Rector’s Note
Publisher’s Note
Connecting for Research Growth
A Moral Constitution for Justice, Dignity and Peace
Tutu the Ally
“Do you see this woman?”
What About Sisyphus and the Arch?
Rebuke, Repair, Reconcile
Religious Privilege and Intolerance
Professor Nico Orce
Status of Paralegals
Prof Tyrone Pretorius Rector and Vice-Chancellor
Welcome to the fifth edition of Signals . This edition is special for many reasons, but for me, it holds particular significance as it will be my final Signals publication before stepping down at the end of the year. It’s been an incredible journey, and I am honoured to have served this vibrant and resilient university community. This edition of Signals commemorates the life and legacy of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, a true champion of justice and human rights. Many of the articles are essays that explore his contributions to our world. They offer reflections and insights that I find both inspiring and thought-provoking.
The first article, “A Moral Constitution for Justice Dignity and Peace” by Sarojini Nadar, resonates deeply with me. It captures Tutu’s commitment to justice and dignity, which aligns with UWC’s mission to be a force for positive change. It’s also a powerful reminder of the role we all play in shaping a just society. In “Tutu the Ally: Lessons from Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Queer Advocacy”, Megan Robertson explores Tutu’s advocacy for LGBTIQ+ rights. Her writing brings to light Tutu’s courage and compassion and emphasises his belief that our liberation is interconnected. This essay serves as a call to action for all of us to stand as allies in the fight for equality. Miranda Pillay’s essay, “Do You See this Woman? Biblical-Based Gender Justice Inspired by Desmond Tutu” offers an engaging look at how Tutu’s experiences shaped his commitment to gender justice. Her reflections on Tutu’s efforts to uplift marginalised voices are both moving and motivational.
Demaine Solomons’ piece, “What about Sisyphus and the Arch? On Meaninglessness and the Labours of Love” draws fascinating parallels between Tutu’s work and the myth of Sisyphus. Solomons challenges us to embrace hope and perseverance even in the face of adversity. He reminds us of the power of persistence. Rhine Phillip Tsobotsi Koloti’s essay, “Rebuke Repair Reconcile: Stretching Tutu’s Restorative Justice for Contexts of Sexual Violence” critically examines Tutu’s approach to reconciliation, especially in cases of gender-based violence. Koloti’s thoughtful analysis calls for a justice system that truly prioritises healing and accountability. Lastly, Lee-Shae Salma Scharnick Udemans challenges us to think about Tutu’s “rainbow nation” and its impact on religious privilege. She draws attention to the ongoing work needed to achieve genuine inclusivity and diversity. Her insights call on us to reflect on our own roles in building a more equitable society.
Beyond these powerful essays, this edition also covers a range of other fascinating topics, from groundbreaking research initiatives and international collaborations to innovative projects in science and community engagement. We also have stories of resilience and creativity that characterise UWC’s commitment to excellence. I want to thank the contributors who have made this edition possible. Their work not only honours Archbishop Tutu’s legacy but also inspires us to keep pushing for a more just and compassionate world. As I prepare to wrap up my time as Vice-Chancellor, I’m filled with pride and gratitude for everything we’ve accomplished together. Thank you for being part of this journey with me. UWC’s research, teaching, and community engagement continue to thrive, and I have no doubt that the university will keep making great strides in these areas. I look forward to seeing the continued success and growth of our beloved university.
Prof José Frantz DVC: Research and Innovation
” Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. ” - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Welcome to Edition 5 of Signals, where we pay tribute to the life and legacy of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. As a beacon of hope and a tireless advocate for justice, peace, and human rights, Tutu’s work has left an indelible mark on South Africa and the world. Inside this special edition, you’ll find thought-provoking essays that delve into the multifaceted influence of Archbishop Tutu’s life and work. Our contributors examine the delicate interplay between faith and social justice, and how Tutu’s principles can guide our ongoing struggle for equality in the 21st century. Each piece offers a unique perspective, challenging readers to reflect on Tutu’s legacy and consider how we can apply his teachings to address contemporary issues. Through these diverse explorations, we invite you to gain new insights into Tutu’s enduring impact and find inspiration for your own efforts to create positive change. Each article offers a fresh perspective and invites us to think critically about the issues we face today and how we can make a positive impact.
This edition of Signals also examines how the University of the Western Cape supports a culture of innovation and social responsibility. At UWC, we are focused on pushing boundaries and challenging norms to create a better future for all. We believe in the power of education and research to drive change, and we’re proud to be part of a community that shares these values. As we reflect on Tutu’s legacy, we’re reminded of the importance of courage and compassion in making a difference. His life serves as an example of how one person can inspire change and bring people together. Let this edition of Signals be a source of inspiration and motivation to keep working towards a more just and equitable world.
I extend my sincere thanks to the contributors, editors, and everyone who helped bring this edition to life. Your hard work has created a publication that not only honours Tutu’s legacy but also sparks a passion for justice and change within our community. I also want to thank all our readers for taking the time to engage with this edition of Signals . We hope the insights and reflections shared here inspire you to take action and uphold the values that Tutu championed throughout his life.
The University’s Institutional Operating Plan (2021-2025) underscores the importance and value of UWC being connected to other institutions on the continent and elsewhere by placing internationalisation as one of four cross-cutting themes. This means that internationalisations should permeate all eight goal areas of the IOP and ensure that creating solid partnerships that assist the institution’s development and growth remains uppermost on our minds.
The Centre for Humanities Research, in partnership with the Deutsche Akademie der Kunste, Berlin and Deutschlandfunk Radio, Berlin, was awarded a ‘Turn2’ grant by the German Federal Cultural Foundation for a new research and sound arts project, ‘Oscillations’. The two-year project was awarded a grant of R2 500 000 to support the CHR’s research programme on sound and jazz at the Greatmore Hub.
Our partnership with the University of Missouri is a long-standing one, spanning several decades. The two institutions continue to deepen their engagements through exchange visits and jointly published scholarly work. An example is a recent visit by Dr Alina Slapac, Associate Professor, Department of Teacher Preparation and Leadership, to the Education Faculty as part of the UMSAEP-UWC Exchange Programme. The collaborative international partnership between Dr Slapac and UWC’s Dr Karen Collett is aimed at addressing the knowledge gap related to the value and sustainability of COIL programmess in teacher development, as well as informing improved practice about curriculum, faculty and student development. The collaboration has been endorsed and supported through
As part of the relationship between UWC and the Robben Island Museum (RIM), a new initiative, Unboxing Mayibuye: Access to Digital Archives was launched with funding from the French National Audiovisual Institute to help create conducive conditions for preserving, managing and accessing collections sections. The partnership between RIM and UWC dates back to 1991 when UWC formally launched the Mayibuye Centre with extensive multi-media archive collections of anti-apartheid material, the bulk donated mainly by the London-based International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF). In 1996 UWC’s Mayibuye ‘merged’ with the Robben Island Museum to become the UWC-Mayibuye-Robben Island Museum, hosted at UWC.
As an engaged university, we have identified the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a critical driver for our research agenda. The DVC: Research and Innovation addressed the role of higher education in addressing SDGs at the World Higher Education Conference in Spain in partnership with the University of Bergen and shared how UWC addresses the SDGs through teaching and learning, research and community engagement. Following this international engagement, UWC partnered with the Department of Science and Innovation in June to hold the first collaborative SDG Indaba to engage with issues on how UWC can assist the South African government in driving the SDGs and Agenda 2063, the development plan of the African Union.
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities’ African Language Studies department has engaged in a trilateral collaborative project with Ghent University and Missouri University to collect data on mammal names and compare this vocabulary across African languages. The project, co-facilitated by Prof Russell Kaschula and other international partners, has the potential to produce collaborative research articles. A Dutch publishing company has already accepted a new series of books.
The DHET, in partnership with the Norwegian funding agency, has facilitated international partnership arrangements for the eight Historically Disadvantaged Institutions. UWC, the University of Malawi and Norway’s VID Specialised University have signed a five-year student and staff mobility agreement with the first cohort of master’s students
that started last August in Norway. Prof John Klaasen and Dr Tiana Bosman are the UWC project leaders.
Prof Bradley Rink is part of an international team that was awarded funding through the Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) for Social Sciences and Humanities for the three-year project “Impact of Covid-19 on Livelihoods, Mobility and Accessibility of Marginalised Groups” and the interdisciplinary project will explore and compare the impact of the pandemic on the mobility, accessibility and livelihoods of marginalised groups
in Cape Town (South Africa), Ruhr Area (Germany) and São Paulo (Brazil) through a mixed-methods approach to understand the changing roles of physical access for urban marginalised groups during pandemics.
Dr Lucinda du Plooy represented the International office and the Faculty of Education at an International Week at University College Copenhagen (KP) to strengthen collaboration between our Danish partners, network with other potential countries, and join the global debate on Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion from an international perspective. She received the Erasmus Mundus Staff Mobility Grant for this staff exchange.
In the Institutional Operating Plan (2021-2025), internationalisation been embedded as a cross-cutting theme across all goal areas, as well as in the teaching and learning, and research and student development imperatives. In this edition, we highlight some of the most recent research partnerships that has been developed between individual researchers and the international research community.
1. Prof Marshall Keyster from the Department of Biotechnology has been selected as one of 40 mentors in the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) – UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) – Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Food Systems Network for Africa (FSNET) fellowship programme. ARUA – UKRI GCRF FSNet-Africa is a fellowship programme in which 20 early-career researchers from 10 academic partner institutions in six African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia) will conduct multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research focused on the transformation of African food systems.
2. Prof Duncan Brown of the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR) is part of a successful INTPART research project application through the University of Oslo to develop and strengthen the field of Environmental Humanities. The project, which has been awarded funding of R16.3-million, involves collaboration between the University of Oslo, the University of Santa Cruz, the University of Tokyo, the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape. The funding is directed towards staff and student exchanges, collaborative workshops, the potential development of joint postgraduate teaching and supervision, staff development, and co-authored publications. The project runs from 2021 to 2026.
3. Prof Bassey Antia (Linguistics Department) is the leader of the project Boosting the Use of African Languages in Education: A Qualified Organized Nationwide Development (BAQONDE Project) Strategy for South Africa. It is a threeyear collaborative, capacity-building project co-financed by the European Union. The project aims to promote the use of African languages in higher education in South Africa. The other institutions involved are North-West University, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Rhodes University and three European universities: Trinity College Dublin, the University of Groningen and the University of Salamanca.
4. Prof Ciraj Rassool (History Department) is part of an international group of principal investigators from Germany, Senegal, the UK, Cameroon and South Africa that was successful in being awarded a Volkswagen Foundation Grant for the project Re-connecting “Objects”: Epistemic Plurality
and Transformative Practices in and beyond Museums, which will run from October 2021 to May 2025. In the context of major social and environmental emergencies at a global scale, and amidst civil societies’ restitution claims across the world, this project intends to critically interrogate the histories of collections assembled during the colonial time, engage in the reconnection of interrupted chains of knowledge, and examine alternative forms of custody, object-handling and display in African and European museums. For this purpose, the project brings together researchers who will work in close dialogue with artists, museum professionals, students and various stakeholders on both continents. The overarching common endeavor is the creation of two complementary, site-specific research exhibitions held simultaneously in Oxford and Dakar during the 2024 Dak’art Biennale. Epistemic plurality is at the core of this project: all its components are thus designed to allow for the crossfertilization of multiple approaches, to open up the sedimented meanings of objects and to foster learning from practices beyond the museum. To this aim, a digital working tool, the “anticatalogue”, will be developed. It enables sustainable long-distance collaboration. Drawing relationships between the studied objects and documenting their historical evolution without reifying them, it can both act as a transversal working instrument to be used by all researchers across continents, and form a visual element of the exhibition in its own right.
5. Prof Ciraj Rassool (History Department) is part of an international network of scholars from museums and universities in Canada, the Netherlands, Poland and South Africa that successfully raised a substantial grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in Canada for a project, Thinking through the Museum. This project has a range of platforms and themes relating to the enhancement of social justice through museums. The emphasis at UWC will be on the ways museums have been central to constructions of race, and how they can become platforms for combating racism. It brings together academics, museum practitioners and community representatives to investigate and creatively respond to the lack of diversity in museum staff and governance, the absence or misrepresentation of disempowered groups in exhibits and strained relations between museums and the publics they serve. The project’s goal is to integrate its network of 20 partner organisations in Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa and the United States and 34 diverse, world-class experts to transform museum theory and practice. The team will draw on critical theory and lived experience to better understand museums’ implication in and potential for redressing contentious historical and cultural issues.
