cross-posted from: H-Net List on the History of Southern Africa
              <H-SAFRICA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>

Date:    8 Dec 1998
From: Stephen Thami Plaatjie, Vista University - Sebokeng
        <PLTJ-S@serval.vista.ac.za>

I am prompted to issue a rejoinder to Catherine's views about the
falling of standards in South African universities. I wish to be
understood as emanating from an Afrocentric premise in my
understanding and intrepretation of the word" standard". I find the
use of of this word problematic and unfortunate, especially in the
context of the history of Apartheid Bantu education to which the
African people were subjected. Under the apartheid regime
Africans were educated in order to become drawers of water and
collectors of wood. The ideological implication was that the African
people were educated in order to carry out instructions at the behest
of their aparheid masters.

The struggle for emancipation and self determination has had very
little regard for the elevation of African "standards" to those of
their white counterparts. The objective of the educational struggles
has been for the overhaul of the entire oppressive colonial education
system that had abrogated unto itself the right of determining what is
right and acceptable as knowlegde. Colonial education expressed
through institutions of higher education has persistantly been guided
by a paradigm that undermined the efforts and contributions of the
African people outside the influence of Europe. This, to a very great
extent, has been the unfortunate premise on which western scholars
have understood and applied the word "standards".

Cleary, the word "standard" has been applied in relation to western
standards that must and are imposed on the African Experience as the basis
of knowledge and Esoteric Truths. The values and creteria of what is
determined as uniform and "standard" still resides within the cognitive
competency of western scholars, be they French, British or even American.

Professor Sipho Seepe in his address to the structures at Vista
University - Sebokeng campus on the 30-11-98 had this to say about
stadards: "Fortunatety, there is a new orientation in the academy that
has begun to recognise the contribution of experiential knowlegde that
does not necessarily derive from Europe.This orientation has produced
a growing reasearch industry in ethnomathametics, ethnobotany and
ethnochemistry. For instance, western scholars have been intrigued by
the mathametical patterns embeded in murals of the Ndebele houses in
Mpumalanga and the notion of cycles embeded in the huts in southern
Africa....I guess some of our scholars will require foreign or western
scholar's affirmation before they could value production of their
communities."

The same sentiments have been lucidly expressed by Professor Ramuse
in his foreword to the book entitled _Black Perspective on Transformatiom of
Tertiary Institutions_. Africanisation holds that the African experience in
its totality is simultaneously the foundation and the source of all forms of
knowledge. On this basis, it maintains that the African experience is by
definition non-transferable, but nonetheless communicable....It
(Africanisation) holds that different foundations exist for the construction
of the pyramids of knowledge. It disclaims the view that any pyramid is by
its very nature eminently superior to all the others. It is a serious quest
for a radical and veritable change of paradigm so that the African may enter
into genuine and
critical dialogical encounter with other pyramids of knowledge.
Africanisation is a conscious and deliberate assertion of nothing more or
les than the right to be African."

In being African, there can be no standard against which the desire
of the Africans for self identification can be evaluated. The notion
of "standards" is thus rejected as a means by the western or
colonial scholars to continue to dictate esoteric paradigms to the
African. I think it will be prudent to enlighten the readers that
Charles Van Onsellen is one of the reactionaries who posed as a
liberal. This became public when he left Wits university after his abortive
plans to stall and frustrate transfromation and Africanisation of that
institution. His views on "falling standards" must be understood
against the background of who he is and what he stands for.
Therefore, "falling standards" must be seen as the ultimate demise
of colonial and oppressive academic 'standards'.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=


[**H-Africa Editor's note: I think it should be noted that Catherine
Coquery-Vidrovitch stated that, in her opinion, standards (in African
History) were RISING, not falling. In the interests of clarity I reproduce
her two relevant comments below--Peter Limb**].

