Issue 1, Vol 2: 21 January 2011 *In this issue:*
- President's Political Notes: Message to our Structures!<http://www.sasco.org.za/show.php?include=pubs/moithuti/2011/issue1.html#one> - Commissar's Notes: Returning to the debate with Jonathan Jansen, a Hypocrite of our times<http://www.sasco.org.za/show.php?include=pubs/moithuti/2011/issue1.html#two> [image: SASCO President]President's Political Notes: Message to our Structures Dear comrades Yet another year has arrived but the task remains the same: protect and defend the interests of students and advance the struggle for attainment of free, quality, public higher education. The continuous battle for access to higher education that we wage as SASCO every year continues to be relevant today, possibly in the year 2011 its urgency becomes much more pressing considering that there is slightly a higher number of students that now stand at the doors of education institutions seeking entrance and opportunity to attain qualifications to improve their lives. It is upon all our structures *(Branch Executive Committees, Regional Executive Committees and Provincial Executive Committees)* to put all systems in place to ensure that we do not fail in our duty to fight for access for all those students. We must do this with full awareness that we incur the risk of upsetting the university bureaucracy by insisting on access for the poor for in the current time the mentality of the average south African university is that of financial above all other developmental functions that a university by virtue of its location and role in society ought to play. The liberal intelligentsia continues to preach that the prestige of a university or of certain universities must be safeguarded through excluding the poorer lot among the aspirant university students and thereby perpetuate the stubborn imbalances that characterise our society. This is the magnitude of the duty that we face. Despite the progressive pronunciations about free education by the ANC and its government we nevertheless continue to face heightening financial and academic exclusions in all our institutions. We face increasing fees in all our institutions. Despite the progressive report on the reviewal of NSFAS by a government designated team we continue to face overwhelming scenarios everyday where university NSFAS offices deliberately flout NSFAS policy and rules to keep students outside of the system and facilitate their indebtedness to institutions and therefore their exclusion. Despite all these positive achievements of the student movement we still cannot account for them in reality and on the ground. For this reason and many others it is befitting to insist that the struggle continues. The year 2011 is the year where as SASCO we celebrate two decades of uncompromising student struggles. We are celebrating 20 years of revolutionary action and mobilisation in defence of the working class student. We celebrate history of struggle against racism and apartheid, we celebrate history of struggle for non racism and non sexism and we record with pride our celebration of a unique culture of revolutionary intellectualism that we today holds dear and indispensible to our continued capacity to lead students of this country. When our forbears in unity created this organisation they had sufficient revolutionary foresight to realise that South African students would never succeed to fight for their rights and to change South African society and the world if they failed to unite. This organisation continues strive for unity for all students without which our struggles would be in vain. In celebration of this our milestone our 20th anniversary we need to intensify our Right To Learn Campaign and keep alive the truth that education is n priviledge but it is a right. It is this context therefore that we declare this year the year of the 20th anniversary and the year of reflection on the achievements of South African students as led (unquestionably) by the South African Students Congress. This year we say: *EDUCATION IS YOUR BIRTH RIGHT: FIGHT FOR IT!* Amandla! *SASCO President* [image: Commissar's Notes]Commissar's Notes Returning to the debate with Jonathan Jansen, a Hypocrite of our times Observing the recent dictatorial tendencies shown by Professor Jonathan Jansen in the University of Free State, I am reminded of a paper he wrote for the Mail & Guardian (21-27 Sept 2007) titled: "Falling value of the academic estate". This was one of the most irritating and objectionable papers I have read in more than two years with the exception of the papers in ANC Today attacking the communist party (2006). This paper might not have created any hype in the newsroom but was bound to ruffle furthers in societies of those who care about our democracy and education. Jansen is no ordinary chap in the bar, but a professor, the handful of allegations and accusations that he hoisted as causes of the "Falling value of the academic estate" were far below par to merit his pen let alone paper. Contrary to the assertions of Jansen, numerous issues cause the tragic decline of intellectual productivity in universities. Sensationalizing and dramatizing the shortcomings of "affirmative action" and the "new-breed" of university leaders is not only simplistic, but intellectually lazy. These issues - that eluded Jansen's scrutiny then and cause intellectual ossification even now - include the inability of institutions to cope with the influx of - largely black - students unto universities shores which were once havens for the white and rich. This is complemented by the structure of funding for higher education institutions which is based on research output. This is also made worse by the increased looting of university funds - wherein academic qualifications serve neither as a deterrent nor as a conscience against corruption. These issues put together, tragically decrease university spending on the core business - teaching and learning - creating a university system where it pays better to be a procurement employee than a lecturer. The problem lies here and not with some imaginary enemy called a "manager-leader" as suggested by Jansen in 2007. Anything that suggests otherwise creates the impression that apartheid education had no problems but swam on academic excellence and Institutional prosperity. This is what Prof Jansen sought to communicate in 2007 and continues to implement