Updated with full responses from Wits’ VC and President of Convocation: Wits VC slams SRC head Hitler remarks “racist”  

The SRC President’s Facebook posts regarding Adolf Hitler and his subsequent comments to our student newspaper were forwarded to me over the weekend by a number of concerned staff, students and alumni. I have emailed the SRC President and asked him to account for his remarks but have not yet received a response.

The Facebook posts and subsequent comments are racist and offensive in the extreme. They make disparaging remarks about various communities and assume a similar characteristic among all white people. Disturbingly, they valorise a racist autocrat who was responsible for the murder of millions of people. Valorising such an individual is utterly unacceptable and especially dangerous in a climate where we are experiencing xenophobic attacks. It violates the fundamental values of Wits University.

In my email to the SRC President, I indicated that Wits strives to be a pluralistic institution and defends freedom of speech, even when this means allowing the expression of views that do not accord with our own views and values. However, we expect our officials to be circumspect in their utterances and to act within the values of the institution. This is a principle that applies to the SRC President and it has clearly been violated in this case.

As such, I am referring Mcebo Dlamini for investigation to see whether disciplinary charges should be brought against him in this regard.

To all individuals to whom this incident may have caused offence, I want to apologise for the fact that someone who is deemed a leader in our community could have made such shocking and embarrassing statements. His behaviour in no way speaks to the values of Wits as an institution.

Professor Adam Habib
Vice-Chancellor and Principal
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

28 April 2015

We as members of the Convocation Executive Committee, stand in vehement opposition to the recent statements made by the Wits University President of the SRC, Mcebo Dlamini.

The SRC president’s social media and eNCA comments regarding his admiration of Adolf Hitler and subsequent racist comments are the reprehensible, opportunistic and ill-informed views of one individual.They are an example of abject failure in leadership, and by no means, whatsoever, are a view that could conceivably be supported by the University or constituents thereof. The University Convocation Exco is in unequivocal support of the statement issued by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Adam Habib, who has called for further investigation, pending disciplinary charges against Dlamini.

Mcebo Dlamini’s utterances are of a leader who has isolated himself from the broad aspirations of his constituency. Wits is home to all religions, cultures and an intellectual space for various political orientations to thrive. For a student leader to define his broader community, his colleagues, classmates and lecturers inherently racist and liken them to Hitler, simply on the basis of their skin colour, is abhorrent and goes against all efforts for social cohesion – on and off campus.

Our University has always been, and will always remain, an institution in which freedom of speech is nourished and nurtured; but it is also an institution that will take to task those that bring the University’s fundamental values into disrepute.

The President of the Wits SRC leads ALL Wits students and not only those belonging to his political party, therefore Mcebo Dlamini’s utterances are not consistent with his leadership position and contradict what Wits stands for as an institution.

The Convocation Executive will issue a statement pursuant to further development of this incident.

We wish to reiterate our revulsion in this regard.

Statement issued by Prof Mamokgethi Phakeng, President of the Wits Convocation, on behalf of the Executive Committee of Convocation. Comments should be sent to [email protected]

30 April 2015