University Spaces as Sites of Conscience

Introduction

The aim of this article is to reflect on the idea of university spaces as possible sites of conscience. I explore how these spaces act not only as continuous reminders of past violence, marginalization, and exclusion, but as reminders also of ethical accountability and redress. The latter discloses opportunities and possibilities for a reinterpretation of such spaces, keeping in mind that the traces of the past will remain and that every attempt at erasure will be incomplete. The call for monuments and in particular statues erected in former times to be toppled has been reenergized in 2020 in response to the killing of George Floyd (Delisi, 2020). This call is not new and what experience has shown so far is that even after the event of removing the statue, the toppling as it were continues as a reminder that justice is always to come.

The call for the decolonization of South African universities became more prominent during 2015 with the rise of the #Rhodesmustfallmovement when University of Cape Town (UCT) student Chumani Maxwele on March 9, 2015, smeared human excrement on the statue of Cecil John Rhodes as an act of resistance against the material and symbolic endurance of colonialism and lack of transformation at the university (Knudsen & Andersen, 2018). Maxwele’s action was followed by further action at UCT and other universities in South Africa and abroad. The statue of Rhodes was removed shortly after Maxwele’s act, but of course, this removal was not necessarily accompanied by a vanishing of the legacy of colonialism. As mentioned already, the main contention was never only about the statue as such, but about the broader lack of transformation of South African society as it plays out at UCT and all other universities in South Africa. A significant relation that was exposed in the student protests is the one between universities and the cities in which they are situated. Cape Town and Makanda, formerly named Grahamstown, for example, carry stark imprints of British colonialism; Johannesburg those of capitalism; and Stellenbosch, Pretoria, and Bloemfontein of Afrikaner nationalism. As many commentators have underscored, all of these cities and the universities that originated in them reflect also the racial inequality found in broader society (Mamdani, 2016; Mbembe, 2016). The powerful campaign behind #Black-lives-matter as a result of the death of George Floyd and, as referred to above, the renewed call for the toppling of statues that celebrate the legacies of White power highlight the reality of racial inequality and racism as a global problem.

The Rhodes statue was removed, but what remained after the removal in a very material manner is the plinth on which the statue was mounted. What does this remainder not only in the case of the Rhodes statue, but of all erasures symbolize? On the afternoon of the removal of the statue, a UCT fine arts student, Sethebile Msezane, positioned herself on the plinth and “became a statue” for 4 hr. Murris (2016, p. 280) focusses on the “mutual relationality” between Msezane’s human statue and that of Rhodes, thereby opening also a conversation on past, present, and future. This act could be compared with the City of London’s erection of a fourth plinth on Trafalgar square as a way to open a space that could engage and counter the imperial landscape and representation on Trafalgar square (City of London, 2020; Curtis, 2004). Issues of relationality and historical layeredness are central to a context of political transition and the discourse of transitional justice (see Balint et al., 2020; Kent, 2016). In the aftermath of removal, the relationality between past, present, and future and the multiplicity of narratives that this relation unearths are crucial for the reconfiguration of these spaces as sites of conscience.

How to think of the plinth, or whatever space or place that remains after a removal or a certain event as a site of conscience? These sites/spaces/places manifest relationality also between materiality and symbol and between judgment and ethical accountability. Below, I consider the notion of the “joker” and “blank space” as developed by Michel Serres (Assad, 1999; Brown, 2002). What are the potential meanings of the empty plinth, the nonplace, the spaces that remain? ¹

The instantiation or site that I focus on is the University of the Free State (UFS). As expanded on below, the university has a long and troubled history of exclusion, racism, and authoritarianism, among others. Since the early 1990s, many attempts have been made to transform the university, not all in vain. These attempts include also efforts to transform the “commemorative landscape” of the university by erecting a number of statues with funding received from the National Lottery. The nationwide student protests of 2015/2016 occurred also at the UFS, voicing frustration about the slow pace, if any, of transformation, socioeconomic inequality, and calling for decolonization (Van der Merwe & Van Reenen, 2016). The statue of the last President of the Republic of the Orange Free State, President M. T. Steyn that was a site of contention at the UFS for many years was removed over the last weekend in June 2020. The statue will be relocated to the War Museum in Bloemfontein and commentators have argued that its new location could open alternative interpretations of Steyn, his legacy, and the statue itself. I refer to these briefly, but do not expand as the War museum, albeit a potentially interesting site for exploration falls outside the scope of this article.

