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UCT's crisis result of Max Price's appeasement of #RMF and #FMF tyranny

There is a sense of  deja vu and be careful what you wish for about the University of Cape Town's latest troubles. Daily Maverick's Rebecca Davis is broke the story about "governance" problems there.

It's alleged vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng and head of council Babalwa Ngonyama abused their positions and threatened key executive staff, many of whom have resigned, and lied to council. A couple of years ago UCT ombuds investigated staff complaints against Phakeng who threatened and tried to intimidate her. Her report to council was not acted upon.

When in 2015 to 2016 VC Max Price and the university executive and council caved in to the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall mob and their tyranny, the left, including DM, media and Davis generally supported RMF, were unsympathetic to the centre's appeals for calm debate about the issues. This was despite RMF intimidating and assaulting UCT staff and students 

Head of UCT alumni affairs Russel Ally was one of UCT's public spokesmen justifying the university's capitulation to extremism, accusing those who called for moderation, including UCT academics and members of the convocation, of racism and not understanding the purported challenges of racial "transformation". 

Phakeng and Ngonyama are obvious heirs to the Price administration's "transformation" process - dictatorship, fear, intimidation, abrogation of governance and what a university ought to be. Should we be surprised? No, because it's what moderates - the few UCT staff who dared comment, former academic Tim Crowe and I - predicted. It's not that we were prescient but it was bound to happen when the genie was let loose. 

Incidentally, it's not surprising when the FMF mob began destroying assets and assaulting people their erstwhile supporters including media went silent, not accepting some responsibility for egging them on. F

Price, Pillay, Gerda Kruger et al have a lot to answer for. Now staff who did nothing and even encouraged what was happening are being forced out. I have no sympathy.

Similarly, Davis' article, like recent ones in DM by Mark Heywood and Heather Robertson on the state of the country, show an unappreciation of history - forgetting that not long ago there was fulsome praise for Ramaphosa w toho always had the stink of corruption.

Disclosure: I'm a former UCT alumnus (Masters degree). In a letter to Price, registrar Royston Pillay, Ally and Dianna Yach in January 2017 I broke ties with the university. I symbolically returned my certificate. Ally was the only one to respond saying I could not do so because I had earned it. He spoke of "tremendous transformation [racial] challenges" and promised to elaborate. I asked what could justify the violence and damage caused by RMF and FMF, by the way for which no one was prosecuted anywhere in the country. He never replied.


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