The ‘reborn’ University of Cape
Town (UCT): a birth to be celebrated or a tragic abortion?
I am surprised that Dr Russell
Ally has published his controversial and provocative piece Not the
death-knell but the birth pangs of a new inclusive UCT. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/not-the-deathknell-but-the-birth-pangs-of-a-new-in
With
the unabated Fallist triumphs culminating in:
1. the humiliating Agreement
of November 6
2.
the invader-sabotaged AGM of the UCT Convocation
3. the forthcoming Fallist-dominated
Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Committee
I would
have thought that he would have let the ‘transformational tsunami’ run its full
course and let his ‘new’ UCT be ‘born’ and flourish.
In any
event, thank you Dr Ally, because, other than your opening message vis-à-vis
UCT’s racist past, virtually none of your spin-filled piece has factual support.
Contrary to
Ally’s account, the Convocation AGM did not have “to be aborted”. After it was sabotaged by
UCT-Executive-unopposed, illegal invaders. It was strategically stopped by the
chairperson seconds after a carefully timed motion by Executive-supporter Hugh
Corder. This act stifled discussion of
the possibility of consulting UCT alumni broadly on the issue of the Executive’s
negotiating with lawbreakers.
Furthermore,
by merely saying that “there are staff and students who feel traumatized and alienated” Ally deliberately understates the reality
that the vast “silenced majority” of the UCT Community was brutalized
by a lawbreaking “malevolent minority”.
Had the
Executive stood by UCT’s fundamental principles and insisted that protesters
respect the rule of law, nothing would have had to “be curtailed”, “disrupted”,
“suspended” or “deferred”. There is no “perceive[d]
deepening crisis” at UCT. It is a reality
that the Panglossian Executive refuses to accept.
Ally says
that it’s “important to maintain perspective”. Whose perspective?
Ph.D.-educated
historian Ally pronounces that: “The University of Cape Town is not an island
unto itself”. Even a cursory investigation
into its history supports the opposite conclusion. From the late-1950s throughout the balance of
the Apartheid, it was exactly that. Read
Prof./Dr. Stuart Saunders’ autobiography!
Nothing’s changed.
He further
asserts: “UCT can[not] somehow completely on its own rise above the crisis that
higher education is facing in the country and restore "normalcy" to
the campus”. In fact, with visionary
leadership based on anti-race/sexism underpinned by the rule of law, I am
totally convinced that this is indeed possible if its entire community were
consulted and bought into the process.
Ally then
goes into high-spin-mode by decrying a ‘normal’, peaceful, functional,
“pristine” UCT as a “misguided but also foolhardy” goal because it depends on
having “a very different demographic profile” “reinforced” by “police and
security”.
In fact, all
that was needed to achieve this goal was for the lawbreaker Fallists to cease
their nefarious activities or be stopped from doing so.
Price/Ally’s
‘solution’ has been to ‘defer’ to the “present-day realities” of illegal
intimidation, violence and wanton destruction.
Ally then
returns to the real world when he characterizes “the old-UCT [as] reflect[ing]
the white historical privilege” that relegated “black people who were permitted
to enter its hallowed doors … as sojourners”.
If, by “Old UCT”, he means pre-Saunders, he is 100% correct. I was there as junior member of staff. But, in the late 1970s, even before he became
VC, Saunders acted decisively to undermine race-based exclusionism at UCT. His successors, including Price, have only reinforced
this policy.
What is most
important is that, concomitant with this reduction of exclusionism, Saunders
uncompromisingly promoted massive development in academic excellence for ALL at
UCT. This development has continued
during the post-Apartheid inclusionary era to the great benefit of the entire
UCT student community.
There is no
evidence that the Fallist-dominated Institutional Reconciliation Transformation
Commission will maintain this policy of excellence if it conflicts with
’decolonization’.
Indeed, Ally
highlights this concern when he refers to the need “to interrogate the very
notion of excellence itself, which is not without its own contradictions and
limitations”. To my view, there is no
need to do anything about excellence except demand it across the board.
Then he
refers to commentators like myself, Thomas Johnson, Mike Monson, Prof. Philip
Lloyd, Andrew Kenny and Prof. David Benatar as ‘hogging” the headlines and
focusing on “spectacle” and not “substance” of the issues.
Two
responses to this.
First, if
required to do so, I can tally who’s publishing what and show that Ally is
wrong in identifying the real ‘hogs’. UCT’s powerful Communication and
Marketing Department has made sure that pro-Price/Fallist pieces feature strongly
in the UCT press and the social media.
It has also begun to refuse to publish my commentaries/rebuttals.
