By BO Staff Writer
The vice chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Professor Adam Habib took to Twitter to clarify the university’s position on academic freedom. Habib was emphatic that Wits won’t silence Prof Malikane.
This follows what appears to be a coordinated campaign by white monopoly capital to silence Prof Malikane who has provided a paper giving content to Radical Economic Transformation (RET). Instead of the intellectuals of white monopoly capital critically engaging the “Malikane Proposal”, they seek to silence the professor, thereby proving the point that they have no cogent superior counter proposals to his.
@GuyRice9 @ZeldalaGrangeSA @WitsUniversity If Malikane’s views offend you, challenge him intellectually.Don’t ask me to deal with it administratively by violating his academic freedom
— Adam Habib (@AdHabb) April 30, 2017
Malikane teaches at the Wits University School of Economic and Business Sciences.
The campaign of slander and lies against Prof Malikane was given a new lease on life by fake news widely reported in the white owned press last Sunday. Media24 led the charge with a blatant misrepresentation of what Prof Malikane said on Saturday night at the Blacks in Dialogue (BID) event organised by Black First Land First (BLF).
To divert attention from the rational and progressive proposals by Prof Malikane, the white owned press has instituted a campaign of mass misinformation.The main pillar of the disinformation campaign is to distort the truth and to make Prof Malikane look irrational as well as not fit to be advisor to the Minister of Finance, Mr Malusi Gigaba.
It is encouraging to see that Wits is steadfast in defending academic freedom in the face of a rapid slide to the fascism of monolithic views. Indeed if those who oppose RET have a better argument for economic transformation, let them put it into the market place of ideas. As things stand, there is only one sensible set of proposals on the table and that’s by Prof Malikane.