What is the possible meaning of the space that remains on the UFS campus after the removal of the Steyn statue in conjunction with the toppling of the bust of apartheid-era President C. R. Swart during the student protests in 2015/2016? A heritage study was conducted in conjunction with a public survey on the possibilities of what do with Steyn (Report Special Task Team, 2018). It is clear from the report that emanated from this that the removal will be followed by a process of reinterpretation of the space. I am interested to see whether and how a Site of Conscience approach, as explained below, could assist this process of reinterpretation and the broader endeavor to change and to transform universities in general, but with a specific focus on the UFS. An important issue to consider is the possible tension between a site of conscience approach and its push for human rights and transformation and how it may play out at the specific site and university policy. At the same time, the educational value of Sites of Conscience and the influence that it could have on curriculum and pedagogy should be considered (Steele et al., 2020).

The article unfolds as follows: In “Sites of Conscience as Theory and as Practice” section, I briefly recall the gist of a Sites of Conscience approach. In “Why Universities as Sites of Conscience?” section, I consider why universities in their struggle to transform might benefit from a Sites of Conscience approach. In “The Struggle to Transform and for Justice at the UFS” section, I focus on the UFS and, in particular, the Red Square as a space that holds open the possibility of multiple and layered memories and contestation, but more than that also a site of haunting, of social ghosts (Davidson, 2016; Schwarz, 2013).

Sites of Conscience as Theory and as Practice

Sites of Conscience are defined as places of memory—museums, historical sites, memorials, and memory initiatives—that interpret history through place, engage in programs that stimulate dialogue on pressing social issues, promote humanitarian and democratic values as a primary function, and share opportunities for public involvement in issues raised at the site (Cuéllar & Bijleveld, 2017). Important features of Sites of Conscience work are dialogue and the recognition of a diversity of experiences, and to acknowledge a multiplicity of truths. It is an attempt to connect events of the past to the present and also the future. Education is central to the initiative.

Gabriel (2011, p. 97) notes important shifts in how questions on the past are raised: from “Why does the past matter?” to “Does remembering the past matter?” to eventually “How can we make the past matter?” She underscores the concern with how to remember the past to make it relevant to present society and that places of memory can become spaces for meaningful civic engagement. Similar to what is mentioned above, Sites of Conscience are described as “initiatives that interpret history through site; stimulate dialogue on pressing social issues and promote humanitarian values; and share opportunities for public involvement in the issue raised at the site” (2011, p. 99). The following are examples of how Sites of Conscience engage with questions of past, present and future: personal stories, telling multiple stories, creating spaces for open dialogue across difference, and inspiring action. A commitment shared by Sites of Conscience is to connect “past to present, memory to action” (2011, p. 109).

Mason (2019) reflects on the tension between archiving (conserving) the past and the need to change/transform and that this could be a risky exercise: “The urgency of managing the sites for healing, cultural identity, and political functions can undermine attention to the values relating to the sites’ capacity to materially bear witness and serve as literal texts representing the past” (p. 158). In my example of the UFS below, there is definitely a tension between heritage/conservation on one hand and transformation and the search for justice and redress on the other.

The following phrase used by Mason (2019, p. 160) caught my attention: “Built heritage is defined by its pastness.” Yet, the examples in the South African context that I refer to in this article are striking to the extent that they represent endurance rather than pastness, if you want a pastness that is not past. Where heritage places are aimed at helping us to make sense of the fraught past, quite often they could play a role also in helping us make sense of and respond to the fraught present. It is for this reason that Sites of Conscience and the focus on social justice and rights can play a valuable role by underscoring temporal-spatial endurance (see also Balint et al., 2020).

