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17 July 2024 | Story Prof Danie Brand

The University of the Free State, through its Free State Centre for Human Rights, is pleased to present an online panel discussion titled, The Gaza crisis: How should South African universities engage with ‘pressing and urgent injustices’?   


Click to view document Join the Panel Discussion

Following the killing of 1 143 people and the taking of 247 hostages by Hamas during an armed incursion in Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel mounted an invasion of the Gaza Strip. In the ensuing bombardment and ground offensive – which is continuing ten months after the Hamas attack – Israel armed forces have killed more than 38 000 people. Hamas’ killing and continued holding of hostages and Israel’s sustained offensive – described as an ‘unfolding genocide’ and a ‘massacre’ – confront universities with an enduring question: how to engage as institutions ‘with pressing and urgent injustices’?


Join us for an online panel discussion where pertinent questions emerging from the current crisis will be discussed. Should a university such as the University of the Free State formulate an institutional response to the Gaza crisis? If so, what form should it take? Is a statement, as has already emanated from several other South African universities, appropriate and sufficient? How to deal with current ties with Israeli universities, businesses, and individual academics? Can the UFS remain silent?

Event details
Date: Monday 22 July 2024
Time: 15:00-17:00
Venue: Ms Teams
Click to view documentClick here to RSVP before 22 July 2024. 
A Microsoft Teams link will be shared for the online event.

For South African universities, the Gaza crisis is a particularly apt lens through which to consider this question. Firstly, because Israel’s invasion of Gaza also manifested as a ‘scholasticide’: a large-scale destruction of schools, universities, and other places of learning in Gaza and the killing of Palestinian teachers and academics. Secondly, because of the strong historical and current links between South Africa, Palestine, and Israel: Israel’s past collaboration with the South African apartheid regime; the South African liberation movement’s enduring relationship with Palestinian liberation; and the many uncomfortable congruences between South Africa’s history of racially determined injustice and the current ethno-/racial social, political, and geographical segregation in Israel/Palestine.

Moderator

Prof Francis Petersen: Vice-Chancellor and Principal, UFS. 

 

Speakers
Prof Kistner has held teaching positions in Comparative Literature at Wits University, Modern European Languages at Unisa, and Philosophy at the University of Pretoria and is an extraordinary professor in the University of the Free State Department of Public Law. She is currently working on intersections between political philosophy, social theory, jurisprudence, and psychoanalytic theory.

Prof Nieftagodien is the NRF South African Research Chair in Local Histories and Present Realities and is the Head of the History Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he also lectures in the Department of History. He is the co-author – with Phil Bonner – of books on the history of Alexandra, Ekurhuleni, and Kathorus, and has also published books on the history of Orlando West and the Soweto uprising, and co-edited a book on the history of the ANC.

Prof Gillespie is a political and legal anthropologist with a research focus on abolition in South Africa, particularly concerned with the ways in which criminal legal processes become vectors for the continuation of apartheid relations. She joined the Department of Anthropology/Sociology at the University of the Western Cape in 2018, prior to which she worked for a decade at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). In 2008, she co-founded the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism (JWTC), an experimental project tasked with recrafting the work of critical theory beyond the Global North. She writes and teaches about urbanism, violence, sexualities, race, and the praxis of social justice. 

News Archive

State of our campuses
2016-05-13

16 May 2016: Qwaqwa Campus reopens on Wednesday 18 May 2016

The Qwaqwa Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) will reopen residences on Wednesday 18 May 2016 from 12:00 for occupation by registered students.

 

12 May 2016: Qwaqwa Campus closed until further notice

Students and staff were instructed to leave the campus with immediate effect.

 

16 March 2016: Investigations into incidents on the Bloemfontein Campus: 22-26 February 2016

Investigations underway into incidents relating to the Varsity Cup rugby match at Xerox Shimla Park and all other criminal acts occurring during protest action

 

04 March 2016: Letter from Emma Sadleir, Social Media Law Consultant

Letter from Emma Sadleir, Social Media Law consultant

 

04 March 2016: Extension of the academic calendar

Academic calendar extended by one week

 

04 March 2016: UFS urges individuals to come forward with evidence

UFS urges individuals to come forward with evidence about incidents on the Bloemfontein Campus last week

 

29 February 2016: Confirmation of the security arrangements on the Bloemfontein and South Campuses for the week

As communicated yesterday, herewith confirmation of the security arrangements.

 

29 February 2016:  Statement by the senior leadership of the University of the Free State

Statement by the senior leadership of the University of the Free State regarding the situation on the Bloemfontein Campus

 

28 February 2016: Academic and security arrangements

Academic and security arrangements on the Bloemfontein and South Campuses for the coming week

 

28 February 2016: Letter to parents

Letter to parents from Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS

 

28 February 2016: Availability of academic and security arrangements

Information about academic and security arrangements on Bloemfontein and South Campuses will be communicated by 14:00.

 

25 February 2016: UFS management and contract workers reach agreement

Earlier today, the management of the University of the Free (UFS) reached an agreement with contract workers

 

24 February 2016: Kovsies gather in prayer

Kovsie students gathered at the Bloemfontein Campus Main Gate to unite in prayer

 

24 February 2016: UFS Bloemfontein and South Campuses closed from 25 to 26 February 2016

To reopen on Monday 29 February 2016

 

23 February 2016: A statement by Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State (UFS)

Situation on the Bloemfontein Campus

 

23 February 2016: Situation on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus under control after further disruptions

The safety of students in residences on campus is the major concern for the senior leadership of the university

 

22 February 2016: Varsity Cup rugby match between FNB Shimlas and FNB NMMU Madibaz disrupted

The Varsity Cup match between the FNB Shimlas and FNB NMMU Madibaz was disrupted in the 17th minute when a group of protesters moved onto the field in order to disrupt the match already underway.

 

22 February 2016: UFS Bloemfontein and South Campuses closed from 23 to 24 February 2016

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) Bloemfontein and South Campuses will be closed from 23 to 24 February 2016.

 

22 February 2016: Update on situation on the Bloemfontein Campus

Striking outsourced contract workers have been demonstrating outside the Main Gate of the Bloemfontein Campus

21 February 2016:  Strike by outsourced contract workers on the Bloemfontein Campus

All academic and administrative services will continue as normal.

 

18 February 2016: Protest by contract workers on the Bloemfontein Campus

A group of mostly contract workers protested on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State.


25 January 2016: No incidents on the three UFS campuses

Comparative figures still indicate that day-to-day registration compares well with that of 2015.

 

19 January 2016: Campus activities are continuing as normal

Registration process is progressing well 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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