In response to an article that I wrote in June about how at the North-West University’s (NWU) Potchefstroom campus there is a white Afrikaner system that uses Afrikaans as a tool to exclude black students and benefit white Afrikaner students, Cobus Mostert in a nutshell responds by saying that “democracy is the rule of the majority and if that majority happens to be Afrikaans speaking it means that the campus would have to primarily accommodate the majority students; if black students are unhappy at Potchefstroom campus, they can enrol at Mafikeng campus; hostels have a rich history of traditions and practices that are not dehumanising and racist…”

In light of all this, Mostert once again illustrates what I said in my previous article: every time black students stand up and resist against this white Afrikaner racist system, they are told by white Afrikaner students that “you knew when you came here that this is an Afrikaans university; be grateful, we are giving you interpretation services…” In addition, Mostert’s point that black students who are not happy at Potchefstroom campus should go to Mafikeng campus highlights the white Afrikaner racist mentality that black students should receive sub-standard education at historically black universities whose quality is inferior because of the Apartheid government’s Bantu Education system. Mostert indirectly asserts that quality education that is above standard, should be an exclusive preserve for white students and that black students should be subjected to inferior sub-standard education, hence his reference to Mafikeng. However, I digress on this point.

Now, let me attend to his article point for point: firstly, he argues from a point of “democracy” and “democracy as a rule for the majority” that since the majority of students are Afrikaans-speaking, it means the campus would have to primarily accommodate the students in the majority, the Afrikaans speaking students, white Afrikaners in particular. My response to this is two-fold: firstly, Mostert fails to realise that in South Africa (SA) today, according to the Higher Education Act of SA, there is no such thing as an Afrikaans university or university for Afrikaners.

According to the aforementioned Act, we have what we call Institutions of Higher Learning. An institution of higher learning is a public institution. That tells you that the public is allowed to come there. That tells you that the institution is an inclusive society. That’s what it should be. Thus, the NWU Potchefstroom campus is not an Afrikaans university and does not belong to white Afrikaners. It belongs to the public and we as black students are part of the human society called the public. NWU POTCH is an Institution of Higher Learning! That’s it! I have stated all of this in my previous article. Looks like the “democrat” Mostert neglected this part. Moreover, SA is not just any democracy. It is a Constitutional Democracy! This means our country is ruled by constitutionalism, meaning the constitution of the country is the supreme law of the land and every law, policy or practice in the country must be within the confines of the constitution. Having said that, SA is not a majoritarian democracy. NWU POTCH should not serve the majority. NWU POTCH should serve all of its students. NWU POTCH is part of the larger South African and African educational landscape; a public institution bound to the values and responsibilities of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and should be accessible to all who are eligible to enter.

Secondly, Mostert must go read history and realise that the establishment of the Potchefstroom campus of the NWU was based on white Afrikaner nationalism. The Potchefstroom campus of the NWU, formerly known pre-2004 as the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, was an institution build on the basis of white Afrikaner nationalism. When it was established in 1869, it was fiercely anti-English. From the outset, Afrikaans was the medium of instruction and it was build solely for white Afrikaner students. Its ideological purpose was to protect the Afrikaner and Afrikanerdom’s cultural assets. That’s the brief history of what is known today as NWU POTCH. Therefore, my point is that Afrikaans-speaking students, white Afrikaner students for that matter, will obviously be a majority on the Potchefstroom campus given the colonial, exclusionary foundations of Potchefstroom campus and the fact that the current university management committee and SA’s ruling party do not have the political will to transform universities, 25 years after so-called democracy.

Furthermore, to deal with his second point, Mostert says “to force students to forgo their right to mother tongue is unconstitutional. Afrikaans students have the same right to study in Afrikaans and to education as any other student.” My response to this is that Afrikaans-speaking students, white Afrikaner speaking students in particular, always say that they have the right to study in the language of their choice which is Afrikaans in this case. However, even if you have the constitutionally-protected right to study in Afrikaans, if that right to study in Afrikaans denies other students access and promotes racial supremacy then your right to study in Afrikaans should be taken away because you are enjoying that right at the expense of other students.

