tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/feesmustfal-21802/articles#feesmustfal – The Conversation2019-07-25T09:06:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1206152019-07-25T09:06:39Z2019-07-25T09:06:39ZUniversities in South Africa need to rediscover their higher purpose<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285296/original/file-20190723-110187-165debr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The demand for free higher education is one of the key factors that have led to competing waves of thinking and organisation in the sector. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For over two decades South African higher education has been dominated by three successive and contending waves of thinking and organisation. They are: <a href="https://ifaaza.org/2017/06/27/neoliberalism-and-the-crisis-in-higher-education-in-south-africa/">neo-liberal managerialism</a> the <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/ersc/v7nspe/01.pdf">decolonialisation of knowledge</a>
and, most recently, the idea of a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-04-15-universities-have-pivotal-role-to-play-in-fourth-industrial-revolution/">Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)</a>. </p>
<p>By promising to “transform” higher education, each has taken centre stage at universities – or sections of them – by pledging greater value for the taxpayer (neo-liberalism); social emancipation (decolonisation); or greater access to employment (4IR).</p>
<p>The first wave follows Ronald Reagan’s “reform” of the Californian system which saw decreased state funding for universities. This was taken up by UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Her funding policies encouraged British universities <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7rs23">to adopt</a> business management practices. It also involved gearing degree offerings to the requirements of “the market”. </p>
<p>In South Africa, the second was symbolised by the March 2015 protest at University of Cape Town over the stature of Cecil John Rhodes. The movement has been marked by (sometimes violent) demands for a reform of curriculum away from the western “canon” and towards African epistemologies. Politically, it has been characterised by demands for <a href="https://africasacountry.com/author/michael-nassen-smith?fbclid=IwAR0eVWvAqVuQLzG6m2Ak5zXTTMpHXCqnEK9gifLFmiZCNUrB4v5oF1Opgcc">free higher-education</a>.</p>
<p>The third has been propagated by the World Economic Forum and across the world by the champions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the digital revolution. In South Africa this wave has been promoted especially by the University of Johannesburg. This perspective holds that AI and machine-learning will dominate knowledge and knowledge-creating deep into the present century. All academic disciplines should, therefore, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj34cmAwsjjAhW7TBUIHcFID6QQFjAAegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.weforum.org%2Fabout%2Fthe-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab&usg=AOvVaw3kwk4_AkuLByXbZTLohp_8">be geared to this end</a>.</p>
<p>But there has been very little public discussion about the contradictions between the three moments.</p>
<p>South African higher education remains remarkably detached from society. Its loss of a social purpose can be seen as the erosion of the public and civic vitality which once fuelled the anti-apartheid struggle. Today, its mission has shrunk. </p>
<h2>Why is there this disconnect?</h2>
<p>The answer is simply that policies and incentives disadvantage the deep connection with the communities in which universities are located. They also emphasise peer-reviewed articles in internationally ranked journals as the measure of excellence. And they lead to a focus on educating students for high-paying jobs. They have little to do with positioning the welfare of society at the core of their scholarship, teaching, and public connections. </p>
<p>Put differently, higher education in the country doesn’t fulfil its <a href="https://www.aacu.org/crucible">civic potential</a>. It has no real social purpose.</p>
<p>There are contrasting examples internationally. For instance, <a href="https://www.u-tokai.ac.jp/english/">Tokai University</a>, the leading STEM university in Japan, has a vision and mission grown from its founder’s philosophy – Professor Shigeyoshi Matsumae. His life goal was to create a university where young people and faculty would have sustained, deep interactions with <a href="https://www.u-tokai.ac.jp/english/about/founder.html">social purpose</a>. </p>
<p>Tokai University is implementing this philosophy. It has intensive citizenship education on all eight of its regional campuses for 7,000 entering first year students. It plans to expand this to 30,000. </p>
<h2>The true purpose of universities</h2>
<p>In the minds of faculty, administrators, government and business leaders, South African universities service two important, but limited, activities.</p>
<p>The first is to prepare students for jobs. The second is to conduct research that treats social communities more as objects of study than as knowledge partners. This approach excludes the development and support of civic agency from scholarly purpose. </p>
<p>Even disciplines that encourage research aimed at enhancing well-being – economics, is <a href="https://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2013/05/what-is-wrong-and-right-in-economics.html">the best and worst example</a>
– are deeply flawed. The emphasis is on technical skills and emulating models of prosperity that are based on individual rational choice as the motivator of human agency. </p>
<p>The hard truth is that higher education contributes to societal erosion when expert-knows-best approaches displace civic agency. This is because experts are often far removed from the needs of community development. </p>
<p>Alarmingly, too, teaching and research with public purpose have been squeezed out. </p>
<p>Higher education which prepares students for res publica – for the community – or in local terms, <em>ubuntu</em> – the community-confirming idea that we are human because of other humans – has been replaced. Instead what South Africa has is education suited for a res idiotica – in the Greek, a private and isolated person. </p>
<h2>What can be done?</h2>
<p>Fortunately, a growing literature points towards strands of <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/university-press/book/9780826520364">civic revival in higher education</a>. And there are a growing number of examples of a recovery of civic and democratic purposes in higher education.</p>
<p>Moreover, two broad streams of thinking are establishing new platforms for exchange, experiment, and social change. One is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field that has emerged under the broad rubric of<a href="https://www.bttop.org/resources/publications/civic-studies"> “Civic Studies”</a>. </p>
<p>This encourages research and real-world projects which integrate empirical, cultural, and political knowledge as resources for community agency, societal co-creation and human flourishing. One example is the US-based <a href="https://www.margainc.com/aitf/">Anchor Institution Task Force</a>. This involves more than 700 universities and colleges which use their economic, physical and educational resources for community development. </p>
<p>One of the key elements of civic studies is public work, a framework of social action developed in partnership with other organisations. These include the <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/university-press/book/9780826522177">Institute for Democracy</a> in South Africa and other international partners. </p>
