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21 July 2021 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Charl Devenish
Even after her premiership, Helen Zille has remained a powerful force within the South African political landscape. Here she is pictured during a workshop hosted by the Department of Political Science and Governance in February 2020.

We have all heard or seen the expression #StayWoke. It is a term with its origins in the United States, implying an awareness of social issues such as racial injustice and other societal issues. It is often seen as a left-wing political movement – and now a new book, #StayWoke, Go Broke: Why South Africa won’t survive America’s culture wars (and what you can do about it), by Helen Zille, Chairperson of the DA Federal Council, aims to explore how wokeness can be bad for South Africa. 

Zille will be talking to Prof Hussein Solomon in the Department of Political Studies and Governance at the University of the Free State.   

You can join this interesting discussion on: 

Date: 29 July 2021

Time: 10:00-11:00

 

About the author:
Helen Zille is a South African journalist, activist, and politician who served as the national leader (2007-2015) of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition party in South Africa. She was also Premier of the Western Cape from 2009 until 2019. Zille’s autobiography, Not without a Fight, was published in 2016. 

 

 

 

News Archive

Seminar puts language issues under spotlight
2012-06-29

The South African Languages Bill does not meet the Constitution’s requirements and is not doing much to curb English monolingualism.

This viewpoint of a number of critics was discussed at a language seminar at the University of the Free State (UFS) this week.

The Faculty of the Humanities at the UFS presented the seminar on the Bloemfontein Campus, where interested parties could discuss issues and developments relating to the South African Languages Bill.

The seminar formed part of the combined annual conference of the South African Applied Linguistics Association, the Linguistic Society of Southern Africa and the South African Association for Language Teachers.

At the conference, the rich diversity of language and also the complexity of language in South Africa was recognised.

The latest South African Languages Bill has attracted much interest and varied viewpoints this past year.

One of the most significant - and also the most controversial - suggestion of the present bill is to extend the present bi-language obligation to a four-language obligation, which implies that at least one African language is added to the present formula.

Furthermore, there are other important stipulations regarding the establishment of language units that will have implications for the public service, and specifically, for language practitioners.

Prof. Koos Malan, a Constitutional Law expert from the University of Pretoria, speaking during a discussion session, said: “Language determination in constitutions and language legislation are indications of the official ideology towards dealing with language and cultural diversity in the specific state. The ideology can range from the support of multilingualism – at the one extreme – to the other extreme, where only one language will get preference as the official language.”

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