t know who to vote for because no one is making a big difference.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This distrust and alienation often means that young people opt out of formal political processes such as voting and engagement with political parties. </p>
<p>But this should not be read to infer political disinterest and apathy. On the contrary, young people have found other ways to voice their opinions. </p>
<h2>Different approaches</h2>
<p>Social media is widely used, across the spectrum of youth interviewed, both to voice protest as well as to engage on issues they care about. And many said they have heated face-to-face discussions with their peers about key issues, particularly those affecting their own communities. All these approaches were more appealing, meaningful and accessible than political party membership and voting.</p>
<p>They also held very fervent issues-based views. The focus groups prompted heated debates about xenophobia and the role of foreign nationals in their communities. The participants also felt strongly about common challenges in their communities such as substance abuse, crime and teenage pregnancy. </p>
<p>Our research shows that young people are thinking about key issues in their communities and that they’re getting involved, particularly where issues affect them directly. The difference between this generation and the 1976 generation is that they’re doing so in non-formal ways. </p>
<p>The #feesmustfall campaign is a good example of this. It arose out of an issue that directly affected the lives of many young people. They did not feel that formal democratic processes served them, leading them to engage in a wave of protests driven largely by social media engagements across campuses. </p>
<p>Political parties trying to win the youth vote need to reconnect with where the majority of young people are, more so because young people will continue to form potentially the biggest proportion of the voter base at least until 2050. It’s time the country stopped stereotyping them as apathetic, disinterested and morally bankrupt and started engaging them in ways that are meaningful to them, and connect with the issues they’re interested in. </p>
<p>_This article was co-authored with Lauren Stuart, Thobile Zulu and Senzelwe Mthembu.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79514/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This study was funded by the University of Johannesburg's Faculty Research Committee and and University Research Committee as well as through a small grant made by Prof Valerie Möller of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University.</span></em></p>It’s time South Africa stopped stereotyping its young people as being disinterested and morally bankrupt and started engaging them.Lauren Graham, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Social Development for Africa, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/737902017-02-28T14:52:01Z2017-02-28T14:52:01ZRest in power, Miriam Tlali: author, enemy of apartheid and feminist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158727/original/image-20170228-29917-u3nyzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Portrait of Miriam Tlali as part of Adrian Steirn’s 21 Icons South Africa project. Date: 15.10.2014.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Adrian Steirn/Courtesy of 21 Icons South Africa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Renowned South African author <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-tlali">Miriam Masoli Tlali</a> passed away on February 24 2017, aged 83. Born November 11 1933 in Doornfontein, Johannesburg, Tlali was the first black South African woman to publish a novel in English within the country’s borders. She is best known for this work, first published as “<a href="http://www.postcolonialweb.org/sa/tlali/mukhuba3.html">Muriel at Metropolitan</a>” in 1975 by Ravan Press. </p>
<p>It was re-issued in 2004 by the title she had preferred from the start, “Between Two Worlds”. Based on her time as an administrative assistant at a furniture store in downtown Johannesburg during the height of apartheid, the novel documents the daily humiliations of petty apartheid. There were two types of apartheid, grand apartheid and the petty version, which the <em>New York Times</em> once <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/14/opinion/before-it-s-too-late-in-south-africa.html">described</a> as,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the practice of segregation in the routine of daily life – in lavatories, restaurants, railway cars, busses, swimming pools and other public facilities. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Muriel at Metropolitan”/“Between Two Worlds” was the first literary text that portrayed the degrading conditions under which African women laboured during apartheid. It highlighted how strict influx control into “white” cities hampered black women’s opportunities for employment and fulfilling family lives.</p>
<p>Tlali hated the original title of her first novel. She agreed to have it published under that name because her mother was close to dying, and she wanted her to see the novel in print before her death. In the preface to “Between Two Worlds”, Tlali recounted that after the novel’s publication: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I returned to my matchbox house in Soweto, locked myself in my little bedroom and cried… Five whole chapters had been removed; also paragraphs, phrases, and sentences. It was devastating, to say the least.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite these misgivings, “Muriel at Metropolitan” made a big impact globally. Forty five different editions of the novel were published between 1975 and 2005, with translations into three languages.</p>
<h2>Protest literature</h2>
<p>Tlali recovered from her devastation, going on to publish the Black Consciousness novel “<a href="https://theconversation.com/under-the-influence-of-the-black-consciousness-novel-amandla-62374">Amandla</a>” (1980). It was grouped by critics as part of the “Soweto School” of protest literature. </p>
<p>The novel is a rich evocation of the youth uprising against apartheid education and the apartheid state in 1976. Inspired by the uprising and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-biko">Steve Biko</a>’s Black Conciousness <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/defining-black-consciousness">ideology</a>, it centres around Pholoso, a young freedom fighter who rallies the youth of Soweto against apartheid. He goes on to become part of the underground resistance, eventually going into exile.</p>
<p>Soweto, and its abject relationship to the wealthy Johannesburg, was an enduring concern for Tlali in her fiction. She published “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1118155.Footprints_In_The_Quag">Footprints in the Quag: Stories and Dialogues from Soweto</a>” (also published as “Soweto Stories”), a collection of short stories delving in the experiences of Sowetans (mostly women) in 1989.</p>
<p>She also published a collection of short stories, interviews and essays in “<a href="http://www.news24.com/Archives/City-Press/Behind-the-Icon-Miriam-Tlali-Her-story-20150429">Mihloti</a>” (1984), published by Skotaville Press, which she helped establish. Tlali was also a frequent contributor to the anti-apartheid literary journal “<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/staffrider-magazine-1978-1993">Staffrider</a>”, which she co-founded. The journal was an important vehicle for publishing black literature and criticism during the apartheid years, often the only South African outlet for black creative writing.</p>
<h2>Enemy of the state</h2>
<p>Because of her stature internationally and the political content of her novels, Tlali became an enemy of the state. Both her novels were immediately banned by apartheid censors. Her political and literary prominence made her a target of the regime’s notorious <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03497.htm">Security Branch</a>. This dreaded secret police unit repeatedly harassed, arrested and assaulted Tlali as a tactic of intimidation. </p>
<p>When I interviewed her in 2006, Tlali recalled being brutally beaten in her home in Soweto by police on several occasions. During those years, she would wrap her manuscripts-in-progress in plastic shopping bags at the end of each day, and bury them in her back yard to avoid police confiscating them during raids.</p>
<p>Despite this persecution, Tlali never countenanced leaving her beloved Soweto. For her, going into exile was “unthinkable”, though she travelled frequently to take up residencies and teaching opportunities. </p>
<p>She recalled, on her return to South Africa from a residency at Iowa State University, having to smuggle her manuscript off the plane. Police were waiting for her at passport control, ready to seize any politically incendiary material. Tlali gave her manuscript to an American on board the flight while waiting to deplane. She quietly retrieved it from the American embassy at a later date. </p>
<p>She was also resident at Yale University between 1989 and 1990, wrote a play, “Crimen Injuria”, while at a residency in Holland, and was often more recognised internationally than in her own country.</p>
<h2>Intersectional feminist</h2>
<p>Tlali was an intersectional feminist long before this term was coined by <a href="http://www.aapf.org/kimberle-crenshaw/">Kimberlé Crenshaw</a> in 1989. Or before intersectional feminist politics was made current in South Africa by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/rhodesmustfall-23991">#RhodesMustFall</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%23FeesMustFall">#FeesMustFall</a> student movements.</p>
<p>Her fiction, at first dismissed by literary critics (mostly men) as too descriptive – they say it had an almost stenographic quality. It is the only work of its time and place that systematically dissects the overlap of apartheid racial discrimination and patriarchal oppression. Tlali’s fiction depicted the intersectional nature of African women’s oppression under both of these systems. </p>
<p>She belonged to the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/organisations/womens-national-coalition">National Women’s Coalition</a>, which advocated for the inclusion of women’s rights in South Africa’s constitution in the run-up to the first democratic election in 1994. As a member Tlali had an incisive analysis of women’s oppression, and was a passionate advocate against gender-based violence. </p>
<p>This is a prominent theme in her fiction. Both “Amandla” and “Footprints in the Quag” highlight the occurrence and effects of domestic violence, rape and sexual harassment in the township of Soweto. Yet her women characters are not victims – they fight back, physically or through educating their communities. They carve out for themselves social spaces where they are able to organise against such abuse. </p>
<p>Tlali received numerous awards during her lifetime, most notably, the Presidential Award, the <a href="http://www.gov.za/about-government/national-orders-awards-28-october-2008">Order of Ikhamanga (Silver)</a> in 2008, as well as a <a href="http://sala.org.za/2005-2/miriam-tlali/">lifetime achievement award</a> from the South African Literary Awards.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73790/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barbara Boswell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Author Miriam Tlali was an intersectional feminist long before this term was coined or its politics made fashionable in South Africa by student movements.Barbara Boswell, Senior Lecturer, English, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/726112017-02-09T15:12:43Z2017-02-09T15:12:43ZWhen English wickets fall much more than just cricket is at stake<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156026/original/image-20170208-17333-13fpci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's Temba Bavuma celebrates his century against England in Cape Town, South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Hutchings/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Cricket is not a game. It is the truth of life.</em> — JM Coetzee </p>
<p>I have not attended many games at Kingsmead, the cricket ground in Durban, South Africa. But the <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/south-africa-v-england-2015-16/content/series/800431.html">2015 Boxing Day Test</a> against the “old enemy” England was too much to miss. <a href="http://www.cricbuzz.com/profiles/314/hashim-amla#profile">Hashim Amla</a> is South Africa’s captain. If other national captains were tyrants, managers or champions, the Proteas’ Amla has garnered a reputation as the consummate gentleman. </p>
<p>A diminutive <a href="http://www.cricbuzz.com/profiles/8583/temba-bavuma#profile">Temba Bavuma</a> is selected in the middle-order. The South African team is short of a great black African batting hope and he is it. Stocking the team with players has become as fraught with statistics as stocking a factory with workers or a business deal with BEE (or black economic empowerment, as the official government policy is callled) partners. The Proteas have a terrible test. </p>
<p>Bavuma fails in both innings, making 10 and a duck. As he walks off, an old Springbok player says “he is history” (South Africa’s cricket team changed their name from Springboks to Proteas in 1991). It’s a suitably ambiguous statement. </p>
<p>South Africa loses the match and spectators dribble home. Amla steps down as captain. Bavuma is not dropped. Murmurings begin. Is he to be a token selection? </p>
<p>During the <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/800463.html">second test</a> at Newlands in Cape Town, it once again looked bleak for the home side. England rattled up over 600 runs. But South Africa replied in kind. Amla, made a double hundred, perhaps freed from the heavy crown of leadership which often weighs down rather than inspiring the best technicians on the field. </p>
<p>However, this was all overshadowed by Bavuma’s century. It’s the way he went about it, refusing to get bogged down. Bavuma is no slogger though. His innings was replete with the classic drives of yesteryear. This diminutive batsman, barely five and a half feet (1.68m) tall, dominating the six foot plus English bowlers made it all the more compelling to watch.</p>
