I am proud to have received my early tertiary education from the then University College of Fort Hare.
My activism, however, meant that I was among a number of students expelled from the university in 1968. We were then protesting against the Bantustanisation of this historic liberal and missionary institution.
JM de Wet assumed office as vice-chancellor in July that year and we protested against his appointment with a protracted sit-down strike and peaceful demonstration.
Since then, I have sought to stay close to the university, and I pledged to support my maiden institution in every way I can.
We have also been watching developments at the university over a protracted period. The sense I have is that, in the post-apartheid era, the institution is still as volatile as it was during my time.
And yet, there is reason to believe that the Fort Hare today is no longer the same as it was during our time.
Academic freedom is held sacrosanct, and progressive research amid amazing developments have been at play.
The university has grown to become once again the pride of the black intelligentsia in our country.
Its historic pedigree is invoked with pride and new academic initiatives have placed Fort Hare among the leading higher education institutions in our country.
I was proud to attend the inauguration of Prof Sakhela Buhlungu as principal and vice-chancellor in 2017.
We were full of pride and hope at what promised to be a new era of stability at the university after some years of instability. That was not to be.
The inauguration ceremony itself was marred by protests over pay by the trade unions.
This against a new vice-chancellor who was clearly being blamed for a breakdown in labour relations that he had inherited.
Ironically, Buhlungu is a highly esteemed industrial sociologist and industrial relations expert.
At the same time as the vice-chancellor and principal was being inaugurated, the chancellor, my contemporary at Fort Hare and a highly regarded lawyer, advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, was also inaugurated.
The two of them should have been a source of pride for the university.
The years following that, with Buhlungu at the helm, were beset by a succession of unfortunate events.
All of these can be summed up as corruption embedded at the very heart of the institution: academic fraud involving a senior academic, investigations in supply chain management and the awarding of tenders appeared to be behind the murder of senior executives in quick succession.
So much so that the security of the vice-chancellor himself became a matter of concern.
It would not be farfetched to assume that there were some who harboured ill-will towards the university and were determined to destroy rather to build.
Buhlungu was courageous in attending to the establishment of a governance structure at the university, appointing a team of academic leadership, improving facilities for teaching and learning, and instilling discipline in management and student affairs.
For his efforts and energy Buhlungu did not make many friends. It appears that the university had become the feeding trough of elements in business and politics in the region.
It seems fair to say that at times these wars were being waged against the university that sought order and accountability by recruiting student leadership to fight these wars from within.
Early in October, university buildings were engulfed in fires. It was arson. It was deliberate. It was criminal.
This happened in the context of strike action by students. Students expressed grievances against the management of student affairs at the university, accusations of misgovernance against the council as regards the extension of the vice-chancellor’s contract.
I pause to observe that in the co-operative governance structure of universities in our country, students are represented in the council!
It is fair to say that there appears to have been a breakdown in relations between management and the students.
What is even more horrifying is that elements in the community joined the students in the destruction.
The fire brigade refused to enter campus to put out the fires, police also would not intervene, members of the community who were not students participated: university buildings were destroyed.
Among them are the administration section housing university records, laboratory facilities where researchers were engaged in some sensitive research, archives and documents have also been destroyed.
It is fair to say that what was destroyed by fire was more than the physical structures, but the very essence of the university: its intellectual property and resources. That is irreplaceable.
In conclusion, I wish to make a few critical points and take a stand:
1. Prof Sakhela Buhlungu is a highly renowned academic, sociologist and academic administrator.
He has a distinguished record of service at some of this country’s most esteemed universities: Wits, Pretoria, UCT and Fort Hare. He is a black scholar of repute.
He inherited an institution already in trouble and he gave everything to endeavour to save it from ruin.
It is shocking that the Eastern Cape communities do not have it in themselves to support one of their own to do the right thing about their own institution of pride.
Buhlungu has become the scapegoat of a failing system of governance and leadership, in a community that ostensibly no longer values morality in public life.
This is an opportunity for soul-searching among the people of the Eastern Cape.
To see such a venerable institution go up in flames is not an occasion for playing the blame game but of deep repentance and for a collective call for restitution.
2. It would appear that the students at Fort Hare and those who support them have no understanding of a purpose of a university.
Since 1916, Fort Hare has been established in Alice to be the beacon of high knowledge, integrity, ethical leadership and the recognition of the institution as the means of transformation of society.
The university is not there to enrich some, neither is it merely a basis for acquisition.
The motto of the university says it all: in lumine tuo videbimus lumen — in thy light we shall see light. The university shares this motto with Columbia University. It seeks to portray that the source of all learning is light and truth.
Light enlightens the world and draws others to the source of knowledge. The university is the seeker after truth in research, in teaching and in its outlook to the world.
3. Fort Hare is no longer the institution where the dictate of apartheid was enforced. It is now an institution founded on the values of our constitution.
It affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom. It is there to espouse “accountability, responsiveness and openness”.
Above all, the university treasures its purpose that seeks to set free the potential of each person.
4. None of that can be achieved in a closed institution. Instead, the institution must promote freedom of thought in the life of the institution, critical engagement on all issues as well as the capacity to correct wrongdoing.
In such an institution, the power of the imagination and engagement without fear, to be creative.
5. Violence and destruction, intolerance of contesting viewpoints and inability to argue produces a stunted mindset that can never be liberating.
Ideas and the contestation of ideas are the basis on which a university is founded.
6. It is for that reason that many of us are vocal in our support for Buhlungu.
We support his endeavours to build a university of stature and eminence, yet that is rooted in its community. We believe that SA and the Eastern Cape deserve no less.
Nobody is perfect and leadership is not a popularity contest. It is simply untenable, however, that a duly appointed principal and vice-chancellor could be thrown out of his post by malcontents who fail to articulate their grievance sufficiently to convince others.
A university by its nature is founded on legality and rationality. Anything else is anathema to the very idea of a university.
7. Finally, no university can thrive in its mission without the goodwill and embrace of its critical stakeholders: the business community, workers and students, alumni and government at all levels are the fulcrum of a university that give it support to leverage the amazing resources that the university offers.
The mission of a university cannot be set apart from the aspiration of the best that the community can imagine for itself.
The Herald