‘Fake’ justice at the University of Cape Town

‘Fake’ justice at the University of Cape Town (UCT)

Tim Crowe

UCT Emeritus Professor and Life Fellow

The Op-Ed: Restorative justice at UCT https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-03-06-op-ed-restorative-justice-at-uct/ needs some comment because the only way to change history seems to be to write it.

First, I participated in both the December 2016 and February 2017 Annual General ‘Meetings’ (AGM) of UCT’s Convocation.  Contrary to the Op-Ed, they did not “raise many questions”.  The first AGM was sabotaged by illegal, invading, ‘obscenity-hate-speaking’, Fallist hooligans.  The only ‘questions’ raised (but not even-handedly discussed) related to a motion of no-confidence in the UCT Executive negotiating UCT’s future with lawbreaking Fallists. https://www.biznews.com/mailbox/2016/12/16/uct-fallist-fiasco/ 

The second AGM was largely a choreographed set-up.  First, ineligible Fallists were foisted on the Convocation, allowed to attend and make a presentation to the AGM.  Second, the Fallist presenter, Simon Rakei:

1.       

      1. defamed UCT (as an “institutionally racist” with rules/laws “designed to oppress ‘black’ students”) and me (as a “Jim Crow” racist);

2.        

       2. demanded the disbanding of the “illegitimate” current, elected Student Representative Council; and

3.      

           3. made thinly-veiled threats of “consequences” if Fallist demands are not met. 

Third, the no-confidence motion was voted down without discussion, based on its misrepresentation as calling for the Executive’s dismissal/resignation and other technicalities relating to its wording.

Fourth (and not really a set-up but bad news for some), Lorna Houston, a disgruntled former UCT employee, was elected as president of the UCT Convocation to succeed Prof. Barney Pityana, co-founder of the Black Consciousness Movement and former Vice Chancellor of the University of South Africa.  

Let me characterize Ms Houston by presenting some of her telling quotes:

“The [Apartheid] past is still present.”

”The UCT system managed to “disappear” and exclude many capable black staff [including her]; and instead nurtured mainly capable white staff by providing support, mentoring and the transmission of social capital to negotiate the system.”

There is a need “to de-centre whiteness [at UCT], and to encourage progressive white people to find ways to delink from privilege and to dismantle the structure from within”.

The invaders of the first AGM were a “radical flank who provide the doves with cover to negotiate a just settlement” who employed “youthful tactics” to achieve ”trans-historical restorative justice”.

“Once we extend the progressive flank to support all efforts that deal honestly and decisively with trans-historical causes, the need for radical tactics will fall away.”

There was no discussion of “justice” in any form at either AGM.  Prof. Pityana and VC Price may have used the word in their respective addresses at AGM 1, but these too were inhibited by Fallists.

Nevertheless, the multi-signed Op-Ed does raise an important question:

“How deep, wide and far should UCT’s restorative justice (RJ) process go to advance social justice (SJ)?”

Before one can attempt to answer this question, it is necessary to get a sense of what the signatories mean by: “how far”, “restorative justice” and “social justice”.

They make no attempt to do this.  So, I’ll try.

First and foremost, there is a need to accept that RJ can be “real” justice and then to agree on some definition of the term/process.  With regard to the former, there is considerable debate. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/09/14/restorative-justice-the-zero-tolerance-policy-overcorrection.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2  http://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2016/11/08/uct-clemency-feesmustfall/  My personal view is that RJ can result in real justice, depending on its definition and, more importantly, its application.

A definition of RJ

Restorative justice is a widely accepted process that requires victims and offenders mediating a restitution agreement to the satisfaction of each, as well as involving the community [in this case UCT’s un-consulted, “silenced majority” (SM) http://www.capemessenger.co.za/2017/01/06/failed-debate-uct/]. Victims must be allowed take an active role in the process, and offenders must take meaningful responsibility (apologize and express remorse) for their acts and not re-offend.