<p>The English bowlers started to <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sledge">sledge</a> – taunting him in order to disturb his concentration. Really? This man-child who grew up in the Cape Town township of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/place/langa-township">Langa</a>. Who survived the alien white environment of St David’s private school in Johannesburg’s upmarket Sandton. Who, every time he walked to the wicket, carried the suspicious gaze of thousands that perhaps he wasn’t really good enough. Could he in any way be shaken by the criticism of the coiffured <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/player/10617.html">Stuart Broad</a> and <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/player/311158.html">Ben Stokes</a> whose failed bouncers rose as if bereft of yeast?</p>
<p>In South Africa, where the shark of racism lies in the shallows of almost every social interaction, Bavuma’s beautiful, unbeaten innings of 102 dashed the curses of many a white supremacist. It also reinforced the ideological zealousness of many an African chauvinist. For those in favour of racial quotas, it revealed the necessity of forcing quality black players into a side where they would thrive, if given half a chance. </p>
<p>For those opposed, it revealed the inevitability of the entry of quality black players through patiently nurtured merit. For a moment, we all suspended histories and social relations beyond the boundary and simply basked in an innings of class, the acceleration and the concentration, the studied correctness of the cover-drive and the brutal aggression of the pull shot as performed by a short limbed batsman. </p>
<p>As Bavuma reached the 90s, reality began to take hold. We knew then that we were witnessing an innings charged with immense social significance, that sometimes it is as author <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jan/14/mike-marqusee-author-cricket">Mike Marqusee</a> <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=_boPBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=Mike+Marqusee+possible+to+challenge+and+overturn+the+dominant+hierarchies+of+nation,+race+and+class.+The+reversal+may+be+limited+and+transient,+but+it+is+nonetheless+real.&source=bl&ots=AmJ_z46I_G&sig=46siCrsh3PTWIa5cV3wTvgVjSfs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiVmJGYiv7RAhVB82MKHR_dDo0Q6AEIGDAA#v=onepage&q=Mike%20Marqusee%20possible%20to%20challenge%20and%20overturn%20the%20dominant%20hierarchies%20of%20nation%2C%20race%20and%20class.%20The%20reversal%20may%20be%20limited%20and%20transient%2C%20but%20it%20is%20nonetheless%20real.&f=false">notes</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>possible to challenge and overturn the dominant hierarchies of nation, race and class. The reversal may be limited and transient, but it’s nonetheless real.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Putting black cricket in context</h2>
<p>How to describe Bavuma’s century? The first black African to score a Test century? But that would stand in stark contrast to white player who have been making Test centuries for 100 years. By isolating Bavuma as the first without context, one obscures a whole history of black cricket. If one doesn’t label him as the first, this diminishes the fact that cricket since apartheid has overwhelmingly produced black Africans as fast bowlers.</p>
<p>Bavuma went to two of the best schools in South Africa; South African College Junior School (SACS) in Cape Town and St David’s High School in Johannesburg. But he also came through Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) development programme in the township of Langa. </p>
<p>Without township development, there arguably would have been no batsman to go to SACS. Without SACS and St David’s, there would be no Bavuma, the Protea. So maybe this is the way it will be: CSA providing the rudiments of the game and private schools picking up the torch. It’s a point not lost on Bavuma, who <a href="http://gq.co.za/2016/10/gqa-temba-bavuma/">told</a> a journalist that,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I attended top private schools … and had access to quality facilities and elite coaching. There were boys who were much more talented than I was, but early exposure gave me the edge over my peers who remained in the township.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156028/original/image-20170208-17360-ljswa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156028/original/image-20170208-17360-ljswa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156028/original/image-20170208-17360-ljswa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156028/original/image-20170208-17360-ljswa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156028/original/image-20170208-17360-ljswa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156028/original/image-20170208-17360-ljswa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156028/original/image-20170208-17360-ljswa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stephen Cook.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Reed/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Alongside the new of Bavuma, there’s also the old in the present to confound and amaze. New opportunities for old cricketing families. <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/southafrica/content/player/44465.html">Jimmy Cook</a> was an opening batsman who played in all 19 so-called “tests” against the rebel sides of the 1980s. Between 1982 and 1990 a number of controversial <a href="http://www.supersport.com/cricket/international/south-africa-cricket-team-info#5">rebel cricket tours</a> involving players from the main cricket-playing countries took place – despite sports boycotts against apartheid South Africa. </p>
<p>Cook finally made his debut for the Proteas in November 1992 at the age of 39 against India. Cook was dismissed with the first ball, and within a year retired. International cricket came too late for him. For a while, it seemed that his son <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/southafrica/content/player/44656.html">Stephen</a> would suffer the same fate, a prolific opening batsman at provincial level. But in January 2016, at the age of 33, he made his debut and scored a century. His father was in the stands taking in what could have been and what now is.</p>
<h2>Mbeki vs Zuma</h2>
<p>When South Africa <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/engvrsa/content/series/296890.html">toured</a> England in 2008, despite the <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2008-09-20-anc-recalls-mbeki">battles</a> between <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma">Jacob Zuma</a>, the ANC was a dominant force both inside and outside parliament. But eight years later, its position is under threat. </p>
<p>Beyond party politics, there’s an emergent street politics, sparked by<a href="http://mg.co.za/tag/rhodesmustfall"> students’ quest</a> to decolonise universities. The initial catalyst was the struggle to remove the statue of Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town, which began in 2015. Overnight, and amid calls for free higher education, there were demands to decolonise the curriculum, as well as the removal of statues of other colonial and apartheid figures. </p>
<p>I watched <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32236922">Rhodes fall</a> on my television screen. Pulleys and ropes did their work, while students snapped and clapped. For my generation, it’s always heartening to see young people take up old struggles in new ways. But the removal of inanimate, lifeless statues, as much as their imperious presence offends, do not imbue us with the same delight as witnessing the South African pace attack in full flight at <a href="https://www.lords.org/">Lord’s</a> cricket ground in London, when English cricketers like <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/player/11728.html">Alastair Cook</a>, <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/player/249866.html">Alex Hales</a> and <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/player/303669.html">Joe Root</a> duck and shrink, when English wickets fall. </p>
<p>Memories of men in red uniforms wielding Gatling guns against spears, scorching the earth, herding people into camps of death, come flashing back. When a newly liberated country meets on the turf of its old colonial master, as author <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/biograph.htm">CLR James</a> would have it,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>much, much more than cricket is at stake. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from ‘<a href="http://www.jacana.co.za/book-categories/current-affairs-a-history/reverse-sweep-detail">Reverse Sweep</a>’, published by Jacana.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72611/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashwin Desai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s cricket is on the rise again, now represented by players of all the country’s races. One of them is Temba Bavuma. His first test century in 2015 knocked a few perceptions for a six.Ashwin Desai, Professor of Sociology, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/691192016-11-21T20:53:39Z2016-11-21T20:53:39ZWhy South Africa can’t deliver on the social contract set out in its constitution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146669/original/image-20161120-19371-8byiwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa protesting against youth unemployment.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Rogan Ward</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa is facing a cluster of crises. </p>
<p>There is a crisis of legitimacy <a href="https://polotiki.com/2016/11/06/anc-must-ask-president-jacob-zuma-to-resign-and-for-cde-cyril-ramaphosa-to-complete-his-term-as-president-of-the-republic-mathole-motshekga/">around President Jacob Zuma</a>. A crisis around <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-compromises-and-mistakes-made-in-the-mandela-era-hobbled-south-africas-economy-52156">the validity of the pre-1994 settlement</a> which has not delivered on its initial promises. There is a generalised <a href="https://theconversation.com/zuma-and-anc-run-out-of-road-as-bad-news-piles-up-68197">political crisis</a> within the governing African National Congress (ANC) and tripartite alliance. There is a <a href="http://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/labour/2016-09-01-large-new-labour-federation-will-be-apolitical-zwelinzima-vavi-says/">crisis in the labour movement</a> and its institutions. There is a crisis of growing populism.</p>
<p>There is the economic crisis of <a href="http://www.fin24.com/Economy/double-trouble-for-sa-over-soaring-unemployment-20160510">rising unemployment</a>, stagnating social mobility and a growing population of <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-04-18-the-great-reversal-stats-sa-claims-black-youth-are-less-skilled-than-their-parents/">unskilled youth</a>. There is the crisis of <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-can-expect-zero-growth-its-problems-are-largely-homemade-62943">low economic growth</a>. There is the lingering crisis of the degrading poverty and social breakdown in communities, crime, abuse of women and children, vulnerability and despair.</p>
<p>There is a deep systemic crisis in all levels of education, where significant government resources are budgeted but where the situation for the majority of young people has <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/shocking-stats-for-sa-youth-20160427">worsened over time</a>.</p>
<p>South Africa’s problem is that its <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-wait-for-a-beautiful-leader-south-africa-rather-rely-on-the-constitution-68757">constitution is a perfect brochure</a> of the nation it aspires to be. But the contractors entrusted with its future have an entirely different project in mind. </p>
<p>None of these crises are fundamentally new. But they all have their origin in long-standing legacy issues rooted in South Africa’s apartheid and colonialist past.</p>
<h2>Legacies</h2>
<p>These legacies have precipitated a mismatch between South Africa’s political-economy, the nexus of political and economic power, and the society whose aspirations the system is meant to address. Democracy unlocked a path to political rights for all South Africans. But socio-economic rights have remained illusive for millions. </p>
<p>This dire reality has been masked, for a time, by the progressive fiscal spending of the state. Since 1994 this has favoured the poor in the form of social grants and enormous social infrastructure programs for <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-africa%E2%80%99s-key-economic-policies-changes-1994-2013">access to basic rights</a>. But none of this has translated into long term economic upliftment. </p>
<p>The state’s approach to disbursements has meant that dependence on the state has ballooned in terms of direct cash transfers as well as rapid growth of the government wage bill. At the same time state efficiency has been degraded. </p>
<p>Coupled with other weaknesses in the state, South Africans have increasingly become frustrated with the low pace of change. People have expressed their dissatisfaction in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-violence-in-south-africa-points-to-rising-tensions-in-the-anc-61440">form of mounting protests</a>. And in latest local government elections they also <a href="https://theconversation.com/major-shift-in-south-african-politics-as-the-da-breaks-out-of-its-cape-enclave-63619">withheld their vote for the ANC</a>, or voted for opposition parties.</p>
<h2>Only a few enjoy economic benefits</h2>
<p>At the same time South Africa’s highly consolidated economy has increasingly benefited only the elite at the exclusion of the unskilled. Except for a small club of politically connected beneficiaries, most people have looked to the state rather than to business for relief. This has translated into economic growth without expansion in the labour market. </p>
<p>In addition, poorly performing state owned enterprises such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africas-power-utility-isnt-in-great-financial-shape-68441">Eskom</a> have precipitated the impact of rising energy costs while rising demands from labour have put old business models under cost pressures. All this has led to a lack of investment locally.</p>
