An open letter to Prof Jansen -- you are so very wrong

By David Maimela

Dear Prof

I write an open letter to you deliberately to protest your first major wrong decision at UFS. And I sincerely hope it finds you well.

No need to patronise you at all. We both know that I admire you for many other reasons and we talk anytime. I won’t enter the debate about consultation, or apologies, or counter-accusations. I just think that is a side-show. I just believe and I will prove hereunder that you are so very wrong on your decision, no matter the intention. And I’m one of those who believe you should reverse this embarrassing thing.

Your decision may have initially been intended for one objective, that is, reconciliation but, as you can see in some quarters, its meaning is interpreted to mean a multiplicity of things of which knowing the old horse you are I’m absolutely sure you are not surprised. Others are saying you are trying to curry favour and, again, that’s not a debate I want with you because such a debate would based on assumptions.

And I must confess I would be the first one to admit that I would be shocked if this would not be the case in a normal university, if indeed UFS is such a university.

Your decision is weak because it is not grounded. It is based on an unhelpful liberalism and idealism of a bygone era. And even at Tuks, Sasco and I used to differ with your idealism on matters of transformation and of course we agreed on many other things.

The belief that a grand gesture of forgiveness will help heal and reconcile a people is fundamentally wrong. Racism is built on foundations of privilege and thus it can’t just be about the soul and psychology of the human beings. It is as much about the psyche as it is about the material. So, in order to deal with systematic racism and discrimination one has to privilege the material over which the psychological basis is mounted; as a sustainable methodology to eradicate or rather reduce racism. Because the racist human conduct of people is based on a centuries’ long legacy of privilege.

For instance, racists by and large have come to believe, quite naively, that psychologically they are superior beings over other races that the darker your skin is, the more stupid you are. Some of their scientists even tried to manipulate biological and other sciences to prove this fallacy. This was done to sustain a white superiority propaganda aimed at indoctrinating white people (to believe quite falsely that indeed they are superior beings) so as to sustain white privilege in society; in other words, to sustain a certain standard of material life. This of course as you know has caused great misery and suffering to the majority of South Africans and fellow human beings across the world.

Now, that is why attempts of transformation are resisted, simply because, if progressive changes come, they literally imply that whites will have to readjust their lives to live a common and equal material life as everybody else, as it normally should be the case. Transformation means, among other things, equal share of resources and indeed redistribution too. That’s where the belief that if more poor black students are admitted into former white schools, universities, rugby unions etc, standards will drop, something which is just a fixation of the mind. There is neither truth nor science into this very wrong and strange belief.

Now, if we all agree and hopefully I believe you do, that, because of their nature and the duty they perform to society, universities are meant to be microcosms of society. This means that they should model, or rather influence, the society we should live in; they must act in a manner that society appreciates and this includes in their endeavours to explain complex things, resolve complex phenomena, provide solutions, foretell the future based on verifiable schema of facts and knowledge etc.

If we agree and I hope we do, that, universities must perform this duty outlined above then, are you saying implicitly, by your decision, you and the university, that moving into the future, this is how society should resolve racism and acts of racism?

I think we have gone through the TRC. Both perpetrators of “evil” from both sides (that is, from the side of freedom fighters and the oppressors) have symbolically participated in the TRC for amnesty, forgiveness, reconciliation and nation building etc, which was arguably a necessary process to heal and restore justice and dignity. Now, that’s a bygone era and whether it was necessary and helpful will continue to be a matter of debate for some time into the future. I say so because even some sections of the Jews still feel not enough was done to restore justice and their dignity.

Now, I was president of Sasco when the Reitz thing happened. Remember that since time immemorial Sasco with other student organisations have always raised the serious issue of ongoing systematic overt and covert racism in institutions of higher learning and elsewhere in society. So we can’t be accused of opportunism when we protest this Reitz thing. For some time we warned everybody to focus and deal with this matter. They thought we were crazy. Then boom! Reitz happens and everybody is surprised and Sasco says, “But why? We told you so!”

We, then, working with our comrades in SAUS under the leadership of president Moloiwa Phosa lobbied, organised student protests and participated in public discourse etc and successfully forced the hand of the conservative former education minister, Naledi Pandor, to investigate this thing in all universities and the report (Report of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation and Social Cohesion and the Elimination of Discrimination in Public Higher Education Institutions, November 30 2008) is out there as a consequence.

I hold the view that the investigation was rushed, the situational analysis is not candid as it should be and the recommendations are not as strong as they should be. That’s a debate for another day.

In our campaign against racism we were clear. We correctly characterised it as a crime against humanity and therefore punishable under law. This was declared by the United Nations decades ago. Thus your gesture of forgiveness is inappropriately located in a post-“transition”/TRC period wherein we must normalise, including through observing the same law for all by all.

Now, the law says racism is a crime. If a farmer, whether for racially motivated reasons or not, is killed, the perpetrator must be arrested, prosecuted and, if found guilty, jailed. And equally when a farmer, whether for racially motivated reasons or not, kills a farm worker, the perpetrator must be arrested, prosecuted and, if found guilty, jailed. Simple!

That’s what the post-transition/TRC requires of all individuals, groups and institutions. That we must observe the present frameworks on how to resolve such matters: respecting the law. Because fifteen years into our democracy we can no longer afford to justify certain things unless we say the legal framework itself is insufficient and wrong and thus incapable of helping us resolve our racial incidents moving forward?

The support you received including from Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is quite wrong and misleading. It is as misleading for your conscience as it is for the heart and actually does nothing to make us South Africans move forward. It divides us more than it unifies just like the decision itself!

I submit that you reinstate the decision of the hostel boys and in fact we had campaigned that they must be banned from attending any South African university for some time just like it is the case when a student is caught cheating during an exam.

You have unfairly privileged the secondary aspect of racism, the mind, over the material. And I’m saying if you do so, you will get your methodology wrong in dealing with transformation at UFS moving forward. You will indeed convert a handful into the gospel of truth but that will not influence the legacy you should leave after your term. And a great legacy awaits you and UFS at this hour by the way. So, let it not go to waste.

I also believe again without patronising you or anyone at UFS that our campaigns against the Reitz matter and racism in general over years has partly made it possible for us to be where we are today at UFS. It’s a grand historic moment, and we must do things that will only increase this positive momentum.

Dear friend, Prof, I wish you well as you navigate through a complex social formation that is UFS. And may the progressive spirit be with you throughout the journey.

Sincerely,

David Maimela

Maimela is a public servant working on policy coordination in the office of the premier in Gauteng.