Yes, you have the right to study in Afrikaans but currently your right to study in Afrikaans denies black students access to this campus and it perpetuates white supremacy and an exclusive culture of white Afrikaner hegemony which is present in the classroom and hostels. Based on this point, your right to study in Afrikaans promotes racial disharmony and does not promote access, racial inclusivity, and a sense of belonging for black students. In this regard, it is therefore appropriately justified to remove Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. Your right to study in Afrikaans is limited and should be taken away.

Now, on the issue of interpretation services, Mostert tacitly agrees that they are useless and ineffective when he says “the complaints about translation services are duly noted…” He goes on to argue that “most interpreters are experts in the modules they are interpreting” (which is not true in most overwhelming cases) and that “lecturers are the ones inconsiderate of the interpretation services.” Be that as it may, our primary argument as black students is that the existence of interpretation services is unjust. We are at this university in order to excel academically without anything hampering our academic progress. Interpretation services are hampering our progress. We do not want to be subjected to second-hand information. Similarly, the existence of interpretation services normalises the continuous and unjust usage of Afrikaans as a tool to exclude black students.

The more we have interpretation services, the more the unjust usage of Afrikaans as a medium to exclude will be normalised. Even if the interpreters are the best in the world, it does not outweigh the moral argument that interpretation services should not exist and should be discontinued because they hamper academic progress; provide second-hand information; their continued use normalise the unjust use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction, and they symbolise othering black students and treating them as students who are outsiders who do not belong at the NWU Potchefstroom campus. 

What’s more, the argument that hostels have a rich history of traditions and practices and that hostels are like “home” to some students and that these practices are not dehumanising and racist, is a misdiagnosis of the exclusionary culture of hostels at the NWU Potchefstroom campus. Firstly, when the white Afrikaner nationalist Potchefstroom campus of the NWU was built in 1869 along with its residences, this type of university and hostels were built to suit a particular type of student – a white Afrikaner student. Therefore, every tradition, culture and practice that was established was established with the intention of the white Afrikaner at heart and to suit his or her interests. Thus, post- 1994, the practices in these hostels go back as far as 1869 and were never meant to cater for all students, black students especially. The practices were meant to suit and cater for white Afrikaner students. Till today they are still doing so.

Therefore, we cannot prioritise your right to some cultural expression at the expense of equality, human dignity and freedom of person. And just so you know Mostert, I have stayed in a NWU POTCH hostel before, Over de Voor, for three full years. I am talking from a point of experience when I say the practices in all hostels of this campus are dehumanising, racist, sexist and fascist. Notwithstanding that a black student who hasn’t stayed in a hostel can argue about the structural racism of our campus hostels. They can argue that.

The primary duty of the NWU Potchefstroom campus is to provide access, academic access for all at this institution. It is not the duty of NWU POTCH to protect a language or a cultural tradition. It is not the primary duty of the NWU POTCH to protect a language like Afrikaans in this case or a white Afrikaner hegemonic culture. The primary duty of the NWU POTCH is to provide access to this institution for all. So if Mostert, his favourite author David McCullough and hostel friends who are so-called “shapers” that are anti-sluipers, want to protect Afrikaans and a white Afrikaner hegemonic culture, they can do it in Orania. “Shaper” by the way is codeword for a hostel student that complies and does the dehumanising and racist hostel practices without question. “Sluiper” is a codeword for a hostel student, particularly a black hostel student, who is against doing and participating in the dehumanising and racist hostel practices. So you see Mostert (a person who doubts that I spent any time in a hostel), I clearly know a lot more about this campus and its hostels than you can imagine.

Lastly, for you to argue that since “there are plenty of English-speaking students and alumni who have overcome this so-called “exclusion” with Afrikaans and thus everyone is welcome; is nonsense, to use your own words. Here is why: just because you say some English-preferable students feel welcome on the Potchefstroom campus of the NWU and managed to overcome the “exclusion” of Afrikaans, doesn’t necessarily mean that the oppressive system of institutionalised racism that uses Afrikaans as a tool to exclude black students doesn’t exist. It exists.

Let me unpack it this way: when a black person who is a victim of racism denies that they are a victim of racism, that doesn’t mean that they are not a victim of racism or racism doesn’t exist. When a black person who is a victim of racism denies being a victim of racism when it is clear that they are a victim of racism that goes to show the structural power of racism. Meaning, the power of racism is to psychologically convince the black victim that there is no racism and for them to accept and believe that there was no racism.

