HACkers blog

Julius Caesar was slain in the Senate. I'm beginning to understand why.

During the two hours and forty-one minutes for which it stretched, the Senate considered the ten items on the agenda. Or rather, ten agenda items were ticked as "done" with intermittent engagement of the braincells gathered in the room.

I suppose one should expect it, really, when the documentation - 3kg of paper - only arrived the day before the meeting, in a language not recognisable as English and not following any of the conventions commonly associated with what we know as "grammar", but nonetheless those of us who still cling to archaic notions of the University as a place of debate and critical engagement shuffled down the Hill and filled our seats. A bit like children still pretending to believe in Father Christmas in the hope that he still believes in them enough to continue with the presents...

The Campus Guide Plan was presented, sort of. A couple of bad overheads were put up, and the point made that we're moving from a "suburban" model to an "urban" one, which seemed the thrust of it. Everyone around me bristled, and none of the noises I heard were good, but this somehow translated into Senate support for the initiative, which now goes to Council for more support. In the absence of a vote, I'm not entirely sure how the Chair could distinguish positive grunts from negative ones, but perhaps the idea of high-rise buildings, increased smog and street children huddled in our doorways appeals on an emotive level to allow him that interpretation. The good news, though, is we're unlikely ever to be able to afford any of it, so for now it's business as usual.

The Admissions Policy proposed by a task team which was not the task team as constituted, nor chaired by the appointed chair, for 2007, was also debated. In a curious sequence of events, the policy was presented, a proposal made by the presenter for its adoption, and a seconder sought before any questions of clarity or debate was allowed. But once that can of worms was opened, it became abundantly clear why - the longer debate was allowed to run, the more issues were raised and the stronger the lobby for rejecting it grew. After several aeons, and some panic about What To Do On 1 Jan When Faculties Needed Guidelines To Work With, the thing was squashed and the status quo ante invoked. Whoever constituted the task team that wasn't the constituted task team must now be slitting their wrists over the time wasted on the activity. One can only hope their line managers, during their performance appraisals, are more generous.

By the time the last few items were discussed, there were few survivors. When it came to thanking the outgoing Dean of Science for his contribution, they had to be wakened to participate in the standing ovation. As the meeting was closed and people fled out of the doors, the universal sentiment expressed was "now I remember why I never go to these things!".

It also sheds light on the policy of no weapons on Campus....

I saw an article in a weekend newspaper about the ongoing debates about language of instruction at Stellenbosch "University". Having been a quota student there in the 80s, I was wondering what all the fuss was about.

It appears that that "liberale / linksgesinde" ("liberal / left-leaning") Rector, Chris Brink, is considering instituting a language policy which provides for dual, or possibly parallel, medium instruction. English will be allowed to tiptoe into lectures, quietly, so as not to disturb the ghosts of the Apartheid luminaries after whom most of the campus buildings are named.

Apparently, a band of intrepid academics, with Herman Giliomee in the vanguard, are terrified that this will corrupt the character of Skelmbos. "Stellenbosch," we were told as newbie undergrads in the 80s, "staan vir 'n idee". (Stellenbosch stands for an idea.) The one and only ever protest march on that campus, back in 1985, was widely decried and future protest action banned on the grounds that it was "incompatible with the nature and function of [that] 'university' ". The _kind_ of idea for which Stellenbosch stood was thus firmly cast as conservative at best, reactionary in the minds of many, and downright racist as experienced by the dozen or so black students who studied there under sufferance at the time.

Might this "idea" be corrupted by allowing English into lectures? Please god, were it so simple... If using the language of Shakespeare meant one fewer pellet in the leg of a passing woman outside Bekfluitjie hostel, one fewer student beaten up in res on suspicion of being gay, one fewer nervous breakdown of a firstyear during "doop" (initiation), then bring it on! If speaking English could have that kind of civilising effect, we'd probably be worshipping at the statue of Rhodes instead of wanting to deface it.

But my bemusement has less to do with the groundlessness of "Rooinekgevaar" sentiment being bandied about than with images of stable doors and horses and bolting... Rather like the Afrikaners' quest to legislate "racial purity" some hundreds of years after their antecedents had been doing their damndest to advance the cause of "miscegenation", this is all a bit too hysterical, a bit too late, a bit too pointless.

English has always been allowed - i always had class tests and exams presented to me in English, athough I preferred to write in Afrikaans; the option to submit assignments, theses or other work in English was always guaranteed. While presribed textbooks were always Afrikaans (written by the lecturers themselves, in a burgeoning cottage industry) there were always far better ones in English to be swiped from the KGB (Koos Gericke Biblioteek - the Library) and, with the rise of the Bloeiende Afrikaner (Bleeding Afrikaner) in the 80s, increasing numbers of students were choosing to converse in English, to hang out with the 13% of tolerated "andertaliges" (English Speakers) and even to dally with centre-left politics by launching a NUSAS branch.

But perhaps more significantly, English has always had a presence in lectures. Not just from students asking questions - many lectures were presented, and accepted without murmur, in English; many lecturers were not conversant, or fluent, or lacked the discourse, in Afrikaans - as one would expect if scholars were really drawn from an international community rather than a local inbred one, though this was the reason in only a small number of cases.

Why the outcry over what is merely the formalisation of a situation that has existed, de facto, for at least 25 years? Is symbolism really so much more important than substance?