1 00:00:02,070 --> 00:00:11,280 Thank you all for coming, and thanks especially for him for the invitation to speak on this platform. 2 00:00:11,280 --> 00:00:16,140 I'm going to speak for about an hour and then we'll have questions and answers after that, Richardson. 3 00:00:16,140 --> 00:00:24,930 Yeah, good bye. So my talk has four sections. 4 00:00:24,930 --> 00:00:34,440 I want to give you an overview, a brief overview or review of the national student protests that took place from 2015 to 2017. 5 00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:40,380 Then to say something about what does decolonisation mean in the U.S. context? 6 00:00:40,380 --> 00:00:48,780 And it's going to be different, of course, in different contexts. But what were the issues in the in the U.S. environment? 7 00:00:48,780 --> 00:01:00,780 And then the main part of the talk is to recount for encounters or examples which exemplify some of the dilemmas 8 00:01:00,780 --> 00:01:10,320 raised by decolonisation debates and incidents during that during those protests and will be ongoing issues. 9 00:01:10,320 --> 00:01:18,780 And finally, some summary or takeaway messages. So let me start with the some context for this lectures. 10 00:01:18,780 --> 00:01:31,170 As just said, I was the vice chancellor of the University of Cape Town for 10 years, from 2008 to 2018, during the first seven years of that period. 11 00:01:31,170 --> 00:01:38,130 The university was a relatively untroubled space. In fact, it was on something of a high experiencing growth, 12 00:01:38,130 --> 00:01:44,790 improved performance in all the metrics that generally we use for universities greater research output, 13 00:01:44,790 --> 00:01:52,860 greater more research grants, more international partnerships, more postdoctoral and doctoral and master's students. 14 00:01:52,860 --> 00:01:59,430 The perceived global status measured in rankings that, if you pay attention to them, 15 00:01:59,430 --> 00:02:08,280 was showed a significant improvement over the period and also doing really well in measures that are more truculent, 16 00:02:08,280 --> 00:02:14,460 more important to the local environment, such as recruiting more black students, 17 00:02:14,460 --> 00:02:21,030 more students from disadvantaged backgrounds and addressing many of the transformation 18 00:02:21,030 --> 00:02:27,810 issues that were that were already that have been present since since for decades. 19 00:02:27,810 --> 00:02:38,430 In fact, all these trends continued throughout the 10 years, but my experience was very much coloured by the last three years of my term 2015 to 2017, 20 00:02:38,430 --> 00:02:44,840 which were marked by sustained and disruptive protests across the tertiary sector in South Africa. 21 00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:53,460 And I would say these were the there was nothing on the scale since in the 20 years since the end of the apartheid era, 22 00:02:53,460 --> 00:02:58,650 the protests were national, affecting every campus on the country in the country. 23 00:02:58,650 --> 00:03:04,920 I think they were not dissimilar in a way to the riots and protests of the that rocked Europe and American 24 00:03:04,920 --> 00:03:17,100 campuses in 1968 in terms of the trauma that they dealt both to the universities and to society more generally. 25 00:03:17,100 --> 00:03:25,290 But the issues at stake varied across the universities and across time, depending on the local context on all the campuses. 26 00:03:25,290 --> 00:03:32,190 The campaign for Free Higher Education has been a driving factor as a national policy issue. 27 00:03:32,190 --> 00:03:40,050 This was the so-called hashtag FeesMustFall campaign. And historically liberal watching this universities. 28 00:03:40,050 --> 00:03:46,380 The major focus was decolonisation under the banner hashtag RhodesMustFall. 29 00:03:46,380 --> 00:03:54,270 That Afrikaans language universities was largely about changing the medium of instruction from Afrikaans to English, 30 00:03:54,270 --> 00:04:02,760 which was regarded as the first step in a decolonisation process and also critical to the demographic transformation of those campuses, 31 00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:11,130 which were not attracting African students. Because of the language policy and historically black campuses. 32 00:04:11,130 --> 00:04:20,340 The longstanding crises in student accommodation and in financial aid were a primary focus on many campuses. 33 00:04:20,340 --> 00:04:25,140 Workers employed by outsourced contractor companies such as cleaning, 34 00:04:25,140 --> 00:04:31,050 security and catering allied themselves to the student protests to call for insourcing. 35 00:04:31,050 --> 00:04:37,020 That is that they should be directly employed by the universities at most universities. 36 00:04:37,020 --> 00:04:38,220 There were also smaller, 37 00:04:38,220 --> 00:04:47,070 more focussed student campaigns which allied themselves to the main R-Miss. and FMF RhodesMustFall and FeesMustFall campaigns. 38 00:04:47,070 --> 00:04:51,090 Broadening the agenda and the demands of the protests. 39 00:04:51,090 --> 00:05:05,130 These related to sexual assault and rape, mental health and suicide, disability and patriarchy, gender identity and susciter known activity. 40 00:05:05,130 --> 00:05:13,350 I suspect none of this would have reached boiling point where it not located in the context of national politics of unfulfilled expectations. 41 00:05:13,350 --> 00:05:16,200 Twenty years after liberation, 42 00:05:16,200 --> 00:05:25,290 inequality in society has increased and most black people have not experienced the economic fruits of political liberation. 43 00:05:25,290 --> 00:05:35,280 The school system, available to most black children, is in crisis, and the majority of school leavers are not adequately prepared for university. 44 00:05:35,280 --> 00:05:41,340 In addition, political parties all have youth branches on the campuses, 45 00:05:41,340 --> 00:05:46,590 which dominate the student representative councils, the student unions, the national. 46 00:05:46,590 --> 00:05:53,370 The National Political Party contestation, which has been so heightened in the last five to eight years, 47 00:05:53,370 --> 00:06:01,350 including the sexualisation of the ruling party, is mirrored on the campuses and often informs protest politics. 48 00:06:01,350 --> 00:06:06,750 The student political party branches escalate issues like the high cost of education as 49 00:06:06,750 --> 00:06:12,390 a mobilising tactic to win support away from the ANC aligned student organisations, 50 00:06:12,390 --> 00:06:19,560 which then respond by trying to demonstrate that they are more radical or more militant than their critics. 51 00:06:19,560 --> 00:06:26,280 And finally, compounding the many intersecting agendas that I've described. 52 00:06:26,280 --> 00:06:37,650 There has also been a rediscovery by the born free generation of its current students, born around 1994 of writers like Frantz Fanon. 53 00:06:37,650 --> 00:06:44,730 The particular reading of one strand of Annan's argument on decolonisation has caught the imagination, 54 00:06:44,730 --> 00:06:54,180 namely that there can be no true transfer of power and no real decolonisation without a violent revolution. 55 00:06:54,180 --> 00:07:01,830 A violent revolution. The old regime and power relations persist into the post-colonial period. 56 00:07:01,830 --> 00:07:05,460 Excuse me, but in the post-colonial period, 57 00:07:05,460 --> 00:07:17,600 by co-opting a small number of previously oppressed to the class interests of the colonialists and little changes for the majority. 58 00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:26,090 But some for some, this is a convenient and effective explanation of the current political dynamics in South Africa. 59 00:07:26,090 --> 00:07:36,230 South Africa's peaceful transition to democracy, they believe, came at the expense of decolonisation and any significant redistribution of power. 60 00:07:36,230 --> 00:07:42,560 These revolutionary readers of Fanon believe that violence is necessary for its own sake, 61 00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:50,090 that the institutions of colonialism must be destroyed before one can rebuild a new decolonised society. 62 00:07:50,090 --> 00:07:54,920 Burning the institutions is seen as the necessary price to pay. 63 00:07:54,920 --> 00:08:02,750 I hasten to add that this is not a large or dominant group amongst the protesters, but it does not take many to burn a library or a bus. 64 00:08:02,750 --> 00:08:09,710 And it changes the strategy for managing protests because from the perspective of university management, 65 00:08:09,710 --> 00:08:19,760 because no amount of negotiation to address the underlying grievances can change the desire for violence in this particular subgroup. 66 00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:22,490 Since the end of 2017, 67 00:08:22,490 --> 00:08:31,340 the situation a discussion on most campuses in the country has stabilised and there have been there have been few further protests, not managed. 68 00:08:31,340 --> 00:08:38,060 But I do expect there will be more because many of the issues persist and they are only partially addressed. 69 00:08:38,060 --> 00:08:46,730 Looking back over this period, this three year period of tumultuous protest. 