December 5 to 11 2008

All for academic freedom

We write with deep concern for the situation developing around the cases of University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) academic staff members Nithaya Chetty and John van den Berg.

As members of academic staff in universities in several countries, we recognise that these two individuals should enjoy the same protections of their academic freedom as we do, and as staff should enjoy throughout the world.

Our abilities to promote goals of excellence in teaching, research and service are based in these protections of our academic freedom. This applies to the protection of our rights to develop our own research and our own teaching, but also the protection of the continuing responsibilities of academic staff for the governance of our institutions: including the pre-eminent roles of academic staff in the hiring, review, tenuring and dismissal of our academic peers; and including the protection of our rights and processes to review and criticise the policies of leaders of our institutions.

We also write as colleagues concerned for the present and future of a university for which we have the greatest respect and admiration. A number of us enjoy productive relations with academic units and academic staff, as well as students, of UKZN. We treasure the success of the university’s academic staff and leaders in bringing to success a challenging integration of faculties and three very different campuses.

We do not wish to review the specific charges brought against Chetty and Van den Berg. Rather, we are deeply concerned that the adjudication processes set in motion by UKZN’s leaders run in the face of globally recognised standards regarding the rights of academic staff to speak and act on policies of their institutions and of higher education in particular and to maintain core responsibility for the review and discipline of academic colleagues. These standards have been codified in the Unesco Statement of November 11 1997, Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel. It holds that academic staff ”should not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as citizens, including the right to contribute to social change through freely expressing their opinion of state policies and of policies affecting higher education. They should not suffer any penalties simply because of the exercising of such rights.”

Moreover, ”higher-education teaching personnel are entitled to the maintaining of academic freedom … to freedom of teaching and discussion, freedom in carrying out research and disseminating and publishing the results thereof, freedom to express freely their opinion about the institution or system in which they work, freedom from institutional censorship and freedom to participate in professional or representative academic bodies”.

We have deep concerns that the processes established by the leadership of UKZN violate broadly and deeply held standards of governance which give a central responsibility to, and broad freedom for, academic staff in the conduct of academic governance. The Unesco document holds that academic staff have ”the right and opportunity, without discrimination of any kind, according to their abilities, to take part in the governing bodies and to criticise the functioning of higher education institutions, including their own”.

We ask Mac Mia, chair of council of UKZN, and Professor Malegapuru William Makgoba, vice-chancellor and principal of UKZN, to restate the university’s commitment to academic freedom, including the rights of academic staff to review, criticise and debate the policies and directions of their institutions; and to reaffirm the university’s commitment to standards of university governance consonant with the standards recognised by the Unesco Statement of November 11 1997. — Kwame Anthony Appiah, Laurance S Rockefeller University professor of philosophy and the university center for human values, Princeton University

Chris Benner, associate professor, human and community development, University of California, Davis
William Beinart, Rhodes professor of race relations, department of politics and international relations, professorial fellow, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford
Stephanie MH Camp, associate professor of history, Rice University
James T Campbell, Edgar E Robinson professor of history, Stanford University
David William Cohen, Lemuel A Johnson collegiate professor of African anthropology and history, University of Michigan
Jean Comaroff, Bernard E and Ellen C Sunny distinguished professor, University of Chicago, director, Chicago center for contemporary theory
John Comaroff, Harold H Swift distinguished service professor of anthropology and of social sciences, University of Chicago
Frederick Cooper, professor of history, New York University
Fernando Coronil, presidential professor, graduate center, City University of New York
Donald L Donham, professor of anthropology, University of California, Davis
Paul N Edwards, associate professor of information, school of information, University of Michigan
Geoff Eley, Karl Pohrt distinguished university professor of contemporary history, chair, department of history, University of Michigan
Gillian Hart, professor, chair of undergraduate major in development studies, department of geography, University of California, Berkeley
Keith Hart, professor of anthropology emeritus, Goldsmiths, University of London and honorary research professor, school of development studies, UKZN
Gabrielle Hecht, department of history and science, technology and society studies, University of Michigan
Daniel Herwitz, professor of history of art, professor of philosophy, professor of comparative literature, College of LSA, and professor of art and design, school of art and design, director, institute of the humanities, University of Michigan
Anthea Patricia Josias, instructor, school of information, University of Michigan
Preben Kaarsholm, associate professor of international development studies, Roskilde University, Denmark
Ivan Karp, National Endowment for the Humanities professor, center for the study of public scholarship, Emory University
Corinne A Kratz, co-director of the center for the study of public scholarship and professor of African studies and anthropology, Emory University
Pier M Larson, professor, department of history, The Johns Hopkins University
David Lyon, fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Queen’s research chair and professor of sociology, Queen’s University, Ontario
Shula Marks, emeritus professor, SOAS, University of London
Regina Morantz-Sanchez, professor of history, University of Michigan
James Oakes, distinguished professor of history and graduate school humanities professor, PhD programme in history, graduate center of the City of New York
Tejumola Olaniyan, Louise Durham Mead professor, department of English, University of Wisconsin
Derek R Peterson, senior lecturer in African history and director of the centre of African studies, University of Cambridge
Lucia Saks, assistant professor of screen arts and cultures, University of Michigan
Jonathan Sadowsky, Castele professor of medical history, history department chair, Case Western Reserve University
Scott Spector, associate professor of Germanic languages and literatures, history, Judaic studies, and assistant research scientist, center for Russian and Eastern European studies, University of Michigan
Dr Simon Szreter, faculty of history and St John’s College, University of Cambridge
Lynn M Thomas, associate professor, history department, University of Washington, Seattle
Penny M von Eschen, professor of history and professor of American culture, University of Michigan
David A Wallace, lecturer III, school of information, University of Michigan
Dr Christopher Warnes, faculty of English and African studies centre, University of Cambridge
Luise White, professor, department of history, University of Florida

