Opinion
LitNet contributors voice their opinions about current affairs.
University Seminar 2016: Achille Mbembe on the new politics of the South African student
2016-01-21"The students ... It’s a generation of people who are more and more convinced that they have been sold a lie ... And they are determined to put on the table some of the questions we have put under the carpet for a long time. All those difficult issues we have not tackled enough. And that shift, that cultural shift it seems to me is much more important than anything else, and it signals a new form of politics, at least on campuses."
This cannot go on
2016-01-13"And I ask: How would you feel, today, if your dad weren’t once allowed into Claremont at night? If you knew that your family had been systematically and purposely undermined for hundreds of years?"
Remembering and forgetting: Reflections on Francois Smith’s novel Kamphoer
2015-12-08"We tend to say so easily, forget about the past and go on to the future; it just does not work. The real challenge is to remember, perpetrators as well as victims, to remember what needs to be worked through and what needs to be forgiven. And then try and work against the natural tendency of continuing the pattern of oppression, with only a reversal of the roles from time to time."
Priorities for research in the field of education
2015-12-02"Resisting the popular media projection that education is in crisis, I ask instead what kind of research is able to bring the complexity of our current educational experiences into fuller view."
Monolingualism, not Afrikaans, must fall
2015-12-02"Afrikaans does not pose a problem that can be resolved simply by replacing it with English."
Niq Mhlongo on the writer as an agent of change
2015-11-23"Let me declare that the reading culture among the black South African youth is changing very fast."
Reclaiming Multilingualism
2015-11-18"'Colonialism,' Achille Mbembe wrote, 'rhymes with monolingualism.'"
The heart has spaces – the love letters of André Brink and Ingrid Jonker
2015-11-18Karina Magdalena Szczurek on André Brink and Ingrid Jonker: "No other woman in André’s life had left as indelible a mark on him as Ingrid. No other haunted me as much in the beginning of our relationship."
On gender and violence
2015-11-17"He turned to walk away and then turned back and stared at my legs. For what felt like a long time. He then looked up, licked his lips in a suggestive manner and walked away."
The fall of Afrikaans, and the rise of English
2015-11-16"One can only wonder what Hector Pieterson may have made of this 'new dawn'."
The role of African universities in the intellectualisation of African languages
2015-11-13"It is essential at this point to repeat that we cannot have an African renaissance without the development and intellectualisation of African languages."
#feesmustfall: Learning from protests past
2015-10-29"These divisions and the myriad of voices emanating from them, as well as the temptation to pursue more demands on the back of a major victory, present the student leadership at each institution and the collective leadership across the country with major challenges, but also with the opportunity to show what this country has been lacking for so long: leadership!"
23 October 2015, South Africa
2015-10-27"I remembered/ Bantu education./ Hector Pieterson./ Youth taking to the streets."
Solidarity Protest London
2015-10-22Calling all expats to the Student Solidarity Protest in London tomorrow.
Open Stellenbosch: “Why did God make me black?”
2015-10-16"The Use of Official Languages Act 12 of 2012 [...] in short requires of government departments and other authorities such as public enterprises to develop a language policy that will include at least three official languages. Out of the 139 language policies that the Act requires from government departments and related institutions only about 30 were presented. Let them therefore not preach to universities about language when in their own backyard very little is done."
Changes to the Copyright Act: what all South African artists and authors should know
2015-10-06Whose line is it anyway? Sophia Sanan, research manager of the African Arts Institute, answers Naomi Meyer's questions about the proposed Copyright Amendment Bill of 2015.
Video: Heritage and Belonging – a discussion on multilingualism
2015-09-30Open Stellenbosch held a discussion on multilingualism after a screening of the documentary Afrikaaps.
Open South Africa for local languages
2015-09-23"I am all for transformation. Which is why I believe Stellenbosch University should remain Afrikaans."
Abafundi abathetha iAfrikaans bangaziva njani ukuba bona bangafundiswa mhlawumbi ngesiXhosa? | How would Afrikaans-speaking students feel if they were taught in the medium of Xhosa?
2015-09-22"Mhlawumbi uyazibuza ukuba singayenza njani na le nto yokuphuhlisa iilwimi zesiNtu ukuze zibe kumgangatho ofanayo neAfrikaans?" | "Perhaps you are asking yourselves what we could do to improve African languages so that they reach the same level as Afrikaans?"
Afrikaans – an African language?
2015-09-21"From a diachronic viewpoint, Afrikaans has its roots in 17th-century Dutch, and has grown in African soil over a period of 360 years into a new language, distinct from other Western and Northern Germanic languages on all levels of linguistic description (morphological, phonological, syntactic and semantic), with the result that it has developed into an African language, a fact which is also reflected in its name."