ABSTRACT
A realistic assessment of the predicaments and options of intellectuals at South African universities under conditions of politically restricted academic freedom and racially determined differential access to educational institutions depends, above all, on a clear understanding of the specific South African scene. The term ‘critical intellectual’ refers to all those academics — regardless of race, political persuasion and employment, whether at the Afrikaans, black or ‘open’ English-language universities — who find themselves in substantial disagreement with this set-up, and sincerely desire a radical redistribution of power and wealth in the country as a whole, beyond and different from that envisaged through apartheid. While the equal intellectual skills of the supporters of separate development are not disputed, they are, in accordance with the literature, assigned the labels intelligentsia, technocrats or ideologues. This chapter focuses on the six possible, partly overlapping reactions which can be described as privatism, exile, liberal retreat, militant-radical stance, change through association, and political reformism.