<p>In addition, the stubborn spatial divides precipitated by apartheid policies have meant that millions of the most vulnerable South Africans are structurally excluded from participating in the formal economy. Even if there were jobs, they would come at great personal expense in the form of travel time and costs. And while the informal economy has grown, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/20/south-africa-xenophobic-violence-migrants-workforce">the influx of migrants</a> from neighbouring states and countries such as Ethiopia and Pakistan has introduced vigorous competition between traders in the informal sector.</p>
<p>More recently a destabilising youth bulge, a cohort of South Africans increasingly indifferent to the pre-and post 1994 Rainbow Nation narrative has come to the fore. This is manifest in the emerging #Fallest culture, calling for change in the form of <a href="http://thoughtleader.co.za/mariusoosthuizen/2016/10/14/fallist-culture-the-emergence-of-african-fascist-nationalism/">#RhodesMustFall</a>, <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/afrikaansmustfall-sparks-mayhem-at-tuks-1988175">#AfrikaansMustFall</a> and more recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-fees-in-south-africa-many-questions-lots-of-anger-and-fires-to-fight-65681">#FeesMustFall</a>. This is a groundswell that I believe has only just begun.</p>
<h2>New economic regime needed</h2>
<p>There are competing narratives of why the status quo has emerged.</p>
<p>The narrative emerging from the ANC and its alliance partners the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions is that corporate South Africa, and big business in particular, have not demonstrated a <a href="http://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/2016/03/29/mbeki-blames-business-community-for-governments-struggling-economic-policies/">patriotic loyalty to South Africa</a>. This, they argue, would translate into investment and higher growth and more rapid racial transformation. </p>
<p>In turn big business has argued that the failings of the political establishment and grotesque shortcomings of the current executive have been at the root of its <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/safrica-businesssentiment-rmb-idUSJ8N18G04M">reluctance to invest</a>. </p>
<p>Narratives from civil society have included criticism of the middle class and previously advantaged communities for refusing to share in the wealth of the country. And emerging on the left has been a narrative, increasingly echoed by the youth, that South Africa’s negotiated settlement was a victory for white monopoly capital at the expense of the legitimate claims of the black majority.</p>
<p>The hard truth is that South Africa has limited options for developing its economy to address its social ills. This is because of the historical interdependence of the country’s economy on its large industrial state owned enterprises for cheap production inputs, in addition to its more recent openness in terms of foreign investment in securities and the currency. </p>
<p>In essence, productive capital is in the hands of a few who do not depend personally on South Africa’s long term stability. On the other hand political power is centralised in the hands of a small elite which is now interdependent on the holders of capital domestically and abroad. Individuals in this elite rely on their political positions to sustain their economic advantage. </p>
<p>This means that the bulk of South African society is excluded both economically and politically from the means to address their plight and often lack the conditions suitable to taking an entrepreneurial route to upward mobility. </p>
<p>In essence, South Africa’s post apartheid economy is unable to deliver on the social contract enshrined in the constitution. In its current form the political economy of the country simply cannot address the discrepancies between the society envisioned in the constitution and the lived reality of citizens rapidly enough. </p>
<p>South Africa’s choices are not between clear and simple “left” versus “right” economic ideologies. Rather, its future rests on an intricate set of inter-dependencies that match opportunities for capital with inefficiencies in the national development system. And South Africa needs a new economic regime that, over time, dynamically matches the structure of its labour market as skills are developed.</p>
<p>But neither the social capital nor the institutional mechanisms exist to bring this about.</p>
<p>As far as I can see the only path out is for the sleeping giant of civil society to awake to this reality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69119/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marius Oosthuizen receives funding from organisations such as the British High Commission and a variety of research grants. He is affiliated with SEFSA, the Socio-Economic Future of South African, a civil society dialogue initiative to secure the future of South Africa. </span></em></p>South Africa’s problem is that its constitution is a perfect brochure of the nation it aspires to be. But the contractors entrusted with its future have an entirely different project in mind.Marius Oosthuizen, Full time faculty, Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/665182016-10-19T14:56:39Z2016-10-19T14:56:39ZJustifying the use of violence to fight social injustice is a recipe for disaster<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141970/original/image-20161017-4749-o3rt5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela depicted on church wall in west London. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toby Melville/Reuters </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa is reaping the bitter fruits of violence: both apartheid’s and the African National Congress’s armed struggle.</p>
<p>At his 1964 trial for treason Nelson Mandela set out the basis for the African National Congress’s (ANC) decision to use violence to fight the violence of apartheid. At one stage he <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/i-am-prepared-to-die">stated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This conclusion, My Lord, was not easily arrived at. It was when … all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of struggle.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At round about the same time across the Atlantic Ocean in the US, Martin Luther King <a href="http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/Vol03Scans/414_4-Nov-1956_Pauls%20Letter%20to%20Amer%20Christians.pdf">wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It would be both cowardly and immoral for you patiently to accept injustice…. But as you continue your righteous protest … be sure that the means you employ are as pure as the end you seek. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using love as your chief weapon. Let no man pull you so low that you hate him. Always avoid violence. If you sow the seeds of violence in your struggle, unborn generations will reap the whirlwind of social disintegration.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>South Africa’s university <a href="http://www.2oceansvibe.com/2016/09/27/the-staggering-stats-on-damage-caused-to-sa-universities-during-the-student-protests/">campuses are burning</a> as students protest, demanding <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/university-funding-5277">“free</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/decolonisation-debate-is-a-chance-to-rethink-the-role-of-universities-63840">decolonised</a> education”. Those students using violence, inter alia, argue that justice demands the use of such violence and that in effect it is a form of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-student-protests-in-south-africa-have-turned-violent-66288">self defence</a>. </p>
<p>Should they heed Mandela, or King?</p>
<h2>A violent society</h2>
<p>There is an all pervasive presence of violence and contempt for human life in <a href="https://africacheck.org/spot_check/factsheet-south-africas-201516-crime-statistics/">South Africa</a>. Nothing illustrates this more graphically than <a href="http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-southafrica.html">abortion statistics</a> and the <a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/guide-rape-statistics-in-south-africa/">rape</a> of children. </p>
<p>Extrapolating from King’s words, it would be difficult not to conclude that the ANC’s prescription for fighting apartheid was shortsighted. It also did not grasp King’s insights about the inevitability of reaping what one sows when opting for violence. </p>
<p>Crucial to King’s thinking was that violence has a life of its own. The ANC, for its part, believed that the consequences of the decision to use violence could be controlled and managed. </p>
<p>Even more fundamentally, the ANC failed to grasp or understand the full consequences of justifying the use of violence to achieve a “noble” end. One consequence of this is that it provided the generations that followed the justification to use whatever means necessary to achieve their “just” ends. </p>
<p>In the 1980s I was often a defence advocate in <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/index.php/publications/1632-the-ritual-of-the-necklace.html">“necklace”</a> murder trials. Necklacing involved forcing a tyre over the shoulders of a person accused of collaborating with the apartheid government. The tyre, doused in petrol, would then be set alight. Necklacing as a means to cast off oppression was, to paraphrase King, “the end in the making”. </p>
<h2>Feeding the tyrant</h2>
<p>The point King makes is that once one opts for violence as a strategy to fight injustice, the devastating consequences will prevail for a long time afterwards.</p>
<p>His point was that meeting violence with violence only serves to feed the tyrant. To apply King’s challenge to South Africa, the aim should have been to starve the violence of the twin tyrant of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/national-party-np">Nationalist Party</a> (the party of apartheid) and white capital through militant non-violent civil disobedience.</p>
<p>Even when the ANC was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/2/newsid_2524000/2524997.stm">unbanned in 1990</a> it refused to abandon the “armed struggle” until it achieved its ends, as Anthea Jeffery writes in her book <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Peoples-War-Anthea-Jeffery/9781868423576">People’s War</a> (page 462). In this way it continued to feed the tyrant of violence which diminished the value and dignity of all human life. </p>
<p>Thousands of people were murdered between 1990 and 1994, many by the forces of the Nationalist Party, but many also by a brutal fight for power leading up to the 1994 elections between <em>inter alia</em> the ANC, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1992/WR92/AFW-08.htm">IFP</a>, Pan Africanist Congress and Azanian People’s <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/war-between-azapo-and-udf-popular-violence-1980s-and-1990s">Organisation</a>.</p>
<p>And then in 1994 there was an attempt to preach reconciliation, love, tolerance and nonviolence. But, by then, morally speaking, the nation had been grievously damaged. It had been dehumanised by apartheid, and the use of violence to fight it. It had been established on the hatred central to the use of violence.</p>
<p>The evil of apartheid combined with the ANC’s decision to fight violence with violence, and to use violence in its own internal conflicts, was a toxic cocktail. The results are still with us today.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters in front of a barricade during a fees protest at the Vaal University of Technology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is evident in the violent turn the student protests have taken. A student recently stated on national television that the only option open for the protesters was to use violence, or to threaten the use of violence, until their demands were met. </p>
<h2>Taking the high road</h2>
<p>King’s aim was to shame the racists, to stir their consciences. Fundamental to this was the belief that hatred and violence should be met with militant non- violent action. Crucially, this also meant being prepared to take the full consequences of such action. These consequences included imprisonment, beatings and even death. </p>
<p>If South African students were to embrace King, I have no doubt that those with economic power would be shamed and their consciences stirred. The overwhelming majority of ordinary South Africans also would come out in open support for the just cause of making tertiary education accessible to the poor and powerless.</p>
<p>South Africa’s students could make a significant contribution to the nation’s moral regeneration if they disavowed violence and took the high road espoused by King. </p>
<p>As a nation we are still reaping the fruits of the violence of apartheid and the use of violence to fight it. South Africa’s students can help the country break that cycle. And is it not central to the call of university students to say no to the status quo, in this case the use of violence, and to provide a new and better way? </p>
<p>A concluding thought by King is also cause for further reflection: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It (the nonviolent approach) does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=TU_HozbJSC8C&pg=PA423&lpg=PA423&dq=the+nonviolent+approach+does+something+to+the+hearts+and+souls+of+those+committed+to+it.+It+gives+them+new+self-respect&source=bl&ots=TXu5eIyzP_&sig=8Qv-SVA6f_dlv9ASdRjM3TZTPNk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKw57KveHPAhVKD8AKHZjxDQUQ6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q=the%20nonviolent%20approach%20does%20something%20to%20the%20hearts%20and%20souls%20of%20those%20committed%20to%20it.%20It%20gives%20them%20new%20self-respect&f=false">self-respect</a>.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Matthee SC does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South African universities are aflame as student protests for free education turn violent. But, would a non-violent approach, as preached by Martin Luther King, be more effective in their cause?Keith Matthee SC, Senior Counsel and PHD theological student at the University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/652572016-09-29T17:24:48Z2016-09-29T17:24:48ZThe Mandela Foundation’s verdict on the Mandela era: it failed …<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139460/original/image-20160927-11541-sq8bj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nelson Mandela, accompanied by his wife Winnie, walks out of the Victor Verster prison on February 11, 1990.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ulli Michel/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a little-heralded move in 2015, the <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/">Nelson Mandela Foundation</a> released a <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-15-the-nelson-mandela-foundation-race-and-identity-in-2015/">“position paper”</a> on race and identity. It was written by the Foundation’s CEO Sello Hatang and archivist Verne Harris. </p>
