University education controversy and democratic citizenship nuraan davids

University Education, Controversy and Democratic Citizenship Nuraan Davids

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University Education, Controversy and Democratic Citizenship

Edited by Nuraan Davids · Yusef Waghid

University Education, Controversy and Democratic Citizenship

Nuraan Davids • Yusef Waghid Editors

University Education, Controversy and Democratic Citizenship

Editors

Nuraan Davids

Department of Education Policy Studies

Stellenbosch University

Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa

Yusef Waghid

Department of Education Policy Studies

Stellenbosch University

Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa

ISBN 978-3-030-56984-6

ISBN 978-3-030-56985-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56985-3

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Foreword

As an emerging scholar who has delved into the trajectories of democratic peacebuilding and citizenship education and its pedagogies for the past eight years, I am privileged to ofer a few comments on this excellent book. As an Egyptian-Canadian, I am also familiar with the politics and dynamics of the African continent, as well as that of relatively democratic western settler societies, in which democratic citizenship is still evolving in spite of its portrayal as a foundational backbone in their charters of human rights. While the notion of citizenship often implies conformity to the rule of law and a sense of patriotism and belonging, democratic citizenship questions the essence of the very laws that govern people in a particular setting. Hence, for citizenship to be democratic it has to be unsettling to enable people to examine their diferences and learn to live together peacefully.

University Education, Controversy and Democratic Citizenship explores democratic citizenship at the university as a higher education institution in the South African context. I fnd that every chapter in this book confrms a theory that democratic citizenship education encompasses four essential components: addressing confictual issues, practising dialogue, recognizing diversity and building a pedagogical learning community. Starting with the Preface, Nuraan Davids and Yusef Waghid emphasize the indispensability of allowing students in higher education institutions to dig deeper into the structural and systemic causes of controversies that

plague society in general and post-apartheid South Africa in particular. Indeed, the context of South Africa is very unique since the black majority of the population faces discrimination, gender-based violence, and unequal access to social capital to name a few. Yusef Waghid’s chapter on ‘Controversy and the public sphere: In defence of pluralist deliberation’, uses Habermas’s account of the public sphere to encourage academics and students at universities to handle controversies through eliciting various or ‘pluralist’ points of views on unsettling or controversial issues, for example university fees. Te chapter also discusses instances of controversies that took place in the workplace and what could have been done diferently by the various stakeholders to foster deliberation, constructive communication and critical thinking. Confict is a normal dynamic in human interaction, which can be handled in positive, non-violent ways to facilitate individual and collective learning and transformation. Denying students in higher education the opportunity to tackle controversies through dialogue, discussions and deliberation reinforces sociopolitical hegemony in society. Tere is empirical evidence, some of which is presented in the chapters of this book that teachers who engage in discussion, debate and deliberation on controversial issues explore with their students the root causes of hegemony. Stakeholders in the university public sphere scrutinize hegemony through eliciting alternative perspectives on embedded ideologies, to unveil some of the structural (economic, political and cultural) forces in society that contribute to the status-quo.

Te contributors in this book challenge the status-quo by bringing to the surface major conficts and social controversies in South Africa and briefy, yet descriptively explain the context of South Africa, pre-and post-apartheid. Gender-based violence is a form of systemic violence entrenched in the patriarchal ideologies and societal practices of South Africa. Davids’s chapter ‘Reconceiving a world around our bodies: Universities, gender-based violence, and social justice’ is a wakeup call for university administrators and educators to recognize gender-based violence as a concern of social justice and a violation of human rights. Van der Walt and Terblanche provide another lens of gender-based violence through depicting the art of using protests as a critical self-refective pedagogical tool to provide a safe space for students to closely examine the implications of gender-based violence from a victim’s and a perpetrator’s

perspective, thus fostering empathy and perspective-taking, two essential qualities of a democratic citizen. Hungwe and Divala condemn violent students’ protests that defy the notion of a responsible citizen and problematize the glorifed conception of violence in the African context in the public sphere of the university. Tus, violence of any type, shape or form contradicts democratic citizenship.

Te authors in this book did not just identify the various types of conficts students and educators encounter in the university public sphere, they also discussed pedagogies that could foster democratic citizenship and enhance students’ democratic skills set. For instance, F. Waghid and Z. Waghid explore the use of educational technology to create a studentcentred pedagogical approach to disrupt the ubiquitous practices of teacher-centred pedagogies and to alleviate cognitive damage that some students experience due to the absence of agency. Empowering pedagogies are essential to enhancing democratic citizenship in universities and counter what Freire critiques as the ‘banking’ model of education, in which knowledge is conceptualized as an object to be deposited in the learner’s passive brain. Simba emphasizes that universities could realize their democratic role by acting humanistically guided by the African philosophy of Ubuntu to fulfl their legal and moral obligation to society at large.

Every chapter is an essential piece that contributes to the wholesome of the University Education, Controversy and Democratic Citizenship gestalt. A culturally-relevant gestalt to the context of universities in South Africa is transferable to other post-confict contexts that are striving to instate democratic citizenship. Democratic citizenship in a university as a public sphere starts by acknowledging the prevalent conficts and controversies, delving into the root causes of these conficts, promoting dialogue and deliberation to foster communicative skills, recognizing diferences including various perspectives and fnally building a pedagogical learning community, in which students and academics feel safe and valued in spite of their diferences.

New York, NY, USA

Yomna Awad

Preface

While it might be possible to consider the latest spate of anti-genderbased violence campaigns as yet another instance of student protests –legitimately brought about by what can only be described as horrifc growing trends of violence against women – it is as important to refect on these campaigns as an extension of an existing narrative of unease and controversy surrounding public universities in South Africa. Taking its cue from movements, such as #FeesMustFall, #RhodesMustFall, #MeToo, and the more recent, #AmINext campaign has served as harsh reminders to universities that social and societal controversies cannot be divorced from the university. Tat the anti-GBV protests – reignited by the calculated and tragic murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana – has forced universities to reconsider its conceptions of and policies on GBV, is a clear signal that the business of the university cannot proceed without contextual cognisance and responsiveness. Universities are thus being questioned not only on their responsiveness to violence but also their awareness of violence and its impact on all students.

