Habib bemoans the lack of transformation at SA Universities
Twenty one years after the momentous move to a non-racial democracy in South Africa, many of the country’s universities still remain racial enclaves.
Delivering the eighth annual Imam Haron Memorial Lecture at Community House in Salt River on 30 October 2015, Professor Adam Habib , Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand lamented that while many historically white English and Afrikaans institutions have begun to de-racialise and now have more diverse and cosmopolitan environments, they still have not risen to the transformation challenge.
“While many of these universities have achieved significant demographic diversity at the student enrolment level, their academic staffing complement is still largely white, especially at the most senior academic levels. In many of the nation’s leading universities, black African professors constitute less than 10% of the professoriate. The lower levels of the academic hierarchy have better representation of black African South Africans – 19% of all senior lecturers and 35% of all junior lecturers – yet the situation is far from what can be described as even adequate.”
Paying tribute to the late Imam Abdullah Haron, Prof Habib said the Imam was a father and husband who continues to live through his loved ones. “He was a leader whose memory continues to reside within the community he served. He was a Muslim, but he was also an African who served all sections of the South African community. He was a nationalist, but he was also a humanist who worked with people from all faiths and all countries to build the foundation of a common humanity.
“Imam Haron was a martyr who should not be forgotten. He must be remembered for his service to the community. He must be remembered for having sacrificed his life so that all of us can be free. His memory must be honoured, as must those of the many other martyrs, by our fulfillment of their dream. But 21 years into our democratic transition, can we truly say that we have honoured their memory, especially in the sphere of higher education?
“Would Imam Haron, had he been here, not have asked hard questions about whether our country’s institutions embody the values of our much acclaimed constitution? He would have applauded the fact that our university system has more than doubled its student enrolment and significantly transformed its racial, cultural and class diversity. But would he not have bemoaned and struggled to understand the fact that almost 55% of students who enter university will not complete at all, and fewer than 25% will complete their degrees within the minimum allocated time?
“Would he not have asked why universities receive only R22 billion in subsidies when the Department of Higher Education and Training’s (DOHET) own task team argues that they should be funded at R37 billion if they are to be at the world average? Would he not have asked why is it that so many institutions remain racial enclaves twenty years after our democratic transition and whether this is an appropriate social setting for the training of professionals and citizens in the 21st century?”
Prof Habib acknowledged the right of student movements at various campuses around the country to protest against the lack of transformation at their respective institutions but warned against a lack of discipline and the use of violence in pressing their demands.
“As we pursue this (process of) transformation or decolonization, there needs to be a serious deliberation about the tactics and strategies used to pursue these goals, and the parameters of acceptable engagement. This is all the more urgent given what we witnessed at the University of KwaZulu Natal where there were violent altercations with police and security personnel, the administration block and vehicles were set alight leading to millions of rands worth of damage, and the university had to be closed.
“There is no doubt that there is an activist layer within the transformation or decolonization movement that believes that violence is a legitimate means of engagement. It is held by some of these activists that, because poor people are subject to structural violence in highly unequal societies like South Africa, this somehow gives these activists the right to perpetrate violence in the course of their struggles. Claiming to draw inspiration from Frantz Fanon and Steve Biko, both of whom wrote under the yoke of colonial subjugation, they misappropriate the words and intents of these activist intellectuals to justify violence in the post-colony. Profanity and threats on social media replace reasoned debate. Principled politics get replaced by theatrics. Civil liberties are seen as a ‘bourgeois’ distraction. Little is understood about the fact that lives were lost for the pursuit of these liberties and that they should not be so easily traded for short term political gain.”