Johannesburg - A poem laden with sexual suggestion is at the centre of the sacking of a Wits lecturer. But the author says that to be fired for penning it is too harsh a punishment.
Dr Last Moyo, who was a senior media studies lecturer before being dismissed by the University of the Witswatersrand last week, intends appealing the decision.
Tsepo wa Mamatu, a senior drama lecturer, was also sacked by the institution last week. Two other academics have been suspended pending an investigation into their conduct.
On Monday Moyo told The Star that one of the allegations against him was based on a poem that he had e-mailed to a colleague, who he believed had been a friend.
“In July last year I had gone to her office and we spoke about literature. She recited a poem for me and I said to her I’ll send one of my own poems,” he told The Star.
The colleague apparently felt uncomfortable because the poem, titled For You (My Dream), was suggestive, and Moyo said when she told him this, he apologised to her.
Lisa Vetten, an independent researcher on gender violence, said it appeared as though Moyo’s inappropriate actions were not isolated.
“There seems to be a history and a pattern that’s gone on over a period of time. It would suggest a sense of entitlement that the person (Moyo) doesn’t think they’ve done anything wrong,” Vetten said.
Vetten said Moyo’s defence that it was just a poem and that he had apologised “trivialised” the effects of his actions. “It’s suggesting someone that doesn’t quite grasp what he’s done,” Vetten added.
She condemned Moyo for trying to use the media to spin his side of the story rather than using the “proper channels” at the university.
Moyo faced two counts of sexual harassment. The second involved a student.
In March, one of his media studies students received a Facebook message from him after she had told him her surname. She said it made her feel uncomfortable.
“That afternoon I received a Facebook message from him telling me that he liked my ‘maturity’ and that I was ‘laid-back’,” she wrote on the Wits campus news site, the Vuvuzela. “He asked if we could be friends, a move that I felt was uncalled for,” she wrote at the time.
“I told him that I felt it was inappropriate behaviour and asked that we not make any further contact. He respected my wishes and I did not receive any more messages from him. But the next few lectures were uncomfortable and I worried that my decision would affect my academics,” she wrote.
After an essay she submitted went missing, she said she avoided asking for it because she did not want to see him, but also that she did not officially report him.
The student wrote a report in the student publication, Vuvuzela, in which she described the incident as well as other allegations of sexual harassment against him.
Moyo then lodged a complaint with the Press Ombudsman, which was referred to the university’s media board and onto Wits’s legal board. The decision is still pending.
His complaint about the story was not based on the allegations put forward, but that the student was directly involved in the story and had not identified her personal interest in the matter when she interviewed him for the story.
The Vuvuzela published his letters of complaint to the Wits journalism department, with his permission, in March.
The poem Dr Last Moyo wrote:
For You (My Dream)
A beautiful rose that exudes the sweet smell of love,
Her petals flap like the wings of a faithful dove.
Her chest harbours the sweet tremors of my delight,
When will my hand fondle her sweet pointed hills?
That shine with love and simmer with romance,
Perhaps it is not very far.
For me to hold her hand and make her mine.
Yet it all remains just a dream.
Her lips carry a promise of an eternal kiss,
Her arms carry the promise of eternal warmth,
In her bosom my nectar resides,
To lick while I spread the seed of life.
Her eyes pierce my heart with a sweet pain.
Her smile symbolizes that final nail,
Killing me softly with admiring disdain.
She is a reward for the truth I feel inside,
That prays for her eternal embrace,
Cupid Heart when will you smile at me?
Letting me closer to feel your warm breath on my chest,
As we race consumed by eternal love.
Perhaps it’s not very far,
Yet for now it’s nothing but just a dream.