Mvuyo Tom, Vice-Chancellor, University of Fort Hare

The most profound challenge of the higher education sector during this period may very well be the transformation of the patterns and practices of the university to ensure that knowledge more effectively serves the dignified livelihoods of the rural poor.

It was Italian philosopher Gramsci who once posed penetrating questions about the ability of formal education to make a contribution to “a long process of intense critical activity, of new cultural insight and the spread of ideas”. He lamented the fact that the state education system in Italy served the mass of the people extremely badly. He, as a revolutionary, was concerned that the state education system and the alternative Popular Universities organised by the workers “failed to relate the knowledge they imparted to the needs and practical concerns of the workers”.

Our challenge is similar – how do we find ways of generating and engaging with knowledge to serve the practical needs of our entire society – and especially to serve those who have been traditionally relegated “outside” the gates of the “academy”?

The Nelson Mandela Institute is significant to the life of the university in two important ways. First, it establishes a focal point in the university – focused on the scholarly project accountable to the rural poor. It engages in research and teaching through the methodology of community engagement. This project is inherently transdisciplinary. While the work of the Institute up until now may be most profound in the area of education, its contribution lies in transcending disciplinary boundaries as it engages in the complex work that unites education and sustainable community development.

This methodology sits within what Sudanese historian Cheikh Anta Diop refers to as a process of establishing an Africentric epistemology – the production of knowledge as a process of liberation rather than the production of knowledge for domination “over” the “other”. It is this liberating process which produced people such as ZK Matthews, Govan Mbeki, OR Tambo, Robert Sobukwe, Chris Hani, Steve Biko, Andrew Masondo, Dennis Brutus, Charles Njonjo, Can Temba, etc. These leaders and thinkers did not see the world in a uni-dimensional way, but excelled both in disciplinary knowledge and combining such knowledge with a holistic and active relationship with the world.

We have recently come through a process of reflection on the intellectual project of the University of Fort Hare. The Nelson Mandela Institute has contributed in important ways to this process, as well as to current pedagogical innovations in the university, including Life, Knowledge, Action: The Grounding Programme at the University of Fort Hare.

Our current strategic plan focuses on the period to 2016 – the year that the University of Fort Hare celebrates its centenary. In this plan we make it clear that the intellectual project of Fort Hare continues to be inspired by notions of African liberation, and is increasingly focused on our mandate of service to the communities of rural Africa. With this vision, the Nelson Mandela Institute becomes an important transdisciplinary hub for our university community.

Just as importantly, the Nelson Mandela Institute represents a living and energetic reminder of the special relationship between the University of Fort Hare and one of its most well-known alumni, Nelson Mandela. Mr Mandela is the embodiment of our constitution. There is no doubt he has lived, breathed and eaten democracy, freedom, non-racism, non-discrimination, human rights, social and economic justice and reconciliation for the major part of his life. He has demonstrated by his own exemplary behaviour what is meant by the words, “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people”; and by the commitment that, “…for these freedoms we shall fight side by side till we have won our liberty”. This type of leader is a servant leader. A servant leader, like Albert Luthuli, Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Oliver Tambo, Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko, Walter Sisulu, and others of their kind, is a selfless person who considers the people he serves as an end rather than as a means to some other selfish end.

The fact that uTata Madiba and his Foundation have honoured the University of Fort Hare with the placement of one of his national legacy organisations at this university provides a living memory of our special connection.

I hope that you will join me in celebrating the work and visions of the Nelson Mandela Institute.

Dr Mvuyo Tom
Vice-Chancellor, University of Fort Hare