70 00:08:46,730 --> 00:08:53,510 Some will say these protests scarred the institution. Some will say they energised it. 71 00:08:53,510 --> 00:09:02,420 Some will say there were a tipping point that finally broke the back of a passive resistance or apathy towards decolonisation and transformation. 72 00:09:02,420 --> 00:09:08,450 Others will say they created a racial polarisation on campuses and set back by a decade or two. 73 00:09:08,450 --> 00:09:13,670 The progress that had been made towards non-racial integration. 74 00:09:13,670 --> 00:09:18,410 Some will say they have created cracks in the previously monolithic hegemony Eurocentric 75 00:09:18,410 --> 00:09:24,890 culture of the university that made black people feel that they did not belong at your city. 76 00:09:24,890 --> 00:09:29,780 Others will say the protests have created a toxic environment in which many people feel 77 00:09:29,780 --> 00:09:36,530 alienated by identity politics and political correctness in the name of inclusivity. 78 00:09:36,530 --> 00:09:39,650 All of these are right in some measure. 79 00:09:39,650 --> 00:09:47,540 My bottom line is that this rupture had to come some time that the boil had to be lanced before healing and change could occur, 80 00:09:47,540 --> 00:09:54,200 and that the lasting process was going to be painful for almost everyone, but that it was necessary and worthwhile, 81 00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:58,220 and that the institution will be in a much stronger place in the future as it 82 00:09:58,220 --> 00:10:03,350 heals and grows based on a changed set of ground rules and in the process, 83 00:10:03,350 --> 00:10:06,530 shaping a new identity. 84 00:10:06,530 --> 00:10:16,130 People often ask me whether I don't wish that I had ended my term after seven years, seven good years before the protest started, 85 00:10:16,130 --> 00:10:19,940 and my response is always that I feel privileged actually to have had the 86 00:10:19,940 --> 00:10:25,550 opportunity to steward the university through this period of challenge and change, 87 00:10:25,550 --> 00:10:30,200 but challenging and often unnerving. It was, for sure. 88 00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:36,920 It certainly pushed the edges of my ability as a leader and manager with many difficult and complex choices, 89 00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:42,140 sometimes on a daily basis, accompanied by lots of self-doubt and hesitation. 90 00:10:42,140 --> 00:10:46,340 And it is this that I want to highlight in this talk. 91 00:10:46,340 --> 00:10:53,030 The difficulties typically arose from having to manage a range of interests, pressures and values, 92 00:10:53,030 --> 00:11:03,380 often conflicting and sometimes in outright contradiction, and often without the luxury of time for wide consultation and slow deliberation. 93 00:11:03,380 --> 00:11:08,780 The challenge for leaders during such times is first and foremost to ensure that the 94 00:11:08,780 --> 00:11:14,690 institution survives something that cannot and should not be taken for granted. 95 00:11:14,690 --> 00:11:18,770 Second, one has to hear and understand the causes of the protests, 96 00:11:18,770 --> 00:11:24,950 not just the immediate grievances that triggered the eruption, but the underlying long term factors, 97 00:11:24,950 --> 00:11:31,790 and to discern the different agendas such as the phenomenon the political party politicking, 98 00:11:31,790 --> 00:11:39,990 the adolescent rebellion against authority and the real material hardships and psychological traumas. 99 00:11:39,990 --> 00:11:49,910 So it is to find ways of responding constructively while balancing the interests of a large number of stakeholders that exist in a public university. 100 00:11:49,910 --> 00:11:57,380 Stakeholders such as the students and their parents, staff, alumni, the government, donors, 101 00:11:57,380 --> 00:12:03,770 research teams and other institutional partners at every point by just trying 102 00:12:03,770 --> 00:12:07,940 to decide not just what is the right thing to do for each of the stakeholders, 103 00:12:07,940 --> 00:12:16,320 but what will strengthen the institution in the long term. 104 00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:27,190 Given the scale and scope of the three years of protests, I do need to say what this talk is not about. 105 00:12:27,190 --> 00:12:35,590 Largely because of time. What I want to share with you are some personal experiences of dilemmas that was thrown 106 00:12:35,590 --> 00:12:41,350 up specifically under the theme of decolonisation during these turbulent times. 107 00:12:41,350 --> 00:12:46,660 But what talk will not cover is even a fraction of the issues that drove the protests. 108 00:12:46,660 --> 00:12:54,970 No mention of the funding of higher education and fees of the gender, politics, disability or mental health. 109 00:12:54,970 --> 00:13:00,850 I'm not going to be able to talk about worker student allowances and the pros and cons of insourcing. 110 00:13:00,850 --> 00:13:05,770 I'm also not going to cover the debates about what are the legitimate boundaries of protest 111 00:13:05,770 --> 00:13:10,720 and disruption and when management should tolerate protesters overstepping those boundaries, 112 00:13:10,720 --> 00:13:15,910 which has been a key issue over the three years. 113 00:13:15,910 --> 00:13:21,970 I will not be able to discover to discuss how university management should manage unlawful protests that affects 114 00:13:21,970 --> 00:13:28,900 the rights of other members of the university community or the use of police and private security and the courts. 115 00:13:28,900 --> 00:13:38,200 And I'm also not going to offer an analysis of the academic debates about declining reality, curriculum reform and identity politics. 116 00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:44,140 As I said, this talk will focus on issues raised under the theme of decolonisation and will do so 117 00:13:44,140 --> 00:13:52,470 by way of four examples related to decolonisation that the protests at GCT through. 118 00:13:52,470 --> 00:13:58,650 The challenges for me were perhaps more personally taxing. 119 00:13:58,650 --> 00:14:05,280 Certainly ethically and politically and my own activist inclinations, given those inclinations, 120 00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:12,420 I found myself often in the position of agreeing with most of what the student protesters were campaigning for, 121 00:14:12,420 --> 00:14:16,320 but the methods of protest and direct action taken by students to advance their 122 00:14:16,320 --> 00:14:21,510 causes often overstepped what I considered the bounds of legitimate protest. 123 00:14:21,510 --> 00:14:30,570 They also rejected the governance processes for making policy changes that would take account of other stakeholders in the university community. 124 00:14:30,570 --> 00:14:41,640 So I found myself in the position of having to push back often against the against the protests, even when agreeing with their goals. 125 00:14:41,640 --> 00:14:43,410 So what is meant by decolonisation? 126 00:14:43,410 --> 00:14:50,790 If you are moving to the second having reviewed the protest you look at the second issue is what what what is what. 127 00:14:50,790 --> 00:14:59,880 In this context, it means the debates manifest on a South African history that the debates manifest on the South African, 128 00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:07,290 historically whites, culturally English campus. And I typify if you sit in your city. 129 00:15:07,290 --> 00:15:12,870 The University of Cape Town was founded in 1829 under British colonial rule 130 00:15:12,870 --> 00:15:20,340 universities 109 two years old and so has entrenched the traditions of that history. 131 00:15:20,340 --> 00:15:31,410 And it continues until the present day broadly to embody and aspire to the culture, values and traditions of European higher education institutions. 132 00:15:31,410 --> 00:15:44,190 This extends from the neoclassical architecture of the university to the Oxbridge type cloistered residences to the sense of elite status, 133 00:15:44,190 --> 00:15:54,330 which the university takes pride in and boasts about taking pride in being part of the global club of elite universities. 134 00:15:54,330 --> 00:16:02,310 And I do want to say it doesn't mean elitist, but a group of universities that sees itself in the top on the top rung. 135 00:16:02,310 --> 00:16:10,830 In fact, it was not unusual for representatives of the university, including students, to refer to you as the Harvard or Oxford of Africa. 136 00:16:10,830 --> 00:16:19,230 That was the unashamed aspiration it sees itself as similar to other cosmopolitan universities with an international identity. 137 00:16:19,230 --> 00:16:26,970 For example, 30 per cent of the doctoral students are from other countries and about 20 per cent of the academic staff, 138 00:16:26,970 --> 00:16:34,020 and it sees itself as pursuing and addressing global problems rather than a provincial university setting, 139 00:16:34,020 --> 00:16:38,520 primarily the needs of the nation and the local community. 140 00:16:38,520 --> 00:16:47,010 I hasten to emphasise that local impact is critically important, but it is balanced as in all top universities with global impact, 141 00:16:47,010 --> 00:16:55,580 fundamental science questions which will affect all of humanity and our natural environment equally. 