Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Experts differ on whether South Africans just accept things: UFS panel discussion

18 July 2023 | Story André Damons and Samkelo Fetile | Photo Stephen Collett

UFS Thought-Leader Series — The 2023 Thought-Leader Panel. From left: Prof Bonang Mohale, Dr Lindie Koorts, Prof Francis Petersen, Dr Sipho Pityana and Prof Piet Croucamp.

Panelists at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Thought-Leader Panel discussion disagreed whether South Africa has a culture of acceptance, with one panelist claiming “it is absolute nonsense”.

Prof Piet Croucamp, who teaches politics at the North-West University (NWU), answered the question whether South Africans just accept things as if they were normal because they do not know anything different with a frank: “It is absolute nonsense”.

Prof Croucamp was one of four panelists who took part in the panel discussion titled: “A Culture of Acceptance – South Africa’s Greatest Threat?” as part of the 2023 Thought-Leader Series on Thursday (13 July 2023). The other panelists were Prof Bonang Mohale, President: Business Unity South Africa and UFS Chancellor; Dr Sipho Pityana, Founder and Chairman: Izingwe Capital; and Dr Lindie Koorts, Research Fellow: International Studies Group (ISG), UFS.

Prof Francis Petersen, UFS Vice-Chancellor and Principal, was the facilitator.

Biggest motion of no confidence

Prof Croucamp said only 47% of registered voters turned up to vote during the 2021 elections and only 12% of eligible voters voted for the ANC, while 88% voted for other political parties or stayed away.

“The reason why the ANC dipped below 50% is because people stayed away and by staying away, they were saying something. They were saying ‘we have lost confidence in this particular system’, but more so in this political party. It is the biggest motion of no confidence that I have seen in this country.

“Only 12% could identify with that narrative. So do not tell me people are passive and have nothing to say and that they have just accepted things. It is simply not true,” Prof Croucamp said.

According to him, black entrepreneurs who have benefited from black economic empowerment and who operate mostly in the informal economy, are responsible for the recent burning of trucks. They are now seeking to enter the value chain of the formal economy, in this case, the logistics economy.

“They compete with each other through the use of violence. Bheki Cele (minister of police) said the burning of trucks is business-related and I agree with him. It spilled over from the mining industry in Mpumalanga. These are economically empowered entrepreneurs who use violence and crime as a way to establish themselves in the value chain. Do not for one moment believe it has something to do with the violence of July 2021.”

Culture of acceptance

Prof Mohale said the timing of the recent truck burnings is interesting because it happened on the second anniversary of the violence that occurred in July 2021. These attacks on the trucks are clearly coordinated. By Thursday morning (13 July this week) 21 trucks had been burned. There is no way this was spontaneous, he said.

“The timing is important. Look at the data; from 9 July 2021 – two weeks which are referred loosely to as a failed insurrection with rampant looting – Minister Bheki Cele at that time talked about the “Dirty Dozen” because 12 people were identified as responsible and he said they would be arrested soon.

“Yesterday (Wednesday 12 July) he tells us about the Dirty Dozen again. Look how easily we accept this number. The same way that we accepted a report in 2003 from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which said those people who did not get full amnesty because they did not disclose must be charged. Twenty years later nobody has been charged,” said Prof Mohale.

According to him, there is a culture of acceptance of everything we are promised. We are told they were going to do “A”. Nothing is done and there are no consequences.

The two weeks in July 2021 are important, he said. There were two components, part of it was highly organised and orchestrated via WhatsApp messages. Then the other half was spontaneous.

“Look at the economic consequences.” They were not helping black people but were plunging them further into poverty. More than 350 people were killed and 200 malls burned and 5 000 businesses destroyed. Some 40 000 jobs were put at risk, eight warehouses and 11 factories were gutted and 1 400 ATMs were destroyed and R160 million was stolen. More than 1.5 million rounds of ammunition were stolen which later found their way to cash-in-transit robberies, Prof Mohale said.

Constitution an empowering tool in the hands of citizens

Dr Pityana said the most urgent threat facing this country today, is that of becoming a failed state and the acceleration towards that failure. The questions that citizens have to ask is what can be done to stem that acceleration?

“My reference point when I think about this nation is the constitution because the constitution is a fantastic tool in the hands of each and every citizen. It is a very empowering tool. There are two things we did when we adopted the constitution; two very important pieces of legislation were passed. The first was the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. The next is the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA).

“The constitution enjoins us to drive a value-based society. A value-based society as distinct from a majoritarian society. The importance of that, is that it is a tool that is about saying to each and every one of us as South Africans what is the vision of the country that we want to build. The value of the constitution is that we must build an inclusive society and it does not matter what our station is. For as long as there is a poor person somewhere, we are exclusive. For as long as there is somebody somewhere who feels they do not belong, they do not have access to health, education, they do not have access to a range of things, it is not good enough to say that at least I get it,” said Dr Pityana.

