Prof. Jansen’s blurred vision: A response to Rhoda Kadalie

Forgiveness is a privilege enjoyed by those who offer contrition; a gift from the wronged to the wrongdoer, with reconciliation as a goal. A goal that ought to raise both the wronged and the wrongdoer above the wrong. This is my understanding of the concept of forgiveness. If you disagree with this understanding then I doubt very much whether you will find any of what follows agreeable.

I hold Rhoda Kadalie in high regard. I do so for her incisive and uncompromising ability to articulate her views on many of our difficult social and political issues. This she does without fear, favour or prejudice; not to mention sycophancy. This is the chief cause of my disappointment with her opinion carried by the BusinessDay in its 22 October 2009 issue. I must at this point state that I agree with a lot of what she says in that opinion save for the basis of her defence of Prof. Jansen’s decision firstly to withdraw the charges against the students who have come to be known as the Reitz four and to allow those students back onto campus for the purposes of continuing their studies.

I hold Prof. Jansen in high regard. His credentials both as a human being and as an academic leader are nothing less than impeccable. He is a leader among his peers and considering where he comes from to get here, his leadership is even more astounding than Rhoda Kadalie describes it in the opinion. As much as I hold Prof Jansen and many other leaders of our society, I have on occasion had cause to disagree with him. I am no judge on these matters and I am not qualified to even tie the Professor’s shoes but disagree I do. When the Professor wrote in The Times that the cause of decline of standards and performance of poor previously white schools was the influx of black pupils, I disagreed with him. When the Professor misunderstands forgiveness, as I believe he did when he made the decisions in question, I disagree with him as I disagree with Nelson Mandela on the same subject.

Back to the opinion. That Prof. Jansen is the best thing to have happened to the University of the Free State is without doubt the gospel truth. That he will, all things being equal, achieve the reconciliation and integration he has set out in his inauguration speech, is similarly beyond any doubt. That the ANC is latching onto this issue as with many others, to gain political mileage is similarly true. That is what political parties do. However, to state as Rhoda Kadalie does that his withdrawal of the charges and allowing the Reitz four back onto campus, is visionary, reconciliatory or that it will purge the University of the rot is with respect, ill-conceived. For this reason alone I beg that the decision be reviewed at the least.

Rhoda Kadalie will no doubt remember the late Chief Justice Mohamed. While sitting as a judge, I believe it was in Namibia, he was implored by a defence counsel to show mercy on some white youth who out of primitive passion and alcohol had beaten an elderly black man to death. The defence counsel argued that these young men are but a product and reflection of the society they have been raised by. Their upbringing, so the argument went, has caused them not to have proper regard of black life as human life and so on and so forth. The late Chief Justice rejected the plea and the reasons advanced for it. He said: “To allow the 'racist socialisation' of pre-independence Namibia to operate as a mitigating circumstance, after the new Constitution has been publicly adopted, widely disseminated, and vigorously debated both in Namibia and the international community, would substantially be to subvert the objectives of the Constitution, to impair the process of national reconciliation and nation building and to retard the speed with which Namibian society has to recover from the legacy of its colonial past."

I am persuaded by this argument. Moreover, if the Professor were to follow the thread of integration and reconciliation that Rhoda Kadalie argues justifies the decision, then he will quickly arrive at a point where the “Sotho-Tswana” (sic) members of the community will tell him that one does not call an older person by their first name. Once the Professor arrives at this point, it will be difficult for him to even watch let alone condone the Reitz video. I cannot reach any other conclusion than that the conduct of the students is condoned in the face of the decision by the university not to apply its own disciplinary rules and processes.

That the ANC, Cosatu, Media and other social formations and institutions have come out sensationalizing or have come out against the Professor’s person is a red-herring. That Rhoda Kadalie disagrees with these formations and institutions (largely for good reasons) should not corner her into an illogical support of a wrong and unjust decision.

I ask that Rhoda Kadalie consider the following story that took place at one of our better universities. It was common practice at the men’s residences of this university for students to drink a lot, to be rowdy and then to vomit at various public areas of the residence. This was affectionately known as parking a tiger and some house committees even had prizes for the best tiger parked by a young man, whatever that means. So, the practice was not only tolerated, it was encouraged. The student who had parked a tiger would then have to pay R20 or so, which would then be given to the woman who has the unpleasant task of cleaning the vomit. The woman would be part of the cleaning staff employed by the university who invariably was from somewhere on the Cape Flats. She would invariably have children of her own probably the same age or older than the students whose vomit she cleaned for R20.

I now beg of both Rhoda Kadalie and the Professor to at least review what they believe to be good reasons for the Professor’s decision and to consider whether the decision is as visionary and reconciliatory as it is held out to be.

Finally, I ask Rhoda Kadalie to consider what message she believes the Professor is sending to the women who were humiliated by these sons of the University of the Free State. The apology on behalf of the university and by extension on behalf of the Reitz four nor the compensation cannot be enough to dissuade me that the view of the university community is that these women in their blue overalls do not matter. Just like the women from the Cape Flats who cleaned young men’s vomit for R20.

The University of the Free State could not have found a better leader than Prof Jansen but it can do better; it can have the Prof and a leader who has the courage to admit when he is wrong.