Anti-Xenophobia Vigil - "We Remember" commemoration 2009

June 1, 2009
By: Kelly Hamilton

Candlelight vigil 

On Thursday, 28 May 2009, students and staff gathered to remember the xenophobic attacks that shook South Africa last year. The Dean of Students, Dr. Vivian de Klerk, and the Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research and Development, Dr. Peter Clayton, each read out prepared statements, and the Dean: International Office, Prof. Marius Vermaak, spoke briefly about his view of the state of xenophobia in South Africa currently. Candles were lit to remember the tragedy that occurred in May 2008: the lives that were lost, the families that were displaced, and the destruction of South Africa's image as a rainbow nation, a haven for all, that occurred. The vigil was to symbolise that Rhodes remembers the atrocities, and is firmly against xenophobia of any sort.

The SRC completed the evening with a showing of films from the More Zen, Less Phobia series, including The Burning Man - a documentary about Mozambican Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamavue, who was killed by fire in Johannesburg during the attacks, the image of which was distributed globally.

Rhodes is a university for all students - local and international - and takes a stand against prejudice.

Dr. De Klerk's statement:

This evening we are gathered here to focus our minds on the scourge of intolerance and prejudice in our midst and to express our outrage at its insidious and destructive effects.

Discrimination is evident when people are treated differently because of these personal characteristics, and the most insidious and distasteful forms of discrimination are those that are based on physical appearance, such as race. At Rhodes, we strive to put an end to such discriminatory practices, and raise the level of awareness that they are occurring. We need what Greenblatt calls ‘institutional mindfulness,’ and this evening’s event aims to create that mindfulness.

We need to be mindful of Section 9.3 of our Constitution, which prohibits any unfair discrimination on grounds of race, gender, sex, etc. We need to be mindful that 14 years after the advent of democracy, there has been very limited success in achieving genuine change in attitudes. We need to be mindful of the recent report of the Ministerial Committee on Institutional Transformation, which makes it clear that all universities, including Rhodes, still have a lot of work to do!

We also need to be mindful that each of us, by virtue of being human, is deeply prone to forming stereotypes which might unwittingly lead to prejudice, and to xenophobia. Each of us learns certain values, from birth, through our families and our schools, and we each develop a personal sense of what is ‘normal’. It is a very short step from there to the act of stereotyping others as different, and then deficient. And then we justify our ‘us and them’ behavior and entrench various forms of discrimination. The world repeatedly witnesses the resurgence of amazing and dangerous results of such prejudice, exemplified in such awful and cataclysmic events as the genocides in Nazi Germany, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Iraq and Sudan.

Despite the influence of the family and other social institutions, and despite our human predisposition to discriminate against out-group members, we have plenty of evidence that social interventions to challenge such prejudices can be successful. And the best time to intervene is while students are at university – because in late adolescence, students are still forming their identities. As they move away from their cosy worlds of ‘normality’ which reinforce their view that their beliefs and attitudes are right, it is our job at Rhodes to challenge these assumptions and make them stop and think. We must constantly challenge assumptions of what is assumed to be ‘right’ or ‘normal’, we must foster an appreciation of diversity, and devise interventions which have a lasting effect.

And we have an advantage: we are small, and we are one of the few South African Universities that has a truly multi-national student body. Forced by our legislation to keep track of racial groupings, we know that this year have 43% white, 49% black, 3% coloured and 4% Indian students. We also know that they come from over 30 nation states. This is also the case in each residence: Oakdene, for example, has students from 26 different countries, and they range in age from 20 to 50 years. It’s pretty difficult to ignore those who are different from yourselves, especially when you eat with them, study with them and live with them.

 
Apart from our moral obligation to challenge discrimination of any sort, another important reason why we must do so comes from research on university students, which shows that signals of acceptance and inclusion impact on their self-esteem and stress-levels and often determine prospects for success or failure. Nunez talks of a ‘hostile climate” (2009:47) which increases in relation to the sense among such students that they are not ‘welcome’.

We know that overall quality of life and prospects of academic success are heavily dependent on perceptions of being ‘accepted,’ and we want a campus that accepts and celebrates diversity, where everyone really is equal, and your money and your race do not count. Most especially, we want all our students to feel welcome and encouraged to affirm their cultural and racial backgrounds, rather than being encouraged subtly to assimilate. These students will develop confidence, and what Freire calls a ‘critical consciousness’ and they, we hope, will develop a sense of belonging and forge a lasting and positive relationship with the university. So “diversity is not some kind of ‘nice to have’ – it is a ‘must have’”.

Last Friday we had to send out an advisory, warning international students of the danger of being arrested by Home Affairs after one of our students was held in police custody for some hours, even after she had provided the necessary verification that she was a registered Rhodes University student. She must feel humiliated and traumatised.

We have ascertained that Home Affairs officials, in collaboration with the Immigration Unit and the South African Police are challenging people in Grahamstown who “look foreign,” on the basis of their physical characteristics, to produce ID documents and to speak isiXhosa if they claim to be South African. While any country needs to uphold its immigration laws, the methods being employed by Home Affairs officials in Grahamstown are odious, despicable and especially shameful during this week, when we celebrate the oneness of the African people in all their diversity, and re-commit ourselves to an African renaissance, and sends out a dangerous message of intolerance of ‘foreigners,’ which is extremely ill-advised in the light of recent events. Dr Badat has written to Director of Home Affairs [Copied to Dr Nkosazan Zuma: Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Blade Nzimande: Minister of Higher Education and Director: SAP], complaining that such conduct on the part of a state department is ethically repugnant and most distressing.

In contrast, Rhodes University welcomes our international students, as an expression of our solidarity with the rest of the continent, and because they enrich our lives and make a tremendous contribution to the intellectual and social vibrancy of our University. Viva Africa; down with xenophobia.

Dr. Clayton's statement:

On 11 May 2008, xenophobic violence flared in Alexandria township in greater Johannesburg, leaving three people dead. Over the next 13 days, as this madness spread to other areas of our country, at least 50 people were reported killed, and an estimated 250 000 were driven from their homes in attacks by xenophobic hordes who beat, stabbed, and burnt those whom they deemed to be emigrants from other parts of Africa, and whom they accused of taking jobs and committing crimes.

It was then, and remains now, a time of great shame for South Africa. Apart from the physical injury and loss of life in brutal ways, and the loss of homes and other possessions, all in South Africa of international origin shared the particular brand of indignity that a

cruel and senseless act of discrimination on one, serves on the collective.

Rhodes University, whose fundamental aspiration is to be Indawo Yolwazi – a place of knowledge, a place of learning - for all who study and work here, both South African and international, vigorously rejects all forms of xenophobia. We believe that the diversity of culture, experience, and viewpoints, that international students and staff bring to our university, add substantially to the richness of our intellectual space.

We take pride in having the highest percentage of International students of all universities in South Africa – 20% overall, and 32% at the postgraduate level.

So, here at Rhodes, as we remember the gross human rights violations that took place in South Africa last year, let us be mindful to actively reject any form of xenophobic action or speech on our campus and in our own social circles, no matter how minor, no matter whether intended as a joke. It has no place here.