<p>Sadly, it triggered little debate, possibly overtaken by #Rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall, the subsequent political fallout and rise of Fallist <a href="http://digitalcollections.sit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3363&context=isp_collection">movements</a>. This is ironic, given that the purpose of the paper seemed to be re-positioning the Foundation to be a part of the <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/real-state-of-the-nation-south-africa-after-1990/oclc/54363879">segment of civil society</a> that regards 1990-1994 as a moment of failure.</p>
<p>The African National Congress (ANC) and other liberation movements were unbanned by the apartheid government in 1990. In 1994 South Africa had its first democratic election, which the ANC won. The four year period came with a number of gains, most obviously formal equality, gender equality and others. There was also defeat for many less savoury proposals such as minority rights and so on. </p>
<p>Inevitably, there were also compromises such as “<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/negotiations-toward-new-south-africa-grade-12-1#sthash.i13r9Iqn.dpuf">sunset clauses</a>” that guaranteed the gradual phasing out of white rule rather than one dramatic handover of power. These clauses ensured public service jobs for white people for a period of time. A key compromise protected private property - the latter arguably entrenching existing inequality and appearing later in the <a href="http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-Africa-1996-1">Constitution</a>.</p>
<p>For a foundation honouring Nelson Mandela, this revisionist piece was quite a move. Here 1994 is re-imagined as a moment of defeat, in which “white” capital entrenched itself in return for political power for the ANC, and bought off the total defeat of total strategy for 30 pieces of silver. </p>
<p>That a complete military and political victory for the ANC was even on the cards in 1990-1994 is the product of malfunctioning hindsight. But it has become part of a discourse that looks back at 1994 as an opportunity lost, the onset of failure, because the present feels too much like the past and change is slow and uneven.</p>
<p>The paper does three quite remarkable things. It jettisons non-racialism (to which Mandela’s political life was dedicated) in favour of black consciousness. Secondly, it sees the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) macroeconomic strategy, adopted while Mandela was president, as the source of our current malaise by “either setting or being closely aligned to a global neoliberal agenda”. Lastly, it writes off most of Mandela’s reign as comprising “grand symbolic gestures” and reconciliatory moves, which (it argues) failed.</p>
<h2>New lingo</h2>
<p>The paper ignores non-racialism by seeking to create new terminology. The authors ignore the <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/the-origins-of-non-racialism/">fact</a> that non-racialism emerged from the 1950s when racists were termed “racialists” and non-racialism was and is, at its core, anti-racist. </p>
<p>The authors drop any mention of non-racialism whatsoever. They fail to grapple with how South Africans get beyond the present other than by appealing to black consciousness and railing against white supremacy. This elision reflects an error in judgement. Non-racialism was born not out of a wishy-washy “can’t we all just get along” set of sentiments. It was, from the outset, the adversary of racialism, in the language of its time.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139463/original/image-20160927-11554-19xop1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139463/original/image-20160927-11554-19xop1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139463/original/image-20160927-11554-19xop1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139463/original/image-20160927-11554-19xop1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139463/original/image-20160927-11554-19xop1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139463/original/image-20160927-11554-19xop1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139463/original/image-20160927-11554-19xop1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graca Machel, the late former South African president Nelson Mandela’s wife at the annual Nelson Mandela Lecture in 2016. It is arranged by his Foundation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cornell Tukiri/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although Mandela stood by non-racialism through his political life (after flirting with more exclusive Africanism while in the ANC Youth League), the authors argue that South Africans should rather use “non-racism”. To waste the long history and constitutional <a href="http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/Constitution-Republic-South-Africa-1996-1">imperative</a> around non-racialism seems at least poor strategy, compounding questionable history.</p>
<p>The paper adopts similar views to those expressed by various Africanist movements: that non-racialism is an outdated liberal colour blindness, a soft search for a “Kumbaya moment” rather than toughing it out by <a href="http://thoughtleader.co.za/simonhowell/2012/11/26/the-problem-with-non-racialism/">confronting race</a>. There seems to be a desire to be “relevant” by pandering to a more racially muscular black consciousness.</p>
<p>Emerging from this view of history, the solution is to return to and tear up the compromises that were made. The next step is to organise an “economic <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/codesa-negotiations">Codesa</a>” – the forum where all political formations negotiated the post-apartheid future – and, by destroying the economic underpinnings of white privilege, attain equality. </p>
<p>This is an undeniably attractive proposition. It however ignores context and what practically could be done then, or now. Rather than accepting the compromises that were required and taking the struggle for a just society forward, meeting old and new challenges as they arise, the Foundation’s proposed move is backward, to shred the 1990-1994 compromises and start afresh.</p>
<h2>A meeting of equals</h2>
<p>South Africa’s best known proponent of black consciousness, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-biko">Steve Biko</a>, <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/nonracialism/black_man_youre_on_your_own.htm">wrote eloquently</a> of the need for integration to be based on full and substantive equality. </p>
<p>This requires a meeting of equals, not the subsuming of black people into white society – a point central to critical race theory and identity politics. But this also applies to non-racialism, which <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02589346.2012.656912">asserts substantive equality</a> as its starting point. </p>
<p>The authors of the “Position Paper” clearly find much to value in <a href="https://spacrs.wordpress.com/what-is-critical-race-theory/">Critical Race Theory</a> and black consciousness. But they identify a hierarchy within “race and identity” that is headed by white domination and black un-freedom. No intersectionality here, even though it is core to Critical Race Theory. No integrated approach that regards the challenges of race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and so on as equally important and fundamentally linked. </p>
<p>No-one walks a single path through life. But the paper shows little appreciation of this. Race – white domination, to be specific – trumps all. Flowing from this logic, xenophobia was tritely rejected as an “unhelpful label”. That provides scant comfort to the victims of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/xenophobic-violence-democratic-south-africa">xenophobic violence</a> that erupted a month or so after the paper appeared.</p>
<p>According to the authors, race “is still a critical fault line in South Africa’s social landscape”, a point all South Africans agree with. They go on to argue:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Public discourses on race, in our view, are dominated by expressions of denial, alienation, obfuscation and even self-hatred. Listen to the spiteful chattering on social media and radio talk shows, in letters to newspaper editors and at dinner parties. Listen to the often laborious constructions and deconstructions of the academy. Listen to the platitudes of politicians and bureaucrats either papering over or playing fast and loose with the pain and confusion of daily experience.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Few authors like being told, “it is more complicated than that”. But this is glaringly the correct response. The work of civil society, the efforts of individuals, of organised labour and feminist and LGBTIAQ+ movements, of civil and uncivil society, and of those public servants and politicians who try to do their work honestly, are written off in a pastiche designed to conclude that everything is dominated by white racism.</p>
<p>The Mandela government had three strategies for transformation: nation-building, interventions geared at redress and longer-term societal restructuring. The authors want these revived – because they have failed and “the state … has had little success in shifting apartheid-era socioeconomic patterns”.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139466/original/image-20160927-11544-10nkabe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139466/original/image-20160927-11544-10nkabe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139466/original/image-20160927-11544-10nkabe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139466/original/image-20160927-11544-10nkabe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139466/original/image-20160927-11544-10nkabe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139466/original/image-20160927-11544-10nkabe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139466/original/image-20160927-11544-10nkabe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Credited for his ‘grand gestures’, Nelson Mandela hands over the rugby world cup to Springbok captain Francois Pienaar in 1995.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The authors give Mandela credit for “grand gestures” in the area of reconciliation, but cannot square the circle: Mandela was also the president who ushered in the GEAR macroeconomic policy. </p>
<p>Nation-building was spearheaded by Mandela, for whom national reconciliation was the priority for his presidency.</p>
<h2>Nifty footwork</h2>
<p>There is also some adroit footwork here. Mandela is given credit for a number of grand symbolic gestures for reconciliation – even though they are regarded as ultimately futile. But then his name is not invoked in relation to GEAR, nor is he criticised for failing to push for “total victory”. The authors see the post-1994 strategies as necessary, but are unsure where to place blame for their failure.</p>
<p>The paper concludes gloomily that the notion that South Africa “belong[s] to all who live in it” – a statement indelibly associated with Mandela – seems to be “an impossible ideal”. Mandela emerges as a reduced figure in this narrative, from the iconic to the initiator of a set of well-meaning but failed interventions. Perhaps some revisionism away from hagiography is not a bad thing. Revisionism however should be based on decent history.</p>
<p>Looking to the future, the paper offers “key insights”, which are sadly pedestrian such as: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>combating racism will not be easy or speedy; </p></li>
<li><p>there are no “quick-fix” solutions; </p></li>
<li><p>inequality must be challenged by economic growth (how growth will diminish inequality is not explained); and</p></li>
<li><p>South Africans need to engage in more dialogue.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The key problem with the Foundation’s paper is that it hankers for an opportunity to turn back the clock and rewrite 1994, rather than looking forward and rising to meet the new challenges of a democratic, unequal, racist and stubbornly human South Africa. Attaining formal democracy was a critical first step – but only a first step – in a long struggle to establish a just society. The Foundation should be leading us in the long walk ahead, not looking backwards.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Everatt is affiliated with the Wits School of Governance, which receives research funding from various sources.</span></em></p>The foundation founded by Nelson Mandela in 1999 has done a major revision - it has written off most of his reign as comprising “grand symbolic gestures”.David Everatt, Head of Wits School of Governance, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/659022016-09-27T16:15:25Z2016-09-27T16:15:25ZDecolonising psychology creates possibilities for social change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138773/original/image-20160922-22521-1rununb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Psychology as an academic discipline needs to take a long, hard look at itself.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The issues raised by South African university students in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/22/south-african-police-fire-teargas-as-university-fees-protests-spread">new round of protests</a> must be read as inter-related and integral to the ongoing decolonial project. </p>
<p>Racism, gender-based violence and oppressive working conditions – which persist at the country’s universities – are fuelled by ideas that crafted a world in which we’ve come to justify and legitimise society’s hierarchical organisation. Psychologists are key participants in that legacy. They are complicit in shaping such attitudes of mind. </p>
