The Shackles of Colonialism in South African Universities: An Afrocentric Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kgothatso Brucely Shai ◽  
Lebogang T. Legodi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Educational System ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Black Universities ◽  
Historically Black Universities ◽  
South African Universities ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University ◽  
Document Review

The transition from colonialism and apartheid to democratic South Africa in the 1990s has not been a smooth one. In this context, the argument in this article is that the remnants of colonialism and apartheid continue to be evident in South African society and in universities in particular. In this country, the chains of colonialism (and later apartheid) facilitated an educational system that benefitted the coloniser (Britain) and the white minority. With the promotion of Bantu self-government came the building of historically black universities and their separation from former historically white universities. The former have inherited a Eurocentric educational system that does not meaningfully serve the needs of the majority of Africans. This alienated educational system served as a time bomb for the 2015 Fallist movements such as #RhodesMustFall at the University of Cape Town. This later led to the #TransformNWU and #FeesMustFall campaigns among students and lecturers in the country. Based on Afrocentricity as a theoretical framework, this article seeks to analyse the transformation of South African universities from being the product of colonialism to being an envisaged barometer of African scholarship. In analysing such a transformation, the authors address the following two key questions: (1) Are South African universities meeting the needs of the society they are meant to serve? (2) How far has the transformation of universities in South Africa progressed? In answering these questions, this article relies heavily on the methods of document review and discourse analysis in the broadest sense.

scholarly journals Addressing Xenophobia in the Equality Courts of South Africa

Refuge ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 107-116
Author(s):  
Justin De Jager
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Police Services ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
Fundamental Value ◽  
South African Police ◽  
The Right ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

South African society bears a legacy of inequality and struggle against oppression. In the Constitutional era, our courts have held that the right to equality is a core fundamental value against which all law and state practice must be tested. South Africa’s Equality Courts have been heralded as a transformative mechanism for the redressing of systemic inequality and the promotion of the right to equality. Following the aftermath of the 2008 xenophobic attacks in South Africa, the University of Cape Town Refugee Law Clinic, on behalf of some of the victims of these attacks, launched equality claims against the South African Police Services in order to address the unfair discrimination and xenophobia of police officials in protecting these victims. This paper reviews the two matters launched by the Clinic in the Equality Courts, examining the challenges that effectively reduce the accessibility of the Equality Courts and the difficulty inherent in proving discrimination in equality claims, and commenting on the benefits of using these courts to address xenophobia.

scholarly journals A public practical-theological response and proposal to decolonisation discourse in South Africa: From #YourStatueMustFall and #MyStatueShouldBeErected to #BothOurStatuesShouldBeErected

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vhumani Magezi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Practical Theology ◽  
University Education ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
South African Universities ◽  
Practical Theological ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

The years 2015 and 2016 were marked by violent protests at South African universities. While the focus of many of the protests was on access to university education, an equally major theme was the decolonisation of universities. University statues, such as that of Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town and many others, were pulled down or defaced. Within the discourse on decolonisation of curriculum, statues were viewed as symbols of maintaining and preserving the colonial hegemony that is being sustained by a Western or Eurocentric curriculum taught at universities. These developments led to a national discourse, which, among others, highlighted universities as spaces of exclusion because of residual colonial features. These protests became represented by hashtags such as #RhodesMustFall. These protests indicated a conflict and contest to eradicate the remnants of colonialism, as represented by statues (#YourStatueMustFall), which some protesters argued should be replaced by symbols of black liberation and anti-apartheid iconic symbols (#MyStatueShouldBeErectedInstead). For an integrated South Africa, with its constitutional ideals of a rainbow nation, a discourse of coexistence is required (#BothOurStatuesShouldBeErected). In this situation, a contextually engaged reformatory public practical theology is required to contribute to a constructive discourse and coexistence.

scholarly journals Sense (Scents) of South Africa

1999 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-5
Author(s):  
Katherine F. Shepard
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Health Care ◽  
South African ◽  
Health Care Facilities ◽  
Speech Pathology ◽  
African Society ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Care Facilities ◽  
The University ◽  
Physiotherapy Education

This paper presents a brief description of some of the author’s perceptions of the land, of physiotherapy education and practice and of the struggle of the nation of South Africa acquired during a 4 week visit in late spring 1997. One week was spent in Cape Town participating in several venues at the International Congress of the South African Society of Physiotherapy. Three weeks were spent at the University of the Witswatersrand in Johannesburg presenting a course in qualitative research to health care colleagues representing the disciplines of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology and occupational health. During the time in Johannesburg several health care facilities were visited including Baragwanath Hospital, Natal Hospital and the Wits Rural Facility and Tinswalo Hospital at Acornhoek.

