The Res4Res Festival is a theatre face-off of short plays written and directed by students at UCT's residences, tackling some of the hottest topics of the day, and this year was no exception.

According to artistic director Mandiso Sindo, the festival provides a platform where students are able to express themselves and their identity through the medium of the performing arts.

It also helps to encourage interaction between the residences and showcases some extraordinary student talent in the form of writing, directing and acting.

This year's festival featured two shows of 20-minute plays, which covered topics ranging from financial exclusion to grappling with sexual identity and campus politics, to name but a few.

The final performance of Programme A (which featured works by students from Baxter Hall, University House, Forest Hill, Liesbeeck Gardens, Fuller Hall, Glendower Res, Varietas and Leo Marquard) took place at the Baxter on Friday 14 August.

Programme B (with works from Obz Square, College House, Graça Machel, Clarinus, Smuts, Tugwell Hall and Kopano Hall) had its final show on Saturday 15 August.

 

PROGRAMME A

Run Jozi by Baxter Hall

Four young women in Johannesburg find themselves financially excluded a year before they graduate from university. Wanting desperately to graduate, these young ladies find themselves in a web of events that get them in trouble with the law.

Written and directed by: Somila Tondile

Performed by: Somila Tondile, Ashely Seymour, Nicole Arends, Annabele Fenton, Anastasia Karatzas, Sinegugu Ngwenya, Natalie Banda, Onke Mbuli, Ziyanda Kebeni and Lindiwe Mathebula

 

Now boarding, by University House

A play tracking two characters – one who is exceptionally talented, the other who works exceptionally hard – from being toddlers together, into their adult lives.

Written by: Ben Sparks

Directed by: Masole Moerane

Performed by: Guy Sicandar, Viashin Govender, Jarrod Kueler, Zach De Beer, Dennis Matogo and Brian Ngilazi

 

Ashes to ashes, dark to dust, by Forest Hill

A story about a young black female caught between choosing one of two paths: the freedom fought for by her ancestors, or how other youth have chosen to make use of that freedom.

Written and directed by: Buhle Zulu and Yonela Tsibolane

Performed by: Naledi Ntondini, Zintle Barnes, Kone Netshikulwe, Masibulele Tyobeka , Blessing Rapotu, Noloyiso Mamputa, Nokuthula Kalipa and Philasande Sithole

 

Pick n Pay, by Liesbeeck Gardens

This physical/musical drama interrogates the right to freedom of expression, enshrined in South Africa's Constitution, asking what freedom truly is.

Devised by cast and directed by: Themba Mahlangu

Performed by: Latoya Sishuba, Nomzamo Kula, Ncumisa Garishe, Thukelo Maka, Sipho Qobithole, Thapelo Hlongwane, Thandi Dube, Thandiswa Mpongwana, Thando Mjandana, Elizabeth Akuduku, Kgomotso Nkomo, Themba Mahlangu, Tsitsi Karima kwenda and Zizipho Pae

 

Girls, by Fuller Hall

The play centres on a young woman from UCT who finds that all her friends have changed into the most mind-numbing stereotypes of women. Confounded by their behaviour, she takes up an investigation that culminates in a confrontation with an evil count and his henchwoman, hell-bent on keeping women in the dark ages.

Written and directed by: Alett Snyman

Performed by: Lisa Van Niekerk, Jemma Potgieter, Georgie Borros, Tanja Andric, Kaylee Simmers, and Jessica Still

 

Show white and the 7 faculties, by Glendower Res

A UCT student returns home and tells her younger siblings about her first semester at UCT. While all are initially charmed by mention of oceans and mountains and Long Street, during her storytelling it becomes clear that the reality is far from idyllic, and 'happily ever after' is harder work than initially anticipated.

Written and directed by: Ronel Koekemoer

Performed by: Neo Tshabalala, Shehani Perera, Ronel Koekemoer, Pieter du Plessis, Johnathan Whitaker, Kim Adonis, Zane Jacobs, Retabile Makoanyane, Lorena Tafur, Nikita Sofute, Sabelo Xulu, Loren Humphreys and Ongama Mholonto

 

Masquerade, by Varietas

Four women who work at a Burlesque club are offered an opportunity to work in Broadway – but the deal might just be too good to be true.

Written and directed by: Kevin Kumasamba

Performed by: Mbali Shongwe, Llewellyn Iyer, Tadiwe Dube, Cheyenne Ganesan, Simamkele Gosa, Shasteel Bridgmohan, Chawapiwanashe Madoroba, Kai M'njira, Amy Lawrence, Prashant Venkatakrishnan, Ilse Du Plessis and Wandile Vella

 

Shit has hit the fan, by Leo Marquard

A late-night show brought to you by the Kings of Lower Campus, who interview award-winning author of SHIT (The Book) Luyanda Magaro, with the help of two highly controversial guests.

Written and directed by: Mufudzi Nhamoinesu and J Monate

Performed by: Simamkele Kitso Seti, Khatazile Moroe, Jonathan Jayes, Lwando Mbetha, Craig Eckleton, Rai Prinsloo, Lucky Mgwexa, Akani Mabaso, Ayema Qampi, Ndodzo Mawela and Buni Bogopa

 

PROGRAMME B

If you could see me now, by Obz Square

A short play about love gone sour.

Written and directed by: Sinoxolo Mabuto

Performed by: Nkosinathi Mdlalose, Aseza Pupuma, Fefekazi Ntoni, Baleseng Malefahlo, Keneilwe Madikgeng and Oyama Botha

 

Banana Republic, by College House

A comment on media at UCT – of what makes it to the news, and the cold, clinical nature of official emails.

Written and directed by: Jeremy Bath and Mcloving

Performed by: Israel Masebe, Mlingani Matiwane and Jeremy Bath

 

Nothing is ever as it seems, by Graça Machel

A short play about deception – what you see is not really what you get – based in the streets of Khayelitsha and playing on township stereotypes.

Written by: Nomahlubi Hadebe

Directed by: Azola Krweqe

Performed by: Sibulele Galele, Somila Gogob , Pacaine Gumbi, Nomahlubi Hadebe, Tshegofatso Mabutla, Sarah Masiyandima, Amanda Mokoena, Luthando Mpanza, Mathakane Tlali and Azola Krweqe

 

Big Brother UCT, by Clarinus

A workshopped satire focusing on recent events within the university and the role of SRC.

Written and directed by: Theodorah Madela

Performed by: Lolita Pukwana, Mbalenhle Mjwara, Sibusiso Mxosana, Siphiw'Okuhle Adams, Blessings Ndlovu, Senamile Simelane, Lebohang Mafubedu, Didintle Mmokwa, Katlego Ramahuta, Sikhulile Khoza, Vuyolwethu Nkosi and Simon Thompson

 

Horrible period of insanity, by Smuts

A short play about how easily people are influenced to change who they are because of other peoples' opinions of them.

Written and directed by: Tailyn Ramsamy

Performed by: Tailyn Ramsamy, Geoff Forres, Luke Ducray and Stephen Baxter

 

Life of crime, by Tugwell Hall

Complete strangers cross paths in a fairly unexpected place – and despite differences in character, personality and walks of life, find they're somehow alike.

Written and directed by: Zoe Postman

Performed by: Amy-Monique Cloete, Lethabo Gumede, Lindsay Lotz, Luyanda Mkhize, Lauren Maloy, Zukiswa Qwabe, Ropafadzo Ndlovu, Mametse Nchabeleng, Naledi Thuto Masilo, Somila Dondashe, Erica Mare, Zipho Majova, Tandie Nkosi, Lufuno Jessica Ramadwa and Mthawelanga Zakade

 

Too far, too gone, by Kopano Hall

The buzzing city of Cape Town whispers change and progress to a young Sizwe, who has just arrived for his first year as a university student. He has travelled hundreds of kilometres from his home village in Qumbu where he has left his father with high hopes. A story of love, the clash of values, and violence.

Written and directed by: Mandla Mphanjukelwa

Performed by: Liso Gcwabe, Odwa Gqwede, Luke Buys, Sivenkosi Maqhula, Mudiwa Tswabi and Sivenkosi Maqhula

 

Photos by Michael Hammond.

As agreed earlier this year, the University of Cape Town and Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) have been engaged in mediation discussions which were facilitated by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. Both parties signed the following agreement on 18 August 2015:

View agreement here.

The Maties pipped Ikeys at the post at the 7th Vino Varsity Challenge held at Backsberg Estate Cellars in Paarl on 14 of August. Though the Ikeys won both the general knowledge and the tasting rounds, the Maties came back strongly in the debate, gathering the trophy.

Fruit of the grape: Wine knowledge was thoroughly tested at the annual Vino Varsity Competition, held at Backsberg, and won by the team from Stellenbosch University.

