Michael Cardo writes that in the push for Jan Smuts hall at UCT to be renamed, it would be a shame if the racial chauvinism of the past were to be resculpted and acclaimed as the politics of progress in the present.
Unesco visits UCT to survey Cape Town fire damage
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Cape Town - The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) said it had started working with states parties to the world heritage convention, advisory bodies and other partners, to integrate a consideration for heritage in disaster risk reduction policies and programmes, and to strengthen preparedness for disaster risks at world heritage sites.
This comes after Unesco s regional director, Professor Hurbert Gijzen, and the South African national commission for Unesco, Professor Ihron Rensburg, on Tuesday conducted a site visit to the buildings affected by the fire at UCT.
Unesco said the fire that broke out in Cape Town did not affect the world heritage site alone, but went as far as UCT where it destroyed materials in the Jagger Library.
JUDITH FEBRUARY: After UCT library fire, we must again look at SA’s painful past
opinion
When books burn, a part of us goes too. On Sunday, 18 April we saw raging fires cause devastation to the University of Cape Town and surrounding areas. Parts of UCT’s Jagger Library have burnt down, including its beautiful reading room. Manuscripts, theses and some of the Special Collection in the African Studies Library have been lost.
This is a grievous loss but especially so for those of us whose alma mater UCT is. The campus, with its historic buildings, sweeping mountain views and ivy-clad facades, also occupies a special place in the life of a city which is both beautiful and complex. The university, Cape Town’s intellectual heart and itself a place of considerable complexity, is South Africa’s oldest university.
When books burn, a part of us goes too. On Sunday, 18 April we saw raging fires cause devastation to the University of Cape Town and surrounding areas. Parts of UCT’s Jagger library have burnt down, including its beautiful reading room. Manuscripts, theses and some of the Special Collection in the African Studies Library have been lost.
This is a grievous loss, but especially so for those of us whose alma mater UCT is. The campus, with its historic buildings, sweeping mountain views and ivy-clad facades also occupies a special place in the life of a city that is both beautiful and complex. The university, Cape Town’s intellectual heart and itself a place of considerable complexity, is South Africa’s oldest university. As PEN South Africa put it so well in its Note of Support to UCT:
A total of 8 000 crates have been donated to UCT by Pick n Pay to assist in the salvaging and storing of academic material damaged at the African Studies Library.