Protesters march against university fee increases outside the Union buildings in Pretoria in 2014. Picture: AFP PHOTO/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA

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SUNDAY was International Mother Language day, a time to reflect on linguistic and cultural diversity, and I used the space to interrogate the higher education language policy trajectory. I am deeply afflicted by the view of fires at the University of Pretoria ignited by the question of language.

The nascent unitary constitutional state enshrined the notion of multilingualism. Theoretically, the Constitution provides that everyone has the right to receive education in public educational institutions in the official language of their choice — where reasonably practicable.

It is surely reasonable, 20 years into democracy, to demand to be taught in any official language.

In reality, there is an unwillingness on the part of society and the state to implement the vision of the Constitution. University policies testify to their contestation of national language policy.

The national policy for higher education envisages universities developing official indigenous South African languages alongside English and Afrikaans, yet the University of Pretoria elects to promote Afrikaans and English and use other official languages only when it is "fair and feasible" to do so. This institutional policy is manifestly antithetical to the noble vision of our Constitution.

Recently, Parliament enacted the Use of Official Languages Act, which requires departments to choose and use three official languages in their domain. But the African middle class speaks English, even to illiterates — government is yet to use indigenous languages in officialdom. English has reasserted its hegemony. It is, of course, a widely spoken language in the world, which seemingly guarantees social stature and economic mobility for its speakers. We have a duty to alter this reality.

Chinua Achebe asserts that "language is not an enemy", and so it is with Afrikaans, which should be a language used by choice by some students, not one they are coerced to use. Instead of demanding the phasing out of Afrikaans, we should clamour for multilingualism. The socio-linguistic reality on campuses is that many languages are spoken, both national and foreign.

But if Sesotho-speaking students were to demand tuition in the vernacular, an official language according to the Constitution, they would discover that there is no institutional effort to offer Northern Sotho as an elective module. Nor is there much academic literature in Northern Sotho. It is not catered for. This stark reality is not only unconstitutional, but entrenches dismal underachievement among African students, who constitute the largest proportion of institutional communities.

There are negligible multilingual practices in public academic institutions for academic literature and pedagogy focusing on the promotion of indigenous languages. Some eminent scholars assert that multilingualism is not the sine qua non for critical thinking and robust intellectuality, but I protest that language is an indispensable tool for flexing of social power, transmission of culture and communication.

The fatalistic logic of the unassailable position of English, to borrow again from Achebe, undermines the authentic decolonisation of education and the unfettered expression of African culture and being. While the hegemonic position of English as the mode of interethnic intersection and access to a huge depository of literature and potential social mobility is uncontested, we must, like the English, generate our own culture.

The protesters are correct to confront the dominant social forces in academic institutions that seek only the retention of Afrikaans as the language of tuition without recognising the sociolinguistic reality of their institutions. You cannot, however, burn the university to make it use your language of choice, as you will not only lose the university and your language, but your future too. Protest is not only physical, it is also intellectual. Let us have dialogic discourses, not physical fights. We can engage and learn at the same time.

• Malale is a former MP and currently a postgraduate student at University of Cape Town.