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‘Wokeness’ could threaten our constitutional democracy, says Helen Zille

02 August 2021 | Story Sanet Madonsela | Photo Supplied

iStock-1249723002 copy — Helen Zille unpacking the notion of ‘wokeness’ and its context within the broader South Africa during a virtual book discussion with Prof Hussein Solomon.

The Department of Political Studies and Governance at the University of the Free State hosted Helen Zille, Chairperson of the Federal Council of the Democratic Alliance, to discuss her book #StayWoke: Go Broke: Why South Africa won’t survive America’s culture wars (and what you can do about it). Zille was in discussion with the Academic Head of Department, Prof Hussein Solomon. She unpacked the notion of ‘wokeness’ – also known as the ‘critical theory’, as well as the emergence of a ‘cancel culture’ in broader society.

Zille explained how the woke ideology combines post-modernism and neo-Marxism and why intersectionality often features in the lexicons (vocabulary) of South African universities.

Wokeness and its threat to our Constitution

Zille explained that wokeness threatens South Africa’s constitutional democracy. “Unlike America, South Africa’s democratic institutions are fragile and new and may not be able to survive the wave of wokeness,” she said. She further explained how the ‘properly wokes’ request to have separate graduations for African students could not work and how South Africa’s Constitution promotes inclusion.

Zille believes that the country needs its young people to be critical thinkers, as this can assist in stabilising the country’s economy and internal challenges. She believes that society needs a range of paradigms to make sense of the world, processes, programmes, and history and that it should not be overly reliant on a singular view, as this could have negative implications on the country in the long term. Zille concluded that she remains hopeful for the country, as its citizens are intelligent, sensible, ethical, and rational enough to move it forward and assist in reaching its full potential.

Wokeness aims to overthrow societal hierarchy

Zille notes in her book that 'wokeness is an attempt to invert ‘society’s conventional hierarchy of privilege in order to promote marginalised identities.' This stems from a struggle against inborn attributes of personal identity such as race, sex, sexuality, gender, and disability. It believes that society comprises power hierarchies that determine what should be known and what shouldn’t, as well as how events and actions should be interpreted. It believes that social justice activists need to expose unequal power relations and dismantle them in order to achieve social justice.

Unequal power relations in this regard include racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, and other prejudices. Moreover, it argues that knowledge needs to be decolonised in order to achieve social justice. Decolonisation would require stripping knowledge of the methods and contents used in Western society. While it ‘seeks’ to promote inclusion, wokeness has begun to symbolise an extreme intolerance and is often used as a tool to enable a cancel culture. As a movement, it has been used to tear down statues, deface paintings, and monitor others’ speech infringements to ensure conformity. Rather than engage in rational debates with those who share dissenting views, online woke communities silence people with opposing views. This threatens social progress. Zille’s book represents a valuable contribution and a necessary attempt to understand the phenomenon and why it would not work in the South African context.

Having personally experienced the wave of wokeness and cancel culture, Zille is well placed to advise others experiencing such tactics. She advises them to recognise what happened and to remain calm; to question whether they said or did anything objectionable or whether they just undermined the woke narrative; not to apologise or resign, as it feeds into the narrative that they have done something wrong; to seek legal counsel if they can afford it; not to engage online mobs; and not to give up.

Watch recording of webinar below:

News Archive

The science of translation

2015-09-16

What is the relationship between a translator, information, and an audience? Professor Christiane Nord explored the connection in a series of lectures hosted by the Linguistics and Language Practice Department and the Department of Hebrew of the University of the Free State (UFS) Bloemfontein Campus.

Since 2007, the professor for Translation Studies has been a research associate and professor extraordinary in the department, assisting translation and interpreting students in gaining a global perspective on their disciplines.

The world-renowned German scholar and trained translator for Spanish and English is also an author, with over 200 published articles on the so-called Skopos Theory, which formed the basis of the lectures on 7 and 8 September 2015. The addresses were centered on the functionality and limitations of translations.

Translation as a purposeful activity

According to Prof Nord, all translations should be geared towards conveying messages which the audience understands. This communicative purpose involves taking into consideration the cultural background of the recipient.

As a seasoned practitioner, Prof Nord has been guided by Skopos Theory in her teaching endeavours. Hence her firm stance: “If you do not have a theory, you cannot justify your translational decisions.”

Within the context of the Skopos Theory, she explains that, in order to produce a functional translation, the translator must analyse the purpose of the translated text, which includes the questions for whom, when, where, and through which medium will it reach the intended audience.

How to deal with doubt in functional translation

“Doubt is something we are accompanied by when we’re translating.” Such doubt may be caused by “insufficient proficiency with regards to source and target languages and cultures, domain and terminological knowledge, and knowledge in translation theory and methodology,” said Prof Nord. However, the top-down approach offers a solution to overcome uncertainty, at least to some extent. This approach considers, first and foremost, the target audience for which the translation is tailored. Based on this consideration, the translator is able to determine the approach that is most suitable for the audience, hence eliminating doubt.

In sum, the extraordinary professor asserted that there are no rules for translation, contrary to popular belief. According to Prof Nord, the main focus of a translator or interpreter should be to produce texts in the target language and culture which meet the requirements of the translation brief set by the client or commissioner.

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