Increasingly academics are being spirited away to be taken into administration; many good scholars have become deans, which is now more an administrative job, and there is the need to maintain professors in faculties.
“The issue of salaries is another example of how we have inherited a particular way of thinking about universities in this country, and we just keep going along with it. We have not done anything about the way we incentivise people to come into the university system, unlike other countries which pay huge amounts to attract professors. We need a paradigm shift,” said Professor Xolela Mangcu, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Cape Town.
A culture of intellectualism
Dr Somadoda Fikeni, political analyst and advisor to the principal and vice-chancellor at Unisa, kicked off the event’s panel discussion with some pressing questions: “Ours is a paradox for reason and ironies. Why do we end up as the consumers of knowledge whilst abdicating responsibility to be producers of knowledge? Why do we swallow what other people have chewed for us? In this moment, our sense of self-reliance and self-definition are surrendered.”
Fikeni said that there is an absence of robust discourse in South Africa. “Today the media may ask about dagga and tomorrow, injuries in the mines, and you are given 22 seconds to answer. There is an absence of any sustained probing.”
He moved on to say that there is seldom an appreciation of the history and contribution of scholars. He also stressed the importance of not succumbing to alienation, where works are translated from the vernacular into English, and urged for the translation of local works into other dialogues, saying there is a “lack of narrative dignity of telling our own stories”.
“We also have an acute honesty deficit, never reflecting on the things that affect us and lacking will and imagination. This is the case when we sit back, never write, but go to Exclusive Books to buy books about us, but without us [being] present.
“We also should not look for validation by others abroad so that we can say we have arrived. We need grounded scholars versus those who seek approval.
“There are two types of academics or scholars. There are the academics who publish because they want promotion, regardless of topic.
“Then there is the activist academic who searches for knowledge. Perhaps we should produce more of the latter than the former,” he concluded.
Second panelist, Professor Nhlanhla Maake, deputy chair of Unisa’s English department, took up the debate, saying that the translation of local languages from one to another is already happening at a national level and that the project is going into the second leg.
“The culture of reading and writing has to be nurtured,” he stressed. “When we look at the Es’kia era, not only were intellectuals producing and writing, but they were both politicians of the time and intellectuals in their own right.
“Never, ever put education on the back burner. It is vital towards liberation. Also, intellectual tradition has to be rooted in the society and culture of the country. We do not have the tradition — we have the chapters but not the whole book.”
The third panelist was Dr Matete Madiba, director of student affairs at the University of Pretoria, who emphasised the importance of reading.
“My father, obsessed with Es’kia, instilled in me the love of reading. Books take me on a journey of life. Works of fiction are like a mirror and there is something fascinating about going through a novel and immersing yourself in a journey. If at the end of each journey you have not developed perspective, there is a problem. You cannot emerge with less engagement and understanding.
“I am worried in this age of ‘Tweeterati’ and the youth throwing their half-baked opinions ‘out there’. They throw idle talk and I keep wondering what is going to happen to young people as they grow. The challenge lies in the ways of engaging with them.
“I cannot imagine myself at the age where I cannot walk properly and still not see a proper library in my own village. We have serious work to do to address the illiteracy in this country. We must make reading and writing leisure and entertainment. Build on the books. If we don’t, we are going to slide into the slums of anti-intellectualism.”