<p>Psychologists drew historically from theories of social Darwinism and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2986998/">eugenics</a> to espouse the hierarchical categorisation of people into race groups. African people were posited as the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pseudo-scientific-racism-and-social-darwinism-grade-11">least human of all</a>.</p>
<p>Examples include the early 20th century psychological projects that involved intelligence testing and other forms of <a href="http://www.pins.org.za/pins/pins21/4_psychometric_testing.pdf">psychometric testing</a>. These placed people’s minds and abilities on a hierarchy determined by race.</p>
<p>Psychologists <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/evol-psy/">defended</a> ideas of natural selection and “survival of the fittest”. Their defence ultimately led to the legitimisation of slavery, <a href="http://jspp.psychopen.eu/article/view/143/html">colonisation</a> and apartheid. It resulted in the genocide of millions of Africans and colonised people from the global South. </p>
<h2>Indexes of difference</h2>
<p>Psychological research still uses the mind, and more recently the brain, as indexes of difference. </p>
<p>The focus on <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28582-scans-prove-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-male-or-female-brain/">neurological differences</a> between men and women; or understanding the mental health or brain types of substance abusers, criminals, homosexuals, obese people, HIV positive people, is problematic when it translates into research findings that link <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1531487/The-greater-your-weight-the-lower-your-IQ-say-scientists.html">obesity with low intelligence</a>, women with irrationality, young people with deviance or the poor with lack of empathy.</p>
<p>When such findings are <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psychology-s-credibility-crisis-the-bad-the-good-and-the-ugly/">made public</a> they re-inscribe processes of inferiorisation and control. Such research reproduces ideas about who is considered “normal” – and who requires “intervention” as well as the type of intervention.</p>
<p>But the mind doesn’t exist on its own. It is inside a living person. It is shaped by personal experiences, beliefs and actions. These take shape in a social context. The mind is produced by our social environment. </p>
<p>A decolonial turn for psychology would mean moving away from the assumption that the individual is the central unit of analysis in ways that overlook people’s social, economic and political contexts. </p>
<p>To understand the root causes of mental illness, we have to school ourselves and other psychologists in how broader relations of domination and subjugation play themselves out in people’s daily lives. Once we recognise the impact of social ills on people’s well being we can begin to see how prescribing therapies and medication are only stop-gap measures. If we want to make a lasting difference in people’s lives as psychologists, we must also intervene in the structural inequalities and experiences of violence and discrimination that exist in society. </p>
<p>If we don’t, aren’t we simply assisting people to adapt to and survive oppressive living conditions?</p>
<h2>Politicising psychology</h2>
<p>In an <a href="http://www.gipca.uct.ac.za/great-texts-nelson-maldonado-torres/">address</a> at UCT’s Institute for Creative Arts, scholar Professor Nelson Maldonado-Torres proposed 10 theses on decoloniality. </p>
<p>He emphasised the need for an aesthetic decolonial turn through which <a href="http://abahlali.org/files/On_Violence.pdf">les damnés</a> – Frantz Fanon’s term for the oppressed – emerge as creators and agents of social change. He went on to say that for academics, this means no longer only taking refuge in knowledge projects or academic work. What is needed is a collective project that involves political organising, strategy and activism. </p>
<p>More politicised forms of psychology have emerged since the 1980s. These include feminist psychologies, <a href="http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-5583-7_226">postcolonial psychology</a> and liberation psychology. These strands of the discipline have a more social and critical focus. They investigate relations of power between groups in society. They treat people’s identities as diverse, fluid, and intersecting. People are viewed as historical beings whose minds have been constructed by and through their <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/social-psychology.html">social, economic and political environment</a>.</p>
<p>They also propose innovative, creative methods that question traditional relationships between researchers and participants in ways that mitigate the epistemological violence often exercised against those who are researched. </p>
<p>These theoretical projects are intrinsically political, involving forms of activism through consciousness-raising, mobilisation and social action.</p>
<p>Students have shown academics that they want to learn about these types of knowledges as they re-centre their experiences and cultures in the academy. They are asking a fundamental question about what academia is for. </p>
<p>Is academics’ work critically engaging with issues of race, class and gender and against oppressive practices? What are the theories that can craft, guide and sustain alternative social systems? These theories should and must emerge from the relationship between the knowledge production taking place in academic institutions and people’s lived experiences. How would we know what needs to change to achieve a just society without knowing about the lives of those who are most marginalised by social systems, and how to engage them in collective struggles?</p>
<h2>A process of change</h2>
<p>A decolonial turn is a process of change, both in thinking and practice. This is closely linked to academic institutions as key locations of knowledge production. </p>
<p>Several things have become central to a university’s functioning: eradicating the colonial past, reflecting on what is still wrong with the present and imagining a future where the intersecting experiences of the most oppressed are recognised and valued. This can all contribute to the emergence of relevant, productive theories. </p>
<p>For psychologists in South Africa, I suggest that an engagement with blackness, black feminisms and black masculinities is central to the project of building healthy communities. It opens up possibilities for mobilisation, action and social change.</p>
<p><em>This article is adapted from an address made at the <a href="http://www.psyssa.com">Psychological Society of South Africa’s</a> Annual Psychology Congress that took place in Johannesburg from September 21 - 23 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shose Kessi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Psychologists drew historically from theories of social Darwinism and eugenics to espouse the hierarchical categorisation of people into race groups.Shose Kessi, Senior Lecturer in Social and Critical Psychology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/656902016-09-26T19:07:44Z2016-09-26T19:07:44ZWhy the ‘loss of faith’ in heroes like Mandela may not be such a bad thing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138956/original/image-20160923-29897-1hodjse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Older generation freedom fighters like Nelson Mandela are losing currency among some young people in South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yves Herman/Reuters </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The legacy of anti-apartheid activists no longer has currency for many of today’s youth. They believe that they have been failed by the older generation of political leaders, including Nelson Mandela. </p>
<p>A recent Facebook post by the controversial Oxford University student and Mandela Rhodes scholar, <a href="http://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/rhodes-scholars-elect-class-of-2014/ntokozo-qwabe">Ntokozo Sbo Qwabe</a> reflects this.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Older black people who want to silence us on the basis that they fought against apartheid need to shut the fuck up!!! We are here because you failed us! <a href="http://businesstech.co.za/news/government/137655/rhodes-must-fall-activist-tells-older-black-south-africans-to-shut-the-fk-up/">So please</a>!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Qwabe is expressing a sentiment that is fairly common among contemporary South African student activists associated with the country’s “fallist” movements - including <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/rhodesmustfall-23991">#RhodesMustFall</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-student-protests-are-about-much-more-than-just-feesmustfall-49776">#FeesMustFall </a>. </p>
<p>One could say that they have “lost faith” in the legacy of anti-apartheid heroes of yesteryear and the supposed freedoms they have won.</p>
<p>Some may be unsettled, or even angered, by this loss of confidence in the liberation struggle heroes. But I am of the opinion that this loss of faith may not be such a terrible thing in the end. Losing a naïve and untrue “religious conviction” might actually be a sign of the emergence of a more honest and mature commitment to an ethics of responsibility.</p>
<p>South Africa is not unique in this. North American activist and philosopher, Cornel West, recently made a radical statement at a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/unionseminary/posts/10152270159321548">“Keep Ferguson Alive!”</a> event. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWIsawVjvWI">He said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I come from a school of thought that believes that a certain kind of atheism is always healthy… Because what atheism does is that it at least cleans the deck because it claims that all gods are idols… We live in a society in which idolatry is so ubiquitous … So, for a lot of people who have lost faith in god it is probably a healthy thing! Because the god they have lost faith in was probably an idol anyway…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Losing faith in a false god is not such a bad thing. Many South Africans are losing faith in a very subtle and deceptive form of civil religion that held many in thrall during the last 22 years of democracy. As shocking as it may be, perhaps Qwabe and West are not far from the truth.</p>
<h2>Civil religion</h2>
<p>After the euphoria of the peaceful transition to democratic political rule in South Africa in <a href="http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/unit.php?id=65-24E-6">1994</a>, this subtle civil religion emerged in popular culture.</p>
<p>Sociologist Robert Bellah suggests that religion in the civil sphere is possible when citizens begin to shape a belief into a <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=BFWlhQRhQ6gC&printsec=frontcover&dq=handbook+sociology+of+religion&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=handbook%20sociology%20of%20religion&f=false">transcendent narrative </a> about their social and political reality. They begin to use religious or theological symbolism to describe social, political or economic systems and processes. The purpose of the “civil religion” is to work towards the project of an alternative social reality.</p>
<p>The birth of the South African post-apartheid civil religion took place on the day of first South African democratic elections. This event was lauded across the world, as a “<a href="http://www.sol.com.au/kor/19_03.htm">miracle</a>” of peaceful transition in the midst of a hostile and precarious social and political situation.</p>
<p>Many doomsday prophets had predicted the eruption of a <a href="http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/72days1.htm#.V-P-fRaTVQc">civil war</a> in the lead to up the elections. Instead, post-election media reports reflected a widespread sense of <a href="http://www.news24.com/elections/opinionandanalysis/news24-staff-remember-27-april-1994-20140425">euphoria and joy</a>. It was framed in the dense and symbolic theological and religious language of peace and reconciliation. This is not surprising in a country where over <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0318/P03182013.pdf">85%</a> of the population profess to be Christian. Such language is familiar. It has meaning and currency.</p>
<h2>Mandela the ‘messiah’</h2>
<p>Of course, every religion requires a saviour, and the Messiah of this civil religion was Nelson Mandela. He embodied a capacity to envision a new future for the divided people of South Africa. He was widely regarded as a leader who displayed great courage, grace and a <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/nelson-mandela-dies-full-obituary">reconciling nature</a>. </p>
<p>His <a href="http://uir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/14102">virtuous character</a> was presented as an example to be followed by all persons striving to be good citizens. Today many wonder about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-should-undo-mandelas-economic-deals-52767">negotiated compromises</a> he entered into during his presidency and the transition to democratic rule. Perhaps he was only human after all. Even if he was a remarkable human, he is not divine.</p>
<p>The high priest of the newly democratic South Africa’s civil religion was Desmond Tutu, who coined the primary discourse of the (civil) religion in the language of the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-10734471">“rainbow nation”</a>. The character of the religion, and its doctrinal centre was an <a href="https://bible.org/seriespage/9-eschatology-end-times">eschatological</a> harmony based on national reconciliation. </p>