142 00:16:55,580 --> 00:17:03,020 The university was thus created in the image of the colonies as universities, and it still measures itself against their standards. 143 00:17:03,020 --> 00:17:10,430 Degrees must be internationally accredited theses marked also by international examiners, articles international, 144 00:17:10,430 --> 00:17:20,420 peer reviewed and where appropriate, partnering with researchers, international researchers as co-authors and that is generally valued by all. 145 00:17:20,420 --> 00:17:29,750 That is why the top students, white and black from all over the continent, come to want to get introduced and compete to get into this team. 146 00:17:29,750 --> 00:17:38,000 That is also why the top students wanting to pursue graduate study abroad often regard Oxbridge and Harvard as the prise, 147 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:46,460 including, by the way, many of the students who were hashtag must fall protesters and leaders of the protest at the time. 148 00:17:46,460 --> 00:17:54,500 But it is also the source for the ambiguous feelings about their alma moxa and anxiety because it implies evangelisation 149 00:17:54,500 --> 00:18:02,750 of the history and culture of the colonisers and of those who still dominate the academic ranks of the institution today. 150 00:18:02,750 --> 00:18:10,210 And it goes along with an invisible ization of other cultures and traditions and ways of seeing the world. 151 00:18:10,210 --> 00:18:18,490 The symbolism of the university reflects its history. The statues on the founders and donors, all white, mostly men, 152 00:18:18,490 --> 00:18:26,440 the names of buildings likewise honour a past with the academy and the academic and political leaders and donors to the university, 153 00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:31,840 where white men must be said that there has been there had been a conscious project over 154 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:37,420 the last two decades to name buildings in honour of black role models and cultural values. 155 00:18:37,420 --> 00:18:46,630 But the numbers, so names are so few, and what had not been considered was the removal of things that were already in existence. 156 00:18:46,630 --> 00:18:55,060 The arts and sculptures tend to reflect accumulation over centuries of the work of artists who were, of course, predominantly white. 157 00:18:55,060 --> 00:18:58,300 There were also considerable numbers of paintings and photographs that actually 158 00:18:58,300 --> 00:19:04,810 depicted the inequalities and indignities of apartheid as a statement of injustice, 159 00:19:04,810 --> 00:19:10,480 usually on all produced by anti-apartheid artists and photographers. 160 00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:21,190 But as seen by contemporary black students who often did not know the context of these artworks, these served only to undermine their self-esteem. 161 00:19:21,190 --> 00:19:25,780 A black student leader wrote in 2014, quoting, 162 00:19:25,780 --> 00:19:33,580 I've noted two broad themes being recurrent in yuki's paintings poverty of black people and the naked black body. 163 00:19:33,580 --> 00:19:41,170 More so the genitalia of black men. These artworks reinforce the inferiority complex of the black student, he said, 164 00:19:41,170 --> 00:19:48,940 while concurrently reaffirming the superiority of the superior superiority complex of the white students. 165 00:19:48,940 --> 00:19:58,900 End quote. The portraits in the corridors and public halls are of chancellors, vice chancellors, deans, professors who again are mostly white men. 166 00:19:58,900 --> 00:20:04,390 The photos on the walls of the residences are of House committees and student society committees, 167 00:20:04,390 --> 00:20:11,080 which again are largely of white students as the same student direct quote grants at. 168 00:20:11,080 --> 00:20:19,060 Some of the portraits are not demeaning and humiliating in and of themselves, but concern is not generally with the individual portraits, 169 00:20:19,060 --> 00:20:25,030 but with the message the collective paintings are saying about someone of my pigmentation 170 00:20:25,030 --> 00:20:32,260 and the colonial traditions continued through the ceremonial activities of the university. 171 00:20:32,260 --> 00:20:40,510 The academic dress, the pageantry of graduation, the singing of cardiologists in Latin, amongst others. 172 00:20:40,510 --> 00:20:44,140 And then there are all the critiques of the curriculum. 173 00:20:44,140 --> 00:20:54,070 These ranged from content that ignores locally important issues to reading lists that imply that all authority on a subject is written. 174 00:20:54,070 --> 00:21:01,450 The university is most certainly vulnerable to criticism that it offered a menu of romance languages and Mandarin classical, 175 00:21:01,450 --> 00:21:09,190 Latin and Greek, but not Kiswahili, and even many indigenous life conveying widgets were missing, 176 00:21:09,190 --> 00:21:16,660 and that many courses and reading lists included mainly intellectual thoughts from the global north, but not from Africa or the global south. 177 00:21:16,660 --> 00:21:19,870 More generally, but more profoundly, 178 00:21:19,870 --> 00:21:29,620 the decolonisation protagonists challenge the presentation of a Western worldview and framing of questions as if that were a global norm, 179 00:21:29,620 --> 00:21:33,370 rather than just one amongst several frames available. 180 00:21:33,370 --> 00:21:41,380 Indeed, the decolonisation movement in universities in the global north tends to have its primary focus on curriculum reform. 181 00:21:41,380 --> 00:21:48,730 These are much more blurry and contested critiques. I think everywhere, but certainly in the city environment. 182 00:21:48,730 --> 00:21:55,810 So these colonial legacies obviously overlay racially aligned cultures, languages, histories, 183 00:21:55,810 --> 00:22:02,410 worldviews and therefore the experience of being a black student in a university like city. 184 00:22:02,410 --> 00:22:11,440 The experience for many has been that their own cultures and languages were not recognised or veterans, that excellence was associated with whiteness, 185 00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:18,220 that they were not good enough and that they needed to assimilate into the dominant traditional culture of the university. 186 00:22:18,220 --> 00:22:24,710 Decolonisation A. is the attempt to change this experience. 187 00:22:24,710 --> 00:22:33,210 So now I want to turn to the four examples that that I'm going to cover. 188 00:22:33,210 --> 00:22:40,070 And they are the Rhodes statue, the removal of the red statue, debates around the artworks, 189 00:22:40,070 --> 00:22:47,560 cultural practises and some comments from decolonising the curriculum. 190 00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:55,090 Many of you will be familiar with what has become an iconic image of the removal of the right of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes. 191 00:22:55,090 --> 00:22:58,810 This was the start of the three years of protests. 192 00:22:58,810 --> 00:23:09,670 It began with one student supported by two others on the 9th of March 2015, throwing human faeces over the statue. 193 00:23:09,670 --> 00:23:15,850 They called for the statue to be removed, arguing that it represented white power, colonial oppression, 194 00:23:15,850 --> 00:23:23,680 the lack of transformation on the campus and an insult to black students whose ancestors had suffered from Rhodes as policies, 195 00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:31,060 legislation as prime minister of the Cape Imperial annexation of territory and military conquests. 196 00:23:31,060 --> 00:23:43,650 The hashtag RhodesMustFall movement was born. Sorry. 197 00:23:43,650 --> 00:23:53,520 The statue was the perfect lightning rod for this protest because it indeed indeed it symbolises the particular heritage which has been hegemonic a., 198 00:23:53,520 --> 00:24:01,470 which captures white privilege and white supremacy as the underlying ethos of colonialism, the dominance of the English language, 199 00:24:01,470 --> 00:24:10,470 the superiority of European culture, all the things that feed the experience of being black in this city. 200 00:24:10,470 --> 00:24:17,040 I was immediately sympathetic to the demand for the effort to remove the statue. 201 00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:26,550 In fact, in a speech the previous year in 2014, I said that the university ought to consider and reconsider the appropriateness of the statue. 202 00:24:26,550 --> 00:24:29,370 Our plan, the executive's plan for 2015, 203 00:24:29,370 --> 00:24:38,430 was to review the controversial yet apparently untouchable icons and names of buildings and subject them to critical debate. 204 00:24:38,430 --> 00:24:43,080 This explicitly included the statue and Jemison Hall Jemison. 205 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:54,880 She must have, you know, was was one of Rhodes of lieutenants and supporters. 206 00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:58,400 I had not acted before that speech in 2014, 207 00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:05,740 often because I did not think there was enough support for this on the campus and that it would be hugely divisive. 208 00:25:05,740 --> 00:25:10,240 And when the topic was raised, indeed it was huge and divisive. 