Inaugural Lecture of the 13th Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS), - Prof. Jonathan D Jansen, 16 October 2009.

Please note: The speech is spread over six pages. If you are only interested in those sections of the speech pertaining to the Reitz saga, read pages two through to four. For those with a wider range of interests, it is a remarkable speech in its entirety.

In Honour of Adv. Bram Fischer

Preliminaries

Welcome, welcome, welcome. I thought this would never happen. In fact, many of you told me it could never happen because of my refusal to snuggle up to power. Yet here you are, some from foreign lands like Chris and Lynette Abels from the United Kingdom, Joel Samoff from Stanford University (California), Josephine Allen from Cornell University (New York), and half of you from the Western Cape. All foreign protocols observed. To my South African friends of Indian descent, welcome to you too; you may stay overnight.

Thank you so much for honouring the University of the Free State this evening.

I am accompanied tonight by two high school leaders. Foster Lubbe was the first Free Stater to write to me, while I was still working in Durban, to welcome me to the province; he is the next head boy of Sentraal Secondary School in Bloemfontein. Portia Lehasa is the first black head girl in 134 years of the famed Eunice Girls Secondary School also here in Bloemfontein. Foster and Portia represent our future as a country; they remind me of my first love, school teaching. And when I sit down and talk with these two youth leaders, I become profoundly optimistic about the future of our country.

I dedicate this Inaugural Lecture to arguably the greatest son of the University of the Free State (a law student here when it was still called Grey University College), the man who led the defence of Nelson Mandela, the patriot who laid down his life for black and white South Africans, so that we could all be free today. I am so delighted that his daughters Ruth and Ilse could be here this evening.

To the children of Bram Fischer, I now hand over a specially prepared version of the Inaugural Lecture.

A place like this

You are in the centre of South Africa. In a small city with a big heart. In a place that gave rise to the two most important nationalist movements of the past century, and possibly a third (we're not sure yet). This is a place of contrasts, for the city of roses (Bloemfontein) is also the home of the Cheetahs (Mangaung). It is a place that has given birth to the full spectrum of humanity, from JRR Tolkien the creator of the Hobbit all the way across to Steve Hofmeyr the creator of, well, many things.

Significantly, it is to the city of Bloemfontein that the condemned criminal comes with his last and desperate plea, the Supreme Court of Appeal. And so we also come together this evening with a plea for our university, a plea for our country, a plea for Africa.

On page two: Vice-Chancellor Jansen explains his decision to drop charges against the Reitz Four.

Issued by the University of the Free State, 16 October 2009.

Time to say goodbye? Mmm... Mmmaa... Mmmaaleh... The Point would like to boycott the chubby-cheeked one.

The beggar gauntlet Rebekah Kendal reckons that begging is bad for SA because it fosters a culture of dependency.

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