It appears that that "liberale / linksgesinde" ("liberal / left-leaning") Rector, Chris Brink, is considering instituting a language policy which provides for dual, or possibly parallel, medium instruction. English will be allowed to tiptoe into lectures, quietly, so as not to disturb the ghosts of the Apartheid luminaries after whom most of the campus buildings are named.
Apparently, a band of intrepid academics, with Herman Giliomee in the vanguard, are terrified that this will corrupt the character of Skelmbos. "Stellenbosch," we were told as newbie undergrads in the 80s, "staan vir 'n idee". (Stellenbosch stands for an idea.) The one and only ever protest march on that campus, back in 1985, was widely decried and future protest action banned on the grounds that it was "incompatible with the nature and function of [that] 'university' ". The _kind_ of idea for which Stellenbosch stood was thus firmly cast as conservative at best, reactionary in the minds of many, and downright racist as experienced by the dozen or so black students who studied there under sufferance at the time.
Might this "idea" be corrupted by allowing English into lectures? Please god, were it so simple... If using the language of Shakespeare meant one fewer pellet in the leg of a passing woman outside Bekfluitjie hostel, one fewer student beaten up in res on suspicion of being gay, one fewer nervous breakdown of a firstyear during "doop" (initiation), then bring it on! If speaking English could have that kind of civilising effect, we'd probably be worshipping at the statue of Rhodes instead of wanting to deface it.
But my bemusement has less to do with the groundlessness of "Rooinekgevaar" sentiment being bandied about than with images of stable doors and horses and bolting... Rather like the Afrikaners' quest to legislate "racial purity" some hundreds of years after their antecedents had been doing their damndest to advance the cause of "miscegenation", this is all a bit too hysterical, a bit too late, a bit too pointless.
English has always been allowed - i always had class tests and exams presented to me in English, athough I preferred to write in Afrikaans; the option to submit assignments, theses or other work in English was always guaranteed. While presribed textbooks were always Afrikaans (written by the lecturers themselves, in a burgeoning cottage industry) there were always far better ones in English to be swiped from the KGB (Koos Gericke Biblioteek - the Library) and, with the rise of the Bloeiende Afrikaner (Bleeding Afrikaner) in the 80s, increasing numbers of students were choosing to converse in English, to hang out with the 13% of tolerated "andertaliges" (English Speakers) and even to dally with centre-left politics by launching a NUSAS branch.
But perhaps more significantly, English has always had a presence in lectures. Not just from students asking questions - many lectures were presented, and accepted without murmur, in English; many lecturers were not conversant, or fluent, or lacked the discourse, in Afrikaans - as one would expect if scholars were really drawn from an international community rather than a local inbred one, though this was the reason in only a small number of cases.
Why the outcry over what is merely the formalisation of a situation that has existed, de facto, for at least 25 years? Is symbolism really so much more important than substance?