We cannot deny that societal living is under threat – violence resides in many forms – whether GBV, xenophobia or the realities of so-called initiation practices that often ritualise and trivialise violence, thereby institutionalising violence in university spaces. Te result is an environment where students fnd it difcult to speak out against such violence. Te frst set of questions this new volume envisages to address, is: How aware

are universities of their own institutional and spatial cultures concerning the (tacit) perpetuation of violence? What are their understandings of violence in the disciplines of teaching, research and social outreach? Secondly, do universities necessarily conceive of themselves as being under obligation to have an institutional response and responsibility to the types of controversies mentioned previously? If so, what kinds of responsiveness are necessary not only for decisive action but for sustained pro-action and responsibility? In sum, how do universities conceive of their roles and responsibilities in contributing to, and cultivating safe institutions as an enactment of peaceful and respectful co-existence?

We contend that the university should do more to advance its public mission of upholding democratic values for societal change. In the anthology of essays, invited authors advocate the moral virtue of democratic patriotism, whereby universities are seen as institutions of higher learning that can produce both critical and patriotic citizens who can contribute meaningfully to the enhancement of democratic education for social justice in our highly complex and pluralistic society. Tis is a book about encouraging people in democratic societies to live together within pluralism and diversity; to recognise the signifcance of disagreement, disputation, and freedom; and to understand the pragmatic value of democratic education. Our main argument is that non-violence, tolerance, and peaceful co-existence ought to manifest through pedagogical university actions based on the university educator’s desire to cultivate refectiveness, criticality, and deliberative inquiry in and through their academic programmes. In a way, our universities can respond more positively to the violence on our campuses and in society if public and controversial issues were to be addressed through education for democratic citizenship and human rights – the focus of this book.

At the time of writing, one of the world’s most challenging issues on the theme of democratic citizenship education is the ongoing sociopolitical confict in Hong Kong. Te controversial developments in Hong Kong hinge on the advancement of conficting and competing understandings of what it means to be a good, democratic citizen between prodemocracy citizens on the one side and the Chinese government on the other. Te pro-democratic group advocates for upholding democratic values to initiate sociopolitical change, while their pro-establishment

counterparts accentuate the importance of patriotic values to sustain the status quo. However, both pro-democratic and pro-establishment groups, in their defence of democratic patriotism, seem to be remiss of being attentive to non-violence in the pursuit of cultivating a democratic citizenry.

Tis, of course, is not the frst time that such confict has beset the Chinese landscape. Tiananmen Square in Beijing is well-known for its pro-democracy protests in 1989. Te protests ignited following the death of Hu Yaobang – a Communist Party leader who had worked to introduce democratic reform in China. Pro-democracy protesters, mostly students, initially marched through Beijing to Tiananmen Square and were eventually joined by thousands of people. At issue was a frustration with the limits on political freedom in the country, its one-party form of government (the Communist Party), increasing levels of unemployment and poverty for already marginalised communities, as well as calls for free speech and a free press in China. Te various names by which the protests are known, provide some indication of both how it was experienced, and the intensity with which it escalated – from the Tiananmen Square protests; the ‘89 Democracy Movement; the June Fourth Incident in Mainland China; to the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Te protests started on 15 April 1989. By mid-May, several student protesters initiated a hunger strike, which inspired other similar strikes and protests across China. Tis was followed by a disruption of a visit by the then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union,, Mikhail Gorbachev. By the end of May, more than one million protesters had gathered in Tiananmen Square. Feeling the political pressure, the Chinese government declared martial law on May 20, and 250,000 troops entered Beijing. When the initial military presence failed to quell the protests, the Chinese authorities decided to increase their aggression. On June 4, Chinese soldiers and police stormed Tiananmen Square, fring live rounds into the crowd. Hundreds to thousands of protesters were killed in the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and as many as 10,000 were arrested.

Traces of this unrest have resurfaced in the latest spate of protests. It seems as if the public sphere in Hong Kong – riddled by a series of protests – is confronted by complex and pluralistic aspirations of its critical

patriotic citizenry. What the Hong Kong controversy reveals is that confict in the public sphere cannot surrender to violent actions as violence has never been a plausible catalyst for liberty, equality and cooperation –all virtues of a democratic citizenry.

We have seen similar pro-democracy protests and uprisings – commonly referred to as the Arab Spring – in several African and Middle Eastern countries, including Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, which started in December 2010. Echoing the absolute frustrations of the Tiananmen Square protests, the Arab Spring, was put into motion by the self-immolation of Tunisian university graduate and street vendor, Mohamed Bouazzizi, whose vegetables had been seized after he could not produce a permit. Te public square, whether it is Tiananmen, a street in Tunis on which Bouazizi set himself alight, Benghazi Street in Libya, or Cairo’s Tahrir Square, has long been a space of contestation, antagonism, and agonism.

Calls for democracy – fundamentally understood as the right of people to exercise their rights and voice – are inevitably wrapped in disagreement and contestations of what those rights encapsulate. While an individual has the right to articulate a particular viewpoint on a matter, so does another to counter or question that viewpoint. Democracy in the proverbial public square, therefore, is never without confict. Tis is a point Chantal Moufe (2000) is emphatic about – if democracy is what is desired, and if democracy is allowed to play out in a way in which it actually ought to be understood, then we must allow for the possibility of confict and antagonism so that that diferences can be confronted. Not only, therefore, does democracy sometimes emerge from confict, but this emergence in no way signals the end of confict. To Moufe (2000: 14), the central question for democratic politics is not how to negotiate a compromise among competing interests, but how to orientate ourselves to confict that makes disagreement and antagonism central for democratic possibility. She views confict, contestation, antagonism, as well as violence as an accepted part of human nature, describing it as the “dimension of the political” (Moufe 2000: 130–131).