Steele and others (2020) describe the “overarching principle” of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience as “to recognise the global practices of place-based public memorialization of historical events that involve the reclamation of sites of human suffering to forge common ground for dignity, respect and civil participation, instead of abuse and neglect” (p. 6). They note that the Sites of Conscience are concerned not only with remembering the past but also about considering ways to address the future. Sites of Conscience organizations seek to prevent the “erasure of historical injustices” and stand critical to attempts to produce official histories that force collective memory. The approach to the past is not merely to remember, but to employ memory actively to confront the extent to which injustice endures in the present. The authors also underscore the importance of multiple accounts of the past and present, and of particular sites. The idea behind Sites of Conscience is to form part of broader strategies of redress (Steele et al., 2020). The educational value of Sites of Conscience is explored by the authors with reference to the Parramatta female factory precinct. They argue that this site can play a valuable role in legal education by exposing, for example, the complicity of the Australian legal system in past and present injustice and enforcing the responsibility of law students and legal practitioners (Steele et al., 2020). It can enhance legal pedagogy by making legal issues much more concrete to students. To my mind, to think of university spaces as sites of conscience could strengthen the role that universities could and should play in transforming society and in building democratic citizenship and simultaneously also deepen pedagogical practices. I now turn to universities as sites of conscience.

Why Universities as Sites of Conscience?

In South Africa, like probably many other places in the world universities were started as an extension of colonial and later apartheid imaginations. Mamdani (2016) notes that the modern African university was and still is a product not of precolonial institutions but of the colonial modern. The modern colonial university was established in Africa with an initial aim to reproduce the European model and accordingly students who could further metropolitan culture. University architecture either mimics colonial grandeur or exemplifies apartheid spatial planning and social engineering. And of course, those working at these universities, the content they teach and the research they pursue reflect the same.

Across the world, universities have been sites of different kinds of struggle for many years. After formal colonialism ended, many African universities went through intense debates and ruptures in the attempt to decolonize. As part of anti-colonial struggle, the university became a site of contestation. In South Africa, since 2015 we have experienced renewed calls for the decolonization of universities. But of course, already during apartheid certain universities were at the heart of resistance against the system. And there has been a lot of talk about the transformation of universities since the mid-1990s. My aim is not to focus on or elaborate on the many frameworks, white papers, and plans addressing transformation at universities in South Africa. I ponder on some of the history of the UFS in the section below, to explain the specific events and sites in question.

Student protests became prominent when UCT students demanded the removal of the statue of the colonist Cecil John Rhodes. These protests were aimed not only against the legacy/heritage around Rhodes, but at the extent to which such legacy, one of exclusion and racism, is continued. Achille Mbembe (2016) starts off a reflection on the notion of decolonization by recalling the issue of the Rhodes statue. He unequivocally states that such a statue has no place on the campus of a public university, neither do other symbols, pictures, or images that represent figures or people who negated humanity to Black people. We should be mindful here also of projects that in the name of science and research, appropriated and violated the culture, bodies, and legacy of first nations and colonized people. Work on intellectual history in South Africa more and more exposes the complicity of universities in actively supporting apartheid policy of the past (Eloff, 2014).

Coming back to statues, images, symbols celebrating colonial and apartheid figures and legacies, one view is that they should be removed, without any doubt. Another view may hold that one could diversify a site, for my purposes a campus, by not removing the old, but rather, adding, also images of struggle heroes or renaming buildings after alternative historical figures. The problem of the latter approach is that it might end up treating all of these symbols as equally representing past histories without challenging enduring legacies of exclusion and marginalization. Holmes and Loehwig (2016, p. 1207) describe these two approaches as examples of “monologic commemoration” on one hand and “multiplicative commemoration” on the other. The former is an example of how colonial and apartheid authorities forced one version of the past in service of national identity (Holmes & Loehwig, 2016). The latter was the approach adopted by the post-1994 government to cater for a representation of a wide variety of experiences (Holmes & Loehwig, 2016). The authors argue that the approach of multiplicative commemoration failed because of the lack of dialogue followed in the process. I come back to the erection of statues on the UFS campus below and consider whether this could be regarded as another example of multiplicative commemoration that has been described as “diversity without conversation” or “compromise without question” (Holmes & Loehwig, 2016, p. 1209). The question of relevance here is what should be done with these statues and spaces from a Site of Conscience perspective? Even when removed, the space remains. How could these spaces be reimagined? I refer to a specific site at the UFS below.

