Eurocentrism, racism and academic freedom in South Africa

Heleta offers a timely and thought-provoking account of how academic freedom gets abused in the context of South African higher education in order to maintain colonial and apartheid ideas and the imposition of Eurocentric canon as the only worthwhile and relevant knowledge. The 1994 settlement that ended apartheid has left country's universities largely untransformed. Epistemic violence, Eurocentric hegemony and whiteness in the academia and curriculum have not been challenged and continue to be reproduced. The notion of academic freedom is abused by many in the academia in order to maintain colonial and apartheid ideas and the imposition of Eurocentric canon as the only worthwhile and relevant knowledge. This chapter argues that academic freedom cannot be used as an excuse to maintain coloniality, epistemic violence and white supremacy. We have to stop seeing hegemonic Eurocentrism as a mere domination by long established discourses and canon, but as epistemic racism, othering and maintenance of white domination and coloniality in a society ravaged by centuries of white supremacist rule. Key aspect of academic freedom must be the freedom to challenge the Eurocentric canon through critical and evidence-based engagement based on ethics and scholarly integrity. Despite the portrayal of the decolonisation project as an attack on academic freedom of those who want to maintain Eurocentric hegemony in South African higher education, the quest to decolonise knowledge and fundamentally transform universities is a struggle for relevance, academic integrity and epistemic freedom, as well as a struggle to protect academic freedom itself.