State Censorship and the Academic Process in South Africa

I LLINI S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007. University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science I ' r ISSN 276 1769 Number 192 December 1991 State Censorship and the Academic Process in South Africa by Christopher Merrett State Censorship and the Academic Process in South Africa by Christopher Merrett o 1991 The Board of Trustees of The University of Illinois OCCASIONAL PAPERS deal with any aspect of librarianship and consist of papers which are too long or too detailed for publication in a library periodical or which are of specialized or temporary interest. Manuscripts for inclusion in this series are invited and should be sent to: OCCASIONAL PAPERS, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Publications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 249 Armory Building, 505 E. Armory Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820. 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Richardson, Lynne Curry Contents Abstract .............................................. 3 Introduction . ... ... ......... ........................ 3 Purpose of Censorship ................................. 4 Nature of Intellectual Endeavor ............................ 6 Responses from Universities .............................. 8 Impact on Academics ................................... 9 Consequences for the Position of Universities in Society ........ 11 The Survey .................. .................. ..... 12 Survey of University Librarians ............................ 33 Conclusions ................................... ...... 34 Acknowledgments ..................................... 36 Appendix A .................. ................... .... .37 Appendix B .................. ......................... 39 Appendix C ...................................... .... 43 References ................. .................. ....... 44 Vita ................................................ 46 ABSTRACT Writing by South African intellectuals on the problem of censorship tends to be fragmentary and dated. Creative writers have continued to document the effect of censorship upon their work, but the heyday for academic commentators on the subject was the late 1970s and early 1980s, as shown by the references to this paper. The reasons for this can only be speculated. Academics possibly felt that no further original thought could be given to the problem or the effect of censorship was such as to drive them into lines of enquiry unaffected by the system. Alternatively, the liberalization of the late 1970s, when the exemptions regarding library control of certain banned books were put in place, eased the problem sufficiently for enough academics. The decline in written academic criticism of censorship could thus mean its gradual diminution. The purpose of this survey is to construct a model typifying the censorship problem of a decade ago to act as a yardstick by which to measure its impact today. INTRODUCTION The idea for this survey arose from experience as an academic librarian at the crucial junction in the censorship system between the local demands of South African law, and historical, philosophical, and international concepts of human freedom and responsibility. Each transaction involving a banned book-simple or complicated, successful or unsuccessful, depending on the legislation involved-reminds the politically alert librarian that she/he is acting as an agent of the state and as an intellectual police officer-an uncomfortable position for a person dedicated to more universal values. An investigation of secondary sources showed that academics, and to a lesser degree librarians, had commented from time to time on this situation without, however, systematizing or quantifying the problem. There tended instead to be a reliance upon personal impression and opinion, processes not to be despised and, indeed, a valuable starting point for more structured investigation. A pilot study was undertaken with the University of Natal (Merrett, 1986b) which led to the project described here. (See Table 1 for a list of abbreviations used in this report.) TABLE 1 ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS REPORT UNIBO University of Bophuthatswana, Mmabatho UCT University of Cape Town, Rondebosch UDW University of Durban-Westville, Westville UFH University of Fort Hare, Alice UND University of Natal, Durban UNP University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg UNIN University of the North, Turfloop UOFS University of the Orange Free State, Bloemfontein UPE University of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth PUCHE Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, Potchefstroom UP University of Pretoria, Pretoria RAU Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit, Johannesburg RHODES Rhodes University, Grahamstown UNISA University of South Africa, Pretoria US University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch UNITRA University of Transkei, Umtata VENDA University of Venda, Sibasa UWC University of the Western Cape, Bellville WITS University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg UZ University of Zululand, Ngoye It is usual in South African educational circles to categorize these universities as follows: (a) The open universities: UCT, UND/UNP, RHODES, UWC (formerly an ethnic university), and WITS, all committed to academic freedom with regard to admissions, teaching, employment, and research. (b) The Afrikaans universities: UOFS, UPE (which is nominally bi-lingual), PUCHE, UP, RAU, UNISA (a correspondence university, which teaches in both English and Afrikaans), and US. (c) The ethnic or Black universities: UNIBO, UDW (considered by some to be a candidate for open status), UFH, UNIN, UNITRA, VENDA, and UZ (all of which were founded to serve one specific ethnic group) Purpose of Censorship Commentators have generally been forthright in their assessment of the purpose of censorship. It has been seen as a form of tyranny over speech, writing, and thought designed to ensure conformity within boundaries drawn by the state; in other words, "a political creation erected to strengthen the State in its resistance to change" (Hugo, 1970, p. 13). McDonald (1983) summarized the phenomenon as follows: "censorship legislation arises out of a political process, serves political ends, and is most often directly concerned with political issues" (p. 64). It is in the interests of an insecure state to encourage confident assertions rather than questions in such a way as to cover up the truth and impose the mass values of bureaucrats owing allegiance to a particular ideology. Russell (1979) asks the ironic question why, in view of the Publication Act's concern to avoid harming relations between different sections of the community, no government publications are listed in Jacobsen's Index. Brink (1980) and Beekman (1980) see censorship in more graphic terms-i.e., as state neurosis which develops into the institutionalized violence of imposed silence so as to perpetuate a status quo. Thus, apartheid requires intellectual repression in order to survive. It is a tool to be used by the authoritarian against those seen to be dangerously unorthodox and to prevent the communication of their ideas, whether from within the country or without, to those pondering the social, political, and economic ordering of society (Brink, 1984; Dean, 1976; Welsh, 1976). Gordimer (1972) describes the aim as intellectual isolation from a given range of ideas, sees the printed word as a particular target of control, and maintains that: "As South Africans we do not know what the rest of Africa is thinking" (p. 29). Censorship is an admission of the power of the written, spoken, and performed word; Mphahlele (1967c) sites that power in political events used as literary themes, although there are clearly many more contexts in which the authorities fear its threat. There is a crucial distinction between the censorship of facts and ideas. The suppression of fact is not only a problem in itself but doubly insidious as it affects the development of ideas. This has been described more evocatively as "ideas under arrest" (Kunene, 1981). Censorship of fact thus becomes the control of opinion through the manipulation of public information in particular. This opens up the opportunity for political myth-making in order to monopolize control, distorting the information system of the community (Budlender, 1983). Boesak (1983; 1984, pp. 52-61) describes how the South African authorities tried to ban the concept of Black theology, which challenges White assumptions about Christianity, by restricting literature and those who wrote and disseminated it, and concludes that once an idea has taken root, it is futile to try and ban it. Works of Black theology "question, radically, the institutions and practices of an apartheid-based society" and thus infringe censorship's aim "to preserve political orthodoxy and moral conformism

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