Following this understanding, Moufe advances the concept of “agonistic pluralism”. Agonistic pluralism sees confict not as an undesirable phenomenon to be overcome by democratic consensus, but rather as

constitutive of politics; it recognises the afective nature of political confict, that is, the role of collective passions in politics (Moufe 2014: 153). She argues that “It is only when the ineradicable character of division and antagonism is recognised that it is possible to think in a properly political manner and to face the challenge confronting democratic politics” (Moufe 2014: 150). Moreover, in bringing into contestation existing patterns of power – as was the case during the Arab Spring, Tiananmen Square, and South Africa’s apartheid – what happens after that, as Moufe (2014: 153) explains, is the emergence of new “institutions and confgurations of power”, until these, too, are brought into question.

Why does agonistic pluralism matter in a democracy, and hence in public spaces, such as universities? Firstly, following Moufe (2000), agonistic pluralism recognises the existence of multiple, and hence, competing truths. Te public square, like university spaces, provide a paradoxical convergence of divergent truths, perspectives, perceptions, and experiences, which, in turn, hint at underlying hegemonies. Which, and whose truth holds the power? Who controls the discourse of decision-making in university governance? What are the truths embedded and propagated in institutional norms and cultures? Secondly, agonistic pluralism matters, because it has the potential to transform otherwise unresolved conficts (and violence) into deliberative encounters. In providing space and time for students to engage in discussions and debates – whether it is about the normalisation of violence, free education, or decolonising the curriculum – invites the potential for conficts or antagonisms to shift into agonisms. Tis, to our minds and argued by scholars like Todd and Säfström (2008), ought to be a function of education. Tat is, it should create opportunities for students to engage in that which might be described as antagonistic and controversial and reconsider it so that it might warrant a diferent perspective, and hence, experienced as less negative or antagonistic. In other words, unless students are encouraged to articulate their diferences or competing truths, they will not know what it is like to consider other competing points of view. Te educational imperative, therefore, is not limited to the university experience but is tied to “larger political articulations” (Todd and Säfström 2008: 8) – articulations that students as citizens would, no doubt, need to navigate.

Of signifcance to the cultivation of democratic citizenship education in conficting societies like Hong Kong, are two studies ofering complementary accounts of how touchstones of democratic citizenship education can resolve controversial matters in their societies. Te frst is by Koon Lin Wong and Chi Kin John Lee (2019), Learning to live together in polarized and pluralistic societies: Hong Kong teachers’ views of democratic values versus patriotic values, which ofers a way in which critical patriotic citizens can cultivate sociopolitical actions concerning critical rationality and democratic development in Hong Kong. Te second article by MeiYee Wong (2019), Understanding the educational value of the flm Please Vote for Me: A case of a pedagogy course for citizenship education, argues that refection and critical thinking ought to be revisited and cultivated in university programmes to respond to violent disruptions in societies. Both of these seminal works ofer distinctive pathways for how university education can respond plausibly to issues of confict and controversy. In this book, we take our cue from such scholars to profer our own educational responses in dealing with controversial issues.

Te question arises, what should the role of universities be in ensuring that violent disruptions in politically charged communities do not escalate into unacceptable and uncompromising levels of intolerance? Tis anthology of chapters ofers a response to intolerant, irresponsible, and controversial contestations on the basis of reconsidered touchstones of democratic citizenship education. Our main argument in this edited collection is that universities cannot turn a blind eye to sociopolitical upheavals. However, the response of such institutions of higher education ought to be constituted in touchstones of democratic citizenship education to deal with confict and controversy in societies where virtues of democratic citizenship are seriously being eroded. Te types of upheaval and confict that often defned universities in South Africa during apartheid have spilt over into its democracy. Despite large-scale educational reform, which has seen dramatic shifts in terms of student demographics, accompanied with equally signifcant policy reform, intent on transforming and democratising higher education, universities have remained sites of intense controversies. Tese controversies, whether in response to the student fees, student access gender-based violence, or calls for decolonisation and transformation, have often descended into chaos, vandalism,

violence, and worrying displays of hate speech. Inasmuch as these controversies and conficts have centred on university issues, and was somewhat contained on campus spaces, the types of contestations highlighted cannot be delinked from South African society. Te issue of high university fees has a bearing on student access and degree completion, which, in turn, impacts economic prospects, and hence, concerns issues of redress of social justice. Similarly, the high levels of gender-based violence encountered in university spaces are refective of the unacceptable levels of violence, especially against women and children in South Africa.

At the time of writing this foreword, yet another student had been brutally murdered, after being stabbed 52 times. Universities cannot decontextualise themselves from the inhumanity and injustice in which it resides. Students, therefore, should not be discouraged or deterred from controversial topics or. As Malik (2015) reminds us, “Te university is a space for would-be adults to explore new ideas, to expand their knowledge, to interrogate power, to learn how to make an argument; a space within which students can be challenged, even upset or shocked or made angry … To be at a university is to accept the challenge of exploring one’s own beliefs and responding to disagreement”. Ultimately, the task of universities, and the goal of education, is about cultivating critical thinkers whose skill is precisely the ability to challenge pre-packaged or readymade ideas (Malik 2018).