Last year the laurels went to the Ikeys. The annual contest involves teams from UCT, Stellenbosch and Pretoria. Judges for this year's event included Ross Sleet, David Clarke and Zaan Eksteen.

Despite its title, the competition demands some serious thought from competitors. It's divided into three sections: general knowledge (30 questions on the history of wine in SA, the world of winemaking and practices), a blind tasting and a debate.

The Ikeys had great support, winning the general knowledge section. But the blind tasting ended much closer. After the break it was time for the debate. This year each team presented an export strategy focusing on three international markets. Ikeys and Tuks put up great arguments, but it seemed the Maties were in a league of their own, knowing they had to "risk it for the biscuit".

Photo by Michael Hammond.

The killings at Marikana in 2012 remain a horrific event in our post-Apartheid history, marking the failure of our society to address inequality, workers' living conditions, corporate accountability, labour and union relations, lack of capacity in public order policing, and, worst of all, actions by police authorities which aggravated the violence of the situation.

Students at the University of Cape Town are right to remind us all of these failures and to force us to examine how all of us are linked to the Marikana tragedy – whether as shareholders in Lonmin and other mining companies, as voters who fail to hold government accountable for the actions of our police, or as citizens insufficiently engaged with addressing inequality in our daily lives and employment practices.

We applaud the UCT students and staff who, through marches, assemblies and protests on campus this week, are holding a mirror up to us to ensure we do not forget Marikana and that it is an ongoing festering sore. It is right for this younger generation to be demanding responses to these questions. We do not, however, condone graffiti vandalism, and the campaign is weakened by false claims which are only intended to inflame.

In that regard, we need to present the facts regarding allegations that have been made against Judge Ian Farlam, viz. that he had a conflict of interest with respect to Lonmin because as a UCT Council member, he would have been accountable for UCT's investments in Lonmin.

It is important to understand the three types of investment funds related to UCT.

• The UCT Retirement Fund (UCTRF) is a separate legal entity from the university under the Pension Funds Act. The UCTRF trustees are responsible for the UCTRF's investments. The trustees are not accountable to the University Council but to individual members of the fund. Judge Farlam is not one of these trustees. The holdings in UCTRF never come before Council for discussion so he would not have seen any information about them in his capacity as Council member.
• The UCT Foundation Trust (not the UCT Council) is investing, stewarding and distributing the University's endowments. It is not accountable to Council for this, as it is a separate trust. The investment policy is determined by the Trustees. There is no connection between Judge Farlam and the UCT Foundation Trust. As an aside, Lonmin shares form 0.13% of the endowment portfolio.
• UCT itself, as a legal entity, does manage its own investments for which the University Council is ultimately responsible. The UCT Council delegates these portfolio investments to an investment management company. The university has a small equity portfolio (managed by Allan Gray) which contains no Lonmin shares.

Judge Farlam, as a member of Council and of the audit committee, does not have any oversight or knowledge of any UCT linked funds that are invested in Lonmin. He therefore could not face any conflict of interest with regards to investments made by the university. Judge Farlam remains a valued and respected member of Council.

Media release issued by Pat Lucas, Manager: UCT Communications and Media Liaison Department. Email: pat.lucas@uct.ac.za

A UCT team, led by academic and medical specialist, Dr Llewellyn Padayachy, has pioneered a new, less invasive technique to inspect brain and intracranial pressure in children.

The new technique spares children unnecessary exposure to harmful radiation, anaesthesia and surgery.

While most brain monitoring techniques are invasive, time-consuming, require extensive infrastructure and often include drilling through the skull, Padayachy and his team have explored the potential of using ultrasound as a completely non-invasive, inexpensive, ubiquitous brain monitoring tool.

Padayachy and his team have used this new method at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital to significantly improve accuracy while decreasing the cost and labour intensivity associated with traditional techniques.

"Our study has demonstrated benefit in accurately assessing the pressure and blood flow dynamics of the brain," said Padayachy. "By merely placing a small probe over the eyeball, we are able to use this natural window to the brain to better understand the intracranial millieu."

This method spares children unnecessary exposure to harmful radiation, anaesthesia and surgery and has the potential to be used nationwide, in clinics and hospital to detect brain conditions at an early stage.

"As a result of our committed use of this modality, we have subsequently developed a novel dynamic technique at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, which has significantly improved accuracy while potentially decreasing the cost and labour intensity associated with historically used techniques," said Padayachy.

The vast majority of children that Padayachy and his team treat come from the most impoverished and rural sectors of society, not only in the Eastern Cape but throughout the country and increasingly beyond South Africa's borders, in sub-Saharan Africa. These children all share one uncomfortable problem: they always arrive for "brain inspection" later than they should have.

"We have expanded the use of this non-invasive modality both as a neuro-navigation tool and as a diagnostic tool to facilitate early diagnosis in children with raised pressure in the brain," said Padayachy.

The study forms part of a collaborative research initiative between researchers at the University of Cape Town and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and SINTEF. The work forms part of a doctoral thesis, supervised by Professor Graham Fieggen, Head of the division of neurosurgery at UCT.

Photo by Michael Hammond.

On 27 August, South African President Jacob Zuma will sit down with its chief justice for an unprecedented, potentially watershed discussion.

It would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall to observe how the country's two most important constitutional office-holders handle a very sensitive conversation about a very delicate topic: judicial independence.

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng. (Photo courtesy of GovernmentZA)

The meeting was requested by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng after an extraordinary meeting of senior judges. They are concerned by what they call the "general gratuitous criticism" of the judiciary by members of the South African cabinet.

The judges were quick to indicate that they welcomed criticism. But, they said, it should be specific and clear. Mogoeng told the media that the rule of law was the cornerstone of South Africa's constitutional democracy and that everyone was bound by the constitution and the law. "As a nation, we ignore it at our peril," the judges said in a statement.

South Africa's Constitution empowers its Constitutional Court to overturn government law or policy when it infringes the Constitution. The court did this in 2002 when it declared the then-president Thabo Mbeki administration's quixotic refusal to provide life-saving anti-retroviral drugs to AIDS patients as unreasonable.

The court said the government's action was a breach of its duty in terms of the Constitution. Tensions are probably inevitable in any constitutional democracy that gives the courts the power to overrule the executive and legislative branches of government. Unsurprisingly, freely and fairly elected governments with big majorities don't much like being overturned by a small group of unelected judges.

So are the judges' concerns justified or are they being unnecessarily thin-skinned?

Importance of the rule of law

South Africa's economy is stuck in a rut with growth sorely undermined by an electricity crisis. Its former powerhouse mining sector is hurting badly from low global commodity prices and other structural constraints.

Given this, South Africa needs to be mindful, and protective, of its strategic assets. The rule of law is one such strategic asset because it provides South Africa with a comparative competitive advantage.

One thing investors choosing between emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, Turkey, Indonesia and South Africa pay close attention to is the quality of the rule of law. It matters for several reasons:

• contractual integrity;
• preservation of intellectual property;
• level-playing field market competition; and
• health and safety compliance – to name but a few.

An emerging market asset manager put it even more crisply to me in January, explaining his decision to move R300 million (about US$23m) of his client's money from Russia to South Africa:

Zuma may be a problem, but I know that unlike Putin, he's not going to lock up any of your CEOs for some egregious or capricious reason.

South Africa has a strong bench of capable, honest judges, at the top of a legal system that is served by a well-developed legal profession. The profession, in general, more than matches the professional excellence of its corporate leadership.

Investors, as well as many citizens and civil society pressure groups, can avail themselves of the law with confidence. They know that unlike in many parts of the world, they will get their day in court. And their case will be decided on the merits and not on the basis of the size of the bribe paid to the presiding judge.

Judiciary under fire

In 2012, Zuma spoke about the need to "review the powers of the Constitutional Court". The broader legal and constitution-watching fraternity got anxious – not least because Zuma himself has a significant vested interest.

A judicial review challenge to the decision to drop serious corruption charges against Zuma in March 2009, shortly before his election as president, is wending its way through the courts.

Also, the secretary-general of the governing ANC, Gwede Mantashe, has referred to the judges as "counter-revolutionaries". The quixotic remark suggests he thinks the judicial branch of government has a duty to interpret the law in a certain direction. But, adjudicating without fear or favour is the fundamental pillar of judicial independence.

Things have deteriorated further during the course of a three-year long battle that has pitted Zuma and the ANC against and the country's Public Protector, Advocate Thuli Madonsela.

This followed Madonsela finding that Zuma had unlawfully benefited through public expenditure on his private homestead at Nkandla. The scandal has dominated the political discourse in recent times and led to violent scenes in parliament.

Backed by loyal MPs, Zuma has refused to accept Madonsela's findings. This is further evidence that Zuma and his party are increasingly disregarding the Constitution. It also shows their eagerness to intimidate or insult constitutional bodies, including the judiciary.

