Jannie Gagiano: 1960 Wilgenhof “ouman” comments on damning Kriegler findings

University councils, likened to Plato's philosopher kings, are expected to prioritize integrity, moral governance, and institutional preservation. At Stellenbosch University, the council's handling of the Wilgenhof residence controversy revealed tensions between ethical ideals and practical decision-making. Despite endorsing external legal judgments, the council faced criticism for perceived leniency and Jacobin influences in reconciling accountability with institutional interests..The seventh BizNews Conference, BNC#7, is to be held in Hermanus from March 11 to 13, 2025. The 2025 BizNews Conference is designed to provide an excellent opportunity for members of the BizNews community to interact directly with the keynote speakers, old (and new) friends from previous BNC events – and to interact with members of the BizNews team. Register for BNC#7 here..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here..By Jannie Gagiano .University councils are not unlike the philosopher kings that Plato thought should be installed in morally well-ordered republics to care for the vital interests of people they govern, preserve the integrity of the institutions of government and equip them with a steering personnel of men and woman who are virtuous, selfless and dedicated to what is good for the university and not for themselves. When one looks at the charters specifying the fiduciary duties of university councillors in modern times many of these attributes are demanded as the sort of basic moral and intellectual equipment the councillor must bring to the job. .Protecting the university and its reputation from the shenanigans of its service personnel, serving the interests of the university rather than allowing behaviour in the ranks that spoils or impugns this reputation, demand that their magistrates be morally suited to steer the ship of learning because they love the truth and should generally keep their powder dry and their noses clean. These are par for the course as requirements..These requirements are of course even sterner for the councillors than for the service personnel that do the business of a university on a day-to-day basis. One can perhaps tolerate a bit of hanky panky on the part of the service personnel but the knowledge that a fish rots from the head down serves as a cautionary tale. After all, and again considering the moral thrust of the Platonic allegory, by virtue of their escaping from the cave of ignorance and delusion they should be endowed with the virtues of the cultis recti that their formal education as well as the school of life had implanted in their pectoris reborant. After all "Pectora Roborant Cultis Recti" (a sound education strengthens the spirit) still remains the motto of Stellenbosch University..The recent decisions that the Council of Stellenbosch University took in regard to the questions surrounding the Wilgenhof story took an interesting turn when this council solicited the opinion of a former Constitutional court judge and his cohorts to guide their judgement in the matter. A "who guards the guardians" type of situation arose when the council, when required to adjudge the integrity not only of their own council but also of what turned out to be a legally muddled decision advocated by their own chairperson. They granted the privilege of judgment to judges outside their own ranks. The judges were granted a warrant to judge the judges so to speak. After all, the councillors were no doubt wrapped in a veil of innocence or perhaps even ignorance, when they had endorsed the tainted decision earlier in its career and when they were prodded to do so by the ill-founded advocacy touted by the Queen Bee in the hive..They were not compelled to abide by these findings but nevertheless did so. By doing so it would be fair to say that they endorsed the legal principles that Kriegler et al invoked to support their judgement. It is however not clear that the council grasped what they let themselves in for when they did so. .After all. If Plato's philosopher kings can be made to serve as a model for the role in which a council is cast so as to serve its moral purpose then perhaps punitive consequences in this case are unavoidable. For both the rector and the chairperson. It is odd that the wise council thought that they could get away with the recommendation they ultimate adopted to exculpate the chairperson and the rector..They nevertheless did think they could get away with it..And now as the Afrikaans saying goes sit ons met die gebakte pere. It reminds one of the old Bobby Darren song "exculpation is the name of the game and each generation plays it the same".By accepting Kriegler they appear to having endorsed the corollaries entailed by this judgement..Thou shalt not commit subterfuge. Thou shalt not conduct thy work by the use of chicanery that infringe upon the duties of thine office etc..And it is likely that the Stellenbosch philosopher kings, being as morally astute as their training should have taught them to be, should have been alerted to the bumps in the road they ventured onto when they took a clear-sighted legal practitioner like Kriegler on board. Misdemeanours of the type that are considered here entail consequences. Perhaps punitive consequences all round could not be avoided. Kriegler allowed a sort of embarrassing "if you do the crime you have to do the time" sort of consideration to creep into the fiduciary woodwork so to speak. So how did their adventure of playing philosopher kings proceed? As a product of their solemn contemplation on the 3rd of December they found that Kriegler et al grasp on the matter was sound. .The vice chancellor and the chairperson erred in not informing council about amendments to the De Jager Panel Report. The miscreants were guilty as charged. .However, it is when they had to mete out the appropriate punishment that fits the putative misbehaviour that they seem to falter. The council's judgment had a sort of sol justitiae illustra nos quality about it.. The philosopher kings' wisdom then lead them to find that "neither (i.e. the Rector and the Chairperson) had acted maliciously or in bad faith, or with any intention of influencing the decisions made by council related to Wilgenhof residence and they only did what they believed to be in the best interests of the University of Stellenbosch." OK, it is also not in dispute that Hitler loved his Alsations..This of course begs the question on what procedure of investigation they actually did rely on to come to such a conclusion. How could they know or gauge the culpable pairing's good intentions without subjecting these intentions to a vigorous investigation? Even philosopher kings should know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.. Judging from the record of their past decisions on