We commence this anthology with Yusef Waghid’s chapter, entitled: “Controversy and the public sphere: In defence of pluralist deliberation”. Te chapter draws on the German scholar, Jürgen Habermas’s (1989) account of the public sphere, which he conceives as a space whereby people come together as a public to engage in debate over rules governing human relations – that is, a space where people use their reason or where they (people) invoke “the art of critical-rational public debate” (Habermas 1989: 29). Following, Habermas’s elucidation of the public sphere, it can be claimed that a university is a social structure of the public sphere. It is at the university where people, in a Habermasian way, express their opinions, freedoms, judgments and recommendations on afairs of the state and civil society based on insight and argument (Habermas 1989: 117). Alternatively, critical debate is the touchstone of truth and by implication, of university life (Habermas 1989: 118). Considering the above

understanding of a university within the space of the public sphere, it seems inconceivable, argues Waghid, that university academics and students should become disengaged from a critical debate about controversial matters. To Waghid, controversial matters infer matters that require deep and refective thinking concerning what people (dis)agree on. In his chapter, he espouses the ramifcations of a lack of critical debate on controversial issues in the (South African) public university. Waghid specifcally focuses his attention on how a disengagement with controversial issues at public universities could lead to the disintegration of the public sphere. However, he argues that public deliberation should not be conceived as strictly a mode of argumentation and debate among participants, but rather, a pragmatic way of pluralist joint activity through which shared agreements can ensue and manifest in the public sphere.

Waghid’s focus on Habermas (1974) is aptly followed by Nuraan Davids’ leaning on Nancy Fraser’s (1990) account of the public sphere. Unlike Habermas, Fraser is more forthcoming in recognising that the public sphere provides neither equal access nor equal participation. In her chapter, “Reconceiving a world around our bodies: Universities, genderbased violence, and social justice”, Davids highlights that for as long as students have protested for access to and participation in universities, female students continue to be at the centre of what appears to be a collision between gender and violence. She asserts that despite its implied specifcity, gender-based violence (GBV) emanates from a complex intersection of not only normative constructions of gender, but of race, class, culture, and religion, as well as power and education. As such, GBV is as much about the entrenchment of hegemonic norms as it is about the need to disrupt the structures and discourses sustaining these norms. To address GBV, argues Davids, is to bring into question the societal and social dictates that designate power to some through denigrating others. In this regard, Fraser (1990) is particularly useful in drawing attention to the prescriptions that dictate women’s participation in the public sphere, and the ensuing violence which might unfold should these prescriptions not be followed. To Davids, therefore, because GBV impacts upon issues of access, participation, mobility, and safety, GBV has to be considered, and tackled as an issue of social justice.

Also on the topic of GBV, Charlene van der Walt and Judith Terblanche’s chapter, “Violent pedagogy?: Critical pedagogical selfrefection in the midst of engaging the silencing efects of gender-based violence within the context of higher education”, focuses on the alarming reality GBV has on all communities in South Africa. Te level of distress, often undermined by the under-reporting of GBV, have seen numerous religious scholars appeal for urgent critical refection and prophetic action by religious institutions and faith leaders. Teir chapter provides a critical refection on the role of protest within the pedagogical practice of theological education in the South African context and draws on insights gained from relevant pedagogy and gender theorists. Beyond the descriptive task of the chapter, Van der Walt and Terblanche deliberates on the process of critical pedagogical self-refection as a counter-measure to the possibility of violence.

In his chapter, “Re-posturing the African university for social justice in light of increasing violence”, Chikumbutso Manthalu argues that the nature of the current frameworks that anchors the African university, renders the university largely desensitised from meaningfully committing to identifying, appreciating and addressing the challenges of its social environment – especially the increasing gender and xenophobic violence. To him, this is due to the fact that the African university is primarily driven by an agenda that almost necessitates detachment of the university from its social context to ensure global relevance and competitiveness. By drawing on Freire’s (2014) notion of domination, Todd’s (2007) thinking cosmopolitanism and Waghid’s (2008) conception of the civic role of the university, Manthalu contends that as long as the standards for a thriving university generally exclude and tacitly undermine the centring of local interests in higher education research and pedagogy, the resultant education materially perpetuates the diferent forms of abuses such as gender, racial, xenophobic, and even epistemic violence. Manthalu maintains that unless there is a democratic transformation that ultimately centres local interests as legitimate objects of focus in academic research and pedagogy, the African university will not only fail to realise democratic change in society but will continue tacitly retaining and reproducing different structures of violence.

Zayd Waghid and Faiq Waghid, in their chapter, “Re-examining an education for cognitive justice in relation to virtues of democracy”, take cognisance of the reality that despite the South African government‘s continued attempts to redress the social injustices of the past, progress is seemingly marred by the complex and complicated racial categorisation and identifcation of its citizens. Tey posit that Sen’s (2007: 89) dialectics of the colonised mind can be used to make sense of an individual’s self-perception and attitudes towards particular races, and what may prevent such individuals from moving beyond historical and political diferences. Zayd Waghid and Faiq Waghid cite their own witnessing of violence during the #fallist campaigns, which they ascribe to a breakdown in dialogue between the South African government, universities and students. In response, they argue that the level of cognitive damage –an instance of cognitive injustice – among students, is perhaps one of the signifcant underlying factors denying democratic relations in both the university and societal contexts. Tey frstly explore how Sen’s (2007) explication of three tenets of democracy, namely the instrumental, intrinsic and constructive values of democracy unpack how universities can be more responsive to instances of cognitive injustice. Tey then explore a Rancière (2006) enactment of educational technology for the alleviation of cognitive damage in defence of democratic action. Lastly, they ofer a pragmatic approach, drawing on Diana Laurillard’s (2012) ways of learning, to how university educators could disrupt instances of cognitive damage in the university classroom.