Elites feeding off the people

Dr Koorts, who often writes on the links between current affairs and history, agreed with Prof Croucamp that the stay-away vote was a huge vote of no confidence in the ANC. But, she continued, it is keeping the country where it is. The ANC suffers from what she calls the “broad-church disease”.

“We need transition. Does the answer lie with our opposition parties? I would say they suffer from the same ‘broad-church disease’, unfortunately, because you trying to find as many votes as possible and you accommodate as many as possible, which is very laudable. But again, contradictory forces mean you are not getting anywhere. Unfortunately, if there's one party that does not suffer from broad-church disease, I would say it’s EFF who really know what they stand for,” Dr Koorts said.

She also said elites are feeding off the people because people are doing things for themselves.

“If people are doing things for themselves, for example, fixing potholes themselves – great, that money can be pocketed. Getting refuse to the dumps by ourselves, more money to be pocketed, solar panels, water tanks, etc. But tax collection does not stop. You have an elite feeding off people. ‘Do-it-yourself’ cannot go without accountability. Because otherwise you will just be doing more and more for yourself”.

Watch the series below:

News Archive

Gender bias still rife in African Universities

2007-08-03

At the lecture were, from the left: Prof. Magda Fourie (Vice-Rector: Academic Planning), Prof. Amina Mama (Chair: Gender Studies, University of Cape Town), Prof. Engela Pretorius (Vice-Dean: Humanties) and Prof. Letticia Moja (Dean: Faculty of Health Sciences).
Photo: Stephen Collett

Gender bias still rife in African Universities

Women constitute about 30% of student enrolment in African universities, and only about 6% of African professors are women. This is according to the chairperson of Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town, Prof Amina Mama.

Prof Mama was delivering a lecture on the topic “Rethinking African Universities” as part of Women’s Day celebrations at the University of the Free State (UFS) today.

She says the gender profile suggests that the majority of the women who work in African universities are not academics and researchers, but rather the providers of secretarial, cleaning, catering, student welfare and other administrative and support services.

She said that African universities continue to display profound gender bias in their students and staffing profiles and, more significantly, are deeply inequitable in their institutional and intellectual cultures. She said women find it difficult to succeed at universities as they are imbued with patriarchal values and assumptions that affect all aspects of life and learning.

She said that even though African universities have never excluded women, enrolling them presents only the first hurdle in a much longer process.

“The research evidence suggests that once women have found their way into the universities, then gender differentiations continue to arise and to affect the experience and performance of women students in numerous ways. Even within single institutions disparities manifest across the levels of the hierarchy, within and across faculties and disciplines, within and between academic and administrative roles, across generations, and vary with class and social background, marital status, parental status, and probably many more factors besides these”, she said.

She lamented the fact that there is no field of study free of gender inequalities, particularly at postgraduate levels and in the higher ranks of academics. “Although more women study the arts, social sciences and humanities, few make it to professor and their research and creative output remains less”, she said.

Prof Mama said gender gaps as far as employment of women within African universities is concerned are generally wider than in student enrolment. She said although many women are employed in junior administrative and support capacities, there continues to be gross under-representation of women among senior administrative and academic staff. She said this disparity becomes more pronounced as one moves up the ranks.

“South African universities are ahead, but they are not as radically different as their policy rhetoric might suggest. A decade and a half after the end of apartheid only three of the 23 vice-chancellors in the country are women, and women fill fewer than 30% of the senior positions (Deans, Executive Directors and Deputy Vice-Chancellors)”, she said.

She made an observation that highly qualified women accept administrative positions as opposed to academic work, thus ensuring that men continue to dominate the ranks of those defined as ‘great thinkers’ or ‘accomplished researchers’.

“Perhaps women simply make realistic career choices, opting out of academic competition with male colleagues who they can easily perceive to be systematically advantaged, not only within the institution, but also on the personal and domestic fronts, which still see most African women holding the baby, literally and figuratively”, she said

She also touched on sexual harassment and abuse which she said appears to be a commonplace on African campuses. “In contexts where sexual transactions are a pervasive feature of academic life, women who do succeed are unlikely to be perceived as having done so on the basis of merit or hard work, and may be treated with derision and disbelief”, she said.

She, however, said in spite of broader patterns of gender and class inequality in universities, public higher education remains a main route to career advancement and mobility for women in Africa.

“Women’s constrained access has therefore posed a constraint to their pursuit of more equitable and just modes of political, economic and social development, not to mention freedom from direct oppression”, she said.

Prof Mama concluded by saying, “There is a widely held agreement that there is a need to rethink our universities and to ensure that they are transformed into institutions more compatible with the democratic and social justice agendas that are now leading Africa beyond the legacies of dictatorship, conflict and economic crisis, beyond the deep social divisions and inequalities that have characterised our history”.

She said rethinking universities means asking deeper questions about gender relations within them, and taking concerted and effective action to transform these privileged bastions of higher learning so that they can fulfil their pubic mandate and promise instead of lagging behind our steadily improving laws and policies.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt.stg@ufs.ac.za
02 August 2007

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

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