<p>Cultural evolution is the other stream. This provides resources for civic reconstruction of higher education. Key to this approach is the <a href="http://evonomics.com/the-only-woman-to-win-the-nobel-prize-economics-debunked/">work</a> of the late Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom, a co-founder of civic studies. Working with a network of international colleagues on collective governance of common pool resources, she refuted the rational individualism which has held sway over a great deal of social science across the world. </p>
<p>Her work helped in the <a href="https://wtf.tw/ref/ostrom_1990.pdf">translation</a> of cultural evolution science to meet the challenges of improving human societies.</p>
<p>Civic studies and cultural evolution show that human societies can succeed through cooperative efforts within and across groups. But this is only possible when members understand and pursue their interests with conscious regard for the well-being of all.</p>
<p>Higher education needs to take on this insight because it’s indispensable for revitalising human agency, flourishing communities, and active democracy. </p>
<p>It will also re-frame scholarship, teaching and public engagements. This needs to be in pursuit of ensuring that scholarship becomes an integral part <em>of</em> democratic life, not simply as a partner <em>with</em> society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s universities are detached from society because of a waning public and civic sector that once fueled the anti-apartheid struggle. Here’s what can be done.Peter Vale, Senior research fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of PretoriaHarry Boyte, Senior Scholar in Public Work Philosophy, Augsburg UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/795142017-06-15T13:43:35Z2017-06-15T13:43:35ZYoung South Africans aren’t apathetic, just fed up with formal politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174002/original/file-20170615-3453-tz20z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children marching on the
anniversary of the Soweto uprising.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s youth-led movements such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/feesmustfall-the-poster-child-for-new-forms-of-struggle-in-south-africa-68773?sa=google&sq=fees+must+fall&sr=8">#FeesMustFall</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-student-protests-are-about-much-more-than-just-feesmustfall-49776?sa=google&sq=RhodesMustFall&sr=5">#RhodesMustFall</a> provided contrasting view to perceptions that young people are apathetic and disinterested in the future of their country. But the protests didn’t quite dispel concerns about their lack of political involvement, particularly during elections where there’s been <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/131652/this-is-the-biggest-reason-why-young-south-africans-arent-voting-next-week/">low youth voter turnout</a>. </p>
<p>So we asked young people what they thought about politics. Our research involved focus groups with South Africans aged between 15 and 25 years of age from very different backgrounds. Sampled areas ranged from the rural Eastern Cape, to peri-urban Orange Farm and middle class Kensington, a Johannesburg suburb, amongst others. </p>
<p>Our findings challenge the widely reported perception that young people in South Africa are despondent and don’t care about politics or their role as citizens. What emerged from our research was a picture of young people with strongly defined opinions and knowledge of current affairs. Many said they were involved in some kind of civic activity. </p>
<p>All of the participants expressed a distrust of formal politics. But they also said they have a keen interest in the future of the country and are staking their claim in forging that future, albeit in different and new ways. </p>
<p>What was clear from the research is that young South Africans are engaging with politics very differently to the way in which young people got involved in the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">1976 Soweto uprising</a>. They have found new platforms and ways to share information, make their voices heard and ultimately be politically engaged on the back of growing internet based communication, especially social media. </p>
<p>In 1976 young people taught South Africa that they can’t be ignored. They are a powerful force that can shift the course of a country’s future. Today’s youth are no different. They are interested and engaged. </p>
<h2>Distrust of formal politics</h2>
<p>The people in our focus groups expressed distrust of formal political mechanisms such as voting, demonstrations, and membership of political parties. </p>
<p>Most indicated that they held little faith in the current leadership of the country. They found political leaders to be self-serving and disinterested in them and their communities. While they enjoyed watching parliament in action, this was because it provided entertainment value rather than serious content.</p>
<p>The discussions laid bare why many young people don’t vote. Most expressed alienation from all of South Africa’s political leaders. They said they didn’t know who they could trust or which political party would serve their interests. </p>
<p>As one put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well, there’s ANC, an old promising party who is no longer keeping its promises, then follows the DA which is led and dominated by white people and you’d think when they are in power they may neglect us and care for whites only and also there is Malema who we think is going to corrupt us, so you just think it’s better not to vote.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They also said they didn’t see any point in voting given that there seemed to be little relation between what politicians said they would do versus what they actually did. A common sentiment is reflected in these quotes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is the point in voting? Nothing ever changes anyway. </p>
<p>We are not going to vote either because it’s not going to make a difference.</p>
<p>Personally for me I would vote for a party that I have seen making the biggest difference but everyone is fighting in parliament and they are not going out and making the difference that they are supposed to. And when it comes to voting time then all the municipalities jump up and start to do what they were supposed to do. I think that’s the thing. We don’t know who to vote for because no one is making a big difference.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This distrust and alienation often means that young people opt out of formal political processes such as voting and engagement with political parties. </p>
<p>But this should not be read to infer political disinterest and apathy. On the contrary, young people have found other ways to voice their opinions. </p>
<h2>Different approaches</h2>
<p>Social media is widely used, across the spectrum of youth interviewed, both to voice protest as well as to engage on issues they care about. And many said they have heated face-to-face discussions with their peers about key issues, particularly those affecting their own communities. All these approaches were more appealing, meaningful and accessible than political party membership and voting.</p>
<p>They also held very fervent issues-based views. The focus groups prompted heated debates about xenophobia and the role of foreign nationals in their communities. The participants also felt strongly about common challenges in their communities such as substance abuse, crime and teenage pregnancy. </p>
<p>Our research shows that young people are thinking about key issues in their communities and that they’re getting involved, particularly where issues affect them directly. The difference between this generation and the 1976 generation is that they’re doing so in non-formal ways. </p>
