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<h2>Maties language policy excludes blacks</h2>
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by Gita du Toit,
September 08 2015, 05:54</div>
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<img src="http://www.bdlive.co.za/incoming/2015/09/02/stellenbosch-september-1-2015/ALTERNATES/crop_638x402/Stellenbosch+September+1++2015" alt="Students hold placards at a protest against alleged racism on campus brought to light by a documentary, Luister (Listen), in Stellenbosch on Tuesday. Picture: AFP PHOTO/RODGER BOSCH " height="402px" width="638px">
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Students hold placards at a protest against alleged racism on campus
brought to light by a documentary, Luister (Listen), in Stellenbosch on
Tuesday. Picture: AFP PHOTO/RODGER BOSCH </div>
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<div class=""><p>THERE is no way of looking at the University
of Stellenbosch’s language policy without concluding it deliberately
excludes black South Africans from seeking an education there. By
insisting that the university keeps educating in Afrikaans, you are
insisting on its whiteness.</p><p>I am a white, Afrikaans alumna of the
university, with a familial legacy that stretches much further back. I
have delighted in sharing my long and established history with
Stellenbosch since I graduated in 2012.</p><p>The #OpenStellenbosch
movement obtained critical mass over the past week. My history there
means that my social media feeds have been vibrating with thinly veiled
racist opinions — posted in English — about the validity of the
movement’s claims. What I have come to understand from these posts is
this: we don’t want you here.</p><p>Instead, we want to keep
Stellenbosch as our own. To extrapolate: diversity is good and well for
places such as the University of Cape Town and Wits University, where
the buildings are made of brick and you can see the highway from campus.</p><p>At
Maties, the classes are painted pearly white and no one has to see the
grit that lies beyond the veil of the winelands. We intend to keep it
that way. Our students walk to class on tree-lined streets with small
outdoor cafés and parents get to feel proud that their children are
getting the right kind of education. We may have to put up with
diversity elsewhere, but not in Stellenbosch.</p><p>• Stellenbosch
University uses a T-language policy, which has been controversial since
its inception. The reason everyone has a hot take on it is that it does
not work. Lecturers spend an unreasonable amount of time switching
between English and Afrikaans, with so much being lost in between. It
doesn’t help to promote Afrikaans and it certainly does not help the
academic experience.</p><p>• Afrikaans is not, and will never be,
recognised as an international academic language. To pretend otherwise
is foolish. Any university, and especially those that view themselves as
exceptional, should make the communication of knowledge via critical
thought its highest priority.</p><p>• Educating the masses is incredibly
difficult and, right now, SA is failing. To demand that a teenager
seeking an education should learn another language is cruel and
unnecessary. Securing a generation of skilled labour should not be
restricted to proficiency in a language that holds no real marketplace
value.</p><p>• The argument most popularly used is that "they can go
somewhere else". Ignoring the wildly racist "othering" of such rhetoric,
this ignores what those of us who were lucky enough to attend the
university implicitly understand: Stellenbosch is special. It is
unmatched by anything else. If the privilege of attending is conditional
on being fluent in Afrikaans, admittance is conditional on being white
or, at the very least, conditional on being the kind of black person who
doesn’t make swathes of the student body uncomfortable.</p><p>Stellenbosch
is a special place. The cultural and academic opportunities it affords
its students are unmatched. Are we really going to convince ourselves
that those virtues are afforded simply by the grace of overwhelming
whiteness? Surely, we cannot support those who underestimate
Stellenbosch so offensively. Are we really that committed to pretending
we don’t live in Africa?</p><p>Stellenbosch University management has
two options: continue pretending that the T-language policy works and
that claims of racism are "unique". This would prove the university is
stagnant in its insistence on protecting the feelings of dead Afrikaans
men and the comfort zone of their privileged youth.</p><p>The other
option is to make English the primary language of instruction and
transform the university into a benchmark of comprehensive and inclusive
African tertiary education, to help foster and nurture an environment
in which we can come to find the Tolstoy of the amaZulu or the Twain of
the amaXhosa. What a magical thought.</p><p>• <em>Du Toit is a University of Stellenbosch alumna.</em></p><p><em><a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2015/09/08/maties-language-policy-excludes-blacks">http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2015/09/08/maties-language-policy-excludes-blacks</a><br></em></p></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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