
Foto van Frederik van Dyk: verskaf; foto van Universiteit Stellenbosch-kampus: http://www.sun.ac.za/english
Agtergrond:
Gelewer deur Frederik van Dyk namens StudentePlein in 2021 – voor die MRK-ondersoekkomitee ná taalwanpraktyke by Maties.
Background:
According to Afrikaans-speaking students at the university, a feeling that Afrikaans was not welcome anywhere prevailed.
A complaint was lodged at the Human Rights Commission in 2021. In the ruling this week, the University of Stellenbosch is instructed, among other things, to apologise in writing for the whole debacle.
Frederik van Dyk now shares his 2021 submission to the Human Rights Commission with LitNet.
Commissioners, members of the public, members of the press
Thank you for attuning your ears and minds and empathy to these hearings.
(I represent the non-profit organisation StudentePlein. SP endeavours to compile, store and distribute academic study materials in Afrikaans for the benefit of members.)
***
As an introduction, I point out how some might find it ironic that we conduct these hearings in English.
Some may even satirically gesture to the fact that my own testimony is in English, and subsequently argue that this phenomenon is resolutive of the entire Stellenbosch language conflict.
Yet, never once has any of the main players in this decades-old conflict taken a position that denies the utility of, or even the need for, a lingua franca in South African public spaces, including this university.
There is simply no evidence of an “anti-English”, an “Afrikaans first” or a language apartness agenda in all the pages of polemical writing on this topic. In the same way that one cannot simply dismiss Bikoism, Black Consciousness, Open Stellenbosch or even the RhodesMustFall movement as “anti-white”, one cannot simply dismiss the arguments for the sustainable, meaningful inclusion of Afrikaans at Stellenbosch University as “anti-English”.
Moreover, should we not be acutely sensitive to the fact that those who may point out this apparent irony are failing entirely to interrogate the disproportional impact of English language domination? All that such detractors really accomplish, is to argue in favour of the false dichotomy of our society having no sociolinguistic choice between overall Englishness on the one road, and severe multilingual apartness on the other.
(Pause)
***
I came here to testify to a lived reality, not to trial a policy.
This enquiry was launched to address particular issues, to form a factful picture of a possibly uninclusive state of affairs.
I proceed to remind us all of the Stellenbosch University management’s testimony, led by Rector De Villiers in this very place, on 10 May. I remind you all of how the SU management chose to couch their testimony in the form of a defence – an exaltation, even – of the 2016 language policy.
In answering the subject matter of what had happened here, the rector chose to refer all of us to the 2016 language policy. In answering the factual allegations of what may be, the rector referred us to what ought to be.
Yet I come to testify to lived reality, not to assess broad policy. I do not testify here to debate the rector and management’s defence of their policy. For are they not honourable persons and good managers, and therefore fair their language policy, and inclusive the university, with, therefore, all outcomes being fair? I am here to speak what I have come to learn.
(Pause)
***
- In early 2020, our organisation was born to facilitate the compilation and distribution of Afrikaans learning material. This serves the three-tiered purpose of (firstly) helping our members in their studies, (secondly) keeping the heartbeat of academic Afrikaans going for the benefit of the language’s continued development and vitality, and (thirdly), of particular importance to this inquiry, to create a collegial space for interaction between student-members studying in Afrikaans.
Yet our efforts at StudentePlein are unnecessary, because of the language policy. “Surely, the policy already provides for Afrikaans; what more do you want?” Such questions did even some from our own community ask of us.
Because, surely, a policy determines reality.
This is what the rector and SU management held before this commission – and they are honourable persons; and thus fair is their language policy, and fair is the university, and the university is inclusive.
- By the first weeks of March, our organisation, StudentePlein, had signed up about 30 students, which increased to about 80 in the month after classes commenced. We foresaw this demand for our Afrikaans academic material, and we were in the process of sourcing more material when the reports came in of Only English to be spoken in first-year student circles. This was being enforced by residence leaders, particularly house committee members.
Mr Albertus Liebenberg, whose testimony you will hear online, uncovered such practices at the Irene ladies’ residence. Mr William Sezoe found such issues in the AmaMaties cluster of residences. Mrs Milda van Dyk, who will testify today at 15h00, experienced these practices in Minerva. Despite the fear and shame raging amid her peers, she represented them bravely.
None of these heroics are necessary, however. The SU management reacted by pointing to their language policy. Unlike with other past instances of discrimination, an immediate inquiry was not called. The onus is on the students to sort out their grievances – complaints that are surely shams, because the policy determines reality. The SU management thus concluded that students must be experiencing issues that do not exist, despite the complaints and stories flowing to StudentePlein.
