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Opinion: Love as Revolutionary Rebellion

08 February 2022 | Story Nombulelo Shange | Photo Andre Damons

adnombulelo5 copy — Romantic love is important and revolutionary and a crucial rebellion when done in a way that is genuine and does not cause pain, writes Nombulelo Shange, Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the UFS, and Chairperson of the University of the Free State Women’s Forum.

Opinion article by Nombulelo Shange, Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Free State and Chairperson of the University of the Free State Women’s Forum.

Twenty-first-century dating is a nightmare; trying to find the perfect partner can feel like an extreme sport that will literally end you. Dating apps such as Grindr, Bumble, and Tinder are supposed to make finding a partner easier in the stressful modern world, but they add a deeper layer of complexity that turns unsuspecting lovestruck users into sacrificial lambs when they enter the sea of serial cheaters and broken people who flood the apps. All of this is a giant mess that has been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, where going out on a date can be a death sentence.

But even with that said, romantic love is important and revolutionary and a crucial rebellion when done in a way that is genuine and does not cause pain. Considering an interpersonal phenomenon such as love as revolutionary is unusual, but when you consider historical events that politicised love and still have an impact on the ways we live today, one realises that love is one of the most important, relatively accessible acts of rebellion needed to undo some of the injustices of the past. The beauty of love is that it is more within our reach as individuals, compared to other grander revolutionary actions such as free education and land expropriation, which require mass action from citizens or big policy shifts and action from structures such as the state, judiciary, and even the profit-driven private sector. Love as a revolution does not rely as heavily on the slow bureaucracies of institutions, which are unwilling to adequately address injustices. Love just requires individuals to make an active choice to be together and to care for each other in ways that empower the individual and the collective. But as ‘easy’ as it sounds, many struggle to find it, and even those who have it struggle to enjoy the transformation that should come with the bond that love should create. I want to argue that this is in part because of the historical politicisation of love, which has not been unlearned even though we enjoy relatively more freedoms today; instead, this politicisation of love has in some ways become ‘cultural norms’ that we blindly and unquestioningly follow, even to our own detriment.

Love and Patriarchal Culture

Discourse on love and family tends to not enjoy as much prominence in macro-institutions such as economies or states. But understanding micro-phenomena such as family, love, and relationships is important for knowing how macro-institutions work and to make sense of social life. This is in part because the socialisation we receive from our families has the potential to influence how we interact with macrostructures as active agents who influence and can be influenced by structures. Even our leaders and the decisions they make are greatly influenced by their family and community socialisation. Discourse on family started to gain dominance in the 1960s through the rise of radical feminism, which popularised slogans such as ‘the personal is political’ as a way of challenging family values, and particularly the nuclear family structure that perpetuated the oppression and at times abuse of women and children in the family, because domestic issues were not considered public concern.

But even with this rise, discourse on love and family is still largely lacking or only confined to psychological and feminist discourse. Feminist scholar and American professor, the late Bell Hooks, is one scholar who tries to make sense of social life in relation to love, highlighting its importance and the challenges linked to it. In her 2004 book, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love, Hooks says:

Every female wants to be loved by a male. Every woman wants to love and be loved by the males in her life. Whether gay or straight, bisexual or celibate, she wants to feel the love of father, grandfather, uncle, brother, or male friend. If she is heterosexual, she wants the love of a male partner. We live in a culture where emotionally starved, deprived females are desperately seeking male love.

She later highlights the reason for the desperation and deprivation of male love. Women and girls are taught to believe that male love and attention are more important than the love of women, while men are taught that love is a weakness. An idea that even very young children are exposed to in fairy tales, where princesses and girls are constantly seeking approval from withholding or absent fathers or need a prince saviour. Men who show genuine love to their mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, or partners risk their masculinity, because part of being ‘truly manly’ is withholding love.

