A NOSTALGIC RETURN: JUBILATION AS AN HONORARY DOCTORATE IS CONFERRED ON PROFESSOR NJABULO NDEBELE
A moment of coming full circle. This is how Professor Njabulo Ndebele, the recipient of an honorary doctorate from UJ described the occasion yesterday. Professor Ndebele, a prolific author and academic leader who has also served as Chancellor of the University for two terms, was honoured during a Faculty of Humanities graduation ceremony. He was recognised for his life’s work as a literary giant, acclaimed academic, and transformational leader in higher education and public life. In his acceptance speech, the author of numerous culture defining texts,
such as Fools and Other Stories as well as The Cry of Winnie Mandela , masterfully weaved together the experiences of his life, and the moment he stood in the Sanlam Auditorium to receive an honorary doctorate. For him, Professor Ndebele said, a poignant moment was a nod to his beginnings at the Western Native Township (near the now Sophiatown), a stone’s throw away from the University’s Auckland Park Kingsway Campus where the ceremony was held. This, he shared, was a nostalgic return to where the story of his life first began. “In case, some of you may be wondering why this man from Cape Town is so brazen as to climb onto the stage of the University (of Johannesburg), and then call himself a Joburger, it is because of where I was born. I was born not very far from here, some walking distance away from Sophiatown, a place known as Kofifi in its days,” he said. These intimate yet intriguing musings gave the audience in the auditorium, filled with newly minted graduates, their loved ones and the University’s staff members, an opportunity to peek into the mind of one of South Africa’s most respected public intellectuals. HE USED HIS REMARKS AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO COMMENT HOW THE PASSAGE OF TIME, AND THE DELIBERATE ACTIONS TOWARDS THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE COUNTRY, HAVE YIELDED A SOUTH AFRICA THAT IS RESILIENT, YET STILL OPTIMISTIC ABOUT ITS FUTURE. Something, Professor Ndebele remarked, which is starkly different from when he was born 77 years ago. A refreshing take, given the vast challenges that grip the consciousness of South Africans today. “Today, I live and breathe in a country radically different in the general disposition of its people from what it was 77 years ago, when I was born,” he said. “One gets a very real sense, not only of the passage of time, but also of the fundamental transformation in the sensibilities of South African people, richly diverse, yet united in believing in the national and constitutional disposition that has knit us together, sharing together, a sense of a mutually reinforcing
Prof Njabulo Ndebele during the ceremony, receiving his Honorary Doctorate
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