Yet, management consists of honourable persons, as you all know; and thus fair is their language policy, and fair is the university, and the university is inclusive.
- StudentePlein helped the Minerva students by going through the cumbersome process of complaining to house committee members, then to the resident head, who spoke of how she felt intimidated by some Minerva house com members who enforced these decrees. Finally, a meeting with the director of student communities, Mr Pieter Kloppers, in mid-March led to Mr Kloppers agreeing to keep StudentePlein updated on a process of transparent investigation and auditing of such practices, with appropriate restorative steps taken.
But such a process is redundant, surely, because the SU management had pointed to the language policy, and hence nothing could actually go wrong.
And, as we know, they are honourable persons. And thus fair is their language policy, and fair is the university, and the university is inclusive.
Accordingly, the endless, drawn-out conversations were acceptable, in contrast with the haste with which earlier cases of bullying of first-years (ontgroening), and racial, sexuality and gender discrimination were handled by management. And so, it was acceptable to host private engagements with the residence leaders involved, but to host the first-years’ session with their supposed language bullies in the same room. For this process is led by honourable people.
And thus, it was justified for Student Affairs to release a statement prematurely on Facebook that all problems had been sorted out, albeit with the newcomers being skewered under the hawkish gaze of those who enforced the decrees.
Even this morning’s Deloitte audit report claims that these conversations, with first-years under the gaze of language bullies, indicate the management’s self-resolution of the issue. For, as we know, management is honourable, and their policy is fair, and inclusive is their policy. It resolves all issues before they see the light.
(Pause)
****
Commissioners, friends
When I sat in this room during the management’s hearing, I was astounded by the efficacy of how management could determine reality by deferring to the language policy.
- The rector could claim that his own department of Afrikaans and Dutch studies was in no state to complain about language implementation on campus, or assess the campus environment for its microaggressions against Afrikaans as a public language, because they themselves approved the policy. In lived reality, this is a lie; their expertise or interest was never acknowledged.
- It allowed Dr Choice Mathekga to tell this commission how her Equality Unit had done its part for multilingualism with supposed programmes promoting a multilingual campus. In lived reality, this is a lie; Dr Kloppers admitted that while there is much focus on leadership training to approach issues of race, sexuality and gender, none such exists for language.
- It allowed the rector and management to dismiss these language incidents as mere anecdote, because the policy surely assured that no such discriminatory environment was possible.
In this alternate reality, created by the mere existence of a policy, the SU management could sit here and defer all issues, and tell lie upon lie.
And they could, because aren’t they all honourable people, and their policy fair, and their policy inclusive?
(Pause)
***
- Meanwhile, there is the reality of growing English Only domination, evidenced by StudentePlein’s growing number of members, students in search of Afrikaans learning material that grows scarcer by the day.
- Meanwhile, there are the students who came to us anonymously, or by proxy, to share their experience of a system that drives inclusion on the pillars of fear of authority, and being ashamed of daring to speak your mother tongue, because its mere use is sufficient to brand you as unreconstructed, or bent on apartness. “You must speak English,” they are told by people in authority who assume and encourage that language’s disproportional domination, “because otherwise you aren’t being all things to all people.”
- Meanwhile, we hear from students whose society marketing videos are not shown to newcomers, because a marketing video in Afrikaans is not inclusive. Go speak your language in your room, they imply.
- Meanwhile, there is a rector who stated in 2015 that SU has no duty to protect Afrikaans, and who stated to a fellow council member that full-blown anglicisation is best.
- Meanwhile, on Netwerk24 today, there is evidence of a council chairperson who assured the minister that Afrikaans, that hindrance to inclusion, will be removed. The rest is history.
Commissioners, there are two supposed realities to choose from here.
Management believes its policy shapes outcomes in reality. That is why they spent their testimony defending their policy.
We Afrikaans students know only a reality where English domination is enforced with the smile of inclusivity and the stick of fear and sociocultural shame. This environment encourages and rewards anglicisation and views a non-English language disposition, particularly an Afrikaans one, as inferior. That is why residence mentors have encouraged some of our students to “switch over to English studies” as quickly as possible. The evilest forms of domination do not need sweeping, identifiable legislation. They operate subtly and flourish in uncertainty.
Choose your reality, commissioners.
Also read:
DAK Netwerk se reaksie op die ondersoek van die MRK na die taalkwessie van die US
Opening the GG Cillié Building and visual redress at Stellenbosch University (VRSU)
’n Dekoloniale toekoms? Musiek, ras en taal aan die Universiteit Stellenbosch
Deal decisively with dehumanising institutional culture, or step aside