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Stellenbosch</span>
U's turn against itself</h3>
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Hermann Giliomee |
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18 September 2018
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Hermann Giliomee replies to Prof Wim de Villiers' dismissive attitude to the university's history
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<p><b>University Stellenbosch turns its back on Afrikaans and the Afrikaans-speaking community</b></p>
<p><span>The future of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction at
university level is to be decided shortly when the Constitutional Court
is to hear arguments about the dispute over the language policy of
Stellenbosch (SU), in which English enjoys a dominant position. If the
ruling goes against Afrikaans only one of 37 campuses in the country,
namely the Potchefstroom campus of North Western University, will
provides students the opportunity to complete their undergraduate
studies in the medium of Afrikaans.</span></p>
<p><span>By co-incidence the centenary edition of <i>Matieland</i>, the
SU magazine for alumni, has just appeared. It contains a message from
the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Wim de Villiers, under the heading "Saam
vorentoe" (Forward together). One would expect of him to offer a
balanced reflection of what US had accomplished during its first
century. However, there are only a couple of cursory remarks, mainly
with negative drift.</span></p>
<p><span>De Villiers writes: </span></p>
<p><span>"Maties began as a "volksuniversiteit" (a university for the
Afrikaner people). That was the "idea" that Stellenbosch stood for at
the time - upliftment through higher education, but only for some, not
for all. Clearly this idea was way too narrow. But this does not mean we
are against Afrikaans. Afrikaans is one of our languages of instruction
- but on the basis of sound pedagogical principles, not fomented by
ideology or ethnic identity."</span></p>
<p><span>Here the Vice-Chancellor is treading on thin ice. He is
violating the most important principle when one is dealing with history,
namely to judge every action within the framework of the time during
which it took place.</span></p>
<p><span>The Union constitution of 1909 made provision for the effective
equality of two official languages. Initially, however, this granted
rights only on paper. Within the economically-dominant English community
there was the strong expectation that English would soon supplant Dutch
(and later Afrikaans) as the public language. As an observer expressed
it at the time: “English methods and the English language are bound
increasingly to win their way and permeate the whole structure of
society.”</span></p>
<p><span>The financial means of the new South African state were so
meagre that it could only establish one independent university, and even
this single university would require substantial support from the
private sector. The Botha-government embarked on a plan to transform the
South African College in Cape Town into the University of Cape Town
(UCT).</span></p>
<p><span>In the spirit of the constitution's stipulation that the two
official languages should enjoy equal status F.S. Malan, the Minister of
Education, wanted both English and Dutch as languages of instruction at
the envisaged university. However, the mining magnates who were willing
to provide huge sponsorships were strongly opposed to Dutch being used
as medium of instruction. They wanted UCT to attract high quality
English speaking academics from foreign shores. </span></p>
<p><span>It was in these circumstances that the idea of Stellenbosch
University was born. Jannie Marais, a Stellenbosch farmer who had made a
fortune on the diamond mines, donated a substantial sum for the
founding of a university at Stellenbosch on condition that at least half
the lectures were given in Dutch or Afrikaans.</span></p>
<p><span>To come back to the Vice-Chancellor’s message to alumni in
2018. One wonders what he means when he writes that the development of
SU as university that would serve predominantly the Afrikaner community
was "too narrow minded". </span></p>
<p><span>Surely it is naïve to think Afrikaans could have developed as a
language if it had to compete on equal terms against English right at
SU from the start. In 1915 only 15% of Afrikaans children progressed
further than Standard Five, and only 4% were fluent in English.</span></p>
<p><span>In 1915 Langenhoven wrote this satirical poem about Afrikaners
pleading for "peaceful co-existence" of the two official languages at
SU.</span></p>
<p><span>"Friends, let's make peace and keep the peace/ let the lion and
the lamb graze together/ the lamb on the grass and the lion on the
lamb/ you can be the lion and I will be the lamb/ soon I will become
part of the lion/ to the credit of the lamb…and the pleasure of the
lion."</span></p>
<p><span>The Vice-Chancellor gives the assurance that neither he nor US
is against Afrikaans and then continues: "Afrikaans is one of our
languages of instruction - but on the basis of sound pedagogical
principles, not fomented by ideology or ethnic identity.</span></p>
<p><span>The Vice-Chancellor is clearly unaware of the consensus in
literature about language maintenance: A sectional or national language
cannot maintain itself against a world language such as English, without
speakers of the former language regarding it as an important part of
their social identity. In the book <i>Language Endangerment and Language Maintenance</i>
(Routledge 2002) Stephen Wurm defines the iron-law of language
preservation as follows: “One of the most important factors for the
maintenance and reinvigoration of a threatened language is the attitude
of speakers towards their own language and the importance they attach to
it as a major symbol of their identity.”</span></p>
<p><span>One does not know what the vice-Chancellor means with the words
that the US should not be driven by any “ideology". One cannot help but
think of the dictum formulated by the American economist Joan Nelson,
"One’s ideology is like one’s breath; one can't smell it."</span></p>
<p><span>Is there any university without an ideology? Is the
Vice-Chancellor trying to say that a university like University of Cape
Town has not been driven by any ideology? In the volume commemorating
the SU centenary Prof. Bill Nasson, a celebrated historian with ties to
both SU and UCT, writes that UCT was never really driven by a demand for
racial integration, but rather by an "anti-Nationalist feeling" which
enabled it to position itself with the “besieged anti-apartheid front”.</span></p>
<p><span>What astonishes me most about the Vice-Chancellor's review of
the SU's first century is that not a single word is uttered of what can
be seen as the SU's greatest accomplishment during its first century,
namely its resistance against British Imperial ideology, and the
establishment of an indigenous intellectual tradition. </span></p>
<p><span>In 1918, when SU opened its doors, J.F.W. Grosskopf wrote that
SU must keep abreast of humanity’s intellectual heritage and traditions.