209 00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:18,550 While many supported removing the statue and many more believe statues should not be removed in principle, 210 00:25:18,550 --> 00:25:21,220 and that this amounted to airbrushing history, 211 00:25:21,220 --> 00:25:28,690 and that this was just the beginning of a process that would end with the wholesale destruction of the heritage of the past. 212 00:25:28,690 --> 00:25:34,870 In fact, even the democratically elected ANC government did and still does espouse a national 213 00:25:34,870 --> 00:25:39,820 policy on monuments and memorials that is opposed to the removal of statues. 214 00:25:39,820 --> 00:25:54,190 And I had, uh, I had a number of calls at the time from people senior in government saying that we should not agree to having the statue taken down. 215 00:25:54,190 --> 00:25:59,290 Furthermore, the land on which you city is built was bequeathed by roads and as well. 216 00:25:59,290 --> 00:26:04,990 So there were many who argue that you could not now just its most significant benefactor. 217 00:26:04,990 --> 00:26:08,950 Not only should the institution recognise its indebtedness to roads, 218 00:26:08,950 --> 00:26:13,210 but it should recognise the message it would send to current and future diamonds that a 219 00:26:13,210 --> 00:26:20,950 commitment to honour them in recognition of their beneficence could be overturned in the future. 220 00:26:20,950 --> 00:26:30,280 We experienced vehement anger on the part of many donors, alumni, parents and students who opposed even opening a debate on the removal, 221 00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:33,640 arguing that it had nothing to do with what they thought of Rhodes, 222 00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:40,720 the man that was the principle of removing statues and dishonour and and dishonouring 223 00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:47,170 people who were benefactors of the university or removing recognition of their benefit. 224 00:26:47,170 --> 00:26:53,110 There can be no denying that the student protests took us by surprise with the timing of their eruption. 225 00:26:53,110 --> 00:26:57,190 The passion and the breadth of support take on it. 226 00:26:57,190 --> 00:27:00,460 This overtook the pace of our original plans. 227 00:27:00,460 --> 00:27:07,720 But given the views of the exhibit, given that the views of the executive on the road statute were actually aligned with the cause of the protest, 228 00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:13,690 there seem to be no point in creating a conflict where there ought not to be one. 229 00:27:13,690 --> 00:27:22,810 There was sort of a conflict about process, with the students arguing that the statue should come down simply because they felt offended by it and 230 00:27:22,810 --> 00:27:29,140 that it should come down immediately with no further ado in the student sphere or in the protesters view, 231 00:27:29,140 --> 00:27:35,200 it wasn't only students, also staff members, some staff members in the protesters view management. 232 00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:42,940 Most whites, most alumni and donors could not be expected to understand their pain in this regard. 233 00:27:42,940 --> 00:27:44,890 So we simply had to accept it. 234 00:27:44,890 --> 00:27:53,530 There was nothing to be discussed for the university management and council, which I should emphasise had many black members. 235 00:27:53,530 --> 00:28:02,410 The crucial issue was to defend the idea of a university as a space for ideas and debate matter where decisions are made rationally, 236 00:28:02,410 --> 00:28:09,220 not as the result of populist pressure, nor on the grounds that personal experience places an issue beyond debate. 237 00:28:09,220 --> 00:28:16,660 But those who don't share that experience and with proper governance processes where it hits you. 238 00:28:16,660 --> 00:28:25,060 This meant that the decision had to be taken by the University Council, informed by the arguments presented by different key constituencies. 239 00:28:25,060 --> 00:28:33,670 This is essentially what was done. We scheduled a special council meeting to be held one month later and recommitted to conducting debates 240 00:28:33,670 --> 00:28:43,450 and soliciting views from all constituencies within that period to inform council the council's decision. 241 00:28:43,450 --> 00:28:46,510 Meanwhile, the protesters, including some staff members, 242 00:28:46,510 --> 00:28:52,630 occupied the main administration building of the university, which is in the photograph for a month. 243 00:28:52,630 --> 00:28:59,740 While these consultations were going on and we decided to allow them to do so in spite of the severe disruptions caused, 244 00:28:59,740 --> 00:29:09,850 rather than creates further confrontation and recognising that this was not actually a contest over the goal, not with the executive. 245 00:29:09,850 --> 00:29:17,590 At any rate, we also had to provide security for the statue from being pulled down. 246 00:29:17,590 --> 00:29:24,050 And this shows you a picture of the statue, which so the statue was sort of continuously under attack of one form or another. 247 00:29:24,050 --> 00:29:31,000 You can see it wrapped up in rubbish bags and covered in tape. 248 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:35,500 But we had to because because there were regular rumours of a tow truck and the 249 00:29:35,500 --> 00:29:39,310 chain coming in the middle of the night that would to pull the statue down, 250 00:29:39,310 --> 00:29:47,440 which would easily have been able to do so. And if this had happened, in my view, it could of sabotage the whole process, 251 00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:52,840 both by probably forcing us to react and perhaps restore the statue to its plinth, 252 00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:59,860 but also making it harder to shift the attitudes of those who are opposed to the removal and who were, 253 00:29:59,860 --> 00:30:11,740 at least to some extent, consoled by the fact that there was a process of consultation and due process taking place in many fora, 254 00:30:11,740 --> 00:30:19,090 just by the way that boards that you see then report that would put up to invite people to express their views and share their opinions. 255 00:30:19,090 --> 00:30:30,520 Although most of that happened online through an online forum in many fora, including Senate, convocation and council. 256 00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:35,890 It was clear at the start of each debate that not only reviews much divided, 257 00:30:35,890 --> 00:30:41,980 but in most cases I expected the majority to be opposed to the removal of the statue. 258 00:30:41,980 --> 00:30:50,290 And yet, by the end of those debates, the arguments in favour of removal, often most persuasively presented by the student representatives, 259 00:30:50,290 --> 00:30:55,450 prevailed and there was almost unanimous support for the removing a statue. 260 00:30:55,450 --> 00:30:59,870 That was the one exception to that was, of course, the alumni group. 261 00:30:59,870 --> 00:31:04,690 But when they haven't got time for the details, what were the main? 262 00:31:04,690 --> 00:31:09,400 What were the main compelling arguments in favour of removing the statue? 263 00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:13,120 I don't think it's necessary to elaborate roads as problematic values, 264 00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:20,530 and these these have been widely covered, and few still think that is Virtues operator's licence. 265 00:31:20,530 --> 00:31:24,340 But more importantly, we should be clear that in spite of this, 266 00:31:24,340 --> 00:31:33,760 the argument that won the day and that achieved consensus was not that the statue should be destroyed and nor that it should be, 267 00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:38,200 or that it should not be accessible to the public in a public place. 268 00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:45,280 In my view, there were very few people. There are very few people there were that think that another statue of Cecil Rhodes, 269 00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:50,320 which is in the company gardens next to Parliament, should be removed. 270 00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:57,790 The argument has been entirely about the location of the statue on the U.S. campus and the symbolism of that location. 271 00:31:57,790 --> 00:32:01,810 That's the picture. That's the picture of the campus from from afar. 272 00:32:01,810 --> 00:32:15,890 And if this works didn't work well just to be the case, that is that. 273 00:32:15,890 --> 00:32:30,700 So. The statue is over there in the centre, and it's in this sort of amphitheatre, the focal point of the of the campus. 274 00:32:30,700 --> 00:32:35,140 The statue is, to all intents and purposes, the only statue of its kind on the campus, 275 00:32:35,140 --> 00:32:43,930 an imposing grand statue of an individual signifying veneration and the instalment of his values and achievements. 276 00:32:43,930 --> 00:32:49,210 The location in pride of place on jemmy steps at the focal points of the magnificently 277 00:32:49,210 --> 00:32:56,650 built landscape of the upper campus communicated that Rhodes was emblematic of the city, 278 00:32:56,650 --> 00:33:01,600 thus signalling much more about the city than it did about drugs. 