By MAEDER OSLER
Jannie Gagiano has graced us with a monumental piece in which he places Stellenbosch University management’s self-imposed challenge to ‘reimagine’ the (celebrated or notorious – take your pick) Wilgenhof residence in the wider context of demands for transformation post-apartheid. Read it here.
This is precisely the quality of critical and independent curiosity that can add so much value to the the potential of ‘academia’ – under a refreshed rainbow of a wider academic freedom that such institutions deserve, and which could contribute even more to our futures.
Ever since the launch of this website into the digital cosmos as a ‘model of rural communication’, we have seen how things keep balancing and changing.
In particular, we have learnt that ‘rural’ means as much as ‘urban’, interchanging and intermingling with one another in a myriad of forms, scales, levels, systems, processes and in the refreshing mobile stakeholders of villagers who help build individuals and of individuals who help build villages, from local to global.
In this quest, ‘academia’ has a privileged role to play in imaginings, and re-imaginings, as its strives to realise its roles and opportunities in our societies and communities. Humility rather than arrogance seems like a helpful ingredient.
In this, Stellenbosch University has a new historic role to play, from, its own history in its own making. In the process, should it also outgrow its own mafiosos?
In this case, we are particularly interested in the real and potential contributions of its department of journalism. The best of journalism shares qualities which continue to demonstrate and provide evidence of stimulating and safeguarding curiosity, and re-imaginings, as mirrors also in all sectors of ‘academia’, well beyond the necessary roles of sensitive administrations and leaderships. The fourth estate need the utmost protection.
In this we salute the many contributions from all sorts of academia, which we like to believe, are a major part of ‘the commons’, of the intersections of rural and urban, local and global, in our many villages. Such quality voices over so many years are tributes to curiosity and re-imaginings which are so crucially critically independent.
We look forward to more such like-spirited pioneers of curiosity and re-imaginings, not only from journalism and academia, but also from our many villages and our many commonages, and our many rooms with views, and our many players, during 2025.