The Freedom Front Plus has been accused of creating a conducive climate for the production of a video by white University of the Free State (UFS) students protesting against the university’s decision to re-integrate its residences.
On Thursday FF+ deputy leader Corne Mulder claimed in an interview with the Mail & Guardian that he ‘knew nothing of this mess†and that an audit of the FF+ membership in the Free State had shown that the students were not members.
The video, produced in September, contained incendiary footage of white students subjecting elderly black cleaning staff to degrading rituals, including giving them food to eat in which the students had urinated.
The publication of the video by Beeld newspaper sparked widespread fury and an investigation by the Human Rights Commission. UFS has given its legal department the go-ahead to draw up charges, which are expected to include assault and crimen injuria.
The M&G has established that the FF+ and its youth wing have been actively targeting the campuses of historically white institutions such as the UFS and the University of Pretoria, to campaign against racial integration.
At the UFS this has been done since the Nineties through a cultural organisation promoting Afrikaner interests. The male club is known as Here XVII (Lords Seventeen, which refers to the Dutch East India Company’s bosses, who drove colonialism in the 17th century) and has been ‘owned†by the FF+.
The party controls the SRCs at both the Free State and Pretoria campuses and this week announced it was registering a student organisation at the University of Stellenbosch.
‘The Freedom Front Plus youth at Maties will focus on the protection of Afrikaans on campus, preserve Christian values and guarantee that high standards are maintained and not replaced by transformation,†said James Kemp, FF+ member in the Western Cape, in a statement on the party’s website.
A black staff member, who did not want to be named, said this week the university had not received a single official complaint from white or black students about the re-integration of residences. According to him, ‘outside forcesâ€, including the FF+, have deliberately sown student dissidence.
All the student organisations supported the university’s decision, but a ‘political element†has destabilised the processâ€, he said.
The FF+ had particularly targeted the policy of reintegrating residences, decided by the university council in in June last year.
This is one of about 40 projects in a campus transformation plan for the next four years. University authorities said they wanted to promote diversity ‘as a source of enrichment of students’ education and personal developmentâ€.
The residences were first integrated in 1992 and then re-segregated in the late Nineties in the face of violent student protests.
In July last year the FF+ organised one of the biggest marches on campus, led by national leader Pieter Mulder, against the residence integration policy. Other national and provincial members of the party took part in the march.
In November last year, the party challenged the new residence policy in court, but later withdrew the case.
Thirteen of the 16 SRC members at UFS belong to the FF+. Last year they opposed the integration policy and delayed preparing students for reintegration. This year the SRC changed its tune and accepted the policy.
Speaking at the university’s reopening on February 1, vice-chancellor Frederick Fourie said the university had expected resistance to the council’s decision.
He referred to ‘widespread organisation by the Freedom Front Plus and others, in particular, during the SRC election and thereafter, who mobilised resistance [against integration] among certain student leaders. This slowed and corrupted their contribution [to the process].â€
Fourie reiterated his concerns about the FF+ on Thursday at a media briefing, saying he would ‘like to know the direct involvement [of the party] in fuelling racial tensions within campusâ€.
He added: ‘What I know is that the FF+ was instrumental during the SRC elections last year when its student wing tried to disrupt the entire election process.
‘As for alumni, they are not as organised as the FF+ as a party, and I am not so sure about their influence on [racial issues] on campus. What I know is that a lot of alumni have recently been involved in supporting us on this matter,†said Fourie.
Last weekend the integration of residences surfaced at a FF+ youth congress in Orania, the Afrikaner ‘volkstaat†in the Northern Cape.
Cornelius Jansen van Rensburg, national youth leader of the party, asked: ‘How free am I if government policy determines whom I should share a room with?â€
Among the conference resolutions was one calling for the establishment and promotion of a culture of freedom of association in response to the ‘government-initiated quota policy which is currently forced upon university courses, residences and even student organisationsâ€.
On Thursday Van Rensburg refused to accept any responsibility for the problems on the UFS campus.
‘We are not involved,†he said. ‘The FF Plus does not associate itself with any form of racism, whether by its student members or general members of the public.â€
But a senior manager at another institution said the FF+ Youth, under the leadership of Van Rensburg, was irresponsible in many of its campaigns.
‘He [Van Rensburg] is a publicity seeking parasite who only wants to advance his own career and does not consider the consequences of his actions.â€
Sandra Botha, parliamentary leader of the Democratic Alliance, yesterday said the leadership of the FF+ ‘must take responsibility for the horrific actions of the students that have been incited by the party to reject hostel integrationâ€.