Historically Politicised Love

Hook’s analysis of love helps us to understand some of the dynamics of how the nuclear family exists, even as it marginalises women. Women are often willing to perform free labour in the home, partly because they are seeking the love they are deprived of. This labour allows their husbands, brothers, and fathers to be productive at work and reaffirms their manliness. The invisible labour performed by women in the home is what allows the workplace to exist unencumbered. In South Africa and much of the African context, this exploitation did not just happen along gender lines, it was racial too. The building of capitalism on the continent rested on the dismantling of African families and the destruction of black love. Your worth was only based on your usefulness as a servant or slave, and how you could strengthen Western structures, from family to economy or state. African men were torn from their families and sent to work in fields and mines, while black women were isolated from their children in order to raise those of white women. Even sex, an important expression of love and pleasure and a way to build families, was used as a repressive tool. It was used for ‘breeding’ slaves to be sold. Rape was used as punishment to correct defiance. Homosexual and interracial love was unthinkable and illegal because it threatened the heteronormative, Western dominance status quo.

Love as Revolutionary Action

Love is important, because it offers abstract and emotional needs such as companionship, caring, and happiness, which can spill over to other parts of life, making us better individuals. Love can also be a lifesaving, poverty-eradicating tool that creates healthier, stronger communities. The cost of living globally is becoming higher and is leading to a shrinking middle class. Having someone to share the load, a home, and resources with, means we can undo some of the challenges that push us into poverty or financial difficulty. You can improve your quality of life and come a step closer to accessing rights and a lifestyle that you might never have been able to achieve alone. For women and people of colour, love is an even more important revolutionary action, since it was never intended for us to receive because of the fear that it would disrupt the status quo that rested on our oppression. When we play the games we play, when we hurt each other instead of forming meaningful connections, we take ourselves back to the state of love deprivation that Hook talks about. This is harmful even to men, especially black men, because to live life fearful of love is to live a life of emptiness that maintains the colonial shackles that were designed for you.

News Archive

During 2011: Achievements at the UFS

2011-12-01

Sarah Shannon

Dr Alex Amtaika, Department of Political Science

During a conference at Khon Kaen University in Thailand, Dr Alexius Amtaika from our Department of Political Science was elected as Executive Director and Convener of the International Committee of Scholars of Local Government. This honour was bestowed upon Dr Alexius during the first International Conference on Local Government at Khon Kaen University.

Sarah Shannon

We all have heard stories about inspirational people, who defy the odds, fight circumstance every day and never give up. Sarah Shannon has cerebral palsy but has never stopped dreaming and achieving them.

Sarah is also a competitive swimmer, and is currently ranked seventh in the world in her class of disabilities.

She is currently completing her postgraduate certificate in Education, Foundation Phrase, through Unisa. She is also studying Sociology at our university.

DW Bester and Sannah Mokone, Rhodes Scholars

Of the four open Rhodes Scholarships available to students from all universities in Southern Africa, two of our students won these prestigious scholarships. DW Bester, B.Sc. Hons. Actuarial Science student, and Sannah Mokone, BPub-cum laude student, joined Oxford University in the United Kingdom in September 2011 to further their studies.

The Rhodes Scholarships, arguably one of the most prestigious scholarships in the world, were founded in 1903 in the will of Cecil John Rhodes and cover the full costs of study at Oxford University.

While academic excellence is a pre-condition for consideration for the Rhodes Scholarship, these scholarships are unique in that Rhodes Scholars are outstanding young students who excel academically, but very importantly, demonstrate leadership, are committed to making a difference in the world, and have the energy to fulfill their ambitions.

Dr Derik Coetzee, Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences

When you suddenly receive a call during a World Cup year and requested to come and assist in leading the Springboks, then you have to know, you have something to offer. This is what happened to Dr Derik Coetzee from our Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences. This year he once again became involved in the Springbok rugby team, after he had been die Bokke’s conditioning trainer from 2004 to 2007.

His primary task as conditioning head was to help in seeing to it that the Springboks reached their best level of play – psychologically, physically an emotionally. Amongst others, his duties included the optimisation of the players’ muscle and explosive power, speed, anaerobic ability and technical skills.

Jefferson J Dirks-Korkee en Mart Kotzé

Jefferson J Dirks-Korkee, from Willowmore in the Eastern Cape, and Mart Kotzé from Bloemfontein, recently made history by being the first students from our Department of Drama and Theatre Arts featuring in an Afrikaans South African film Skoonheid, the first ever to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

The movie won the Queer Palm Award at the 2011 Cannes International Film Festival, where Robert de Niro was the chairperson of the panel of judges.