More than 50% of Africa’s workforce is employed in the agricultural sector and more than 70% of the food eaten on the continent is produced by small-scale farmers and fishers, most of whom are women. In other words, the vast majority of the continent’s 1.3-billion population depend for their survival on family farming and seasonal labour, herding and fishing, and informal food processing and trading.
However, these hundreds of millions of Africans have relatively little control over, or access to, the land, natural resources, finance and assets which underpin their food security and livelihoods.
The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) seeks to unpick this contradiction by undertaking research that addresses the political economy of how land is held and accessed, and how food is produced, distributed and sold.
It adopts an engaged and impact-oriented approach in its work, analysing the nature of the land and food systems in Africa to produce a clear understanding of how they operate and how they may be restructured to address their characteristic chronic poverty and socio-economic inequality.
To this end, PLAAS engages community organisations, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and other stakeholders in its research efforts, both in order to produce a comprehensive picture of the material reality of everyday lives and also to support poor and marginalised people in their struggle to reshape land and food systems which tend to exclude them or, at best, incorporate them on adverse terms.
The research also has a strong advocacy emphasis, producing research and advice to influence national and international policymaking in the interests of the vulnerable majority and their quest for greater and more beneficial access to land, food and economic opportunity. In this respect, the Institute has developed considerable expertise in analysing how livelihoods are produced by farm workers; small and subsistence farmers; coastal and inland artisanal fishers; and the informally selfemployed in rural and urban areas
The Institute’s research themes
Under the leadership of Professor Andries du Toit, PLAAS’s research has focused on five main themes: land rights and tenure systems; farming and food systems; fisheries and marine resources; natural resource management; and poverty and social policy.
The aim is to explore the linkages between the perpetuation of
poverty and inequality and the larger nature and structure of economic growth in the region – and thus to produce a better understanding of what may constitute inclusive, broad-based development and how this may be achieved,
For example, PLAAS’s research has explored the link between poverty and landlessness in South Africa (and increasingly in other parts of Southern Africa), with de-agrarianisation leading to joblessness rather than non-farm employment in the urban formal or informal sectors, as imagined by orthodox development theories.
Processes of market penetration and commodification have also enabled elites and large firms to wield greater control over a wide range of natural resources other than land itself, including in the fishing sector, and exert considerable influence in shaping national food systems, including in the areas of production, distribution and retail, as well as international trade.
In response, PLAAS’s research has questioned the inevitability of a transition from small-scale, labour-intensive and family-based farming to a capital- and technology-intensive agricultural system – particularly as the ecological sustainability of this model, and the upstream and downstream industries to which it is connected, has increasingly come under fire.
PLAAS has also recently undertaken a study into the political economy of change in African food systems under Covid-19, exploring how government policy-making and regulatory responses have entrenched elite and corporate interests during the pandemic. This research has asked fundamental questions, including: Who are and should be the beneficiaries of the food system? How may the inequalities in the system be resolved to ensure genuine universal benefits?
A further focus for recent research has been the struggle to safeguard “the commons” in Africa – that is, the drive to produce a system for land and natural resource management that is genuinely equitable, benefiting whole populations, and sustainable across generations.
An aspect of this work has been research into the “blue economy” and small-scale fishing in Africa, led by Prof Moenieba Isaacs and Prof Mafa Hara, which is interrogating how a marketised approach to development is excluding local communities. Another aspect has been research in support of women’s struggle to secure adequate access to land across the continent under both customary and private forms of tenure.
Sarojini Nadar
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu turned 90 on October 7th, and passed away two months later on 26 December 2021. A few days before his 90th birthday, it was a great honour for the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice at UWC, to host a virtual launch of the book “Ecumenical Encounters with Desmond Mpilo Tutu: Visions for Justice, Dignity and Peace .” It is immensely significant that the book was launched from UWC, where the Arch served as chancellor for almost 25 years. The book is in many ways aligned with UWC’s popular reputation as the intellectual home of the left. More than 160 people from four continents celebrated the launch of the 72 creative and critical contributions to the book on 4 October 2021, and even the Arch made an appearance from his bed to wave to the participants!
The book offered the perspectives and stories of those whose personal and academic encounters with “the Arch” shaped their ongoing faith-based, activist and academic pursuits for justice and peace. It is meant to be a memorial recollection of encounters with the Arch, rather than an academic festschrift. Hence the call for contributions, included, but was not restricted to, the format of a typical academic essay. Anyone familiar with his outstanding contributions to the promotion of justice, dignity and peace, will know that a hallmark of Desmond Tutu’s celebrated style was his use of narrative and real-life stories. In honour of his unique and remarkable example, the contributions in this book combine oral history and written history paradigms, as well as sociological, philosophical and theological approaches, all inspired by the style of the Arch. This resulted in an abundant array of contributions which are at once narrative, creative, artistic, imaginative, innovative, inspiring, as well as scholarly.
The central aim in the book was to capture what Tutu’s life and witness signify in a world seeking justice, dignity and peace. The book was conceived and compiled at a time when people around the world were feeling the devastation and loss caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic. Many scholars argued that the Covid-19 pandemic did not create inequities and iniquities, as much as it simply revealed and perhaps exacerbated existing injustices, causing some, like Jennifer Ruger, to declare that “we need a moral constitution for our planet’s health. “But what would the role of religion be in drafting this moral constitution?
At the time of compiling the book, South Africa had less than 5% of its population vaccinated, while in many so-called First World countries that had overstocked on vaccines, citizens debated the efficacy of the vaccines and invoked their rights not to get vaccinated. The different experiences of access to the vaccine, even between the German and South African editors, revealed the stark inequities that govern our lives, the
pandemic sharply beckoning us to consider access to health care as a moral imperative.
Collecting the narratives of ecumenical encounters with Tutu in the shadow of a global health crisis, gender-based violence, increased racism, black poverty and political instability, seemed ironic. Though many of the recollections in the book hearken to decades before democracy, the current situation in South Africa reveals that we are certainly nowhere close to the rainbow utopia envisioned by Tutu. There was resounding agreement during the discussion at the launch, that the struggle against injustice and oppression must continue as a profoundly religious and moral imperative, because, in the Arch’s words, “to oppose injustice and oppression is not something that is merely political. No, it is profoundly religious.”
The challenge by the Archbishop is a reminder of the work that remains to be done. In the book, his significant contributions in the areas of theology, ethics, politics and African and global ecumenism are celebrated and commemorated. The themes covered in the book range from sexual diversity rights to the occupation in Palestine, as well as the contested ideas of reconciliation and reparations, among many others. Nico Koopman, deputy vice-chancellor of transformation at Stellenbosch University, speaking about his own chapter in the book, talked about the disillusionment with “cheap reconciliation” and called instead for reparations and a return to the idea of “costly unity”.
Allan Boesak, speaking about his chapter in a documentary film about the book spoke about the importance of hope. He said: “Desmond Tutu, the man, his theology, his ministry, his life’s work – all are almost synonymous with the word hope. Throughout the many years we have worked together in the church and in the struggle for freedom … this is the one thing he tenaciously clung to, tirelessly preached, and unerringly symbolised. It made him more than the proverbial ‘beacon of hope’ …Hope is not passively waiting, nor is it deceitfully pontificating, pulling the wool over the eyes of a people desperate for change”.
The theme of hope acquired a more significant meaning when the election of Vicentia Kgabe (one of the editors of the book) as Bishop of Lesotho, was also celebrated at the book launch. In her own chapter in the book, she recounts the important role that the Archbishop played in the struggle for the ordination of women in the Anglican church. That he got to bear witness to her consecration in the same diocese that he was consecrated as Bishop, albeit 43 years earlier, was testament to his leadership and his commitment to gender justice.
Tutu ’s daughters Nontombi Tutu and Mpho Tutu van Furth were also present at the launch. Both of them ordained priests, they deal with different subjects in their contributions, Nontombi focused on the issue of ubuntu theology as she learnt it from her father, and Mpho focused on “herstory”, centralising her mother, Leah Tutu, in the many accolades that her father received. Mpho Tutu van Furth’s short, but hauntingly beautiful photo-essay draws our attention to the deeply fundamental and central role that her mother played in the Tutu story. In this unusual photo taken at Mpho’s marriage ceremony, it is Ma Leah who is foregrounded. Mpho Tutu van Furth calls attention to the neglect of her-story, in the legacy of Tutu.
Speaking specifically on the uniqueness of the book’s contribution, one of the editors, Tinyiko Maluleke pointed out that what struck him through the process of reading the chapters was the idea that Tutu was “archbishop of the world”. The two German editors, Dietrich Werner and Rudolf Hinz, spoke fondly of how fulfilling it was for them to compile the narrative recollections from Germany and elsewhere, and to place on formal record the remarkable transnational solidarity in antiracist struggles against apartheid.
Throughout all of the struggles, and without exaggeration, the most commonly described and praised attribute of the Arch, appearing in almost every single essay, is his sense of inexplicable humour. Some ascribe his humour to a means
of defusing tension, while others see it as a more deliberate strategy to deal with social injustices, and at the same time provide a means to humanise relationships.
Tinyiko Maluleke asks a question most candidly in his essay: “how can the oppressed laugh?” In questions that almost leap up off the page and tug at one’s heartstrings, Maluleke stirringly asks: “Surely, in such dry places, there are no wells of laughter from which the non-persons can draw? Ordinarily, one would not think that the poor and the marginalised have a need to cultivate and treasure a sense of humour. Of what use is a sense of humour for a people who walk daily in the valley of the shadow of death? ...Surely, those reduced to mere worms, by the Apartheid system, had no right to laughter! Not in the midst of all that squalor, poverty, violence and repression! To put it differently, for a people under siege and a people under the yoke of oppression, humour and laughter seem such a wasteful luxury to cultivate and nurture.”
And yet, the Archbishop himself offers an explanation for his humour, that leans on the side of the twin purpose of defusing tension and inspiring a sense of self-worth that was consistently destroyed by the appalling circumstances of one’s daily existence. He says: “We tend to want to blow ourselves up, inflate ourselves because most of us have tended to have poor self-image. When you’re in a situation such as the one in South Africa where you were discriminated against, it was very easy to lose your sense of self, and humour seems to do something for people. Humour certainly did one good thing: it deflated, defused a particularly tense situation.”
What is most fascinating and noteworthy about all the observations offered by authors in this book regarding Tutu’s humour, is that the purpose of the humour was never to humiliate, only to humanise.
Fulata Moyo convincingly contends that “humour not only creates an atmosphere for laughter and joy amidst otherwise gloomy and seemingly hopeless realities, it is also a necessary twist to turn the otherwise difficult conversation into a witty thought provoking one that can lead to praxis for social justice.” Maluleke befittingly conceptualises this as the wit and grit of the Arch with “the intention to humanise both the victims and the perpetrators of oppression.” In his essay, Maluleke convincingly demonstrates that “both the freedom ‘walk’ of Nelson Mandela as well as the mental and psychological emancipation project of Steve Biko were similar in objective to that of Desmond Tutu, namely, the aim of humanising. However, Tutu stands somewhat apart from Mandela, Biko and other freedom fighters in his deliberate choice, repeated and structured use of humour as a humanising tool. In this sense, for Tutu therefore, the motto is not only the famous, ‘I belong therefore I am.’ He would add, ‘I laugh, therefore I am.’”
His deep spirituality, his wicked sense of humour, and his commitment to ubuntu can be said to be the building blocks of Archbishop Tutu’s staunch devotion to the process of peace. We risk a fundamental misunderstanding of the Arch’s conceptions of peace, however, if we only frame it within narrow ideas of non-violent passive resistance, as opposed to active agitation and advocacy for justice, that promotes social and systemic change.
