Former Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Emeritus Professor Jannie Malan. Image: Supplied

The University of the Western Cape’s (UWC) former Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Emeritus Professor Jannie Malan - a peacemaker, an ardent cyclist, and a strident opponent of the racist apartheid system - has passed away. Prof Malan was 93.

His son, Dr Daniel Malan, while visiting Cape Town with a group of MBA students from Trinity College Dublin, said academia played a big role in his father’s life, retiring only at the age of 90, having spent a few decades teaching and leading at UWC. According to a biography for one of his research papers, Prof Malan spent most of his school and university years in Stellenbosch, his hometown where he was born in 1931.

In the 1950s, he recognised apartheid as evil and worked to cross its divides, working as a minister of religion in black and coloured churches in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape, while also teaching Maths and Science in high schools.

“His academic side has always been part of what I will remember, but he was also a family man. He loved nature. I remember that we used to go on hiking trips in the Drakensberg and he loved camping. He loved cycling, of course. That's one of the things that he did his whole life and also what he was famous for at UWC,” said Dr Malan.

“We lived in Franschhoek and he would take the car to Klapmuts, then the train to Bellville and the bicycle to UWC and he did that for probably 20 years, every day.”

In his very first year at UWC in 1973, Professor Malan joined the progressive and non-racial Staff Association, which existed alongside a conservative, all-white Staff Association, and began taking part, with colleagues and students, in the anti-apartheid Struggle.

He also served the open Staff Association as secretary, and later as chairperson, for several years.

“He was a lovely guy. He really committed his whole life to social justice and was very much involved. Also, I remember as a kid at the time, you know, in those difficult years of the 1970s, when I was young and he started at UWC, he gave us a very strong sense of justice and a moral compass. He was very committed and encouraged us all to make our own decisions, to think critically,” said Dr Malan.

Professor Malan left UWC in 1993 to work as a senior researcher at the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), where he focused on education towards justice and peace, culture and diversity-friendliness, mutual understanding, and conflict resolution wisdom from Africa.

Former Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Emeritus Professor Jannie Malan. Image: Supplied

Stellenbosch University’s Deputy Vice Chancellor: Social Impact, Transformation? and Personnel, Professor Nico Koopman said he met Professor Malan as a student in 1980 when he started his studies in Theology at UWC. “He taught a course on hermeneutics, the science of interpretation of the Bible. He made this difficult discipline intellectually accessible to us. He provided knowledge, values and skills in the field of hermeneutics, interpretation and sense-making that nurture us till today.

“In those years of the apartheid system which attempted to make some people feel inferior to others, he practiced radical equality,” said Prof Koppman.

He said Prof Malan made his students and colleagues feel that they were not only equals but sisters and brothers, beloved and together belong to God as being of dignity, esteem, worth, value and splendour.

”We remember his humble lifestyle on his bicycle with which he travelled to university and his little car with which he gave a lift to so many students. We remember his care for students. A colleague in ministry recalls how Prof Jannie visited him at home and encouraged him to re-commence with his studies and to enter ministry.

“Prof Jannie and I still spoke last year. He then acknowledged his vulnerability and finitude. Though our dear prof Jannie is no longer on earth with us, his love and example will keep on inspiring, illuminating and accompanying us. We remember him; he is again a member; always a member of UWC, and of all of us. Our hearts and prayers go out to his dear ones,” said Prof Koopman.

His children have planned a memorial service for 16 July 2025 at 11am at the Dutch Reformed Church La Rochelle, Meerlust Street, Bellville.

The service can also be followed online at https://www.youtube.com/live/nVXUTVOxHBQ.