Kameraad Mhambi finds the moves by Professor Jonathan Jansen of the University of the Free State very very interesting. He has just decided to withdraw charges against the students involved in the Reitz racist video incident.
Varashni Pillay reports for the Mail & Guardian that:
We’ve seen the former University of the Free State (UFS) lads ousted, their eponymous residence hastily converted into a centre for reconciliation (racism … now you see it — now you don’t!) and the drama of the court proceedings against them.
Until Friday. When hastily converted vice-chancellor, the racially-savvy and helpfully coloured Jonathan Jansen, caused a minor storm of controversy by dropping charges against the students.
It was brave move that was guaranteed to create an outcry. Never mind Jansen’s “blueprint for transformation” at the university — including compulsory Sesotho lessons for white kids and Afrikaans lessons for black kids. Forget the reparations that will be paid to the humiliated workers, the hefty punishment already meted out to the students and the near universal acknowledgement that what happened in that video — urine or no urine — was wrong. The institutions that matter (read: ANC and the relevant trade unions) want their pound of flesh.
The Reitz incident last year made me write four blog posts!
Nogal ‘n mind vol and they are still worth a read.
But back to the current uproar. Varashni again:
“The biggest mistake in the analysis of Reitz is to explain the incident in terms of individual pathology,” Jansen said at his inauguration last week. “Yet to dismiss the video as a product of four bad apples is too easy an explanation. This video recording was preceded by a long series of racial incidents protesting racial integration.”
He is attempting a holistic approach: tackling the entire institution and examining what allowed the atrocity to be committed in the first place. Dropping the charges is just one facet, designed to challenge every white UFS student tempted to play the victim in the wake of the incident.
I’m in two minds.
I think that these idiots should be punished. Yes, there may be many other bad apples at UOFS but they did not act and do what these guys did. When these incidents took place just before the recent spate of xenophobic attacks on black foreigners Rhoda Kadalie wrote:
“And so when that video from the University of the Free State emerged, the government, the media, writers and certain institutions went to town, condemning the entire university as racist, barbaric and anti-black, instead of doing a thorough investigation into how the video was made, why black women participated, and why it was released at the time it was.”
I agree with Kadalie. And as an extension of this argument I think these students deserve to be punished. But I don’t agree with Cosatu and the ANC interference with the university on the other hand. Once again Kadalie said it best:
“…we forget that sexual violence and rape are prevalent and covered up on so many campuses. Ask me, I know about sexual violations at so-called progressive universities, where student leaders were involved in the sexual harassment and rape of fellow students. These campuses were not billed as “campuses of rape”, and whole campuses are not painted with the same brush because of those who routinely perpetrate such acts of violence against female students at only one.”
I do like Jansen’s decisiveness. He clearly has ideas about how to approach the running of this university. We have such a dearth of quality leadership in this country. He certainly deserves plaudits for that.
Update: Prof Atkinson is from the Centre for Development Support at UOFS wrote a very good article in support on Jansen in today’s Business Day.
Jansen is trying to steer an innovative course between traditional Afrikaner patriarchalism and ANC populism. He understands the complexity of institutions, and the need to preserve institutional resilience.
The real problem at the university is the student residence system, which has fostered a dual student body, with a different ethos, habits and culture.
What Nzimande fails to recognise is that Jansen is going to act firmly against the prevailing Afrikaans student culture . Jansen is going to integrate the hostels and the hostel leadership bodies. This is not making him popular in white student circles . So the ANC is undermining the one person whose credentials are impeccable, and who could at last address this lingering sore point on campus. What kind of political myopia is that?
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