This trend then found expression in the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), the constitutional body that appoints judges. Its membership includes several members of the ANC, who have become increasingly preoccupied with "separation of powers" in recent years.

This is a euphemism for their growing preference for non-activist judges who will more likely defer to the executive. This is evident when questioning candidates for judicial appointment in the twice-annual public interviews conducted by the body.

Observers such as the University of Cape Town's Democratic Governance & Rights Unit feared a "partisan takeover" of the JSC. On one occasion last year, an ANC MP and deputy minister, Fatima Chohan, asked a candidate whether his background in human rights meant that he would be biased against the government. This from a representative of the party with a once-proud record of defending human rights against the brutal assault of apartheid authoritarianism.

Judges fight back

But the straw that broke the camel's back as far as Mogoeng and his senior colleagues were concerned was when when the government blatantly misled the court, and then disobeyed its order to arrest Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir. The fugitive from international law for crimes against humanity was in South Africa to attend an African Union summit.

Zuma issued a proclamation granting Bashir immunity but as the court said this could not trump either the statute affirming South Africa's ratification of the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty nor the court's own order that the ICC arrest warrant be executed by the South African government.

As the government's advocate played for time in court, Bashir was happily flying back home, rendering the judgment of the Pretoria High Court an exercise in futility and enraging the usually mild-mannered Judge President of the division, Dunstan Mlambo, which led to the extraordinary meeting of the judges.

In time, the incident may be seen as the start of a descent towards authoritarianism. Or South Africa's robust rule of law will fight back. Next week's meeting between president and chief justice represents a fork in the road.

Written by Richard Calland, Associate Professor in Public Law at University of Cape Town.

Disclosure statement: Richard Calland is affiliated with the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac).

 

From setting up working libraries to helping teachers develop a Code of Conduct for positive discipline – these were among several collaborative school projects highlighted at a recent symposium at COSAT in Khayelitsha.

UCT's enrolment of students from Khayelitsha has nearly tripled, from 29 in 2013 to 80 in 2015 – thanks in no small part to 100-UP, a three-year support programme that focuses on building the academic and life skills of 300 Grade 10-12 learners, drawn from all 20 secondary schools in Khayelitsha. Here, 100-UP students pose with project manager Ferial Parker after presenting at the Schools Improvement Initiative seminar on 22 August.

The symposium, hosted by UCT's Poverty & Inequality Initiative (PII) with the Schools Improvement Initiative (SII), reflected specifically on work being done by the SII with support from an NRF Community Research Project.

It was also the final event at which outgoing vice-chancellor for transformation Professor Crain Soudien officially represented his alma mater before moving on to become head of the HSRC.

In his introductory remarks, Soudien stressed that this initiative was a two-way street: "We are not here as voyeurs – peering into other people's realities. We are here to learn from each other." The issue, he said, had always been "how all of that understanding that is there on the mountain" (referring to UCT) could be "brought into a space of the wider community in ways that are accessible and meaningful".

SII project manager Dr Patti Silbert said: "The overriding objective is to contribute towards improving the quality of learning, both at the level of the school and the university. This symposium is an opportunity for us to demonstrate our work in progress."

Access to opportunity

Sketching the background to schooling in Khayelitsha, Dr Jonathan Clark, who heads up the SII, pointed out that the township, which was first established in 1983, had a stable school-going population.

He quoted sociologist Professor Jeremy Seekings' description of Khayelitsha as being "a mix of modest prosperity and occasional affluence with widespread poverty of varying severity".

Clark highlighted that the real issue, however, was not so much around access to schooling, as the vast majority of learners in the township were in fact in school, but rather of a problem of access to opportunity.

He cited a Western Cape Education Department statistic that showed that in the 2014 Matric exams, no more than 50 learners from 20 schools in Khayelitsha had achieved a combined result of 60% or more for mathematics or science – something he termed the "opportunity ticket" for studies in any field in higher education, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Panel discussions

The symposium saw students, learners, academics, teachers and principals at the six partner schools in the township join panels to talk about their experience of work done through the SII.

Among the projects that were showcased were:

• Working libraries in the SII-partner schools set up with the help of The Bookery and Pinelands Rotary Club, and staffed by library assistants who had previously been unemployed
• A process to help primary school teachers develop positive discipline practices against a backdrop of corporal punishment still in use in schools
• The 100-UP programme that helped promising learners access higher education at UCT and elsewhere
• Occupational therapy students who had worked with parents during their practice learning placements in one of the primary school
• The experiences of speech therapy and PGCE student teachers in the partner schools

100-UP highlights

A celebratory moment was when students and learners involved in the 100-UP initiative joined the gathering to talk about their experiences.

100-UP is a three-year support programme that focuses on building the academic and life skills of a selected group of 300 Grade 10-12 learners, drawn from all 20 secondary schools in Khayelitsha.

These learners are encouraged to pursue degrees in fields of study at UCT.

Project Manager Ferial Parker reported that through 100-UP, UCT's enrolment of students from Khayelitsha had nearly tripled from 29 in 2013, to 80 in 2015. Significantly, these students are drawn from 19 out of the 20 schools in the township.

In addition, the first group of 100-UP students had achieved an 86% pass rate at the end of their first year in 2014. Those who entered UCT moved on to a programme known as 100-UP Plus run by Career Services in CHED.

Among the 100-UP interventions are residential camps and Saturday classes on campus to help prospective students get a feel for life at UCT, along with help with the application process, including financial and residence applications.

Students on the panel, who were studying everything from medicine to mechatronics, talked about their dreams, aspirations and sense of commitment to their community, as well as what being a first-generation university student meant for them.

Said Sinazo Noto, a second-year BComm financial accounting student: "Being the first person in my family to get into university is an achievement ... My family supports me in everything. (My) success means they have contributed. It is success for all."

At the end of the day, Clark said of the symposium: "Today's presentations reveal the extent to which the SII is succeeding in its aim to create opportunities for people from within the university and broader society to collaborate on projects, which will have a meaningful impact on schooling in the community."

Story and photos by Andrea Weiss

In his keynote address at the REDI3x3 Policy Workshop on Spatial Inequality, held recently at the Centre for African Studies, Professor Edgar Pieterse criticised the current proliferation of urban policy and planning as "tinkering at the periphery of a complex problem".

Professor Edgar Pieterse.

He was speaking to a room crowded with urban policymakers, public officials, private researchers and academics.

"At present our efforts to create a more equitable urban fabric have resulted in a sustained anomaly in which social fragmentation, segregation and inequality are all worsening," he said.

"Since 1994, the state has provided over four million housing subsidies and built close to three million units. But despite this being one of the largest and most ambitious public housing programmes in the world, it has had a paradoxical effect. Public housing remains on the periphery and there is a strong continuity between apartheid-era housing and first- and second-generation social housing."

According to Pieterse, who holds the South African Research Chair in Urban Policy and is a founding director of the African Centre for Cities, such housing depreciates rapidly, burdening households with no or little income, while simultaneously further disconnecting the urban poor from economic opportunities.

In addition, citizen responses to such urban planning are often not well anticipated. As an example of the latter, he describes the case of Du Noon, a settlement near to Cape Town that was planned in 1995 to accommodate 2 900 households and which is now home to more than 16 000 dwellings.

Other deep-seated factors should also be taken into account, he says. For example, the fact that our urban infrastructure is based on 1950s modernist assumptions of engineering rationality is a profound problem in his view, because it creates a template for a resource intensive urban system, something which is particularly concerning when our energy systems remain dependent on coal.

The current policy landscape

Pieterse says that if you are an urban leader in one of our cities at present you are working under two overarching macro policy frameworks – the National Development Plan and the New Growth Path. However, the flagship national infrastructure investment programme that drives investment for the next 20-30 years is not aligned to these and with myriad agencies and departments often working in isolation of one another.

"No one can accuse South Africans of not trying," he explains, "We spend an inordinate amount of time debating, thinking, researching and creating plans, policies and reports. What I see more and more, however, is policies and programmes that amount to little more than tinkering at the edges of this complex problem, rather than any attempt to deal with the central question of the dislocation between the township and the suburb."

The City Desired exhibition focused on 10 relevant themes, by telling stories around the lives of 11 individuals, through commissioned non-fiction narratives that were then combined with key sets of data and maps. The exhibition can be seen online at www.citydesired.com

The majority city and the elite city

How does this current situation play out in the local context of Cape Town?

He describes Cape Town as one of the most compliant metros in the country. "Cape Town municipality has a strong indigents' policy and top-up investments through cross-subsidisation, it is aggressively following bus rapid transport (BRT) rollout and it has really interesting social economic analysis that goes a long way to better understanding the consequences of policy and public and private investments. In all there is a very deep understanding and desire to create change."