Mbembe (2016) holds that access is not only an issue of demography: “When we say access, we are also saying the possibility to inhabit a space to the extent that one can say, ‘This is not a hospitality. It is not a charity’” (p. 30). In this vein, he refers to buildings and argues that apartheid buildings/infrastructure/architecture is “not conducive to breathing.” Mbembe (2016, p. 30) reiterates the university classroom as a place where students should develop “intellectual and moral lives” and critical skills. He laments the extent to which university education has become interested in delivering students who lack any interest in the “preservation of the intellect and advancement of the life of the mind.” But the main issue is that of the Western nature of the university, meaning that “they are local instantiations of a dominant academic model based on a Eurocentric epistemic canon.” The implication of a Western canon is that it values only Western notions of the truth and rejects all other forms of knowledge. An important feature of many Western epistemic traditions is their reliance on a certain division between “mind and world,” “reason and nature,” and on a detachment between the “knower” and the “known.” This point does not speak only to epistemology, ways of knowing, but also ontology, ways of being and spatiality. Mbembe (2016) notes that the main problem of these forms of epistemology and ontology (and I add spatiality) is that they become hegemonic and do not acknowledge other ways. To what extent could a Sites of Conscience perspective instill much-needed critical thinking skills and accordingly a critical engagement with Western epistemology? I have referred to the work by Steele and others (2020) above on how the Parramatta female factory precinct is used to enhance legal pedagogy. Past histories, practices, and pedagogies of universities if exposed and engaged with can assist in making sense of the past and present and in reconfiguring alternative futures. An exploration of the relationality between university buildings, policies, and pedagogies can unearth new meaning, understanding, and vision. I have elsewhere invoked the idea of “the right to the university” by drawing on Henri Lefevbre’s notion of “the right to the city” and spatial justice (Van Marle, 2019, p. 109). The gist of my argument was that universities should provide not only access but also support and even welcome rigorous contestation. A related question that I also explored relying on the work of Böhme (2017) and Anderson (2009) is that of atmosphere in university spaces (Van Marle, 2018). Anderson notes, for example, that the idea of sense or spirit of place has been used to describe atmosphere. How does not only the spirit of place but also the presence of ghosts influence our thinking of universities as sites of conscience?

Anja Schwarz (2013) in a reflection on Berlin’s cityscape raises the issue of how certain memories are marginalized in historical narratives. She is interested in how the multilayered architecture of the city addresses the “commemorative void” created by dominant narratives. She is concerned with how urban citizenship is denied to immigrant communities. Within the context of the university, it is important to debunk dominant narratives and open spaces for multiple voices. I have drawn previously on the work of Iris Marion Young (1987, 1990) on “street life” to argue for the university as a heterogeneous public space (Van Marle, 2010). Together with Jacques Derrida’s (1994) reflections on friendship, I contemplated an understanding of democracy that could create the possibility for the university as a truly heterogeneous space and not a space of continuing hegemony. The notion of the university as a heterogeneous public space emphasizes the need for plurality and difference, multiple voices, and clashing values to be not only protected but actively pursued in the context of the university. Schwarz (2013) invokes the work by Brian Ladd (1998), Ghosts of Berlin, that traces the relationship of space, architecture, and memory in the city. Ladd describes Berlin as a “haunted city” filled with many “painful memories.” Schwarz (2013) turns to the work of Karen Till (2004) in thinking about how Berlin can open to allow suppressed narratives to surface. For Till, urban landscapes, and for my interest here university spaces, hold “moments of memory and metaphor . . . that create and mediate social spaces and temporalities” (as quoted by Schwarz, 2013, p. 267). Till also uses the image of haunting and introduces the idea of whispering. In trying to understand the spirit and sense of place of the university, in particular universities with a certain fraught past and contested present, I find the notion of haunting and whispering suggestive. A central issue confronting transitional societies and in particular universities is that of epistemic injustice, the extent to which local knowledges were marginalized and suppressed in the past and how to redress this. The notion of multilayeredness is apt also here—the notion of the palimpsest is often used in describing the South African past and it applies also to the history of universities, the statues, and symbols used to reflect the history and the history of epistemologies. I want to suggest that the complex issue of epistemology and epistemic justice is read also along the lines of a haunting. African ontology and epistemology are founded upon a triad between the living, the living dead, and the yet to be borne (Ramose, 2001). This triad is present in reflections on how to restore epistemic justice. The sense or spirit of place, the atmosphere of the university is influenced also by a haunting of past and suppressed knowledge.

