Black Consciousness in Stellenbosch

Stellenbosch and Black Consciousness

I have very ambivalent feelings about Stellenbosch, university town with a university ranked as no 2 in Africa. On the one hand, it is a little bit like small university towns in other parts of the world, Lund, Heidelberg, Oxford, a concentration of charm and wisdom. On the other hand I shudder at the legacy of apartheid that in some ways is still so conspicuous: the inhabitants of Stellenbosch are almost exclusively white still. Perhaps I am also conditioned by my studies in Afrikaner theology, especially the brand of F J M Potgieter, who defended the rights of the Afrikaner to stay separate as a ”people”, thereby defending the apartheid dispensation up to the ends of his days in 1992.

I am convinced that many changes are taking place at Stellenbosch and the chances are that it may continue to play an important role in the academic life of the nation and increasingly so for black people. However, I must be allowed to have second thoughts about that.

While Black Consciousness is becoming increasingly a part of the thinking among students at the University of the Western Cape (my university) I cannot see any such sign at Stellenbosch. I may have missed something, but all signs are there that the same scenario as that of the time of Biko and Black Consciousness is at hand in Stellenbosch. If black students in Stellenbosch are going to have real influence in student politics, in student life in general, at all the pubs and eateries in town, also in their own studies, they will have to make a concerted effort to join forces. The situation is not unlike that of Biko in the early 1970s, when he and other students rejected NUSAS (National Union of South African Students, as they never were admitted into real leadership there) and started their own SASO, South African Students’ Organization. Many would feel quite weary just hearing about ”black consciousness”. Is it about a new kind of segregation? No, it is about giving black students that space that they are entitled to and will ultimately be the only way forward in terms of creating a real partnership and fellowship beyond race and colour.

Are there some brave faces in Stellenbosch who are able to take up this challenge? I don’t hear it from the theologians, who prefer to talk about public theology instead, which is OK but not the same. There is this need for a larger vision, for example making space for black academics in Stellenbosch, not least in terms of where people live and in terms of people’s social life. Rather than a number of black academics living in Kuilsriver, commuting to Stellenbosch, they should brave the Stellenbosch market (the prices are high) and simply move in. It is a long way to go, and even longer for want of any vision, realistic and tangible.