Dear Archbishop Ndungane
I write this letter to you because this week I was forced to ask myself "Why must our struggle continue?" This is not the first time this question has plagued me. Why must it be that a student at the University of Cape Town (UCT) is pushed to the point of having to throw faecal matter over the statue of Cecil John Rhodes in order to have a conversation about transformation at UCT? How is it that we are now at this point?
This week I was forced, again, to come to terms with the idea that the University of Cape Town has no plan for real transformation on campus. Transformation that I can see. Honest transformation. Transformation that means something. I write this letter to you not as an attack on your person, though I must note that your silence on matters of transformation at UCT is disconcerting, I write this letter as an appraisal of the institutionalised racism that continues to persists within UCT. This letter is addressed to you because I can no longer put my trust in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor or Senate to lead any form of meaningful transformation at this institution.
The form of institutionalised racism that persists at UCT is unlike the other forms of obvious, obscene and repugnant acts of racism that exist at other institutions of higher learning. Ours is worse. Ours is systemic. Ours is subliminal. It is the form of racism that makes you ignorant about your subjugation because you are never challenged to seriously engage on critical matters. It's the form of racism that allows those who enter UCT from a position of privilege to never have to question their privilege. The privilege of being able to walk past a statue of Saartjie Baartman in the library and have no idea that simply placing her on display, with no justification, is an insult to her legacy and painfully offensive to many students.
You see the problem we face at UCT is that the discussion around transformation, and in particular racial transformation, is largely ignored or recklessly diluted by those in decision making positions. Racial transformation is often packed away into policies that have no tangible outputs and have meaningless impact on the university. If it were true that the university was indeed moving forward with regards to transformation why is it that we do not have a real,meaningful, transformation strategy? Reverend, what we want, what we need, is transformation that we can see.
Currently the transformation goals of the university are: