Firstly, I would like to state that I don’t think the Mpho knows what democracy means and that democracy marginalises as a rule of thumb. 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. 

Besides for the clear lack of understanding in the concept of democracy the Mpho neglects to mention the infamous Mafikeng campus known to be an almost exclusively English campus. If the students of the Potchefstroom campus are unhappy on one of the sister campuses, they can just enrol to Mafikeng and receive the same quality education from the same university just a different campus.

To force students to forgo their right to mother tongue is unconstitutional. To claim that English speaking students are not welcome at the Potchefstroom campus is nonsense. There are plenty of English-speaking alumni members who have overcome this so called “exclusion” with Afrikaans. The Afrikaans students was the same right to education as any other student. The complaints about translation services is duly noted but most of the translators are experts in the subject they translate. The lecturers are occasionally inconsiderate of the interpretation services and the fault cannot be with the interpreter’s working overtime to keep up with lecturers.

David McCullough said, “How can we know who we are and where we are going if we don’t know anything about where we have come from and what we have been through, the courage shown, the costs paid, to be where we are?” 

If people need to know their history, why a hostel shouldn’t be able to do the same. The identity of a hostel is constructed on the rich history of traditions and practices. Some of the practices might be out of time and place but for the most part hostel give students a family and friends away from home. None of the hostels for the record encourage dehumanising, racist, sexist and fascist ideas and I doubt you spent any time in a hostel.

Regarding the makeup of hostels. The hostels on campus are only predominately white because of the high standards upheld in the last few years. Campus hostels are increasingly popular and therefore use a system on merit that doesn’t have any underling discrimination. The students who are part of the campus hostels are required to perform before and during their time in the hostel. Hostels don’t have time or capacity for inactive members also called “sluipers”.

If Afrikaans is so oppressive at the Potchefstroom campus of the North West University or the “white Afrikaner enclave” as you call it is just excluding marginalising, why not do the affordable alternative without the isolate and negative side-effects.

To claim that you think a language can degrade an entire group of people is ridiculous. If people don’t free their mind, they will never be free according to Fanon. The Afrikaner imperialist narrative is getting old. Afrikaans is just a language trying to grow and isn’t limited to white Afrikaner in case you haven’t seen the statics. The white Afrikaners are the minority of the Afrikaner mother tongue speakers.

Its hubris to make assumptions on behalf of every Afrikaner and black person on campus. The analysis of the campus excluded more people than campus management could ever hope to. You didn’t even include many Afrikaners that prefer to receive their tertiary education in English for instance vice versa.

The SRC is a joke and nobody votes for the SRC so if you don’t like the SRC get in line. SRC is controversial to say the least and a topic for another discussion. I’ve never seen a single Potchefstroom advert or marketing initiatives. Going to the mainstream schools is just cost effective not racism. Pride and Prejudice must fall!

“No Retreat! No Surrender!” is a Spartan quote so maybe you should decolonise your own frame of reference.

We are in the middle of the fourth wave of feminism, and never has it been so challenging to be part of the feminist movement than it is now. In the previous waves the enemy was a lot clearer and feminism was still distinctly aligned with the liberation of black bodies in the African people liberation context. The biggest moments of feminism in South Africa like the 1956 women’s march are seen as just part of the liberation movement than it is part of the feminist movement. Such moments were crucial in the liberation struggle, and they still present themselves as crucial in present times.

They are proof that the liberation of women doesn’t have to take the backseat whilst the “real” struggles are being dealt with. They are proof of the only way that our male counterparts still refuse to believe when it comes to all liberation struggles, that the struggles of gender equality can be integrated and be an integral part of every sort of emancipation we seek as black people. Thomas Isidore Sankara puts it clearly that there is no true social revolution without the liberation of women. The fight for liberation of women doesn’t come to being as an act of charity or compassion from men, but rather as an essential part that goes perfectly with the revolution and black emancipation. After all women hold the other side of the sky.

In so speaking it is very ignorant to continue spitting words like “I’m in support of women struggles but not of feminism.” The scariest part of such a statement is not only the fact that it often follows a long justification on how feminism is a movement and ideal based on the massacre and hate of men, but rather thinking that you are in support of women when you oppose the biggest movement in which gender equality issues are analysed and understood. These people are the most dangerous people that are tearing apart our movements and spaces from within, like a terminal virus that runs in the blood of the affected. The virus is not spotted until it is too late.

The biggest injustice in all of this is not only the attempt to try and make the only thing that rightfully belongs to women about men, it is how misunderstood the feminist movement is. What is feminism if not the support of women and gender equality struggles. In many of our spaces as activists there is a refusal to even keep an open mind about feminism, largely men and a bit from women. If it is not dialled down to just being petty and distracting us from the main fight it is perceived as hate and unnecessary attacks on men and the important issues they are dealing with. Men are so scared of being insignificant and erased because they have seen it happen to women, and most importantly they have seen it happen to black men too.

We need to recognize that black radical feminism also directly attacks the abuse of black men and white imperialism, if anything black radical feminism is not only protecting black womanhood but also protecting black manhood. This at times is not only misunderstood by men but by feminists themselves. Of course, we should be unapologetic in every way we take a stand, but we also need to introspect and promote equality in everything. We are not fighting for a matriarchal society, but rather an equal society that is free of both patriarchy and matriarchy. Black men and women are meant to be allies against every form of imperialism.

The mere fact that feminism is demonstrated as a weapon to exterminate the male population is proof of the very profound femmephobia that is induced in black men, we are made to be enemies. There is a need for emotional expression in black men, because they have been denied that for centuries it is the only way this femmephobia will be confronted. By showing emotions men will be redeeming themselves as human, not the emotionless working robots that black hard labour and poverty abused and turned them into being. The best way to confront your fears is dealing with them head on, protest to be in touch with every inch of yourself no matter how feminine because even scientifically you are both feminine and masculine in one body.

You realise that empowering women in allowing them to occupy space would empower everyone else in the revolution that much more. It is not by mistake that the likes of Thomas Isidore Sankara and Malcolm X were of the most feared men this world has ever witnessed. Both these men noted the importance of women in the struggle, they noted the importance of not side-lining and making a by-product of women struggles. They recognised the struggle of women liberation in an equal footing as the struggle for full black emancipation. There is a need for deeper understanding for struggles of gender equality, comrades can no longer keep on riding the wave of alluding to more important struggles when the sharpest of our female forces in our movements are reduced to just mere girlfriends and baby mamas. We are all well aware whether consciously or unconsciously, of the fact that women are as capable as men, considering that we live in a world that was previously matriarchal.

Besides the feminist movement being vilified and brought across as a weapon to exterminate the men population, it is a movement seeking to put all genders on a level playing field. If even right after you have read all justification about why you should be an ally, an ally that is fearless because he can confront his own fears and take on a female comrade with the same vigour they will a male comrade, you are still thinking this is just a crazy woman venting. Because men have been offered the privilege of being assertive and dominant, whilst on the other hand we are just whining woman, who are seeking attention and are being bitchy. Such level of fear; your fear, is not only cause for concern; it is a loud cry for help.