Expel Jansen: ANCYL
2009-10-27 16:49
Johannesburg - The ANC Youth League on Tuesday called for the expulsion of University of the Free State (UFS) vice chancellor Jonathan Jansen.
"The leadership of Jonathan Jansen has not inspired us and has failed to deal with many of [the] transformation issues at UFS so he must go," the league said in a statement.
"Our call is that Jonathan Jansen must be expelled and the University Council be disbanded, and allow sober leadership to take the [UFS] through a transformation programme, which does not celebrate racists."
The league expressed anger at Jansen's earlier decision to withdraw internal charges against four students accused of racism, saying this "confirmed that he will remain a conveyer belt of the volkstaat group that is still hell-bent in preserving the racist attitudes".
Hate speech complaint
Earlier, the Democratic Alliance laid a hate speech complaint against African National Congress Youth League Free State chairman Thebe Meeko over comments he reportedly made about Jansen.
"They are such fundamentally egregious and shocking statements that we are responding to - asking for the death of somebody," said DA MP Wilmot James.
The complaint, laid at the Cape Town Magistrate's Court, also includes harassment.
The Times reported that Meeko said Jansen should be "shot and killed because he is a racist".
"Like President Jacob Zuma when he said the police must meet fire with fire [referring to police shooting armed criminals], the shoot-to-kill approach must also apply to all the racists, including Jansen - because he is a racist," The Times reported.
The Bloemfontein Magistrate's Court has postponed the case against the students at the centre of the controversy, RC Malherbe, Johnny Roberts, Schalk van der Merwe and Danie Grobler, until February .
Known as the "Reitz Four", they face crimen injuria charges for allegedly demeaning a group of black university employees while making a video.
Jansen felt it would be in the interests of reconciliation to allow the students back on to the campus, but had since said there would be open discussions about the matter.
Misinterpretation
ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu said the call was not for Jansen to be shot and killed, but for racism to be shot and killed.
"He never said he must kill a person. I spoke to him. He was talking about racism," said Shivambu, branding the DA's charge as "opportunistic".
ANCYL president Julius Malema was also embroiled in an Equality Court case after comments he made in Cape Town about the woman who laid a charge of rape against Zuma before he was president.
That case would return to court on November 2.
No date had been set yet for the Meeko case, but it was expected to be transferred to the Bloemfontein jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, Xanthea Limberg, the president of the Young Independent Democrats (YID) called on the ANCYL to refrain from trying to "ruin the good arguments the rest of us have come up with for why Professor Jansen's decision was a mistake".
Racial reconciliation
Last week, Jansen decided to let two of the students return to campus as part of a programme of racial reconciliation, a move met with resistance from many quarters, including the department of higher education.
"The buffoons in the ANCYL seem to be acting on the kind of idiocy that assures one that if the word 'kill' is inserted in even the most idiotic drivel, more people will sit up and take notice," Limberg said.
The YID said Jansen's decision showed that students would not be held responsible for their acts.
"While we appreciate the Mandela-esque nature of Jansen's gesture, this is not 1994 and anyone that continues to display a baas-mentality in this day and age must be punished ruthlessly using every channel open to us," said Limberg.
"Why is it that black South Africans are always under more pressure to forgive than whites are to show remorse and ask for that forgiveness?"
Comment was not immediately available from Jansen.
- SAPA