Precious Simba’s chapter, “Responding to the needs of the republic: Investigating the democratic/social role of the university in contemporary South Africa”, casts a spotlight on how the university should enact/ dispense its responsibility. Without a formal guide, the university is left to defne its own obligation, which has culminated in the university either being oblivious to the issues plaguing the broader South Africa or being part of those issues, as made manifest in the array of protests, unrest and violence encountered on university campuses. To Simba, the need for a clearer democratic/social role of the university has become exacerbated by the growing trends of violence within the country as well as within the university campus. Questions, therefore, have to be asked about the role and obligation of the university. In response, she argues

that the university should act in loco humanus, that is, in the place of a human; and in the “African” context to be human is circumscribed by the notion of ubuntu. If the university is to actualise its role as a democratic citizen or social agent, then its endeavours must be humanistic, guided by ubuntu.

In her chapter, “Identity (re)construction in higher education spaces”, Sinobia Kenny explores the intersection of individual identities and the institutional cultures and norms practised within higher education spaces. Tere is a tacit institutional assumption, states Kenny, that it is up to the individual to navigate his/her way, to (re)construct his/her identity (if necessary), if the individual is to ft into the existing culture and discourse of the university. Te university, she contends, appears to be unconscious of the impact of its institutional norms and practices on students’ identities. Drawing on Honneth’s (1995, 2007) theory of recognition, Kenny contends, frstly, that institutions of higher education should aim to facilitate the inclusion of all identities so that no student feels subordinated or marginalised within higher education spaces. Secondly, by adopting a proactiveness, higher education institutions lend themselves to cultivating the self-respect and self-esteem of individuals, and hence, a dignifed society.

Janine Carlse, in her chapter, “Institutional culture and the lived experience of violence on university campuses in South Africa”, contends that the upheavals and crises confronting universities presents an opportunity for the university to refect on its practices and cultures that might perpetuate climates of racism, exclusion and non-belonging. Considering the long history of discrimination and dehumanisation that the South African higher education system embodies, the frst section of the chapter looks at the university as product, producer, and purveyor of systemic and ideological racism. Tis is followed by Louise Vincent’s conceptualisation of institutional culture as operating at a nexus of intra-action of the material–discursive, discussed through the lens of “new materialism” – that is, the interplay of the material environment with the discourses promoted on our university campuses. Carlse continues by exploring the lived experiences of black students concerning institutional culture and covert racism on historically white university campuses. She

concludes by proposing considerations and strategies for humanising institutional cultures.

In the chapter, “Burn to be heard”: Te (in)dispensability of “revolutionary” violence in student protests and responsible citizenship in African universities’, Joseph Hungwe and Joseph Jinja Divala critically examine the concept of “revolutionary” violence as an apparent indispensable practice and responsible citizenship within the purview of student protests in African universities. University student protests invoke images of torched buildings, burnt cars and buses, police tear gases, bleeding bruised faces and in some extreme cases, there is a loss of human life. Te apparent legitimation of “revolutionary” violence in student protests remains a highly contestable and contentious matter and contradicts the notions of responsible citizenship that espouses non-violence, critical thinking, accountability and civic engagement as some of its central tenets. By refecting on universities on the African continent, they argue that the seeming indispensability of violence among university student protests is opposed to some of the fundamental tenets of responsible citizenship. Te primary objective of the chapter, therefore, is to critique the logic and contextualisation of revolutionary violence in pursuing genuine student concerns in African universities.

Nuraan Davids and Yusef Waghid, in the concluding chapter, “On the controversy of democratic citizenship and its implications for university education”, acknowledges that inasmuch as this edited collection has focused on controversy concerning university education, this focus cannot be remiss of the inherent controversies that exist in the conceptions and practices of democratic citizenship. As such, debates in and about the university, its cultures, practices, discourses, and people, cannot be divorced from its communities, society, and hence, the politics in which it fnds itself. In the case of South Africa, therefore, the university and its education cannot be dislodged from its context of democratic citizenship. In the South African context, what happens at a university (its education and controversies) are embedded in notions and practices of citizenship. Issues of violence, discrimination, xenophobia, and racism lived and reviled on campuses, are as symptomatic of a controversial democracy as they are an indictment on the university to rise to the moral responsibility to confront these controversies. Te expectation, therefore, that a

university, or a society, can be without controversy is fawed at its basis. Indeed, Davids and Waghid argue that the absence of controversy suggests deeper concerns of apathy, passivity, and uncontested agreement –attitudes which suggest the absence of oppositional voices and actions that can neither be in the interest of democratic citizenship nor a public good. In recognising this, they conclude this edited collection by addressing the notion of democratic citizenship as a controversial practice and then sets out to examine some of the implications of controversy and a lack thereof for university education itself.

In the Coda, Rumbidzai Mashava and Joseph Jinja Divala pose the question of whether decolonisation (we would prefer to talk about decoloniality) of the university in Africa has become one of the elements in re-imagining transformation in higher education. Tey argue that decolonising the university is more likely to remain a pipe dream given that post-independent states within whose conditions African universities exist and operate have other interests to protect. In proposing this argument, they examine the diferent conceptions of decolonisation and claim that a new form of internal colonialism might be at play in Africa that invariably disrupts the university sector.

Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa

References

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Yusef Waghid

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Ling Wong, K., & Chi Kin, J. L. (2019). Learning to live together in polarized and pluralistic societies: Hong Kong teachers’ views of democratic values versus patriotic values. Citizenship Teaching Learning, 14(3), 303–330.

Malik, K. (2015). Free speech in an age of identity politics. Pandaemonium. https://kenanmalik.com/2015/08/13/free-speech-in-an-age-of-identity-politics/. Accessed 7 Apr 2020.

Malik, K. (2018). What is education for? Pandaemonium. https://kenanmalik. com/2018/03/19/what-is-education-for/. Accessed 7 Apr 2020.

Moufe, C. (2000). Te Democratic Paradox. London: Verso.

Moufe, C. (2014). By way of a postscript. Parallax, 20(2): 149–157.