The ‘proofs’ of the RJ ‘pudding’ are the satisfaction of the victim/offender/community that justice has been done and that the offender doesn’t reoffend.

These proofs are lacking at UCT. 

There has been scant interaction, let alone mediation/agreement, between Fallist offenders and the student/staff victims - the SM.  The UCT Executive, without consulting the SM (e.g. in a referendum or survey), co-opted the role of ‘victim’ and claims to have acted in the “spirit” of restorative justice.  None of the dozens of UCT staff/students/alumni with whom I have interacted condone this co-option, and a range of ad hoc surveys/polls conducted in the Faculties of Science, Engineering and Commerce indicate that the UCT Community is decidedly opposed to negotiating with or capitulating to lawbreaking Fallists.

Also, offenders have never apologized or shown remorse for their acts.  All that some of them have done is sign a “clemency” form https://www.uct.ac.za/usr/news/downloads/2016/Clemency_Document.pdf that states that they “regret” their acts which might have been “provoked”.  Since the identities of the ‘clemency-form- signatories’ have not been revealed, it’s impossible to determine whether they have re-offended.  However, if one of these is Fallist Chumani Maxwele, he most definitely did so by attending and disrupting (including defamation) the aborted UCT Convocation AGM 1.

In short, since the first pardoning of faeces-flinger, founding Fallist Maxwele, there has been no ‘real’ restorative justice implemented at UCT.  What has happened is multiple ‘fake forgiving’ of unrepentant, pre-Shackville Fallists and offers of potential conditional amnesty to the Shackville intimidator/arsonists.  http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/uct-where-is-the-justice  

What about the victims?  For example, one victim of Fallist violence, the female lecturer allegedly assaulted by Maxwele on campus, has heard nothing for months from VC Price, anyone else in the UCT Executive, the Academics Union, the Ombudsman - no one.  It’s nearly two years since this second of Maxwele’s multiple re-offending illegal acts and still no justice – legal, restorative, social or otherwise.

How far?

With regard to “how far”, RJ could make good sense when applied to non-violent acts (e.g. verbal abuse, obscene shirt/signage/graffiti, defacing statues and peaceful invasion of lectures/meetings), provided that there is some one-on-one or group interaction between offenders and victims to their mutual satisfaction.  However, when laws are broken - people are physically assaulted and/or valuable artwork/vehicles/literature/offices destroyed - the offenders should be tried in court and subsequently seek contextual clemency based on restorative mediation with victims.  Regardless, if pardoned/clemencied/amnestied offenders re-offend, they should be held fully accountable for these new acts.  Multiple lawbreaking shows disrespect for the rule of law and deserves no reward.

Social justice

The real problem raised in the Op-Ed relates to “social justice” (SJ).   SJ is a nebulous process relating to distribution of denied financial and other resources, opportunities for personal activity and social privileges.  Philosophical realists believe that ‘ideal’ social justice is ultimately a mere justification for the status quo.  At one heinous end of this ideal SJ-scale are slavery and Apartheid.  Anarchism, wanton theft and destruction by social justice ‘warriors’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior are at the other. 

SJ is a potential ‘justifier’ of ‘lawbreaking’ in a world in which the rule of law undermines basic human rights and oppresses the day-to-day ‘lived experience’.  During the centuries of exploitative and socially humiliating rule of South Africa by European settlers, British colonists and (especially) Apartheid agents, one might invoke SJ to ‘contextualize’ acts of even extreme, but targeted,  violence and destruction., e.g. those perpetrated early on by uMkhonto we Sizwe.   

At UCT during 1918-1980, one might argue that defacing and/or destruction targeted against symbols of imperialist supremacy (e.g. Rhodes’ Statue) by both ‘blacks’ and Afrikaners could be ‘socially justified’ on the basis of massive mortality of their ancestors in Anglo-Boer-War Concentration Camps.   