Date: 5 Dec 1998
From: Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Universite Paris-7 Denis Diderot


 No, I don't agree with Connie Anderson. I don't think that, generally
 speaking, standards are decreasing (on African history). On the contrary, I
 strongly think that standards are rising in the new French generations,
 partly because they feel freer facing colonial times (they were born
 later), and also partly thanks to the beginning of a "deconstructing"
 effort. Just now, there is a rise of younger historians of excellent
 quality, not many (we have never been many in France), but more than
 before, and probably better. The same in francophone Africa. There are now
 several excellent scholars, for more than twenty years to my mind, in spite
 of huge difficulties. Is there a different feeling in other parts of
 Africa?


Date: 1 Dec 1998
Author: Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Universite Paris-7 Denis Diderot,

 As the author of a text kindly launched on the H-Africa network by the
 editors, I am slightly disappointed to see that it did not open a
 discussion on-line. Nevertheless, I am happy to hear individually, from
 various colleagues, that they used the texts (including Didier's answer) to
 enliven discussion in their Undergraduate and Graduate seminars. Didier
 told me the same on his side.

 My belief is/was that it was too francophone a debate to actually echoe
 in American minds. Our culture is not the same, despite the fact that we
 all are *Westerners*. Some friends have suggested to me that it is not the
only
 reason. A South African colleague reminded me that the question was openly
 discussed in South Africa, where it is literally vital. Most of you, of
 course, know of the harsh discussions between Charles Von Onselen who, along
 with some other academics in South African universities (usually white
scholars), fear that academic standards are declining. Others (in the
majority  but not necessarily Black people) claim that everything has been
too long
 confiscated by white people (politicians, businessmen, and scholars the
 like), and therefore that it is urgent, necessary, and fair to dispossess
 them, and the quicker the better.

 Francophone or South African scholars wonder why, while the
 question obviously is a target for American studies, nevertheless  most
 American scholars (African Americans as well as Wasps) do not want to (or
 do not dare?) face it, except in some exceptional and dramatic shows
 (remember the session organized against Philip Curtin a few years ago at
 the ASA. Notice that most of the people who intervened were Africans, among
 whom several Francophone people). In other words, there would be a kind of
 public censorship on too delicate a topic.

 Why? A hypothesis of my South African colleague is to suggest
 that, in some way, Black South Africans feel freer than African Americans
 do: they are the majority, they have an acute consciousness that they
 possess and have to recover a long autochtonous history. The case would be,
 albeit with such a different history, similar for Francophone Africans, who
 face the situation quite naturally, once more being the majority, even or
 just because they still feel so dependent from the western knowledge and
 pretention of knowledge.

 Is what I propose seen here as a provocation? Do I pronounce words which
 in some way are indecent for American ears? I would be grateful to know it.

 As for the question debated in South Africa, it is obviously
 awfully difficult. Short term and long term objectives appear
 contradictory. It is certainly not only unavoidable, but necessary, that
 teaching and researching be strongly and quickly intensified among black
 researchers. A consequent result may be, truly, a decreasing standard, from
 the point of view of *western standards*. On the contrary, the long term
 trend must necessarily obtain a raising standard for everybody,
 proportional to the number of people, i.e. many, many outstanding Black
 South African scholars. How to obtain it is obviously debatable. I would
 argue that the tropical experience, where independence occurred more than a
 generation ago now, may be of some help : being strongly and definitely
 optimistic (afro-optimist), I think that, all in all, the result is not so
 bad : even if we all know that for years (and still now) many African
 scholars at home were not of an outstanding quality (beware : I don't say
 all, but many), does it prevent *now* an exceptional degree of excellence
 among many African scholars? Obviously not, in spite of enormous local
 difficulties and material insufficiencies. Therefore nothing prevents us from
 complaining now, but for the best pleasure of coming generations.

 As an historian, I strongly think that most processes need time.
 Higher education is not obtainable within a few days, but if you don't begin
 now, sure, you will obtain little in the future, therefore the debate is
 not a true one. We have no choice. And notice that French authorities
 tried, for years, to limit in independent Africa the development of an
 independent higher education. The result probably was just to slow down the
 emergence of it. But now it comes, anyhow.

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