I was very interested in Professor Loyiso Nongxa’s article on Wits (“Ngxe!”, September 30). For those ex-Witsies, like me, who were privileged white students in the 1980s at the height of apartheid, it was eye-opening to read such an honest account of just how excluded and alienated many of our fellow black student felt about their years at Wits.
Social segregation was certainly a reality of our years there. Even at Wits — in so many ways a bastion of opposition — the truths of our separate worlds as black and white were never properly interrogated.
Nonetheless, it was a very dynamic place to be educated. Who can forget mornings like the one when we arrived to find that shots had been fired into the SRC offices? Who will forget the fear at seeing ‘Rooi Rus’ Swanepoel and his riot police storming on to campus?
I can’t recall the number of times I saw them firing teargas and cruelly beating students — black and white — with sjamboks. I’ll never forget the fear and helpless rage that many of us felt after the death of Neil Aggett in detention in 1982.
In discussions with older, more mature students I began to see that there was something more sinister and cruel to the workings of the apartheid state than I had ever understood.
My experiences and what I learned about apartheid at Wits were crucial to my work as a journalist. It was also my years at Wits that showed me I could never retreat into the shameful denial of: “I did not know.”
For all the shortcomings of Wits that Professor Nongxa has outlined, I always believed that it was a great university that did engage with the reality of the country we lived in at the time. It pained me to see the image of Wits take such a beating in the years our country was being liberated.
A lot of those negative perceptions, of course, were the myths of privileged whites fearful of the future under black leadership.
At the same time, Wits was dealing with the real issues of transformation. As it did under apartheid, Wits was leading the way out of our divided past.
The management of Wits during that time did not do the institution much credit. The bitter debate over Professor Malegapuru Makgoba’s appointment, the poor handling of student protests over fees and other issues, and Professor Norma Reid’s short tenure as vice-chancellor, have all created uncertainty.
So, it is a relief to have Professor Nongxa at the helm. I wish him well because the future of Wits as a great African university matters to all of us.
Hamilton Wende’s novel, The King’s Shilling, is published by Jacana