At first glance Uprooting University Apartheid in South Africa by Teresa Barnes may appear to be a treatise on contemporary higher education policy in South Africa. In actuality, Barnes's book is more of a work of university history, investigating the case of a certain professor of political philosophy who was at the University of Cape Town (UCT) between 1937 and 1970. Using this biographical point of departure, Barnes lays bare the complexities and contradictions at the heart of both liberal thinking and the putatively liberal institutions that operated during the apartheid era in South Africa. Barnes's research is not just an uprooting but also an uncovering of the problematic role of universities and academics, demonstrating powerfully the value of university histories as a means to unpack and explore colonial and discriminatory legacies. In the contemporary South African higher education landscape — in which decolonisation and transformation are key questions — a study such as this demonstrates the critical need to examine histories of universities in order to understand and shed light on their colonial, racial, and gendered roots.
As Barnes very insightfully examines his story, Prof. A. H. Murray presents a fascinating case, which highlights the contradictory layers of liberal thinking under apartheid. While Murray is a minor figure who has been “largely forgotten” (3) in South African history, his story is one that allows for an examination of both liberal support for apartheid policies and the roots of apartheid in South African universities. On the one hand Murray was English speaking, yet on the other hand his background also included well-known Dutch Reformed missionary Andrew Murray. He was a student of Lenin and Marx as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, but his opposition to communism was later harnessed by the apartheid state. While seemingly not a very significant role-player in South Africa's history, Barnes uses Murray's unique biography to shed light on the problematic, and in her view complicit, nature of so-called liberal institutions, and more specifically the University of Cape Town. As an academic who did not fit the bill of UCT's projected image of resistance to apartheid, Murray's story is of interest as it sheds light on the complexities and contradictions inherent in the institution. Murray spent most of his career at the English-medium UCT, an institution which positioned itself as a proudly liberal critic of the apartheid regime (and was sometimes referred to as “Moscow on the hill” for the apparent communist sympathies of some of its staff and students). Yet as an expert on communism while on the staff of UCT, Murray became a regular witness on behalf of the state in cases against anti-apartheid activists, most famously in the Treason Trials of 1956–60, during which he was called on to prove that the defendants supported communism and thus the violent overthrow of the state.
For the concise length of the book, it is a remarkably rich and contextualised study based on very thorough research, whose contribution stretches much wider than just Murray and UCT. Barnes has drawn on a variety archival and primary sources, as well as conducted a range of interviews, joining many threads together in the construction of Murray's story. The references in the book are themselves a rich and interesting resource. A striking feature of the narrative is also the tracing of networks and connections between intellectuals, public figures, and their families as part of the history of Murray and UCT. The book thus offers insights into South Africa's sociopolitical history and liberal ideologies in the twentieth century, which make it of interest to scholars wider than just those who are interested in higher education history.
Barnes introduces the book through a description of her interest in the subject and her personal experiences at Southern African universities. Chapter One explores Murray's background, education, and early career, a striking feature of which is the seemingly contradictory influences of Murray's youth, including relations with the Joint Council Movement and Labour Party, and also involvement in the Bantu Education Commission,Footnote 1 which provided the basis for the legislation and policy for Black primary and secondary education under apartheid. Barnes suggests that these experiences underpinned Murray's particular brand of liberalism. Chapter Two examines frameworks of South African liberalism, distinguishing between the perspectives of temporal and spatial liberalism. Barnes categorises Murray as a spatial liberal, who offered a measure of support for separate development, under the guise of “pluralism.” This point of view was similar to that of Werner Eiselen and G. D. A. Gerdener, also liberal members of the Bantu Education Commission, who believed that territorial distance between races would lead to racial dignity and equality. Although the discussion is quite brief and focuses on this framework for liberalism, it highlights the diversity of liberal thinking during apartheid; Barnes exposes the phenomenon of so-called liberals who nevertheless supported apartheid.
Chapter Three considers ideas of complicity and how these relate to an institution. UCT as a university, while clearly involved in acts of private and public resistance, also was “an institution significantly entwined with apartheid” (49). Barnes highlights the presence of both temporal and spatial liberalism in an examination of cases of discrimination at UCT, highlighting the enduring strength of the university's Eurocentric and white supremacist ideologies. UCT comes under close scrutiny here as one of the self-styled “open universities” of the era, presented as “havens of resistance to state-imposed evil” (49) — an understanding of the university's relationship with the state which Barnes strongly challenges through her study of Murray as a case study of a UCT academic who openly championed apartheid. The focus returns to Murray in Chapter Four and the history of his involvement in various trials as part of the prosecution on behalf of the apartheid government. In many of the court cases in which Murray was involved the strategy of proving that those who opposed apartheid were communists was not very successful; despite this fact, the state continued to call on Murray to testify over a period of two decades. In Chapter Five Barnes considers the presence of espionage at South African universities during apartheid. Although limited by available evidence, Barnes implies that Murray was involved in espionage while on campus, possibly relaying information regarding colleagues to the special branch of the police. She also considers his contribution to apartheid's censorious regime. Beyond Murray, the chapter explores the role of academics as informers or consultants in the Cold War struggles between communism and anti-communism. Perhaps the evidence for Murray is inconclusive, but it is certainly clear that there are aspects of universities and their relationship with the state which deserve further attention.
The final chapter functions as something of an epilogue, exposing aspects of universities and their legacies present in the postapartheid era. Barnes's focus remains on UCT in this discussion as a product of both the colonial and apartheid state. This chapter introduces many topics for debate in the quest for a decolonised university, while drawing on ideas of knowledge and power, intersectionality, and feminist scholarship. In it, Barnes highlights issues such as campus spaces and architecture, as well as the #Rhodesmustfall movement, to interrogate the colonial and problematic racial roots and legacies of universities while also raising questions for further research and debate. These topics need further development and perhaps leave the reader with a lot of loose ends for a closing chapter. The introduction of these themes here does, however, give credence to Barnes's arguments regarding the deep-seated nature and varied manifestations of colonialism at UCT. The text unfortunately suffers from a number of typographical errors, but these aside it is a worthy contribution to the history of universities in South Africa, as well as being of possible interest to scholars of liberalism, political philosophy, biography, and the history of apartheid South Africa. Despite its brevity, the book certainly provides much food for thought for higher education policy makers and administrators, and scholars involved in decolonial endeavours.
