OP-ED: Resisting University Capture: Adam Habib, Wits and Fallism By Robert Morrell
Are South African universities under the same threat as state institutions? Are they being taken over, white-anted and perverted from their intended purpose? In a word, captured?
Knowledge production is a key feature of the work of universities and there is a legitimate expectation that universities as public resources should contribute to knowledge production. To promote this process various state initiatives ) have since the 1980s been directed towards universities to encourage research productivity.
Universities are often public institutions and therefore prone to manipulation and interference by the state. This was an obvious threat under apartheid when the state influenced curricula, staffing, student enrolments and much more. Habib developed what Imraan Buccus were justified in their actions and their use of violence. Vocal staff were given media platforms to condemn the executive and before long, racism attended the allegation that Habib and his management team were anti-transformation.
More broadly we see the steady development on the one hand of a culture of individual impunity of those in power or those connected to people of influence and on the other, of a gradual erosion of legitimacy and ultimately of the viability of these key institutions. Habib identified the rejection of evidence as a basis of legitimate debate and deliberation as a key modus operandi of the protesters. Tawana Kupe, newly appointed as Vice Chancellor of Pretoria University, recently warned about the dangers of fake news:Democracy and social progress die without science and fact-based knowledge. Science and facts are the foundational basis for rational and logical disputation and the possibility of reaching some truths” .
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