279 00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:09,010 It presented him as a founder and the hero. While he did donate, the land promised investors votes. 280 00:33:09,010 --> 00:33:13,750 He was born a quarter of a century after Yeasty was founded, so he said he wasn't the founder, 281 00:33:13,750 --> 00:33:19,930 and he died a quarter of a century before he moved on to the land that he bequeathed, which had bequeathed specifically for his team. 282 00:33:19,930 --> 00:33:29,870 Anyway, so and those two arguments were not strong arguments, but the main thing was that it was saying something about the university's values. 283 00:33:29,870 --> 00:33:37,900 Thirdly, the proposal to remove the statue from its current location was certainly not an attempt to airbrush Rhodes out of his history, 284 00:33:37,900 --> 00:33:40,330 as some were reclaiming. 285 00:33:40,330 --> 00:33:50,170 For one, historical memory does not simply depend on or require retaining statues of the old without relocation or contextualisation. 286 00:33:50,170 --> 00:34:01,930 Moreover, the plants that was that remains A. Nairobi contextualised with the story of the statue that was once upon it and why it was removed. 287 00:34:01,930 --> 00:34:08,470 Arguably as interesting an account of history as that offered by the statue in the past. 288 00:34:08,470 --> 00:34:13,660 Firstly, removing the road statue from its central location in the city was an important symbolic 289 00:34:13,660 --> 00:34:20,110 gesture of a decisive rupture with the past because it signalled that as a community, 290 00:34:20,110 --> 00:34:24,280 we recognised how divisive its presence had become. 291 00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:31,720 The process of mobilising the overwhelming majority of the campus to support taking the statue down and the event itself. 292 00:34:31,720 --> 00:34:39,190 And you see here a picture of it and what it is not as clear, but I'm sure you can still see that was a hugely multiracial group. 293 00:34:39,190 --> 00:34:44,110 This was not a protest in the end, supported primarily by black students and staff. 294 00:34:44,110 --> 00:34:50,560 It won support across the campus. This was a very celebratory activity and event. 295 00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:56,560 The process of mobilising this majority in and and many different groups on the campus 296 00:34:56,560 --> 00:35:03,850 to support us was itself symbolic and signalled a change in attitudes on the campus. 297 00:35:03,850 --> 00:35:07,420 The removal was followed by the establishment of task teams to look at symbols 298 00:35:07,420 --> 00:35:12,850 and statues across the university and another to look at the names of buildings. 299 00:35:12,850 --> 00:35:14,320 Whereas in the past, as I mentioned, 300 00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:21,800 new names reflecting transformations were only allocated to buildings that had not been formally named before the task. 301 00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:27,490 Torstein was not empowered to solicit views on names that should be removed from buildings. 302 00:35:27,490 --> 00:35:32,980 The renaming of Jenison Hall, which had been part funded by the friends of Jemison after his death, 303 00:35:32,980 --> 00:35:38,290 again raised the issue of under what circumstances can one change names that are 304 00:35:38,290 --> 00:35:42,670 created by people no longer around to grant permission or just speak to change? 305 00:35:42,670 --> 00:35:51,010 And what does this say for other donors? Many opposed the renaming, but I believe it will contribute to a greater sense of inclusiveness. 306 00:35:51,010 --> 00:36:02,540 Don't have time to talk in more detail about that. But I think it has a whole lot of interesting stories associated with that itself. 307 00:36:02,540 --> 00:36:10,400 Incidentally, the hashtag RMF movement triggered a re-examination not only of our colonial legacy in South Africa, 308 00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:14,720 but also around the world and particularly in the USA, 309 00:36:14,720 --> 00:36:22,580 on campuses where historically oppressed minorities are now achieving a critical mass, empowering them to find their voices. 310 00:36:22,580 --> 00:36:28,790 Some of the campaigns have been waged to make the alienating institutional cultures more inclusive. 311 00:36:28,790 --> 00:36:35,180 Heritage symbols, names and statues of each challenged and the invisibility of those who suffered, 312 00:36:35,180 --> 00:36:41,600 resisted and overcame race based or slavery based systems of power is being highlighted. 313 00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:53,330 So, for example, Harvard Law School decided in 2016 that its crest should be replaced because it included the coat of arms of Isaac Royal Junior, 314 00:36:53,330 --> 00:37:00,170 a cruel slave owner who had endowed a nest egg for the Harvard Law School in the 1780s. 315 00:37:00,170 --> 00:37:06,470 Incidentally, that campaign also had the same moniker hashtag on an almost full. 316 00:37:06,470 --> 00:37:12,410 Yale University named Calhoun College renamed Calhoun College, 317 00:37:12,410 --> 00:37:21,080 one of the residential colleges replacing the name of an alumnus remembered as an advocate of slavery at the University of North Carolina. 318 00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:27,380 The officials renamed the hall that had honoured leader of the Ku Klux Klan at Princeton University 319 00:37:27,380 --> 00:37:34,340 that chose not to remove the name of Woodrow Wilson as protesters had demanded that they. 320 00:37:34,340 --> 00:37:41,360 But they pledged to be transparent about his failings, such as Trump, such as his support for segregation. 321 00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:49,100 Similar campaigns and outcomes are taking place on numerous campuses across the United States, and as you all know, 322 00:37:49,100 --> 00:37:58,860 there was a similar campaign, although unsuccessful, to remove the Rhodes statue from Oriel College. 323 00:37:58,860 --> 00:38:06,000 So that was the first example in the bananas it throws up first about what to do, 324 00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:16,140 the substance of the issue and the process issues and the role of of of an executive in that, as really indicated in looking at the artworks now, 325 00:38:16,140 --> 00:38:22,290 as already indicated, many black students and staff experience the aggregate of artworks and portraits that look 326 00:38:22,290 --> 00:38:27,840 back at them from the university's walls as communicating a message about racial hierarchies. 327 00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:38,100 And it makes them and and and it makes them feel that they, as individuals and their cultures and histories, are not valued or respected. 328 00:38:38,100 --> 00:38:47,070 The debates about how to deal with this began in 2015 as part of the hashtag R-Minn. and continued within the task teams. 329 00:38:47,070 --> 00:38:56,040 Yet in February 2016, amidst a protest about insufficient accommodation for students who were attending at the start of the academic year, 330 00:38:56,040 --> 00:39:01,290 the protest suddenly escalated and protesters invaded neighbouring buildings, 331 00:39:01,290 --> 00:39:10,110 took down portraits and paintings and set them alight in the Central University Plaza. 332 00:39:10,110 --> 00:39:13,720 Ironically, amongst the paintings burned were a collection. 333 00:39:13,720 --> 00:39:21,690 The one on top of that part is one of them. We're a collection of paintings by Justis first black fine arts graduate, 334 00:39:21,690 --> 00:39:27,870 which speaks to the ignorance of the protesters about what they were targeting or whose portraits for being torched. 335 00:39:27,870 --> 00:39:34,800 But it also speaks to the point that it was less about the individual artworks and more about the Agric. aggregate effect, 336 00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:44,340 in a sense, the curation of the artworks. The university says you can return, as you would expect, was in a state of shock following this protest, 337 00:39:44,340 --> 00:39:49,710 both from the image of the bonfire of the paintings and its connotations of fundamentalism, 338 00:39:49,710 --> 00:40:02,260 anti-intellectualism, ethnic purification, but also because of the anger that it apparently revealed. 339 00:40:02,260 --> 00:40:08,230 There was no official policy, you DCT on the public, on the public curation of artworks. 340 00:40:08,230 --> 00:40:16,390 The university has an impressive art collection, but no dedicated gallery, so the artworks are displayed throughout the campus. 341 00:40:16,390 --> 00:40:19,510 We were caught off guard and had to react quickly. 342 00:40:19,510 --> 00:40:26,380 The issue immediately proved controversial and intensely divisive for entirely understandable reasons. 343 00:40:26,380 --> 00:40:32,680 The works of Art Committee quickly identified about 70 artworks on display in public spaces that 344 00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:38,620 were likely to be considered offensive by some black students and remove them for safekeeping. 