<p>This miracle was to be ushered in through a social event – a ritual. The ritual that served as a moral and psychological symbol of the civil religion was the <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a>. Sadly, its legacy is <a href="https://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/60881">contested</a>. Perpetrators walked free while victims remained uncompensated. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138958/original/image-20160923-29880-1s8f0vk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138958/original/image-20160923-29880-1s8f0vk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138958/original/image-20160923-29880-1s8f0vk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138958/original/image-20160923-29880-1s8f0vk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138958/original/image-20160923-29880-1s8f0vk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138958/original/image-20160923-29880-1s8f0vk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138958/original/image-20160923-29880-1s8f0vk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Archbishop Desmond Tutu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Hutchings/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The civil religion’s sacred text was the 1996 <a href="http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-Africa-1996-1">South African Constitution</a> and the Bill of Rights. The hymn for the civil religion was the national anthem, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBKjWRjwMkY">Nkosi sikele’iAfrika</a>(God bless Africa). But some worry that the constitution protects the rights of the <a href="http://www.pulp.up.ac.za/pdf/2007_05/2007_05.pdf">privileged</a> and does not go far enough in allowing for restorative justice for the poor.</p>
<p>So, what has become clear in recent years is that there is significant loss of confidence in the discourses of the new South Africa - the rainbow nation, and all of the saints, heroes, and rituals. People are losing faith in this civil religion. This disenchantment is most clearly expressed in the words and actions of the “<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34570761">born free</a>” activists, such as Qwabe. </p>
<p>They believe that South Africans find themselves in a more deeply divided, more economically unjust and politically corrupt nation because of their beliefs in these people, in their legacies, and in the institutions they established. </p>
<p>While many may struggle to agree with the methods of the “fallist” youth, perhaps they are pointing South Africa in the right direction? Yes, Mandela did something remarkable. But he is not the peoples’ saviour. Tutu and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are inspiring and important. But now the country needs something for this time. Yes, democracy is an opportunity for transformation. But the 1994 elections were not the end of our process. That was only the beginning. </p>
<p>And so, I am of the mind that South Africans should lose their false civil religion and exchange it for an ethics of responsibility. The poet June Jordan said it most aptly, reflecting on the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/1956-womens-march-pretoria-9-august">women’s march</a> to the Union Buildings in 1956:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And who will join this standing up
… We are the ones we have been <a href="http://www.junejordan.net/poem-for-south-african-women.html">waiting for</a>.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65690/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dion Forster receives funding from the National Research Foundation. He is affiliated with Stellenbosch University and the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology. </span></em></p>Student activists are losing faith in the legacies of anti-apartheid heroes like Nelson Mandela. Perhaps all South Africans should do the same. It may just be what the country needs for its future.Dion Forster, Associate Professor of Ethics and Head of Department, Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Director of the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/657632016-09-22T11:30:25Z2016-09-22T11:30:25ZThe trauma caused by violent protests can be acute, but is largely ignored<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138498/original/image-20160920-12481-1du68k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Public protests are a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-rising-protests-in-south-africa-say-about-attitudes-towards-local-government-61109">regular feature</a> in many countries. People routinely take to their cities’ streets to make demands. Some protests turn violent. Physical injuries are common. But what about the less obvious, unintended emotional consequences? Professor of psychiatry Christopher P Szabo explains the trauma that protesters – and even onlookers – can experience.</em> </p>
<p><strong>What does research tell us about the links between protests and trauma?</strong></p>
<p>There is not a significant amount of empirical research data that shows the link between violent protest and emotional trauma. But <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jts.22105/full">recent research</a> looking at the protests in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30193354">Ferguson, Missouri in the US</a>, where demonstrators took to the streets after the state failed to charge a white police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, showed that exposure to violence during the protests resulted in high levels of distress. </p>
<p>The study involved both the community and police officers and wanted to examine how the proximity to community violence would have an impact on mental health, specifically post traumatic stress disorder and depressive symptoms as well as anger. While it seems that community members reported more symptoms than police officers, the overall finding was that exposure to such violence led to high levels of distress among those directly exposed.</p>
<p>The research suggested that mental health interventions might be necessary for some members of the community who were directly exposed to the violence that ensued.</p>
<p><strong>What are the risks – beyond the physical – for people who are directly involved in protest actions that turn violent? What sort of trauma might they experience?</strong></p>
<p>It is possible that people who are involved or directly exposed to violent situations will experience emotional upset. In more vulnerable people, such as those who have a more anxious disposition, this might lead to them developing features of an acute stress disorder.</p>
<p><a href="http://psychcentral.com/disorders/acute-stress-disorder-symptoms/">Acute Stress Disorder</a> could arise in response to exposure to a traumatic event such as threatened or actual violence. Typically, the person feels anxious and relives the event through involuntary memories, dreams or flashbacks which are experienced as intrusive and distressing. They may occur in response to reminders of the event. Symptoms would appear after exposure and, if a diagnosis is made, would need to have existed for at least three days but not lasted for more than a month.</p>
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<p><strong>Can people who are not directly involved in these protests suffer trauma - through, say, watching protests unfold or hearing their friends’ stories?</strong></p>
<p>People who are not directly exposed to a trauma can still experience “vicarious” traumatisation. This has been described in a range of situations, such as among college students in the wake of the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14975780">September 11 attacks in New York</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, children who watched the <a href="http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/ajp.156.10.1536">Challenger space shuttle explode</a> in 1986 also experienced this vicarious traumatisation. </p>
<p>It appears that geographical proximity without being directly exposed can influence someone’s emotional state. In addition, connectedness to the site of an event as well as the extent of media exposure might also have an influence. </p>
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<p><strong>How does trauma manifest itself? What signs should people be looking out for in themselves and others?</strong></p>
<p>It could manifest as anxiety along with sleep and concentration problems. It could also affect the person’s daily functions. And they may, for example, avoid the place where the incident happened.</p>
<p><strong>What should they do to deal with trauma?</strong></p>
<p>When someone starts to experience these feelings, it is important to share these changes with someone they trust. They should also be open to the possibility of counselling if the changes persist. They should also realise that being unsettled may be a perfectly normal response. The extent to which there is persistence and impact on the way that they function would influence the need to potentially seek professional assistance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65763/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher P. Szabo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People risk being physically harmed during violent protests. But there is also an emotional element at play.Christopher P. Szabo, Professor and Head, Department of Psychiatry, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/656812016-09-19T15:24:31Z2016-09-19T15:24:31ZUniversity fees in South Africa: many questions, lots of anger, and fires to fight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138298/original/image-20160919-11127-189lj2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesting students have had enough and their anger is burning hot.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>South Africa’s Minister of Higher Education and Training Dr Blade Nzimande <a href="http://www.gov.za/speeches/minister-blade-nzimande-2017-university-fees-media-briefing-19-sep-2016-0000">has announced</a> it is up to the country’s universities to “individually…determine the level of (fee) increase that their institutions require…”. But he cautioned that no university’s fees should be raised by more than 8% for 2017. This follows a blanket freeze on fees in 2016 that left a number of universities on <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/19-universities-could-become-dysfunctional-with-0-increase-parliament-hears-20160824">the verge of financial collapse</a>. The Conversation Africa asked Professor Suellen Shay to unpack Nzimande’s announcement.</em></p>
<p><strong>Is the minister’s decision good news or bad for South Africa’s universities?</strong></p>
<p>Overall it’s good news – or it should be. It’s good news from universities’ point of view. The 8% figure comes from <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/education-council-recommends-blanket-university-fee-increase">a recommendation</a> by the Council on Higher Education. Now universities will have to make the final choice about their increases. </p>
<p>It’s also a pro-poor policy. The minister confirmed that students who benefit from the National Student Aid Financial Scheme (NSFAS) will not pay increased fees in 2017. The good news is that he added a second category of students who will not be required to pay increased fees next year: the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-south-africa-university-is-open-to-rich-and-poor-but-what-about-the-missing-middle-36801">missing middle</a>. These are students whose parents earn too much money to qualify for loans from NSFAS but too little to actually afford university fees. Money will now be found to ensure that this group doesn’t pay increased fees in 2017.</p>
<p>I think it was a measured statement. The minister could have made a purely political announcement – one that would have been closer to the governing African National Congress’s recent support for 0% increase for the second consecutive year.</p>
<p>All of that said, the announcement hasn’t been good news to a very significant proportion of the student population. Mass meetings were being held at various campuses after the minister’s press conference so students could discuss their responses and plan their next moves. The University of Cape Town (UCT) suspended all academic activities in anticipation of the announcement. </p>
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<p><strong>What do you think students would have liked to hear from the minister?</strong></p>
<p>I don’t actually think it would have mattered what the minister said. There is such a groundswell of unhappiness among students. It started long before last year’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/fee-protests-point-to-a-much-deeper-problem-at-south-african-universities-49456">#feesmustfall</a> movement and goes back to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall">#Rhodesmustfall protests</a> that saw a statue of Cecil John Rhodes removed from UCT’s campus. There are all these issues, of inequality, of decolonisation. </p>
<p>A significant proportion of the “born free” generation – those who were born in or after 1994 – has had it. They’re fed up on all fronts. The state, university management. We’ve left too many things for too long. It’s viewed as us doing too little, too late. Now we have a crisis. </p>
<p>The focus in the next few days will be less on making fee-related decisions or discussing the minister’s announcement. Universities will be focusing on security, on keeping campuses open or shutting them down amid safety concerns. There’s no head space to tackle students’ underlying deep seated anger and frustration. We’ll be trying to figure out the cost of security per day instead of having bigger discussions.</p>
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<p><strong>What will it take to create the space for those discussions and for taking decisions?</strong></p>
<p>We’re in a very tough space to be finding an action plan.</p>
<p>If you go back to the beginning of 2015 when students first started protesting, there was an opportunity to stand back and ask big questions; to set up ideological discussions. Now we’re fighting fires around a group of students who are saying</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You wouldn’t talk or listen to us a year ago, so now we’re not interested.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We need a wider conversation so that we can find each other. At UCT, for instance, there’s been a call for a <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/we-want-a-shackville-trc-uct-students-20160915">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> mediated by people from outside the institution, giving students a chance to air their grievances and share their experiences. </p>
<p><strong>University councils will now have to figure out how high or low they set their fee increases. When do you think that will start happening?</strong></p>
<p>Never mind deciding what we do with the money: the questions right now are, ‘Are we open or closed tomorrow? How do we ensure everyone’s safety if we reopen or remain open? Should we be closing with exams coming up?’</p>
