Universities of 1976

“…I am frightened, dreadfully frightened, that we may soon reach a point of no return, when events will generate a momentum of their own, when nothing will stop their reaching a bloody denouement which is ‘too ghastly to contemplate’…”

With these words Mphilo Tutu, then Bishop of Johannesburg, implored the then-Prime Minister to lead South Africa into a better dispensation. The letter had been written to Vorster on 8 May 1976. Today we mark the 40^th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising; killings and violence that could have been averted had the authorities heeded Tutu’s words.

Today, 40 years after Tutu’s letter, our university campuses are on a knife edge. One shudders to think that 22 years into our democracy something as horrible as Soweto could happen again. Yet the situation is volatile. Like the students of 1976, our students are angry. Not necessarily against our government but against a system that has not changed much in democratic years.

Many hailed the protests of last October but very few realized that our campuses would never be the same again. People such as Patrick Bond and Shauna Mottair have written on the inevitable link between the endowment of human rights, especially the socio-economic ones, the “rights-talk” environment this creates and the growing demands of South Africans, especially by those who are marginalised.

It is only natural then that students who come into a university community, become conscious of their rights, start to question gross inequalities, structural injustices and the, often, patriarchal and racist responses from our universities’ management.

The anger of our students was palatable at Wits at the beginning of the year, during the #RuReferenceList at Rhodes and the recent occurrences as UCT. Professor Xolela Mangcu joins Dr Sizwe Mabizela and Professor Jonathan Jansen, to mention but two, in being screamed at, insulted, threatened and publically degraded. Our students, like those of 1976, are angry.

Ironically, one may suggest that Mangcu, Mabizela and Jansen come from that generation of ’76. What would they have wanted the then authorities to do? History has taught us that the students demands were against Bantu education and being forced to learn in Afrikaans, among others. But let us imagine for a moment, how they would have articulated those demands.

Maybe firstly to be recognised; as a person. Maybe the students would have wanted to sit down with Vorster and insist on addressing their demands to him directly. Maybe they would have suggested what, who and how they wanted to learn and hear more about in the curriculum. They wanted a transformed education system in South Africa.

Forty years later, our education system has somewhat transformed. It is safe to say that more Black children have gone to university in the last 22 years than ever in this country’s history. Billions of Rands are spent every year both on basic and higher education. No one should doubt our government’s firm determination and commitment to prioritize education and skills development. But somewhere something is going wrong.

While the state can fund, it cannot build the necessary academic environment needed on a university campus. However much it facilitates a research economy, the government cannot develop that pivotal relationship that must exist between academic and student for the production of knowledge. The state resorts to police; university communities, as loci of thought and creativity, must build for themselves social compacts. If one had a socialist state though all of this would be very different.

Instead, like Apartheid South Africa, our universities’ management have responded with the law. Interdicts have been imposed on a number of our campuses around the country; a false sense of security as Apartheid laws were. All interdicts do is put the lid on the pressure cooker. Its attempts to smother, to choke and to suffocate. Yet, as in the South Africa of June 1976, the pressure is building up.

Twice in its history South Africa has had a glimpse of the future it seeks to achieve; what a transformed South Africa looks like. The first was in Kliptown in 1955 and the second was at CODESA in the 1990’s.

Both the Congress of the People and the Convention of a Democratic South Africa brought together South Africans from all walks of life and allowed for all constituencies to sit down together, without the mighty arm of the law hanging over them, to create a new South Africa and forge a social compact.

The Congress of the People led to Sharpeville and eventually Soweto because those who had the power to change the course of history refused to sit down and negotiate with their adversaries. Today we are in the same position. We have interdicts instead of interaction. All, we can do at this stage sadly, is hope that our universities’ management will remember Tutu’s words: Blacks are exceedingly patient and peace loving.

Rhodes, racism, rapists and rules: Further reflections on the student movements (The 1st movement)

The following is a three part series in response to an article written by Adam Habib in January 2016, published in the Daily Maverick, as well as to further reflect on the student movement, as Habib did in his article.

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“Welcome to the real world” were the words of a policeman as he locked up a student in the back of a police van during the April 2016 #RUReferencelist protests at Rhodes University. The words are symbolic of two people at the opposite ends of a protest. The one is a (White), South African male representing the state, the other a (Black) South African woman symbolic of the marginalised.

To the woman, a student at Rhodes, the “real world” is constantly having to live in the fear of being raped and/or sexually assaulted. She cannot wear what she wants. She cannot trust whoever she wants. She cannot just have coffee after a night out with a guy in his or her room. She cannot walk alone. She cannot just smile at a guy (or a girl). Daily she has to be in a society that re-enforces patriarchy. She was raised not to offend. Not to offend the male university management. Not to challenge the male policeman. Not to question the male state.

The policeman welcomes our sister, who has been taught to think and act freely at university, to the “real” world. Read: a male world. Where any “emotional” behaviour (because that is so feminine) which reacts to or challenges the (male) status quo is dealt with in an alpha male reaction. The only “crime” committed by this woman student was that she was “manning” a barricade set-up on a public road. Of course, to the policeman she was just being the lazy, spoilt woman that she is and he was reminding her that she operated in his world: the real world.

In January 2016, Professor Adam Habib offered some reflections on the student movements that had dominated October and November 2015. Currently, we just completed a course on social movements in South Africa at Rhodes University or the University Currently Known As Rhodes (UCKAR). Unlike Habib, this author is comfortable being a stakeholder AND reflecting on it. Unlike the natural sciences, the social sciences have always taught us that subjectivity is not to be dismissed. In fact, we may argue that most of our qualitative research depends on the subjective experiences of subjects. Indeed, we do try and “objectify” them. But I digress.

Intersectionality of persons and issues

Since Habib’s article, we have seen (violent) protests continue at a number of our campuses. Wits, UJ, UCT and Rhodes in particular have even approached the courts to apply for interdicts. Yet unlike Habib, we may suggest that these protests were not limited to October and November 2015 nor were they just about “quality higher education and insourcing of vulnerable workers”. Or even worse: just of “under-funding”.

Rather we would want to suggest that a) the student movement started or became visible on the national (elite) agenda with the #RhodesMustFall movement and b) that, like the intersectionality of the movement, the issues have evolved. We cannot separate the successful fall of Rhodes, from the fallen increase in fees or even from the issues that continue to dominate the student movement.

Old social movements are suggested to be single issue movements. For example, Grahamstown Rates Payers Association will be addressing the same issues that they were fifty years ago in Grahamstown: street lamps, potholes, security in Grahamstown etc. To be a member of the GRA you have to be a resident of Grahamstown. Yet with new social movements we have seen an intersectionality of persons and issues.

Intersectionality in persons means that there is no criteria for membership of the movement. In fact, there is no “membership” per se. No form needs to be filled in. No “sign-up”. No membership fee. In the instance of the “student” movement, you can be a cleaner, a lecturer, an administrator to “belong” or partake in the activities of the movement. However, you come to plenary as equals. Hence, this intersectionality lends itself to all kinds of resources and networks being made available to sustain the movement. Academics tap into their expertise and their networks, as an example.

At the same time the intersectionality speaks to intersectionality of issues too. The student movement takes on a number of issues: symbols and curriculum of colonialism and Apartheid, outsourcing, fees, accommodation, racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity etc. For sure, we could loosely suggest that it’s about “quality higher education” but also it’s about changing the South African society.

Yet intersectionality does have its disadvantages. Who benefited most from the 0% increase in fees? Not the fiscus, the universities nor the poor student but the Barbie living in Camps Bay and the Ken living in Sandton. He upgrades from a 3series BMW to a BMW coupe. She moves from an apartment to a penthouse.

It is best therefore to view it as an evolution of the movement rather than a “fracturing” as Habib describes it. The movement goes into a lull where reflection and articulation takes place. However, factors such as Black nationalism (rather than Habib’s racism) and singling out of specific categories of people does affect the cohesion of the movement’s intersectionality.

For example, during the week of #RUReferencelist protests at Rhodes, a meeting of “males” was called. Never mind that intersectionality deals well with those who don’t define themselves as “male”, this was like calling an all-Indian convention to talk about non-racialism. At this meeting, arranged by “the guys”, “the guys” were expected to talk about the “the girls” issues. As if the solution was in the hands of “the guys” and therefore by “the guys” changing their ways they would “rescue the girls.” This meeting was a blow to intersectionality.

Another example, of the infringement on intersectionality, was a staff meeting called. Many staff members were concerned and wanted to act as a “mediator” between senior management and the students. While some staff members were and continue to be sympathetic to the students, they wanted to “invite” the students to a meeting. Who has the power here? Staff members were hesitant to join students as equals.

Again, a leadership structure (#RUReference List Task Team) emerged which is anathema in new social movements as well as a Black women’s movement meeting was held where a female White student, who was tweeting about the protests, was asked to leave the meeting. 

Singling out identities, such as males, staff, Blacks (whereas up until then there was a large number of White students/survivors participating in the protests but not “in leadership”) was a serious blow to the intersectionality of the movement. One believes this, dividing members of the movement into segments, was more dangerous to the movement than the interdict. Singling out divides, the interdict unites.   

Part 2 and 3 to follow.

Disruption as a continuous link between student protests

Through the sociological lens of liminality, Alves examines how Portuguese boys form their own initiation rites by going on rampages through a Lisbon suburb. The work by Alves is useful in two instances. 