345 00:40:38,620 --> 00:40:45,460 That being the first responsibility of the committee to protect and safeguard the university's art collection. 346 00:40:45,460 --> 00:40:52,660 This not surprisingly generated an enormous global backlash against the university's authorities. 347 00:40:52,660 --> 00:40:59,110 That unit that you see was censoring art simply because it was considered offensive by one to one particular group. 348 00:40:59,110 --> 00:41:06,730 Various artists whose works were removed or cabinet expressed their dismay at the university's handling of the issue. 349 00:41:06,730 --> 00:41:13,120 They far too many issues and debates on the whole handling of the artworks controversy to cover here. 350 00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:20,380 So I want to focus on one particular artwork around which there has been much controversy to illustrate just some of the dilemmas. 351 00:41:20,380 --> 00:41:28,150 This is the sculpture of Sara Bachmann. Sara Bachmann was born in the 1770s. 352 00:41:28,150 --> 00:41:37,330 She was a South African Khoi woman who, due to her large buttocks, was exhibited as a freak show attraction in 19th century Europe. 353 00:41:37,330 --> 00:41:44,710 As you see from the sketch, she was exhibited under the name Hottentot Venus in 1810. 354 00:41:44,710 --> 00:41:48,340 She went to England with her in class as she'd been selected, of course, 355 00:41:48,340 --> 00:41:56,440 in 1810 at the age of about 35, and she went to England with her employer and an English doctor. 356 00:41:56,440 --> 00:42:02,020 And just incidentally, her employer himself was a freed black slave. 357 00:42:02,020 --> 00:42:09,280 The sort they sought the employer and the doctor to show her for many on the London stage in 1814. 358 00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:15,490 She was both brought to Paris and sold to an animal trainer who made her amuse onlookers. 359 00:42:15,490 --> 00:42:20,590 Bachmann lived in poverty and died in Paris about 18 months later. 360 00:42:20,590 --> 00:42:28,570 After her death, the professor of comparative anatomy dissected her body and displayed her remains for more than a century and a half. 361 00:42:28,570 --> 00:42:38,050 Visitors to the Museum of Man in Paris could view her brain, skeleton and genitalia, as well as a plaster cast of her body. 362 00:42:38,050 --> 00:42:48,900 Her remains were finally returned after some to ing and fro ing returned to South Africa in 2002. 363 00:42:48,900 --> 00:42:57,660 As you enter the University Library, you pass the sculpture of Sarah Bachmann made of, 364 00:42:57,660 --> 00:43:04,980 well, the well, the tools and bicycle parts brutish, crude and powerful. 365 00:43:04,980 --> 00:43:10,470 She stands life-size naked, but her exaggerated buttocks. 366 00:43:10,470 --> 00:43:18,000 You might well think that the artist was caricaturing her sexuality. 367 00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,090 If you did not know what she really looked like, 368 00:43:21,090 --> 00:43:29,820 and especially if you did not know that the sculptor Willie Bester is black and claimed some quick white ancestry, 369 00:43:29,820 --> 00:43:36,800 he is, of course, bemoaning the cruelty shown to Bachmann. 370 00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:43,520 But if, like most passes by, you don't pay attention to the explanatory plaque next to the sculpture, 371 00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:48,330 you might think at worst that this is institutional racism and sexism. 372 00:43:48,330 --> 00:43:55,190 Bradford you seeing the very humiliation that Sara Bachman experienced over two centuries before in Europe? 373 00:43:55,190 --> 00:44:01,340 At best, it may be viewed as reflecting an unquestioning indifference of the institution to whether our students, 374 00:44:01,340 --> 00:44:08,480 particularly women, students and especially those of quickly origin with similar physiognomy experience, 375 00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:19,730 embarrassment or shame through her naked presence in the entrance to the library with thousands of students posture every day over the next two years, 376 00:44:19,730 --> 00:44:24,440 the sculpted body of Sara Bachmann became a site of struggle. 377 00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:29,930 Some women put robes on the sculpture to cover its nakedness. 378 00:44:29,930 --> 00:44:31,940 Others occasionally removed the robes, 379 00:44:31,940 --> 00:44:46,340 surreptitiously provoking protests at the disrobing how you see the sculpture disrobed again and a protest taking place in front of it. 380 00:44:46,340 --> 00:44:54,250 But within a short time again, the sculpture was usually robed. 381 00:44:54,250 --> 00:45:02,740 Various published articles accuse the authorities, quote unquote, which means me and my colleagues, the authorities, of covering the statue. 382 00:45:02,740 --> 00:45:08,710 But actually, we did nothing of the sort because we just didn't know what to do. 383 00:45:08,710 --> 00:45:15,010 I suppose you could say that we, the authorities, turned a blind eye to the covering in the sense that we did not remove the sculpture 384 00:45:15,010 --> 00:45:21,160 and we also did not investigate or prosecute those covering it up for vandalism. 385 00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:29,650 There were strategic and principle reasons for not doing us. We were concerned it would have led to US vandalism, such as painting the sculpture. 386 00:45:29,650 --> 00:45:39,700 But more importantly, we decided instead to let the debate play out on the campus and for the sculpture to be the focus of thinking about race, 387 00:45:39,700 --> 00:45:47,770 gender representation, the dignity of the subject and the way it made some views feel. 388 00:45:47,770 --> 00:45:57,880 So while for some, such as the distinguished photographer David Goldman, who was abhorred by the covering and our failure to act against it so, 389 00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:07,810 so offended was see that he removed his collection of photographs, which he had given to use YouTube to keep interest and took them away. 390 00:46:07,810 --> 00:46:13,900 But people like to recall that accused us of creating a climate in which quote, 391 00:46:13,900 --> 00:46:19,150 it is impossible to deal with the past in the light of the erosion of evidence. 392 00:46:19,150 --> 00:46:23,530 For me, at least, the covering up led to far more debates about the past. 393 00:46:23,530 --> 00:46:30,220 For more insight into the history of Bachmann for Greeks are coming to terms with the legacy that had ever happened before. 394 00:46:30,220 --> 00:46:35,560 In all the years the sculpture had stood there without magazine covers. 395 00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:39,640 The ongoing covering was an exercise in multicultural education. 396 00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:47,410 How some people feel today when confronted with those reminders and how an understanding on the parts of 397 00:46:47,410 --> 00:46:55,110 diverse cultural groups about the perception of sculpture as a repetition of the original humiliation. 398 00:46:55,110 --> 00:47:03,480 Indeed, prior to the covering, most people passing the sculpture did not even know who it represented and what statement it was making. 399 00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:11,610 But there were many whose views on deep respect who didn't agree with me, often passionately so. 400 00:47:11,610 --> 00:47:19,650 A number of conversations were held with the artist himself, the investor who is deeply upset by the covering up. 401 00:47:19,650 --> 00:47:23,190 He eventually initiated a legal suit against the university, 402 00:47:23,190 --> 00:47:28,830 demanding that the sculpture be displayed uncovered on the grounds of restricting his artistic freedom, 403 00:47:28,830 --> 00:47:34,590 but causing the artwork to be presented and viewed in ways that were contrary to his intention. 404 00:47:34,590 --> 00:47:42,810 A view that an artist has the right to control the originality and authenticity of their work, even when they no longer own it. 405 00:47:42,810 --> 00:47:49,300 Rather than. Rather than contesting this, 406 00:47:49,300 --> 00:47:53,800 we agreed to move the sculpture to a gallery venue as opposed to public space 407 00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:59,140 where it could be displayed alongside and contextualised and better protected. 408 00:47:59,140 --> 00:48:05,290 But in particular, it could be displayed alongside photographs, full size photographs of the sculpture, 409 00:48:05,290 --> 00:48:12,520 as it had been rutted with comments on why people had rode it and destroyed the public. 410 00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:18,550 Dialogue was held, focussing on the surrebuttal and sculpture, seeking more input from the university community. 411 00:48:18,550 --> 00:48:22,690 The recommendations from the task team the recommendation from the task team is to 412 00:48:22,690 --> 00:48:28,990 differentiate between public spaces and private gallery spaces in the public spaces. 413 00:48:28,990 --> 00:48:34,330 People have no choice about what they view, and it is much harder to contextualise the art. 414 00:48:34,330 --> 00:48:42,940 With explanations and related artworks in gallery spaces, people can choose whether they wish to view the specific artworks or not, 415 00:48:42,940 --> 00:48:47,950 and when they do, the worst can be explained and placed in context. 