The invitation to return to the University of Fort Hare as a keynote speaker for the Postgraduate and Postdoctoral Conference during the Research Week of Excellence was a profound honour, particularly in a year that marked thirty years since I first walked through its gates as a first-year student. I have obtained qualifications from a few other institutions, but none come close to Fort Hare in terms of emotional connection. Fort Hare is not the kind of institution where a relationship ends with the conferment of a degree or certificate.
When I came to Fort Hare thirty years ago, I had three simple objectives: (i) to get a degree, (ii) to excel in sports, and (iii) to find a girlfriend. On the first goal, my ambition was already clear long before I set foot on campus. As a Xhosa initiate in December 1994, I designed a graduation mortarboard out of cardboard to serve as a symbol of my personal ambition to become a graduate. In April 1998, my dream came through when I officially donned the Fort Hare mortarboard. In sports, I was the fastest middle-distance athlete and the fittest man on campus. I even made it into the first team in soccer. Now, the third objective – the pursuit of a girlfriend – proved to be a more elusive race. I never quite made it to emzana during my student days, but I am not one to give up easily. I continued fishing from this pond long after I graduated. In the end, Fort Hare may not have given me a girlfriend, but it gave me something better. It gave me a wife.
It is a pity that the conference was not held on the main campus in eDikeni, where the tree under which I first met my wife still stands. The university had to rent space at the East London International Convention Centre (ICC) after certain individuals had willfully set fire to parts of the campus infrastructure. As the student community, we always had robust engagements with the management, got extremely frustrated, but arson of this magnitude was never known. One wonders whose interests the destruction of university infrastructure serves. It does not matter how aggrieved you might be, setting a university property alight should never happen.
It is against this backdrop that I titled my keynote address, “Un-Burning the Archive: Record-Keeping as a Historiographical Framework”. I employed the phrase, “un-burning the Archive” metaphorically as an antidote to the burning, or more broadly, the neglect and destruction of valuable records and knowledge systems. It was here that I cut my teeth as a researcher. When I was doing honours in 1998, I conducted research on oral storytelling, undertaking video-recorded interviews with women in Mavuso village, among them my own grandmother. My lecturer, Mr Mdaka, was so impressed that he asked to keep my essay so he could use it as a reference for future students. Thinking I was wiser, I kept my handwritten essay with me. A few months later, a hurricane struck our village, damaging part of our home, and I never saw the essay again. I also lost the video recording that could have been the only available moving image of my late grandmother.
In a recent article, one of Fort Hare’s most distinguished alumna, Prof. Barney Pityana, lamented the burning of the institution. He echoed my sentiments when he wrote, “The University of Fort Hare (UFH) holds a profound place in the chronicles of African history and education, with its rich history and heritage embodying significant cultural, political, and educational narratives.” Coincidentally, Prof. Pityana was part of a research project that reinforced in me a sense of pride and appreciation for the rich history that this institution represents. In 1999/2000, my friend and former schoolmate, Daniel Massey, embarked on a research project about the social history of Fort Hare. I crisscrossed the country with him as he was conducting interviews with some of Fort Hare’s former students. This resulted in a book titled Under Protest: The Rise of Student Resistance at the University of Fort Hare (2010). From its establishment in 1916, the University of Fort Hare served as a crucible for revolutionary thought.
However, one cannot help noticing that when we talk about Fort Hare, we often speak in nostalgic terms. We tend to valorise the illustrious past and wax lyrical about the achievements of its distinguished alumni, without talking about the legacy we want to leave as the current generation. Next year, Fort Hare will be celebrating its 110th anniversary. This is an opportune moment to do critical reflection, where we ask ourselves: What do we, as the current generation of Forterians, want to be remembered for? How do we, as custodians of this heritage, contribute to the restoration, revitalisation, and advancement of the university’s image? What legacy will the current generation of Forterians leave behind?
The ongoing investigations of misconduct are a major threat to institutional integrity and public image. Restoring the dignity and reputation of Fort Hare requires a collective effort from the entire university community, including its alumni, the current management, academic staff, researchers and students. I believe that postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows occupy a strategic position in the realisation of the university’s broader institutional vision. Ideally, every Master’s candidate ought to have at least one article, or accepted for publication, by the time of submitting their dissertation. Each chapter of a dissertation represents the potential for a journal article or book chapter, while the dissertation as a whole can later be developed into a monograph.
It is essential that both postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows and their supervisors craft a clear scholarly vision that outlines how they intend to establish and sustain excellence in their academic journey. Postdoctoral fellowships should serve as mechanisms for strengthening the scholarly credibility of fellows and facilitating their professional development. There ought to be well-defined pathways that, on the one hand, ensure sustained research productivity, and, on the other, enable the systematic transition of fellows into full-time academic roles encompassing teaching, supervision, and mentorship. One effective means of inducting emerging scholars is through structured co-supervision arrangements with senior academics. Co-supervision should reflect genuine collaboration and equitable distribution of academic labour and rewards. This was the crux of my message to the Postgraduate students and the Postdoctoral fellows at the conference.
Emboldened by what I perceived as the positive reception of my address, I decided to visit the main campus of Fort Hare in eDikeni, both to witness the damage firsthand and to undertake a personal pilgrimage to the tree under which I met my wife twenty-four years ago. It was a visit I came to regret. The sight of the charred remains of several buildings left me devastated. As I stood before the grotesque shell that once housed our administration building, I found myself sliding down the wall to sit on the pavement, overcome by grief at the thought of the archives that might have been lost. In that rubble lay more than burnt bricks – it held memories, human stories, and invaluable records. I got into the car and drove past the historic tree without even noticing it.
By Prof. Siphiwo Mahala
Source: Postgraduate Studies and Postdoctoral Fellowships Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 2