<p>I think what we’ll see is local issues – those unique to individual universities – connecting with the national issue of funding. Those will all feed into a bigger channel. What that looks like, we don’t know.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65681/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suellen Shay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s universities have been told to set their own fee increases for 2017. That’s good news for institutions, but it hasn’t been well-received by many students.Suellen Shay, Dean and Associate Professor, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641312016-08-24T19:50:35Z2016-08-24T19:50:35ZPodcasts can drive debate and break down academia’s ivory towers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134971/original/image-20160822-18731-1202ajz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Podcasts are emerging as an arguably easy-to-access, affordable mode of creating new spaces for discussion and debate.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Not all of South Africa’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/mar/03/south-africas-student-protests-have-lessons-for-all-universities">student protests</a> in the past 18 months have happened in the streets or on campuses. </p>
<p>A generation of <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/digital-native-prensky/">“digital natives”</a> has masterfully used hashtags – <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/feesmustfall?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Ehashtag">#feesmustfall</a>; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/rhodesmustfall?lang=en">#Rhodesmustfall</a>; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/asinamali">#asinamali</a>; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/rureferencelist">#RUReferenceList</a> – tweets and <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2016/04/more-than-fees-must-fall-building-a-living-archive-of-struggle">blogs</a> alongside various forms of direct action like marches and protests. This has helped to bring important debates about universities into the public eye.</p>
<p>But what happens after the headlines fade and hashtags change? How can conversations and debates about what will happen to higher education be sustained?</p>
<p>Independent media platforms are an important component of both the media and higher education sectors. A free and diverse media sector is an <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2014/12/05/the-impact-of-the-mass-media-on-the-quality-of-democracy-within-a-state-remains-a-much-overlooked-area-of-study/">essential component</a> of any democratic society. And podcasts are emerging as an arguably easy-to-access, affordable mode of <a href="http://www.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/20217">creating new spaces for discussion and debate</a>.</p>
<h2>A promising new medium for debate</h2>
<p>There are <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/world-radio-day-2013/statistics-on-radio/">44,000 radio stations</a> broadcasting all around the world. The single biggest problem facing broadcasters is that the FM band, on which most broadcasts are transmitted, is overloaded. </p>
<p>It is difficult for new radio stations to be awarded a frequency and license, which are necessary steps in establishing a station. It is also expensive and requires huge infrastructural investment to start a radio station. Commercial radio stations have to rely on advertising to survive.</p>
<p>The podcast has emerged as a promising medium for facilitating ongoing, detailed discussion and debate about issues that are so important they need more time than mainstream, profit-oriented media or the changing tides of hashtags might allow.</p>
<p>Podcasting allows anyone with a microphone, an internet connection and an opinion to instantly share it with the world. A “podcast” is a digital audio file created easily on affordable software and distributed via the internet. Listeners can download podcasts, or episodes, to a computer or portable media player. Listeners can also subscribe to their favourite shows and choose whether to listen to individual episodes or entire series.</p>
<p>In this way, podcasts have decentralised information-sharing.</p>
<p>In the US, where Apple celebrated <a href="http://podcasternews.com/2015/07/18/itunes-creates-10-years-of-podcasts-essential-list/">10 years of podcasts</a> in 2015, podcasts were mostly being listened to <a href="http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-measurement/the-5-key-2016-podcast-statistics/">via computer</a> in 2014. Today, <a href="http://www.insideradio.com/free/infinite-dial-podcast-listening-up-sharply/article_c24821f2-e75d-11e5-ae8a-a311e4ade1d1.html">64% of podcasts</a> in the US are accessed via a smartphone or tablet computer. </p>
<p>In Africa, radio remains a <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2013/09/african-radios-growing-and-enduring-popularity/">hugely popular medium</a>. This suggests that the future of podcasts is promising. Podcasting in Africa has become <a href="http://www.okayafrica.com/culture-2/african-podcasts-you-should-be-listening-to/">a veritable trend</a> despite concerns about connectivity issues, costly data and access. Popular topics include technology, entrepreneurship and arts and culture. </p>
<p>Smartphones are becoming ubiquitous in <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/02/22/smartphone-ownership-and-internet-usage-continues-to-climb-in-emerging-economies/">emerging markets</a>. The increased penetration of smartphones and the internet, along with a rising middle class who have more disposable income - particularly in emerging markets like Africa and Asia - has contributed significantly to the creation of podcasts.</p>
<p>Conversations abound in these same markets about increasing investments in the science, technology, engineering and maths fields. There’s also a lot of talk about how improving access to quality higher education shapes and contributes to the growth and development of the overall economy. The more we talk and listen to one another, the more society and the economy will ultimately benefit.</p>
<h2>Podcasts and higher education</h2>
<p>A number of universities already use <a href="http://www.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/20217">podcasts for teaching</a>. Students can listen to pre-recorded lectures or hear their lecturers sharing hints and tips for essay-writing. Podcasts are also now <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/audio">emerging</a> as a way to talk about <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/academic/comment/podcasts">issues</a> linked to academia. </p>
<p>It’s the platform podcasts provide for engagement, talking and listening that prompted us to establish a weekly podcast called <a href="https://theacademiccitizen.org">The Academic Citizen</a>. It is funded by the <a href="https://asawu.org.za/">Academic Staff Association of Wits University</a> and is based at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand. It features a weekly in-depth conversation with a guest about topics important to higher education. This facilitates the exchange of ideas and debate far beyond brick and mortar university buildings.</p>
<p>Since its launch in April 2016, The Academic Citizen has featured nearly 20 guests being interviewed on a range of topics: protest action on campuses; whether fee-free higher education is possible and how it could be achieved; language and transformation and the importance of academic staff unions. Every episode features two or three “student voices”, which allows students to share their perspectives on each topic. </p>
<p>The Academic Citizen has tapped into social media platforms like <a href="https://www.facebook.com/academiccitizen">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/academiccitizen">Twitter</a> to share updates and news, which helps us capture more of an audience.</p>
<h2>A plurality of voices</h2>
<p>One of the podcast’s consistent goals is to present a variety of opinions about higher education in South Africa and beyond. It provides a platform for those involved in universities to confront the existing problems, listen to one another’s views and communicate about how higher education can be improved. We believe this will help drive a move towards improving the sector for the benefit of all its stakeholders.</p>
<p>Podcasting helps to promote dialogue so that more voices can “join in” conveniently with difficult conversations. After all, plurality of thought is the key to progress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mehita Iqani is an elected member of the Executive Committee for the Academic Staff Association of Wits University (ASAWU), the union for academic staff, which covers the production costs of The Academic Citizen podcast. All the work she does for the Union and podcast are voluntary and unpaid as part of her academic service to her institution. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Balungile Mbenyane is employed by the Academic Staff Association of Wits University (ASAWU). Part of her responsibility is to plan and produce The Academic Citizen podcast on a weekly basis.</span></em></p>The podcast has emerged as a promising medium for facilitating ongoing debate about issues that need more time than mainstream, profit-oriented media or the changing tides of hashtags might allow.Mehita Iqani, Associate Professor of Media Studies, University of the WitwatersrandBalungile Mbenyane, Researcher for Media Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/638402016-08-16T19:39:52Z2016-08-16T19:39:52ZDecolonisation debate is a chance to rethink the role of universities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133929/original/image-20160812-16360-1dbac4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The decolonisation of South Africa's university curriculum seems to have fallen off the agenda, overtaken by the push for free higher education.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When South African students launched the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall">Rhodes Must Fall</a>” campaign in 2015, one of their major demands was that the university curriculum be decolonised. This seems to have fallen off the agenda, overtaken by the push for free higher education. </p>
<p>It would be a pity if <a href="http://www.dhet.gov.za/summit/Docs/2015Docs/Annex%203_DHET_Progress%20with%20transformation%20_What%20do%20the%20data%20say.pdf">funding challenges</a> – important as they are – preclude a focus on challenges related to higher education’s core functions: teaching, learning and research.</p>
<p>The decolonisation debate raises critical issues about the relationship between power, knowledge and learning. It provides an opportunity to rethink the role of universities in social and economic development and in fashioning a common nation.</p>
<p>There are two underlying issues that should be unpacked to take the decolonisation debate forward.</p>
<h2>Institutional cultures in focus</h2>
<p>The first issue is to recognise that decolonisation is about more than the curriculum. It involves more than changing reading lists through adding texts by African writers and those from the global south. It is about how knowledge – and the assumptions and values that underpin its conception, construction and transmission – is reflected in the university as a social institution. </p>
<p>It is in essence about institutional culture: the ways of seeing and doing that permeate a university and are reflected in learning and teaching. In this sense it is both about the formal curriculum and the informal or “hidden” curriculum. This includes the symbols and naming conventions that privilege and affirm certain knowledge and cultural traditions while excluding others.</p>
<p>Decolonisation is first and foremost about inclusion, recognition and affirmation. It seeks to affirm African knowledge and cultural traditions in universities, which remain dominated by western traditions. As a student commented during <a href="http://sotlforsocialjustice.blogspot.co.za/2016/03/first-seminar-at-uj-decolonizing">a panel about decolonisation</a> at the University of Johannesburg (UJ):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Please let us see ourselves within the degrees that are taught – otherwise, UJ, how is it an African university?</p>
</blockquote>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Brenda Liebowitz of the University of Johannesburg unpacks aspects of the decolonisation debate.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All of this means reflecting on and unpacking an institution’s culture. Universities must guard against solutions that may, in the very process of inclusion, lead to exclusion. </p>
<p>To illustrate this from beyond the world of higher education: my children attended a primary school in Johannesburg that celebrated all religious festivals – Eid, Diwali, Rosh Hashanah. At a special school assembly each year, children from different religions explained what their festivals symbolised.</p>
<p>But Christmas was celebrated through a nativity play in which all of the students participated and which all the parents attended. So the process of inclusion privileged one tradition, Christianity. Non-Christian traditions, although unintentionally, were marginalised as “other”.</p>
<h2>Narrow lens</h2>
<p>The second issue is to recognise that decolonisation is too narrow and limiting a lens through which to engage the debate on curriculum change. </p>
<p>Decolonisation refers to the historical process whereby countries that were ruled by foreign powers obtain their independence. It is about replacing the foreign with a national power, both of which are assumed to be homogeneous. It isn’t about changing or transforming a colonised society’s institutional structures.</p>
<p>This is also a key conceptual weakness in curriculum decolonisation. It assumes that different knowledge systems are homogeneous. This ignores the social underpinnings of knowledge – the fact that all traditions feature dominant and marginal knowledges. These are based on power relations and worldviews linked to race, class, gender and other societal divisions.</p>
<p>This leads to two dangers: racial essentialism - replacing white with black or Freud with Fanon; and social conservatism, which pits modernity against tradition. It calls for African solutions to African problems. But it does this in a context where tradition is viewed as static rather than dynamic – evolving with changing social and economic contexts.</p>
