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<span class="gmail-topbar-date">Wednesday, September 12, 2018</span>
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<div class="gmail-post-header gmail-post-tp-4-header gmail-show-breadcrumb gmail-show-cat-badges gmail-bs-lazy gmail-wfi gmail-b-loaded" title="#NWURacism Students Protest Language Policy" style="background-image:url("http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NWU-Pukke-1.jpg")">
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<span class="gmail-post-title">#NWURacism Students Protest Language Policy</span></h1>
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<img src="http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Fatima-Moosa-bio-pic-65x65.jpg" alt="Fatima Moosa" class="gmail-avatar gmail-avatar-26 gmail-wp-user-avatar gmail-wp-user-avatar-26 gmail-alignnone gmail-photo" width="26" height="26"><span class="gmail-post-author-name">By <b>Fatima Moosa</b></span> </a>
<span class="gmail-time">Last updated <b>Sep 11, 2018</b></span>
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<p><strong>On Friday September 7, students from the University of the
North West Potchefstroom campus embarked on a strike. They handed over a
joint Economic Freedom Fighters Student Command and South African
Student Congress memorandum. The students are calling for English to be
implemented as a the medium of instruction and to do away from
Afrikaans. The Daily Vox team rounds up.</strong></p>
<p>Many students took to social media after the strike. They said that
while the strike was peaceful, they were met with extreme racism from
students. Students protested saying that they would not accept the
resolution that they be taught in Tswana as not all students on the
campus were Tswana-speaking. Additionally, the use of translation
devices and translators were brought up as being very unhelpful. In a
memorandum seen by The Daily Vox, other demands include insourcing and
for an increase in black students who are admitted to the university.</p>
<div class="gmail-bsac gmail-bsac-clearfix gmail-bsac-post-inline gmail-bsac-float-left gmail-bsac-align-left gmail-bsac-column-1"><div id="gmail-bsac-31647-1790880430" class="gmail-bsac-container gmail-bsac-type-code"><span id="gmail-bsac-31647-1790880430-place"><ins class="gmail-adsbygoogle" style="display:inline-block;width:300px;height:250px"><ins id="gmail-aswift_1_expand" style="display:inline-table;border:medium none;height:250px;margin:0px;padding:0px;width:300px;background-color:transparent"><ins id="gmail-aswift_1_anchor" style="display:block;border:medium none;height:250px;margin:0px;padding:0px;width:300px;background-color:transparent"></ins></ins></ins></span></div></div> <p>Speaking
to The Daily Vox, first-year BA Communications student and member of
the South African Student Congress at NWU, Otlotleng Moremedi said that
there was no specific incident that led to the students protesting but
that it has been an ongoing issue.</p>
<p>“This march was sparked by the fact that on our campus we are still
not seen as equal as the other people. North West University prides
itself on its multilingualism but then in Afrikaans classes, we are
forced to have interpretation services whereas we could all have English
classes as English is a universal language that is understood by
everyone,”</p>
<p>Moremedi says the students decided to have a march to hand over the
memorandum to the office of the vice-chancellor. She says it was
received by Professor Lumkile Lalandle on behalf of the VC Dan Kgwadi.</p>
<p>“I think it is something that has been building because we had a
language debate earlier this year and we were told that they will give
us the results and they will give us feedback on what we’ll do moving
forward and we are still waiting on that,” she said about the reason for
the protest being held on Friday.</p>
<div class="gmail-bsac gmail-bsac-clearfix gmail-bsac-post-middle gmail-bsac-float-center gmail-bsac-align-center gmail-bsac-column-1"><div id="gmail-bsac-37755-993870689" class="gmail-bsac-container gmail-bsac-type-image"><a class="gmail-bsac-link" href="http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/support-daily-vox/" target="_blank"><img class="gmail-bsac-image" src="http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/tdvStoryNew2-1.jpg" alt="Donate to TDV – normal ad"></a></div></div> <p>The
students have given management 7 working days to go through the
memorandum and give feedback. They will be going back on Wednesday or
Thursday to the management to hear what they have to say and hear their
feedback.</p>
<p>The social media reaction to the strike was huge. Moremedi says there hasn’t been a reaction from students in person.</p>
<p>“On social media it has been very hectic. It’s actually
disheartening. The management sees all these comments but they don’t
even defend us as students. Most of the comments come from the parents
of the Afrikaans-speaking students that are on this campus. They have
insulted us in ways that are really you can’t even imagine a grown
person can describe young students in that way,”</p>
<p>Regarding the demands that English and not any other language be
taught, Moremedi said, “From the beginning of this year, we had many
students from different disadvantaged backgrounds and many people have
never even heard a word of Afrikaans. They only see it on tv and are not
very familiar with it. We want English because it is a commonly used
language. People from different countries that come to South Africa are
not familiar with other languages but are familiar with English. We
chose English because it is a universal language. It is not that
difficult to understand and learn as opposed to English,”</p>
<p>The racism and language segregation issues at NWU-Pukke are not new.
Just prior to the Fees Must Fall protests in 2015, a student from the
university spoke to The Daily Vox about their experience of subtle
racism at the university.</p>
<p>This included being taught in Afrikaans most of the time despite the
university being sold as a bilingual university. Other experiences of
the university included racist remarks and comments from the
Afrikaans-speaking students.</p>
<p>Moremedi said the general atmosphere at the university as a black student is that there are more Afrikaans-speaking students.</p>
<p>“We feel like we are unwelcome. Even in the classrooms and
especially in the Afrikaans classrooms and the fact that we have to
listen to the interpretation services. It shows us that we are not even
seen as a priority,” she said.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div></div>