In his opinion, what this plan amounts to is that for the majority city (the townships) is: basic service delivery, increased housing delivery and rollout of the BRT, while for the elite city (the suburbs) the plan is to ensure there is no drop in the standards of municipal delivery while creating the most enabling environment possible for new real estate investment.

He has two problems with this approach: "Firstly, at the heart of the transport-orientated development (TOD) approach lies the fact that it boils down to a 20-30 year agenda for a real estate driven process of urban transformation."

"Secondly, I believe we must confront the question of whether, even with all the right policy, it is possible that we are still making no impact on the current challenges facing our cities. I think that is the case. We have a serious case of technocratic denialism; we plan without gees. We think we can figure this out behind our laptops and GIS maps, but that is no way to truly identify the problems and solutions that face our society."

Reimagining the township as the city

If this is true, how can we truly effect social integration, economic inclusion and sustainability? Or, in Pieterse's words: "What will it take to create, in hip-hop parlance, a critical black mass? Could it be that the central point is one of transforming our collective public culture?"

To achieve such an outcome, he suggests such varied ideas as criminalising NIMBY-ism ("not in my back yard"), ensuring 20-25% social housing minimums as a requirement for all real estate developments over R10million and tackling cultural transformation at private and model C schools through a minimum quota of reserved places for learners from the townships and the compulsory study of isiXhosa.

"And," he says, "if we really are going to take a transit-oriented approach, I believe we must put it on steroids, because at the moment the projections are far too modest to make any sizable difference to real estate markets and the economy."

His suggestions for accelerating the TOD approach is to fast-track rail investment, integrate and expand mini bus taxi systems and prioritise non-motorised transport.

Lastly, Pieterse asks how it might be possible to reimagine the township as the real city.

"Townships are inwardly focused sites of accumulative disadvantage where young people have little chance of getting a decent job that requires a university education. How can we halt the intergenerational structural exclusions this spatial system creates?"

His answer? Combine technocratic proficiency with trusting civil society to take the lead through unleashing the gees and capability of citizens (even if it feels politically dangerous and risky), focus on youth unemployment and the making of "place" and community as the city's "shared obsession".

"Instead of reimagining Cape Town," he says, "perhaps we need to re-imagine what we mean by place making."

Story by Ambre Nicolson. Photos by Michael Hammond.

A capitalist critique of the Marikana massacre in August 2012 and UCT's place in the aftermath was the central theme at a panel discussion held at the Centre for African Studies gallery on 19 August, as part of the UCT Marikana Forum's commemorations of the miners who were gunned down by police while striking for better working conditions and pay.

Mama Judith Sikade was dismayed that Lonmin appeared to have money to donate for construction at UCT but apparently had none to build the houses it had promised to in Marikana, Rustenburg.

The panel discussion was organised by the UCT Marikana Forum and featured law student Alex Hotz from the Rhodes Must Fall movement, Amanda Makolwa from Marikana in Lower Crossroads and Associate Professor Andrew Nash from UCT's Department of Political Studies.

Makolwa explained how the Marikana settlement came to be in 2012. An unused plot of land had become a haven for criminal activity – one young girl had been raped and her body dumped in a rubbish bin on the plot – so people decided to claim the space and build homes there.

Many political parties had come to Marikana promising to improve the conditions, reported Makolwa. The entire community shares a single toilet, for example. But nothing much has changed. "That's why there's no difference between us and Marikana in Rustenburg," she said.

Rampant poverty characterised both communities, with a lack of housing felt acutely. Nash pointed out that part of mining company Lonmin's licence application required that they build 5 500 houses for the Marikana community in Rustenburg. To date, only three "show-houses" had been built, which stood unoccupied, with the company citing a lack of funds.

Lonmin had effectively reneged on its legal agreement to provide those houses, he said. He and members of the audience suggested UCT "pay back the money" Lonmin had donated to the construction of the New Engineering Building – not to the mining company, but to the Marikana community to whom it was due. [Editor's note: Construction on the New Engineering Building on upper campus began in August 2011 and was completed in 2013. The total cost of the building was R209 million, the bulk of which was provided by UCT and the Department of Higher Education and Training. Lonmin did contribute a relatively small amount towards the building cost; this contribution was received before 2012. Read the UCT statement on RMF and investments in Lonmin]

These photographs are on display outside the Centre for African Studies gallery, where the Marikana panel discussion was held, as part of an exhibition that showcases the lives of mineworkers from Marikana and their families.

"The reason Marikana is so important is because it is the most glaring symptom of the crisis, and what seems to me the disintegration, of the post-1994 project of trying to overcome apartheid on the basis of capitalism," said Nash.

This was a theme for the discussion. Mining's legacy of oppression in the capitalist economy came under particular scrutiny. Hotz referenced Herbert Baker, Cecil John Rhodes' architect, who gloated that UCT was meant to have been built on the taxes of mineworkers, who themselves would never be able to study there.

Hotz bemoaned that education had become a "side business" in an environment that commodified knowledge. Another law student commented on a "culture" in his faculty that encouraged a "corporate" mind-set, with students being heavily exposed to overtures from big law firms but rarely being offered information about careers in NGOs, for example.

There were repeated calls for Judge Ian Farlam – who presided over the Marikana Commission of Inquiry – to be removed from UCT's Council. Considering Farlam's membership of the university's audit committee from 2008 t0 2012, it was said that Farlam would have known about UCT's investment in Lonmin, leading Hotz to suggest there was potential for a conflict of interest. [Read UCT's response to the RMF statement on Judge Farlam]

One audience member wondered whether there was a "hunger" for the university to get money from "anywhere, anyhow". Another remarked that UCT, being a top-ranked university, could hold some clout if it decided to raise its voice against the state when it came to matters of national importance.

Story by Yusuf Omar. Photos by Je'nine May.

UCT law students have been getting their first taste of the court room during a series of mock trials in the Athlone magistrates court, held from 24 to 28 August.

Simone Adler acts for the prosecution in the mock trail, while magistrate Heather Paulse presides.

But while the witnesses and accused were all family and friends roped in for the day, the students appeared before real magistrates and were expected to observe all the usual protocols of court – working off actual charge sheets.

"There's no time for playing around," said Shaheeda Poole from the National Prosecution Authority (NPA) who helped prepare the 60 students for their day in court.

Poole spent two days going through the various stages of a criminal trial, and helping the students to prepare for their respective roles on the prosecution and defence teams.

The charge sheets supplied to the nine groups of students were based on relatively simple prosecutions for assault, possession of drugs, theft, driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor and malicious damage to property.

To keep the trials down to around 90 minutes before the lunch break each day, the students were told to limit themselves to two state witnesses.

The magistrates, who made themselves available, first dealt with the court's ordinary business of the day before making themselves available for the mock trials.

Said Poole: "The idea is to bridge the gap. Many law students don't have a clue about what actually happens in court, but perhaps the Oscar Pistorius trial has sparked their interest."

Story by Andrea Weiss. Photo by Je'nine May.

The use of modern biotechnology, commonly termed genetic modification, is not only safe, if ethically and appropriately done, but will be essential to the survival of the human race in the future.

This was the view of Professor Jill Farrant, UCT Research Chair in Plant Molecular Physiology, at the latest Café Scientifique. At the event, Farrant and a small group of her postgraduate students gave an entertaining demonstration to underscore this point.

Professor Jill Farrant, UCT Research Chair in Plant Molecular Physiology, presenting at the latest Café Scientifique. (Photo by Michael Hammond.)

Resurrection plants, arguably the world's most drought-tolerant plants, are the focus of Farrant's multiple-award-winning research, and potentially the key to ensuring food security in the face of climate change. But, says Farrant, in order for this to be so, society must overcome its resistance to genetically modified foods.

She argues that the history of 'genetic modification' of food stretches back as far as 7 500 years, when Mexican women discovered that the tiny seed head from a wild grass called teosinte was highly nutritious. They began to use classical breeding to increase the size of the head and the number of seeds on it, which ultimately resulted in what we know today as maize, a staple food for millions around the world.

"This process of conventional breeding, which humans have been doing for thousands of years, takes a long time and is far from an exact science," explains Farrant.

"In traditional breeding, as those Mexican women did with maize, entire chromosomes from one organism are crossed with another and over the years has resulted in chromosome doubling or trebling, gene deletions and duplications and a crop that is highly genetically modified from its ancestor, but considered safe to eat."

Today, modern biotechnology can take individual genes and place them very precisely into the genome. Within a very short time you can actually test the effects of that insertion – and if it's no good, you can remove it.

"To sustain predicted population explosion in the coming decades, we will need a 70% increase in current agricultural practices. Add to this, the predicted desertification effects of climate change on southern Africa, where virtually all our agriculture is rain fed, and it becomes very clear we need to take action now to avoid mass starvation," says Farrant.