We are very pleased therefore, to present, in this issue of Signals, glimpses into the content of the book, that takes us
beyond the “meek and mild” trope. The five extracts from a selection of chapters, with the exception of one, are all written by largely early-career scholars. The purpose is to share some of the ways in which a new generation of scholars and activists engage with the life and witness of Tutu within their scholarship as well as their faith commitments. The first extract by Lee Scharnick-Udemans, engages the topic of religious diversity and pluralism. Our best efforts notwithstanding, we did not succeed in compiling and showcasing a comprehensive repertoire of the Arch’s encounters with multiple faith traditions in the limited timeframe available. This constitutes a certain limitation in the book, and a reminder that this work remains to be done. Beyond constituting a limitation, it is also an important reminder to be aware of the ways in which the goal of the “unity of the churches” within ecumenical paradigms, might unintentionally reinscribe Christiannormative ways of being, that can sometimes lead to, at best a lack of respect for religious diversity and at worst, outright violence. Lee Scharnick-Udemans’ essay in this book explores such religious privilege and calls our attention to the ways in which Christianity is rendered normative through seemingly innocuous concepts like the “rainbow.” Her comparison between white privilege and religious privilege and the case studies of prejudices in France and South Africa regarding the choice of women to wear headscarves, is an important prompt to “check our religious privilege” and to be aware of underlying tensions in so-called religious reconciliation work.
Another tension, that between restorative justice and reconciliation is explored in the essay by Demaine Solomons, where he describes the goal of reconciliation as an absurdity, drawing on the image of Sisyphus, “a figure of Greek mythology who is condemned to repeat the same arduous task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll back down again once the summit is reached.” Solomons continues: “Driven by the desire for meaning amid meaninglessness, South Africans embarked on a journey of reconciliation, a romantic pursuit for a new way of being in the aftermath of the absurdity of apartheid.”
Solomons’ essay on the absurdity of reconciliation amidst the absurdity of Apartheid, reminded me of a poignant, deeply moving, satirical poem I was introduced to in my African Literature and poetry class in 1995. The poem is by Christopher van Wyk in his 1979 collection, and is about the bizarre explanations offered by the Apartheid police when political prisoners were killed in their custody:
In detention
He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself while washing
He slipped from the ninth floor
He hung from the ninth floor
He slipped on the ninth floor while washing
He fell from a piece of soap while slipping
He hung from the ninth floor
He washed from the ninth floor while slipping
He hung from a piece of soap while washing.
Indeed, reconciliation amidst the absurdity of not just Apartheid, but the continuing social upheaval and trauma three decades after this poem was published, seems bizarre. Solomons’ appeal in his conclusion, therefore, is apt: “some difficulties are worth enduring in a world that is as precarious and unsettling as ours. This diagnosis is not a fatality. The absurdity of the situation is our reality, but love saves us from it. The paradoxical presence of meaning amid meaninglessness. Perhaps this is the one thing we should learn from the life and work of our beloved Arch,” he concludes.
The last three extracts that are presented here all deal with gender justice and sexual diversity. Gender based violence as it relates to the theme of reconciliation is picked up by Rhine ‘Toby’ Koloti in his essay. Drawing parallels between how Tutu is domesticated by white people and used as a buffer between restitution and the perpetuation of white privilege and intergenerational racism and inequality, Koloti makes a case for the importance of restorative justice and reparations in cases of gender-based violence in the church as opposed to the “cheap reconciliation” that Boesak speaks of.
Keen to also move away from simplistic reductions concerning Tutu’s social justice activism, Megan Robertson points out how Tutu uses quite essentialist concepts of sexuality to advance the cause of queer activism. Tutu draws on ubuntu and black and African theologies to advance the cause of sexual diversity rights, but he also does so through what postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak, called strategic essentialism - the idea that we can intentionally use stereotypes and essentialist ideas about oppressed groups in order to subvert the agenda’s of the oppressors.
Finally, Miranda Pillay reminds us, in her sermon inspired by Tutu and Trevor Huddleston, the importance of solidarity in the struggle against injustice. She asserts “Discriminatory laws, and religious and cultural practices privilege some while they exclude and silence others. This systemic nature of discrimination calls for compassion and solidarity from those who benefit from such laws and practices.”
Overall, two things stand out about the contribution this book will make. The first is that our inclusion of newer and more diverse voices, in line with the Arch’s lifelong commitment to not just make more space at the table, but to graciously extend, and thereby courageously transform the shape of the table, will yield great insights. Many of these younger contributors have never met Tutu, but their work for justice and their scholarship and witness have been inspired by him and his work.
The second important contribution this book makes is that it causes us to shift our perceptions of a “meek and mild” and domesticated Desmond Tutu that seems to dominate the contemporary popular imagination. The chapters in the book reveal a different picture — a feisty “rabble - rouser ”, a troublemaker for justice and peace, and if it succeeds in nothing else than promoting this alternative narrative, we would have done our jobs well.
Witty quips and compelling soundbites are a distinguishing marker of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s legacy. Over the last two decades a number of these soundbites have been directed at LGBTIQ+ rights and freedoms. However, it would be remiss to dismiss these merely as memorable one-liners. While Tutu has not developed a substantive queer theology, his statements are compelling, partly because they are underwritten by the history of his fortitudinous fight for civil rights and particularly black freedoms in South Africa. In addition, his Ubuntu theology, rainbowism and social justice ideology is the thread which ties his LGBTIQ+ advocacy to his anti-apartheid activism and, thus, lends it political and theoretical weight. His advocacy has not however bypassed critique, yet, Tutu remains one of the few church leaders in South Africa and Africa more broadly to strongly and consistently advocate for the rights and dignity of LGBTIQ+ persons and to position himself as an ally to the fight for queer liberation both within and outside the church. In this essay I use some of Tutu’s “soundbites” in relation to LGBTIQ+ issues to reflect on how his advocacy challenges and directs queer allies.
Lesson 1: Use your privilege to critique heteronormative power
In South Africa, Tutu’s statements as a church leader is significant as he stands in contrast to many other religious leaders who, while vehemently fighting for black liberation, continue to remain silent on LGBTIQ+ issues. Research shows that, in relation to LGBTIQ+ issues, churches take defensive and ambiguous stances largely due to the looming threat a division in church membership poses, and the accompanying possibility of a loss of political and moral clout. This has meant that church leaders have often placed the reputation and unity of the church above speaking out against queerphobia. In contrast, Tutu’s statements, such as, “If the church…is looking for a worthy moral crusade, then this is it: the fight against homophobia and heterosexism”, does not shy away from critiquing and holding the church to account for the injustices it has committed to, and beliefs it has perpetuated about, LGBTIQ+ people.
Critiquing his own church, of course, carries with it the difficulties of condemning a people “[he] love[s] deeply”, yet he maintained he had an inescapable responsibility to do so. As a well-loved and respected political and religious figure, as well as a heterosexual, cis-gender man, Tutu is afforded a certain amount of protection and privilege to be able to call out his own church. For allies who are afforded similar protection and privileges, perhaps in ways which LGBTIQ+ persons are not, Tutu upholds an ethic of responsibility to call out the very systems of power which grant his protection and privilege.
Lesson 2: Your liberation is bound up with mine
While Tutu himself has not linked his Ubuntu theology theoretically to his advocacy of LGBTIQ+ rights in church and society, other scholars have. Adriaan van Klinken and Ezra Chitando illustrate how Ubuntu’s celebration of human diversity and its emphasis on the liberation of the collective provides a framing “for an indigenous African philosophy…
that affirms sexual diversity…” I would further this by arguing that Tutu’s Ubuntu theology also provides a helpful direction for allyship.
Tutu has on multiple occasions made connections between the anti-apartheid struggle and the fight for queer liberation and, on different occasions, has labelled both racism and homophobia blasphemous, thus denouncing both as inherently un-Christian. In 2013 at the United Nation’s launch of its gay rights programme Tutu said, “I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this. I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven… I mean I would much rather go to the other place. I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level.” By connecting his own positionality as a black person fighting racism in apartheid South Africa to various forms of unjust inequality and discrimination including homophobia and heterosexism, Tutu positions himself not as an outsider ‘helping’ LGBTIQ+ people but rather as someone whose liberation is indivisible from the freedom of others. This could perhaps be framed as an Ubuntu activism or Ubuntu allyship – one which is informed by a recognition that social justice and liberation must involve the subversion and transformation of various and interconnected systems of power.
Lesson 3: Transformation might not always be theoretically sound
For queer and gender studies scholars, it might make us cringe to read a quote in which Tutu says, “…Sexual orientation is not something that you choose, it’s a gift” or “as God has made me black, so God has made some of us gay. And how incredibly wonderful is it that God has created each of us to be who we are.” Essentialising race and sexuality in this way is contrary to queer theories that argue gender and sex are not something which people are born with but, rather, something people construct through repetitive performativities. However, as Ryan Thoreson points out, apartheid liberation strategies have created a fertile and useful ground for essentialist identity politics in which race, gender and sex all become unchangeable identities which should not be treated indiscriminately because essentially these characteristics are inherent and outside of one’s control.
Tutu’s essentialism is perhaps as a result of a similar political strategy. In various statements, Tutu has put forward both that biology matters, in so far as we should not discriminate against a person because of an essentialist quality, and also that it does not matter, in so far as people are created in the image of God and thus should be loved and revered. These somewhat contrasting positions on biological identity can be understood as a result of Tutu’s strategic juggling between a prophetic and pastoral voice. The limits of his strategic balance of the prophetic and pastoral domains, are evident in the fact that such balance has not provided sufficient recognition and protections for bisexual and transpersons in South Africa. However, as McCarty reflects, “This impulse to marry the prophetic and the pastoral is one worthy of imitation. And it must be said that balancing the prophetic and the pastoral is no easy task.” Perhaps as academic allies, this is something that ought to be learnt.
By far one of the most well-known religious allies LGBTIQ+ people have had in South Africa is Desmond Tutu. While he has not written theoretically nuanced and lengthy academic papers on the matter, he has offered politically and culturally astute sermons, quotations and soundbites which have captured the public’s attention and served (often alone) as a religious voice that has challenged queerphobia and heterosexism. Tutu has used his privilege and position in ways which other religious leaders and allies in the church have been reticent to do. He has come to the cause not merely as a sympathetic outsider, but as a social justice advocate who acknowledges the intersectionality of various systems of power which has diminished the rights and humanity of various people. In this way he has challenged the very systems and institutions that have afforded him a particular position of privilege. He has also shown that allyship in church sometimes involves negotiation of the politics with which it engages. As a church leader and ally, Tutu’s advocacy of LGBTIQ+ rights in Africa carries with it lessons for other allies, activists and advocates.
Miranda N. Pillay
When Archbishop Desmond Tutu was asked how he felt after voting in South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, he said, “I feel two inches taller”. This feeling had little to do with his height or pride. It was more than a sentimental sense of inclusion. I think it had to do with the fact that he was ‘seen’ – no longer as a black imposter ignored in a white supremacist culture, but feeling taller is about the legitimate power of presence.
Biblically-justified-white-supremacy is what dismisses the presence of black people as irrelevant and trivial. Underpinned by liberation- and black theologies Tutu draws inspiration for his advocacy for dignity peace and justice from the very Bible used to justify discrimination, exclusion, oppression and inequality that violate the dignity of others. But, as Tutu himself explains it is also an incident from his early life that shaped his commitment to social justice issues.
The Arch tells the story of the day he, (then 9 years old) and his mother were walking down the street when they encountered a tall white man in a black dress walking in their direction. In those days it was expected of them (and all black people) to step off the side-walk to allow a white person to pass. But on that day, before young Desmond and his mother could step off the sidewalk, the white man stepped into the gutter and, says Tutu, “as my mother and I passed, the man tipped his hat in a gesture of respect to my mother!” When young Desmond asked his mother why the white man had stepped aside for them to pass, his mother said it’s because “he is a man of God”. Tutu says that years later he realized that Trevor Huddleston was a person who ‘sees’ that laws which privilege him and belittle others, not only diminish the dignity of others, but also diminish his own dignity. Thus, in seeing differently, Huddleston acted differently.
I used this Tutu-story in a sermon commemorating National Women’s Day to illustrate that solidarity with “othered bodies” reflects the Gospel imperative of love and justice because biblically-justified-male-supremacy continues to obliterate and trivialize the presence of women in ancient texts and contemporary contexts. The sermon, “Do You See this Woman” (Luke 7:36-50) was recently published in the book Ecumenical Encounters with Desmond Mpilo Tutu: Visions for Justice, Dignity and Peace.
The art of “seeing” – of recognising, of being aware, and of acting differently are important facets of Luke’s Gospel. And, throughout the Gospel we ‘see’ the affirmation of people’s bodies and dignity. In a sense Luke helps us see Jesus as someone who challenges the way cultural and religious laws are used to oppress and exploit ‘othered bodies’.