<p>The #feesmustfall campaign is a good example of this. It arose out of an issue that directly affected the lives of many young people. They did not feel that formal democratic processes served them, leading them to engage in a wave of protests driven largely by social media engagements across campuses. </p>
<p>Political parties trying to win the youth vote need to reconnect with where the majority of young people are, more so because young people will continue to form potentially the biggest proportion of the voter base at least until 2050. It’s time the country stopped stereotyping them as apathetic, disinterested and morally bankrupt and started engaging them in ways that are meaningful to them, and connect with the issues they’re interested in. </p>
<p>_This article was co-authored with Lauren Stuart, Thobile Zulu and Senzelwe Mthembu.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79514/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This study was funded by the University of Johannesburg's Faculty Research Committee and and University Research Committee as well as through a small grant made by Prof Valerie Möller of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University.</span></em></p>It’s time South Africa stopped stereotyping its young people as being disinterested and morally bankrupt and started engaging them.Lauren Graham, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Social Development for Africa, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/679942016-11-06T10:42:02Z2016-11-06T10:42:02ZNew partnerships are needed to arrest economic malaise in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144038/original/image-20161101-11456-147hqfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa needs to forge new partnerships between government, business and civil society. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>South Africa’s Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan presented his 2016 mid-term budget on the back of a crisis in higher education funding characterised by widespread national student <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/gordhan-meets-students-ahead-of-mini-budget-20161026">protests</a>. The Conversation Africa’s business and economy editor Sibonelo Radebe asked Steve Koch to weigh the minister’s speech</em>.</p>
<p><strong>What is your reaction to the minister’s statements on funding higher education? Could he have done better?</strong></p>
<p>The minister’s statements were well calculated, measured, and responsible in the current climate. The additional increase in <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/mtbps/2016/">National Student Aid Financial Scheme</a> funds should go quite some way towards improving access to post-school education. </p>
<p>Assuming “better” means finding money to fund “free education for all, immediately”, the answer is no. Despite what student activists would like to believe, <a href="https://theconversation.com/quality-free-university-education-is-necessary-and-possible-53654">free education for all</a> is pro-rich. This is because, disproportionately, students who qualify for post-school education come from richer households. </p>
<p>The answer is a more nuanced “maybe” if “better” means finding more money to help poor students fund their tertiary education. There are options, not necessarily palatable to all, such as <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2016-02-11-economic-crisis-anc-considers-privatising-eskom-freezing-posts">privatisation</a> of state-owned enterprises, which might raise revenue and reduce pressure on the fiscus. But changes of that nature would not be made in a medium-term budget. They would more likely feature in the State of the Union Address.</p>
<p><strong>What should be done to address the higher education crisis in the long term?</strong></p>
<p>There appear to be two components to this crisis. The one that appears to have driven the initial #<a href="https://theconversation.com/quality-free-university-education-is-necessary-and-possible-53654">FeesMustFall</a> movement is that post-school education is relatively expensive and, even though funding for post-school education is one of the fastest rising budget items, student numbers have risen faster.</p>
<p>The bigger problem is that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-can-expect-zero-growth-its-problems-are-largely-homemade-62943">economy</a> has not grown fast enough to absorb workers for far too long. Students or their parents are left with potentially crippling debt and yet limited prospects to repay. Dealing with this will require some creativity, and a willingness to experiment to engender positive change in the economy. In my view, positive change requires opening up space and creating funding opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesspeople, while working to limit “rent-seeking”. Corruption, bribery and collusion are common forms of rent-seeking, which is the use of a position of power (political, economic or otherwise) to further your one’s own interests.</p>
<p>But one of the undercurrents of the current crisis is political, not economic. There is a desire for change, period. Thus, we see the rejection of democratically elected student council representatives, the rejection of current <a href="https://theconversation.com/decolonise-more-than-just-curriculum-content-change-the-structure-too-44480">curricula</a> and the rejection of socially accepted rules of engagement, among other things. Dealing with this will have to go far beyond the structures of a medium term budget. </p>
<p><strong>What do you think credit rating agencies are taking out of this budget?</strong></p>
<p>The medium term budget did not signal any big changes in policy associated with either large increases in budget deficits or long-term debt. And the minister was adamant that South Africa was able to control its own destiny.</p>
<p>These were important pronouncements because they underscored a commitment to budget sustainability. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/businesstimes/2016/09/20/Moodys-says-could-downgrade-South-Africa-rating-if-growth-below-forecasts">credit rating agencies</a> are likely to take solace from this. But the minister is not capable of changing the economy overnight. And there are international risks, as well as local economic and political risks, beyond his control that remain important factors in credit rating decisions. Politically, uncertainty surrounding the minister’s continued appointment, as well as any potential replacement’s commitment to sound fiscal management, remains. Similarly, uncertainty surrounding the US Presidential elections, and the US’s continuing commitment to either free trade or Africa cannot be discounted. Economically, Brexit and the resultant relationship between Europe, the UK and Africa create further uncertainties about South Africa’s growth potential.</p>
<p><strong>Given the prevailing political environment do you think the finance minister will achieve what he has set out to do?</strong></p>
<p>One way to define the minister’s job description is that he has the responsibility to pay – sustainably – for activities that government would like to fund. He spoke about the realities of the local and international economic situation. He also restated the importance of creating a South Africa that was different (and far better) than the one inherited in 1994. </p>
<p>The reality is that government’s ability to directly fund new activities has decreased. But if business and civil society become more involved, government’s need to directly fund new activities will decrease. </p>