Tonya Davidson (2016) notes how the National War Memorial in Ontario is “a site for the evocation of social hauntings” (p. 177). She argues that although the site represents a certain imperial nostalgia, it also offers the potential for alternative, “deviant” interpretations. She also relies on the notion of haunting and invokes the idea of “social ghosts” that could stabilize and debunk traditional meanings of the memorial and of what it means to be Canadian. Davidson (2016, p. 178) relies also on the idea of the virtual to explain how “the monument produces certain structures of feeling.” Social ghosts are described by Bell as “a sense of felt presences . . . that possesses and gives a sense of social aliveness to a place” (Bell as quoted by Davidson, 2016, p. 178). Davidson (2016, p. 179) in her interpretation of the National War Memorial draws on historian Eric Hobsbawm’s idea of “invented traditions” to show how certain values and norms are being inculcated with the aim of producing a very specific idea of Canada as a White settler nation that makes engagement with racial and political difference impossible. Similar views have been raised in relation to the statue of the former President Steyn recently moved from the UFS campus (Eloff, 2020).

I want to draw on the argument developed by Balint and others (2020) that universities can be simultaneously sites for structural injustice and structural justice. As the law can carry responsibility and be ethically accountable, by recognizing “colonial injury” universities can do the same. However, as alluded to above, before that can happen universities will have to address issues such as insourcing of workers, the donor funding that they accept, and financial exclusion of students (Kelly, 2018).

The Struggle to Transform and for Justice at the UFS

The UFS, like many institutions of higher education in South Africa, has a long and troubled history of exclusion, racism, patriarchy, and authoritarianism, among others. Since the early 1990s, there have been many attempts to transform the university away from this history, some more successful than others. My aim is not to provide a full history of the institution. I highlight only a few aspects to reflect on why a Sites of Conscience approach might add value to the current struggle to transform and seek justice.

The UFS is situated in Bloemfontein in the Free State province, more or less, in the middle of South Africa. The Free State province, formerly called the Orange Free State, was an independent Republic before the Anglo-Boer wars and ultimately the Union of 1910. After the shift to democracy in the mid-1990s, the name was changed to the Free State. The province and the city of Bloemfontein have an interesting history reflecting multiple stories and struggles. The former “Boer” republic had a strong tradition of constitutional supremacy that included that all legislation had to adhere to the principles of the constitution. Bloemfontein since 1910 has been known as the judicial capital of South Africa, with the Supreme Court of Appeal standing in the heart of the city. At the same time, the city also bears the traces of a struggle history. The African National Congress (ANC) has its roots in Bloemfontein and many struggles, for example, the resistance against pass laws started in Bloemfontein and other Free State towns. The city sadly also carries the wounds, marks, and traces of apartheid’s forced removals under legislation such as the Group Areas Act. The university mirrors and carries, if not always explicitly at least implicitly, the struggles of the past and present of the city and its surroundings. It is clear that the city of Bloemfontein carries a layered history, which contains multiple stories. The city hosts a number of heritage sites that over many years reflected only the history of a certain White minority. However, since the mid-1990s, attempts have been made to address what has been referred to above as a “commemorative void.” Both the Women’s Museum and the War museum have recently included the participation and suffering and deaths of many black South Africans during the Anglo-Boer wars. These museums are in the process of being reconfigured, in an attempt, to build a new nation and seek social cohesion. Like all nation building projects, these attempts should be approached with caution, as they stand to serve specific political visions. At the same time, these reconfigurations manage to debunk unified views and disclose possibilities for multiple stories and experiences to come to the fore. The UFS, its location in the city of Bloemfontein and relation to these heritage sites, is not insignificant.

