UFS student hostel apologises

2008-03-06 07:35

Bloemfontein - Reitz hostel, at the centre of a racist-video controversy, apologised unconditionally on Wednesday to all students and other hostels.

Reitz house father and the head of the hostel, Christo Dippenaar, said the whole hostel and its house committee had discussed the video and had decided to offer an unconditional apology for the video to all University of the Free State students.

The video featured black university employees on their knees eating food which had purportedly been urinated on by a white student and refers negatively to the university's integration policy for campus residences.

The apology was distributed in the form of pamphlets to all residences on campus and also to other students at the university.

The pamphlet was signed by the Reitz hostel's primarius and the Reitz house committee in the name of all Reitz residents.

"We mourn the damage our actions have done to relations between cultural and language groups on campus, as well as to the image of our proud university," the pamphlet read.

"We have the utmost understanding that especially black and brown communities viewed the making of the video as racist and insulting to them, as did the cleaners of the hostels.

"The goal of this letter is not to defend either the video or the motives behind it.

"The goal of this letter is to offer an unconditional apology that members of our hostel made such a video and for the grief that it caused.

"The original making of the video had nothing to do with racism, but its revelation brought us, as residents of Reitz hostel, to the necessary realisation that we have to institute introspection over the sensitivity that still exists in the interactions between different cultural groups.

"We have to sensitise ourselves again to our Biblical principles of respect, love, trust and integrity within a multicultural society and how we live out these principles.

"We call on every student on campus to help each other in this regard. After all, we all have the same goal: to watch the progress of our university with pride as Kovsies," read the letter.

- SAPA