in his post as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Free State. The notion that apartheid institutions were perfect and should be emulated post-1994 is not only flawed by in diametrical opposition to reality. Of course, some could argue that apartheid institutions were successful in so far as it relates to white students. If therefore that is the yardstick, we might as well forget about increasing the number of successful black students in institutions of higher learning. Allegations that the "manager-leader" is the cause of all problems can only be sustained through erecting statues, line them up, knock them down, erect them again and knock them down again, and then claim to have won a series of boxing games. Doing exactly this Jansen said, a "manager-leader… could be a businessman, a politician, a former activist, a populist, a racial or ethnic preference, or even an equity candidate..." This is a statue and note how he demolished it with caricatures that make a "manager-leader" be an "activist", if not a "populist" but above all a mere "equity candidate", students were treated with similar derision and were sneered at as "immature immediatists". Another example is when Jansen, fully knowing that if any "senior personalities in the ruling party are appointed" as university chancellors they are appointed with full complicity of various stakeholders such as unions, students, business and academics in the form of council, but erected, yet another statue saying; they "are appointed by eager-to-please vice-chancellors…" then equates his statue to the SABC saga, then knocks it down. To equate the appointment of senior personalities as University Chancellors to the SABC Board issue was not only dishonest but outright mischievous, and was meant to strengthen an otherwise empty argument that modern day equity leaders are nothing but an uneducated, populist and clueless lot. This is what Jonathan Jansen has labored to prove that he is not. The first he did when he took over UOFS was to pardon the Reitz four without consulting anyone including the victims. Such are the defects of "one of our own", (as he was once fondly referred to by the ANCYL President, Julius Malema). Academics who grew and developed - rank after rank - from the apartheid education set up serving it with excellency - with the exception of a few - dread the influx of (black) students, into a formerly white environment and they disguise their disgust at the enrolment of many students (read, black) as "genuine" concerns at the creeping spectacle of "mediocrity" that slowly seeps into (read, their) universities. Unions, students and some progressive academics, faced by this predicament have had no choice but to opt for the non-university groomed academics that show more support (albeit rhetorically at times) for transformation to steer post-1994 universities forward. This throws the job competition wide open, and university-groomed academics (black and white) have no qualms in elucidating their disgust at this job competition, both as a result of uncertainty in a job environment which they view as their own and black academics as a result of pure jealousy at those who get appointed where they would have wanted to be seen as the few blacks who made it. Affirmative action is recipient to these punches by various sections of the South African society who accuse it of being a "racist" and counterproductive mechanism that promotes mediocrity and decreases productivity, but, none of its opponents (Jansen included) succeed to prove in the case of universities that it results in the loss "of the academic drive… the academic instincts that keep universities what they are - the intellectual centers of research in a competitive global knowledge economy". Continuously unfazed by their inability to convince society of their accusations they produce volumes of papers calling for a halt. Interestingly, but tragically, the honorable professors' 2007 paper did not only expose his contempt for affirmative action but also romanticized anti-democratic inclinations when dismissing consultative decision making processes at play in universities. I am reminded of a time when Jansen (Acting as Administrator of the Durban University of Technology) refused to consult the SRC or anyone for that matter, except a coterie of self appointed academics on many issues affecting the University. Meeting the chap was a pure difficulty and when granted the SRC would be given less than 15 minutes to address itself, he even went to the extent of refusing to show the SRC a forensic report on the (mis)use of university finances. Representation of various stakeholders in decision making processes seeks to avoid dictatorship is often presented as a necessity in the name of avoiding "student immediatism" and "populism" but resulting in instability such as what the DUT nearly found itself where students went on three strikes in less than 12 months of Jansen's leadership. The alienation of students let alone that of trade unions in the decision making process is not only careless but disastrous, instead, universities in the case of students need to strengthen the research capacity of SRC's so as to ensure a more informed intervention by these structures on various university decision making processes, avoiding the current all-or-nothing approach! To borrow and radically amend Jansen's epigram, the "falling value of the academic estate" remains a matter that should concern all of South African society, and to quote and radically amend, once more, Jansen's closing epigram "This is so because the academic estate is something to be jealously guarded" from those who claim to defend it, but only seek to "preserve the status quo" or return to the past. "It should be vigorously defended against" wolves of the capitalist "market" disguised as saints, but seeking to suffocate democratic participation by students, unions and other stakeholders in decision making and replace it with the dictatorship of an apartheid schooled academia. All those who claim to have interest in the development and sustenance of universities as centers of knowledge production need to identify real problems, and avoid the urge to throw hand-grenades at imaginary enemies, as Jansen did in 2007 and continues to do as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Free State. -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