At the same time it should guard against idolising that which is
international, at the cost of what is uniquely South African.</span></p>
<p><span>One of the most notable contributions by Stellenbosch
University was its key role in developing Afrikaans as a literary and
intellectual medium of communication. The German scholar Heinz Kloss
expressed this achievement as follows: "In the whole world Afrikaans is
the only non-European/non-Asian language to have acquired full
university status, and that is used in all branches of life and in the
world of scholarship."</span></p>
<p><span>Not only was it universal knowledge that was domesticated in
the Afrikaans universities but they also incorporated some vital aspects
of the cultural heritage of the continent of Europe in their syllabi.
One thinks here especially of Roman-Dutch law and of the Dutch/ German
tradition of history writing based on primary sources, and the striving
to discover “wie es eigentlich gewesen” (how it actually was).
Invariably history written in Afrikaans stress cultural as well as
economic forces.</span></p>
<p><span>In 2017 Mahmood Mamdani, one of Africa's most highly rated
intellectuals, said that universities elsewhere in Africa did not
represent any specific intellectual tradition. The only exceptions were
the Afrikaans universities that transformed Afrikaans into the vehicle
of a domestic intellectual tradition. He deplored the fact the South
African government does not attempt to emulate the achievement of
Afrikaans but keeps on stressing education through the medium of
English. </span></p>
<p><span>In 2015 the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town
reported that the under-achievement of black children at school is such
that by the end of secondary school they are at least five years behind
their “privileged” counterparts.<a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/sus-turn-against-itself#_ftn1" title=""><span>[1]</span></a> </span></p>
<p><span>In 2016 South Africa’s Statistician General Pali Lehohla
expressed “horror” about the failure rates of blacks. They had been
taught in their second language, while whites had generally received
mother tongue instruction. </span></p>
<p><span>SU and other Afrikaans universities transformed racially far
too late but they were never institutions that welcomed only Afrikaners.
In the mid-1970s the Afrikaans universities attracted more English
students than the other way round. </span></p>
<p><span>The Vice-Chancellor speaks about a SU which "wants to continue
in the provision of the great need for instruction in Afrikaans”, but
significantly does not mention a single figure to quantify the current
offer of Afrikaans courses at SU. My information is that in the Social
Science faculty the departments of History, Sociology, Political Science
and Social Anthropology use virtually no Afrikaans. In the Law </span>faculty Afrikaans is for all practical purposes absent.<b><span></span></b></p>
<p><span>Back in 2016 when it had become clear where SU was heading with
its language policy Prof. Marius de Waal of the law faculty said in
Senate: </span></p>
<p><span>“It is very clear what the English student can expect in the
context of this formulation. The question is what can the Afrikaans
students expect? Students who want teaching in Afrikaans. What are their
rights, what are their expectations? The cynical or literal
interpretation would mean that a few words, a few token words in the
course of a lecture, would be in compliance with this formulation.”</span></p>
<p><span>This is precisely the policy the law faculty follows today but
the Vice-Chancellor keeps on talking about how much value SU attaches to
Afrikaans. In his <i>Matieland </i>article he talks about “the great
need for tuition in Afrikaans” and declares that this need is the reason
which why SU continues to meet the demand for tuition in Afrikaans.
