A spectre is haunting the University of Cape Town. The spectre of “dissent”. This spectre has not appeared out of thin air. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of the system it is haunting.
What is more, the system has been so ossified politically that there is practically no way for such nonconformity to be implemented within its official structures.
Now his liberal defenders tell us to be grateful for his largesse. The trouble with this liberal morality is that it requires looking away from evil — so as to better enjoy its fruits.
Columbia University’s Ira Katznelson once described this liberalism as “insensitive to the suffering of others”.
Rhodes’s violence was also in his words: “I will lay down my own policy on the native question. Either you have to treat them as citizens or to call them a subject race. I have made up my mind that we have to treat the natives where they are in a state of barbarism, in a different way to ourselves. We are to be lords over them.”
The student actions have shattered the myth that race does not matter at UCT.
The black middle-class students who have dominated governance structures say they were treated with contempt when the university rammed down their throats its decision to do away with race in admissions policy.
As one of the students put it, “this is a leftover from the admissions debate”.
Black middle-class students now realise that they are not above the indignities of racism, including the presence of Rhodes’s statue in their midst. This is what African-American journalist Ellis Cose calls black middle-class rage in action.
Unlike the first generation of black middle-class students, this generation is less enamoured with what Cornel West, a US academic and philosopher, calls “the felicities of bourgeois existence”. They are comfortable in their skins – pun intended. They are building solidarity with black students from poor communities where struggles for social justice are on the boil.
Alongside them, white students are struggling for a new identity separate from that bequeathed to UCT by Rhodes. Among them will emerge the next Rick Turner.
Seeing that our learned newspaper articles about admissions, staff and curriculum transformation are met with the same liberal, mild-mannered rebuffs, the students have taken matters into their own hands, as Steve Biko and his colleagues did in 1968.
Now they are asking questions about the makeup of the university council, senate, promotions committees and other decision-making structures.
If any change takes place at UCT, it will be for their actions. We should never forget that. They have led where many adults have feared to tread.
Xolela Mangcu is associate professor of sociology at UCT
Shattering myth that race doesn’t matter
What is more, the system has been so ossified politically that there is practically no way for such nonconformity to be implemented within its official structures.
Now his liberal defenders tell us to be grateful for his largesse. The trouble with this liberal morality is that it requires looking away from evil — so as to better enjoy its fruits.
Columbia University’s Ira Katznelson once described this liberalism as “insensitive to the suffering of others”.
Rhodes’s violence was also in his words: “I will lay down my own policy on the native question. Either you have to treat them as citizens or to call them a subject race. I have made up my mind that we have to treat the natives where they are in a state of barbarism, in a different way to ourselves. We are to be lords over them.”
The student actions have shattered the myth that race does not matter at UCT.
The black middle-class students who have dominated governance structures say they were treated with contempt when the university rammed down their throats its decision to do away with race in admissions policy.
As one of the students put it, “this is a leftover from the admissions debate”.
Black middle-class students now realise that they are not above the indignities of racism, including the presence of Rhodes’s statue in their midst. This is what African-American journalist Ellis Cose calls black middle-class rage in action.
Unlike the first generation of black middle-class students, this generation is less enamoured with what Cornel West, a US academic and philosopher, calls “the felicities of bourgeois existence”. They are comfortable in their skins – pun intended. They are building solidarity with black students from poor communities where struggles for social justice are on the boil.
Alongside them, white students are struggling for a new identity separate from that bequeathed to UCT by Rhodes. Among them will emerge the next Rick Turner.
Seeing that our learned newspaper articles about admissions, staff and curriculum transformation are met with the same liberal, mild-mannered rebuffs, the students have taken matters into their own hands, as Steve Biko and his colleagues did in 1968.
Now they are asking questions about the makeup of the university council, senate, promotions committees and other decision-making structures.
If any change takes place at UCT, it will be for their actions. We should never forget that. They have led where many adults have feared to tread.
Xolela Mangcu is associate professor of sociology at UCT
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