Myrothamnus flabellifolius foliage during wet season, Hamerkop Kloof, Magaliesberg, South Africa. (Photo by Androstachys, accessed via Wikimedia Commons.)

The key to solving this potential food security crisis may lie in the remarkable, but rare, resurrection plants. Such plants, of which there are only about 135 higher plant species documented to date, are the only plants on the planet that can lose up to 95% of their water and still survive.

"That final five per cent of water cannot be lost," says Farrant. "It is structurally bound to the plant."

Resurrection plants can stay in this dry, dessicated state for months – even years – but give them a bit of water and they spring back to life in a matter of hours.

Food crops, on the other hand, have little to no drought resistance or tolerance. The majority of food crops are annuals. In nature, such plants grow only in the rainy seasons, when temperatures are appropriate for vegetative growth (in agricultural parlance, the "growing season").

They survive subsequent periods when conditions are not conducive to plant growth, by producing seeds that are dry (ca 8-10% water) but viable. In this desiccated state, they survive extreme environments until the next growing season, when the cycle starts again.

This means if the rains do not come, or they come late, not only do crops fail in that there is no seed for food, but there are no seeds for planting the next year, a potentially catastrophic outcome for subsistence and small-scale farmers.

"Resurrection plants, rather like seeds, are desiccation tolerant. And our research has shown that there are indeed remarkable similarities in the genetic pathways used in seeds and resurrection plants that enable them to survive this extreme water loss."

The good news, she says, is that they are therefore unlikely to put any unusual genes, like genes from other organisms, into the food crops at all. The difference with resurrection plants is that they turn on these seed genes in their roots and leaves, while most plants only activate the genes when they make seeds.

"What we are trying to do right now is to understand the environmental, sub-cellular and cellular signals that switch on those genes in leaves and roots of resurrection plants, and mimic that process in crops."

If Farrant and her team are successful, they will produce food crops that can survive periods of no or unpredictable rainfall and still flourish when the rains eventually arrive. While it may not be the ultimate solution to questions of food security, it does mean subsistence and small-scale farmers would not need to spend money on buying seeds in case of crop failure.

Farrant is passionate about the ethics of biotechnology and genetic modification. "It is the inappropriate use of the technology, largely for commercialism and greed, that has given this endeavour a seriously bad name," she says. But that does not mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

"Developments in agriculture have always been driven by population growth. As the population continues to grow and climate continues to change, it is getting increasingly important that we produce crops with improved drought tolerance (as opposed to improving only increased resistance, although that too is a vital characteristic). Unlocking the secrets of how resurrection plants activate genes that enable such tolerance, and transferring those properties, through biotechnology to staple food crops may well be Africa's salvation."

Café Scientifique events at UCT are hosted by Research Contracts and Intellectual Property Services and made possible by the generous sponsorship of Spoor & Fisher.

Story by Natalie Simon.

Thembinkosi Gwelani was fleeing from police at 'Scene One' of the massacre at Marikana on 16 August 2012, when he was shot with a single bullet from a semi-automatic rifle. Gwelani, 37, was one of two fleeing miners who were fatally shot in the back of the head from a distance of 250 metres away that day.

The commission heard evidence that some mineworkers were shot while holding their hands up in surrender, but this didn't even warrant a mention in the report, said Dumisa Ntsebeza during the Marikana Memorial lecture on 20 August.

They were deemed to have been "accidentally killed" by Judge Ian Farlam's report, said Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, who delivered the second annual Marikana Memorial Lecture on 20 August.

Titled "The Marikana Report: Betrayal of the 'Great Unwashed'", Ntsebeza's lecture unpacked the Farlam Report from his perspective as the lawyer for the families of the slain mineworkers at the commission of inquiry.

Ntsebeza pointed to a number of seeming inconsistencies in the way Farlam linked evidence to conclusions, often in a way that alluded to a "structural bias" against the mineworkers.

For instance, he expected the commission to conduct a "body by body" account of the miners' deaths. But commissioners resisted appeals to read pathology reports on the miners' bodies, saying the reports should be considered read. Ntsebeza and company insisted on a body-by-body analysis of the killings, but encountered reluctance from the commission.

It was the opposite for attacks on police, which in some cases were recounted in minute detail, with portions of a statement that portrayed black men as "sex-crazed, violent and savage" finding its way into the report sans a line of interrogation. Ntsebeza found this a "dispiriting dereliction of the commission's duty".

Another example was the commission's conclusion that the strikers "were so violent that the police had reasonable grounds to conclude that they were under attack which justified them defending themselves and their colleagues".

Police were subsequently let off the hook en masse without hearing a single piece of evidence from the tactical units who fired the shots.

"Yet the commission rightly noted that from the outset the senior police closed ranks, that they orchestrated a fabricated account, that they concealed evidence and systematically lied to the commission."

The police case was that no order was given to fire on the workers. But Ntsebeza pointed to evidence that an order to fire on the workers was, in fact, given.

"The commissioners side-lined evidenced from a Lonmin executive who gave an order to fire on the workers," he said. "Engage; engage; engage". These words were followed by a hail of machine gun fire. That evidence was not given by mineworkers, but by Lonmin security, said Ntsebeza.

Hours before the memorial lecture, UCT students and staff marched from Bremner building to Jameson Plaza to commemorate the dead workers.

Nobody to blame?

After 300 days of hearings and R157m of public money, the commission merely recommends further investigation, said Ntsebeza. He lamented the no-show of Phase Two of the commission, which would have delved into the socio-economic circumstances that might have contributed to the strike and the massacre.

A lot of what caused the massacre was the "decided policy" of Lonmin and the police to safeguard the interests of capital and that this was going to be done at any and all costs, he said. But the closest the commission got to apportioning blame was to paint the strikers' conduct as, essentially, asking for it.

Ntsebeza quoted a key paragraph from the report: "The tragic events that occurred between 12 and 16 August 2012 originated from the decision and the conduct of the strikers in embarking on an unprotected strike and in enforcing the strike by violence and intimidation using dangerous weapons for the purpose."

Having considered the evidence, Ntsebeza draws a different conclusion: "The miners begin to see a build-up of police numbers from 209 on the 13th, 542 on the 14th, to 689 on the 15th, and 718 on the 16th. They see warlike heavy weapons ... rumbling into Marikana. The commission should have concluded from the evidence that the mineworkers must have been terrified, that they were brutally attacked and killed by a combination of police and Lonmin security."

He couldn't help but notice that "those in power are exonerated", and that the "whole truth about the Marikana massacre", if ever it was going to emerge, was not to be found in this report, which Ntsebeza said did more to recommend further investigation than anything else.

"In other words, there is no one to blame."

'They thought this was going to go away'

Ntsebeza's brother is the Professor Lungisile Ntsebeza, the AC Jordan Chair in African Studies at UCT. On 24 September 1985, their cousin Batandwa Ndondo was shot to death in broad daylight in an unprovoked attack by apartheid police.

"They thought this was going to go away," said Ntsebeza, before noting that 30 years later Ndondo's murder was still remembered. "There's no way anyone can think the memory of those killed at Marikana will fade."

Ntsebeza explored some of the reasons the mineworkers went on strike that year.

Abject living conditions meant the "miners often felt a deep sense of humiliation and disrespect," said Ntsebeza. The 2012 strike, therefore, became both an attempt to secure a bigger pay-packet and a symbol of the struggle to regain a "sense of belonging" in a post-apartheid South Africa, he said.

The 'Great Unwashed'

Lawyer Jim Nichol represented the dead workers' families at the Farlam Commission. Ntsebeza related Nichol's alternate phrasing of one of Farlam's defining conclusions.

"If the attitudes of the commissioners were not shaped by what the commissioners thought of the 'Great Unwashed' of Marikana, then they would have the courage to substitute the current paragraph 1.1(b) of Chapter 3 of the Farlam Report with the following: 'The tragic events that took place between 10 and 16 August 2012 originated from the decision and conduct of Lonmin. The company embarked on an intransigent policy of refusing to discuss with the mineworkers their grievances. They enforced this policy by encouraging the SAPS to break the strike knowing that death and serious injury would likely result from the SAPS' use of dangerous weapons.'"

Everyone Ntsebeza cross-examined, including political leaders, agreed with him that the Marikana massacre was something that should not have happened and should not happen in the future.

"There is of course a divergence of views between the leaders of our democracy and the 'Great Unwashed' as to how this should happen."

Ntsebeza closed with a quote from Urban Dictionary: "Corporations fear the day that the great unwashed will throw off the shackles of consumerism and ever-increasing debt and focus on more important endeavours such as their health, family and friends."

Story by Yusuf Omar. Photos by Je'nine May.

A team of students and staff from the physics department recently built a "mini supercomputer" from scratch.

