Stellenbosch dares not perform the functions of basic education, in which mother-tongue instruction is by all accounts the most appropriate, says the writer. Picture: SUPPLIED

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IT IS not known to the member (of the Upper Jukskei Flyfishing Collective) whether Breyten Breytenbach, the celebrated poet, is a flyfisher, which automatically would have bestowed upon him an assumption of thoughtfulness and a measure of gravitas. Still, being a poet and everything, means Breytenbach bears a promise of the profound.

That alone would be reason enough to hear what he had to say at Stellenbosch University last week; to convoke the poet laureate of Afrikaans to speak about Afrikaans versus the world means the nation should pay attention.

And what Breytenbach said, as translated by the member, was this: "If Afrikaans, as colloquial language, as administrative language and as medium of instruction, is made into heresy and is reduced, it will in the end lead to an inevitable destruction of a precious and nuanced instrument of awareness."

This translation does not do justice to the passage. It lacks the poetic athleticism of his Afrikaans and thus the soul of those who have learned the language at mother’s knee, but it is to the exegesis of his text that we must turn. He leaves no doubt in the minds of his audience when he invokes French theorist Guy Debord to say it is the function of SA’s decision makers to bury history in culture, a culture that in our time is that of pseudo reconciliation dictated by incompetent populists who have no intention of accounting for their action.

Indeed, he is right. And it is so, too, that Afrikaans and all who dwell in its culture are vilified by weaklings promoted to power beyond competence. And it is so that Afrikaans has become a vector of contamination. And it is so that a new generation of weak racists practise hatred to achieve affirmation in the apparent shelter of language and culture.

That is the storm into which he believes he is stepping, and that, too, may be true. But it is not true that the language debate at Stellenbosch is an assault on the heart of Afrikaans. Maties has no exclusive claim to the thoroughly and culturally disseminated heart of Afrikaans and those who seek to change the university’s administrative language and its medium of instruction to English do not seek to destroy Afrikaans.

In reaction to Breytenbach’s speech, the students’ representative council said it was "an unfortunate occurrence that the issue of language at Stellenbosch would still be treated as if it would cause the death of Afrikaans at this institution. The idea to remove Afrikaans completely, perpetuated by the early sensationalist reporting by the Afrikaans media, has never been on the agenda at any formal meeting or discussed in any press release from this university."

Besides, even if the statement is mere hollow rhetoric, only Afrikaans speakers are in the position to make the language into heresy. The only time Afrikaans was that threatened was under Afrikaner hegemony which, as the member recalls, suffered body blows administered by none other than one Breyten Breytenbach.

He misses the point. The university’s first duty is to educate as efficiently and as effectively as possible. To do that, the medium of instruction has to be in English. Stellenbosch dares not perform the functions of basic education, in which mother-tongue instruction is by all accounts the most appropriate.

SA has a terrifying deficit in graduates whose first duty is to develop their country. However much it sticks in the craw of anti-imperialists everywhere, among whom we count Afrikaans speakers, our Maties must first acquire knowledge and wisdom and then find a way to express it in their mother tongue. Even if Breytenbach doesn’t flyfish yet, that much he should know.

• Blom is a freelance journalist. He likes to flyfish