”I was driving on campus and had right of way. A white student in a bakkie skipped an intersection and I hooted at him because we almost crashed. He then followed me and when I had to stop at a boom gate, he stopped next to me.
”He swore at me, took a gun out of his cubbyhole and pointed it at me, saying: ‘This is my farm and on my farm blacks are workers and I will show you who is the baas here.’ He told me to get out of my car and said he is going to shoot my knee caps off to teach me my place.”
This is the story of Kotane Lekota, who studied at the University of the Free State (UFS). The incident took place on campus two years ago and he believed the student was a resident of Reitz hostel at the time.
Lekota, the son of Defence Minister Mosiuoa ”Terror” Lekota, said that, on the day of the incident, he feared for his life. ”I was very scared because I was sure he would shoot me. Some of his friends later told him my father is a minister and he came to apologise to me. I accepted his apology, but I knew that if my father was not a minister, he would not have apologised because these kinds of incidents often happen to black people on that campus.”
His father tried to convince him to lay charges against the student, but Lekota tried to forget the incident and ”just continue being a student”.
Pressure is mounting on the university’s council and rector to address racism and rethink the university’s language policy — many believe the latter is perpetuating racism and segregation on the campus.
Lekota, who has since left campus and is studying through Unisa, said: ”Not all the whites on campus are racist. This is a South African problem and not unique to the Free State, although the Free State is still a very conservative place. I experienced racism often while I was on campus but it’s really a good university and it’s in everybody’s interest that the university deal with racism.”
The Congress of South African Trade Unions this week called on the rector, Frederick Fourie, and the university council, to resign.
Fourie told the M&G he had no intention of leaving. ”I have work to do here. I’m determined to fight for a non-racial university. Racists are not welcome on this campus. But we have to stop denying [there is] racism in our society,” he said.
”The students on this campus come from schools and homes — what’s happening there? What do parents teach their children about other races? When Afrikaners are saying that ‘we’re not all like that’, I say that we inherit students with those attitudes towards blacks and coloureds — we don’t turn them into racists here,” Fourie said.
”We have to tackle racism at the university. It’s easy to say I’m not a racist and point fingers at others. Non-racialism is something you live and I have to deal with the accusations.”
Choice Makhetha, deputy dean of student affairs dealing with transformation, said the student heads at the various residences told her they were ”not interested in a human rights workshop because they don’t want their traditions to be affected”.
Makhetha said the ”predominant culture at the university is Afrikaner nationalism, and it’s overwhelming”.
”I see lots of black students who tell me that they don’t feel safe on campus. I studied here myself in 1996 and was attacked by white students for walking on the pavement — blacks were supposed to walk on the road. Management has allowed itself to be held hostage because it wants to bring changes into the university gradually — it now needs to take a very principled stance.”
Two weeks ago the council of the university said that, apart from disciplinary steps taken against students involved in the making of a racist video at Reitz residence, the council will consider the possibility of closing and converting Reitz ”into a beacon of transformation, hope and liberation either as a residence or in some other form”.
‘Go and join a coloured team’
Last week, Sharks rugby player Castro Hlongwane, who played for the Cheetahs until he was seriously injured, told the M&G that when he was selected to play in the Free State Rugby Union last year, he was told he had to choose a provincial club. ”I chose the university club because they’re by far the best and a lot of my teammates played for them. But they told me that the club was ‘closed’.”
Hlongwane, believing that he had to be a student in order to play for the club, then registered as a student but was told that even if he was a registered student, ”the university’s club would still be closed”.
”One of the coaching staff told me that I should go and join a coloured club. I asked if [the reason] I couldn’t join Kovsies club was because I’m black and this man — I don’t want to name him — only said that it’s best if I join a coloured rugby club. I was one of the best inside centres in the province and was selected for the Cheetahs, and yet I couldn’t play for the Kovsies club because I’m black,” Hlongwane said.
Hlongwane is now based in Durban, playing for the Sharks.
”The Kovsies club had one black player at the time and the guys didn’t want more blacks. I was very angry because they never wanted to tell me to my face that they didn’t want me because I’m black, but everybody knew that was the case.”
Hlongwane made international headlines four years ago when, together with a group of white friends, he went camping at a caravan park in Margate. He was told he couldn’t stay at the site because he was black.
His story was published all over the world and immortalised when President Thabo Mbeki mentioned the incident in his now notorious Aids-denialist document, Castro Hlongwane, Caravans, Cats, Geese, Foot & Mouth and Statistics.