Isaac Schapera 1905–2003

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Kuper
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
London School ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Graduate Seminar ◽  
Northern Cape ◽  
London School Of Economics ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

Isaac Schapera (1905–2003), a Fellow of the British Academy, spent the second half of his long life in London but remained very much a South African. His parents immigrated to South Africa at the turn of the century from what is now Belarus, and settled in Garies, a small town in the semi-desert district of Little Namaqualand, in the Northern Cape. As an undergraduate at the University of Cape Town, Schapera was introduced to ‘British social anthropology’ by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, one of the founding fathers of the discipline, the other being Bronislaw Malinowski. He then became one of the first members of Malinowski’s post-graduate seminar at the London School of Economics. Towards the end of his career, Schapera preferred to describe himself as an ethnographer rather than as an anthropologist. His research in the 1930s and 1940s was distinguished by a concern with ‘social change’, a focus endorsed in South Africa by Malinowski in London.

van Wyk Louw, Nicolaas Petrus (1906–1970)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heilna du Plooy
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
The Family ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
Literature History ◽  
Faculty Of Education ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

N. P. Van Wyk Louw is regarded as the most prominent poet of the group known as the Dertigers, a group of writers who began publishing mainly in the 1930s. These writers had a vision of Afrikaans literature which included an awareness of the need of thematic inclusiveness, a more critical view of history and a greater sense of professionality and technical complexity in their work. Van Wyk Louw is even today considered one of the greatest poets, essayists and thinkers in the Afrikaans language. Nicolaas Petrus van Wyk Louw was born in 1906 in the small town of Sutherland in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. He grew up in an Afrikaans-speaking community but attended an English-medium school in Sutherland as well as in Cape Town, where the family lived later on. He studied at the University of Cape Town (UCT), majoring in German and Philosophy. He became a lecturer at UCT, teaching in the Faculty of Education until 1948. In 1949 he became Professor of South African Literature, History and Culture at the Gemeentelijke Universiteit van Amsterdam. In 1960 he returned to South Africa to become head of the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johanneshurg. He filled this post until his death in 1970.

scholarly journals BARNARD Christian NetLink (to the 95th of birthday and 50th anniversary of the first in the world successful heart transplant)

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 254
Author(s):  
Alexander Alekseevich Andreev ◽  
Anton Petrovich Ostroushko
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Heart Transplant ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Assistant Professor ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cardiothoracic Surgeon ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

Barnard (Barnard) Christian Nettling South African surgeon, performed the first successful heart transplant man, he was born in 1922 in Beaufort West in South Africa. In 1940 he graduated from school in 1946, the medical faculty of the University of Cape town. In 1953 he received the degree of doctor of medicine at the medical school of the University of Cape town. In 1956, he studied cardiac surgery in the US, where in 1958 he received the degree of doctor of medicine. After returning to South Africa K. Barnard was appointed cardiothoracic surgeon, and soon the head of surgical research, Department of cardiothoracic surgery at the clinic of the University of Cape town. In the October 1959 Christian Bernard is the first in Africa performed a successful kidney transplant. In 1962 he held the post of assistant Professor in the Department of surgery of the University of Cape town. December 3, 1967 K. Barnard and his colleagues have performed the first successful orthotopic transplantation of the human heart. In 1972 he was appointed Professor of surgical Sciences at the University of Cape town. In 1974 K. Barnard produced the world's first heterotopic heart transplant man. In 1981 he developed the patronage system of the heart by conducting hypothermic perfusion. In 1983, K. Barnard, resigned. He is the author of the autobiographical book "One life" (1970), published in co-authorship with Z. Stander anti-racist novel "Undesirable elements" (1974). Christian Barnard died on 2 September 2001, Paphos, Cyprus.

scholarly journals The Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-49
Author(s):  
Andrew Kerr ◽  
Martin Wittenberg
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Data Repository ◽  
Household Surveys ◽  
The South ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

Abstract The Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series (palms) is a compilation of microdata from 69 household surveys conducted in South Africa. The dataset and the code used to create the data are publicly available from DataFirst, a data repository at the University of Cape Town (www.doi.org/10.25828/gtr1-8r20). To harmonise the data required understanding the differences across the surveys, which has generated new knowledge about the South African labour market.