<p>For me one of the key takeaways was the message that the country’s full potential requires not just the government, but also the efforts of the private sector and civil society. If I’m reading this correctly it could herald the beginning of positive change in the economy and society. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether this theme permeates future government policy actions, or whether business and civil society begin to work with government and each other to achieve positive change. But the minister’s efforts are likely to open fiscal space, and, therefore, could help achieve what is required.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Koch receives funding from the World Health Organization, National Research Foundation and Economic Research Southern Africa. </span></em></p>A lot was expected from the South African finance minister’s 2016 medium term budget which came amid an unfolding economic crisis including the higher education funding gap.Steve Koch, Professor of Economics, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/665182016-10-19T14:56:39Z2016-10-19T14:56:39ZJustifying the use of violence to fight social injustice is a recipe for disaster<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141970/original/image-20161017-4749-o3rt5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela depicted on church wall in west London. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toby Melville/Reuters </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa is reaping the bitter fruits of violence: both apartheid’s and the African National Congress’s armed struggle.</p>
<p>At his 1964 trial for treason Nelson Mandela set out the basis for the African National Congress’s (ANC) decision to use violence to fight the violence of apartheid. At one stage he <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/i-am-prepared-to-die">stated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This conclusion, My Lord, was not easily arrived at. It was when … all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of struggle.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At round about the same time across the Atlantic Ocean in the US, Martin Luther King <a href="http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/Vol03Scans/414_4-Nov-1956_Pauls%20Letter%20to%20Amer%20Christians.pdf">wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It would be both cowardly and immoral for you patiently to accept injustice…. But as you continue your righteous protest … be sure that the means you employ are as pure as the end you seek. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using love as your chief weapon. Let no man pull you so low that you hate him. Always avoid violence. If you sow the seeds of violence in your struggle, unborn generations will reap the whirlwind of social disintegration.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>South Africa’s university <a href="http://www.2oceansvibe.com/2016/09/27/the-staggering-stats-on-damage-caused-to-sa-universities-during-the-student-protests/">campuses are burning</a> as students protest, demanding <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/university-funding-5277">“free</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/decolonisation-debate-is-a-chance-to-rethink-the-role-of-universities-63840">decolonised</a> education”. Those students using violence, inter alia, argue that justice demands the use of such violence and that in effect it is a form of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-student-protests-in-south-africa-have-turned-violent-66288">self defence</a>. </p>
<p>Should they heed Mandela, or King?</p>
<h2>A violent society</h2>
<p>There is an all pervasive presence of violence and contempt for human life in <a href="https://africacheck.org/spot_check/factsheet-south-africas-201516-crime-statistics/">South Africa</a>. Nothing illustrates this more graphically than <a href="http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-southafrica.html">abortion statistics</a> and the <a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/guide-rape-statistics-in-south-africa/">rape</a> of children. </p>
<p>Extrapolating from King’s words, it would be difficult not to conclude that the ANC’s prescription for fighting apartheid was shortsighted. It also did not grasp King’s insights about the inevitability of reaping what one sows when opting for violence. </p>
<p>Crucial to King’s thinking was that violence has a life of its own. The ANC, for its part, believed that the consequences of the decision to use violence could be controlled and managed. </p>
<p>Even more fundamentally, the ANC failed to grasp or understand the full consequences of justifying the use of violence to achieve a “noble” end. One consequence of this is that it provided the generations that followed the justification to use whatever means necessary to achieve their “just” ends. </p>
<p>In the 1980s I was often a defence advocate in <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/index.php/publications/1632-the-ritual-of-the-necklace.html">“necklace”</a> murder trials. Necklacing involved forcing a tyre over the shoulders of a person accused of collaborating with the apartheid government. The tyre, doused in petrol, would then be set alight. Necklacing as a means to cast off oppression was, to paraphrase King, “the end in the making”. </p>
<h2>Feeding the tyrant</h2>
<p>The point King makes is that once one opts for violence as a strategy to fight injustice, the devastating consequences will prevail for a long time afterwards.</p>
<p>His point was that meeting violence with violence only serves to feed the tyrant. To apply King’s challenge to South Africa, the aim should have been to starve the violence of the twin tyrant of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/national-party-np">Nationalist Party</a> (the party of apartheid) and white capital through militant non-violent civil disobedience.</p>
<p>Even when the ANC was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/2/newsid_2524000/2524997.stm">unbanned in 1990</a> it refused to abandon the “armed struggle” until it achieved its ends, as Anthea Jeffery writes in her book <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Peoples-War-Anthea-Jeffery/9781868423576">People’s War</a> (page 462). In this way it continued to feed the tyrant of violence which diminished the value and dignity of all human life. </p>
<p>Thousands of people were murdered between 1990 and 1994, many by the forces of the Nationalist Party, but many also by a brutal fight for power leading up to the 1994 elections between <em>inter alia</em> the ANC, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1992/WR92/AFW-08.htm">IFP</a>, Pan Africanist Congress and Azanian People’s <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/war-between-azapo-and-udf-popular-violence-1980s-and-1990s">Organisation</a>.</p>
<p>And then in 1994 there was an attempt to preach reconciliation, love, tolerance and nonviolence. But, by then, morally speaking, the nation had been grievously damaged. It had been dehumanised by apartheid, and the use of violence to fight it. It had been established on the hatred central to the use of violence.</p>
<p>The evil of apartheid combined with the ANC’s decision to fight violence with violence, and to use violence in its own internal conflicts, was a toxic cocktail. The results are still with us today.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141979/original/image-20161017-4735-12fzfez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters in front of a barricade during a fees protest at the Vaal University of Technology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is evident in the violent turn the student protests have taken. A student recently stated on national television that the only option open for the protesters was to use violence, or to threaten the use of violence, until their demands were met. </p>