The computer was dubbed 'Hi-Π-4-mens', as it operates on the same parallel-computing principles as high-performance computing centres, just on a much smaller scale. It makes use of a cluster of Raspberry-Pi computer boards similar to the hardware in smart phones.

From left to right: James Dickson, Prof Andre Peshier, Trystan Lambert, Kerwin Ontong, Clint Sadler, Victor Gueorguiev

Professor Andre Peshier of the Department of Physics explains: "I want to get students involved in research early on, and illustrate to them the interdisciplinary nature of our field. So, I proposed a project at the interface of physics and computer science, which needed to be solved on a DIY computer cluster. This hardware running parallel code allows for an elegant solution of the specific physics question I posed."

Information on a handful of similar hardware projects at overseas universities was very limited, so the process of designing, building, programming, and finally using the 'Hi-π-4-mens' cluster has been an incredible learning experience for the (now) second-year physics students Trystan Lambert and Victor Gueorguiev. With advice from Clint Sadler and Kerwin Ontong from the department's electronics workshop, Lambert focused on the hardware and set up the Giga-network linking the boards, while Gueorguiev focused mainly on developing the software for the project.

Intense discussions on the housing structure of the prototype, between the group and the mechanical workshop's James Dickson, led to a beautiful transparent design, making it literally a showcase for collaboration across all levels in the physics department.

Said the two students: "It was a fun and very interesting experience. Although at first it was scary, as we were thrown in the deep end and knew very little about parallel computing, we managed to make it happen and learned a lot along the way."

Peshier adds: "With 4+1 Raspberry-Pi boards at present, each costing around R400, our 'Hi-π-4-mens' cluster does not really reach the computing power of a typical personal computer, but it is considerably cheaper."

More important, however, is its value as a training vehicle. The cluster allows students to gain expertise in operating multi-processor computers, with full responsibility at all levels.

"This is essential in order to solve some of the complex questions being investigated in our department, many of them closely linked to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research," says Peshier.

In future, he would like to fuel the physics department's undertaking to teach numerical modelling of systems using computers in its main first-year course. Students who excel in the regular Python programming tasks may now develop parallelised code on the cluster, or even start learning the more powerful mathematical framework.

Any applications for suitable projects, possibly also from other departments, should be submitted to Andre.Peshier@uct.ac.za.

Story by Katherine Wilson. Photo by Michael Hammond.

Two University of Cape Town researchers at different ends of the academic career trajectory were rewarded on Thursday night at the NRF Awards 2015. Professor Michael Feast was awarded the Lifetime Achievement, and Dr Ntobeko Ntusi won in the Emerging Researcher category. At the same event, Professor George Ellis received a special mention as the only researcher in South Africa to have retained his A rating from the inception of the rating system to the present. Together with our new and re-evaluated A-rated researchers, they embody the strength and depth of research at UCT.

Michael Feast, Department of Astronomy
(Category: Lifetime Achievement for his contribution to the field of astronomy)

Professor Michael Feast

Professor Feast is quite possibly the only academic to have published papers in Nature 66 years apart: the first in 1948, when he was just 21, and most recently last year when he was 87. "Feast is a truly stellar academic," says Professor Danie Visser, deputy vice-chancellor for research and internationalisation, who nominated him for the award. "He is listed in the international Who's Who, he has had a minor planet named after him (Asteroid no. 10985 Feast, discovered from Mt Palomar in October 1977) and has represented South African astronomy at the highest international level. Yet he remains one of the most unassuming and universally liked of researchers."

Read more about Michael Feast.

Dr Ntobeko Ntusi, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine
(Research Excellence Award for Early Career/Emerging Researchers for his work in better understanding cardiovascular disease, particularly in an African setting)

Dr Ntobeko Ntusi.

Cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality around the world. Ntusi's research focuses on cardiomyopathy (a condition where the heart muscle is abnormal, making it difficult for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body) and inflammatory heart disease, in particular myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle induced by viral infections or distinct immune diseases). Currently Ntusi is completing his clinical training in cardiology and establishing an independent research programme on the study of cardiomyopathies and myocarditis. "The ultimate goal is to promote clinical and research excellence locally through training of postgaduate students and education of health professionals on application of advanced cardiovascular imaging techniques," says Ntusi.

Read more about Ntobeko Ntusi.

UCT is also celebrating the following researchers who were evaluated for the first time in the 2014 cycle and achieved an A rating.

Andrew (Russ) Taylor: professor and Joint Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Research Chair in Radio Astronomy at UCT and the University of the Western Cape. Professor Taylor has, since its inception, played a leading role in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project. He serves as founding executive secretary of the International SKA Steering Committee, founding chair of the International SKA Science Advisory Committee, vice-chair of the International SKA Science and Engineering Committee, and as a member of the International Board of the Preparatory Phase Program for the SKA and of the International Board of the SKA.

Read more about Russ Taylor.

Robert Wilkinson: honorary professor and principle investigator of the Robert Wilkinson Group at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM); Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow in Clinical Tropical Medicine; MRC programme leader, National Institute for Medical Research (London) and professor in infectious diseases at Imperial College London. His major research interest is the immunology of tuberculosis, particularly in the context of HIV infection. Wilkinson is an author of the Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine and has published a number of original research and review articles on tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.

Read more about Robert Wilkinson.

A special mention was made of Professor George Ellis, who received his 7th A rating and is one of only three scholars to have received his first A rating in 1984 (the first year of the rating system) and to have retained it until the present.

Professor George Ellis. (Photo by David Monniaux, accessed via Wikimedia Commons.)

George Ellis: senior scholar and emeritus distinguished professor of complex systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. Gravity and cosmology; complexity and causation; and brain and behaviour are three different areas in which Professor George Ellis has focused his research. From looking at inhomogeneity in the different scales of the Universe to studying the nature of primary emotional systems in the human brain, his work has opened new doors of knowledge. He co-authored a book, published in 1973, with Stephen Hawking (Large-Scale Structure of Space-Time), now regarded as a classic.

Read more about George Ellis.

The following researchers were re-evaluated in the 2014 cycle and once again achieved an A rating, which they hold for the next six years.

Eric Bateman: emeritus professor, director and founder of the UCT Lung Institute. His research interests include the pharmacology and management of asthma, chronic obstructive airways disease and tuberculosis, and community-based interventions to improve the care of patients with chronic respiratory disease.

Jean Cleymans: emeritus professor in the Department of Physics, senior member of the UCT-CERN Research Centre. Cleymans' area of research focus is in high-energy physics.

Jill Farrant: professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Research Chair in Molecular Physiology of Plant Dessication Tolerance. Farrant's research focus is understanding dessication tolerance in plants with the aim of developing biotechnological applications to produce drought-tolerant crops and pasture grasses.

Rajend Mesthrie: professor in the School of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics (AXL); Research Chair in Migration, Language and Social Change. Rajend's research focus is in sociolinguistics, investigating language variation and contact in the South African context.

Daya Reddy: professor in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics; research chair in computational mechanics; director of the Centre for Research in Computational and Applied Mechanics, president of the Academy of Science of South Africa and president-elect of International Council for Science (ICSU). Reddy's research interests lie at the intersection of applied mathematics and engineering sciences. Much of his work is concerned with analysis and computational simulation in solid and fluid mechanics, and concerns the development of mathematical models of material behaviour, analysis of these models, and the construction and implementation of algorithms for their numerical solution.

Mark Solms: psychoanalyst and professor in the Department of Psychology; chair of neuropsychology. Solms also lectures neurosurgery at the St Bartholomew's Hospital in London and the Royal London School of Medicine and is director of the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuro-Psychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. He is known for his work linking the clinical findings of psychoanalysis with the knowledge generated by the neurological sciences.

Brian Warner: emeritus distinguished professor in the Department of Astronomy. While Warner's research focus has been on lunar phenomena and astronomy, he is also a poet (collections published under the titles Dinosaurs and Scatological Verse) and is considered one of the world's experts on astronomer William Herschel and his son, John.

Story by Natalie Simon. Photos supplied.

Read more:

UCT TB researcher Grant Theron awarded prestigious NRF P rating

The National Research Foundation (NRF) recently recognised the work of senior researcher in the Department of Medicine Dr Grant Theron for his work in tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis and transmission, by awarding him a P rating. This prestigious rating is awarded to young researchers, normally under 35 years old, recognised by reviewers as having demonstrated the potential to become an international leader within their field. Theron will be the seventh P-rated researcher at UCT.

Dr Grant Theron.

Theron has already established himself as a leader in the field of TB diagnostics. His work on the evaluation of a DNA-based TB diagnostic test called Xpert has influenced national and global health policy; it includes a four-country randomised controlled trial that was the first to demonstrate its clinical impact and feasibility at the point-of-care when done by non-technical staff. TB diagnosis still relies predominantly on sputum microscopy (looking for the TB bacilli under a microscope) and chest X-rays, a system that misses 40 to 60% of TB cases. The introduction of Xpert into TB hotspots, such as prisons and mines, could enable earlier diagnosis of drug-resistant TB. Theron has also done work that helped establish Xpert as the new standard of care for extra-pulmonary TB.

