DA has ‘missed the point’ with Stellenbosch

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has missed the point with language exclusion in schools, according to experts.

Following the Stellenbosch University Khampepe report, experts have slammed the DA for claiming the report was an attack on the Afrikaans language.

Judge Sisi Khampepe on Tuesday delivered a report, following her inquiry into allegations of racism at the university, which revealed that black students felt unwelcome, despite the university’s transformation agenda.

However, experts say the DA overlooked the university’s toxic, exclusionary culture by saying the report “outrageously scapegoats the Afrikaans language for any and all problems at the university”, instead of understand what the recurring issue was.

“Objections, especially to the exclusive and dominant use of Afrikaans, is not an attack against cultural or linguistic rights,” political analyst Dr Mcebisi Ndletyana said.

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“Historically, capacity universities obviously have had to contend with this problem, because previously they used Afrikaans exclusively when they were still all alone, without anyone else from other language groups.

“So, if you joined those universities, you had to surrender to Afrikaans; you had no choice.”

DA ‘conservatively, if not outright racist’

Ndletyana said for Afrikaners to insist on using Afrikaans as a language of choice in official, unofficial and social settings was clearly a system to preserve the privilege which comes with Afrikaans and cultural arrogance.

“For the DA to take that approach is not entirely surprising because it has become conservatively, if not outright, racist,” he said.

Dr Leon Schreiber, MP and DA constituency head in Stellenbosch, claimed vice-chancellor and rector Wim de Villiers has continuously perpetrated various injustices against Afrikaans students, including banning them from speaking Afrikaans in residences and in public.

“But the Khampepe report escalates the attack on Afrikaans to unprecedented levels by effectively blaming the seven million speakers of Afrikaans – the most diverse language in SA – for any and all racial tensions and incidents, like the urination scandal,” he said.

“It is clear that this finding is designed to provide De Villiers with the excuse he has long sought to completely eliminate Afrikaans as an academic language.”

The Khampepe commission began its work in June, after the tertiary education body called for an external inquiry in May, after first-year law student Theuns du Toit was suspended. A video on social media showed him urinating on the study desk of agricultural business management student Babalo Ndwayana.

Last month, another student also urinated inside the room of two students, which led to students calling for an end to racism and harassment at the university.

Anti-discrimination, racism and equality activist Arthie Moore-Robberts of the Ki Leadership Institute said there needed to be a change in mindset and accountability from all sides.

“When you look at the toxic and exclusionary culture that comes up in the report, you cannot just use words like that,” she said.

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“They have clearly done intense engagements to actually come to that level of understanding where even the perception among black students is that the culture fails to cater to diversity.

“And that is directly from the report. So, they actually are saying, these are some of the challenges we’re dealing with.”

She said instead of fighting the students’ experiences, “why not look at it from the perspective of how we can create solutions for everyone to feel respected?”

She added: “We need to understand how the perception and the actual shared reality of people on the ground feel. There’s resentment. There’s a feeling of feeling unheard and being over.

“That talks interracial segregation on a very deep level.”

– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za