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2024 Elections: What the future holds after 29 May

02 May 2024 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath | Photo right

2024 UFS Thought-Leader Webinar Series

PRESENTS

a webinar titled

2024 Elections: Promises, Perils, and Delivery: What the Future Holds After 29 May 2024?

The University of the Free State (UFS) is pleased to present its first webinar for the year, titled 2024 Elections: Promises, Perils, and Delivery: What the Future Holds After 29 May 2024? – which is part of the 2024 Thought-Leader Webinar Series. As a public higher-education institution in South Africa with a responsibility to contribute to public discourse, the university will be presenting the webinar as part of the UFS Thought-Leader Series, which is in its sixth consecutive year. The aim of the webinar series is to discuss issues facing South Africa by engaging experts at the university and in South Africa.

Webinar presented on 23 May 2024

On 29 May 2024, South Africans will go to the polls. This election is considered by South Africans as significant and much needed since the end of apartheid in 1994. South Africa is plagued by record power cuts, poor service delivery, and high levels of unemployment, with drastic effects on businesses and the local economy. Coinciding with the celebration of 30 years of freedom and democracy, this seventh democratic election is a turning point for South Africa to determine the desired future for all South Africans.

Date: Thursday 23 May 2024

Time: 12:30-14:00

RSVP: Click to view document HERE no later than 22 May 2024.

Some of the topics discussed by leading experts in 2023 included, among others, Threats to South Africa’s stability and security challenges; The need for a global and regional plan / approach to respond to the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war; and Student protest action, politics, and higher education.

Facilitator:

Prof Francis Petersen

Vice-Chancellor and Principal, UFS

Panellists:

Prof Bonang Mohale

Chancellor, UFS

Dr Ebrahim Harvey

Political writer and commentator

Bios of speakers:

Prof Bonang Mohale

Prof Bonang Mohale is the Chancellor of the University of the Free State, former President of Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), Professor of Practice in the Johannesburg Business School (JBS) College of Business and Economics, and Chairman of two listed entities – the Bidvest Group Limited and ArcelorMittal, as well as SBV Services and Swiss Re Corporate Solutions! He is a member of the Community of Chairpersons (CoC) of the World Economic Forum and author of two best-selling books, Lift As You Rise and Behold The Turtle! He has been included in the Reputation Poll International’s (RPI) 2023 list of the ‘100 Most Reputable Africans’. The selection criteria are integrity, reputation, transparency, visibility, and impact. He is the recipient of the 2023 ME-Vision Academy’s ‘Exclusive Recognition in Successful Leadership’ Award for consistently leading self successfully, consistently leading people successfully, successfully leading as a senior executive and CEO, successfully leading society in various impactful roles, and his contribution to mentoring and inspiring future successful leaders.

Dr Ebrahim Harvey

Dr Ebrahim Harvey is a political writer, analyst, commentator, former Cosatu trade unionist, and Mail & Guardian columnist. He is currently a News24 columnist. He also wrote the authorised biography of former president, Kgalema Motlanthe (2012), and The Great Pretenders: Race and Class under ANC Rule (2021), which won the 2022 SA Literary Award for Non-Fiction. He holds a master’s degree in Public and Development Management and a PhD degree in Sociology, both from the University of the Witwatersrand.

News Archive

#Women’sMonth: Who am I? Questions of identity among Rwandan rape survivors

2017-08-03

Michelle Nöthling, master’s degree student
in the Centre for Trauma, Forgiveness, and
Reconciliation Studies at the UFS.
Photo: Eugene Seegers

From 7 April to 15 July 1994, a mass genocide swept through Rwanda after years of Belgian colonial rule that divided the country along ethnic lines. Rape was also used as part of a political strategy to torture and humiliate mainly Tutsi women, and as a means of spreading HIV.

Individual focus
Why is it important to listen to what these rape survivors have to say? Michelle Nöthling, a master’s student in the UFS Centre for Trauma, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation Studies, responds, “We speak of groups – refugees, foreigners, and the like – yet we tend to forget the individuals and the lasting impact trauma has had on each person.”

Narrative exploration
Michelle maintains that we are the product of the narratives around us; things like – how to be a woman, how to dress, speak, or treat others. Her research delves into how these rape survivors see themselves, how they narrate their lives. She also investigates power relations based on gender; for example, how language can be used as a divisive tool.

Rwandan backdrop
In Rwanda, gender roles are deeply entrenched. Traditionally, a ‘girl’ remains such while she is a virgin. Her transition into womanhood is usually marked by marriage and followed by motherhood. But rape disrupts this structure, leading to an identity crisis as these girls are catapulted into motherhood with an unplanned child resulting from a traumatic event.

“We are the product of
the narratives around us.”

Reaching their mid-teens, the children, too, started asking questions about identity or paternity. For those mothers who were finally able to open up to their children, the experience has been mostly liberating – often leading to a closer relationship between parent and child. Michelle intends to interrogate how such significant moments shape the way these women perceive themselves. Research tends to portray these survivors solely as mothers of rape-born children. Michelle, however, seeks to examine their identities more deeply.

“These survivors still bear the heavy burden of being marginalised, stigmatised, and severely humiliated. Despite this, they have developed their own communities of belonging; people with whom they connect, to whom they relate, and to whom they are not ashamed to tell their experiences,” she said.

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