Theron's work so far has attracted international awards and invitations to chair and speak at international conferences. His work, conducted through the Lung Infection and Immunity Unit and the Department of Medicine, has also been incorporated into policy documents compiled by the World Health Organisation. Theron was recently honoured at the NSTF Awards in the TW Kambule Emerging Researcher category. In 2014 he was selected as one of the Mail & Guardian's Top 200 Young South Africans and he holds career development awards from the Wellcome Trust (UK) and the Medical Research Council (South Africa).

Interim Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences Professor Gregory Hussey describes Theron as an imaginative and innovative researcher: "Grant has already made a significant contribution to the field of TB research in South Africa – a field that is of particular relevance considering it is still the most common cause of death in South Africa and as we face the ever-growing risk of multi-drug resistant strains of TB."

Theron earned his doctorate in 2010, focusing on the genetic engineering of bacterial strains for use as food supplements. After his PhD, Theron says he wanted to focus on issues of human health, rather than projects that assisted companies in being profitable.

His PhD supervisor, Professor Sharon Reid, says he was always enthusiastic, interested and not afraid of hard work. "Although Grant was keen on scientific discovery in general, he was always particularly interested in the application of science in both biotechnology and medicine," she says. "He has embraced his new field with similar enthusiasm and dedication and fully deserves this new rating."

Read more:

The late Dr Neville Alexander saw the Gariep (Orange River) as a fitting metaphor for a post-1994 South Africa grappling to unify competing identities into one nation. Its myriad tributaries, some powerful, some gentle, merge to become the river that gives life to the arid Kalahari and Namaqualand. As UCT prepares to rename the Graduate School of Humanities building after the scholar-activist, it's worth quoting this passage from Alexander's 'Language Politics in South Africa' in full.

"I have proposed the metaphor of the Gariep, that is, the Great River. This has numerous advantages in terms of describing the dynamic and the real variability or diversity of our society as it is structured at present. The image presents itself because of the historical fact that South African society, as we know it, has come about through the flowing together – mostly violently, sometimes in a relatively peaceful manner – of three main 'tributaries' – carrying different cultural traditions, practices, customs, beliefs, etc. These currents or streams are the African, the European and the Asian. Today, we have to add, as most countries in the world have to do, the modern American, or 'coca-cola', stream."

UCT renames the Graduate School of Humanities building after the late Dr Neville Alexander on 28 August.

The Gariep is an indigenous image, he adds. It transverses the whole of South Africa and its tributaries have catchment areas across the country. The Gariep is also a dynamic metaphor, writes Alexander, which "gets us away from the sense of unchanging, eternal and god-given identities".

"For this reason," he continues, "it is appropriate for the transitional period in which we are living, any one tributary might flow more strongly than the others, that new streamlets and springs come into being and add their drops to this or that tributary, even as others dry up and disappear; above all, it represents the decisive notion that the mainstream is constituted by the confluence of all the tributaries ... that no single current dominates, that all the tributaries in their ever-changing forms continue to exist as such, even as they continue to constitute and reconstitute the mainstream."

Alexander called metaphors "powerful instruments of mobilisation and conscientisation". Indeed, his life's work can itself be read as a metaphor for these things.

When UCT's Faculty of Humanities unveils the Neville Alexander building on 28 August, one day after the anniversary of his 2012 passing, it's in memory of a man who "meant many specific things to many different people", according to a tribute penned by Crain Soudien and eight others in 2012.

Born to a carpenter and a school teacher in Cradock in 1936, Alexander was formally schooled at the Holy Rosary Convent. He completed a BA and MA at UCT in only five years before earning a PhD at the acclaimed University of Tübingen in Germany in 1961.

The Sharpeville massacre in 1960 heralded an immediate return to South Africa after his doctorate. He formed the Yu Chi Chan Club, which evolved partly out of a relationship to Marxism that he retained and refined throughout his life.

The early '60s were wracked by mass imprisonments of apartheid's opponents, violent security police, forced removals of black people from their homes, and tens of millions of black South Africans were barred from cities unless they were coming to work and carried a 'dompas'. It was in this stifling environment that Alexander came to support armed struggle – indeed, Yu Chi Chan means 'guerilla warfare' in Mandarin.

The new signage is already on display.

"What separated Alexander from many other academics and intellectuals is that his pursuit of knowledge was anchored in the existential imperative to act in the 'here and now'," Soudien et al write.

As Salim Vally, Jane Duncan and Brian Ramadiro wrote in 2012: "His whole life he argued for and practised a principled approach to building an independent anti-capitalist left while emphasising the need for the unity of all organisations committed to a socialist future."

Alexander was arrested in 1963 and 12 months later was banished to Robben Island for a decade. His time on the island produced the Robben Island Prison Dossier, a blow-by-blow account of the political prisoners' brutal treatment by the apartheid regime.

By the time he established the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (PRAESA) at UCT in 1992, Alexander had published the seminal One Azania, One Nation under the pseudonym No Sizwe.

He insisted that post-apartheid education, and indeed the economy as a whole, suffered for the marginalisation of indigenous languages. Arguing that the legacy of apartheid education maintained the skewed status quo, he lamented mother-tongue education was still equated with the "ravages of Bantu education".

He writes in Language, Class and Power in Post-Apartheid South Africa: "Without analysing the matter any further, I want to maintain without fear of contradiction that this tendency, even though there are currently the beginnings of some hesitant countervailing tendencies, will continue to undermine South Africa's ability to expand and consolidate democracy and at the same time represents a built-in constraint on economic development, the magnitude of which remains to be established by means of carefully designed research in all branches of the economy."

His opposition to including 'race' in UCT's admissions requirements (at the time) demonstrated his belief that race was a concept devoid of any biological integrity, and merely a social construction designed to empower some over the disenfranchisement of others.

While he made a name for himself in the upper echelons of political debate – even competing in the 1994 general elections with the Trotskyist Workers List party – Alexander did much of his work outside the confines of academic halls, and through reading clubs, seminars and workshops around the country.

In Memory Book for Neville, which PRAESA compiled to commemorate his retirement in 2011, Carole Bloch, now the project's director, remembers: "Neville, you have been and remain a precious friend, you gave me space to grow and to help others to grow ... this has been a real gift."

In the same volume, which was presented to Alexander as a gift, Tumi writes: "I started my own reading club because of your encouragement. I have a lot of children attending the reading club at my house. We thank you for the freedom of reading and writing."

By naming the Graduate School of Humanities building the Neville Alexander building, UCT recognises the immense contribution that he has made as a scholar, activist, and public intellectual.

In a recent op-ed, UCT's Associate Professor Shamil Jeppie explained the decision to rename the building after Alexander.

"The decision to rename the building was taken in 2014 and is a fitting memorial by the university to this great alumnus. His intellectual focus on the role of language in the creation of a new society was a deeply humanistic endeavour," writes Jeppie. "A scholarly space in his honour also holds the hope that the intellectual life of the building will continue his legacy of intellectual curiosity and critique, of anti-racism and social justice."

His writings are freely available online.

Story by Yusuf Omar. Photos by Michael Hammond.

SHAWCO Health's paediatric clinic in Tambo Village, Manenberg, recently played host to the Western Cape MEC for Health Dr Nomafrench Mbombo.

SHAWCO Health volunteer supervisor and fourth-year audiology student Sola Mcgogo conducts a health check on one of the young patients visiting the paediatric clinic at Tambo Village on Saturday, 22 August 2015.

Mbombo, who spent time at the clinic on Saturday 22 August, interacted with the student volunteers at the clinic and learnt more about the impact of their work on the local community.

SHAWCO runs the paediatric clinic at Tambo Village once a month to provide a range of primary healthcare services for children and to promote general health, by educating caregivers and ensuring ongoing patient monitoring. These services include general medicine, dietetics, occupational therapy, speech therapy and audiology.

Tambo Village falls between catchment areas of the Department of Health, which means that patients have to travel great distances to access basic health services at the nearest clinic. After a request for assistance from the community, the SHAWCO clinic was established in 2013, helping bring essential healthcare services within reach of the community and the clinic is well attended. As with all SHAWCO clinics, it is staffed by medical students supervised by volunteer qualified doctors with the assistance of a licensed dispensing nurse.

Priyanka Naidu, president of SHAWCO Health said: "We were very proud (on 22 August) to demonstrate the tremendous work being done by our volunteers at the Tambo Village paediatric clinic. Dr Mbombo's wide experience and commitment to primary health care for groups at risk meant that she could appreciate the impact of the clinic. Her informed views and interest was inspiring for the student volunteers."

