Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
02 August 2021 | Story Sanet Madonsela | Photo Supplied
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

UFS alumnus receives PhD in Statistics from the University of Oxford
2016-06-03

Description: DW Bester  Tags: DW Bester

In May of this year, DW Bester obtained
a DPhil in Statistics at the University of
Oxford.
Photo: Supplied

On 14 May this year, Dr DW Bester received a DPhil in Statistics from the University of Oxford. The entire ceremony, which was held in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, was conducted in Latin, as has been the case for the past 800 years.

Dr Bester completed his undergraduate studies and his honours degree at the University of the Free State (UFS). “At first, I was only planning to study for a master’s degree, but was privileged to get an opportunity to do a PhD as well. I didn’t think twice!” he says.

Studies at the University of Oxford


Universities in England do not require a master’s degree for PhD studies. With the help of Prof Max Finkelstein from the UFS Department of Mathematical Statistics and Actuarial Science, Dr Bester registered for the DPhil programme in Statistics directly after his honours studies.

“The title of my thesis was: Joint survival models: A Bayesian investigation of longitudinal volatility. It dealt with a problem in the medical field to determine the cause of stroke risk: is it the absolute level of blood pressure, or the volatility thereof? The analysis of this question led to interesting models which needed advanced application techniques. I had to study these techniques and write programmes for their application.

Although Dr Bester is working currently as the technical head of a company that calculates insurance for power stations, satellites, rockets, and cyber risks, he would like to continue working with his Oxford supervisor in future to make the techniques they have developed more accessible for researchers outside of the field of statistics.
 
“Studying at Oxford requires hard work, perseverance, and a lot of luck. Luck plays a big role, since there are no guarantees that hard work will ensure you a spot in one of the top universities.

Regarding his studies at Oxford, Dr Bester thinks back on his exposure to the GNU/Linux operating system, and free software. “I have seen how valuable this is for analyses in practice. I also had the privilege of meeting the father of free software, Richard Stallman,” Dr Bester says.

2011 Rhodes Scholar

He was elected as Rhodes Scholar in 2011. According to Dr Bester, who has been interested in Mathematics since high school, the Rhodes scholarship was something of a fluke. He applied for the Rhodes scholarship on the recommendation of Prof Robert Schall of the Department of Mathematical Statistics and Actuarial Science.

Role of the UFS in his successes


In addition to the continued support from the team of passionate professors and lecturers at the UFS, the actuarial degree at the UFS is fraught with statistics. Emphasis is also placed on Bayesian statistics. This was crucial to his studies at Oxford. According to Dr Bester, this topic is emphasised strongly in the international statistics community.

Dr Bester regards the work done by two of his lecturers, Michael von Maltitz and Sean van der Merwe, among his highlights at the UFS. Since our first year, they have created an atmosphere of camaraderie among the students. “I think this contributed to the success of everybody. They also make an effort to present topics outside of the syllabus regularly,” says Bester.

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept