Milestone TB Davie Memorial lecture dissects UCT’s insignia

As Professor Mogobe Ramose took to the podium to deliver the 60th annual TB Davie Memorial Lecture in honour of the late former University of Cape Town (UCT) vice-chancellor - a fierce defender of academic freedom - he did not mince his words.

In fact, he brought the lecture, titled: "Spes bona through the Cape of Storms" straight to UCT's doorstep as he dissected the origins of the university's logo - encouraging staff and students to think critically about its roots and what it symbolises today. Organised by UCT's Academic Freedom Committee, the milestone TB Davie Memorial Lecture took place in the New Lecture Theatre on upper campus on Wednesday, 26 August.

The audience clung to his every word, as he too exercised his right to academic freedom. The leading South African philosopher and world-renowned scholar of African philosophy took 45 minutes to explore the historical and philosophical significance of the Cape - from Bartolomeu Dias' Cape of Storms to its renaming to the Cape of Good Hope. While doing so, he also reflected on the meaning of UCT's motto Spes Bona (good hope in Latin).

Dissecting the insignia

Professor Ramose reminded the audience that UCT's logo contains the Spes Bona motto, which is inscribed horizontally in the middle of a white book. The book, he pointed out, is locked in the middle of a white anchor, and the anchor appears to be hooked to a ring attached to a wharf.

"Academic freedom welcomes this multiplicity."

He explained that the logo's top background colour is black, joined in the middle by blue, which runs all the way down to the bottom. This depiction, he said, indicates a landed ship. And the motto's inscription, together with the anchor in the logo "leaves no doubt" that the design of the logo refers to the landing of Jan van Riebeeck's three ships in the Cape in 1652.

"[The logo] is an inadvertent admission that Van Riebeeck sailed into the land of black people, seized it by use of morally unjustified force and proceeded to exploit and subjugate [its] people," he said. "Academic freedom welcomes this multiplicity, as well as the variety of interpretations, especially in the domain of visual and fine arts."

An obstacle to social justice

By preserving this logo and motto, Ramose said, UCT identifies itself as the "defender and guarantor of the ethically untenable right of conquest".

And he dug deeper.

"It is an open and visible declaration of alliance with Western colonialism in its various phases. As such, it stands as the affirmation of the university's apparent preciosity and hostility towards the so-called decolonisation, even though it may have active decolonial projects," he said.

"The insignia is, on this reasoning, a hinderance to epistemic justice and by extension, an obstacle to social justice. How come the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall Movements did not bury this insignia in the smouldering powers of Mother Earth?"

He found it odd that both movements did not take issue with UCT's logo.

"Perhaps the prospect of being the bearer of an educational qualification adorned by Spes Bona trumped the resolution to this. So, perhaps it trumps the resolution to pursue truth, justice and peace," Ramose said.

A burning question

Strangely, Ramose noted, no one has objected to both the motto and the logo. Several chancellors and vice-chancellors have come and gone, especially in the last decade. Yet, the insignia remains "stubbornly stuck" in UCT's official letterhead.

"Has the insignia acquired a sacrosanct permanence?" he asked.

The philosopher asked again: Is UCT white in mind but multi-skin colour in appearance? Is it the transmitter of knowledge delivered from the ocean, which swept Van Riebeeck to the land of the indigenous people?

"The university seems to be anchored and entrenched in white epistemology of the Western colonial conqueror. If this had no semblance of reality then the well-known multiple and persistent calls for fundamental, epistemological curriculum change would not have arisen at all," he said.

Deep appreciation

Addressing the late Davie directly, Ramose asked: How does academic freedom prove that the content of what it delivers is accessible to all when "the prevailing sovereignty of money obstructs entry to education"?

"My deep appreciation for your robust defence of academic freedom. Can you believe that the obstruction to learning imposed by the sovereignty of money is a living reality at UCT, as well as in other universities across the country?"

To achieve epistemic justice, which Ramose described as the twin sister of social justice, there is need to form and inform a new kind of student and teacher suited for the time.

"They must be individuals with a critical and pan-epistemic orientation to learning. They must experience themselves to be no longer the inhabitants of a university, but active participants in producing substance and form through learning in a pluriversity," he said.