In response to the controversial Men’s Res anthem, “I smell pussy”, the wits alumni office aims to replace that war-cry with something more positive.
The Wits Alumni Society is aiming to unite Witsies by choosing a new anthem that Wits can be proud of and that creates a reinvigorated sense of team spirit.
Students, staff and alumni around the world are encouraged to send their punchy and funky new war-cry options that people can learn easily, and that Witsies will sing for years to come.
The new war-cry will be launched in September, replacing less favourable war-cries,in the hopethat all Witsies will be singing it for the new sports season.
The competition will starton July, 20 and end on August, 15. There are prizes to be won, worth R10 000.
Wits Vuvuzela previously covered the story of members of the Men’s Residence singing a war-cry with lyrics saying “I smell pussy” at a rugby match earlier in the year. This prompted the Alumni office to discuss why students would want to sing a song like this, it was determined that it was because there are no official war-cries at Wits.
The Wits Gender Equity Office previously said that itwill be implementing “systemic holistic intervention programmes” in residences next semester in response to Men’s Residence’s war-cry lyrics.
Historically, the Wits war-cry was an important part of inter-varsity competition however, most songs would not be favourable today as they were highly Eurocentric and concentrated more on varsity rivals.
Wits has not had an official war-cry since the 1960’s.
Students are encouraged to submit their lyrics to warcry.alumni@wits.ac.za from now until the end of July. More information can be found on posters that will be put up at the end of the mid-term break.