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South African Decolonization and Protest - Coggle Diagram
South African Decolonization and Protest
"Decolonizing South African Universities"
"#"RhodesMustFall grew in popularity after Cecil Rhodes, a British Colonizer statue was defaced during protests at Cape Town University.
A King George the Fifth statue was covered in white paint in Durban.
Protestors also set the Boer War memorial on fire
Students at Cape Town see the Cecil Rhodes statue as a symbol of white supremacy. For over a month the student body has been calling for the removal of the statue.
UCT officials have been sending mixed feelings about the removal of the statue. The vice chancellor of the UCT is committed to removing the statue.
The students are tired of having decisions made on their behalf without any say in it. They feel excluded from having a say in the decision.
Cecil Rhodes was a man who bullied others to gain power and resources. He was very aggressive and a segregationist.
The statue is a reminder to black students that white people can take from them and be celebrated by the masses.
The major issue with the statue is that the land Rhodes "donated" to the university is stolen.
They are not trying to erase history but rather do not want to praise people who did not want a inclusive society.
A current socio-political issue in the US, is movements such as BLM who have toppled statues and demand others to be removed. Protesters removed statues of Christopher Columbus who was a colonizer linked the the genocide of Native American people.
The RhodesMustFall movement wants decolonization of all education institutions in Africa.
Cape Town University does not have a SINGLE black female professor.
Some faculty at UCT have started curriculum transformation with the focus of issues that challenge South Africans such as poverty and inequality.
Colonialism ended but neo-colonialism is happening currently. For example Barclays, who was invested into slavery and colonialism, now owns banks in South Africa. Instead of returning some of the wealth it has looted they continue to exploit the people of South Africa.
Black people are often framed as incapable of understanding their own problems and therefore needing intervention from white people.
UCT has named multiple buildings after struggling heroes but those buildings havent even been built yet!
"Questions Academics Can Ask to Decolonize Their Classrooms"
Curriculum is not just" stuff" that students must learn to be smart and successful in a particular field.
Sociologists argue curriculum is a ideological hybrid discourse.
Between 2015 and 2017 South African university students protested that their curriculum was imported from the North and that it lacks African-based knowledge.
South African students want to change the content of what they are taught by decolonizing the curriculum.
They want to add African based authors to their readings.
A workgroup at the University of Cape Town called "Decolonising Pedagogy in the Humanities" came up with ten questions that are starting points to think about ways of decolonizing the teachings.
The ten questions were split into two groups: curriculum and ways of teachings.
What principles, norms, values and worldviews inform your selection of knowledge for your curriculum? (think about absences as well as presences, centres as well as margins)
Do you articulate your own social and intellectual position, from which you speak when lecturing?
For whom do you design your curriculum? Who is your ideal, imagined student and what assumptions do you make about their backgrounds, culture, languages and schooling?
Does your curriculum reflect its location in Africa and the global South? To what extent does it draw on subjugated histories, voices, cultures and languages?
How does your teaching recognise and affirm the agency of black and first-generation students? How does your teaching legitimate and respect their experiences and cultures?
Can you speak indigenous or regional languages and relate to the cultures and lived experiences of all students? Do you draw on these valuable resources in your teaching?
How does your curriculum level the playing fields by requiring traditional/ white students to acquire the intellectual and cultural resources to function effectively in a plural society?
How do you build a learning community in your classroom where students learn actively from each other and draw on their own knowledge sources?
How do your assumptions about curriculum knowledge play out in the criteria that you use to assess students? What can you do to make your assessment practices more fair and valid for all students, without inducing high levels of anxiety? What assessment methods could show what all students are capable of, drawing on their strengths and promoting their agency and creativity?
How far do your teaching and assessment methods allow students to feel included without assuming assimilation?
This issue is also relevant within the US. The curriculum taught to our students is whitewashed and often do not praise or shed enough light on those who are of color.
Shannon Morreira is a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town and Kathy Luckett is a associate professor at the University of Cape Town. They wrote this article together.