In Luke 7:36-50 Jesus is having dinner at the home of Simon, the Pharisee, who may have invited Jesus to confirm for himself whether Jesus was a prophet sent by God to free the ‘nation’ from foreign rule. If Jesus were the prophet, he would bring honour and status to his host, Simon. But by ‘accepting’ the actions of the woman who was shamelessly caressing his feet with her hair after washing them with her tears, Jesus brings shame upon himself and his dinner host. Therefore, according to Simon’s reasoning, Jesus could not be
the prophet as claimed by those who have been following him.
Ironically though, Jesus, aware of what Simon is thinking, fulfils precisely Simon’s understanding of prophetic awareness, because Jesus even ‘knows’ what Simon is thinking! Turning the tables, Jesus reveals Simon to be the shameful one while the woman’s actions are seen as honourable. Thus, we see reversal of the roles (and status) of Simon, the Pharisee and the nameless woman. In the beginning, the Pharisee is the host and the woman is considered “a sinner”. He has honour (the host of a banquet) she is shameful – making a public spectacle of herself, Jesus and the dinner host. But, as the story develops, the woman’s actions are seen to be honorable while Simon fails to show any care or kindness towards Jesus, as was expected of a host. The (unnamed) woman understands Jesus to be a prophet; Simon rejects Jesus’ prophetic character. She now has honour; Simon is shamed. Her sins are forgiven, and Simon? Do you see this woman? Jesus asks him. What is Simon’s sin? Is it being short-sighted?
Of course, Simon did see the woman because he thinks, “if this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of a woman she is…”. Simon sees the woman through patriarchal cultural- and religious lenses that view an autonomous woman who acts independently and, one who appears not to be under the control of a father or husband, as sexually deviant. But Jesus turned towards the woman (7:44) and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman”?
The woman’s presence and actions allow Jesus to re-focus Simon’s lenses. Simon is reminded that it is the woman who did what he, the host, failed to do; that it is the woman who ‘knows’ what he (Simon) did not know! It is the nameless woman who knows and believes that Jesus is more than a prophet; that he has healed many and that he even forgives sins. And, perhaps she’s weeping, because of Simon’s sin of ignorance and lack of care – not because she is ‘repenting’ of a sin society has labelled her with. As a Pharisee, Simon ‘knew’ the laws and social codes that set them apart from those labelled ‘sinners’. What does Jesus want Simon to See? Does he want him to see past his own prejudices and privilege of class and gender?
Jesus sees the woman’s bold action as an opportunity to challenge the cultural and religious laws that require women to remain unseen in the background as props maintaining and defending the social status of men. By affirming the woman’s legitimate presence, Jesus challenges the laws that require of him, a “holy man”, to avoid the touch of “such a woman” – lest he be seen as unclean.
Turning our gaze back to young Desmond Tutu, Mrs Aletta Tutu and Revd Trevor Huddleson, we see in the latter an example of a person who recognises that, by acting out his own privileged position he would be dehumanizing others. We also see that Huddleston risked his own social ‘status’ because back then he would have been labelled a ‘k****r-boetie. Mrs Tutu’s response indicates that God requires of us to act boldly and challenge biblical-justified discrimination, exploitation and oppression. Young Desmond, inspired by the bold action of the white man in a black dress made it his mission to embody a vision of freedom where all, irrespective of race, class, gender or sexual orientation, are free to feel “two inches taller”.
Demaine Solomons
Reconciliation amid absurdity
We have seen and heard it all before. In fact, some of us have grown tired of debates over the promise of reconciliation, yet, we are often reminded that it is fundamental in developing a just society. This makes it difficult to agree on what reconciliation means, how it works, and why it is essential. If things go our way, we think of it as our most “prized idea”, but in times of distress “cheap deception”. Behind such contestation is a longing for a South Africa that does not exist, a disparity between what is and what ought to be, in a country riddled with contradictions and obscurities. An absurd state of affairs arising from a system premised on the fundamental irreconcilability of people.
On the one hand, the quest for reconciliation itself emerges from the tension between our desire for order, meaning and happiness, and an indifferent world unwilling to provide that on the other. In this sense, reconciliation and its connection with philosophical “absurdism” could not be more apt. This is what the French philosopher Albert Camus wrestles with in his famous essay The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). For Camus, the absurd encapsulates the human propensity to seek inherent value and meaning in the context of a chaotic, irrational, sometimes meaningless world. He compares the absurdity of life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who is condemned to repeat the same arduous task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll back down again once the summit is reached. This sequence or metaphorical loop is repeated into the realms of eternity.
Driven by the desire for meaning amid meaninglessness, South Africans embarked on a journey of reconciliation, a romantic pursuit for a new way of being in the aftermath of the absurdity of apartheid. It was an audacious plan. Setting in motion a chain of events that culminated in what became the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (hereafter TRC), a
process for better or worse, etched the dream of reconciliation in the hearts and minds of the people. At the centre of the TRC stood Archbishop Desmond Tutu, its charismatic chairperson. Affectionately known as the Arch, Tutu and his colleagues were tasked to breathe life into one of the most contested terms in the struggle against apartheid. Not only was the notion and practice of reconciliation tied up with ideological conflict, but doubts concerning its potential to transform society remains was an ever-present reality. That being the case, equating this endeavour to the taking on of a poisoned chalice would not be an overstatement.
Unsurprisingly, the vision of the so-called “rainbow people of God” as popularised by the Arch might be easier said than done. Some argue that he simply set the bar too high by invoking reconciliation’s theological potential. Along with this, cautionary remarks not to misrepresent the South African project as a search for spiritual reconciliation but instead appreciate it as a secular pact or a political agreement. For example, Professor Jakes Gerwel, the former Vice-Chancellor and Rector of UWC argued that the spiritualisation of reconciliation poses the risk of “pathologising” a nation in relatively good health by insisting on the perpetual quest for the “Holy Grail” of reconciliation; further maintaining that the framing of reconciliation in the context of “love” and “forgiveness” takes us back to “primitive” notions not suitable for modern societies; and that the “mechanisms of solidarity” of contemporary South Africa are no longer “love for neighbour” but rather “commitment to consensus-seeking, cultivation of conventions of civility and respect for contracts”. Put simply; he cautioned not to confuse politics with theology, especially as far as determining the contours for reconciliation is concerned.
Nearing three decades after the TRC had first started its work, the quest for reconciliation remains as elusive as ever. Along
with apartheid, the democratic dispensation has brought many new challenges. Today discourses on reconciliation have become rather esoteric, a symptom of more pressing concerns plaguing the country, coming to terms with a history of injustice. If reconciliation took centre stage during our transition phase, today, the notion has lost its premier status as a guiding vision for social transformation in the country. Along with this, the legacy of Archbishop Tutu (along with Nelson Mandela) is being contested more than ever before. This is prompted by views that under their leadership, the (over)emphasis on reconciliation did very little to disrupt the socio-economic vestiges of apartheid. Here reconciliation without addressing the root causes of injustice is often cited as a concern. This scepticism is best expressed in the tension between the work of the TRC and the reality of South Africa having one of the highest persistent income inequality rates in the world. This is hardly surprising given the social divisions, marked especially by race, class, and ethnicity, among other things.
Under these circumstances, one would have to once again (re)consider whether indeed reconciliation has the potential to transform society. Since it needs constant clarification, it often loses its power as a symbol. Properly understood, a symbol is self-evident and needs no explanation – it grips the imagination. Prompting the need for some to invoke an expression of reconciliation that is considered “true” or “authentic”. If anything, the question of whether reconciliation has a role to play in addressing some of our most difficult challenges would undoubtedly have to be addressed. The view that under current circumstances that it lacks the gravity to do just that might very well be contingent on a political as opposed to a theological understanding of its potential.
The arduousness of the reconciliation ideal continues to baffle those looking for quick answers to a complex problem. In this
sense, the quest for reconciliation has, in some ways, become an exercise in the absurd since there is no rational or succinct way of capturing what exactly is at stake. While there may well be consensus on what reconciliation entails, controversies over how this ideal is to be realised suggest conflicting interpretations of its value and meaning. It is something that transcends our ability (or urge) for mastery and is, therefore, best described as an elusive mystery, a dream that cannot be fathomed or achieved. This is amid our propensity to forever search for meaning irrespective of the incongruity of the ideal and the absurdity that defines our chaotic, irrational, and sometimes meaningless existence.
The TRC, as flawed as it might have been, is the audacity to dream of something beyond the meaningless that sometimes defines our existence. Moreover, invoking a theology of reconciliation to achieve something extraordinary, resisting the temptation of utter hopelessness. In this context, Camus’ conception of the absurd provides a glimmer of hope. A stark reminder that our efforts may very well be futile but that we should endure nevertheless. The Arch, like Sisyphus, is charged to roll a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again, over and over again. As we celebrate this great South African, we are reminded that this task is not his alone.
Like him, we should cope as best we can with whatever challenges come our way, embracing the absurd background of our existence. In Camus’ words, “each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy”. This is a constant reminder why some difficulties at least are worth enduring in a world that is as precarious and unsettling as ours. This diagnosis is not a fatality. The absurdity of the situation is our reality, but love saves us from it. The paradoxical presence of meaning amid meaninglessness. Perhaps this is the one thing we should learn from the life and work of our beloved Arch.
This essay offers a critical analysis of reconciliation within the context of sexual abuse, with a view to suggesting an alternative feminist theological agenda for further reflection. The main focus of this essay is on reconciliation within the context of sexual abuse. As this edition of UWC’s Signals magazine commemorates and celebrates the life and legacy of its longeststanding chancellor Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu, the ongoing murder trial of Tshegofatso Pule who was murdered by a hitman allegedly paid off by her boyfriend resumes. Such a trial is a painful reminder of how “economies of violence have and continue to sustain the indignity and poverty that women in South Africa experience.” Furthermore, the trial coincides with a variety of good tributes remembering the life of our beloved Archbishop. Speeches, letters, poems and articles are being written to celebrate his generous heart and forgiving spirit. As popular media has had it in the past, he is remembered as a proponent of reconciliation and ‘unconditional forgiveness.’ But this snapshot, though arguably accurate, betrays a lack of appreciation for who Archbishop Desmond Tutu was and for what we can learn from his theology and teachings about reconciliation and justice within the context of sexual abuse.
Addressing gender-based violence requires a critical focus on reconciliation. In South Africa, the colonial lineage and its subsequent legacy of racism, sexism and exclusivism have created and continue to exacerbate personal, systemic and structural violence against black people, women in particular. Due to this, black women and girls are disproportionately affected by sexual abuse in South Africa. While I concede that sexual abuse affects both men and women regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity and class, statistics show that poor black women represent a significant majority of those killed and raped in South Africa.
Gender-based violence is an umbrella term used to refer to harmful acts perpetrated against a person’s will based on socially ascribed (i.e. gender) differences between males and females. These acts include sexual abuse, emotional abuse and intimate partner violence inter alia. In her book “Sexual Violence: The Sin Revisited,” Marie Fortune poses a challenge to the church by describing sexual violence as a sin - thus implying that we ought to address it theologically, ethically and pastorally. She draws on the narratives of the rape of Dinah (Gen. 34), the incest of Tamar (2 Sam. 13) and the vulnerability of Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12) to remind us of how deeply rooted the issue of sexual violence is in
Rhine Phillip Tsobotsi Koloti
our religious spaces and sacred texts. Scholarship on GBV supports Fortune’s assertions that religion is one of the most detrimental enablers of violence against women. It is thus unwise to ignore religion when addressing issues of GBV. In considering sexual violence as a pastorally and ethically sinful act, we must equally start thinking of pastoral care responses to it. Religious discourses, teachings and doctrines are often used as sources of theological and pastoral care responses to GBV, notably the doctrine of reconciliation and teachings on forgiveness. Scholars such as Tinyiko Maluleke and ScharnickUdemans have called for a socio-economic and political critique on blindly applying reconciliation as a symbol to harness healing and unity in South Africa post-1994. In this essay I take heed to this call by arguing that within the context of sexual abuse, reconciliation should not be applied as the first measure. In this context, reconciliation may only be possible, not guaranteed, once restitution has happened. This implies that the offender ought to first show remorse, through various tangible acts, as an indication that the plea for reconciliation is an honest plea to heal the estranged relationship.
