INDEPENDENT MEDIA Minister of Arts and Culure Nathi Mthethwa is handed over a portrait painting of the late Chief Albert Luthuli by UKZN Vice Chancellor for Humanities Professor Cheryl Potgieter and Chief Luthuli's grand daughter Zanele Hlatshwayo. File photo: Rajesh JantilalOur students, both black and white, must walk past statues and be inspired, says Pinky Khoabane.
Johannesburg - The sudden enlightenment sweeping across university campuses, with students demanding the removal of symbols of oppression, should not be open for debate. Why would we shun the German Nazi Party symbols and expect South Africans, Africans in particular, to accept symbols of colonialism and apartheid?
The statues and names that represent a vile history perpetuated by evil men must go. In their place should be a project that symbolises the aspirations of the majority of South Africans to cherish and honour the contributions of the heroes and heroines of this country.
It should be a project of symbols that signify the other side of our history, of men and women who sacrificed their lives to bring us this democracy. It must be a story of hope and triumph, a story that tells of a history of men and women who, against all odds, and who, under the systematic brutality of centuries, rose up to be thinkers, writers, academics, intellectuals and champions for the rights of Africans. It should be a narrative that instils pride in our children, that this country had black intellectuals and academics, men and women, as far back as the 1800s.
Standing on the lawns of all of our institutions, including academia, we should have men and women of honour, people who dedicated their lives to a non-racial, just and democratic South Africa, instead of thugs who made their riches from the sweat and blood of black miners.
Men and women of the calibre of Pixley ka Isaka Seme, John Tengo Jabavu, Solomon Plaatje, Tiyo Soga, Charlotte Makgomo Maxeke, Benedict Vilakazi, Albert Luthuli and many more ought to grace our institutions of higher learning.
Soga, born in 1829, was considered to be the first major modern African intellectual. He graduated from the University of Glasgow with a theology degree. According to the Presidency, which awarded him the Order of Ikhamanga, Soga wrote the “earliest- known journal by a black South African”. He recorded “fables, proverbs, legends and the genealogy of chiefs”, according to the biography on the Presidency’s website.
Our students, black and white, must be able to see Maxeke’s statue daily and be reminded of her contribution to the fight against racial and gender discrimination.
Maxeke was born in 1874 and graduated from Wilberforce University in Ohio with a BSc degree, the first African woman to earn such a degree. She was a women’s rights activist and co-founded the Bantu Women’s League in 1918, which was the first women’s rights organisation in South Africa. She defied the racist and patriarchal society that placed limitations on women, black women in particular. She stands as a symbol of triumph over a system that has discriminated against women, especially in academia, as evident from the low number of appointments held by women.
Jabavu was born in 1859. His love for reading books and newspapers led to a career in journalism. By 1881, he was editor of Isigidimi samaXhosa (The Xhosa Messenger). In 1884, at the age of 25, he founded the first independent newspaper written in an indigenous language, Imvo Zabantsundu (Black Opinion). I mean, how inspirational is that in a country that is continuing to struggle with a publishing world that presents views largely through a Western prism?
Plaatje, born in 1876, is among South Africa’s treasured intellectuals. He was a journalist, linguist and politician who co-founded the South African Native National Congress, later the ANC. He was also an editor and part-owner of three newspapers: Koranta ea Becoana (Batswana Gazette) and Tsala ea Becoana (The Friend of Batswana), later renamed Tsala ea Batho (The People’s Friend).
He was also the first African to write a novel in English. Those interested in publishing can draw inspiration from Plaatje’s ability to publish newspapers and write novels under the kind of hardships he endured.
Seme, a founding member of the ANC, was born in 1881. A scholar at Columbia University, in New York, he won the university’s highest award for oratory for his speech, “The Regeneration of Africa”. From Columbia, Seme went to Jesus College at Oxford University, where he read for a degree in law. In 1910, he returned home and set up a law firm in Joburg.
Imagine the effect this kind of information has on a student whose view of law is simply one of an industry out to make loads of money and nothing else? What does it do to those who have lost faith in fighting for the downtrodden and the voiceless?
We have people like Dr Vilakazi, the first black academic to receive a PhD and after whom Vilakazi Street in Soweto is named. He lectured in the Bantu Studies department at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1935, becoming the first black South African to teach white South Africans at university level. Vilakazi was a prolific writer, with many isiZulu poems and books to his name, and collaborated with Wits University linguist Professor CM Doke in compiling an isiZulu-English dictionary.
Luthuli was the first African to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to him in 1960 for his “love of humanity” and “intolerance of racial bigotry and oppression”, as then-president Thabo Mbeki described him at the launch of the Luthuli Legacy Project about a decade ago.
Imagine if it were Luthuli, and not Rhodes, whose statue stood on the lawns of an institution of higher learning? Imagine the values the example of his life would impart to young minds?
Our students, both black and white, must walk past the statues of these men and women and be inspired by people who, as far back as the 1800s and despite all the discrimination they encountered, rose to fight injustice and to contribute positively to the South Africa of today.
The time for the fall of these statues and for further transformation of our country has come.
We cannot falter.
* Pinky Khoabane is an author, writer and columnist.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Sunday Independent