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Celebrating a Distorted Notion of Unity in Diversity

23 September 2022 | Story Dr Mpumelelo Ncube | Photo Supplied

Opinion article by Dr Mpumelelo Ncube, Academic Head and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Social Work, University of the Free State (UFS).

September is the heritage month during which the nation observes and celebrates all that it inherited from preceding generations. This is the sort of inheritance that includes but is not limited to culture, traditions, monuments, knowledge, land, and belief systems. It anchors the nation. The value attached to any form of heritage is what sustains it and any inheritance that may be deemed to be of less value, loses its significance with the progression of time.

Heritage month and day is the time the nation should celebrate oneness in diversity. Unity in diversity requires clarity of mind and extreme levels of tolerance for each other’s uniqueness. South African society presents such diversity in languages, cultures, religions, tribes, politics, and nationalities among others. Although some of these are inherited and others are acquired, they create a mosaic worth embracing and celebrating.

Language is one critical aspect of people’s heritage

We, however, need to be critical of what we celebrate considering the distorted nature of some of what we have inherited. Language is one critical aspect of people’s heritage. It defines who they are and through it, people are able to create their worldview and develop relationships not only with one another but with their world as well. The African history of colonialism and apartheid that is still perpetuated through various colonial matrices of power has and continues to impact negatively on linguistic interactions. The impact is such that the indigenous African languages are quickly losing their depth as communities experience a linguistic shift to English which is a minority language but due to its economic dominance, commands authority. African parents are putting up with a system that demands their children be taught in a language other than their own and many of them see nothing wrong with that. Given a chance, they would demand that the status quo be upheld or even enhanced. These are the lived experiences of colonisation and its impact on daily lives including language.

If you control people’s language, you control their understanding which forms their worldview. You further control the extent of their development as language is pivotal in ingenuity. Ingenuity speaks to inventiveness and originality. Surely, such cannot manifest through the second, third or fourth languages of instruction which is a common phenomenon across the African continent. Even as people celebrate their heritage, many are struggling to identify some features of their heritage in their languages, let alone start and finish a sentence in their mother tongue. In some communities, it is even seen as a sign of being educated. What type of education is this that disinherits you of your mother tongue? In celebrating diversity, why is it that it’s only the black child who gets given an English name? So many questions that are indicative of a system that is unkind to language diversity as it is lopsided to disadvantage indigenous African languages. It renders celebrations of unity in diversity a mockery.

People have been turned tourists in their own heritage

African food, music, and attire form the tapestry of Heritage Day. At least for a day, one gets a rare experience of one’s identity. For a day, people marvel at the richness of their types of food and feel different but good in their traditional attire while dancing to the sounds of their own music. It is one’s heritage after all. The sad part is that people have become tourists in their own heritage. Their identity no longer forms part of their daily lives. It is one to be visited occasionally. Foreign tendencies have formed habits that in turn are creating new identities and heritages. It is these new heritages that the current generations will bequeath to forthcoming generations. However, we as a people would have moved further away from who we originally were. This has dire consequences on the identity and progression of the nation. As we celebrate this September, let us critically think about what it is that we are celebrating when we are detached from the heritage ceded to us by the generations before us.

News Archive

Ford foundation funds higher education redesign

2005-06-23

The Ford Foundation has pledged a grant of almost R280 000 for redesigning higher education delivery at three campuses in the Free State.

According to Prof Magda Fourie, Vice-Rector: Academic Planning at the University of the Free State (UFS), the three campuses that will be affected by the strategic reconfiguration of higher education delivery are the Qwaqwa campus at Phuthaditjhaba and the Vista campus of the UFS in Bloemfontein and the Welkom campus of the Central University of Technology (CUT).

Prof Fourie says the three campuses were all affected by the restructuring of higher education, in line with the National Plan for Higher Education.

The Qwaqwa campus of the UFS that was part of the former University of the North was incorporated into the UFS in January 2003. Likewise the Bloemfontein campus of the former Vista University was incorporated into the UFS in January 2004.

The Welkom campus of the CUT was also part of the former Vista University and was incorporated into the CUT in January 2004.

“These incorporations pose a challenge in that we have to think creatively about the best ways of using these three campuses to service the higher education, training, skills development and human resource needs of the Free State,” Prof Fourie said.

“The grant from the Ford Foundation will primarily be used to draw up strategic funding proposals for the three campuses. The Qwaqwa campus of the UFS is a priority to us given the poverty and unemployment in a largely rural area of the Free State,” said Prof Fourie.

“A detailed consultation process will be undertaken in the Qwaqwa campus sub-region which will hopefully result in a comprehensive and a coherent suite of higher education activities being established on this campus,” said Prof Fourie.

“It is envisaged that the Qwaqwa campus will become a centre of excellence in the area of rural development. This vision is based on a focused integration of the core functions of a university – teaching, research, and community service – around the issue of rural development,” said Prof Fourie.

Prof Fourie said that various educational offerings including among others short courses, bridging and foundation programmes, and degrees could be offered, with a particular focus on providing courses of relevance to students from the local rural community and students from elsewhere with an interest in focusing on rural development studies.

She said the redesign of the three affected campuses is being managed as a project of the Free State Higher Education Consortium (FSHEC) consisting of all the higher education institutions operating in the Free State.

“The aim of the project is to establish how the Qwaqwa and Vista campuses of the UFS and the Welkom campus of the CUT can be used effectively to meet regional education and training needs, to serve the strategic priorities of the two higher education institutions and contribute to the sustainable development and poverty alleviation of the region,” she said.

The planning for the Vista campus of the UFS is still in an early stage. “We are looking at the possibility of developing this campus into a hub of education and training opportunities for Bloemfontein and Free State region. Further plans will be communicated later in the year,” said Prof Fourie.

Media release

Issued by:  Lacea Loader
   Media Representative
   Tel: (051) 401-2584
   Cell: 083 645 2454
   E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za

23 June 2005

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