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18 April 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin

The Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice IRSJ) has initiated a Social Justice Week at the University of the Free State (UFS), which started on Friday 12 April  until Wednesday 17 April 2019. 

Ten key events took place during the week. It ranged from dialogues, workshops, talk shows, debates, and interactive displays and events on issues of multilingualism and diversity, social innovation, engaged scholarship, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, gender sensitisation, sexual consent, sexual preparedness, universal access, disability, anti-discrimination, and security.

There was also a round-table discussion on 17 April 2019 with various UFS stakeholders on off-campus student security as well as an inter-institutional discussion on the same topic. The UFS Debating Society will take on the topic of the UFS Language Policy, while Olga Barends from the Free State Centre for Human Rights will host a dialogue on sexual consent.

The IRSJ has also designed and implemented SOJO-VATION: Social Innovation/ Social Change, which strives to create a foundational platform where ideas of social justice, innovation, and engaged scholarship at the UFS and in society can be hosted. SOJO-VATION partners with the Office for Student Leadership, Development, and Community Engagement.

The collaborating partners for the Social Justice Week includes various UFS stakeholders such as the Sasol library, the Gender and Sexual Equity Office, UFS Protection Services, the Free State Centre for Human Rights, the Student Representative Council (SRC), the Office for Student Leadership Development, Kovsie Innovation, GALA, the FFree State Centre for Human Rights, SRC Associations, the Office for Student Governance, Kovsie Innovate, Start-Up-Grind, EVC, EBL, Community Engagement, the Institutional Transformation Plan (ITP) Dialogues Office, Residence Dialogues, UFS Debating Society, Debate Afrika!, the Center for Universal Access and Disability Support (CUADS), and the Gateway Office. 

News Archive

Eusibius McKaiser gives first talk on new book at Kovsies
2012-05-09

 

Eusibius McKaiser
Photo: Johan Roux
9 May 2012

Students and staff from our university got the first glimpse of political and social commentator Eusibius McKaiser’s new book, There is a Bantu in my bathroom, during a public lecture of the same title held by the author on the Bloemfontein Campus.

McKaiser told the audience that they were amongst the first people to get a preview of his book, a collection of essays on race, sexuality and politics.

His talk centred on domestic race relationships, posing the question whether it was acceptable to have racial preferences with regard to whom you live with. Recounting an incident he encountered while looking for a flat in Sandton, McKaiser said the country was still many kilometres away from the end-goal of non-racialism.

McKaiser, who hosted a weekly politics and morality show on Talk Radio 702, and is a weekly contributor to The New York Times, said the litmus test for non-racialism in South Africa was not what people utter in a public space, but rather what was said in private.

“We need to talk more about the domestic space. In public, we are very insincere and quick to preach non-racialism.”

Recounting conversations he had with Talk Radio 702 listeners on the incident, McKaiser said that preference about whom you live with was not specific to white people’s attitude. He said many of his black listeners also felt uncomfortable living with a white person. “The question is, ‘What do these preferences say about you? What does it say about where we are as a country and people’s commitment to non-racialism?’”

McKaiser was the guest of the International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice.
 

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