Western Cape MEC for health Dr Nomafrench Mbombo, with her former student, Sister Amadolo, who is a dispensing nurse at the SHAWCO paediatric clinic.

SHAWCO Health has about 800 volunteers from the UCT Faculty of Health Sciences who reach out to around 4 000 people in under-served communities across the Western Cape. This work is done with significant funding from GrandWest. These no-pay clinics often serve as the only port of call for the sick and injured who struggle to access primary health care services or preventative initiatives.

Said Heidi Edson, group socio-economic development manager for GrandWest: "GrandWest CSI is proud to partner with SHAWCO Health?s clinics, which have become an integral part of the communities they serve.

"The Tambo Village paediatric clinic is a prime example of the positive and empowering impact of qualified and caring health care intervention in underserved communities. The students who staff the clinic monthly must be commended for the invaluable service they provide."

A running thread that emerged from a special Women's Roundtable was the question of whether or not legal frameworks are effective in the protection of women's rights.

Women's Roundtable presenters with the Postgraduate Law Students' Council (PGLSC). From left: Anthony Diala (PGLSC Chair), Sune Griessel (Office of the Public Protector), Sanja Bornman (Women's Legal Centre), Dr Aninka Claassens (Centre for Law and Society), Elizabeth Biney (PGLSC vice-chair), Prof Rashida Manjoo, Kagiso Maphalle (PGLSC treasurer) and Abigail Osiki (PGLSC academic chair).

The theme of the roundtable, hosted by the Postgraduate Law Students' Council in the Kramer Law Building on 20 August 2015, was Women in Conflict: Property Rights and Access to Justice.

UCT's Professor Rashida Manjoo (former UN special rapporteur on violence against women) moderated the discussion, with Dr Aninka Claassens (UCT's Centre for Law and Society), Sanja Bornman (Women's Legal Centre) and Sune Griessel (Office of the Public Protector) on the panel. All are experts in their fields.

Griessel noted that many of the complaints handled by her office amounted to 'silent complaints', those stories that were not sufficiently high profile to enjoy media attention. Based on her more than two decades of experience in the justice sector, she felt economic disempowerment was the biggest enemy of women.

Bornman talked about how the Domestic Violence Act has done little to protect women. Speaking from the perspective of cases handled by the Women's Legal Centre, she stressed the shortcomings of the South African Police Service in their treatment of domestic violence matters. She highlighted women's difficulties in securing protection orders against domestic abuse and the insufficiency of adequate shelters for abused women.

Claassens talked about how women negotiated change in customary land law, often outside state intervention. These negotiations were based on declining marriage rates, the basic needs of children, the emergence of female-headed households, and above all, constitutional claims of equality. Notably, significant factors on women's negotiating ability is their de facto land rights, which official customary law failed to acknowledge, the changing gender balance of power at national level, and traditional leadership laws that undermine the inherent flexibility of customary law.

She surmised that the evolution of women's claims to land – first from their sons, then their daughters, and finally on their own behalf – is largely traceable to the liberating influence of the Constitution and the values of the anti-apartheid struggle.

Moderating the discussion, Manjoo identified several questions that affect women in conflict situations. The common denominator is the issue of state responsibility and accountability for violations of women's human rights.

At a national level, she also questioned the effectiveness of Chapter 9 institutions (established in terms of the Constitution to strengthen and safeguard the democracy) in protecting and promoting women's rights. The most notable of these are the Public Protector, the Commission for Gender Equality, and the South African Human Rights Commission. Together with the Constitution, law enforcement agents, and the judiciary, these institutions constitute the core of the legal framework for the protection of women's rights.

So does this legal framework protect women?

Griessel is not convinced, while Bornman believes the framework was good, but stymied by those tasked with implementing it, and Claassens feels it has a liberating influence.

The roundtable was united on one point, however: that the protection of women's rights would not improve without individuals becoming active agents of change in their social milieu.

Report from Anthony C Diala, chair of the Postgraduate Law Students' Council

Even though South Africa has some of the toughest laws against skin lighteners, many international products containing dangerous and illegal substances are still being sold in Cape Town, a UCT study has found.

Dr Jennifer van Wyk and Dr Nonhlanhla Khumalo testing some product at UCT's hair and skin research lab, established in June 2015.

The study, published recently in the journal Clinical and Experimental Dermatology calls for tighter import regulations and random testing to protect consumers.

In spite of a ban on the sale of over-the-counter cosmetic products containing ingredients such as mercury, topical steroids and hydroquinone, the study found an alarming trend in the composition of internationally manufactured skin lightening products available for sale in Cape Town.

Said study leader Professor Nonhlanhla Khumalo, head of dermatology at UCT and Groote Schuur Hospital: "Not only did almost 80% of the products tested contain illegal or banned ingredients, we discovered that many products combined more than one illegal ingredient."

Conducted in 2013, by clinicians from Groote Schuur Hospital and a multidisciplinary team of academic scientists, the study investigated active ingredients and countries of origin of popular skin-lightening products available in Cape Town.

Of the 29 products tested, 22 were found to contain illegal ingredients. All 22 were imported products and were obtained from informal vendors. And in spite of a European Union ban on skin lightners, a third of the tested products originated from Europe.

Hydroquinone has long been the leading offender but the results of this study suggest that potent and ultra-potent topical steroids, in combination with mercury, have become the leading ingredients in skin-lightening products. Most (76.9%) of the 13 products containing steroids were combined with either mercury or hydroquinone or both.

Devastating, harmful effects

The devastating and, at times, irreversible harmful effects associated with the use of skin-lightening cosmetics containing mercury and hydroquinone are well established. By including topical steroids in the preparation, which increases absorption through the skin along with these hazardous substances, consumers are exposed to greater risks than before.

The high incidence of prescription-strength topical steroids in the tested products was a concern, the authors said, and corroborated recent reports of increased steroid-induced cutaneous side effects from Durban, South Africa.

Another area of concern was the importation of clearly labelled, ultra-potent steroids as cosmetics as some of the products declared the presence of clobetasol propionate (CP) and betamethasone (BM) on the label.

Researchers cited attractive packaging as a possible reason for this, highlighting the need for greater education about the identification of and knowledge about ingredients and their effects.

Highly potent topical steroids are typically prescribed for the short-term treatment of severe skin diseases: however, their use on normal skin increases the risk of glaucoma, cataracts, acne, skin atrophy and infections.

"The top three countries of origin of the tested products were Italy (6), India (5) and Democratic Republic of Congo (5), which raises questions about whether South Africa has become a dumping ground for illegal cosmetics," said Khumalo. "We recommend improved international law enforcement and random testing to encourage industry compliance and help protect customers."

*Khumalo recently launched the first Hair and Skin Research Laboratory (HSR Lab) locally and internationally to focus on comprehensive hair testing and safety in cosmetic formulation.

Emerging researchers across the spectrum – from those who already enjoy recognition to those who are just starting out – are likely to benefit from a new publication flowing from the Emerging Researcher Programme (ERP).

Growing the Next Generation of Researchers: A handbook for emerging researchers and their mentors, by Dr Lyn Holness, arises out of the work of the ERP which is hosted within the Research Office.

Emerging researchers across the spectrum are likely to benefit from a new publication flowing from the Emerging Researcher Programme (ERP).

It follows Holness's first publication, The Emerging Researcher: Nurturing passion, developing skills, producing output, co-authored by John W de Gruchy (UCT Press: 2007).

As with the ERP, the book responds to the concern that the majority of South Africa's research output is still produced by an aging population of predominantly white academics.

At the launch, Professor Danie Visser, deputy vice-chancellor for research and internationalisation, said: "With this book, Dr Lyn Holness commits the democratic act of sharing her knowledge beyond the borders of her own university's research enterprise."

Visser describes the book as an impressive vade mecum for both young researchers starting a career in academia and their mentors.

"Only someone with both experience and empathy could provide such guidance," he says. "As one begins to read the book, it is immediately obvious that the author has both of these qualities in abundance."

Holness commented: "While this book does draw from the first (publication), it reaches beyond it to deal with the pressing issues within academia today. It seeks to be relevant, not only in South Africa, but across the sub-Saharan continent too."

"The challenge today, as it was when we began the ERP," says Holness, "is how to grow a new generation of researchers and do this in the context of transformation."

Growing the Next Generation of Researchers addresses three primary readerships.

It speaks first to institutions, and the imperative for institutional support in promoting research among junior staff members, sometimes requiring a shift in mind-set and a prioritising of resources in order to be competitive as higher education institutions on the national and global platform.

Second, it addresses those responsible for the task of mentoring new, young or inexperienced academics in developing their research capacity and igniting enthusiasm.

Third, it is directed at emerging researchers themselves, identifying the skills required to produce sustained, quality research, and discussing strategies to do so.