The university became an official education institution in 1910, initially named Grey University College and later the University College of the Free State. It started as an English language institution and changed later to a dual medium institution incorporating also Afrikaans as a language of instruction. With the rise of Afrikaner nationalism and coming into power of the National party in 1948, the university adopted Afrikaans as the only official language (Van der Merwe & Van Reenen, 2016). In 1950, there was also another name change when it became known as the University of the Orange Free State. In 1990, with the unbanning of the ANC and many other political parties and the first steps taken to change to a democratic dispensation, more Black students entered the university. During the years of apartheid, the university developed an “exclusively Afrikaans, Christian” culture and was “aligned with the National Party (NP) ideology” (Van der Merwe & Van Reenen, 2016, p. 6). Only small numbers of Black postgraduate students were allowed to enroll during these years. In 2001, another name change took place and the university was renamed to the UFS, as it is still known presently. The various names of the university, together with the official language policy could be used as one way of framing the main story of the institution. In 2017, a new language policy was adopted confirming English as the only and official language of instruction and communication at the university. Some concession to the indigenous language of the region was made by including Sesotho, for example, in the names of buildings and on letterheads, but not as language of instruction. Another important issue in the struggle of the university to transform can be found in the developments concerning initially the opening of residences to Black students, which started off by establishing separate White and Black student residences and later the crucial issue of integration of residences.

Van der Merwe and Van Reenen recall disruptions during the initiatives to integrate residences in 2008 (Van der Merwe & Van Reenen, 2016). One of the bleakest moments in the story of the institution is that of the so-called Reitz video. Four White students living in a residence called Reitz entered a video in a competition that won first prize at the end of year “Cultural Evening” in 2007. The video was initially only seen by those living in the residence, but went viral in early 2008. The video was made as an act of resistance against what these students perceived as “forced integration.” The video features four Black workers, three female and one male, as the main characters performing certain initiation ceremonies including things such as racing each other, drinking, and eating weird concoctions. As this incident is not the focus of my piece, I do not elaborate on it here, but it says something important about the atmosphere on the UFS campus and provides some context to the contentions around the Steyn statue. Many questions remain unanswered as far as the Reitz video is concerned: What exactly happened during the making of this video, what exactly motivated the four students to make it, and pertinently why did the workers “agree” to “play” along? Given the institutional culture of the university and this specific residence and many years of racial oppression in the country, it is difficult not to read the act of these students as racist, that they coerced rather than forced the workers to participate and that the workers “played” along because of the endurance of White power and oppression. Suffice to say that this event damaged race relations and many attempts to transform the university in a deep manner that still lingers. The Reitz residence was closed after this event, although the newly appointed vice-principal confidently held in the same year that the residence will not be closed but rather developed as an example of reconciliation. Parts of the former residence have been refurbished as offices of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation that came to the fore after this incident as one attempt to deal with deep-seated issues of division on the campus. I was struck by the following remark by Van der Merwe and Van Reenen (2016): “The atmosphere on the Bloemfontein campus was still overwrought two days later . . .” (p. 94). We can only imagine the atmosphere after the release of the above video. How to create an atmosphere that could respond to and change this one?