The power of structural and psychological racism is to convince the black victim of racism that there is no racism and make the black victim believe this lie and ultimately make the black victim of racism to be the one at the forefront of saying that there is no racism. SOME BLACK SLAVES DO NOT KNOW THAT THEY ARE SLAVES! So it is not about a few English-speaking students who are happy. It is about systematically uprooting a system that uses Afrikaans as a tool to exclude black students, so that all English-preferable students benefit.

Yes, the majority of people who speak Afrikaans are not white Afrikaners but Coloured. Agreed! Hence, our argument is that we are against a system that uses Afrikaans as a tool to exclude students. We are against the system. We are not against Afrikaans as a language. We are against the system and the way Afrikaans is used to exclude, oppress, marginalise, and isolate other black students. The call for Afrikaans to fall is the call for the system that is using Afrikaans as a medium of instruction and weapon to exclude, to literally fall. Coloured students, irrespective of Afrikaans being their mother tongue, still experience racism on our campus and in the hostels, because of the colour of their skin. They are also subjected to the dehumanising and racist hostel practices suited for a typical white Afrikaner student.

For what it is worth, published books, credible media outlets and the NWU’s website have reported that in February 2008, 2014 and January 2019, hostel committee members of NWU POTCH hostels, namely, Over de Voor, Karlien, and Caput, have been suspended for intimidating first year students and subjecting them to initiation practices that are unconstitutional, thus they are dehumanising and violating an individual’s basic right to human dignity, freedom of person and freedom from torture and bodily harm. These are just the few hostels that got exposed. All the hostels engage in these dehumanising practices but are yet to be exposed.

To finally conclude, I agree with you that our SCC (SRC of our campus) is a joke and nobody votes for it, and just like you, the SCC’s white Afrikaner members who are predominant in that structure are benefitting from the white Afrikaner hegemonic culture of this campus. I repeat once again: Frantz Fanon once said: “each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it.” We as the oppressed black students of the NWU – Potchefstroom campus have identified our mission. And our mission is to eradicate Afrikaans as a medium of instruction and phase in English and English only as the primary medium of instruction.

Afrikaans Must Fall! No Retreat! No Surrender! Victory Is Certain! Hasta La Victoria Siempre! And this is not a Spartan quote as you say. This war cry phrase is taken from the Black Cuban Commander Victor Dreke of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba that led the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s that overthrew Batista. So you know nothing about decolonisation!

Just like the white capitalist state of Batista was overthrown through revolutionary means, Afrikaans at the NWU Potchefstroom campus will be overthrown as well.

No Retreat! No Surrender! Victory Is Certain! Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

Having formed both the EFF and the EFFSC, one has had the privilege of observing various EFFSC branches over the years and seeing varying trends that lead to a branch either becoming successful or dying a poor death. In the period between 2014, we took part of a group of 6 fighters who visited every university campus in this country (except Western Cape province) setting up EFF structures in institutions of higher learning, with the intention to officially establish EFFSC the following year.

Following the founding assembly of the EFFSC, we assisted new branches to launch, organize students and even contest SRC elections. This exposition uses the experience gained, to canvass 6 signs that indicate that an EFFSC branch has gone to the dogs. These, although a product of one’s studied observations, intend to punctuate the thinking of future student leaders on tendencies that may lead to their success and failure as a collective; it is by no means authoritative nor cast in stone.

First, the branch becomes synonymous with violence, rowdiness and chaotic exchanges among comrades: When branch meetings descend to flying chairs and fists, it usually means two things, (1) the reasoning capacity of the branch has reached its ceiling and (2) contestations have become so rife, transcending politics, rather becoming unhealthily personalized. The former is a product of an anti-thinking and post-ideology climate in the student movement, wherein differences are no longer resolved by way of debate and persuasion, but rather by fists. The latter is true when political differences are construed as personal difference; also brewing from the post-ideology reality, wherein comrade X disagrees with the opinion of comrade Y, the branch assumes that the two hate each other, comrade Y also feels that comrade X o na le le nyatso.