In my critique I am not totally against reconciliation or forgiveness; however, I hold the view inspired by Marie Fortune and others who argue that forgiveness should always be viewed from the experience of the victim and not the perpetrator. Forgiveness has a role to play as a pastoral resource to achieve wholeness and restoration for the victim. This view is inspired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s theology of reconciliation where he argues that when one forgives, one does not serve the interests of the offender instead one frees oneself from the chains of being consumed by hate and revenge. This is particularly evident in one of his speeches to the international community about the TRC, where he said “Forgiveness is not pretending that things are other than they really are - forgiveness can be confrontational, telling it as it is, looking the beast in the eye. Forgiveness is letting go of your right to retaliation.” Liturgies about forgiveness ought to reflect this, instead of coercing members to forgive and forget.
An alternative feminist ‘Tutu’ theological agenda
Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s approach to national reconciliation, through the TRC, recognised the role of confession and forgiveness as vehicles to harness healing. According to his understanding, South Africans have “no future without forgiveness.” I do not wish to discount or reject the role and emphasis on forgiveness embedded in Tutu’s theology of reconciliation in responding to conflict or estrangement. On the contrary, I recognise that a process of forgiveness and reconciliation may be spiritually beneficial for
both the victim and the perpetrator. However, I suggest that because of the pervasive nature of sexual abuse, unconditional restorative forgiveness is not morally or even theologically appropriate. I argue that because of the gruesome nature of sexual abuse and the long-term effects of the trauma on victims, restoration and forgiveness should not be the first, let alone the only, step through which the church responds. In line with Luke’s Gospel, elements such as ‘rebuking’, restitution and reparation should be explored first in the best interest of the victims. Only then can spiritual healing through forgiveness and restoration be explored because the value of forgiveness is conditioned by “vindication of the victim/ survivor experienced through justice. ”
Feminist theologian Burton explores several steps that ought to be taken by churches in responding to the phenomenon of clergy sexual abuse, however, due to the limitations of this paper I will only highlight two. First, Burton argues that churches need to stop protecting priests who sexually violate congregants. Instead, the church ought to ‘rebuke’ what she describes as errant priests by removing them from their roles as religious leaders. This removal does not mean that they are not recipients of God’s redeeming love and forgiveness. They can still receive God’s forgiveness even when removed from office. Rebuking is not mutually exclusive to forgiveness but instead one of the elements of justice, such as reparations and restitution, that are part of the healing and reconciliation. Second, Burton is aware of the pervasive nature of sexual abuse within the church and notes that removal is not the only solution as clergy sexual abuse can also be systemic and thus will need the church to confront its sexist, ageist and racist character.
In expressing my critique of Archbishop Tutu’s theology of reconciliation and restorative justice within the context of sexual abuse, I fervently embrace his lifelong dedication to promoting peace and healing through forgiveness. I am sure that he will agree with Allan Boesak that reconciliation is a painful journey with steps that must still be climbed and felt in order to avoid burying our wounds in shallow graves in pursuit of cheap reconciliation where “instead of offering genuine repentance and remorse, instead of coming with contrition to ask for forgiveness and to make amends with the undoing of justice and the doing of justice. Instead of breaking down the walls of separation and the fortresses of white supremacy, racism, homophobia, transphobia and gender injustice... looking for cheap reconciliation [is] – avoiding the costly path of reparation and restoration, hoping that the crumbs falling from the empire’s table will satisfy the hunger and thirst of these masses for justice and righteousness.”
Lee-Shae Salma Scharnick Udemans
The Arch’s intellectual legacy is prolific and powerful. He has provided us with so much to think about, think through and think with! For me, the rainbow nation formulation so lovingly deployed by Tutu has been a source of inspiration and frustration in both my life and my work. As a South African woman of colour, various renditions of violence and exclusion have conditioned my epistemological orientation and it is sometimes challenging to hold out hope for a truly free and equal South Africa. In tribute to and commemoration of the beloved Arch, in this offering I discuss the relationship between rainbowism and religious privilege.
The discourse that rainbowism generates, has historically been deployed primarily about issues of race, racism, and racialization. As a result, religion as both a source site of privilege and discrimination, especially in the context of the multi-religious semi-secular democratic state of South Africa is often overlooked and neglected. Despite its congenial overtone, the rainbow nation narrative has played a role in the universalizing of Christianity as the unofficial public religious character of the new and democratic South Africa. However, even this unsanctioned status is powerful and has generated a culture of Christian political and public pre-eminence that disadvantages non-Christian religious groups. Clearly, this condition is not only the result of rainbowism, which hardly has the political clout of a slogan. The enduring influence of colonialist and apartheid rule on the contemporary politics, policies, and practices that regulate and police religious expression in public should not be underestimated nor should the impact of global trends including migration, secularisation, religionization, and the rise of transnational religious circulations.
While we cannot compare the current measure of religious freedom to the brutalities of both the imperialist venture of Christianity and the Christian Nationalism that produced and sustained the colonial and apartheid states respectively, we cannot be misled by the idea that the democratic and constitutional reform of the relationship between religion and the state, which took place after 1994, has offered a firm resolution. Despite constitutional promises and legal precepts, religious freedom in its broadest sense is not guaranteed to everyone in equal measure. Like gender, race, and socioeconomic status, religion is a category of power and privilege, and religious freedom is perpetually both contextual and intersectional.
Like any form of privilege, religious privilege, especially in multi-religious contexts where religious freedom is constitutionalized, is a slippery concept. The notion of religious privilege is always situated; it is produced and experienced in context, individually and institutionally. Religious privilege is not synonymous with state-sanctioned theocracy since the latter is usually formalised through policy, whereas the former is a result of the production and circulation of both formal and informal discourses and practices, from politics to popular culture, that uphold and preserve the hegemony of the historical or numerical religious majority. Therefore, in theocracies religious privilege, while still problematic for liberal democrats, is declared and solemnized as such. As a result what may be considered infringements on democratic freedoms are easier to identify than in contexts that claim all-encompassing freedom and equality In the case of South
Africa, the character of religious privilege is Christian. It may be difficult to accept this assertion especially since recent memory reminds us of the particular sensibilities and sensitivities related to the role that religion played both during apartheid and in the liberation of this country. As protest actions from various sectors of society including the mining industry, education, environmental conservation, public safety, and activism against gender-based violence continue to highlight issues of inequality, marginalization, and exclusion, demanding the justice that democracy promises to bring but fails to uphold, we are reminded that liberation is never complete.
In order to test these assertions In the following section I adapt a check list of religious privilege developed by a North American social justice comedian, Sam Killerman, and in tribute to and commemoration of the engaged and energetic, priestly, and pedagogical performativity of Tutu, I would like to invite you, dear reader, to check your own religious privilege by considering the following prompts adapted from Killerman and expanded upon by a few South African vignettes. Are you allowed time off to celebrate religious holidays, without asking for the permission of any authority figure? Moreover, is there widespread support of your religious holidays in public and commercial spaces?
Labour law in South Africa does not regulate leave for religious holidays. Therefore, unless the religious holiday falls on an official public holiday, an employee would need to take annual or unpaid leave to observe their religious holidays. The official South African public holiday calendar supports the major Christian holidays and while it sometimes mentions non-Christian religious holidays it does not make allowance for these days as national public holidays.
Are the politicians and lawmakers responsible for governance and the administration of justice most likely members of your faith?
There is no shortage of openly Christian politicians and lawmakers in South Africa. While I am by no means implying that politicians or public figures should hide their religious affiliation, the displays of religiosity that have been made by powerful office bearers have blurred the lines between personal conviction and proselytization. Despite being found guilty of breaching the code of conduct by becoming involved in political controversy or activity, by the Judicial Conduct Committee for his religiously inspired, pro-Israel comments Mogoeng Mogoeng, chief justice of the Constitutional Court refused to apologise. He declared, “I stand by my refusal to retract or apologise for any part of what I said during the webinar. Even if 50 million people were to march every day for 10 years for me to do so, I would not apologise. If I perish, I perish”. In the initial comments, Mogoeng had cited scripture and declared his love for Jerusalem and by extension Israel. Is it easy for you to find your faith accurately depicted in television, movies, books, and other media?
A complaint submitted to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa alleged religious offense based on several observations made by the complainant when viewing the Indian lifestyle programme on national television. The complaint was extensive but the first issue under discussion in the complaint was that a presenter in the programme said
that Hindus worship cows, bulls, and other animals.” Together with a disdain for the above comment, the complainant took particular issue with the fact that the presenter was allegedly non-Hindu. The complainant expressed the following opinion in that regard:
However such a comment is unacceptable even if it had been made by some hillbilly Hindu ignorant of his or her religion. The onus is on the public broadcaster to uphold the South African Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and its own code of ethics by ensuring that only bona fide Hindu scholars are allowed to make comments on the religion and cultural practices of the Hindu’s (sic) in South Africa, and not disrespectful Muslim and Christian Indians who masquerade as our keepers. The complainant felt that the offending broadcast perpetuated a historical pattern of misrepresentation of Hindus by nonHindus. According to the complainant, “The nuances and subtleties of concepts, symbols, and metaphors elude those who report from an alien perspective, especially from the prejudiced perspective of the colonizing, conquering religions and cultures of the world.” The complainant then goes on to explain the significance of the cow and the animal world in the Hindu tradition and continues to lament the ill-informed and callous way in which Hinduism is presented in the media in general.
The examples above do not violate constitutional religious freedom nor are they presented as the decisive picture of the experiences of all non-Christians. These examples may contest the hundred daily expressions of inter-religious solidarity, interfaith engagement, celebration, and accommodation that constitute non-events. However, these stories can also be seen as social barometers that record ongoing shifts in how religious freedom and diversity are understood and experienced in contemporary South Africa.
Conclusion
It is easier to map how religious rights and personal choices are infringed upon when we only explore the far ends of the spectrum. Between violent religious persecution and harmonious peaceful co-existence, there is an in-between space that is far more opaque. When we discern this in-between space more closely we can bring to light the microaggressions that are experienced regularly by those who enjoy less substantial religious privilege than others. We are also able to discern the micro-histories of religious oppression that do not constitute violent persecution but erode the meaning and fulfilment of the democratic promises of freedom and equality. The notion that religious privilege and the social inequality that it generates is an ongoing issue in the context of a multi-religious democratic state is difficult to comprehend, especially when comparing places and times where religious privilege generates overt and violent religious persecution. However, given South Africa’s relatively peaceful status, we cannot be falsely secure in our reliance on religious freedom as a constitutional right, lest these seemingly innocuous violations are left unchecked and flourish into more sinister contraventions. I am sure the Arch will agree that between the storm and the rainbow, there is still much work to be done in the pursuit of justice and freedom and that this is indeed the kind of work that is worth doing!
Scharnick
By Jeremy Daniel
‘S
cience is power,’ declares Professor Nico Orce, during our interview on the UWC campus, as we watch students filing happily into a lecture hall for in-person teaching. ‘That’s why the Americans and Russians invest so much in it. It’s like a little plant that you need to nurture. You can’t just say “I want it to be big and efficient right away”. No… first you need to sow the seeds at the correct time, the right sun and soil. In South Africa, we have to become more independent. We are isolated and vulnerable. The only solution is to invest more in science.’
The straight-talking Professor of Nuclear Physics at UWC was born in Andalucia, Spain and trained all over the world before settling at UWC just over a decade ago. ‘Right after Spain won the World Cup in South Africa,’ he says, chuckling at the memory. That underdog victory by the Spanish national team informs much of his thinking today. More than once, the Professor stresses that South Africa has to break with its history of subjugation and compete through science, and he firmly believes that it’s possible.
‘Kids want to see a strong, independent Africa. Think about the Spanish national soccer team. When I was a little boy and we played the Germans, we were afraid. The mindset was that those guys were bigger, stronger and more disciplined. For many years the world called us the underachievers. Then we beat the Germans in Euro 2008, the World Cup 2010, and then again in Euro 2012. The Germans are the ones now afraid to play Spain.
My point is this….How people saw the Spanish national team before that change is, unfortunately, how the developed world sees Africa when it comes to science. My goal is to make our students and ourselves prove that we can break history by leading high-quality publications in top science journals. This change of mentality is what we need here in South Africa. But it has to be done with flair, honor, arduous work...not playing games that lead to mediocrity.’
Professor Orce did his undergraduate degree in southern Spain, then his Ph.D. in England. After that, it was the University of Kentucky in America for five and a half years, and then a stint in Canada.
