Lisa Isaacs and ANA
RACISM, discrimination, human rights violations and marginalisation are indefensible, Stellenbosch University (SU) rector and vice-chancellor Professor Wim de Villiers told Parliament’s portfolio committee on higher education and training yesterday.
While De Villiers, along with the rest of SU’s management, were called before the portfolio committee to respond to allegations of racism made in an online documentary – titled Luister, which filmed 34 students and staff members’ accounts of racism on campus – hundreds of students from universities in the province simultaneously protested on the streets at SU.
There was also a violent protest at the Elsenburg Agricultural College in Stellenbosch. Students allegedly belonging to the EFF were caught on camera sjambokking those around them. They were protesting against the language policy at the college.
De Villiers said he had watched Luister with his wife. “It was uncomfortable and upsetting. I do not enjoy knowing that students – my students – are suffering.”
However, he pointed out certain “nuances” omitted in Luister and in the dialogue that followed thereafter.
De Villiers said despite Open Stellenbosch refusing to engage with the university, it was committed to travelling the path set by late rector Professor Russel Botman.
Part of this was exceeding the Department of Higher Education and Training’s projected student enrolment for 2019. The department showed white students would make up 56.2 percent whereas De Villiers said the aim was for a majority black, coloured and Indian student body, come 2020.
“Change is always difficult, and I am of the thinking that if change is not uncomfortable… well, then you aren’t doing it right,” he said.
About 600 students from Stellenbosch, UCT and UWC protested through the streets of SU yesterday.
“This is part of a general sense that universities need to be decolonised and that we are moving towards opening access to education for all,” said Open Stellenbosch member Simone Cupido, adding that action would not stop until the language policy was changed.
Tension was, however, cooled when a university staff member accepted a memorandum calling for an urgent meeting of the council to discuss the language policy among other issues. Rhodes Must Fall member Ru Slayen said the mass action had been long overdue. Slayen said Luister depicted not only what students at Stellenbosch faced, but also black students across the country. SU management yesterday extended an open invitation to Open Stellenbosch to engage in discussions on transformation at the university.
The university said while they did not receive an application from Open Stellenbosch for the march, the memo was submitted to management for its content to be discussed.
ANC Chief Whip Phumelele Stone Sizani expressed his dissatisfaction with the efforts to curb racial abuses and discrimination against black students at the university, call.
“The university management does not seem to fully comprehend the seriousness of the dehumanising conditions suffered daily by black students and the implication of the language discrimination to the students’ future,” he said in a statement.
Of the violence at the Elsenburg Agricultural College, EFF’s Bernard Jospeh said while the party did not condone violence, it was important that the language policies were addressed and changed.