In September 2009, the National Lottery Distribution Trust awarded a generous amount of funding to the UFS to initiate the Lotto Sculpture-on-Campus-Project. The idea behind the project was to start a sculpture collection on the campus that could be seen to stand in the guise of what was referred to above as “multiplicative commemoration” (Holmes & Loehwig, 2016, p. 6). The aim of the project is described by the University as to “promote a greater understanding, respect and appreciation of cultural differences and installs a sense of belonging for all.” This way of commemoration comes down to new memorials to be erected to diversify instead of removing those of the previous regime. On the UFS campus, this meant that not only the statues of former White statesmen like Steyn and Swart but also a certain legacy remained. In 2016, during the students’ protests, these statues and the legacy they represent were targeted. Kelly (2018) in his critical questioning of the Western roots of the university in current form highlight the extent to which universities have employed discourses of “belonging,” “creation of safe spaces,” “family,” “community,” and “campus diversity” as a marketing tool without embracing real change (p. 155).

On February 23, 2016, as part of nationwide protests at universities, protesting students at UFS attacked and toppled the bronze sculpture of Charles Robberts Swart, an apartheid-era president, that was situated outside the Law Faculty. That students continued to ask for this statue to be removed also after the erection of statues initiated by the Lotto Sculpture-on-Campus-Project could be seen as a manifestation of how this project albeit well intended did not manage to create the diverse and welcoming environment longed for. The statues that remained could have been examples of “heritage that hurts” (Van der Merwe and Van Reenen, 2016, p. 15). The fact remains that over a number of years no heed was paid to the requests by the students for these statues to be removed. Initially, after the toppling of the Swart bust, a number of granite blocks remained. These bocks served as a reminder of not only the sculpture itself, but as a symbol of enduring injustice. However, in the last year these blocks simply were removed in the face of views that held that they should remain as a form of historical consciousness. These granite blocks were situated on the Red Square on which another statue of a former era stood, that of the former President Steyn, the sixth and last president of the former Orange Free State Republic. As with Swart, students have called since 2003 for the statue to be removed.

In March 2018, the university started with a comprehensive process to invite opinions from a wide audience on what to do with the statue. A Special Task Team was established and a Heritage Impact Assessment Report (HIAR) commissioned. The HIAR considered four possible actions: (a) retention, (b) relocation to another site on campus, (c) reinterpretation of the statue without moving it, and (d) removal to a site off campus (Roodt Architects, 2018). The Special Task Team as advised by the HIAR came to the conclusion that the only viable option was to move the statue to the War Museum in Bloemfontein (UFS, 2018). It should be noted that the statue of Steyn was commissioned by the Afrikaner Studentebond (Student Council) in 1929 with the aim of setting him up as a symbol of Afrikaner nationalism. Hobsbawm’s notion of “invented tradition” referred to above was invoked also in connection to Steyn—that the statue was erected to serve a specific ideology and politics of the time (Eloff, 2020). Some of the opposing views that mourned the removal of Steyn most definitely stand in the guise of a certain Afrikaner nationalist nostalgia. The recommendation that the statue be moved to the War Museum holds that the removal might also make other interpretations of Steyn possible again. Steyn can be remembered now, for example, as someone who opposed the war and played an important role in the negotiation of peace. The museum portrays the suffering of Black and White South Africans in both Anglo-Boer wars. Steyn and his statue as part of the exhibition at the War museum can be read as standing against colonialism and imperialism and liberated from the nationalist grip on his legacy (UFS, 2018).

In November 2018, the council of the UFS approved the relocation of the statue of the former President Steyn. The statue remained in its former place until its removal over the last weekend of June 2020. The reason for the delay in the removal of the statue is because of actions taken by a White minority organization, Afriforum, that made several attempts first to prevent the removal and, when that was thwarted, to delay it. Ultimately, after the Heritage Council rejected the application to move the statue from the UFS campus to the War museum, the issue was referred to the Provincial Minister who eventually approved the removal.