She called on the Human Rights Commission to include in its investigation the role of the FF+.
Botha said that during the July 2007 march on the campus, FF+ supporters reportedly sang the song Bobbejaan klim die Berg (baboon climbs the mountain). Posters on campus called on students to ‘hit first†to prevent racial integration of the hostels.
In his interview with the M&G, Mulder conceded that his party had mobilised students against the reintegration of residences, but said this was because it does not ‘like the idea†of forced integration.
‘Our party is built on national values such as equality and we would not allow our image to be ‘contaminated†by students such as these four and the DA, which is trying to score political points.
‘Everyone has respect for [Nelson] Mandela and his rainbow nation, but it was exactly 10 years ago that [Thabo] Mbeki made his two-nation speech. He scratched out the rainbow nation with that speech by continuously speaking about two races,†Mulder said.
‘Perhaps we are reaping the fruits of this. Students know that racism is unacceptable, but in the back of their heads they know once they leave university they will face affirmative action. They know they will be discriminated against and we don’t know what role this is playing in the aggressive behaviour we are now seeing.â€
Mulder said the party would have to work more closely with youth members to emphasise the party’s values and acceptable behaviour.
Reitz had been home to ‘troublemakers’
President Reitz kamerwonings (rooms) had a fearsome reputation at the University of the Free State (UFS) before the racial incidents that came to light this week.
Known for its residents’ rowdy behaviour, ‘Reitz†was closed after students released teargas in a university hall in 1992.
It reopened a few years later, reportedly at a time when there was ‘white flight†from formerly segregated residences as more and more black students moved in.
Students interviewed this week confirmed its reputation. One said it had become a home for disgruntled right-wing students during the mid-Nineties.
Another former student said Reitz had been home to ‘troublemakersâ€.
Fourth-year UFS student Tumelo Thamae said black students feared walking past residences such as Reitz and Karee ‘because the likelihood of being verbally or physically abused is highâ€.
As Mail & Guardian reporters Monako Dibetle and Oupa Nkosi were about to interview students at Reitz during a visit to the campus this week, a white security guard asked them to leave.
Pieter Odendaal, president of the Reitz residence, said in a statement that the house committee and residents were appalled by the ‘content of the media reports†following events in September 2007 (when the video was made).
‘We distance ourselves unconditionally from any racist event, but regret the fact that the current matter is viewed as racism and that the current residents are being targeted.â€
He said the hostel has tried to implement university policy positively and that no racial incidents had been reported this year.
Condemning the video at the centre of the storm and supporting the university management, the National Union of Oud-Reitzmanne (Reitz old boys), said it has tried to get the residence to take a positive view of the university’s integration policy.
The policy stipulates that 30% of Reitz’s residents must be black this year, yet a student told the M&G that no black students were living in the residence.
‘It was unexpected and inhumane’
On February 1 Professor Frederick Fourie, vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State, thanked student leaders for their efforts in ensuring that the 2008 academic year started without ‘racial conflict [thus far]â€.
‘There was a poster that I loved at yesterday’s black students’ march which read: ‘Don’t blame the students, blame their parents’,†said Tumelo Thamae.
Thamae’s comment, reflecting sadness rather than rage, typified the reaction of black University of the Free State students interviewed by the Mail & Guardian about the racist video. White students refused to talk to the newspaper.
Said Teboho Latela, an economics major: ‘We are aware of the traditions in this institution and we have no intention to change them as long as they accommodate us black students as well.
‘There are demarcated areas at the residences where black students fear even walking past because the likelihood of being verbally or physically abused
is high.â€
Remarked geography major Morato Motsemme: ‘What happened was unexpected and very inhumane.â€
The video features a mock integration of black workers at the Reitz male student hostel. In it four female and one male cleaner innocently follow the students’ orders to take part in a drinking and food-tasting contest, a sokkie (dance), a rugby practice and a race on the athletics track. The students are then shown laughing hysterically at them.
In the climax to the ceremony, the students are shown preparing a concoction into which one of them urinates. This is then fed to the workers.
The students refer to the women as difebe (whores).Â
The video was reportedly leaked by a rejected girlfriend of one of the students and surfaced amid efforts by UFS to prepare students for reintegration.
Five years ago the university set up a diversity office, led by Billyboy Ramahlele, to prepare students and staff through ‘diversity training†to live and work together.
In the past two years it has become compulsory for all first-year residence students to undergo such training.
The Human Rights Commission has also been brought in to address hostel residents.
Video producers Danie Grobler and Johnny Roberts have already left UFS, while Roelf Malherbe and Schalk van der Merwe, third-year agriculture students, have been banned from the campus.