Bretyenbach, Breyten (1936–)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hein Viljoen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
South African Government ◽  
The South ◽  
African Government ◽  
Public Figure ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University ◽  
Poetry Collection

Breyten Breytenbach is the foremost poet among the "Sestigers," a prolific painter, and also a controversial public figure. He was born in Bonnievale, South Africa, studied in Cape Town and went into voluntary exile in Paris after marrying Ngo Thi Huang Lien, a Vietnamese woman (also known as Yolande). To date he has published nineteen volumes of poetry, several collections of essays, seven parts of an autobiography, two highly controversial plays, and two novels. His surrealist-type work is inspired by a Zen-Buddhist sense of the mindful continuity underlying mutable existence. An uncanny ability to transform and permutate words and to bend language to his own will characterises his work. After studying at the Michaelis School of Art at the University of Cape Town, Breytenbach travelled to Europe, working in different places before settling as a painter in Paris in 1962. He lived in voluntary exile in Paris, as the South African government refused to give his "non-white" wife a visa. He made his debut in 1964 with the poetry collection Die ysterkoei moet sweet [The Iron Cow Must Sweat] and a collection of uncannily flavored short prose works, Katastrofes [Catastrophes] (both awarded the APB Prize in 1966). These works were highly original and innovative, and made use of surrealist techniques to depict a reaching out towards Zen satori.

scholarly journals Robin Ralph Jamison, 12 July 1912 - 18 March 1991

1994 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 171-194
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
World War I ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Large Family ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

Robin Ralph Jamison (RRJ) was born in Horsham, Sussex, on 12 July 1912. He was the third of four brothers born to Reginald Jamison and Eanswythe Elstreth Heyworth. Two large family portraits of RRJ’s maternal grandparents have always adorned the hall of RRJ’s residence in Bristol, and two senior test pilots from the same Heyworth family served Rolls- Royce at Hucknall for many years. Both RRJ’s father and his grandfather were medical practitioners and, at one time, it was thought that RRJ too would follow them into the profession. During World War I RRJ’s father, Reginald, served in White Russia, where he developed asthma from which he subsequently suffered badly. In consequence, on his return to the UK he was advised to move to a warmer, drier climate. Thus in 1921 the whole Jamison family moved to South Africa, where Reginald set up practice in Cape Town. For the most part the family took to their new life happily enough, although RRJ’s mother found herself homesick for the country of her birth. This manifested itself in a desire to see all her boys educated in the UK. In the event, the two elder brothers, Peter and Antony, went to Dartmouth and subsequently joined the Navy, and the youngest, Ivor, also went to school in Britain. He was later taken prisoner when Tobruk surrendered to Rommel. RRJ turned out to be the only one of the four to be educated entirely in South Africa. This was mostly because, from an early age, he suffered from very poor eyesight. From the Diocesan College, Rondebosch, Cape, he moved to the South African College in Cape Town and, finally, to the University of Cape Town in 1929. He was a bright child academically and was only 16 when he was accepted for university.

scholarly journals A life in human rights: a conversation with Dennis Davis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tor Krever
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
The South ◽  
High Court ◽  
Appeal Court ◽  
Leading Position ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

Abstract Dennis Davis is Judge of the High Court of South Africa, Judge President of the Competition Appeal Court, and Honorary Professor of Law at the University of Cape Town. In this wide-ranging conversation with Tor Krever, he reflects on his political and intellectual trajectory—from early encounters with Marx to anti-apartheid activism to a leading position in the South African judiciary—and his lifelong commitment to a radical left politics.

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