Firstly, it problematizes male initiation rites by pointing out their “harshness” and the re-enforcement of patriarchy. Secondly and more importantly, using Turner and van Gennep, Alves points out that the human person embodies that which is structural and anti-structural at the same time. It is during periods of liminality, which are often “…temporally, spatially and socially ambiguous, unsettled and unsettling…” that the anti-structural trait finds expressionii . 

Khanna et ali introduces us to the idea of ‘unruly’ politics. Some scholars, such as Tarrow express this as ‘unconventional’ politics. Institutions, whether formal or informal, are viewed in terms of “rules-of-the-game”. 

'Unruly politics', as opposed to politics within the rules, occurs where the established institutions are (deliberately) used against the system. The institutions are not necessarily discarded: in Alves’ understanding, structure (rules) versus anti-structure (unruly). It is helpful to perceive unruly politics as amoral and not always necessarily illegal. 

Social movements, unlike their traditional civil society counterparts or old social movements, unfold within this domain of unruly politics. They occur as moments of liminality. Part of the challenge is often that members of the movement act within the anti-structure or “unruly” space. Yet, they do so to embarrass or expose the failures of the structure. Those who respond to activists frequently do so using the structure. We therefore have two groups of people operating in two parallel but incommensurable paradigms. 

Khanna et al mention three ways in which 'unruly politics' manifests. The activism against Rhodes’ rape culture could be situated within these methods. Firstly, they speak of the symbolic. To management, the state and those acting within the structure, the release of the #RUReferenceList and the subsequent “kidnapping” of some of those whose names appeared on the list could arguably be acts of vigilantism. Yet, for the unruly activist the names on the list are symbolic of the rape culture that exists at Rhodes. It was simply known as a “reference list” not a “rapist list”. It is symbolic. 

While the university management defers to the Constitution of the Republic, the law and university policies i.e. institutions or the structure, the bodies of the alleged perpetrators become symbols of patriarchy, oppression and space. Rape is a symptom of patriarchy and oppression. Survivors and activists use the bodies of the alleged perpetrators to claim back their own bodies. This leads us to the second method of unruly politics, as articulated by Khanna et al, that of bio-politics. The climax of bio-politics becomes visible when, for instance, #NakedProtests occur. Note Mani’s work on the protests against rape by officers in the Indian army in the north-eastern state of Assam. Women protested naked, holding banners reading: Indian Army Rape Us. Locally, university managements and the South African Police Service respond through the law and the imposition of interdicts. 

The third method of unruly politics is aesthetic. We see graffiti going up on walls, posters being displayed and barricades, among others, going up. Barricades, again, fundamentally has to do with space. Who claims the space? The space of the campus, the classroom, the body. Von Lieres examines issues of invisibility and often those on the margins, those who are silenced find voice and find space during these episodes of liminality. 

Therefore, during this period of disruption, liminality and engaging through unruly politics, a state of chaos, as it were, is created. It is only during these periods of anti-structure that the structure is exposed. Those undesirable elements of society, usually protected by the status quo or the institutions, the mores, cultural norms and values that exist, are suddenly revealed for what they are. Racism, colonialism, patriarchy, inequality, heteronormativity etc become visible for what they are because they are usually sheltered by the existing rules of the game. 

Graffiti is impure but usually speak truths. #NakedProtest is frowned upon and condemned as ‘public indecency’. This state of chaos therefore facilitates two inter-related processes. The first is that it exposes these truths. “Rapes and sexual assaults happen during shutdown!” shouted the activists when there was talk of an academic shutdown. Students testify how, during last year’s #FeesMustFall campaign, they suddenly came face to face with the misogyny of their fellow comrades. While the fight was against fees and inequality, the reality of gender inequality and sexism reared its ugly head. Similar incidences of sexual assault or gender based violence against female activists were also present during recent protests at Wits. 

The second process that this state of chaos facilities, thanks to the unique feature of intersectionality, is creativity. Intersectionality is unique to social movements where membership is not limited nor the movement issue based. Hence methods employed by activists are creative or “out-of-the-box” due to this state of liminality, but also, and more importantly, the creativity of issues becomes key. Traditional civil society organisations are usually issue based e.g. trade unions deal with workers issues and one must be a worker to belong to a trade union. 

Yet the creativity of the social movement, operating in a liminal space and through unruly politics, allows for issues to emerge that will sustain the survival of the movement. What started off last year as a student movement against a statue has evolved into a movement against colonialism, racism, inequality, fees and now, patriarchy. During each stage of the evolution, the moments of unruliness, new issues emerge and when the movement goes into a lull, as is probably the case at the moment at Rhodes, it is simply a regrouping and the preparation for a new disruption. 

This article first appeared in the May 2016 edition of the Thinking Africa newsletter.