University of Pretoria students sang the apartheid-era national anthem Die Stem during a protest on Thursday against the alleged sidelining of Afrikaans at the institution.
Protesters sported a Freedom Front Plus banner, the university coat of arms, placards and chanted slogans such as ”Engels se gat [English’s arse]” and ”Waar’s demokrasie nou? [Where is democracy now?]”.
During a protest march on campus, the group delivered a memorandum to the university administration to complain about what protesters said is the marginalising of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.
”In July, the university management told us they were ready to do away with Afrikaans completely in classes,” said march organiser and student representative council president Cornelius van Rensburg. ”We cannot let that happen.”
The group demanded an immediate halt to classes being ”anglicised” and that students insisting on Afrikaans classes be accommodated.
Van Rensburg estimated between 500 and 1 000 students had joined the march.
”Afrikaans money paid for this university. We have paid for an Afrikaans education but we do not receive it.
”It is our constitutional right to be taught in our mother tongue,” he said, addressing the crowd to loud applause and cheering.
He alleged that staff being hired at the university do not speak ”a word of Afrikaans” and suggested that this increases the workload of Afrikaans-speaking staff.
The march was peaceful and was observed by campus security personnel.
”I don’t have a problem with people expressing their opinion. It is their democratic right,” said bystander Ishmael Mohono, a member of the Pan Africanist Students’ Movement of Azania, the youth wing of the Pan Africanist Congress.
”But statements worn on the T-shirts of these protesters, such as ‘English Only is erger as Slegs Blankes [English Only is worse than Whites Only]’ or ‘Praat Afrikaans of hou jou bek [Speak Afrikaans or shut up]’ are really insulting and disturbing.”
Mohono said he saw a member of staff ”waving her hands and cheering in support of the marchers” as they gathered outside the university’s administration building where they delivered the memorandum.
”It is unacceptable and unprofessional for a member of staff to behave in this way. She should leave her politics at home.” — Sapa