Rancière, J. (2006). Hatred of democracy. Trans. S. Corcoran. London: Verso.

Sen, A. (2007). Identity and violence: Te illusion of destiny. London: Penguin Publishers.

Todd, S. (2007). Teachers judging without scripts, or thinking cosmopolitan. Ethics and Education, 2(1), 25–38.

Todd, S., & Säfström, C. A. (2008). Democracy, education and confict: Rethinking respect and the place of the ethical. Journal of Educational Controversy, 3(1): 1–11.

Waghid, Y. (2008). Te public role of the university reconsidered. Perspectives in Education, 26(1), 19–25.

Wong, M.-Y. (2019). Understanding the educational value of the flm Please Vote for Me: A case of a pedagogy course for citizenship education. Citizenship Teaching Learning, 14(3): 263–276.

Notes on Contributors

Janine Carlse holds a Masters in Religious Studies from the University of Cape Town. She is working on her PhD in Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University. With a deep interest in transformative approaches to higher education pedagogy and policy making, Janine’s current research has been spurred by the ideological challenges facing the still stratifed post-apartheid South African higher education sector. Janine has worked within philanthropic, private and public higher education environments. Her experience within the higher education sector over the past few years includes a combination of project management and administration, stakeholder engagement and partnerships, working with civil society organisations, student academic support, tutoring, facilitation and lecturing.

Nuraan Davids is Professor of Philosophy of Education in the Department of Education Policy Studies in the Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University. Her research interests include democratic citizenship education; Islamic philosophy of education; and philosophy of higher education. Recent books include: Te Tinking University Expanded: On Profanation, Play and Education (2020, with Y. Waghid); Democratic Education and Muslim Philosophy: Interfacing Muslim and communitarian thought (2020, with Y. Waghid); Universities, pedagogical

encounters, openness, and free speech: Reconfguring democratic education (2019, with Y. Waghid).

Joseph Jinja Divala is associate professor in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. His research focuses on a decolonial notion of philosophy of education.

Joseph Pardon Hungwe is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of South Africa in the College of Education (Educational Foundations). His PhD in Education awarded from the University of Johannesburg, researched on Afrophobic tendencies and practices as social, political and economic impediments on internationalization of public higher education within the Southern African region. With research interests in internationalization, global citizenship education, student activism and decolonization of higher education, he has published book chapters and presented at several academic conferences.

Sinobia Kenny is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University (SA). Her current doctoral study explores lived experiences of professional mathematics educators in higher education spaces. Her research interests include identity construction in higher education, professional learning of mathematics educators and refective learning of teachers. She holds an MA from Edgehill University’s Faculty of Education in the Department of Professional Learning (UK), a PGCE from Southbank University (UK) and a Higher Diploma in Education from the University of the Western Cape (SA).

Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu is a Senior Lecturer in philosophy of education in the School of Education, at Chancellor College, of the University of Malawi. His research interests include education for democratic citizenship, global justice and education, and African and political philosophy.

Rumbidzai Mashava is a doctoral candidate in philosophy of education at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Precious Simba is a doctoral candidate in the faculty of education at Stellenbosch University and a researcher at the Stellenbosch Centre for Pedagogy (SUNCEP). Her current doctoral research is a feminist critique

of Ubuntu as a philosophy of education centred on education policy in Zimbabwe. Her research interests are in Ubuntu, education policy, feminist theory, intersectionality, and democratic citizenship education. She has an MA from Sussex University’s Institute of Development Studies (IDS) where her studies focused on gender and development with a special interest in education.

Judith Terblanche is a chartered accountant and working as a senior lecturer in the Department of Accounting at the University of the Western Cape. She obtained her PhD in Philosophy of Education from Stellenbosch University. Her research interest is focused on the intersection of commerce, theology and education. She is co-author of the book, Cosmopolitan Education and Inclusion: Te Self and Others in Deliberation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020 with Yusef Waghid, Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu, Faiq Waghid & Zayd Waghid).

Charlene van der Walt is the head of the Gender and Religion Department at the School of Religion, Philosophy, and Classics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She is also the deputy director of the Ujamaa Center for Contextual Bible Study at UKZN.

Yusef Waghid is distinguished professor of philosophy of education at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. He is the co-author of the following books: Teaching, Friendship & Humanity (with Nuraan Davids, Springer, 2020); Teachers Matter: Educational Philosophy and Authentic Learning (with Nuraan Davids, Lexington Publishers, 2020); and Cosmopolitan Education and Inclusion: Te Self and Others in Deliberation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020 with Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu, Judith Terblanche, Faiq Waghid & Zayd Waghid).

Zayd Waghid is senior lecturer of business and economics education in the Faculty of Education as the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa. He is the co-author of three books, Educational Technology and Pedagogic Encounters: Democratic Education in Potentiality in 2016 (Sense Publishers); Rupturing African Philosophy of Teaching and Learning: Ubuntu Justice and Education in 2018 (Palgrave Macmillan); and Cosmopolitan Education and Inclusion: Te Self and Others in Deliberation in 2020 (Palgrave Macmillan). His current

research interests are in the feld of social justice education and educational technology within the context of teacher education.

Faiq Waghid is an academic at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology’s (CPUT), Centre for Innovative Educational Technology (CIET). His research interest includes the use of participatory action research towards improving teaching and learning practices, augmented through the use of educational technologies. Of Faiq’s noteworthy research endeavours include the publication of three international coauthored books, ‘Educational Technology and Pedagogic Encounters: Democratic Education in Potentiality’ (Sense, 2016), ‘Rupturing African Philosophy on Teaching and Learning: Ubuntu Justice and Education’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and more recently ‘Cosmopolitan Education and Inclusion: Human Engagement and the Self’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). He is rated by the National Research Foundation (NRF) as a promising young researcher.