‘After Canada, I was offered a job in New York. They offered me a permanent job at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island with a starting salary of $125 000 dollars per year. But I chose instead to bring my family and come to UWC as a lecturer for much less, because we wanted something fresh and exciting, to be somewhere you can make things happen. UWC was the perfect place. Another factor was that South Africa had a strong research infrastructure to offer, with the largest cyclotron in the Southern hemisphere at iThemba
Labs, and the second-largest telescope in the world, Salt. Although the challenges are huge,’ he admits, with a sigh, ‘you must always believe that we can do the impossibles. And we’ve already done it once or twice.’
‘But the international prejudice becomes clear when you submit a manuscript led by a SA institution – with no Europeans or American professors in the author list – to a high-impact physics journal. In terms of science, the world generally sees us as being underdeveloped. If I submit a manuscript from a US or Canadian institution, they will take it more seriously, the reviewing and publication processes will be faster, they assume that “this guy must be good”. From Africa, it’s tough! You can have a manuscript under review for a year, going through multiple corrections, and then it’s rejected again. It’s not for the feint-hearted. But this challenge is also part of the excitement. The fact of the matter is that we won’t give up until we win that world cup of science and make people proud.’
An article that the Professor published in Nature magazine called Young African Universities Take The Lead, with colleague Sifiso Ntshangase, addressed this very issue. The pair wrote that historically disadvantaged universities ‘offered ill-equipped facilities for postgraduate studies, so the path to higher education and excellence in research was an arduous one. Changing this history is no simple task, but our recent success story in nuclear physics offers a blueprint for future endeavours.’
Indeed, the last few years have seen a string of painstaking successes that are shifting the narrative.
The Mandelab, where the young scientists are doing fundamental and applied research in quantum techniques to see if they can get cleaner cancer imaging is a perfect example.
As he wrote in Nature ‘The laboratories are fully equipped with both analogue and digital acquisition systems, self-designed vacuum chambers, particle and gamma-ray detectors, and fast computers. The project aims to develop new positron emission tomography scanners for free cancer imaging in Africa.’
“Hopefully, we get the patent and develop the technique for any hospital in South Africa to do cancer imaging in a massive way, reaching the poor communities. But the professor is always aware that we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves. “Applications like cancer imaging always come after fundamental physics. First, you have to understand the physics.’
Another massive achievement he led is the Gamma Ray Spectrometer for Knowledge in Africa, known as Gamka. This was the product of the single largest grant ever given by a national research foundation to any institution in a competitive call. “It was almost a miracle because all the big institutions
competed and they all wanted the R35 million.”
‘There was a big committee with professors from overseas and from South Africa. During the final panel interview, they were very aggressive, asking. ‘How can you lead a project of this magnitude if you are only an associate professor and only have a C rating?’ Fortunately, I had just gotten my promotion as full professor and my B rating in January of 2017, and the Dean was there to confirm it. It was as if all the planets aligned to make this happen.’
One of the things that Professor Orce is well known for is his cartooning, which he mostly does because he utterly enjoys it, but also uses as an educational tool to explain key concepts to his students. ‘Drawing began very early in my life. My mama taught me how to draw and I carried on, even winning some awards in high school with “In Search of the Chorizo Sandwiches” and other comics. Then I stopped for a while when I was doing my 5-year undergraduate degree in Fundamental Physics. But when my kids started drawing, I naturally took it up again. It was a great tool during online teaching. In the beginning, I was a little bit oxidised because it had been so long but slowly I got back into it until I found my own style.’
On the question of the role that nuclear physics plays in South Africa, the Prof acknowledges that we have big problems with energy right now, but these things are going to change. In about 20 years’ time...there’s going to be radical progress on fusion energy which produces no radioactive waste.
‘We are going to have to pursue this kind of nuclear energy. And we need to get expertise for when that time happens. It will be like discovering fire for cavemen. Recently there have been breakthroughs in England and France. South Africa must achieve energy independence and reach the point where we are not only the lighthouse for Africa but scientific world leaders too. Most of the continent sees us as an example to follow, and we can’t surrender.’
Recently, Prof Orce and his team closed one of the research loops that started in 2012 with the first Africa-led proposal at Cern. Kenzo Abrahams became a doctor after analysing the complicated data and proving to the world that SA students can undertake the most demanding scientific work and bring it to completion. ‘He just sent me the first draft of a manuscript that will be submitted to Nature Physics. It will be the first manuscript in nuclear physics led by an African student from work carried out at Cern. Bring it on!”
Prof Orce has recently been nominated to the Aces-Margarita Salas Award that recognises the scientific work carried out by researchers of Spanish nationality with renowned international impact, contributing to social progress in an exemplary and extraordinary way.
Dr Robert Nanima and Prof Ebenezer Durojaye
Paralegals play a critical role in providing legal support and ensuring access to justice for the community, work which they do in the face of numerous challenges. Some of the factors that inhibit access to justice are poverty, illiteracy, the bureaucratic nature of legal systems, and delays in the administration of justice. This executive summary outlines the methodology, findings, and recommendations of the study, “The Legal Recognition of Paralegals in Africa: Lessons, Challenges and Good Practices”.
Introduction
This study aims to document the role, functions, challenges and regulation of paralegals in Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique and Uganda. It has been conducted in conjunction with the ACE-AJ, and it documents good practices that can be replicated in other African countries.
At its core, the study evaluates the legal recognition of paralegals or community-based paralegals (CBPs) in the selected African countries. Drawing on lessons, challenges and good practices, this study seeks to
• understand the role and challenges in the work of paralegals/ CBPs in six selected African countries;
• document and share good practices concerning paralegals in the selected countries;
• evaluate the effect of recognition and the lack thereof in the selected countries; and
• advocate for states to provide better support for, and political commitment to, the work of paralegals/CBPs across Africa.
Different countries understand the nature and function of CBPs differently, which is why this study considers various definitions of CBPs in particular and paralegals in general as provided by academics, the World Bank, civil society organisations (CSOs), and regional and international agencies. It also takes stock of the challenges that paralegals and CBPs face in the execution of their work. These include lack of formal recognition and/or regulation of paralegals, lack of resources, and overburdened legal aid schemes in both the public and private sector. Although CBPs provide significant benefits to communities across Africa, there is no universal consensus on their statutory recognition. For instance, while there is statutory recognition in Tanzania and Zambia, the regimes are different in Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Mozambique.
International law such as the 2012 UN Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems has set minimum standards for the right to legal aid in criminal justice systems and given practical guidance on
how to ensure access to effective criminal legal aid services. At the regional level, several norm-setting documents –such as the African Commission’s 1992 Tunis Resolution, the 1999 Dakar Declaration and Recommendations, and the 2002 Ouagadougou Declaration – offer instructive recommendations on the use and role of CBPs.
The study has five research areas:
• how paralegals/CBPs contribute to the realisation of access to justice for vulnerable and marginalised groups;
• the challenges facing paralegals/CBPs in Africa;
• the necessity for the recognition and regulation of paralegals/CBPs;
• the benefits and burdens of recognising and regulating paralegals/CBPs; and
• ways in which the work of paralegals/CBPs can be enhanced.
Methodology
The study employed a hybrid methodology combining desktop research with a qualitative research approach. The desktop research entailed analysing available laws, policies and literature on Community-Based Paralegals. Qualitative research engaged focus group discussions and interviews. The methodology section explained the research approach, the research setting, population and sampling, data collection, analysis, verification and ethical considerations.
Data was collected using semi-structured interviews in focus group discussions (FGDs) and key-stakeholder interviews. Six organisations in the selected countries were used as data sources: the Paralegals Alliance Network (PAN) of Zambia; Research for Mozambique (REFORMAR) of Mozambique; Prisoners’ Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA) of Nigeria; the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) of Ghana; the Tanzanian Association of National Legal Aid Providers (TANLAP) of Tanzania; and the Women’s ProBono Initiative (WPI) of Uganda. In total, data was collected from 100 participants across the six countries.
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, research was conducted using online or virtual platforms. In exceptional situations, face-toface interviews and FGDs were held. Mozambique was the only Portuguese-speaking country in this study. Questionnaires and supporting documents were translated into Portuguese, interviews and FGDs were conducted in this same language, and data was translated into English and shared with the research team.
Ethical clearance was obtained from the University of the
Western Cape’s Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee. The researcher ensured that participants knew what was expected of them in the course of the study. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the researcher was not able to visit any of the organisations providing support services to marginalised groups. Originally, two FGDs were planned for each country; however, during the ethical clearance stage, we were advised to consider doing one focus group discussion per country due to Covid-related challenges. The analysis of the data followed the Braun and Clarke’s (2007) mode of data analysis. This involved the examination, categorisation, tabulation, and identification of themes across the study.
Findings
The study’s findings fell into six major themes: modes of dispute resolution in Africa; the role of CBPs in the realisation of access to justice; challenges facing CBPs; the necessity of the recognition and regulation of CBPs; the benefits of the recognition and regulation of CBPs; and recommendations on the enhancement of CBPs. In regard to dispute resolution, the six countries identified various modes of solving disputes as well as institutions that were used (both formally and informally) in the resolution of disputes. The findings show that different meanings are attached to the role of the CBPs. Challenges facing paralegals were also identified. These included lack of acceptance, resistance from the community, lack of adequate funding, as well as lack of recognition and regulation – and the dangers that come with this.
Recommendations were made to various stakeholders, among them African Union (AU) organs, governments, and CSOs. Avoid stifling the role of CBPs: The overriding recommendation was to avoid stifling the role of CBPs due to issues of recognition and regulation, especially where CBPs lack the requisite qualifications to qualify as paralegals.
Financing the work of CBPs: Governments should recognise, regulate and support the work of the paralegals, especially through financial resources. These resources are critical to the work of CBPs. Recognition of CBPs should be based on experience: Governments are urged to consider the recognition of CBPs based on their experience in offering legal aid over a minimum period. This was a good practice identified by those CSOs that provide forms of recognition for paralegals working under their stewardship.
Government-NGO/CSO partnerships: Governments should encourage organisations which supervise CBPs to adopt viable forms of recognition and regulation. Use of both formal and informal CBPs: Continued realignment both formal and informal modes of CBPs was recommended. This would allow for continued use of both kinds of paralegals, taking into account the various advantages they bring to the table.
Dissemination of findings: The study recommended the use of dissemination to engage all stakeholders in various circumstances to ensure the desired meaning of CBPs is known and appreciated.
A hybrid engagement of challenges: Concerted and deliberate efforts by stakeholders should be taken to unpack challenges and use both objective and subjective engagements to tackle them. These efforts should be informed by conceptual and empirical research into the contexts of the communities and the paralegals therein.
This is the executive summary of the Research Report on The Legal Recognition of Paralegals in Africa: Lessons, Challenges and Good Practices. Dr Robert Doya Nanima is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Criminal Justice and Procedure, Faculty of Law. Prof Ebenezer Durojaye is Professor of Law and Head of the Socioeconomic Rights Project at the Dullah Omar Institute, Faculty of Law.
Research Data Management (RDM) is the process of organising and documenting data processes (collection, description, curation, archiving and publication) within a research project and throughout the lifecycle of the data. It encompasses various activities, from technicalities of storage, preservation and data curation, to legalities in policy and licensing. When research data is managed, there is potential for its impact and legacy to be far-reaching and manifold. RDM is becoming increasingly important as funding agencies (including the NRF in South Africa) and publishers continue to call for data sharing in research and open data.
At UWC, general RDM advocacy and training are overseen by the eResearch Office and the Library’s Research Support and Scholarly Communication (RSSC) team, who also manage the institutional research data repository, Kikapu. Both belong to the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Development, and they provide information, support and training on implementing RDM techniques into research workflows. Ultimately though, RDM needs to be done by individual researchers, ideally with good support from their faculties. RDM aims to make research outputs more transparent, findable, and reproducible, but in order to achieve these goals, strategies and processes need to be in place institutionally, and habits need to be formed individually.
However, RDM can be labour-intensive, especially if it is applied retroactively, and more so if it is overseen by nonoriginal researchers or administrative/research support staff. So, it is important that RDM becomes a part of the research process, playing a role throughout the research lifecycle. This includes applications for funding and grants, where a percentage should be allocated to RDM. In February 2020, CODATA President Barend Mons stated that supporting research without supporting data stewardship is irresponsible. He went on to say that taking care of data is not only an ethical duty which should be part of good research practice, but also that with proper RDM practices in place, researchers would have significantly more time to do research.
Data has a longer lifespan than the research project that
creates it. Researchers may continue to work on data after funding has ceased, follow-up projects may analyse or add to the data, and data may be re-used by other researchers. This use and re-use of data in future research is only possible when data is documented, shared, properly preserved and made openly available.