<h2>Taking the high road</h2>
<p>King’s aim was to shame the racists, to stir their consciences. Fundamental to this was the belief that hatred and violence should be met with militant non- violent action. Crucially, this also meant being prepared to take the full consequences of such action. These consequences included imprisonment, beatings and even death. </p>
<p>If South African students were to embrace King, I have no doubt that those with economic power would be shamed and their consciences stirred. The overwhelming majority of ordinary South Africans also would come out in open support for the just cause of making tertiary education accessible to the poor and powerless.</p>
<p>South Africa’s students could make a significant contribution to the nation’s moral regeneration if they disavowed violence and took the high road espoused by King. </p>
<p>As a nation we are still reaping the fruits of the violence of apartheid and the use of violence to fight it. South Africa’s students can help the country break that cycle. And is it not central to the call of university students to say no to the status quo, in this case the use of violence, and to provide a new and better way? </p>
<p>A concluding thought by King is also cause for further reflection: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It (the nonviolent approach) does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=TU_HozbJSC8C&pg=PA423&lpg=PA423&dq=the+nonviolent+approach+does+something+to+the+hearts+and+souls+of+those+committed+to+it.+It+gives+them+new+self-respect&source=bl&ots=TXu5eIyzP_&sig=8Qv-SVA6f_dlv9ASdRjM3TZTPNk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKw57KveHPAhVKD8AKHZjxDQUQ6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q=the%20nonviolent%20approach%20does%20something%20to%20the%20hearts%20and%20souls%20of%20those%20committed%20to%20it.%20It%20gives%20them%20new%20self-respect&f=false">self-respect</a>.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Matthee SC does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South African universities are aflame as student protests for free education turn violent. But, would a non-violent approach, as preached by Martin Luther King, be more effective in their cause?Keith Matthee SC, Senior Counsel and PHD theological student at the University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/609762016-06-15T09:31:13Z2016-06-15T09:31:13ZStrategic lessons South Africa’s students can learn from the leaders of 1976<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126544/original/image-20160614-22383-bci5v9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soweto schoolchildren protest against Afrikaans in 1976.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.aamarchives.org/file-view/category/44-apartheid.html?start=20">Anti-Apartheid Movement Archive, Bodleian Library, Oxford UK</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This month forty years ago, thousands of Soweto school children took to the streets to <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">protest</a> the racism and inadequacy of Bantu Education. That moment has come to symbolise the role that young people have played and can play in shaping South Africa’s political discourse. It remains a touch point for student activists today. </p>
<p>The marches in June 1976 took shape around a unifying issue of immediate importance to the students: the imposition of Afrikaans as a teaching medium in black classrooms, whose curriculum was dictated by the then Department of Bantu Education. </p>
<p>Images from the march are filled with posters proclaiming “<a href="http://www.gutenberg-e.org/pohlandt-mccormick/archive/detail/DSCN2080.jpg.html">To Hell With Afrikaans</a>” and “<a href="http://www.gutenberg-e.org/pohlandt-mccormick/archive/detail/DSCN1817.jpg.html">Vorster and Kruger are rubbish</a>”. This refers to John Vorster, the prime minister of South Africa and one of apartheid’s architects, and his police minister <a href="https://www.google.co.za/search?q=jimmy+kruger&rlz=1C1CHWA_enZA634ZA634&oq=Jimmy+Kruger&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.804j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Jimmy Kruger</a>. </p>
<p>The juxtaposition of these claims is an important one. It speaks to how Soweto children began to straddle the space between local and immediate concerns and a national political agenda. This enabled them to transcend the issues of their classrooms and rejuvenate the struggle against apartheid on a national, and indeed international, scale.</p>
<p>Forty years later South Africa is again in the midst of a political movement led by students - this time on university campuses across the country. Today’s student activists are often compared to the generation of 1976. In mass marches through Johannesburg and Pretoria the form of their protest has prompted the <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/fee-must-fall-protest-reminiscent-1967-uprising">comparison</a>. </p>
<p>In their articulation of ideologies like <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/The_meaning_of_Black_Consciousness_by_Ranwedzi_Nengwekhulu.pdf">Black Consciousness</a> they echo some of the key thinkers of that period. But their <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-student-protests-are-about-much-more-than-just-feesmustfall-49776">protests</a> remain largely constrained by the campuses on which they happen. In light of these struggles, it is useful to consider how the students of 1976 tackled similar problems.</p>
<h2>The Afrikaans issue</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://africanhistory.about.com/od/apartheid/a/AfrikaansMediumDecree.htm">Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974</a> declared that in black schools across South Africa Afrikaans must be used equally with English as a medium for teaching non-language subjects like mathematics and social sciences. </p>
<p>Students and teachers alike struggled to teach and learn in a language for which they were ill-trained and ill-equipped with textbooks and other materials. </p>
<p>Historian Helena Pohlandt-McCormick has written that the Afrikaans medium policy “<a href="http://www.gutenberg-e.org/pohlandt-mccormick/PM.c5p3.html">embodied everything that was wrong with Bantu Education</a>”. She points to its disregard of sound pedagogy, and, more importantly, of the voices of the parents, teachers, and learners on whom it was imposed. </p>
<p>By the middle of the 1976 school year, students had organised themselves in individual protests. Many focused on the imposition of Afrikaans, others addressed student-teacher relations and corporal punishment at individual schools.</p>
<p>They were inspired and encouraged to connect these issues to the broader political system by a range of influences in their homes, communities, and classrooms. Among these were university students who had been “conscientised” through the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/definition-black-consciousness-bantu-stephen-biko-december-1971-south-africa">Black Consciousness Movement</a> and expelled from rural “bush” universities during waves of protest in 1972 and 1974. The most prominent of these was <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/abram-ramothibi-onkgopotse-tiro">Ongkopotse Tiro</a>.</p>
<p>After Tiro was expelled from the University of the North (today the <a href="http://www.ul.ac.za/">University of Limpopo</a>, outside Polokwane), where he was a prominent student leader and Black Consciousness proponent, he took up a job teaching history at Morris Isaacson High School in Soweto.</p>
<p>Though he was fired in 1973 and killed in exile in Botswana in 1974, some of his students, including <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/teboho-tsietsi-mashinini">Tsietsi Mashinini</a>, became key leaders in the 1976 uprising. </p>