416 00:48:47,950 --> 00:48:52,840 The most controversial works of art, then would be displayed in galleries or should be, 417 00:48:52,840 --> 00:49:00,840 and no art should be removed altogether or censored should be hidden away or censored. 418 00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:08,100 The third encounter is around different cultural practises. 419 00:49:08,100 --> 00:49:14,640 The story of the sheep I received a call one afternoon in 2015 from local races from 420 00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:20,610 a local resident who lived opposite a university building known as Avenue Home. 421 00:49:20,610 --> 00:49:24,780 Everyone had been occupied by the forest protesters for many months. 422 00:49:24,780 --> 00:49:30,480 It is about a kilometre away from the main university in a quasi residential area. 423 00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:35,610 The neighbours reported that there was a sheep in the avenue whole yard tethered to a sheep, 424 00:49:35,610 --> 00:49:44,970 and I presume that the sheep was about to be slaughtered in the yard. They were outraged and demanded that the university do something to prevent it. 425 00:49:44,970 --> 00:49:49,680 The students confirmed that they intended to hold a celebration or rally in the garden, 426 00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:55,620 and he intended to slaughter the sheep as a ritual cleansing and part of a celebration. 427 00:49:55,620 --> 00:49:59,610 They argued that this was the culture that decolonising the university meant 428 00:49:59,610 --> 00:50:05,040 respecting the traditions and not imposing our Western sensitivities on them, 429 00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:11,280 but that becoming a more inclusive space space meant creating space for them to slaughter animals. 430 00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:16,140 Richard. Our initial reaction was to try to stop the slaughter. 431 00:50:16,140 --> 00:50:20,190 We first looked to the municipal bylaws and called them instead to show the 432 00:50:20,190 --> 00:50:25,440 killing of animals to eat or for other purposes must be restricted to abattoirs. 433 00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:31,710 Not so. It appears the laws make provision for people to kill animals on their own private property. 434 00:50:31,710 --> 00:50:38,460 But it sounds to me as follows the landlord of the private property has to give permission. 435 00:50:38,460 --> 00:50:47,010 In this case, the private landlord was the university so he could not pass the buck to another authority, after all, but further research. 436 00:50:47,010 --> 00:50:52,590 We also learnt that ritual slaughter has been recognised by the Commission on the Rights of Culture and 437 00:50:52,590 --> 00:51:00,870 Religion as a fundamental part of the culture of some groups in South Africa and essential to their identity. 438 00:51:00,870 --> 00:51:04,260 There are also laws for the protection of animals against cruelty, 439 00:51:04,260 --> 00:51:10,680 but on cruelty is defined as any killing of animals, and most of us sanction that by virtue of eating meat. 440 00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:15,390 It cannot be applied selectively in a case such as this. 441 00:51:15,390 --> 00:51:20,370 The affirmation by the students that they had an experienced person to do the act would have made 442 00:51:20,370 --> 00:51:25,470 singling out these slaughters from the many others that do indeed happen all over the country, 443 00:51:25,470 --> 00:51:34,380 especially in rural areas. Every day would have made this a targeted political action were the other grounds for disciplinary action. 444 00:51:34,380 --> 00:51:39,480 Not surprisingly, the university itself had no rules against slaughtering animals on campus, 445 00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:46,710 so any disciplinary rules available to us would have been to charge students for bringing the university into disrepute. 446 00:51:46,710 --> 00:51:54,570 But that would indeed be playing into their hands, acknowledging that the value system that should prevail on campus but not elsewhere in society 447 00:51:54,570 --> 00:52:01,240 should be that of the white community because its traditional sensitivity to ritual slaughter. 448 00:52:01,240 --> 00:52:06,640 Of course, this was a deliberate provocation on the class of the students and the statement that they were 449 00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:12,970 claiming that their identity not hiding it or submitting to colonial norms and sensitivities. 450 00:52:12,970 --> 00:52:18,880 This, as I've said they had argued, was what was required of an inclusive campus culture. 451 00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:26,380 The slaughter and celebration went ahead, hit the animal skin, was hung up to dry, attracting flies and generating false smells, 452 00:52:26,380 --> 00:52:35,170 generating further across from various constituencies and demands that the university should prevent future slaughters and discipline those involved. 453 00:52:35,170 --> 00:52:42,220 We did neither, but those decisions were controversial and unpopular with the mainstream of the university staff. 454 00:52:42,220 --> 00:52:51,520 Many students, alumni and some critics, especially those middle class white communities of Cape Town from memory, draw many students. 455 00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:55,840 In their view, this was a sign that the university was becoming quote-unquote. 456 00:52:55,840 --> 00:53:01,540 A Third World university used in the pejorative sense of standards are declining. 457 00:53:01,540 --> 00:53:07,090 This is the this is the beginning of the end. We also did not react to your letter. 458 00:53:07,090 --> 00:53:14,560 In another, she brought the time onto the campus and slaughtered one evening on the balcony of the student union building on Steve Biko, 459 00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:18,190 voting largely as an act of provocation. 460 00:53:18,190 --> 00:53:26,350 These X's responses to play down ignore it, other than ensuring the skin was quickly removed and the area cleaned up. 461 00:53:26,350 --> 00:53:30,490 These are the challenges to the cultural norms and values of the university, 462 00:53:30,490 --> 00:53:36,280 which have a lot which had been largely the norms of white culture and the legacy of colonial culture. 463 00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:39,010 But by now, there are also other sets of values and priorities, 464 00:53:39,010 --> 00:53:45,580 such as those who support animal rights that had ethical obligations, ethical objections to the slaughter. 465 00:53:45,580 --> 00:53:52,900 And in time, I think the university will have to develop its own set of rules for for various customary and cultural practises, 466 00:53:52,900 --> 00:54:07,350 ritual slaughter amongst them. Curricula and decolonising charisma. 467 00:54:07,350 --> 00:54:13,440 Curriculum reform is probably the most contested and complex area of decolonisation debates. 468 00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:19,560 I'm not going to address the substance of this highly contested field. Frankly, I'm not well enough informed to do so. 469 00:54:19,560 --> 00:54:23,520 Other than perhaps in my own field of medicine and health, rather, 470 00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:32,400 I want to highlight the dilemmas it poses for university executives and leadership when a group of black academics approached me. 471 00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:38,490 They're known as the Black Academic Caucus to discuss the call for decolonising the curriculum. 472 00:54:38,490 --> 00:54:45,450 The highlights is that this was something that had been on the university's agenda for years, with little evident shift. 473 00:54:45,450 --> 00:54:53,430 They argued that this was in part a lack of commitment from the university executive to see change and be more directive, for example, 474 00:54:53,430 --> 00:55:04,520 by incentivising academics through reward or promotion systems to change their curricula or teaching practises in a particular direction. 475 00:55:04,520 --> 00:55:10,100 They asserted that the Teaching and learning committee, which is elected by Senate, 476 00:55:10,100 --> 00:55:15,710 was would never support these sorts decolonising curriculum because the Senate 477 00:55:15,710 --> 00:55:20,690 was still majority white and not persuaded of the decolonisation arguments, 478 00:55:20,690 --> 00:55:29,930 let alone committed to them, and would never drive the decolonisation agenda and that such direction was needed from the executive. 479 00:55:29,930 --> 00:55:34,250 They argued that a directive was required from the vice chancellor. 480 00:55:34,250 --> 00:55:42,080 That would require each department to engage with what decolonisation would mean in their respective fields. 