Latest news with #JonathanJansen
IOL News
24-05-2025
- General
- IOL News
The dilemma of celebrating graduations: balancing joy and respect
Graduations have "become more about loud celebrations than dignified events". Image: Ranquist ACCORDING to educational expert Hendrick Makane graduation ceremonies have "become more about loud celebrations than dignified events". 'As an education activist, I believe these ceremonies should maintain a level of respect and decorum, allowing all graduates to feel celebrated and honoured. 'Excessive noise and disruptions can overshadow other graduates' achievements. Graduation ceremonies are a time to acknowledge individual accomplishments, and loud outbursts can detract from this,' said Makaneta. He said loud noise could also detract from the dignity of the ceremony. Hendrick Makane Image: Supplied 'Graduation is a significant milestone, and maintaining a respectful atmosphere ensures the event's gravity is preserved. To maintain dignity, graduates and families should respect the stage by being mindful of noise levels. 'But equally they must avoid excessive noise that might disrupt the ceremony by respecting the proceedings. It is important to follow the ceremony's structure and timing. The other thing is to consider others, including fellow graduates and guests, ensuring they too can also celebrate their achievements." He said some celebrations, which could make others feel uncomfortable, should be left for home. 'It's advisable for graduates and families to reserve their most exuberant celebrations for after the formal ceremony or at home. This allows the graduation ceremony to maintain its dignity, while still permitting joyful expressions of achievement,' he said. Professor Jonathan Jansen, from the Stellenbosch University, said he enjoyed the celebration spectacle at graduation ceremonies but agreed that over celebrating could take away from other graduates. Professor Jonathan Jansen Image: Supplied 'I like the excitement and enthusiasm of attendees at graduation ceremonies when celebrating the achievements of family members. We have broken the stiffness of European rituals and rigidities and given an African flavour to these events. 'However, there has to be some restraint on what is sometimes excessive celebration that drowns out the announcement of the names of graduates, especially ones following after a particularly loud and sustained outburst by a previous candidate crossing the stage,' said Jansen. Dr Rajendran Thangavelu Govender, the Commissioner of the CRL Rights Commission (Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities), said everyone's culture was different and deserved its own time to shine. Dr Rajendran Thangavelu Govender. Image: Supplied 'It is a big moment when you graduate, and gone are the days of outdated colonial times when one sits quietly at a graduation ceremony. Families and the graduates work hard to graduate, so how they behave is not an issue. The notion of sitting quietly, like it is a solemn occasion, is old fashioned. 'Everyone should have the freedom to scream to acknowledge and celebrate in their own ways. It is all in excitement. We need to understand that we live in a diverse South Africa. Graduations are now colourful and exciting. 'I remember when I graduated with my PhD. I did my dissertation on different cultures and all the different cultures present at my graduation ceremony were screaming and ululating for me. It's a primitive mentality to be offended by one's excitement,' said Govender. The Durban University of Technology said there were rules and guidelines that should be followed during a graduation ceremony. 'The university has formalised and recently approved a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the reading of graduates' names, which is being implemented at the 2025 Autumn graduation ceremonies. This SOP outlines clear expectations during the reading of names, including the importance of maintaining decorum and respect throughout the proceedings. Graduands and their families are expected to remain seated, refrain from excessive noise or disruptive behaviour, and allow each graduate their moment of recognition without interruption. 'We do not condone disruptive behaviour during graduation ceremonies. Interrupting another graduate's moment whether through loud celebration or other forms of disturbance undermines the dignity of the ceremony and is considered disrespectful. Programme directors and name readers actively encourage respectful conduct from all attendees to ensure a memorable experience for everyone involved,' said Simangele Zuma, DUT media officer. 'Where audience noise becomes excessive, readers are instructed to pause and wait until order is restored before continuing. This helps ensure that each graduate's name is heard and their moment is honoured appropriately. However, names are typically not repeated unless absolutely necessary. 'The university has previously received feedback and complaints regarding noise levels at graduation ceremonies. These concerns informed the development of the newly-implemented SOP, which includes measures to manage and reduce disruptions during the proceedings. The goal is to preserve the decorum and celebratory spirit of the occasion while ensuring fairness and respect for every graduand,' she added. THE POST
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
White South African ‘refugees'? The jokes write themselves
Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. On Wednesday, the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, will visit Donald Trump in the White House. I spoke to Jonathan Jansen, a professor of education in Stellenbosch, about the tense backdrop to the trip, and the reaction in South Africa to Trump granting white farmers refugee rights in the US. Since the early days of his presidency, Donald Trump has made white farmers in South Africa one of his pet projects. It is an obsession that dates to his first term, where he amplified allegations by some Afrikaners that they are victims of 'mass killings' and suffer from violence and discrimination by vengeful Black South Africans. There is nothing to support this claim. And yet, in March, Trump expelled the South African ambassador to the US, cut off aid and extended an invitation for political asylum to white farmers, even as the US all but halts all refugee admissions to the country. The first of those white South African 'refugees' arrived in the US two weeks ago. The source of this odd fixation is those around Trump, who 'doesn't have a sense of the world outside the United States' Jansen tells me, adding: 'To know about South Africa, let alone its politics, [the president] must have whisperers,' who are telling him that there is a 'white genocide'. Jansen suspects one of those is the South African-born Elon Musk, who has 'a grievance against the country'. A defiant South African government Jansen believes South Africa's hard line against Israel has fuelled animosity in Washington. Taking the Israeli government to the international court of justice 'is not cool in the world of Trump'. I suggest a provocative factor may also have been how uncompromising and measured the South African government has been on the issue of white farmers when goaded by Trump. 'This is true,' Jansen says. 'Ramaphosa, with all his faults – and they are many – is a man of restraint.' Earlier this year, the South African government said it would not engage in 'counterproductive megaphone diplomacy' after social media posts by Trump alleged that Pretoria was seizing land from white farmers. South Africa passed a law in 2024 that states land 'expropriation may not be exercised unless the expropriating authority has without success attempted to reach an agreement with the owner or holder of a right in property for the acquisition thereof on reasonable terms'. Decades after the dismantling of apartheid, white people make up 7% of the South African population and own at least half of the land. Small but stubborn residues of white supremacy Despite the media focus on the issue, Jansen calls for some perspective. He says that some white South Africans who claim racial discrimination are a small group of people who nurse an inflated sense of resentment because they still cannot accept that apartheid is over. 'There are grievances with a Black government, which is very hard for some of my white brothers and sisters to accept, even after 30 years.' Jansen says if one is to consider violent crime, 'more Black people die than white people, even as a proportion of the population. Make no mistake, these are white supremacists who are drawn to a white supremacist. Their capacity for reflection is not very high.' Jansen predicts the promise of life in the US will quickly sour. 'I'll make a bet with you that many of them will be back here in no time.' 'South Africans regard it as a joke' Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion I ask him about the view from South Africa, and how the beliefs of those who claim white discrimination resonate. 'South Africans, Black and white, regard it as a joke. It's a huge joke here.' Does it not touch a nerve in a country that has such a heavy legacy of racism? 'Not really,' Jansen says. 'I did a straw poll on my X account, and the majority said: 'Ignore the bastards'. Forty-nine people took Trump up on his offer to find asylum in the US. 'It's not like a million people. It's a handful, many of whom are not actually farmers, taking advantage of a white racist calling them home. 'Don't pay attention to them.' That is the major response.' But there is still a bitter irony to the whole affair, Jansen observes. If these were Black people, the apartheid government would have given them a one-way ticket to leave and not ever return. 'We don't do that. The very people who were repressing us under apartheid are using the freedom of a new democracy to be able to do things that were unthinkable, even as white people, under the apartheid government.' 'A slap in the face' Despite the understanding in South Africa that the issue of white discrimination is a political stunt, Jansen notes the galling hypocrisy of it all, considering the effort that Black South Africans made to ensure peace after apartheid. 'What riles is that you're giving attention to people who for 350 years were oppressing us. My argument is: don't get into a tizzy. But I also regard it quite seriously as a slap in the face for Black South Africans.' The narrative that Black people now hold power over whites is a fiction that obscures the enduring suffering of apartheid. 'Nothing has really changed for Black South Africans apart from the right to vote,' Jansen says. 'Many still live in shacks. They still suffer food insecurity. They still have the highest rates of unemployment. We made these enormous concessions during the negotiations to avert a war under Mandela. Whites here would be treated, as they always were, as fellow citizens as opposed to colonisers. And then, on top of all of that, [there was] a truth and reconciliation commission during which people got away with murder – literally.' On a personal level, Jansen says he will not hide the fact that he feels hurt. But there is comfort in the fact that 'among ordinary Black South Africans, they don't think this is worth spending time on … and the overwhelming majority of white South Africans really just want to make this country work. One sees this moment for what it is. There is another reality out there.' To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