Second, the branch outsources its collective thinking capacity to campus-based trade unions and forums, handlers, basically: Post #FeesMustFall and #OutsourcingMustFall period, many pre-existing university formations were woken up to the mass power of student formations, as a result, many continue to capture the EFFSC for their selfish ends. For instance, trade unions piggy bag on the EFFSC’s rapport with vulnerable previously outsourced black workers, effectively using EFFSC branch leaders to do union work and recruit for the union. In return, a select clique of EFFSC branch leaders are bought with food, alcohol and the promise of jobs in the university. Worse than unions, are forums who use EFFSC branches as a rented crowd for their events, which range from quasi-academic seminars, right up to public pickets. The consequence of this reality is that branch leaders of the EFFSC cease to become leaders of the branch, but invariably become puppets, hand-clappers and lapdogs of the bloodsucking elite that lead these unions and forums. Even worse, the branch loses its distinct intellectual identity, assuming the squalid character of its handler of choice. 

Third, the branch stops taking up genuine worker and student struggles, instead focusing on internal factions and squabbles: When you are under the jealous handle of unions and forums, befuddled by a culture of violence among comrades, the inevitable consequence is that you lose sight of what matters, consequently forgetting your very reasons for existing. The reason why an EFFSC branch must be independent is that it allows it to think soberly, reflecting on issues that face workers and students, thus its continued unholy relations with unions and forums makes it blind to matters that it should be taking up. The reality is that the branch fails to raise matters of student services as well as matters pertaining to the transformation of the university/TVET when it is laden with the tawdry task of fighting the career battles of their mostly-academic forum handlers. In this period, middle-class university councils and elitist senates, approve draconian policies that undo the gains made by the broader working class movement, and to the detriment of downtrodden black students.

Fourth, the branch actively shuns engaged political, intellectual and ideological work, preferring empty sloganeering, phrase-mongering and related populist attitudes: This point cannot be stressed enough. The trend among branches that do not value the essence of dedicating time to political education is to substitute it with the bizarre tendency of empty slogans, the throwing around of catchy phrases and other forms of performative populism. The idea here is to show face at other people’s events, then grab the microphone, only be heard chanting the words, “pedagogy, epistemology, decolonization, imperialism, and so and so forth”, to this, the captured branch leaders get loud cheers from fellow branch members, without engaging the substance(or lack thereof) of the phrases that are thrown around. This is a terrible culture that is synonymous with social media proclivities, the Woke cadre hiding behind the desktop appears more revolutionary or knowledgeable than the rest, where in reality there is no shred of engaged intellectual responsiveness about him/her.

Fifth, the branch bashes women, treats feminist discourse with suspicion and relegates the female members to sub-members: The female cadre is a perpetual child in a politically decaying EFFSC branch, her role is to wear the red EFF doek, be pretty for the male gaze and remain as silent as possible. In discussions about the leadership question, the trend is that “Chiefkazi so and so should emerge as the deputy chairperson or the treasurer”, never the chairperson nor the secretary. When she avails herself for any strategic position she is told that she is “not ready”. When she insists that she wants to lead, the male leaders become aggressive in shutting her down, reminding her of who she has had sex with and the number of her current sexual partners. In silence, and embarrassment, she shuts her mouth and continues looking pretty. The relatively thriving and/or prominent female is the one(s) that is girlfriend(s) of the chairperson and the secretary, she is no longer “comrade Thando”, and instead is referred to as “comrade Ntando’s girlfriend”, at best she will be referred to in some patronizing titles such as “first lady” or “headquarters”. The politically decaying EFFSC branch normalizes these anomalies, throttling any chance of a discourse on women’s liberation; feminism is reduced to a swear-word, and feminists are accorded the status “sfebe”.

Lastly, the leadership core of the branch deliberately neglects its academic duties, either by way of repeatedly failing their modules or sometimes going a semester or 2 without registering all: We do not come to universities/TVETS to be student leaders, instead we come here to study, learn and graduate. This has become a sensitive topic to discuss among comrades of the EFFSC, instead we gloss over it, preferring to preserve good relations with old comrades. As a result, among us, there will be comrades who will insist on contesting for the position of branch secretary for 4 years in row, while he/she is registered for a 3 year degree. The branch can never succeed in its broader collective tasks, when its members and leaders are failing to lead themselves into achieving the primary role of any student. Leaders must graduate.

In conclusion, each branch has the duty to engage in the strenuous task of self-introspection. Each must measure itself in accordance to its conduct and in line with the normative values and standards set out for every member in the four basic documents of the EFF namely, the constitution, branch induction manual, founding manifesto and the code of conduct & revolutionary discipline.