The university is in the last stretches of a total reconstruction of the landscape surrounding the Red Square brought on also by the drought of the past few years. The reconstruction involved replacing the lawn with gravel and the planting of indigenous fauna and flora. Benches and patches of fake lawn provide spaces for students and staff to sit. By way of conclusion, I reflect below on the possibilities of the space, but also of the site.

Conclusion

My aim in this article is to think tentatively about universities as sites of conscience. Given the educational vision of universities and the roles they can play in developing democratic citizenship and in transforming society, they hold potential. That potential is challenged by enduring legacies and complicities with capital and power. In the context of struggles for epistemic diversity and epistemic justice, the notion of conscience itself also could be reconfigured. Ndletyana and Webb (2018) argue that one of the reasons for the failure of the way in which memorialization was handled by the post-1994 government was because of the lack of “intellectual rigour” in its approach. In this vein, it could be argued that universities are ideal to take up the challenge to explore and reconfigure innovative ways to (de)construct past, present, and future legacy. Commentators seem to agree that the country needs to go beyond the tropes of reconciliation, social cohesion, and nation building, and strive toward transformation also in how we remember, toward “critical memory” (Holmes & Loehwig, 2016, p. 17).

I have focused on the UFS and in particular the space known as the Red Square. How can the Red Square that encompasses the empty spaces left after the removal of the head of C. R. Swart and the subsequent removal of the granite blocks, and more recently the Steyn statue, be reconfigured? What are the possibilities of reinterpretation of the spaces that remain after the removals and relocations? A question that I raise but not explore here is what is the relationship between the Red Square and the buildings of the former Reitz residence? Can these sites be developed to play a meaningful role in the struggle to transform? What is the relationship between these sites and attempts to establish both an institutional culture of and an academic curriculum that engages human rights and transformative constitutionalism? The HIAR refers to the space that remains after the removal as an “ontological gap” that should be redesigned as a place of dialogue and consultation. An artwork, titled Thinking Stone (Figure 1), which is part of the Lotto Sculpture-on-Campus-Project, is already situated on the square. Can more be made of this and also the other sculptures on campus? Other sculptures erected as part of the project play with ideas of sameness and difference, for example, Brett Murray’s Seeds; Noriah Mabasa’s Unity Is Power: Let Us Be United (Figure 2), a 3-m-high wooden piece that symbolizes diversity made out of wild-fig wood; Azwifarwi Ragimana’s work Adam and Even drawing on the spirits of his ancestors, which is an Africanization of Adam and Eve; and Willie Bester’s Bull Rider (Figure 3), which portrays a satirical view of the struggle to power. These art works together with others could be brought into conversation with the spaces on the Red Square. They could be drawn on not to market simplistic and celebratory notions of diversity but rather to create an atmosphere of critical reflection and contestation.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

“Thinking Stone”, Willem Boshoff.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

“Unity is Power: Let us be United” Noriah Mabasa.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 3.

“Bull Rider” Willie Bester.

The idea of the joker and blank space as developed by Serres (1982) is suggestive for the process of reinterpretation that must follow. Serres (1982) remarks that it “has no value so as to have every value” (p. 160). It holds the potential “to bifurcate, to take another appearance, another direction, a new order” (Serres, 1982, p. 160). Assad (1999) interprets the idea as holding “both zero-value and all assigned values, absence of meaning and all meaning” (p. 38). The removal or toppling of the statue can be seen as a “process of becoming blank and naked capacity for the multiple” (Assad, 1999, p. 38). The site that remains after the removal, the toppling of the statue thus holds the possibility for multiple interpretations, the erasure discloses numerous insertions. Given the history of the UFS, the history of the city of Bloemfontein, and the history of the province, the space is in a sense a haunted space, one where many social ghosts are present. To my mind, for this site to be one of conscience it must be one where memory and all memories are possible, one of mourning and one that welcomes the specters of past, present, and future. It is in the make-up and being of a university to educate, to seek, and to unearth knowledge. My sense is that knowledges, old and new, violated in the past, present, and future will continue to haunt the space that is the university. And that this haunting urges a certain sense of place, an atmosphere that could forge learning, education, and transforming citizenship.