International Mother Language Day is held worldwide on 21 February to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. Observed since 2008, the date of 21 February corresponds to the day in 1952 when students in what is today Bangladesh who were demonstrating for the recognition of Bangla as one of the two national languages of East Pakistan, were shot dead by police.
Letter first published by The Times of London
26 December 2015
Dear Sir
It is regrettable that the “Rhodes Must Fall” folly has spread from South Africa to Oriel College. My people – the Afrikaners – have greater reason to dislike Rhodes than anyone else. He was the architect of the Anglo-Boer War that had a disastrous impact on our people. Yet the National Party government never thought of removing his name from our history.
In his address on 15 October 2015 to the Higher Education Transformation Summit in Durban, Deputy President Ramaphosa made the following statement:
“Though we have made a decisive shift from the fragmented, inefficient and inequitable higher education system of the apartheid era, we still feel its effects. Had the apartheid rulers not been so thorough, so methodical, so malevolent in the denial of education to the black majority, then South Africa would today be on a completely different developmental trajectory. We would be a more equitable nation, a more prosperous nation. We would have an advanced, diversified, more inclusive economy.”
Almost all South Africans agree that our country is in a crisis. Most government departments are paralysed by incompetence, corruption and a culture of entitlement.
The state of the economy, education, health services, infrastructure and safety are at a low point. The evil triplets of poverty, unemployment and inequality are thriving.
Moreover, a well thought-out plan to “Africanise” society in the name of transformation is being applied relentlessly.
Luister, the video that was recently produced by the Open Stellenbosch (OS) movement, should be viewed by everyone who is interested in the future of our universities and the future of South Africa as a multicultural society. It presents 32 interviews – primarily with black students – regarding their sense of racial exclusion at Stellenbosch University. They complain of subtle – and not so subtle – racism in their interactions with white Afrikaans-speaking students – including accusations of out-and-out racial abuse in student bars and on the internet.
In 2002 the United Nations declared 21 May World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development.
Language of instruction is a key issue at the heart of debate in most multilingual countries.
Race relations in South Africa are more fractious now than they have been at any time since 1994.
Current developments on the campuses of NWU, Stellenbosch and UCT are raising core questions, not only about the future of our universities, but also about the nature of our multicultural society.
