This book provides reflections on the butterfly effect on how Turfloop brought in the Age of Barack Obama. What is the Age of Barack Obama?
To paraphrase Dr Ineke Van Kessel, a prominent historian at the Leiden University in the Netherlands:
The University of the North also known as Turfloop, played a vital role as the center of communication, coordination, ideological direction... the engine of bringing the new South Africa was University of the North
We approached this book like detectives. Fortunately in our detective work, we were not concerned with a particular agenda; we were not trying to prove that a certain method of thinking was right or wrong. We didn't want this book to be filled with personal opinions and biases. We wanted this book to be juice and accessible to every person who reads it in whatever corner of the world. We have to back up our story with facts, of course, and get other people to do practical analysis and later, we added our own perspectives.
When we completed writing this book, we passed it around amongst critical people spread across the globe. Most of them said that the book is somehow highbrow and, at the same time all together lowbrow, which came as a compliment. A lot of people are somewhere in between. We want this book to embody that, because there are many people there... we want them to appreciate this book.
Turfloop: Conscious Pariah
How the University of the North brought in the Age of Barack Obama beyond our Wildest DreamsTrafford Publishing
Copyright © 2010 Chris Kanyane
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4269-2461-3Contents
Preface................................................................................................................viiIntroduction: The Age of Barack Obama..................................................................................xiChapter 1: The Idea of a University for Africans.......................................................................1Chapter 2: University of the North: A detailed look....................................................................21Chapter 3: Ideological Underpinnings...................................................................................32Chapter 4: The Turfloop Testimony......................................................................................42Chapter 5: Soweto Uprising.............................................................................................48Chapter 6: The formation of United Democratic Front....................................................................62Chapter 7: Black Academic Staff Association............................................................................67Chapter 8: Pressures exerted on the apartheid State and the Decline of the University of the North.....................74Chapter 9: The New University of the North.............................................................................100Chapter 10: University of Limpopo: A True African University in a Globalised World.....................................117References.............................................................................................................147
Chapter One
The Idea of a University for Africans
Higher education for Blacks in South Africa dates to 1916 with the establishment of the African Native College.
Until 1960, universities in South Africa fell into two categories: the English language universities of Cape Town, the Witwatersrand, Natal and Rhodes; and the Afrikaans language universities of Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Potchestroom, and the Free State. The University of South Africa was unique in that it was the only distance education university which offered instruction in both English and Afrikaans. Students of all races could register without violating the apartheid policy of strict racial segregation.
Apart from the medium of instruction, the universities were governed by two fundamentally different philosophies. The English language universities emphasized the supreme importance of academic freedom and academic autonomy. They maintained that the university should select its students on no grounds other than academic ones. They contended that the university should be free to administer its own courses, syllabi, curricula, and examinations without reference to external authority.
The Afrikaans language universities insisted that the university be compelled to conform to national policy and social order. The primary aim of the university, according to this philosophy, was to serve its community. This is enshrined in Article 14 of the Christian-National Education Manifesto of 1948 which said: with regard to the national principle, we believe that the coloured man can be made race conscious if the principle of apartheid is strictly applied in education ...,
The different in approach can be traced to the cultural backgrounds of the two language groups. Whilst the English language universities, true to their liberal tradition, opened their doors to non white students, the Afrikaans universities were closed to people of colour - apparently in defense of ethnic purity.
Of particular interest was that in that great debate on the nature of the university, the black perspective had no forum. Even in the liberal English universities where few non whites students were found they were psychological conguered and could do nothing to raise their concerns, theirs were to go to the lecture room sit down and take notes. Nelson Mandela recalled that even in the lecture rooms, white students would move if a black student sat near them. The environment in the English universities reminded all non whites that they were not part of the university community.
Towards the middle of the 1950s it was felt that the number of universities for Black students should be increased, so in 1959 the Parliament of the Union of South Africa passed the Extension of University Education Act. The Act established two additional university colleges for Blacks, one for coloureds and one for Indians.
The University College of the North was founded on 1 August, 1959, as a to serve the Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Tsonga, Tswana and Venda ethnic communities. However, the University has on occasion accepted students from South West Africa (Namibia), Zimbabwe and Malawi.
The establishment of ethnic universities should be viewed against the apartheid policy of, "separate development," South Africa's white, coloured, Asian and the eight Bantu nations were called separate nations. Every aspect of life was dominated by the thought: to what group does that man belong? The universities that were created by the University Act of 1959 were meant to prepare their graduates for future participation in the development of their ethnic communities.
The first council of the University of the North was appointed on 14 August 1959 and its first advisory council on 1 January 1960. The first senate was constituted in September, 1960 and met for the first time on 13 October.
The members of the council of the University were whites, appointed by the Minister of Bantu Education. The advisory council was composed entirely of non whites but controlled by whites. According to official policy, this arrangement was for the good of the non white and there was a promise that the University would be handed over to the non whites as soon as they were ready, to manage the University.
Parliament stipulated at the inception of the University College of the North that the institution should fall under the academic trusteeship of the University of South Africa. This relationship functioned reasonably well, but gradually it became evident that the university college would be able to do justice to its own unique character and realize its ideals only if it could develop on its own. Thus in 1969, the Republic of South Africa Parliament made provision for the academic independence through the University of the North Act (Act No. 47 of 1969), and on 1 January, 1970, the decade-long relationship with the University of South Africa was dissolved, and the University of the North came into being.
The first Black rector and Principal (Professor WM Kgware) of any university in South Africa was appointed to the University of the North on 1 January 1977. Thus University of the North provided the ideological leadership for other Black universities in South Africa and in neighboring countries. The appointment of Kgware was spearheaded by what would later become known as the Turfloop testimony.
The Council of the University was reconstituted on 1 January, 1978. This was also a result of Turfloop testimony. The Turfloop Testimony ideals were soon to spread through townships and villages.
At the same time the University Council was reconstituted, the predominantly black Advisory Council was abolished - again in the spirit of the Turfloop Testimony. A vice rector was installed.
The first rector of the university was Prof E.F Potgieter, a white Afrikaner...
