This past Saturday’s expression of support by UCT’s Council for its VC and DVCs is tantamount to a carte blanche for them to continue to subjugate UCT to the will of a small, non-representative assemblage of ideologically highly questionable individuals (including lawbreakers) who present no ‘vision’ for UCT beyond nebulous, never-ending demands. The non-financial demands are motivated most disturbingly under the guise of the undefined (undefinable?) “decolonization” and driven by intimidation, violence and destruction.

In the meantime, my one-on-one interviews with UCT staff (spanning lecturers to candidates for its highest offices), students, their parents and alumni (all of whom remain anonymous fearing recrimination) clearly indicate that the primary cause of what ‘ails’ our university is its failure to mentor/nurture/counsel and ultimately educationally develop the large numbers of intelligent, highly motivated (but educationally ‘disabled’ often poverty-stricken) kids admitted to UCT into the leaders desperately needed to replace:

1. kleptocratic, incompetent crooks that predominate in government and the civil service;

2. equally incompetent often corrupt school teachers and principals more loyal to unions and political parties that they are to their vocations and students;

3. unresponsive university academics resolutely determined to persist with curricula and teaching/mentoring methods that fail to tap African-sourced knowledge and students' lived experiences without compromising internationally accepted standards.

The UCT Executive has further failed to:

1. invest in much of the excellent human capital that remains,

2. develop the academic programmes that are delivering outstanding graduates, and

3. to introduce innovative new programmes that can work.

It has not been proactive, and allowed (collaborated with?) malevolent minority elements within its community (and some anarchist outsiders) to ‘deal’ with ‘injustice’ by promoting systematic anti-'white' racism (structural institutional, student vs lecturer, academic vs academic, student vs student, parent vs student) as the new 'ethos' at UCT.

To date, I have steadfastly focused on calling for the exposure of ‘white’ racists and crypto-colonialists who both the Fallists/anarchists and the UCT Executive maintain are the key ‘part of the problem’. None have been ‘outed’ to date. Indeed, the one fairly adjudicated case found that the accuser defamed the alleged racists.

Now, I’m reluctantly calling for the exposure of anti-‘white’, anti-debate, do-nothing, anarchist destroyers whose nefarious acts benefit no one. Those who suffer (and will continue to suffer) the most are the educationally disabled kids who could benefit most.

As a replacement of the deeply flawed (but potentially functional) existing system, the malevolent minority offers no coherent new ideas and refuses to subject themselves to epistemic peer-review and their ideas to rational debate essential for the effective functioning universities globally.

With regard to the anti-‘white’ racism that has superseded ‘affirmative’ action, highly competent, dedicated and innovative individuals have been openly denied appointment, even at the DVC level, simply because they are ‘white’. Lecturing staff face growing numbers of students who aggressively resist education without intellectually challenging putatively ‘painful’, ‘suffocating’ ‘oppressive’ ideas which are dismissed simply because they are “Eurocentric”, “Western”, “neoliberal” or (my favourite) just plain “offensive”.

This is not due to an influx of new agitators. Individual students who clearly thirsted for knowledge 18 months ago are now 'openly close-minded' and hostile in lectures. In the face of this destructive behaviour, academics in general, members of Senate and now the Council fail to challenge, let alone condemn, the new ethos. The academics hide in their offices and labs, trying to focus on research, interacting seriously only with a subset of their postgrads. At worst, they sabotage merit-based appointments and promotions and find any possible way to humiliate their ideologically ‘adversarial’ ‘white’ colleagues.

This openly aggressive anti-'white' racism is no longer restricted to 'black' academics or those who are inferior academically. It now openly involves the left-leaning liberals who Steve Biko deprecated. Students avoid campus or cluster by self-identification in 'safe spaces' and avoid open discussions and even dialogue.

Following the UCT Executive, the Council and Senate have abandoned even nominal respect for the rule of law, academic freedom, rational debate and pursuit of anything resembling truth. In its place they offer “non-restorative justice”, “historical context” and what I now call “Tuesday’s Truth”. Decisive action (unless it suppresses academic freedom or pardons lawbreakers) has evaporated. Council and Senate no longer function as potentially counter-balancing, self-correcting complementary entities.

What is the result of this “decolonization”? Eminent older staff have moved elsewhere or taken early retirement.  Bright young ones are looking for jobs elsewhere or leaving academia. Children of eminent UCT staff, former staff and graduates are seeking tertiary education at the Universities of Stellenbosch or Witwatersrand - where they are relatively safe. Alumni fear that the value of their degrees is being eroded. Donors invest elsewhere. Here at UCT, ‘black’ advancement is becoming more dependent on 'white denigration' rather than self-motivated ‘black consciousness’.

Whereas I was cautiously optimistic a month ago, I am now veering towards despair.

Therefore, any way this new 'ethos' can be exposed is imperative. Without it, we're on a roller-coaster ride to disaster.

How will the now monolithic Executive/Senate/Council hegemony and other critics respond to this much more provocative piece? I will be branded, once again, as a doddering academic ‘dinosaur’, racist, self-serving egotist who is perpetrating personal vendettas. Sadly for them, my track record only supports my egotism, which is pandemic at UCT.

I have a track record for actually implementing real decolonization. [But the UCT’s all-powerful Communication and Marketing Department refuses to publish evidence of this – I have the e-mails.] I have repeatedly suggested other novel ways to drag UCT out of the doldrums, all of which have been ignored or dismissed. I have treated ALL my students regardless of race as colleagues in training (that’s why all of them have successful careers) and pioneered the recruitment of ‘black’ African students from the nano-second it was legally possible.

If I’m self-serving, why did I drive a broken-down 1968 Mini for 30 years, now replaced by a 16 year-old Toyota? I never made money as a ‘consultant’ or author of defamatory public intellectual articles and live off my modest pension. With regard to my targeted ‘enemies’, at the recent annual dinner for UCT Fellows, the most obvious one, Max Price, shook my hand and, in a friendly fashion, called me his “nemesis”. [He did disparage my UCT institutional tie. But he always does that.]