The same might apply for coordinated violence against apartheid police and soldiers who invaded the “private property” of UCT’s campuses.  http://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2016/12/06/top-scientist-uct-institutionally-racist-sexist-colonialist/

However, since the promulgation of South Africa’s internationally highly respected Constitution in 1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_South_Africa , using to social justice as an excuse for violent, destructive illegal acts is indefensible.  Furthermore, even as far back as the VC-ship of Dr T.B. ‘Academic Freedom’ Davie (1948-1955) destruction and violence on campus were hard to justify.  They were most definitely not justifiable after 1980, once VC Stuart Saunders started to put Daviean ‘principled’ non-racialism into irreversible practice and his successor Dr Mamphela Ramphele put non-racialism-based transformation into high gear.

Op-Ed offerings

The article’s signatories “attempt to explore some troubling areas”.  They claim to “have individually and vicariously encountered” many “wicked issues” and “deep-seated conflicts” that “persist throughout [UCT] society”.   They then “limit” their piece “to two related questions” and “lay bare their assumptions and considered belief” that there is a dire need for the implementation of “an expansive (trans-historical), rather than a modest (individualised) application of restorative justice” at UCT. 

Based on an unsubstantiated assumption that there are “lingering societal and institutional racism and inequality” at UCT (as Fallist Rakei claims), they conclude that UCT’s management and academics “officially” oppress students.  Furthermore, they enquire about “the status of the ‘charges’ that students and staff have made, and continue to level against the institution” relating to “their protest actions and responses to militarisation”.   However, they provide no evidence for this institutionalized racism or examples of pending “charges” and make the astounding (totally unsubstantiated) claim that “UCT does not contest the fact that institutional racism persists” … “manifesting in various aspects and forms”. If this were true, what has “decolonizer” VC Price been doing for 9 years?

This sad situation, they maintain, can be “addressed by an expansive restorative justice process”.  They cite, as supporting ‘evidence’ of resistance to this expanded RJ, a quote from VC Price that implies that many academics “felt this was someone else’s task and that they could just get on with their regular academic or administrative business” and that this “business” was “as usual”, hence the need for a “trans-historical context”. 

Finally, the Op-Ed signatories summarize their message so far with:  “Social Justice delayed is Social Justice denied”.   Please tell me what this means.

Next they re-invoke racialism since “the growing inequality chasm [is] along racial lines”, exacerbated by “slow change”.  To deal with this pervasive racism and slow transformation “power needs to be balanced between the institution and its invisibilised [sic ???] causative violence; and those students that have engaged in visible ‘counter’ violence”.

In short, the intimidation/violence/destruction employed by extreme Fallists is a socially justifiable reaction to UCT’s “invisible” racially-motivated violence and “current conflict resolution structures” cannot resolve the conflict because “individual perpetrators of institutionalised racism have the option to refuse conflict resolution” or hide behind a curtain of “confidentiality”.  Hence, “current structures leave the oppressive cultural and structural aspects of racism intact”, creating “either ‘happy’ oppressed, or violently angry oppressed people, and offenders that are free to reoffend due to the policy/practice gap”.  I’ll let VC Price address these assertions.

Reducing this to humour, in the words of Afro-American comedian Flip Wilson and Eve in the Garden of Eden: “The Devil made me do it”.

Criminalization eradicated by “expansive” RJ

Next, the Op-Ed criticizes the current, internationally admired legal system.  They claim it “criminalises individual violence”, but not “institutional violence”.  Please tell this to the Public Prosecutor.  Nevertheless, this “artificial divide between victim and offender” can be “collapsed” by implementing expansive RJ since it will “focus on trans-historical inequality (cultural and structural violence) and its consequences for the institution, staff and students”.  

But, in the absence of evidence that UCT as an institution and large numbers of its academics are more than “invisibly racist, “expansive” RJ is nothing more than demands for unjustifiable amnesty – ‘fake’ justice – for Fallist felons.