South Africa: Language gorillas drove Brink out

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Language gorillas drove Brink out - Asmal

By Karen Breytenbach

Kader Asmal says Stellenbosch University vice-chancellor and rector Chris
Brink, appointed while he was education minister, has probably been driven
out of Stellenbosch by "language gorillas and political bigots". Brink
will join Newcastle University in England as its vice-chancellor in
mid-2007. His second five-year term in Stellenbosch would have begun in
January. Newcastle is one of the UK's six "science cities". During Brink's
tenure a storm around language policy has erupted after the introduction
of the T-Option of dual-medium education in the humanities, with Afrikaans
as the primary but not exclusive language of instruction.

Trying to make the university more accessible

Afrikaans activists saw this as a campaign of repression, while others
hoped it would make the university accessible to previously marginalised
language groups, without losing Afrikaans and while improving the campus's
status in a globalising world. In response in February, Brink published No
Lesser Place: Die Taaldebat (The Language Debate). In the preface, he
apologised to his family for the strain the debate had placed on them. "I
am sorry about the tree house that did not get built, about missing the
grade one Advent Concert at school and about the list of DIY jobs that
hasn't been attended to," he wrote. "I am sorry things got so tense in
Stellenbosch on occasion that (Brink's wife) Tobea had to take the kids
and leave town for a while. If there is anything I begrudge about the
Taaldebat, it is the cost it has exacted from my wife and family."

Brink's abolition of initiation has also been greeted with mixed feelings,
but Asmal said the ritual was "abusive, anti-women and basically violent".
Language debate took a toll on his family Brink denied speculation that
language and other heated issues had sent him packing. He said he felt his
mission had been accomplished. Asmal said: "I think it's an enormous pity
that he's leaving... because vice-chancellors need second terms to
consolidate what they have been doing. (Brink) came here as an
internationally recognised scholar. He is a brilliant academic with
administrative capacity."

Asmal said Brink understood how to create a "truly South African
university". No Lesser Place showed he loved Stellenbosch, "not as a
beautiful arcane paradise, but also as a centre for debate and argument
and for change".

"He has made an enormous contribution to opening up Stellenbosch as a
choice for South Africans, black and white, (and ensuring) that language
development and protection do not need rules, but a wider sense of
promotion." University spokesperson Mohamed Shaikh said language tensions
had been largely defused by Brink's one-on-one meetings with roleplayers
and two council discussions. Chancellor Elize Botha said she had
congratulated Brink and told him if his appointment was a measure of his
worth to Newcastle, he was worth even more to Stellenbosch. "His departure
is sad. He has an exceptional academic record. I do not believe he left
because of the Taaldebat. It was tense for everyone, but it was necessary
for policy-making and brought everyone closer together.  Language debates
in Europe are also fierce."

Dan Roodt, one of Brink's harshest critics, said he was "delighted" at
this "victory for the taalstryders (language defenders)". Asmal said he
believed Brink's legacy would live on. Acting council chair and language
liberal Gerhard van Niekerk said key indicators showed Stellenbosch had
become the country's best-performing research university. Council chair
Edwin Hertzog, a T-Optionist, said Brink's integrated approach to planning
and budgeting was a bulwark against diminishing state subsidies.


This article was originally published on page 1 of The Cape Times on July
06, 2006

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=105&art_id=vn20060706021037550C106388