What can the Fischer-bashers hope to achieve?

The intensity of the debate around the Stellenbosch University Council's decision to confer an honorary doctorate (posthumously) on Adv Bram Fischer is proof that what we have here is a battle about symbols or around the choice of a preferred symbolism. Centres of rationality as they purport to be, universities are nevertheless, like all human endeavours, deeply embedded in the social and ideological value systems in terms of which communities are imagined. The US presents a particularly clear-cut illustration of this phenomenon; it had until very recently buildings named after the heads of state during the apartheid years and awarded those figures honorary doctorates. Giving such degrees later also to (now former) President Mandela, the Rev Beyers Naude, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and Pres Thabo Mbeki (and so on) can be cynically seen as expedient placation of the powers that be, or, more tolerantly, as the aspiration to rid the institution of the apartheid stigma of its past associations by linking it to a broader, future-oriented South Africanism rather than clinging to a culturally isolationist role.

However one reads this, the central point (to my mind) is the university's right to make such a decision - a decision arrived at by all the properly constituted bodies and protocols governing such a process. Of course the decision reflects a symbolic (re)alignment with an important anti-apartheid activist. To suggest that because Fischer was a leading local communist the US is now (by honouring him) promoting Stalinist practices in present-day South Africa is risible.

I am on record as supporting this award, because honouring Fischer is in my view appropriate to the culturally less homogeneous body of present staff and students of this university. It is a gesture of respect connecting a diverse contemporary community with a heroically isolated voice speaking for an inclusive society from within the bitterly divided past. Commemorating, at this time, Fischer's selfless and principled stand against apartheid is a "symbolic corrective" to this university's past alignment with those who propagated and profited by apartheid.

Criticism of the award is nevertheless (of course) the right of those who disagree. But a distinction must be drawn between the right, on the one hand, to debate the decision, and the attempt, on the other, to intervene in the process by getting the award rescinded. The campus is full of reports about the extraordinary lengths to which the anti-Fischer campaigners have gone (and intend going) to get the decision withdrawn. The highly intemperate language, weak or hysterical arguments and open or veiled threats of withdrawal of donor funding to the university should the decision not be overturned, are astonishingly vindictive considering that Fischer died decades ago, that "communism" never came remotely near power in this country and that it has disappeared from view as "a threat to world peace".

What can the Fischer-bashers hope to achieve? Since the decision to grant the award has been widely announced, if it is rescinded this will certainly embarrass the university in the eyes of the wider South African public and suggest that it is easily manipulated by and/or still in thrall to a conservative old guard. Since it seems unlikely that the anti-Fischer brigade would have it as their aim to discredit the university, they must believe that they have something to achieve by their efforts. The further and more interesting question is, qui bono? What good, or gain, is being pursued here? And whose good, or gain? Who would benefit, and how, if the award were to be rescinded?

I can only surmise that the Giliomee-groupies (and what a fascinating collection of figures they are) intend some kind of very localised fame or widely-publicised demonstration of their reactionary power among the more conservative Afrikaners, mostly of an earlier generation, which they are uniting around their anti-communist banner (in 2004!). What strikes me is how their shortsighted selfishness among and for their own little group contrasts with Fischer's lonely and self-sacrificial, principled stand at the time when he was reviled among the powerful figures dominating both Afrikanerdom and South African society in its entirety. Their position is a vulgar imitation of any truly heroic pursuit of a worthy cause. "Saviours of the University of Stellenbosch" they are not. Cultural hegemony, ideological uniformity and rigid traditionalism are the kiss of death to a university. An award to Fischer, recognising his symbolic importance among others of his ilk, marks a step (by the US) into greater maturity by symbolic dissociation from an unhappy past, and out of an outdated parochialism. It is a pity that the fitting and timely decision to commemorate Fischer is now being tarnished by yet another bout of vilification, as if this award would melodramatically topple the imaginary bastions of Afrikanerdom.

boontoe / to the top

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