1Controversy and the Public Sphere: In Defence of Pluralist Deliberation

Yusef Waghid

Introduction

Te German scholar, Jürgen Habermas’s (1989) account of the public sphere, is one whereby people come together as a public to engage in debate over rules governing human relations – that is, a space where people use their reason, or where they (people) invoke “the art of critical–rational public debate” (Habermas 1989: 29). Following, Habermas’s elucidation of the public sphere, it can be claimed that a university is a social structure of the public sphere. It is at the university where people, in a Habermasian way, express their opinions, freedoms, judgments and recommendations on afairs of the state and civil society based on insight and argument (Habermas 1989: 117). Alternatively, critical debate is the touchstone of truth and by implication of university life (Habermas 1989: 118). Considering the above understanding of a university within

Y. Waghid (*)

Department of Education Policy Studies, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa

e-mail: yw@sun.ac.za

© Te Author(s) 2020

N. Davids, Y. Waghid (eds.), University Education, Controversy and Democratic Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56985-3_1

Y. Waghid

the space of the public sphere, it seems inconceivable, to say the least, that university academics and students should become disengaged from critical debate about controversial matters. By controversial matters, I mean matters that require deep and refective thinking about what people (dis)agree on. Usually, controversy surrounds decisions that people reach that some might fnd agreeable and others reprehensible. For instance, although some university students in South Africa consider the payment of tuition fees as necessary to university education, other students might fnd the payment of such fees as burdensome. Te controversy arises when decisions are made that adversely afect both groups of students. In this chapter, I elaborate on the ramifcations of a lack of critical debate on controversial issues in the (South African) public university. I specifcally focus my attention on how a disengagement with controversial issues at public universities could lead to the disintegration of the public sphere. However, as I argue, public deliberation should not be conceived as strictly a mode of argumentation and debate among participants, but rather, a pragmatic way of pluralist joint activity through which shared agreements can ensue and manifest in the public sphere.

On the Downfall of the Public University

I shall now look at three controversial issues that emerged at the university where I work. Firstly, when a university academic antagonistically afronted some students in her class because they (students) questioned her for teaching in a language that categorically excluded them, she momentarily suspended what a university actually stands for – academics engaging critically with students about controversial matters. Lecturing black students in Afrikaans – the language of instruction formerly considered as compulsory in public universities in the apartheid past – without acknowledging their incapacity to comprehend important pedagogical concepts and to engage critically with them, is not a matter of only fouting the institutional language policy, but also one of misrecognising one’s students and treating them with contempt. How does a university academic who bluntly refuses to engage with irate students on the grounds that they have been excluded from pedagogical understanding, advance

the claims of a university to openness and deliberative engagement? Simply put, if a university academic dismisses her students on the basis that she considers it her legitimate right to lecture in the language of her choice, even though doing so would disengage them, then such an academic has put the university’s responsibility to engage one another critically, at risk. When critical debate is not constitutive of what a university ought to be encouraging, then the downfall of the public university is imminent. Habermas aptly states that a university that fails to ensure the coherence of the public as a critically debating entity can be said to have been considerably weakened (Habermas 1989: 162).

Secondly, and quite controversially, a group of academics at the institution where I work decided to publish an article on coloured (a racist term referred to people of colour) women’s apparently low cognitive functioning. Te ensuing fallout played out on many levels – institutionally in terms of ethical compliance and regulation; academically, in terms of racial essentialism; politically, in terms of the continuing humiliation and degradation of a historically maligned category of people, superfcially referred to as “coloured”. Condemned as racist research, the outcry from certain groups of academics was to the extent that the journal eventually withdrew its publication due to public pressure. In seeming uncertainty, the initial response from the university was one of detachment and disengagement – under the auspices of academic freedom. Tis was followed by a response of disappointment in this type of research – an investigation to be launched immediately that would hold the academics accountable.

When senate convened, about two months later, the university’s vicerector was asked to provide an update on the promised investigation into the research, and how the researchers were able to attain ethical clearance, considering that pressure was mounting from inside and outside the institution to hold the responsible academics accountable. Instead, the vice-rector called upon the dean of the faculty where these academics are based. He, in turn, appealed to the senate to “forgive” these colleagues even though the case was still under investigation by the institution as it was claimed that it is more feasible to follow such an approach than to marginalise and even penalise the responsible academics. It would seem that the dean’s articulation of the coloured women afair was biased 1 Controversy and the Public Sphere: In

Y. Waghid

towards the academics, who had written the article, as opposed to a willingness to bring into question the apparent disregard of ethical conduct. Stated diferently, there appeared to be a need to dismiss the incident for fear of reputational damage to the university, rather than going to the trouble of dealing with the pain and harm that had indeed been caused by this article. Tis reminds me of Habermas’s (1989) assertion that conversation and discussion in the public sphere and universities are no exception, have been prearranged and become superfuous on the basis that critical debate has been pre-planned and engagement avoided (Habermas 1989: 164). If a controversial university matter such as that which deals with the humiliation of a marginalised group of women can be side-stepped in a very organised way in the highest academic body of the university, then it simply means that the university has not adequately fulflled, what Habermas refers to as “its publicist function” (Habermas 1989: 164). On what basis does university management encourage reconciliation and forgiveness when the issue about demeaning other women has not been subjected to critical-rational engagement? Tis only leads to the inference that reconciliation and forgiveness are unconditional human acts that do not require any form of argumentative substantiation and or deliberation. I cannot imagine that a university should abandon such an important virtue that has been endemic to its illustrious historical legacy.