<h2>Addressing structural oppression</h2>
<p>Tiro and other young teachers encouraged their students to connect the particular grievances of their own situation – the inequities and injustices of Bantu Education – to the structural oppression meted out by the apartheid state. </p>
<p>This was a lesson students brought to their organisation of the protests on 16 June, and one that played an increasingly important role in the weeks and months that followed. Students in the Soweto Students Representative <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/soweto-students-representative-council-ssrc">Council</a> (which compromised many of the student leaders who had organised the June 16 march) called for their parents to stay away from work, and to boycott white-owned shops and products. By August the committee focused its energies on organising a student and worker stay away for the end of the month. According to Sibongile Mkhabela, a member of the SSRC, this was intended to achieve </p>
<blockquote>
<p>more than only a march. […] This was the day to hit the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Open_earth_and_black_roses.html?id=MP4wAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">white economy</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A few months later students rallied their families to participate in a Black Christmas to mourn those who had been killed by police since June. </p>
<h2>June 16 forty years later</h2>
<p>University students of 2015-16 have some key things in common with their 1976 predecessors. They have changed the tenor and shape of political discussion around education in South Africa, more effectively than any other single movement since 1994.</p>
<p>They have re-interrogated the ideologies that animated students in 1976. Their engagement with <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-bikos-black-consciousness-philosophy-resonates-with-youth-today-46909">Black Consciousness and Biko</a>, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-fanon-continues-to-resonate-more-than-half-a-century-after-algerias-independence-43508">Fanon</a> and with <a href="https://theconversation.com/sobukwes-pan-africanist-dream-an-elusive-idea-that-refuses-to-die-52601">pan-Africanism</a> has led to a movement to <a href="https://theconversation.com/decolonising-the-curriculum-its-time-for-a-strategy-60598">decolonise</a> universities’ faculty and curricula. </p>
<p>But today’s students have struggled to move their activism beyond universities. Not withstanding significant gains in the movement to end the exploitative practice of <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2016-01-13-three-reasons-why-feesmustfall-protests-will-continue">outsourcing jobs on campuses</a>, for which the Fallist movements of 2015-16 deserve a great deal of credit, student movements today have yet to create enduring alliances with workers outside the university, or with school students. </p>
<p>Beyond shared ideology, the 1976 generation, and, perhaps even more so, the university students of the early 1970s who taught and inspired them, may offer some strategic lessons. </p>
<p><em>The author is co-editor of <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/students-must-rise/">Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto ‘76</a> published by Wits University <a href="http://witspress.co.za/">Press</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Heffernan's position is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She observed and participated in the October-November 2015 FeesMustFall protests. </span></em></p>Forty years after the students uprisings of 1976, South Africa is again in the midst of a political movement led by students.They have changed the tenor and shape of political discussion around education.Anne Heffernan, Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow NRF Chair: Local Histories, Present Realties., University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/521692015-12-18T04:41:54Z2015-12-18T04:41:54ZGetting to grips with why race is still a divisive issue in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106573/original/image-20151217-8065-rh8ody.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Young South Africans are angry with the failure of the country to deal with racism.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The title of South African newspaper editor Ferial Haffajee’s book, <a href="http://panmacmillan.co.za/book-author/ferial-haffajee/">What If There Were No Whites In South Africa?</a>, is provocative on many levels. The title alone is likely to evoke an emotional and visceral reaction from people across the colour divide. </p>
<p>Responses could range from: “good, that will solve all our problems”, to: “yes, then we will see how things deteriorate”.</p>
<p>The timing of the book, and the topic, speak to deepening, divisive <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/uploads/files/POSITION_PAPER_ON_RACE_AND_IDENTITY_FINAL_DRAFT.pdf">race consciousness</a> in South Africa, 21 years after the dismantling of apartheid.</p>
<p>The author describes 2015 as a tumultuous year in the country’s history, punctuated by <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/university-fees">protests</a> and <a href="http://mybroadband.co.za/news/internet/132398-here-is-where-south-africas-racists-chat-online.html">racist</a> incidents and attacks.</p>
<p>In grappling with controversial sociopolitical issues around antagonistic <a href="http://www.ijr.org.za/uploads/IJR_SARB_2015_WEB_002.pdf">race relations</a> in South Africa the author draws from her personal, sometimes intense experiences and insights.</p>
<p>She shares her story as a black women, and successful journalist, forging a space in an emerging democracy. For <a href="http://whoswho.co.za/ferial-haffajee-2616">Haffajee</a>, the political is <a href="http://www.biznews.com/transformation/2015/05/25/city-press-editor-ferial-haffajee-i-am-a-critical-patriot/">intensely personal</a>. It is the weaving together of these two strands that gives the author’s perspectives and insights great impact.</p>
<h2>White privilage holds centre stage</h2>
<p>The central thrust of the book is compelling. It argues that black South Africans, especially the new generation of young, black <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2015/04/29/south-african-born-frees-still-in-chains-irr">“born frees”</a>, are obsessed with whiteness and white privilege.</p>
<p>What emerges from the author’s reflections, discussions and research, is that angry – often polarising debates – about the ideology of whiteness now dominate national conversations and social media platforms. They also featured prominently in the enraged voices of the recent wave of <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/university-fees">student protests</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105846/original/image-20151214-9497-kh5vqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105846/original/image-20151214-9497-kh5vqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105846/original/image-20151214-9497-kh5vqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105846/original/image-20151214-9497-kh5vqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105846/original/image-20151214-9497-kh5vqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105846/original/image-20151214-9497-kh5vqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105846/original/image-20151214-9497-kh5vqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pan McMillan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The author taps into the psyche of the new generation of influencers through roundtable discussions and conversations with key young thinkers, pacesetters and elites. </p>
