The winds of change have barely touched Stellenbosch University, reports Marion Edmunds, but this is unlikely to be the case for much longer
A small group of Stellenbosch students roasted their vice- rector at a campus debate this week, challenging him to initiate a process of transformation at the University of Stellenbosch and mocking the answers he gave to questions about change at the university.
Professor Walter Claassen, the vice-rector under fire, committed the university to nothing except retaining Afrikaans as the official language of instruction. He said to students: “The notion of transformation lends itself to lengthy ideological and philosophical debate. I will not enter into that here.”
Students and lecturers from other universities at the debate were amazed. “Listening to my Stellenbosch colleague gives me goose-bumps,” said an enraged Professor E de Vries from the University of the Western Cape. “I would like to say to my colleague that change is non-negotiable … How do you live with yourself as a South African if you are not ready to grapple with transformation?”
Claassen did not answer that question, possibly because he believes the administration is addressing the issue of transformation in its own way, through a well-planned academic development programme for disadvantaged students, a bursary scheme and by recruiting Afrikaans- speaking coloured students from schools on the Cape Flats. The university spent R5,3-million on bursaries for disadvantaged students last year and R7,6-million this year.
Claassen and the administration do not see transformation in the same way that a number of their students and lecturers are perceiving it — a revision of policies, programmes, curricula, staffing and culture – —nor has topbestuur (top management) responded to the demand for a campus-wide debate on change, which would take place in a “transformation forum” including all university stakeholders.
In the absence of a “transformation forum” the future of the university is discussed in an ad hoc manner – —at campus debates, in the student newspaper Die Matie, in faculty tea-rooms and through individual letters to the Afrikaans daily newspaper Die Burger.
The language question is central to the debate: Afrikaans is seen on the one hand as defining the university culturally and academically, and on the other it is perceived as a deliberate barrier to keep out black students, in a sly bid by the authorities to keep the university wealthy, white and culturally homogenous. (Only 18% of the university is not white. The Faculty of Arts has only 12 black first-year students this year. There are less than 10 black and coloured permanent lecturers on the staff.)
There is an argument for keeping Stellenbosch predominantly Afrikaans, an argument readily advanced by members of the administration when challenged. The majority of Western Cape families use Afrikaans as their first language and, considering that UWC and the University of Cape Town are both English-medium, it makes sense to keep Stellenbosch Afrikaans.
Furthermore, there is the political argument that a cultural group ought to have the right to study through its mother tongue and that the University of Stellenbosch should fulfil that right for Afrikaners.
Claassen has suggested that to create two language streams at the university would cost too much : “We cannot make provision for two languages because it would mean downscaling immensely our academic offering.”
Claassen’s arguments are not persuasive enough for those demanding greater access for English-speaking blacks to undergraduate courses at the university. While nobody has yet called directly for the anglicisation of the university, black and liberal students, lecturers and the government are becoming increasingly irritated with the “take it in Afrikaans or leave it” attitude of the administration, especially when the need to educate black students is so high on the national agenda.
Thami Mseleku, special adviser to Education Minister Sibusiso Bhengu, scolded the vice-rector: “We don’t talk about Afrikaans or English universities — we must see them as national assets, a resource for all South Africans … This is not a federal country.”
Mseleku’s obvious disapproval of the administration’s stand this week encouraged students, especially African National Congress and South African Students’ Congress (Sasco) members, to call for the government to intervene at Stellenbosch to force the administration to be more responsive to the call for a forum to discuss change.
ANC Matie leader Heindrie Bailey said they were taking up the matter with the government directly and had targeted the head of the Education Portfolio Committee, Dr Blade Nzimande, to champion their cause. Nzimande is to be invited to speak at campus soon, as part of a programme of opening up Stellenbosch to the outside world.
There is no doubt that Stellenbosch University is an island of tranquillity in the middle of a turbulent and changing South Africa. Spreading oak trees line the roads travelled by neat students, in groups or on mountain bikes. The student centre, called the Neelsie, looks like an upmarket shopping centre, with clothes and music shops, coffee bars and a small movie house.
The president of the all-white Student’s Representative Council, Gareth Bradbury, is aware that Stellenbosch has fallen behind, but believes the students are experiencing a “rapid awakening to the South African reality”. He adds that the SRC is embarking on a programme to canvass the debate on change in residences and on campus, and is busy settling its own language policy, in the absence of any leads from the administration.
Bradbury — considered too maleable by the more outspoken critics of the university — is aware that he has to tread cautiously through this minefield if he wants to bring the student body with him.
The radically conservative student faction is yet to emerge in the debate. There were fears when Sasco marched on campus two weeks ago that students from the rural areas would rally and neuk the protesters. This did not happen and, in fact, Wilgenhof residence students stood by and watched with detachment.
Watching from the sidelines is one thing, however, grappling with the problem within the residence is entirely another. Stellenbosch has a tradition of doop, or initiation, during which the house committees of third- year students put first-year students through a series of tasks at the beginning of each year to bond them into a group.
While doop is meant to have been largely phased out, some men’s residences, including Wilgenhof, have kept it going. The effect of doop is that most students remain loyal to their residence throughout their lives and will not divulge details of the inititiation even decades later, as a matter of principle. Says a businessman who boarded at Wilgenhof some years ago: “I still use my Wilgenhof network — if I were to say anything about the doop, I would be cut out of that network in 20 minutes of it having been published.”
This loyalty to residence and alma mater has fashioned a network which is significant in current-day Afrikaans business and political communities, and represents an external support for the administration in its opposition to change.
Doop — a cultural tradition of a sort — conflicts with the new South Africa’s principles of openness and democracy. It would be difficult to introduce black students into residences with that sort of tradition still feeding student dynamics.
The ANC’s Bailey is critical of the residences, pointing out that the herd mentality they nurture makes it difficult for students to think independently about change. Also, the fact that the residences are inclined to accept the children and grandchildren of previous generations of Matie students means that it is difficult to introduce new cultures into the residences.
“The debate is killed right there,” says Bailey. “Students have the same interests, the same problems, the same background — there is no need to tackle problems they are not confronted with.”
He says Stellenbosch is attracting the kind of students who are not looking to become part of the new South African debate. “Stellenbosch attracts the privileged community, even among black students. It is projected as a comfort zone.”
The intention of the students at this week’s debate, as well as their allies at UWC, UCT and in the government, is to disrupt that comfort zone and introduce debate, leading to far-reaching changes and a racially mixed campus.
The response from administration is so weak and frustrating in their eyes that conspiracy theories are beginning to emerge. One such theory is that Bhengu has cut a deal with Stellenbosch to leave it as it is, and that is why the rector is so unperturbed about the calls for debate.
Even if this is the case, it is unlikely that the students are going to shut up and lie down. Sasco’s march two weeks ago was something of a landmark in student politics on campus, because for the first time students from outside the university came to its grounds to make their point. As the frustration grows, so this sort of activity will increase.
There is an old pre-election joke about universities that goes like this: if a lecturer were to enter a UCT classroom and say good morning, the students would riot in protest. If a lecturer were to enter a Wits University classroom and say good morning, the students would call a meeting to discuss the import of the statement within the context of a changing South Africa. If a lecturer were to enter a Stellenbosch University classroom and say good morning, the students would write it down.
This snide backhander may no longer be applicable to Stellenbosch students as they attempt to write change into Stellenbosch’s history, in the absence of leadership from their elders.
Next week: Tough times at the University of the North