Pretoria wins praise over Sishuwa return
By Mast Reporter
Professor Stephen Chan has praised the South African government for providing Zambian-born historian Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa with a travel document after the Zambian authorities revoked his passport last week while he was briefly visiting the United Kingdom (UK) on academic business.
Chan, a professor of World Politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, is no stranger to Zambia.
In 2022, during the celebrations to mark Africa Freedom Day, he was conferred the honour of the Presidential Insignia for Meritorious Achievement by President Hakainde Hichilema.
The award recognised the community work Professor Chan has carried out for 42 years in Zambia, driving community and youth upliftment through the martial arts and building a sizable national movement in the process.
Prof Chan has however criticised Hichilema over the revocation of Dr Sishuwa’s passport.
He said Dr Sishuwa was a scholar who “worth fighting for”.
“South Africa to the rescue. But once back in SA, at Stellenbosch University, will the South Africans accord him a travel document? This could have rumbling diplomatic consequences. But this scholar and the principle of free speech are worth fighting for,” he wrote on X on Friday.
Prof Chan was commenting on Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono’s praise for the South African government after it issued Dr Sishuwa with a travel document.
Last week, the Zambian government cancelled the passports of Dr Sishuwa and five other foreign-based critics of Hichilema.
The cancellation did not go well with Prof Chan who expressed particular displeasure at the treatment of his fellow academic whose scholarship he praised as “immaculate and rigorous”.
“Zambia’s cancellation of six critics’ passports on national security grounds raises human rights concerns. The cancellation of passports has raised concerns around the world. I should add Dr Sishuwa is a very fine academic,” Prof Chan said.
“As academics we often differ but I hold him up as an example of what Zambian universities can produce: immaculate and rigorous scholarship that can be showcased anywhere in the world. Except that now he cannot go out into the world”, Prof Chan wrote on his X handle.
Dr Sishuwa graduated from the University of Zambia years ago.
He then won a Rhodes Scholarship that enabled him to read for his master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Oxford.
Following his graduation, he returned home to work at the University of Zambia for seven years.
The Zambian-born historian also worked at the University of Cape Town before joining Stellenbosch University where he currently serves as a senior lecturer.
Dr Sishuwa spent the first half of this year at Harvard University in the United States (US) as a visiting professor.
The cancellation of his passport has attracted global outrage from human rights bodies and thousands of academics in Africa, Europe and the US.