Prof. Muriel Meiring, Department of Haematology and Cell Biology

Prof. Muriel Meiring, Specialist Scientist in our Department of Haematology and Cell Biology, is responsible for establishing the Specialised Haemostasis Laboratory at our university and the Universitas Hospital’s National Health Laboratory Service. She established this centre as a reference centre for Von Willebrand disease, a genetic bleeding disorder, in South Africa. This laboratory is internationally recognised for their research and as a reference laboratory.

Prof. Meiring develops and tests antithrombotic (anti-clotting) agents and her long list of publications, research awards and congress presentations has earned her a nomination for the Department of Science and Technology’s Distinguished Woman Scientist Award. She was one of two scientists of the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) to receive the award – Prof. Meiring being the only woman from our university.

Medical facilities from all over the country make use of her and her team’s expertise when testing for blood disorders and she hopes to expand the centre even further.

Melinda Jonker

Melinda Jonker, one of our third-year financial economic students, won the overall national competition of the prestigious Traders Trophy competition at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

The competition, sponsored by Nedbank Capital and Oxyor in Amsterdam, requires participants to trade actual JSE-listed shares against one another on a simulated platform. The winner is determined not only by the highest profit, but also by the technique used throughout the trading session.

Christopher Diab, also a student from our Department of Economics, won the regional UFS competition.

ASSAf members

Seven of our academic colleagues have been elected as members of the Academy for Science of South Africa (ASSAf). They are Proff. Hendrik Swart, Physics; André Roodt, Chemistry; Zakkie Pretorius, Plant Sciences; Max Finkelstein, Mathematics; James du Preez, Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology; Maryke Labuschagne, Plant Breeding; and Neil Roos from our Postgraduate School.

Due main objective of the Academy is to promote and apply scientific thought in the service of the society, in order to determine the quality and scope of the role that the Academy can plays in the country’s life and progress, and eventually apply it

Other colleagues who are currently members of ASSAf include Proff. Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector; Johan Henning, Dean: Faculty of Law; and Frans Swanepoel, Senior Director: Research Development.

Samantha Renda-Dollman

Samantha Renda-Dollman, a BSc (Zoology) student on our Qwaqwa Campus, has obtained 19 distinctions out of the 22 modules she has written since 2009.

Her hard work earned Samantha the prestigious Dux Student award of our 2011 Annual Student Affairs Excellence Awards, held at our Qwaqwa Campus. This makes her the best overall academic performer of the entire student body on this campus.

Jaco Griessel

Jaco Griessel, an Honours student at our Odeion School for Music, received a prestigious Mandela Rhodes bursary for 2012 to study towards his Master’s degree next year.

Jaco, who is currently busy with his BMus Honours degree, is a performer par excellence, with many achievements to his name. In 2010, he received the Fanie Beetge Prize for the best undergraduate student in Systematic Music Studies. A year before, he received the same prize as best undergraduate student in Historic Music Studies. He shall continue his Master’s degree with Music Composition as field of specialisation at our university in 2012.

Prof. Helena van Zyl, UFS School of Management

Prof. Helena van Zyl, Director of the UFS Business School, was elected as President of the South African Association of Business Schools (SABSA). Since the beginning of 2010 she has been acting as president. Prof. Van Zyl is the first woman to occupy this position and also the first woman who is currently heading a business school in South Africa. She will serve SABSA as the president for the next two years.

Prof. Zakkie Pretorius, Department of Plant Sciences

Research by Prof. Zakkie Pretorius from our Department of Plant Sciences, has become part of Phase II of a mayor global project to combat deadly strains of a wheat pathogen that poses a threat to global food security.

Prof. Pretorius focuses on the identification of resistance in wheat to the stem rust disease and will assist breeders and geneticists in the accurate phenotyping of international breeding lines and mapping populations. In addition, Prof. Pretorius will support scientists from Africa with critical skills development through training programmes.

The Ug99 strain was discovered in Kenya in 1998, but are now also threatening major wheat-growing areas of Southern and Eastern Africa, the Central Asian Republics, the Caucasus, the Indian subcontinent, South America, Australia and North America.

