Who Was Alfred? A native gazing at Rhodes University from Makana’s Kop

Who Was Alfred? A native gazing at Rhodes University from Makana’s Kop by TigersEye99

#RHODESSOWHITE - Director's Cut

Shutting Down the Rainbow Nation: #FeesMustFall

The ‘African university’ as a site of protest

Paddy O’Halloran, Pambazuka

Photographs of dozens of black intellectuals, artists and revolutionaries decorate the walls of the Black Student Movement Commons, formerly the Council Chambers, at the university currently known as Rhodes in Grahamstown, South Africa. Among the many people honoured there are Angela Davis, Steve Biko, Albertina and Walter Sisulu, Bob Marley, Frantz Fanon, Ellen Kuzwayo, Frederick Douglass, Maya Angelou, Robert Sobukwe, Harriet Tubman and Malcom X. Unlike the dreary portraits of Vice-Chancellors of bygone years that hang in the hallways outside the doors of the Commons, the many faces stuck up by the Black Student Movement (BSM) exude no pomp, none of the unearned arrogance of tradition, nor the security of age-old hierarchy. The assemblage of poets, fighters and thinkers provide inspiration for BSM members, who have occupied the Chambers for two weeks demanding a long-term resolution to the problem of vacation accommodation in university residences as a first practical step toward transforming their university.

Policing student politics: Is there a ‘right’ way to protest?

Jonis Ghedi Alasow, The Daily Maverick

On Friday 28 August the Black Student Movement (BSM) at the institution still known as Rhodes University reached a watershed moment in its short history. University management called armed police officers – with dog units – to confront students who wished to address the University senate on accommodation during the short vacations. There was an overwhelming sense of fierceness among the police, dog units and university campus protection.

Transformation in action

Mikaela Erskog, The Daily Dispatch

Events such as the student-led #RhodesMustFall campaign at UCT and the recent formation and actions of the Black Student Movement at the university currently known as Rhodes reveal the extent to which South African universities have not been central and progressive hubs of social transformation.

Concerningly, this moment also indicates a lack of critical engagement with how seriously students are invested in the transformation of historically colonial educational institutions.

Working while black at Rhodes

Vashna Jagarnath, The Daily Maverick

The extraordinary rejuvenation of student politics in South African universities has enabled a moment of real possibility. It is imperative that we seize this moment to have an honest conversation about racism in wider society, and in universities like UCT and Rhodes, and to act to effect real change.

I studied history at the former University of Natal in Durban where Keith Breckenridge and Catherine Burns built an extraordinary department, of the highest academic quality. The African experience was taken seriously, black thinkers were taken seriously and black students flourished. I am one of many black people that found my way into an academic life as a direct result of the space that was created in the Department of Historical Studies in Durban.

Post-Marikana SA, birthing the new student politics

Camalita Naicker, The Daily Maverick

The Black Student Movement has established a political praxis that shows marked breaks with traditional hierarchical student representative structures. This has serious implications for the post-Marikana student, who has seen the failings of the government, the party, and the leader, and who has witnessed popular mobilisations that break with traditional top-down politics; practices which have repeatedly failed to fix the problems of black and oppressed people in this country.

Dr Aubrey Mokoape's address to the Black Students' Movement

The Rhodes to Perdition: Why Rhodes was never ready for the BSM

Ntombizikhona Valela, The Daily Maverick

In the past couple of weeks university students from Wits, UCT and Rhodes have been making a call for the transformation of the institutional cultures at the abovementioned universities. Wits students from the Political Studies Department issued a demand for the change in the curriculum in order to include African and global South thinkers from Frantz Fanon, to Lewis Gordon, to Angela Davis. UCT students are currently engaged in a campaign to have the statue of Cecil John Rhodes removed and Rhodes University students, in particular those belonging to the Black Students Movement, have made a call for the change of the University’s name as part of getting the ball rolling on achieving meaningful transformation.