matters such as these it is unlikely that this conclusion was a product of their suddenly becoming sodden with the milk of human kindness when judging the foibles of the pair under investigation. You piss on a computer in Huis Marais or cultivate what appears to be a Nazi cult in Hool 88 in Wilgenhof and we will cut your balls off. In a manner of speaking of course. Much decisive action, even harsh action, is required when the interests of the University are at stake. Our reputation cannot be sullied by going all soft on the guilty..So what brought on this sudden spurt of magnanimity that prompted their forgiveness.?.In answering this question one should of course consider the influence that one of the Jacobin Maids of Orleans had on the parameters of their judgement. Thuli Madonsela assured everyone that was prepared to listen that the Rector and the Queen Bee were perfectly within their rights to act in the way they did. The chairperson even apologised for the errors they admittedly committed. Perhaps this brought on a further bout of confidence that their actions could be redeemed by virtue of being imbued with the Christian spirit of forgiveness. Did Jesus not say that those who forgive a wrong done upon them will inherit the earth? Or words to that effect?.Perhaps our chairperson's Jacobin urgings were strengthened by such a well-founded confidence. .Perhaps an act of contrition like apologising for being in flagrante delicto would save the day..Perhaps the strong Jacobin spirit that underpins such a sense of justice can also do duty to justify the more robust interventions that are required to bring a residence like Wilgenhof to heel..Jacobinism, a doctrine that espouses the relentless, even ruthless, pursuit of the egalitarian ideal has in our world become almost hegemonic. As Haldane said of socialism, we moderns are in a wider sense all egalitarians now. For us moderns it has become de rigueur to kneel before the gods that hold up equality as an ideal. But Jacobinism is not just any old run of the mill egalitarianism. It requires action in the pursuit of the ideal. And It has a made to order Machiavellian justification available when harsher measures of intervention to serve this purpose are called for. When Robespierrre's Committee for freedom annointed the guillotine as an instrument of justice they meant what they said. If the total extirpation of Wilgenhof as a university residence is required so as to demonstrate that we mean business, you had better believe it. Stellenbosch University above and beyond Madonsela is endowed with a whole chorus of Jacobin acolytes. All of them came out in support of the decision to close Wilgenhof. And all of them offer Jacobin style recommendations for justifying their choice..When Martin Luther King claimed that we were sleeping through a revolution he probably meant it as a wakeup call. Perhaps we should also strive to become wide awoke when we take up the challenge of staying wide awake. His call for awakening was uttered in what one might call the Mayflower style of performing a revolution..Most of the woke inspired personnel at Stellenbosch University did or completed their training in the United States. The same can be said for much of the work done by Wim de Villiers. De Villiers is an astute man and has done wonders to build up the institutional capacity of Stellenbosch University, even more than Quinty Thom did. His record speaks for itself. But one surmises that in the course of this work he has also learned how to play the political games that are required to build a university. He is however quite capable of playing the Jacobin card If that is what it takes. It would be foolish to regard him as a dyed-in-the-wool Jacobin. But when the Ford Foundation, for instance, demands that woke type undertakings be given before they release the funds for a new science building or a dozen electro microscopes to be used in the medical labs he is prepared to perform the deed that is required. . And if you want to do revolution in the Mayflower style who can do the job better than Thomas Jefferson and his present day legatees who entreat us to follow in the footsteps of the founding fathers and spread the gospel of egalitarianism far and wide. Did he not write the document that prepared the world to become the beneficiaries of the Empire of Liberty and is the Declaration of Independence not a charter for the establishment of a Jacobin style paradise on earth? Jefferson proclaims the truth of the supposition that all men were born equal in the style of a pope pronouncing the verities of the church of Christ. Like M Jourdain in the Moliere play we have come to realise that we all speak in Jacobin prose now. And if we don't we should attempt to do so. Our philosopher kings seem to think so. .Hence their reluctance to put their chairperson and the Rector to the sword for the errors they, by own admission have committed. Instead the council's cowardice to act against a fellow Jacobin becomes palpable. How can you punish someone that carries a warrant for his actions that was issued by the great warrior for truth and Jacobin justice, Thomas Jefferson himself? Is the Empire of Liberty not brought to consummation when its Jacobin strivings are satisfied? Are the foibles of the Rector not vindicated by his otherwise impeccable record as an institution builder at Stellenbosch University? Read Machiavelli's The Prince and you will get the hang of it!.And the fate of Wilgenhof? The decision has been taken by the wise council. Wilgenhof, like Rhodes, must fall. And so it will. Also sprach Zarathustra. Its mode of survival shall only be realised in the form of an imagined community. How can one make the omelette if one does not break the Wilgenhof egg?.Wilgenhof's strivings to keep the authenticity of their crying, talking, sleeping, walking, living doll that satisfies their soul intact will be thwarted. So it has been ordained. Wilgenhof will only be allowed to exist in the form of a reimagined residence..Wilgenhof has only been granted a stay of execution due only to those pesky interventions by the Wilgenhof mammas, representing all the current residents, and the Wilgenhof Alumni Association, representing almost 2 000 "oumanne". For Wilgenhof the owl of Minerva has begun its flight. The shades of twilight are soon to fall..So as we gather our emotions in tranquillity we come to realise that the noble lies our philosopher kings bandy about are perhaps not so noble after all. .O Tempora, O Mores!.Read also:.Stellies censures De Villiers, Newton-King on Wilgenhof, but both keep their postsWilgenhof drama could have been avoided if university had acted rationally: Jaco RabiePaul Harris: Context on Wilgenhof saga from one of the "oumanne"

Jannie Gagiano: 1960 Wilgenhof “ouman” comments on damning Kriegler findings

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