Nelson Mandela University (NMU) welcomed Dr Naledi Pandor as its fourth chancellor on Wednesday, where the veteran politician and academic immediately invoked the institution’s namesake, calling on the university community to honour Nelson Mandela’s legacy by joining the global effort to “make good trouble.”
Pandor used her installation address to highlight the critical threats facing academic freedom worldwide, from geopolitical conflict to ideological dominance.
A Return to Academia
“It is a welcome pleasure to return to the academic sector and to have the opportunity to once more immerse myself in what I call the sane, cooling embrace of intellectual rigour,” Pandor said.
‘Make Good Trouble’
Pandor said Mandela was renowned for being a leader who called on all people to make every effort to be people who make good troubleusing their active conscience to change the negative conditions of millions across the world.
“He believed the condition of harm experienced by many should persuade us to make good trouble for change.”
Good trouble aims for positive change; bad trouble is merely a disruptive nuisance.
“President Mandela wanted people who make good trouble.”
The Global Threat
Pandor said we are living in a “deeply troubled geopolitical environment full of confused leaders, for want of a less respectable word, who seek to make bad trouble and to impose malevolent unipolarity on a weakened global community.”
“The ideological dominance of might is right, illustrated primarily by the United States of America, is a worrying and significant threat to us in higher education.”
She noted that all Gaza universities were bombed during the genocide, and universities are currently being bombed in the Israel-American war.
“Universities are being denied research funding, are being told what to teach, and are being told who they may admit. All of these are antithetical to the essence of a university.”
Africa’s Agenda
Pandor stressed that the apparent lack of a progressive, humane global agenda articulated by the Global South should prompt NMU to increase efforts for Africa-wide academic excellence.
“We must change the direction of Africa by investing in its progress. We must also steer, as the university, the creation of sustained and well-planned African collaboration in trade and business development.”
“Our university, in its vision and mission, has a stated commitment to Africa, and this needs, in my view, to be pursued beyond rhetoric through real actions in support of Africa’s Agenda 2063.”
The Call
“I assume this significant chair of chancellor with the hope and trust that you will honour the privilege of his name by living the legacy he bequeathed to all of us by being people who make good trouble.”
The Bottom Line
Naledi Pandor is now the chancellor of Nelson Mandela University.
Her message: academic freedom is under threat. The Global South must step up. Africa must invest in itself.
And the university community must honour Mandela’s legacy by making good trouble.