BSM member Lihle Ngcobozi addresses Dr Stephen Fourie on behalf of the movement demanding to know why BSM has been prevented from entering the Admin Building. (Kate Janse Van Rensburg)

In Conversation with Eusebuis McKaiser on #RhodesMustFall

Rhodes Must Fall

On Language & Disruptive Pedagogy

There was a social media storm recently after a Rhodes University lecturer used isiXhosa in a history class – and then told unhappy students it was their duty to learn the local language. A version of this event posted on Facebook prompted many discussions on issues of language, privilege and power. After two weeks of debate, the lecturer, Naledi Nomalanga Mkhize, explains the reasoning behind her assertion. The Con

With almost 10 years’ experience in teaching and education activism behind me, having taught hundreds of students each year, one of the things that remains a mainstay of my career is that delicate combination of teaching through nurturing and through disruption.

Honours Course on History of Africana Intellectualism: 2015

Honours Course on History of Africana Intellectualism: 2015

History Department, Rhodes University

Facilitated by Dr. Vashna Jagarnath, Senior Lecturer & Acting-Deputy Dean of Humanities (Research)

Summary of the course

Welcome to this short course that attempts to open up a discussion on the history of African thought. Given the vastness of the subject matter we will have to navigate through the key debates and materials rather than undertaking a comprehensive study. Think of the course as a smorgasbord picking up bits and pieces arranged under themes. This way we can sample some of the vast array of literature and you will, by the end of the course, at least be competent in the main debates dealing with African intellectual thought.

Gaza vigil - Rhodes University 8/8/2014

Motion on Israel Adopted by the Faculty of Humanities, Rhodes University, 4 August 2014

Motion to the Faculty of Humanities concerning the abuse of Human Rights in Palestine and the Occupied Territories

Noting the United Nations Security Councils specifically call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, respect for humanitarian law and protection of civilians in Gaza; the general worldwide condemnation of the Israeli government’s sustained airborne assault and ground force military incursion into Gaza, which has resulted in over 1,035 deaths of Palestinians (of which 218 deaths have been children); the deaths of 3 Israeli civilians; the injuring of 6,200 Palestinian people and the displacement of 100 000 Palestinian individuals by the 27th of July 2014;

Paul Maylam & Eusebius McKaizer discuss the legacy of Cecil John Rhodes

Open Letter from Concerned Individuals in the Rhodes University Community on the Israeli Attacks on Gaza

During apartheid academics and students around the world took a strong stand against injustice in South Africa. Their demands for the international isolation of the South African state were an important contribution to the struggle against apartheid.

The attack on Gaza by the Israeli state violates the most basic human rights of the men, women and children in the area who continue to live in fear of the destruction of their homes, injury and death. The escalating catastrophe is not an isolated incident but part of a persistent and systemic oppression of the Palestinian people.  In light of this, we take the view that solidarity with the people in Gaza needs to move from expressions of moral outrage and towards effective political action.

As staff, students Honorary Graduates and alumni at Rhodes University we feel a moral obligation to take a clear public position against the ongoing violence of the Israeli state. We would like to add our voices to the growing demand that the South African Government sever all links with Israel, including trade and investment, and expel Israel’s Ambassador and recall ours.

Land-grabber Rhodes still honoured all over SA

Adekeye Adebajo, Business Day

THIS year marks the 110th anniversary of the founding of Rhodes University, which was created with Cecil Rhodes’s wealth and named after him.

It is also the 86th anniversary of the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) relocation to Rhodes’ estate, which he bequeathed to it. Both universities continue to grapple with transformation, even as they largely ignore these lingering historical connections. While many symbols of Afrikaner supremacy have been removed, the legacy of the greatest symbol of British imperialism — Rhodes — remains surprisingly uncontested.

Memoirs of a Born Free: Reflections on the Rainbow Nation

Memoirs of a Born Free

Memoirs of a Born Free is a journey back through the life of Malaika Wa Azania as she recounts the experience of growing up through the end of apartheid and South Africa’s transition into a democratic nation. She was not born during the times of constitutionalised apartheid but is still a product of an epoch of systematic individualised apartheid. Her story is not a reflection of freedom; it is an epitome of the on-going struggle for liberation and emancipation from mental

slavery.