On the 5th November 2015 MISTRA, the
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the National Institute for the Humanities and
Social Sciences will convene a roundtable discussion on whiteness titled Whites, Afrikaans, Afrikaners: Addressing
Post-Apartheid Legacies, Privileges and Burdens.
The roundtable continues MISTRA’s work on nation
formation and social cohesion that culminated in a report released in August
2014 titled Nation
Formation and Social Cohesion: An Enquiry into the Hopes and Aspirations of
South Africans. The voice of whites was one of
the gaps identified in that report, which will be used as a starting point for
the roundtable discussion on whiteness.
Issues the
roundtable intends to address, include:
· Interrogating Afrikaans as part of
the discourse on whiteness
· Exploring the different identities
associated with Afrikaans
· Exploring current thinking on the
construction of whiteness;
· Highlighting developments within the
Afrikaans speaking community.
Former President Kgalema Motlanthe will open the Roundtable. Panel topics and speakers include:
Panel
Topic: Being White Today
· Chair: Prof Melissa Steyn (Director, Wits Centre for Diversity
Studies)
· Where are the Suzmans, Slovos, Fishers
and Naudes of today? - Deputy Minister Andries Nel (Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs)
· The white man’s burden 15 years after
the TRC - Mary Burton (Former President of Black Sash)
· White power today - Prof Christi van
der Westhuizen (Professor: Centre for Sexualities, AIDS & Gender
Uni. of Pretoria)
Panel Topic: Whiteness and the
South African Economy
· Chair: Prof Lynette Steenveld (Associate
Prof: Media Studies, Rhodes Uni.)
· What is the colour of capital? - Bobby
Godsell (Chairman: Business Leadership South Africa)
· Representing the white working class - Dr
Dirk Hermann (CEO Solidarity)
· Killing off the hands that feed you - Ernst
Roets (Dep. CEO AfriForum)
· Economic Transformation in SA: Now and
the future - Xhanti Payi (Economist & Director: Nascence Advisory
and Research)
Panel
Topic: The World
of Ideas: The Place of Afrikaans
· Chair: Mathatha Tsedu (Director
of South African National Editors' Forum)
· Afrikaner intellectual traditions Prof
Pieter Duvenage (Editor: Journal for Contemporary History, UFS)
· The many hues of Afrikaans - Prof
Hein Willemse (Prof: Afrikaans literature, Media and Cultural Studies, Uni.
Of Pretoria)
· ‘n Suid Afrikaner university: is that
possible? - Prof Nico Koopman (Acting Vice Rector: Social Impact,
Transformation and Personnel, Uni. Of Stellenbosch)
Closing
Remarks:
· Prof Achille Mbembe (Prof: WITS Institute for Social and
Economic Research)
· Dr Mathews Phosa (Chairman: Mathews Phosa and
Associates)