481 00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:49,190 The dilemma is that a fundamental value the fundamental values of academic freedom 482 00:55:49,190 --> 00:55:54,600 grants lecturers the right to teach subjects and disciplines the way they deem fit 483 00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:59,120 is not usually the role of the university executive vice chancellors to get involved 484 00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:05,000 or be directive about reading this balance of content or epistemic frameworks. 485 00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:10,850 Even the Senate would not prescribe individual individual disciplines how they should be taught, 486 00:56:10,850 --> 00:56:15,710 and Senate would rightly be jealous about its authority to appoint the members of committees that 487 00:56:15,710 --> 00:56:22,550 oversee the educational processes and critical of a vice chancellor who threatens to usurp that role. 488 00:56:22,550 --> 00:56:27,560 The defence of such an approach to academic freedom is as important in protecting academics 489 00:56:27,560 --> 00:56:32,870 from government interference and political interference as it is from commercial interference, 490 00:56:32,870 --> 00:56:37,910 interference by donors and by many generalist university leaders. 491 00:56:37,910 --> 00:56:47,270 So how, if at all, should a university to respond to the call for decolonising curricula or promoting any other curriculum or teaching reform? 492 00:56:47,270 --> 00:56:53,690 It seems to me that some leadership was required because the group was quite right that there was no 493 00:56:53,690 --> 00:57:02,910 initiative and very little initiative coming from senator and representative in the state in this regard. 494 00:57:02,910 --> 00:57:06,750 And you see context, most Senate members who are, by definition, 495 00:57:06,750 --> 00:57:14,040 professors and have have studied their PhDs in universities in the in the colonial global north, 496 00:57:14,040 --> 00:57:22,170 have very close ties to those universities and colleagues and very limited links to southern universities and certainly to African universities. 497 00:57:22,170 --> 00:57:28,050 The alternative perspectives are much more likely to be found amongst younger scholars and black scholars. 498 00:57:28,050 --> 00:57:35,070 My solution my best way of balancing these pressures was to agree to formalise a curriculum change working group, 499 00:57:35,070 --> 00:57:40,530 which reported to me, but which would be black led and black majority membership. 500 00:57:40,530 --> 00:57:47,940 But it was an understanding that all its meetings would be open to all who wish to attend and that it would not replace the formal Senate structures, 501 00:57:47,940 --> 00:57:52,680 but would feed any recommendations it had it came up with each of those structures. 502 00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:58,260 The purpose was to provide some resources that the group could themselves develop a clearer vision of what 503 00:57:58,260 --> 00:58:04,350 decolonisation would mean in different disciplines and footnotes and different modes of teaching and assessment, 504 00:58:04,350 --> 00:58:12,150 and to back them to give them the authority of my office in encouraging departments to hold workshops with the script in 505 00:58:12,150 --> 00:58:20,550 order to try and nudge the thinking of academics and students in those departments to challenge their received paradigms. 506 00:58:20,550 --> 00:58:21,160 But it was. 507 00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:29,010 I did have to make it clear that ultimately the change had to be earned by the experts in the disciplines themselves to create and change within. 508 00:58:29,010 --> 00:58:35,340 Group has completed its work over 18 months with patchy and I think in the end, rather limited success. 509 00:58:35,340 --> 00:58:43,560 Thus far, the success thus far generating a mixture of controversial controversial reactions and disinterest. 510 00:58:43,560 --> 00:58:51,240 But it remains a dilemma for university leadership. How to fulfil what is probably the most important line in our job description, 511 00:58:51,240 --> 00:59:00,260 which is that we are supposed to provide academic leadership while respecting the academic freedom of individual academics. 512 00:59:00,260 --> 00:59:09,920 So to wrap up the examples and there are more many more where these came from, I hope make some of the following points. 513 00:59:09,920 --> 00:59:20,960 The issues are complex for a variety of reasons. They reflect deeply divergent practises, values and sensitivities of different cultural groups, 514 00:59:20,960 --> 00:59:27,470 different histories and different and different power relations to the establishment. 515 00:59:27,470 --> 00:59:34,880 Some of these differences are about substantive issues such as and that's due to monuments. 516 00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:37,910 The perspective on particular historical leaders. 517 00:59:37,910 --> 00:59:45,890 The response to particular artworks individually or in aggregate cultural practises such as ritual slaughter. 518 00:59:45,890 --> 00:59:52,880 The balance between curricular content and epistemology approaches that are that dominate the globalised 519 00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:59,360 academic world versus those that are determined much more heavily by local histories and cultures. 520 00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:03,830 Those are substantial differences over the substantive issues, 521 01:00:03,830 --> 01:00:11,790 and there are also differences over process and governance issues and what counts as a compelling argument in a and in particular, 522 01:00:11,790 --> 01:00:15,110 where their inclusiveness. This, I think, is the crux of it, 523 01:00:15,110 --> 01:00:21,560 where their inclusiveness requires simply that nothing in the institutional environment should cause offence to anyone, 524 01:00:21,560 --> 01:00:27,800 or if one of the alternatives that one accepts that in an increasingly diverse community. 525 01:00:27,800 --> 01:00:32,030 There were many. There will be many elements that some or other group will take offence. 526 01:00:32,030 --> 01:00:40,370 That and that is and that it is not appropriate to find the lowest common denominator. 527 01:00:40,370 --> 01:00:42,260 There has to be that in this song. 528 01:00:42,260 --> 01:00:50,780 This argument has to be some other criterion other than defensiveness or sensitivity around which we still need to build consensus. 529 01:00:50,780 --> 01:00:59,540 But for now, as leaders of these institutions who have to make day-to-day decisions without consensus guidelines on what criteria should be used. 530 01:00:59,540 --> 01:01:05,360 These remain taxing dilemmas. The examples I have shared share a common theme, 531 01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:12,440 namely the challenge to the historic historical approach to transformation for the least in South Africa. 532 01:01:12,440 --> 01:01:20,360 The approach to transformation in the decades before RhodesMustFall is argued by some surreptitiously 533 01:01:20,360 --> 01:01:26,810 to maintain the status quo against which the alternative of decolonisation has to be championed. 534 01:01:26,810 --> 01:01:31,520 The former transformation, it is argued, is a project of assimilation. 535 01:01:31,520 --> 01:01:35,420 Tonight, the newcomers to the institution, more like us and us, 536 01:01:35,420 --> 01:01:42,830 means people like me to change them so they would fit in with the dominant traditional culture of the university. 537 01:01:42,830 --> 01:01:48,740 It is about reconciliation, redress, affirmative action to achieve equity, 538 01:01:48,740 --> 01:01:53,630 academic support programmes to counter the effects of screening deficits and ultimately the 539 01:01:53,630 --> 01:02:00,500 incorporation of those previously disadvantaged into the economic and power structures of society. 540 01:02:00,500 --> 01:02:04,100 By contrast, decolonisation are and problematic. 541 01:02:04,100 --> 01:02:12,500 Conception holds an essential critique of the failure to challenge the validity of the old hegemonic cultural norms. 542 01:02:12,500 --> 01:02:15,770 Decolonisation, decolonisation of institutional culture. 543 01:02:15,770 --> 01:02:21,170 Calls for change in identity for the creation of a new culture that is more balanced and more balanced. 544 01:02:21,170 --> 01:02:25,880 Mixture of the diversity of the communities that make it up. 545 01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:37,160 At least recognising that we appropriate value rising a variety of cultures, histories, languages, value systems and ways of seeing the world. 546 01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:44,660 And finally, for the institutional culture to change, it has to be much more than the symbols on the walls, the symbols, 547 01:02:44,660 --> 01:02:54,170 the artworks on the walls and the curricula has to be an internal individual willingness to interrogate our own value systems, 548 01:02:54,170 --> 01:02:58,400 prejudices and blind spots and inherent assumptions about ourselves, 549 01:02:58,400 --> 01:03:06,110 our histories and cultures and convictions that are tied up with our identity, but also about the other. 550 01:03:06,110 --> 01:03:14,360 If we can do that, then maybe just in the form of Rhodes can begin to signify the re-emergence of the emergence 551 01:03:14,360 --> 01:03:19,530 of a more inclusive institutional environments and institutions all over the world. 552 01:03:19,530 --> 01:03:20,032 Thanks.