Open your eyes to truth about Aids

If South Africans accept what we read and hear every day in the media about how Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Thabo Mbeki contributed to thousands of deaths from Aids, we must also accept other truths.

I fail to see how Manto and Thabo caused these deaths and I think we love the blame game too much. Ironically, blame is only acceptable when directed at certain individuals. Nobody ever paid attention to what Mbeki actually said — all we enjoy doing is to blame and blame.

I do not accept that Mbeki’s government was responsible for these deaths, nor do I accept that there was anything wrong with enquiring about HIV/Aids, especially because this disease, whether we like it or not, is ­political. Rich people do not suffer as much as poor people do.

Today some born-again politicians say that the government under Mbeki failed us on Aids. Those preparing for JZ are claiming to be champions of a new era, but I am not sure this means anything.

There is no new vaccine for Aids, no new hospital specifically for Aids, no salary increase for health workers dealing with Aids.

It is good news for the giant foreign pharmaceutical manufacturing companies, because finally we can surrender our health to them to run. — Loyiso Phantshwa, Grahamstown

This year’s World Aids Day has offered a glimmer of hope for South Africans infected and affected by the HIV and Aids pandemic. The unambiguous messages from the South African National Aids Council and government are the clearest and the most decisive we have ever got. The new minister of health in particular and the government in general must be applauded. South Africans are now free from the confrontational, defensive and divisive messages of the past. This is yet another indication that a new ANC leadership in government will bring a better life for all South Africans. — Zola Gwanya, Mmabatho

DA may talk it, Cope can walk it

The anticipated launch of the Congress of the People (Cope) on December 16 represents a second chance at achieving dynamic and participative democracy in our country. White voters specifically face an unprecedented opportunity to contribute to the future of South Africa.

It will be a sad day for South Africa if minorities turn their backs on this opportunity and continue to cling fearfully to the DA in the vain hope that remaining barricaded in their fortress will somehow advance their interests. Regardless of any Obama-style rebranding, the DA can never attract the mass of black support critical to a serious challenger. The DA may talk it, only Cope has the size to walk it.

Minorities now have the chance to be in the vanguard of developing a true alternative — a government for the people, by the people, regardless of race or background.

Cope will present South Africa with policy direction to reform the electoral system, including a directly elected president, premiers and mayors. Common-sense reforms of the criminal justice system, the depoliticisation of state institutions, alternative foreign policy proposals, overhauling home affairs and revised agricultural policies are finding resonance in every community.

We, as minorities, need to ditch our fears and jump in. — Simon Grindrod, Cope volunteer

Who’s a ‘terrorist’?

One feels for the people of India. Still, one can’t help but feel that the word ”terrorist” is far too easily employed in the media. Other more neutral words would be more prudently used in these kinds of situations.

In last week’s editorial you wrote eloquently about being circumspect regarding the words politicians use. The subtext of the word ”terrorism” when the targets are from the West is that the local people are inherently less valuable than Americans, Britons, Israelis and Australians. The media uses ”militants” when local people are killed but when the victims are Westerners the actions are labelled ”terrorism”. — Craig Morrison, Newclare

In brief

Your review of Behind the Rainbow (Friday, November 28) notes that the film describes the arms deal with a phrase I originally used, ”the poisoned well of South African politics”, without attributing it to me. As an adviser to the project, I actually suggested to the producers that they use this phrase. I did not expect attribution. — Mark Gevisser

AB Smith (Letters, November 28) asks Helen Zille where the money to cover the funding gap on the Green Point Stadium will come from. The city of Cape Town is not expected to cover the full funding gap. We are in talks with the national treasury to see what it can contribute and we can gain further funding from selling naming rights and rights to run the stadium after 2010. Smith is wrong to suggest other services will be ”curtailed”. The funds that the city receives from service charges are specifically used for maintaining services. — Robert Macdonald, spokesperson for the mayor of Cape Town

Leonie Joubert’s comments (”On a wing and a prayer”, November 28) on religion in schools are spot on. A little bit less global god-­bothering and we might have escaped the carnage in Mumbai and in ­Nigeria. — AT Forbes