Prof. Danie Strauss, research fellow in the Faculty of Humanities

Prof. Danie Strauss, a research fellow in our Faculty of the Humanities, won the Dooyeweerd Prize from the Board of the Association for Reformational Philosophies in Amsterdam. Prof. Strauss, former Dean of our Faculty of the Humanities and head of our Department of Philosophy, won the prize for his book Philosophy: Discipline of the Disciplines. The prize is awarded for work in the field of systematic philosophy.

Nida Jooste and Ryan Lamb, Abe Bailey Travel Bursary holders

Nida Jooste and Ryan Lamb are two of the proud recipients of Abe Bailey Travel Bursaries. Both students are academic achievers, but also excel in other fields. This is what set them apart from the rest of the applicants for the bursaries.

Ryan (23), a Medical Physics Honours student at our Faculty of Health Sciences, received the Senate’s Medal for the best Bachelor’s Degree student at the UFS. He was one of 100 students at the Brightest Young Minds Summit this year and was one of the 2008 delegates to the World Youth Forum, hosted by the International Association for Poetry and Solidarity in Italy.

Nida (21) is a very familiar face on our Bloemfontein Campus, as she served as the Deputy Chairperson of our Interim Student Council in 2011.

Loerie Award for Tarran Jacobs, Elizabeth Forson and Mafohlela Mahlatsi

The creativity of a group of students from our university was rewarded with a bronze Loerie Award after they won an internal competition. Tarran Jacobs, Elizabeth Forson and Mafohlela Mahlatsi, all third-year Marketing Communication students, won the award for an advertisement they designed for Cansa.

Each year, the third-year Marketing Communication students of our Department of Communication Science have the opportunity to flex their creative muscles in the Copy-writing class. The challenge is to design two advertisements for any charity organisation by applying the knowledge they gained from the subject in a practical way. The top three groups are then entered for the Loerie and Pendoring awards – two of the most prestigious awards in the South African advertising industry.

The top three groups designed advertisements for Cansa, the South African Blood Service and Crime Line.

Hendrik Kruger and Anke Malan walk away with awards at Pfizer UKZN Young Health Scientists Research Symposium

Two students in our Faculty of Health Sciences won awards at a Pfizer UKZN Young Health Scientists Research Symposium.

Hendrik Kruger, a medical student, represented his group, which won the clinical category with the paper “Injury patterns of occupants surviving motor vehicle accidents in the Free State”. This presentation was based on a study which is the first of its kind in South Africa.

The group with Anke Malan from our Department of Nutrition and Dietetics as presenter received the prize in the community-based category with the presentation ’Knowledge, practices and perceptions of undergraduate students at the UFS regarding the risk factors of osteoporoses’. Anke’s team was also nominated as the overall winner of the symposium. Presentations were delivered in three categories, namely clinical, community-based and laboratory research.

Prof. Louis Scott, Department of Plant Sciences

Prof. Louis Scott from our Department of Plant Sciences was formally rewarded the Fellowship of Royal Society of South Africa (RSSA).

Prof. Scott is an internationally recognised Palinologist at our university and a B-rated scientist.

Fellows of the RSSA are considered to be part of a very elite group of South African scientists who have achieved international acknowledgment.

Prof. Aldo Stroebel, International Academic Programmes in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor

Prof. Aldo Stroebel has been elected as a Founding Member of the South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS).

He is Associate Professor in our Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Rural Development and Extension, as well as the Director of International Academic Programmes in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor.

The Young Academy has as its objectives to represent young scientists in advising the government on science and technology policy and human resource development. In addition, they will prepare the SAYAS to join the Global Young Academy (GYA) to engage with high-level international bodies, including the World Economic Forum.

Prof. Lodewyk Kock, Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology

Prof. Lodewyk Kock was a sought-after keynote speaker at various conferences and seminars around the globe on our nanotechnology breakthrough research.

He delivered keynote lectures at international conferences of repute in the USA, China and Greece. In the USA he delivered a the keynote address at the Conference & Exhibition on Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs (Pharma-2011), held in Baltimore, and was a keynote speaker at the 2nd World Congress on Biotechnology in Philadelphia. He was also invited to present various lectures abroad.

He posted two video lectures in e-conference format on his research on the web page of the journal Translational Biomedicine. He was also invited by the International Society of Translational Medicine (ISTM) to head their “Molecular Imaging” Division.

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