And there I was thinking that Desmond Tutu and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) are so last year! Until....along comes Professor Jonathan Jansen and tries - while Tutu is still VERY much alive and well - to (re)invent himself as something of a Tutu-incarnation within the education sphere. Honest motives for sure - he is one my favourite people in this challenging rainbow country of ours: super smart, sincere, and visionary. And yet, I cannot say for certain that his unilateral - unilateral being an important qualifier - decision to invite the four racist boys back onto University of the Free State (UFS) campus was necessarily his finest moment. Here are some of the things that trouble me about his decision.
First, if you do opt for a model of restorative justice as the preferred tool for engaging issues of racism and healing divisions between persons that came about because of racism, then certain preconditions need to be satisfied to justify letting go of more retributive forms of engagment.
For one thing, all parties need to buy into the process. Else you are not 'restoring' anything but rather paying lipservice to the 'restorative' bit in 'restorative justice', thereby making a mockery of reconciliation. This is EXACTLY the case in this instance. The Student Represenative Council (SRC) was not consulted, nor other student bodies, let alone the student body more widely. The victims of the racist actions were not asked for an opinion either. This is turning out to be a case of reconciliation by fiat. It was ill thought through procedurally which in turn robs the process of the possibility of being a catalyst for healing and reconciliation.
Another precondition, surely, is that one requires the offending parties to show remorse of some sort? This was the case with the TRC and the Amnesty process. Now obviously these more grand national processes are very different to the silly bits of naughty behaviour of 'mere' students and one should not melodramatically compare them for longer than a second or two. But hey, it is Jansen himself who draws on the reconciliation motif! So it is fair to ask if he is right to analogise, not least because that is the *rationale* for his decision.
And the answer is 'no'. Although many guilty folk did not show remorse during TRC hearings, nevertheless to the extent that the TRC process was a success, an ingredient of that success was the demonstration of remorse. These four racist boys have shown none.
Second, we should be careful to excuse the actions of individuals on the ground that that there are grand narratives that have structured those actions. Yes, that it is not untrue - to some extent. But we are not automatons who lack control over our actions. Quite simply, they deserved tougher censure rather than being allowed to be let off the hook courtesy of our history.
In the end, Professor Jansen has bought himself MASSIVE social capital from the Afrikaans community on campus - no doubt. That is important not least because he is their first black rector. But he might be miscalculating in not realising that black support in turn is not automatic and so he needs to be courting the black, university community as craftily as he is courting the the more traditional, white Afrikaans lot.
Yes, this is a complex and somewhat crass racial game. Such is the reality of the UFS - and our country. Prof Jansen has a great track record. We should all support him and wish him well.
Equally, it is important to point out that he has erred on this occassion, so that next time round he will opt for consultative processes, rather than imposing reconciliation - or other solutions - by fiat.
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I would think the the SRC's opinion is irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteIt is the affected workers, the victims of the racist actions, who should have been consulted (via their union if they so preferred).
I agree with quite a bit of what you've said. I think Jansen does tend to go for reconciliation at the cost of some important and difficult transformational processes. In particular, I often find him very conciliatory towards intransigent Afrikaans communities who I feel deserve a swift klap. But I recognise that his approach, though it might be a little shaky morally, may yet get better practical results than my approach. SO I'm tentatively going to suggest this move might be justified by way of a means/ends argument. The question then is: how bad were the means?
ReplyDeleteThe consultation question is problematic. He talked to the cleaners themselves, he just ignored their wishes. He didn't really talk to students, but I agree with alleman that it's questionable whether he really needed to. Most importantly, I agree that he failed to secure some act of contrition, some recognition of guilt, on the part of the offenders themselves. The community -- which Jansen holds responsible -- continue to tell him that they're just boys, that it was "blown out of proportion", that it was "only Oros". Jansen himself comments on this in his column today, but doesn't concede that this action of his gives precisely those narratives traction. The parallel I'd suggest is the "we didn't know how bad apartheid was" narrative that many (especially English) whites still drag out on occasion.
So there were problems with Jansen's method. Still, I think there could be an argument for pushing 'broader' reconciliation in the UFS community above the personal reconciliation of these four thugs and their victims. Perhaps Jansen's aim is a renormalisation of campus life, gaining some social capital and THEN enacting massive transformational efforts. That certainly seems to be the plan. In which case, I don't know if we ought to see this as naive reconciliation granstanding, but instead as a (failed) strategic move.
A final thought: I don't think the student organisations at UFS have much ground to stand on. Where have they been through all this? Where were they when a white rector looked the other way while this went on for years? Where were they when the transformation of the campus was REVERSED in the 90s? Oh, they made some noises. But the current furore is frankly astonishing considering the years of complacency. Moreover, some of the statements have been reactionary and a little worrying -- like the black choir leader saying he'll undo the choir integration over this. W. T. F.
Thanks Joe.
ReplyDeleteI think, to be honest, that you are being TOO generous in interpreting the actions as perhaps a small-ish failure in means chosen and that at the other side of all this, reconciliation may - probably will - yet happen.
A few quick points:
a) The cleaners were not consulted; Jansen was legally advised not to discuss the withdrawal of the case with them - as far as I know (could be wrong, but one report claimed that);
b) I am not sure it *is* irrelevant to consult students.
First, if this really is about reconciliation *campus wide* then you need to take your student leadership structures seriously, else you are treating this whole saga as a micro issue between the 4 offenders and their victims...yet if you do the LATTER than the rationale for letting them back onto campus - i.e. for broader reconciliation's sake - falls away.
Put simply: if it is about reconciliation, then ALL stakeholders - students and student leadership, needed consultation.
In fact, I would say it is actually quite callous to imagine that black students in particular would not have felt the invasion of the cleaners' dignity as an invasion of their own individual dignities qua their blackness. That's the sociopolitical, and psychological, reality about race in our country, regardless of whether we like that reality or not. Black students - and for that matter many white students no doubt also - would have raw feelings still in relation to what happened. It is thus appropriate - even if not legally/adminstratively necessary - to take them into confidence about a radical 'solution' you're about to share with the rest of the country.
Second, it is unfair to ask where these students have been in the 1990s. If you speak to people like moses (current src president) - and some other black students - you will quickly realise that they have been trying their butts off to win battles against the white afrikaans institutional culture, including on such issues as medium of instruction, and the like, and getting a more representative src leadership also... i'm not sure what the factual basis is for your assumption that [ black(?) ] student leaders on that campus have not been trying to engage the institutional norms and cultures of the place...
Finally, I still think that reconciliation is not on trial here. restorative justice, and a range of non-retributive tools, can be great for ending conflict. It is a separate question whether, in this instance, 1) these tools were relevant; and 2) if they were/are, whether Jansen has ruined their efficacy? I have not opined on 1) really ... but certainly on 2) there is no doubt, in my mind, that he has messed up on this occassion.