<h2>Debunking the myths</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://rhodesmustfall.co.za/">#Rhodes Must Fall</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/university-fees">#Fees Must Fall</a> student movements started out as causes relating to specific student issues. But they have escalated into a multiplicity of concerns. </p>
<p>The narratives that dominate the public space have morphed into intractable deeper questions about <a href="http://www.ijr.org.za/uploads/IJR_SARB_2015_WEB_002.pdf">social justice and inequality</a>. These are underpinned by the grand narrative of entrenched white supremacy in South Africa. </p>
<p>She goes on to say that this grand narrative, shared intergenerationally across race groups and manipulated for political expediency, is gaining traction. </p>
<p>Haffajee argues that this angry fixation on whiteness is limiting, backward looking, constrains agency, and is disempowering on many levels.</p>
<p>She debunks the many myths and distorted perceptions in the public domain concerning white dominance and power. The main storyline of this “false consciousness” is that whites and blacks perceive their numbers as roughly equal. Therefore, transferring the power of whiteness to black people would provide the panacea for the country’s woes. </p>
<p>These distorted narratives belie the statistical evidence that whites are a declining small minority, down from 10.95% of the population in 1996 to <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0302/P03022014.pdf">8.4% in 2014</a>.</p>
<p>And there would be little impact on distribution if the wealth of white people was nationalised and their resources distributed to black South Africans.</p>
<h2>What still needs to be done</h2>
<p>Haffajee recognises that South Africa is not truly transformed. She emphasises that white privilege and arrogance, informed by apartheid, colonialism and patriarchy, are still deeply entrenched, sharing her personal encounters with these.</p>
<p>She asserts that acknowledgement by whites of their privilege and an apology for the past is both necessary and desired by black South Africans. </p>
<p>What she cannot understand is how “freedom’s children” – the new generation of bright, articulate, motivated and educated young black people – define themselves. They see themselves as a disempowered minority seemingly confronted with the distorted perception of an overwhelming and oppressive white majority. </p>
<p>She argues that this means they have lost sight of the many gains that have been made since the advent of democracy; the rapid mobility of a growing black middle class, a substantial welfare net and a better life for many.</p>
<p>The disempowering narrative is played out against what the author describes as a powerful “black political kingdom” where the governing ANC controls extensive swathes of the economy and polity. It rules with a massive support, has huge financial muscle with spending capacity of R500 billion a year.</p>
<p>The author harbours deep conflict about the self-limiting discourse. The white dominance narrative is clearly at odds with her hard-won, middle-class freedoms and the black world that she perceives she inhabits. But she resists becoming part of the “self-satisfied elite” and finds comfort in the angst that prompts her to question her thinking.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105845/original/image-20151214-9515-1hupng5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105845/original/image-20151214-9515-1hupng5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105845/original/image-20151214-9515-1hupng5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105845/original/image-20151214-9515-1hupng5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105845/original/image-20151214-9515-1hupng5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105845/original/image-20151214-9515-1hupng5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105845/original/image-20151214-9515-1hupng5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ferial Haffajee.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She provides perspectives on possible causes of the whiteness obsession, observing that it is much easier to slip into victimhood – the default language of powerlessness – than claim the space, use the influence and authority to shape society. </p>
<p>The author quotes from the writer and scholar, R.W. (Bill) Johnson, who charges that the massive failures of governance in South Africa are a humiliating blow to black self-esteem. The worse this sense of failure:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the more passionately the “liberated” ego needs to vent itself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Desperately threatened egos can result in anti-white racism, anti-Semitism, a hatred of “outgroups” and increasing discrimination.</p>
<p>Haffajee vacillates between optimism. Among promising factors are the positive outcomes of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/university-fees">student protests</a>. And pessimism – the rampant corruption, mismanagement and abuses by the government. </p>
<p>It is this tension and self-doubt that permeate the book. The worthy, noble struggle for deep social justice by millenials in South Africa is juxtaposed against the disempowering narrative of “whiteness”, presented by the next generation as responsible for the burden they face.</p>
<p>These competing narratives make the book a challenging read. The reader is left feeling deeply ambivalent, still seeking answers to the provocative question posed by the title.</p>
<p>This is perhaps the purpose of the book. It provokes the hard, uncomfortable conversations about the “unfinished business of colonialism and apartheid” that South Africans must have if they are to move forward together as a nation. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="http://panmacmillan.co.za/book-author/ferial-haffajee/">What If There Were No Whites In South Africa?</a> is published by Pan Macmillan.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lyn Snodgrass does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The central thrust of Haffajee’s book is compelling. It argues that black South Africans, especially the new generation of young, black ‘born frees’ are obsessed with whiteness and white privilege.Lyn Snodgrass, Associate Professor and Head of Department of Political and Conflict Studies, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/505332015-11-12T03:31:23Z2015-11-12T03:31:23ZSouth Africans want the Springbok coach fired – is he just a whipping boy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101552/original/image-20151111-21214-1yaev2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African rugby coach Heyneke Meyer sings the national anthem at the World Cup. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters / Eddie Keogh</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The narratives of South African rugby are complex and profoundly intertwined in the politics of race, ethnicity and identity. This is why there are competing and divisive storylines in the communal memory of the nation’s rugby history.</p>
<p>These evoke collective emotions of anger and humiliation for many, and deep pride for some. But, as with all deep-rooted conflict, rugby is not only about <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=2gZVA6qePtwC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=identity+politics+in+SA+rugby&source=bl&ots=87BucBGwVl&sig=wc5xqHh-V31WmxpQTcpq6czCvbg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAWoVChMIwcTFoaCByQIVxh4eCh0-DAmP#v=onepage&q=identity%20politics%20in%20SA%20rugby&f=false">“identity politics”</a> and participation. It is also about fierce competition for status, power and resources. </p>