<p>As South African President Jacob Zuma <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/04/08/Before-turning-to-the-court-we-should-solve-things-Africa-way">has argued</a> in response to his various legal challenges, the law (West/modern) is cold; the body (Africa/tradition) is warm.</p>
<p>These dangers can be avoided if knowledge is understood in terms of epistemological diversity. This recognises the universality of knowledge. It is premised on an open dialogue and the interdependence of – and porous boundaries between – different knowledge traditions. It enables the reclaiming and affirming of African knowledge traditions. </p>
<p>It also acknowledges that the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/enlightenment">Enlightenment</a>, the cornerstone of modern (western) social and economic thought, was itself influenced by ideas that emanated from other traditions.</p>
<h2>On the edge of an abyss</h2>
<p>The issues and problems raised by students are not new. The need to transform institutional cultures has been a constant refrain in higher education policy debates since 1994. It was brought to the fore by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/27/bloemfontein-students-black-staff-campus">Reitz affair</a> at the University of the Free State in early 2008. There, a group of white students at a university residence humiliated black workers.</p>
<p>This caused a national outcry. It led to the establishment of a <a href="http://www.dhet.gov.za/Support/Report%20of%20the%20Ministerial%20Committee%20on%20racism%20at%20higher%20education%20institutions.pdf">ministerial committee</a> to consider issues of discrimination, transformation and social cohesion in higher education.</p>
<p>The committee’s report offered a comprehensive set of recommendations to both the ministry of higher education and training and individual universities. The failure to implement these systematically has led to the current crisis of legitimacy confronting the higher education system.</p>
<p>The committee’s views on curriculum change were prescient. It placed epistemological transformation at the centre of the higher education transformation agenda. It called for a macro-review to <a href="http://www.dhet.gov.za/Support/Report%20of%20the%20Ministerial%20Committee%20on%20racism%20at%20higher%20education%20institutions.pdf">assess the appropriateness</a> of the “social, ethical, political and technical skills and competencies embedded” in the curriculum. </p>
<p>It’s important, the committee argued, to consider whether the current curriculum prepares young people for their role in post-apartheid South Africa, in Africa and the world. Does it enable them to grapple with what it means to be human in South Africa in the 21st century?</p>
<p>But the voices that speak of the pain of marginalisation and plead for affirmation that leap out of the pages of the committee’s report were not listened to. Ignoring students’ voices in 2016 will lead higher education to the abyss.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Author’s note: This article is based on speaking notes as a respondent to professor Brenda Leibowitz’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Dh-K4S-Ak">inaugural lecture</a>, Power, knowledge and learning: A humble contribution to the decolonisation debate. This was delivered at the University of Johannesburg on April 18, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ahmed Essop does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The decolonisation debate in South Africa’s universities raises critical issues about the relationship between power, knowledge and learning.Ahmed Essop, Research Associate in Higher Education Policy and Planning, Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/623172016-07-15T13:32:17Z2016-07-15T13:32:17ZReflections on building the South Africa of Nelson Mandela’s dreams<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130546/original/image-20160714-23353-f75a2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nelson Mandela laughs with journalists and performers ahead of the second 46664 concert in the Western Cape in 2005.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is a debate in South Africa about who <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36712717">Nelson Mandela belongs to</a>, as though he is the property of someone, a political party or a faction of the African National Congress.</p>
<p>Added to that, there is a new generation of young people – the “<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34570761">born frees</a>” who never lived under apartheid – who now reject the political pacts he made during negotiations to end minority white domination. They see his compromises as selling out, entrenching white privilege and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-compromises-and-mistakes-made-in-the-mandela-era-hobbled-south-africas-economy-52156">failing the black majority</a>.</p>
<p>When celebrating <a href="http://www.mandeladay.com/">Nelson Mandela Day</a> on July 18, it would benefit South Africans to reflect on what his legacy means for the nation. It would also help to reflect on how South Africans are living up to his dreams for the country.</p>
<p>Three issues that are important to think about are the problems inherent in liberalism, gender oppression and precarious living conditions for the majority of South Africans.</p>
<h2>The limits of liberalism</h2>
<p>The parties that negotiated the <a href="http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/Constitution-Republic-South-Africa-1996-1">final constitution</a> and the form of South Africa’s democracy between 1991 and 1994 made democratic pacts or compromises that constituted a liberal democracy, with many civil liberties and human rights embodied in the constitution.</p>
<p>The constitution, for example, includes 17 grounds for no discrimination of which race, gender and sexual orientation are three, making it one of the most progressive constitutions in the world.</p>
<p>The problem with liberalism is that it focuses on the individual and individual rights, not the community. But people live in communities and not as atomistic individuals without social relations. This is specifically relevant for Africans who adhere to a philosophy of <a href="http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=20359"><em>ubuntu</em></a> – that you are a person through your relationships with other people. </p>
<p>Liberalism also embodies <a href="http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/oldsite/pom/pom_substance_dualism.htm">Cartesian dualism</a> – the distinction between mind and body. This means that we have to think of mind and body as two separate entities that do not affect each other. It also means that the mind is abstracted from the body and viewed as superior to the body.</p>
<p>But what the new generation is telling the world with its <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-student-protests-are-about-much-more-than-just-feesmustfall-49776">protests</a> on campuses is that the body matters very much. And the body matters because it is the embodiment of people’s experience. If your body is black you have a very different experience of the world than if your body is white. </p>
<p>If your body is that of a woman you have a very different experience of the world than if your body is that of a man. This generation has made “lived experience” central in its engagement with the world. “Black pain” is real. This is an existential pain caused by feelings of exclusion, not being taken seriously and feelings of alienation in institutional cultures that treat these individuals as “other”. In this regard the country needs a process of the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-africas-professors-are-afraid-of-colonial-education-being-dismantled-50930">decolonisation</a>” of the mind.</p>
<h2>Gender oppression</h2>
<p>The founding provisions of the constitution state that South Africa is a non-racial, non-sexist democracy that <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02039/04lv02046/05lv02047/06lv02065/07lv02067.htm">values human dignity</a>. But South Africans are neither non-racial, or non-sexist. Putting the body and experience at the centre is actually a feminist strategy. Feminists were among the first to argue that the “<a href="http://womenshistory.about.com/od/feminism/a/consciousness_raising.htm">personal is political</a>”.</p>
<p>The student campaigns have also put the notion of intersectional feminism centre stage, where intersectionality means the dynamic relationship of interlocking oppressions of gender, race, class and other markers of identity. Young women, the majority of them black, are at the forefront to say that <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-young-women-activists-are-rewriting-the-script-60980">second-class citizenship</a> for women is not acceptable. Women students have said they will no longer tolerate a “rape culture”. This is a culture in which women are objectified, sexually harassed, disrespected and unsafe.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130551/original/image-20160714-23323-c7ptno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130551/original/image-20160714-23323-c7ptno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130551/original/image-20160714-23323-c7ptno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130551/original/image-20160714-23323-c7ptno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130551/original/image-20160714-23323-c7ptno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130551/original/image-20160714-23323-c7ptno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130551/original/image-20160714-23323-c7ptno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Admirers of former President Nelson Mandela.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women students were prepared to <a href="http://witsvuvuzela.com/2016/04/26/wits-fmf-feminists-stand-in-solidarity-with-rureferencelist-protestors/">use their bodies</a> in topless marches to bring the point across that women should be able to walk the streets, even when they are topless, without being harassed. They embody the struggles against sexism, homophobia, the harassment of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning (LGBTIQ) community and gender-based violence. </p>
<p>Presently South Africa has one of the highest levels of gender-based violence in the world and women are still discriminated against at work. Also, women bear the brunt of HIV infection, while those in the rural areas are often exposed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/unease-reigns-as-culture-and-the-constitution-collide-in-south-africa-41795">harmful cultural practices</a> such as <em><a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/brochure/ukuthwala/ukuthwala.html">ukuthwala</a></em> and virginity testing.</p>
<h2>Precarious lives</h2>
<p>We live in what can be called precarious times. The world is an unstable place with thousands migrating from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/european-policy-is-driving-refugees-to-more-dangerous-routes-across-the-med-56625">Middle East to Europe</a>, where urban terror has <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/is-urban-terrorism-is-the-new-normal-probably/">increased</a>. The global economy is wreaking havoc with those living in developing countries and xenophobic violence is on the <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-hidden-truth-the-rising-tide-of-global-racism-and-xenophobia/5428854">increase everywhere</a>.</p>
<p>Judith Butler, the American feminist theorist, talks about precarious lives, where conditions of uncertainty mean that through violence, uncertain income or no income and inequality, many are never sure that they may survive another day. Apartheid South Africa was the cause of <a href="http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/uploads/media/butler-judith-precarious-life.pdf">precarious lives</a> for most black South Africans. The operation of law was precarious and more often than not did not result in justice.</p>
<p>Conditions of precariousness in South Africa are fuelled by the lack of moral authority in our political leadership. This can be viewed in the treatment of the Public Protector’s findings on the misappropriation of funds for the president’s <a href="http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/why-report-of-nkandla-ad-hoc-committee-is-of-no-legal-relevance/">private home at Nkandla</a>, as well as forms of <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-south-africas-public-broadcaster-be-saved-from-itself-62185">censorship</a> exercised by the South African Broadcasting Corporation.</p>
<p>South Africans will have to reimagine the possibility of community if they want to live together peacefully in this country. They have to start in a sense, as <a href="http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/uploads/media/butler-judith-precarious-life.pdf">Butler says</a>, with the questions: who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives? What makes for a liveable and a grievable life? </p>
<p>South Africans need to think back and remember that point of embracing the constitution 20 years ago. They have to continue to understand the impetus of reconciliation that is embodied in the constitution. They cannot afford to forget this – and they owe it to Mandela, who supported a version of liberalism that is inclusive and accepting of diversity, not to do so. He was a man who believed in all forms of equality – be it race or gender or other forms of identity. And he worked towards ending precarious conditions. </p>
<p>In these efforts all South Africans have a role to play.</p>
<p><em>This is a shortened, edited version of a keynote address delivered at the <a href="http://www.sun.ac.za/english/Lists/Events/DispForm.aspx?ID=3077">Nelson Mandela Colloquium</a> recently.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62317/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Gouws receives funding from the National Science Foundation</span></em></p>When celebrating Nelson Mandela Day, it would benefit South Africans to reflect on what the statesman’s legacy means for the nation and how they are living up to his dreams for the country.Amanda Gouws, Professor of Political Science, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.