CAPE FORUM LODGES COMPLAINT AT SAHRC OVER PROFESSOR’S REFERENCE TO WHITE STUDENTS AS DOGS

18 November 2022

The civil rights organisation Cape Forum considers Professor Jonathan Jansen’s reference to white male students at the Stellenbosch University (SU) as “dogs” in a column he wrote for TimesLive to be uncalled for, inflammatory and insulting. Cape Forum lodged a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission to investigate the matter and to act on it if they also deem these comments inhumane, hateful and hurtful.

The column written by Jansen was in response to the report by the Khampepe Commission on the alleged racism at SU. Jansen wrote that, “just like dogs use urine to mark their territory and anxiety, white male students use the same strategy to protest black incursion into their intimate spaces, such as residences.”

Just like dogs use urine to mark their territory and anxiety, white male students at the UFS and now SU use the same strategy to protest black incursion into their space. My Times column tomorrow on the Khampepe Report

— Jonathan Jansen (@JJ_Stellies) November 16, 2022

“History has taught us about the danger of labelling members of a certain community, ethnic or cultural group as some kind of animal or insect, be that South African Penny Sparrow calling black citizens ‘monkeys’ or a Rwandan politician referring to Tutsis as ‘cockroaches’ which contributed to the occurrence of genocide in 1994 in his country,” says Heindrich Wyngaard, Executive Chairperson at the Cape Forum. “These remarks by Jansen makes no constructive contribution to unrooting racist actions from our democratic society, which should in all instances be condemned.”

Statement issued by Cape Forum/Kaapse Forum, 18 November 2022