Data varies across faculties and disciplines, and some research fields by their very nature involve some kind of data literacy due to the software or technology that is needed to do the research. Managing data, however, is something that needs to occur within every research event, in every department. Traditionally, RDM happened tacitly over the course of a researcher’s career. Today, however, managing data is increasingly a very necessary part of research. Data is an important product of research, and recognising research data as a scholarly output is perhaps the first step.
Working with data is challenging. Proper data management practices can make research more coherent and shareable, which translates to research being relevant and valuable. By practicing good research data management, researchers achieve far more efficiency and ultimately, value, with their research data. Recent years have seen a major evolution in not only RDM policies, practices and needs, but also available tools and resources. Data management planning and the FAIR data principles are becoming a part of the everyday research language, and planning for long-term data curation is a part of the research conversation.
As Open Science and Open Access become more familiar and the academic landscape adjusts to greater openness, the need for good management of research data has become a crucial conversation. UWC’s RDM Policy (Section 13 of UWC’s Research Policy) was approved by the Council on 25 March 2021, and circulated to the broader community. A few months later, another policy that motivates researchers to engage more deeply with research data planning and management came into effect: South Africa’s information protection law, the POPI (Protection of Personal Information) Act. UWC embraces the principle ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’. In other
words, it encourages openness of research outputs where possible and plausible, while also recognising that restricting certain information is important.
Although there certainly are institutions in the Global South that advocate for RDM and reflect good practices, the RDM zeitgeist is largely influenced by institutions in the Global North. At this juncture, conducting research into RDM practices and needs at UWC is extremely valuable, not only in order to better equip UWC researchers to become confident RDM practitioners, but also to elevate UWC as a leader in RDM practices in South Africa and in the Global South. This can in turn lead to adequate budgeting for the cost of sufficient human resources, training and data storage facilities by the institution.
In 2021, the eResearch Office and the Library’s RSSC team circulated a survey to the broader UWC community with the aim of gathering information about RDM practices and needs. The team plans to share a similar survey in the upcoming weeks, and with the data from both, will share the results and be able to better understand the unique challenges facing our UWC research community.
Data from the 2021 survey reflects that UWC researchers are wary of RDM, but also that there is little understanding of research data as a sharable resource, and RDM in general. Thus, there is a great need for further RDM training and advocacy at all levels. Viewed only through a lens of compliance, RDM concepts and practices do not come across as empowering and engaging aspects of research, and often seem overwhelming. However, responsible data management is never time wasted, and efforts put into RDM are ultimately beneficial, especially when one considers data reuse within the broader Open Science landscape.
eResearch - https://eresearch.uwc.ac.za/ Library - https://lib.uwc.ac.za/ Kikapu - https://kikapu.uwc.ac.za
data, from planning to re-use.
Jeremy Daniel
“South Africa is unique. We contain two worlds,” explains Prof Veerasamy Yengopal as he sits down at his desk and adjusts the camera on his laptop. “We have got to make sure that our graduates are locally responsive to both the basic realities of South Africa and also globally competitive. It’s a very fertile training ground.”
With his background, Prof Yengopal, also known as Jeff, is perfectly suited to his new role as Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry; one that requires a big-picture overview of the challenges and opportunities that dentistry offers, and a vision of how best to shape the field for a new generation of medical students and to service the community.
“It may sound like I’m spinning trauma and disease as a positive (which it’s not) but there is no better place on the planet than our country in terms of giving exposure to students who want to learn dentistry. Our students would be able to do some surgeries better than specialists who don’t get that exposure.”
Prof Yengopal comes to his relatively new position, having started in October 2021, after a distinguished tenure at the University of the Witwatersrand where he served as Head of Community Dentistry for many years. Taking up the position at UWC is a homecoming of sorts as it is here where he gained a BChD in Dentistry in the turbulent 1980s, before returning for his PhD in Dental Health/Community Dentistry 25 years later.
His passion for the position of Dean is evident – both for the work itself and for the institution that has played such a pivotal role in his life and this makes his excitement about what he can achieve infectious.
“In the next five years, with me as Dean, it’s the perfect time to be progressive and push the boundaries. My job here is to support everyone in the faculty. The mark of a good leader is not only in what you give but how many people you help to surpass what you yourself have done. I want to see lots of my colleagues being better than me. We mustn’t just focus on the people who are all getting As. They are self-motivated and they will always do well. The mark of a great leader is getting those guys who are struggling at 30 to 40% and pushing them over the line.”
He plans to leverage all the incredible assets that the University has available, and is frustrated that it is not already doing so.
‘We’re sitting in Cape Town and the whole world wants to
come to visit us. Are we leveraging our location? Where’s your international accommodation centre where you can house all these international visitors? That’s what the big players do. We should invite big thinkers to come to Cape Town for a month and make it easy for them. They’ll do it for free in exchange for time in our city.”
The journey to Dean has been a long one with some wonderful highs. Prof Yengopal has worked with the National Oral Health Directorate and the Department of Health on strategy documents, teaching and research initiatives, and outreach prevention programmes. He was also a key player in the drafting of South Africa’s Revised National Oral Health Strategy Document.
His ambitions are perhaps best found in his upbringing where his father taught him to dream beyond what he thought was expected of him. Growing up poor in Tongaat, a small Kwazulu-Natal town, he’d neven heard of the Western Cape.
“I knew the only way out was education, so I worked hard and earned a bursary to become a teacher. I told my dad proudly but he didn’t say much. Later he turned to me and said ‘Why don’t you do something bigger with your life?’ I was shocked. I thought he was going to be happy and I would save him a lot of money by getting a bursary but I was glad that he believed there was something more in my future.’
“After that, I decided to go to university as no one in my family had been to varsity. I did a BSc at the University of Durban Westville as I didn’t know what else to do. The first day I walked in there, everyone told me ‘don’t worry you’ll fail, everyone fails the first year’. But I didn’t. Out of the 300 of us in that first year, only 35 passed and of those 35, only 15 were not repeating, and I was one of them.’
“On the campus, they were promoting this place called UWC, which I had never heard of. The deal was if you get accepted into this place, you don’t pay registration fees. So, I said ‘Okay I’ve got nothing to lose. Let me see what they have. What’s the best programme they have? Dentistry? Then that’s what I’m applying for. I did it and then just carried on struggling with my second year at UDW. But after a few months, I’d heard nothing back from UWC so I asked my dad to phone them to check up. They said to him ‘Where’s your son? We’ve been looking for him. He’s earned a spot in dentistry’.
“That date changed my life. It was the 17th of March, 1986. UWC was in the middle of a six-month boycott.
“I had never even been on a plane but I quickly booked a
midnight flight. My uncle had a friend who picked me up and took me to Belhar at two in the morning. The next day was my first day on campus at UWC and my first class was Anatomy. I had no idea you did Anatomy in dentistry and now here I was looking at a dead body!
“After class, I waited around looking lost, not sure how I was going to get home. It was around 5 pm, and I was feeling anxious. A gentleman came past and stopped to ask if I needed help. I explained that someone was supposed to pick me up. He asked where I needed to go and I said Belhar. He left and came back five minutes later in a big, beautiful BMW. The door opened and he called me to sit with him, then dropped me off where I was staying my first day. I only found out much later that it was Richard van der Ross who did that on my first day.”
After completing his degree, Prof Yengopal went back home to join his family in KwaZulu-Natal and got into private practice in Durban where he worked for 10 years. “I made a lot of money and I thought it would make me happy. But I soon
realised I was always leaving home at the same time, driving down the same road, parking in the same place, going into the same practice, and doing the same thing over and over again. Moneywise I was fine, but mentally I was dead. I could also see that the city was changing and my practice was in the city. In those days big malls were starting to come. Before that, everyone went to the city. Malls went up and people stopped coming into the city. I could see the practice was changing.”
He then decided to study further, having always wanted to do community dentistry. After 10 years of going it alone, he sold his practice to take up a registrar position – something he never regretted.
That focus on community dentistry has led him down a fascinating path and is directly responsible for many of his academic achievements.
“In South Africa, 85% of the population relies on public health services. Because of the expenses related to it. even the middle class can’t afford some of the basics. People need the state to serve their needs and the university is in a position to offer the full array of services, albeit people have to wait to access them.
“In the Western Cape, 77% of the chairs available for all services at this moment lie within the faculty of dentistry at UWC. If you look at our colleagues at UCT and Stellenbosch, they have a little separation in what they do. UCT has a medical building as well as training facilities at Groote Schuur, Stellenbosch has Tygerberg. Here, we share the building and we share the platform together. That arrangement is guided by the bilateral agreement between UWC and the province. It was only signed in November last year and it comes with its own challenges. This new arrangement is guiding the working relationship between the university and the province.”
On the question of incentivising young dentists to not go straight into private practice, Prof Yengopal is optimistic that the system is helping to steer more students toward community dentistry.
He acknowledges that there “was a time when the lure of private practice was so great that it was very hard to attract people to work in the public service or university environments. There was such a huge gap in the salary scales and then the government introduced the Occupational Specific Dispensations (OSDs) to a salary which really bucked up the salary and made it marketrelated. As a result, salaries offered at the OSD level in the public sector are quite reasonable. You can make a decent living”.
His overall goal is to make UWC a global player in teaching, training, and research. He believes that it has “the infrastructure, the burden of disease, the capacity and an innovative setup with the province being a partner. The challenges are to find a way to work together so we can give services and our agenda around teaching training and research”.
If the determination that Prof Yengopal has displayed throughout his life is anything to go by, chances are pretty good that the Faculty of Dentistry is in for many invigorating and exciting changes. As he said: “Dentistry is about more than mouths – it’s about mindsets as well. And if we can change those, we can change the world”. UWC can really fly and this faculty gets tremendous support. What we need is a series of MOUs with international partners and I’m working on that. We don’t need to play second fiddle. We have the world at our feet. It’s a mindset thing, a philosophy thing. How do we see ourselves at UWC? I see us as being really big global players. We have no excuses not to progress. I’m very confident that we can improve the way dentistry has been operating here for the better, and for the benefit of everyone in the Western Cape.’
Prof Carolina Ödman, an Associate Professor in Astrophysics at the UWC and the Associate Director for Development and Outreach at the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy, passed away in November 2022 after a long battle with cancer.
Speaking about her passing, Dr Blade Nzimande, the Minister of Higher Education and Training, described Prof Ödman as a tireless champion for astronomy development in Africa. He said her passing was a loss for the academic community, not only in South Africa but also for the continent.
“Losing Prof Ödman leaves a huge hole in all our lives, particularly the astronomy community across the world. She served the African Astronomical Society with pride and grace until the end.”
Among her many accolades, Prof Ödman received the International Astronomical Union Special Executive Committee Award for Astronomy Outreach, Development and Education.
The Minister praised Prof. Ödman for her work on translating scientific terms into indigenous languages so that astronomy could be introduced to high school learners in some schools in Cape Town. This multidisciplinary research project involved postgraduate students at UWC and the University’s Xhosa Department.
In 2021, the National Science and Technology Forum awarded Prof Ödman the Communication Award for her innovative ways of communicating science, engineering, and
technology. At the time, she told the Mail & Guardian that the COVID-19 pandemic had shown that science unlocks solutions to the biggest challenges, “but not without humanity, and that’s exactly the nexus where I get to work.
In 2018, she was recognised for her pioneering work in astronomy outreach, development and education with a Special IAU Prize from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) at the 2018 XXX IAU General Assembly in Vienna, Austria.
In 2020, Prof Ödman won the International Science Council award for her concept of developing a ‘Science for Development’ course to equip science graduates with a broad science perspective on development challenges.
As an active member of the African Astronomical Society (AfAS), Prof Ödman served on numerous committees and was part of key initiatives and collaborations, including serving on the board of the African Network of Women in Astronomy (AfNWA).
Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Prof Burtram Fielding said that besides Prof Ödman’s inspiring and impactful work, she was “quite simply an extraordinary human being. Her kind and generous spirit and positivity were infectious; with her radiant energy and broad smile, she lit up every meeting room or lecture venue she entered – even online Zoom meetings”. Prof Ödman is survived by her husband, Kevin Govender, and their two children, Xavier and Cyprian.