Second, and
most importantly, one needs only to compare the many reports on the sabotaged
Convocation AGM to see who’s talking “substance“ vs “spectacle”.
Perhaps the
most “spectacle” free version is UCT Registrar (and Convocation Secretary)
Royston Pillay’s internal e-mail of 28 December, He describes the invasion as “unexpected” and
made no mention of the invaders’ vulgarity, total lack of respect and
hate-speech.
“Progressive
alumna” Ms Lorna Houston et al. actually praise the invaders https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-12-20-letter-to-the-editor-beneath-the-surface-of-the-uct-convocation-agm/#.WHmF3H3nh74 , describing their behaviour as “engag[ing] in robust critique”
that has been “devalued and decontextualized”.
They go even further, stating that the post-apartheid “UCT system
managed to “disappear” and exclude many capable black staff; and instead
nurtured mainly capable white staff by providing support, mentoring and the
transmission of social capital to negotiate the system”. In
addition to providing not a shred of evidence for this defamation, they provide
no way to mend or replace the ‘system’.
It just must be “dismantled”.
Their
and the lawbreaking Fallists’ position is based on a single premise:
“The past
is still present.” But, now the racism
is “invisible”.
Houston
et al. call for “dialogue”, “engagement” and “all voices being heard”. However, no one who has chronicled this event (even
them) has described the invaders (of the AGM and other venues) as being
interested in anything other than disruption and suppression of adversarial viewpoints.
Houston et al. also fail to chronicle hate
speech. This is telling, because Ms Houston was sitting in front of me when
an interrupting invader shouted, describing me as: “racist” and “Jim
Crow”, “apartheid activist” and “killer of black people”. Adv Geoffrey Budlender sat silently two seats
away when this Fallist “robust
critique” took place. [By the way, Ms Houston has been selected - above myself and Budlender - by the Alumni
Advisory Board – chaired by unabashed pro-Price Dianna Yach – to serve on the
IRTC Steering Committee representing UCT’s 100000+ alumni.]
Ratcheting
“substance” up a notch, UCT postgrad Mike Monson https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2017/01/10/uct-disrupted-convocation-failed-parenting/:
1.
counted the
invaders (+-9 vs 400+ largely aged alumni),
2.
described
them as a “small, noisy, violent mob” granted “influence [by the Executive] which is far
beyond what it merits” “effectively hold[ing] the
institution to ransom”,
3.
identified
the recently indemnified Chumani Maxwele and the topless woman who
repeatedly obstructed speakers;
4.
further identified ”a faction of academics seeking accelerated career
advancement by jumping on the decolonisation bandwagon”,
5.
concluded that invaders took over and disrupted
the meeting “shouting down the speakers and forcefully occupying the stage”,
6.
disparaged “their disdain for the cultural norms
of the institution and those present”, and
7.
speculated ”that the Dr Price administration has been
tactically devious in its legitimising of this protest group inasmuch as they
now have an instrument to shut down any attempts at conducting debates that
might hold the administration to account and censure”.
Prof. Philip
Lloyd and several other ‘retrogressive alumni’ echo Monson’s negative views on
the invaders, but take even stronger issue with Houston et al. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-01-08-letter-to-the-editor-uct-progressive-alumni-part-of-the-problem-not-the-solution/#.WHmsQH3nh74 They
liken their support of the Fallist “radical flank” to Nazism.
GroundUp editor Nathan Geffen’s article http://www.groundup.org.za/article/uct-convocation-descends-chaos/
takes a different tack.
First, he
reiterates Advocate Geoffrey Budlender’s miss-statement that my motion called
for the resignation/dismissal of Vice Chancellor Max Price and his deputy VCs. He also was the first to point out an
invader’s use of hate speech when law academic Cathy Powell’s attempt to speak
was suppressed by invaders with “Shut up bitch”.
Perhaps more interestingly were the appended
letters of commentary on Geffen’s piece.
Clinton Herring’s describes Price as “seriously engaging”
with invader Chumani Maxwele, minutes after the latter had shouted
(interrupting Budlender) that I was a “known racist”.
1.
reiterated Monson’s impression the Executive were expecting
(even condoning) invasion,
2.
showed that
Budlender et al. deliberately miss-represented my motion to prevent its
hearing, and
3.
identified
particularly nasty hate speech (“racist” and “Jim Crow”, “apartheid
activist” and “killer of black people”) directed against me by invaders.
The balance
of Ally’s piece is resplendent with platitudes such as deploring violence and
the need for mutual respect/tolerance/dialogue.
With regard to traditions, his key point is that they “need to change”.
But, this
should not prevent future donations from alumni and others to the re-born UCT.
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