Bram Fischer gets controversial Stellenbosch award

Stellensbosch – Former struggle icon Bram Fischer received a posthumous honorary doctorate from Stellenbosch University yesterday.

The controversial award to Fischer, an Afrikaner communist, was a culmination of events which had divided the university into verligtes and verkramptes.

After accepting the award, to a mixed response from the crowd, Fischer’s youngest daughter, Ilse Fischer-Wilson, said debate around the award was healthy. “A lot of people didn’t know who Bram was, now they do,” she said.

SACP deputy secretary-general Jeremy Cronin, representing the party to which Fischer was committed, said that what was really important was not just the handing over of the degree, but the debate which had preceded it.

Cronin said people could learn a lot from Fischer’s commitment to non-racialism and socialism. – Sapa

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