A memorial service, held at the university in November, can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGQfBmCyGBc
Love and revolution in the twentiethcentury colonial and postcolonial world: Perspectives from South Asia and Southern Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) was edited by Prof Gopinath Arunima from the Centre for Women’s Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University and current Director of KCHR; Prof Patricia Hayes, SARChI Chair of Visual History and Theory at the Centre for Humanities Research and Prof Premesh Lalu, founding director of the CHR and current professor of History at the Africa Institute, Sharjah. The book addresses emancipatory narratives from two main sites in the colonial world, the Indian and southern African subcontinents and calls attention to the specific and singular way in which notions of “love of the world” were born in a precise moment of anti-colonial struggle: a love of the world for which one would offer one’s life, and for which there had been little precedent in the history of earlier revolutions. It thus offers new ways of understanding the shifts in global traditions of emancipation over two centuries.
The Department of History’s Bongani Kona edited Our Ghosts Were Once People: Stories on death and dying (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2021) with contributions by writers and poets such as Sisonke Msimang, Dawn Garisch, Lidudumalingani, Mary Watson, Ishtiyaq Shukri, Hedley Twidle, Karin Schimke, Khadija Patel and Shubnum Khan.
Profs Ernst Conradie and PanChiu Lai Lai, P-C (eds) have launched Taking a deep breath for the story to begin … An earthed faith: Telling the story amid the “Anthropocene”. Volume 1 (Aosis Publishing, 2021) that addresses some preliminary issues that are typical of a “prolegomena” in any systematic theology. It will focus on the following question: ‘How does the story of who the Triune God is and what this God does relate to the story of life on Earth?’ Or: ‘Is the Christian story part of the earth’s story or is the earth’s story part of God’s story, from creation to consummation?’ This raises many issues on the relatedness of religion and theology, the place of theology in multi-disciplinary collaboration, the notion of revelation, the possibility of knowledge of God, the interplay between convictions and narrative accounts, hermeneutics, the difference between natural theology and a theology of nature, and the role of science vis-à-vis indigenous worldviews.
Prof Russell Kaschula from the Department of African Language Studies published Languages, Identities and Intercultural Communication in South Africa and Beyond (Routledge, 2022) that focuses on sociolinguistic theory, as well as critical language awareness and translanguaging with its many facets, to various communicative scenarios, both on the continent and in South Africa, in an accessible and practical way.
Prof Nico Steytler edited Comparative Federalism and Covid-19: Combating the Pandemic (Routledge, 2021) that explores the core elements of federalism that came to the fore in combatting the pandemic: the division of responsibilities (disaster management, health care, social welfare, and education), the need for centralisation, and intergovernmental relations and cooperation. As the pandemic struck federal countries at roughly the same time, it provided a unique opportunity for comparative research on the question of how the various federal systems responded.
UWC’s Profs Ignatius Swart and Marlize Rabe, along with Profs Anette Leis-Peters (VID Specialized University) and Auli Vähäkangas, (University of Helsinki) (eds) have launched Stuck in the margins? Young people and faith-based organisations in South African and Nordic localities (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2022). The book presents the findings of a research project that was launched under the working title “Youth at the Margins: A Comparative Study of the Contribution of Faith-Based Organisations to Social Cohesion in South Africa and Nordic Europe” which was conducted formally between 2013 and 2016.
Prof Sue-Mari Viljoen from the Faculty of Law and Prof Gustav Muller (University of Pretoria) published their book, Property in Housing (Juta, 2021) which unpacks the right of access to adequate housing (section 26 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996) from a property perspective. The purpose of the volume is to reassess how and to what extent property plays a role in the protection, promotion and fulfilment of this right.
Prof Paul Oberholster, Extraordinary Professor with the Institute for Water Studies, won the NSTFWater Research Commission (WRC) Award for his contribution to water resource management in South Africa over the past five years, with particular reference to the field of biological passive wastewater treatment.
A UWC undergraduate computer cluster team won the National Centre for High-Performance Computing (CHPC) Student Computer Cluster Competition for the third time over the past decade. The CHPC competition gives undergraduate students at South African universities exposure to the HighPerformance Computing (HPC) industry. At the 2021 national meeting held in early December 2021, teams built small HPC clusters on the exhibition floor from hardware provided by the CHPC and their industrial partners. The winning UWC team “Parallizers” (Randall Buckton, Ruchelle Coetzee, Jacobus Ferreira and Rofhiwa Matumba and coached by Peter van Heusden from the South African National Bioinformatics Institute) will now compete at the ISC Student Cluster Competition hosted at the 2022 International Supercomputing Conference in Germany.
The UK-based Urban Foundation awarded a grant to fund a project titled: From social infrastructure to pandemic resilience: Learning from and with low-income urban communities that will allow Prof Fiona Anciano, from the Department of Political Studies to work with colleagues from the University of Sheffield, UK, and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cali, Columbia to examine how community-based organisations (CBSs) in two highly unequal cities, Cape Town and Cali, have addressed needs relating to food, care and digital inclusion during the Covid-19 pandemic. Learning from locallyembedded practices is essential for equitable post-pandemic strategies, as legacies of ‘shadow pandemics’ in poverty, inequality and mental health are likely to influence policy agendas for decades.
The Director of the Centre for Legal Integration in Africa (CLIA), Prof Anthony Diala, was awarded a Bayreuth Academy International Fellowship by the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, Germany. CLIA received a threeyear grant from the National Research Foundation of South South Africa’s Human and Social Dynamics Programme (Grant No. 136532) for a project titled ‘Ascertaining the foundational values of indigenous laws in South Africa.’
Prof Renette Blignaut from the Department of Statistics and Populations Studies was presented with the prestigious 2021 SAS Thought Leader Award at the Statistical Association of South Africa (SASA) conference. The award recognises an individual who has made an impact within the South African statistical community across a wide range of activities and has made significant contributions to academia, industry, government and elsewhere. The criteria evaluated for this award include contributions and impact made in leadership, knowledge generation, human capital development, teaching, research and ability to attract funding. Prof Blignaut is only the second woman to receive this prestigious award.
Dr Sebolelo Mokapela was appointed to serve as a member of the Xhosa National Language Board (XNLB) and the Western Cape Provincial Language Committee.
Prof Yonatan Fessha was appointed as holder of the UWC Research Chair in Constitutional Design in Divided Societies and will use the chair to enhance research and postgraduate studies in Comparative Constitutional Law, with specific reference to federalism and other aspects of constitutional design in divided societies.
Acclaimed South African photojournalist and activist Rashid Lombard formally handed over his vast collection of images, videos and other material to UWC. It is a rich anthology of South African political and cultural life that will form part of a significant archival project at the university. The archive includes more than 500 000 film negatives, a large stockpile of video and audio recordings, posters, and other documents. The negatives and other material will be digitised and held with the current UWC archives.
Dr Megan Robertson has been awarded a Marie-SkłodowskaCurie Individual Fellowship, which will be hosted at the Centre for Religion and Public Life, an academic partner institution at the University of Leeds. The project title is ‘Sex and the Sacred: Queering Black Performing Arts in South Africa’. The value of the award for the two-year fellowship is £236,748 (R3,9 million). Marie Curie fellowships, aimed at supporting the best and most promising scientists globally, are among Europe’s most competitive and prestigious awards. The 2021 call, for which Dr Robertson applied, received 8 356 applications, from which 1 025 researchers were selected. Applications are peer-reviewed by three leading international researchers in the appropriate fields and graded based on excellence, impact and implementation. Dr Robertson’s application received an outstanding 100%, placing her in the top 0.92% of applications in the Social Science stream.
The Dullah Omar Institute’s Prof Usang Maria Assim was appointed as a member of the Childhood, Law, and Policy Network, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and hosted by the Department of Law, Queen Mary University of London; and as Acting Head of the Children’s Rights Project (CRP).
Prof Benyam Dawid Mezmur started serving as Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow, Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School. At the same time, Prof Nico Steytler was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee, Centre of Excellence in Good Governance, Addis Ababa University Partnership Programme for Capacity Building.
The Department of Criminal Justice and Procedure’s Dr Robert Nanima led a delegation of the African Union’s African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child to the Republic of Chad in February and represented the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child at a United Nations High-Level Side-Event on the ending and preventing child recruitment and a celebration of 25 years of the mandate of the Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral on Children Affected by Armed Conflict.
Prof Marshal Keyster (Department of Biotechnology), together with collaborators from the University of Pretoria, China (The Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research and Lanzhou University) USA (Rutgers University and the University of Delaware) and Finland (Natural Resources Institute Finland), was awarded a five-year multi-million Rand grant under the NRF/NSF Joint Research Programme on Dimensions of Biodiversity programme.
Using the MeerKAT radio telescope, a team of researchers from the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the South African Astronomical Observatory, together with colleagues from twelve other countries, have discovered a powerful megamaser. The lead investigator, Dr Marcin Glowacki, a former researcher at the IDIA and UWC, is now based at the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR). Following a public competition to name the megastar, it was named “Nkalakatha,” an isiZulu word that means “big boss”. Zolile Tibane, a computer science student at UWC, suggested this name.
As part of UWC’s aim to strengthen and encourage its research capacity, the DVC: Research and Innovation has launched a UWC Research Chair programme that will be faculty-based with the intention to develop a pipeline for National Research Foundation’s SARChI Chairs.
The aim of the UWC Research Chairs is to provide leading researchers with the opportunity to contribute to developing their respective niche areas, enabling capacity building by
having them identify a minimum of one PhD and two Master’s students and a junior staff member or postdoctoral fellow to support with their funding. The UWC Research Chairs must attend a national or international conference to share and engage with other institutions and build networks.
We are pleased to introduce the inaugural UWC Research Chairs.
Chair in Forensic Linguistics and Multilingualism:
Prof Russell H Kaschula (Faculty of Arts and Humanities)
Chair in Person-centred Digital Health:
Prof Jennifer Chipps (Faculty of Community and Health Sciences)
Chair in Critical Pedagogy and Literacy:
Prof Rajendra Chetty (Faculty of Education)
Chair in High Performance Sport:
Prof Barry Andrews (Faculty of Community and Health Sciences)
Chair in Gender, Transformation and World-Making
Prof Karin Van Marle (Faculty of Law)
Chair in Sustainable Agriculture
Prof Marshall Keyster
(Department of Biotechnology)
Chair in Leadership in Higher Education
Prof Marieta du Plessis
(Department of Industrial Psychology)
Chair in Democracy and Citizenship:
Prof Gregory Ruiters (Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences)
Chair in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics:
Prof David Holgate (Faculty of Natural Sciences)
Chair in Constitutional Design for Divided Societies:
Prof Yonatan T Fessha (Faculty of Law)
Chair in Oral Health:
Prof Manogari Chetty (Faculty of Dentistry)
Chair in Entrepreneurship in Higher Education:
Prof Chux Iwu (Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences)
Chair in Sustainable Agriculture:
Prof Ndomelele Ludidi (Faculty of Natural Sciences)
In November 2022, the Faculty of Dentistry received a new R3-million mobile dental clinic, replacing the one that had been in service for 44 years.
The new clinic will increase the number of patients that can be treated while allowing dentistry students to receive clinical training. The clinic was made possible through a UWC partnership with several partners that includes ColgatePalmolive, Rotary Club of the Waterfront and the Dental Wellness Foundation.
Speaking at the launch event, Prof Veersamy Yengopal, Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry said: “We serve the poorest of the
poor, those who will never access care. We develop young minds and expose them to communities, and in doing so, we teach them the responsibility they have in terms of giving back in one of the most unequal countries in the world”.
“And we transform lives. We are targeting quantile one and two schools, and those first-generation learners. And it shows if you take a child from a family that has never been to university and give them an opportunity, if they succeed, everyone who comes after them will also go to university.”
– Source: UWC News
UWC has, since its inception six decades ago, transformed itself from the apartheid creation it was meant to be and continues to give life to its ambitions as a university led by research. To fulfil these ambitions, significant investment has been made in its infrastructural expansion – from the new Faculty of Community and Health Sciences building in the Bellville CBD to the Centre for Humanities Research’s Greatmore Building in Woodstock.
The main campus has also made strides through a mix of new and repurposed buildings, and the new Faculty of Education Precinct on the south campus is one such project.
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Cover: By Chezlin Benson
In honour the UWC Chancellor, Archbishop Desmond Impilo Tutu, this edition of Signals is dedicated to him, for his untiring work for a just society. It also marks the 40th Anniversary of his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. The multi-talended artist, designer and illustrator, Chezlin Benson (from African Sun Media). Chezlin used the Arch’s signature purple, a colour which adorns the