Tirdly, another controversial matter that seems to raise its head every now and then at major research-intensive universities in the country, including the university where I work, is that of dis-invitation. In early 2019, it was heard that several Israeli academics withdrew from a conference, entitled Recognition, reparation, reconciliation: Te light and shadow of historical trauma, held at the end of 2018. Te conference focused on historical wounding and its transgenerational repercussions. As it turned out, a contingent of Israeli scholars did not attend citing the university’s inept manner in which it dealt with anti-Israeli activism. Te university’s management subsequently ofered a public apology, but by then, Israeli scholars were already excluded from the conference. If the Israeli scholars were to have attended the conference at the university, it would have sparked controversy, on the one hand, because it was felt that their presence could have enfamed emotions by a religious minority that could

have provoked a security risk at the institution. Yet, the organisers of the conference’s apparent dis-invitation of the Israeli scholars curtailed deliberative engagement with the views of the scholars. As it is argued for elsewhere, “dis-invitation aborts speech instantaneously. A lack of opportunity to engage with diference, even in the face of vehement onslaughts against one’s faith, does not help in recognising one another’s humanity because potential violent responses to diference are never desirable” (Davids and Waghid 2019: 83).

Te point I am making is that a university cannot disallow controversy in the sense that not only does controversy ofer an opportunity for “any humane form of engagement to transpire” (Davids and Waghid 2019: 83), but it also provides the bedrock according to which the university could enhance its credibility within the public sphere. As cogently reminded by Habermas, when the public sphere is no longer devoted to rational-critical debate, in this instance, about controversial issues, then its collapse is imminent (Habermas 1989: 247). Te latter is so, on the basis that when critical public scrutiny becomes vulnerable to manipulation and unquestioning decision-making, the communicative interconnectedness of a public university succumbs to the exercise of negative domination and power that excludes others and otherness. Habermas (1989: 249) makes the point that a public university should remain one in which many people express opinions as receive them; and that there is always a chance for people to respond to any controversial matter in public. Unfortunately, dis-invitation, so it seems, undermines the institutional autonomy to engage openly and refectively with all others – that is, public deliberation would have been short-circuited, and the university would have succumbed to what Habermas (1989: 247) refers to as “the vortex of publicity that is staged for show or manipulation”.

Te question remains: Why does a lack of rational and critical debate in and about controversial issues enhance the collapse of the university? I address this in the ensuing discussion.

On the Signifcance of Critical-Rational Debate to Address Controversy

Public deliberation is not just a dialogical process whereby participants exchange reasons to resolve controversial matters or situations. In this sense, deliberation does not just imply a form of discourse or argumentation. Following James Bohman (2000), public deliberation involves at least three aspects of human activity. Firstly, public deliberation requires the consensual involvement of participants whereby decisions are subjected to a process of public discussion and debate without decisions being imposed on the participants (Bohman 2000: 4). Tat is, when people deliberate in public, they are moved by a willingness to deal with controversial matters and the decisions that emanate from their deliberations are the outcomes of pluralist public scrutiny. Secondly, public deliberation invites people to “justify their decisions and opinions by appealing to common interests or by arguing in terms of reasons that ‘all can accept’ in public debate” (Bohman 2000: 5). Put diferently, through public deliberation, pluralist decisions ensue that are justifed by convincing public reasons. “Reasons given must primarily meet the conditions of publicity; that is, they must be convincing to everyone” (Bohman 2000: 6). Of course, in deliberations about controversial matters, not all public reasons are equally accepted as persuasive by everyone. So, in a way, others might consider public reasons in a sceptical way. If not, their equal freedoms are undermined. By implication, and thirdly, public deliberation is primarily conceived “as a cooperative activity” in which reasons are exchanged for purposes of resolving controversial issues (Bohman 2000: 27). More poignantly, public deliberation succeeds on the grounds that participants in the cooperative, joint activity not only profer reasons in the public sphere. Instead, their diverse reasons result in recognised decision-making – that is, participants in the joint activity recognise their pluralist contribution to, and infuence on the outcomes of deliberative decision-making, even when they agree or disagree with it (decision) (Bohman 2000: 33).

For resolving controversial matters of public concern, the aforementioned practice of public deliberation as a cooperative activity seems

to be the most feasible. Tis is so because public deliberation is not aimed at putting down opposing views or humiliating others’ contending views on the basis of argumentation basis of an actual decision is acceptable when the reasons behind it are sufcient to motivate the cooperation of all those deliberating. In other words, decisions reached are grounded in non-tyranny, equality, and publicity conditions (Bohman 2000: 35). What follows from the above, is that a university that does not attempt to resolve controversial matters on the basis of public deliberation – that is, the willingness on the part of participants to engage, to profer justifable reasons, and jointly to cooperate in a non-tyrannical way – makes itself vulnerable to recurring controversies. Controversies are often propelled in the public sphere because of the diverse views of the public. Reaching consensus strictly based on deliberative argumentation might not always be possible in complex and diverse societies. However, when public deliberation is conceived as cooperative action, the possibility of shared agreements in accountable and refexive ways might just ensue. As Bohman (2000: 55) avers, “as a joint activity, [public] deliberation produces outcomes in a non-aggregative way … [which makes] deliberation … one of the many cooperative activities that demands a plural rather than a collective or an individual agent or subject”. Te point is, controversial issues stand a better chance of being resolved if public deliberation unfolds in pluralist (as opposed to collectivist) decision-making based on which shared agreements manifest in the public sphere.

In the main, what has been argued for above, is that public deliberation seems to be the most plausible way to address and possibly resolve controversial matters. Tis is so on the basis that a diverse and pluralistic public sphere creates opportunities for people to deliberate together without “collapsing into sheer confict or a babble of incommensurable voices” (Bohman 2000: 69). Likewise, public deliberation as a pluralist, joint activity engenders new possibilities for cooperation to emerge and to resolve deep and irreconcilable conficts in the public sphere. A public university that advances deliberation would be most appropriately positioned to resolve conficts without surrendering the equality of its staf and students; the non-tyranny of outcomes, and most of all, the publicity of dialogical experiences.