Unfortunately the words have no meaning. </span></p>
<p><span>In his article the Vice-Chancellor offers an explanation for
SU’s virtual abandonment of Afrikaans as a language of tuition. He
states that instead of a "volksuniversiteit" SU wants to become a
"world-class university". </span></p>
<p><span>A rush to climb in the world-rankings is indeed one of the
important reasons why SU has anglicised so rapidly. This attempt seems
to have been futile. The international Centre for World Universities
Rankings which assigns rankings to a thousand universities shows that SU
dropped from 330th (third in South Africa) in 2017 to 448th (fifth in
South Africa) in 2018.</span></p>
<p><span>Philip Altbach and Ellen Hazelkorn have sounded a warning in
this regard: the ranking system perverts the true function of the
university; namely to transfer the knowledge and skills the graduates
would need in the communities they would one day serve.<a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/sus-turn-against-itself#_ftn2" title=""><span>[2]</span></a> </span></p>
<p><span>The Afrikaans-speaking community in the Western Cape, which
makes up more than half of the people in the province, requires a
university where they can be trained in the language with which they can
one day serve this community. This applies especially to the training
of teachers and legal practitioners.</span></p>
<p><span>When SU reviewed its language policy in 2017 the Federation of
Governing Bodies of South African Schools which, together with the South
African Teachers Union, is the most representative body in Afrikaans
education, submitted a memorandum. It declared: "Our members are
unanimously in favour of retaining Afrikaans as a fully-fledged language
of instruction at US. This means that the use of Afrikaans must in no
way be diminished at US. The US should continually promote and develop
tertiary education in Afrikaans."</span></p>
<p><span>The US management and council ignored this appeal, thereby drawing a line through a century-old relationship.</span></p>
<p><span>It was especially the brown Afrikaans-speaking community that
was left in the lurch by the SU not providing Afrikaans tuition. In 2013
the Council for Higher Education conducted a study to determine the
success rate of different population groups that enrolled for a B-degree
in the period 1970 -2010. The percentage of white and Indian students
who received B-degrees climbed from 18% to 29%. The figure for blacks
dropped from 11% to 9%, and the figure for brown students dropped from
10% in 1970 to a disastrous 6% in 2010. </span></p>
<p><span>During the past 15 years the number of brown Afrikaans
undergraduate students at SU has remained stagnant at a range of 1300 to
1400. Black numbers rose slowly from about 1000 in in 2010 to 2 336 in
2017 in a undergraduate student body of just below 20 000. The home
language of three quarters of them is not English. </span></p>
<p><span>By contrast the number of brown English-speaking students
multiplied five times from 512 to 2 588, while that of white
English-speaking students doubled from 2 384 to 5 458. From this should
be clear that the great beneficiaries of SU’s language policy are the
white and brown English-speakers. </span></p>
<p><span>In 2016 the movement Gelyke Kanse/Equal Opportunities took SU
to the Cape Supreme Court for violating its own language policy of 2014
which accorded equal status to Afrikaans and English as languages of
tuition. In the court proceedings SU admitted that one fifth of its
lecturers could not teach in Afrikaans and that the university violated
its own language policy in 268 modules. </span></p>
<p><span>My proposal for SU is to implement both an Afrikaans-medium
stream and an English-medium stream. It has been calculated that it will
cost 4% of the budget. Whether SU will easily follow this route is
doubtful. In recent times US has become known for simply following the
easiest path when it comes to the matter of language.</span></p>
<p><span>In 2005, when the <i>taalstryd </i></span>(<span>language
struggle) erupted at SU, Koos Bekker, MD of Naspers and a SU Council
member, made a telling remark in an article that was published in <i>Die Burger</i> If SU becomes anglicised </span><span lang="AF">it would signal that the university has chosen he road of <i>papbroekigheid</i> (spinelessness). I fully have subscribed to that sentiment all along </span><i><span></span></i></p>
<p><i><span>Hermann Giliomee is a historian who received his training
from SU. This is an extended version of an article which first appeared
in the paper Rapport.</span></i></p>
<div><strong>Footnotes:</strong><br clear="all"><hr width="33%" size="1" align="left">
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<p><a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/sus-turn-against-itself#_ftnref1" title=""><span lang="EN-US">[1]</span></a> Children’s Institute, University of Cape Twn, “Child Gauge Report, 2015.,</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/sus-turn-against-itself#_ftnref2" title=""><span lang="EN-US">[2]</span></a> “Why universities should quit the ratings game,” <i>University World News,</i> issue 442, Janauary 2017.</p>
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<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>