LUISTER…
Luister, the video that was recently produced by the Open Stellenbosch (OS) movement, should be viewed by everyone who is interested in the future of our universities and the future of South Africa as a multicultural society. It presents 32 interviews - primarily with black students - regarding their sense of racial exclusion at Stellenbosch University. They complain of subtle - and not so subtle - racism in their interactions with white Afrikaans-speaking students - including accusations of out-and-out racial abuse in student bars and on the internet.
One of the main problems, they say, is that not all their lectures are in English. Black students who speak only English cannot follow the lectures and report that simultaneous interpretation services provided by the university are inadequate.
The OS charges form part of a growing racial mobilisation at some of our universities:
Last year the Potchefstroom campus of NWU was castigated for initiation ceremonies that incorporated supposedly ‘Nazi’ salutes (although the allegation is not supported by a video of the ceremony). Nevertheless, the Minister of Higher Education, Dr Blade Nzimande, immediately ordered a high-level enquiry that was quickly used to exert further pressure on the campus’s predominantly Afrikaans identity.
Earlier this year the Rhodes Must Fall movement at the University of Cape Town made demands - similar to those of OS - for the elimination of the university’s “colonial” culture and for rapid progress toward full demographic representivity in both the student body and the faculty. In the course of their protests they invaded a Council meeting, occupied university buildings and chanted with impunity anti-white racist slogans.