Lifestyle/Community
Students today show ‘appalling grasp of history’ – Jansen
The atmosphere at some South African universities had become “confrontational, ugly and intolerant”, Professor Jonathan Jansen, rector of the University of the Free State, told a packed hall at Beit Emanuel synagogue in Johannesburg last Wednesday night.
IRWIN MANOIM
Jansen was delivering the Auerbach Interfaith Memorial Lecture, now in its 11th year, and named for Dr Franz Auerbach, renowned educationist, author and activist, and a founder of Jews for Social Justice, an early Jewish anti-apartheid group.
Asked about the Mcebo Dlamini “Hitler” incident at the University of Witwatersrand, Jansen said he never expected to see in post-apartheid South Africa the kind of casual racism that had now become part of public discourse. Students today often showed an appalling ignorance of recent history, which was why he has decided to take a forthcoming tour group to Auschwitz.
The theme of the lecture was that universities across the country were in turmoil, with the tone of campus protest angry and confrontational, ugly and intolerant. There was very little university authorities could do to dampen down the anger once it blew up, other than to concede. This sent the wrong message, that bad behaviour could attract plenty of attention and had no consequences.
Yet the underlying grievances, that universities have failed to transform sufficiently, and that black students are not graduating in sufficient numbers, was legitimate. Government is also refusing to acknowledge that the root of the crisis was the quality of school education, Jansen said.
The correct approach from universities is to deal with the issues “during peace time”. Jansen makes himself as approachable as possible to students, either by sitting outside once a week, where they can informally approach him with problems, or by dealing with them one-to-one on social media, or by holding public meetings to explore contentious issues. Over a period of two difficult years, he has managed to tame one of the country’s most toxic and racially polarised universities, create dialogue, improve the pass rate among black students and create outreach programmes to lift standards among the poorest of the local township schools.
He has succeeded to the point where this year, he was proud to say, a black woman was elected SRC president at the University of the Free State.
nat cheiman
May 27, 2015 at 5:34 pm
‘Transformation (read trashing) of universities has been made a priority by undergraduates who actually shouldn’t be at varsity because of maturity issues and lack of a proper education.
They are intolerant because they lack morals, finesse and education.
Transformation has indeed taken place.
All that is now needed is to appoint these half wits as Deans and Professors .’
Nick Pohl
May 28, 2015 at 12:22 pm
‘Hi Irwin,
I wouldn’t so hastily dispense accolades to Professor Jansen if I were you. Or trash Free State University, for that matter.
Jansen, who identifies as black and whose home language is English by his own admission, and who has one huge bee in his bonnet about Afrikaner issues, has become notorious in the Afrikaans community for confessing that he would like to see all Afrikaans speaking pupils and students educated via English medium only.
Now there’s racist and toxic for you.
He has also been himself charged for wrongly (and apparently with great alacrity) disciplining two (white) students under trumped up racism charges, and will have to appear in court later this year.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Moreover, while he always makes a big hooha about his (now thoroughly debunked as bogus) concern for Afrikaans, UOFS is expected by top Afrikaner academics to eventually become English medium because of the policies he himself introduced there.
So, if you need to point fingers at someone for being racially polarizing, Jonathan Jansen is your man.
And since when does a highly regarded academic institution such as UOFS become toxic and racially polarized because of a very few racist incidents caused by a tiny minority of racists? I can’t recall the great majority of Afrikaans language students there engaging in \”angry and confrontational, ugly and intolerant\” protests against his racially polarizing stance this year – or before.
Don’t be fooled by Jansen’s feeble criticism of the failings of the educational system either. After all, his heyday arrived under the watch of Msholozi, who with his finger pointing at whites (as recently even as this week) has become the most racially divisive and polarizing factor in the country, and whose kleptocracy’s unconstitutional and extremely racist educational policy he, Jansen, has been implementing to the letter and with spectacular success so far.
In other words, we won’t be hearing the honorable professor railing against his Leader’s racism anytime soon.
Does that ring a bell?
The organizers of the Auerbach Lectures should feel ashamed at inviting this controversial figure to lecture the Jewish community, and in a synagogue of all places.
I’m sure Dr. Auerbach himself would have been extremely mortified if this had happened in his lifetime.
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