UCT vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng congratulated honours student Mlandu Masixole, a fallist, for completing his honours research paper that included in the acknowledgements "One settler, one bullet". She responded to his tweet announcing the completion of his project in the Department of Politics.
Another Twitter user, UCT Conservative, criticised her for "congratulating a student for submitting a dissertation with ‘one settler, one bullet’ written in bold on page 2", and added "UCT will be an unsaveable dump in five years".
Another Twitter user, UCT Conservative, criticised her for "congratulating a student for submitting a dissertation with ‘one settler, one bullet’ written in bold on page 2", and added "UCT will be an unsaveable dump in five years".
Phakeng replied: "Of course I can never be proud of promises of bullets, what am proud of is that you did the paper and completed it! I am deginitely proud that you finally clicked it off for assessment (sic)".
After this became public, UCT issued a statement to Politicsweb condemning Masixole's statement. "Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, as she often does, congratulated a student for completing his honours degree and for applying to do his Master of Arts degree."
When Phakeng congratulated Masixole, did she know of the "one settler, one bullet" acknowledgement and see it in the screenshot? The same applies to Masixole's supervisor Dr Lwazi Lushaba. He would've read the dissertation so ought to have reminded Masixole it's hate speech and against the law, which Masixole knows, and advised him to remove it from the final product. Why didn't he?
Does Phakeng personally congratulate UCT's thousands of students who are in the process, ie fulfilled the requirements, but not yet, graduated? I doubt it.
So why did Masixole receive her special attention, or did she go out her way because of who he is - a fallist with publicised anti-colonial views and she congratulated him mostly bec of that, or that she approve of his dissertation subject "The Colonizer/Colonized dialectic: A look into Settler-Colonialism as a socio-symbolic order of South Africa"?
Her/UCT's belated retraction is poor and doesn't undo the damage she caused to the university and the unflattering perception it creates of her and UCT: a vice-chancellor who texts before she thinks; who engages inappropriately on Twitter and who tacitly or expressly supports Masixole's and fallist's hateful and racist narrative. Note she sent a follow-up tweet ("MA here we come") so was apparently still unaware or couldn't care less what Masixole wrote (one settler, one bullet) and boasted about.
The day before UCT's Elijah Moholola unsuccessfully tried to claim the moral high-ground in his/their response concerning the university's censorship of art (see my blog post). Masixole tweet and Phakeng's approbation of him and all he stands for, even if she was unaware of the acknowledgement, fortuitously tells us all we need to know about UCT and its new vice-chancellor.
Interestingly, UCT removes inoffensive art but tacitly condones hate speech.
PS: the offending words in the acknowledgement cannot and must not be allowed to remain in the final product. It does not form part of the dissertation per se and can be removed without affecting the academic content. It would be interesting to know what happens to it. Perhaps in the new academic year when the furore has died down someone can ask UCT.
After this became public, UCT issued a statement to Politicsweb condemning Masixole's statement. "Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, as she often does, congratulated a student for completing his honours degree and for applying to do his Master of Arts degree."
When Phakeng congratulated Masixole, did she know of the "one settler, one bullet" acknowledgement and see it in the screenshot? The same applies to Masixole's supervisor Dr Lwazi Lushaba. He would've read the dissertation so ought to have reminded Masixole it's hate speech and against the law, which Masixole knows, and advised him to remove it from the final product. Why didn't he?
Does Phakeng personally congratulate UCT's thousands of students who are in the process, ie fulfilled the requirements, but not yet, graduated? I doubt it.
So why did Masixole receive her special attention, or did she go out her way because of who he is - a fallist with publicised anti-colonial views and she congratulated him mostly bec of that, or that she approve of his dissertation subject "The Colonizer/Colonized dialectic: A look into Settler-Colonialism as a socio-symbolic order of South Africa"?
Her/UCT's belated retraction is poor and doesn't undo the damage she caused to the university and the unflattering perception it creates of her and UCT: a vice-chancellor who texts before she thinks; who engages inappropriately on Twitter and who tacitly or expressly supports Masixole's and fallist's hateful and racist narrative. Note she sent a follow-up tweet ("MA here we come") so was apparently still unaware or couldn't care less what Masixole wrote (one settler, one bullet) and boasted about.
The day before UCT's Elijah Moholola unsuccessfully tried to claim the moral high-ground in his/their response concerning the university's censorship of art (see my blog post). Masixole tweet and Phakeng's approbation of him and all he stands for, even if she was unaware of the acknowledgement, fortuitously tells us all we need to know about UCT and its new vice-chancellor.
Interestingly, UCT removes inoffensive art but tacitly condones hate speech.
PS: the offending words in the acknowledgement cannot and must not be allowed to remain in the final product. It does not form part of the dissertation per se and can be removed without affecting the academic content. It would be interesting to know what happens to it. Perhaps in the new academic year when the furore has died down someone can ask UCT.
Comments
Post a Comment