Emeritus Prof. Tim Crowe
I would like to correct miss-representations of
information underpinning and events that took place at the Annual General
Meeting of the University of Cape Town Convocation ‘held’ in UCT’s Kramer
Building on 15 December 2016 and give some of my own perspective.
First, contrary to Advocate Geoffrey Budlender’s
statements and reiterated in Nathan Geffen’s article in GroundUp http://www.groundup.org.za/article/uct-convocation-descends-chaos/ ,
my motion did NOT even suggest, let alone call for, the resignation/dismissal
of Vice Chancellor Max Price and his deputy VCs. It called for the 100000+ registered alumni
to be:
“balloted (anonymously and, if willing, by
fine-scale ‘self-identification – by ‘race’, gender, age, etc.) to consider a
vote of no-confidence in Dr Max Price and his senior Executive acting as representatives
of the interests of the UCT Community as a whole in negotiations with UCT
students, staff and others who have been adjudged to have broken the law under
the pretext of legitimate protest.”
This motion was yet another of my and other’s attempts to
ascertain – democratically via polls/referenda - precisely what the views of
the UCT Community are (by ‘race’, age, gender, employment status, etc.) on
what’s happening (and will happen) at UCT vis-à-vis a broad range of critical
issues.
Time and again, Dr Price has refused to conduct such
surveys and has ignored/dismissed the results of a range of polls and
petitions, conducted to date, all of which challenge his and the DVC’s actions/inactions.
Indeed, with regard to my motion, Ms Gwen Ngwenya
(former UCT SRC president and current COO of the South African Institute
of Race Relations – with whom I’ve communicated only in the last two
weeks) and I had agreed that she should attempt to reinforce the true
intentions of my motion with an amendment concerning the status of Price et
al. Unfortunately, she was unable to do
so because she was continuously interrupted by Mr Chumani Maxwele who was
granted conditional amnesty according to the November 6 Agreement.
Mr Maxwele and at least eight other
‘protesters’ had invaded the meeting with their dated placards, one of which
read:
“No student should be exculded (sic) as a result of historical
debt”.
There was no objection from or deterring action by
Dr Price, Mr Royston Pillay (UCT’s registrar and Secretary of the Convocation)
and/or Prof. Barney Pityana, chairperson of the meeting. In the end, at the urging of Dr Lydia
Cairncross (Faculty of Health Sciences) and Adv Budlender, the ‘protesters’
were allowed to stay and protest “silently”.
They did protest, but not in silence. Indeed, despite a polite requests from Dr
Price, they refused to stand back while he made his presentation and address
him as “Dr Price”. His presentation comprised
selected performance statistics that supported UCT’s recent successful
functioning.
In any event, I would, once again, like to make my views on
Dr Price’s actions/inactions crystal clear.
His exclusive ‘negotiating’ with and persistent pandering to the most
implacable violent and destructive ‘protester’ elements has encouraged them to
become progressively more demanding, intractable and aggressive.
His equally persistent exclusion and arguable
repression of what I call the excluded “silenced majority” of students, staff, fee-paying-parents
and alumni has resulted in their alienation.
What some of them and I want him and his team to do is cease their
biased actions and deliberate neglect, and get on with the job that they are
hired to do, undertaking the duties defined within their job descriptions while
staying within the bounds set by UCT’s fundamental principles of Academic
Freedom and pursuit of truth as individual students and many academics see it.
When I spoke after Price and attempted to explain
my motion and to counter some of his claims, I was interrupted and jeered
persistently and labelled variously: “racist” and “Jim Crow”, “apartheid
activist” and “killer of black people” (by a woman attendee who refused to give
her name when allowed to comment and aggressively confronted a legitimate
alumnus when she was photographed).
Later, Mr Maxwele called me a “known racist”.
Adv Budlender followed, and was similarly
harassed (by Maxwele) – but not vilified. Furthermore, he praised (as did Dr
Cairncross later) the abovementioned Agreement as a significant achievement,
even though it was based (pointed out by Ms. Ngwenya) on “negotiated non-violence”.
When (as required) the seconder of my motion (Dr
Anna Crowe) attempted to add her perspective on my motion, she was also
harassed repeatedly.
Dr Cairncross then spoke against the motion of
no-confidence, arguing that the reconciliation commission agreed to on the eve
of exams was in the entire university’s best interests.
Another clear impression not chronicled in Mr
Geffen’s article is that other individuals and/or ‘factions’ within UCT feel
(irrespective of ‘race’ and employment status) ignored, even alienated, by the
UCT Executive through its lack of consideration of, or inconsistent response
to, their concerns. If there was one
thing “consistent” at the meeting it was the ‘protesters’ (who were there
primarily to sabotage the “no-confidence motion”) overt, uncensored and
gleeful way they saw fit to use filthy language and racist and sexist
epithets. One poor academic trying to
tell her story of the earlier protests as part of the debate was mocked openly,
with mimed clown-tears and cat-calling.
What’s the bottom line?
I agree that my motion (regardless of
interpretation and/or amendment) “did not appear well-supported” and probably would
have been voted down. My hope was that
some significant support for it would have made the Executive more willing to
consult with and cater for the “silenced majority”.
As we left the building, I heard a young person exhort “There
will be no UCT in 2017!” Her fellow
crowd members supported in glee. Is she and her ‘like-thinkers’ someone who should sit with,
or opposite to, Dr Price at the nebulously defined and populated Institutional
Reconciliation and Transformation Commission? Indeed, aren’t Maxwele et al.’s action breaches of student conduct
and therefore violations of the Budlender/Cairncross-praised Agreement?
Let’s see what happens.
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