A new organisation called X-heid has been launched at the University of the Witwatersrand to initiate dialogue about transformation.
But it has already stirred controversy on campus, with “offensive” X-heid posters having being pulled. One poster depicted a man urinating and was captioned “release it, speak out”.
Thomas Blaser, a member of the 12-member steering committee, says they formed the group because the university’s office of transformation and employment equity has not effected substantive change. The group feels transformation has been packaged in simplistic and binary terms: blacks versus whites, women versus men and heterosexuals versus homosexuals.
“It is not about favouring black people, but about acknowledging the inequalities of the past that make race an issue to be addressed on the transformation agenda,” says committee member Grace Musila.
X-heid is also critical of what they called the hierarchical nature of authority at the university. “Wits prides itself on its anti-apartheid past, but it defers to hierarchy, ” adds Blaser. “If you are a junior lecturer you don’t question your superiors. This structure is very top-down.”
The steering committee includes Africans, whites, a coloured, an Indian, and a disabled person. X-heid is funded by the university from a $2-million grant from the New York based Carnegie Foundation.
Speaking in his personal capacity Papi Nkoli, a project officer at the Wits transformation and employment equity office, says: “Only a few prominent individuals have good transformation intentions … and the rest are good pretenders who grin at you. Those with true commitments are continuously stymied.”