<p>Since Springbok coach <a href="http://www.sarugby.net/component/players/20732?view=player">Heyneke Meyer</a> and his team brought home the bronze medal from the recent Rugby World Cup, debates around the sport, and more particularly his future, have reached a new pitch. </p>
<p>South Africans were disappointed by the team’s performance. But they are also angry at continued economic and social injustices. These two emotions have created a tense environment.</p>
<h2>Rugby as a site of struggle</h2>
<p>South Africa’s rugby administrators are facing increased criticism for their failure to shed the sport’s white image. This is not a new issue. But the tone of the debate is different this time.</p>
<p>The reason for this is that the country is experiencing a paradigm shift in its political landscape, demonstrated by widespread student <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/university-fees">protests</a>. Starting with the <a href="http://rhodesmustfall.co.za/">#RhodesMustFall</a> campaign earlier in the year, the protests culminated in the recent victory of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-student-protests-are-about-much-more-than-just-feesmustfall-49776">#FeesMustFall</a> movement.</p>
<p>The threat of escalated conflict is the worst since the country’s first democratic elections. With deepening <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-will-remain-a-hugely-unequal-society-for-a-long-time-25949">inequalities</a>, severe <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/P02111stQuarter2015.pdf">unemployment</a> and poor economic <a href="http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/country-notes/southern-africa/south-africa/">growth</a>, it may be impossible to assuage the anger that has erupted.</p>
<p>In this mix rugby, a highly prized national sport, is under intense scrutiny for its slow pace of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-view-on-the-rugby-world-cup-and-south-african-national-unity-47653">institutional change</a>. </p>
<p>This is why the impending negotiation for renewal of coach Meyer’s four-year contract with the South African Rugby Union has become part of a highly politicised national conversation.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/Springboks/ex-boks-launch-heyneke-must-fall-campaign-20151107">#MeyerMustFall</a> Twitter campaign is in full swing. Instigated by ex-Springbok players who see Springbok rugby as in decline, it reflects the prevailing protest mood of the country.</p>
<p>And the country’s largest trade union federation, <a href="http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=11060">Cosatu</a>, has demanded that Meyer be removed for poor performance and alleged racism in his team selections. It also wants half of the national rugby side to be made up of players of colour, rising to 60% of the majority black Africans come the 2019 World Cup. And it threatened to protest against the lucrative <a href="http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/Cosatu-End-rugbys-boere-clique-20140909">sponsorships</a> that underpin the sport if the targets aren’t met.</p>
<h2>What Mandela knew</h2>
<p>From the onset of democracy South African rugby was destined to be contested terrain. Illustrative of the deep cleavages in South African society, it is the sport most identified with Afrikaner <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/early-history-rugby-south-africa">nationalism</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/early-history-rugby-south-africa">colonial elitism</a>.</p>
<p>Prior to apartheid in 1948, rugby was played by both black and white South Africans, albeit separately. After segregation was <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/early-history-rugby-south-africa">institutionalised</a>, black South Africans could not play for, or against white teams, nor be selected for national sides. They were also denied access to rugby pitches and training fields.</p>
<p>Despite its divisive baggage, the sport has the ingredients to be the catalyst for deep transformation that speaks to unity and nation-building. The late Nelson Mandela knew this.</p>
<p>During his incarceration Mandela and the late Steve Tshwete, who would become the first sport minister under Mandela’s presidency, developed the idea of using rugby as a tool for <a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/index.php/component/virtuemart/springbok-factory-detail?Itemid=6">reconciliation</a> between the various political factions imprisoned on Robben Island. The Island Rugby Board was born in <a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/index.php/component/virtuemart/springbok-factory-detail?Itemid=6">1972</a> with organised refereed matches. Matches between black prisoners and white prison warders were also played.</p>
<p>And etched in the memories of all South Africans is Mandela in the green-and-gold number six <a href="http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/Springbok-Heritage/1995-RWC-squad-honoured-for-greatest-day-in-SA-rugby-history-20150624">Springbok jersey</a> handing captain Francois Pienaar the winning World Cup trophy in 1995. Hosting and winning the Rugby World Cup that year was a pivotal and iconic event in the psyche of the country’s shiny new democracy. </p>
<h2>Why rugby has to change</h2>
<p>Meyer, like all coaches, is the media face of South African rugby. The executive council, the Rugby Board, does not receive the same level of scrutiny. As a household name, Meyer alone bears the brunt of scathing criticism, and as such, is the receptacle for the nation’s anger and disappointment. </p>
<p>Given the prevailing mood in the country, Meyer is now the scapegoat for all the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/article-3222958/South-Africa-Rugby-World-Cup-2015-preview-Heyneke-Meyer-opts-experience-bid-save-Springboks-legacy.html">rugby woes</a> besetting the country. The danger is that he is simply a repository for displaced anger and a distraction from the complexity of the real challenges facing the sport. Issues of change, or what is known in South Africa as transformation, are multi-faceted, systemic and intractable.</p>
<p>South African rugby is accused of <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2012-11-22-is-south-african-rugby-racist">racism</a>, <a href="http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/WorldCup/Dismal-failure-to-transform-SA-rugby-court-papers-20150831">maladministration</a> and a <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/sport/columnists/2013/08/15/rugby-needs-professional-managers-and-fewer-unions">bloated bureaucracy</a> not in keeping with modern, sophisticated, global rugby management. More importantly it has not been able to harness, mobilise and adequately develop <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2015/08/27/saru-should-put-funds-to-good-use-and-develop-rugby-at-grassroots">grassroots support</a> – schools and clubs in marginalised communities – where the potential for its growth lies.</p>
<p>Rugby in South Africa is potentially worth billions of rand and its importance to the nation’s economy, global branding and <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-view-on-the-rugby-world-cup-and-south-african-national-unity-47653">nation-building</a> immense. But the country’s rugby audience and following is ageing. The sport’s success, possibly survival, depends on expanding its support base beyond the 20%, mostly white, of the population who say they are interested in the sport.</p>
<p>South African rugby is inextricably intertwined with larger debates of social justice, participation and identity currently trending in the country. It is clear that the future of the sport thus lies far beyond the #MeyerMustFall debates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lyn Snodgrass does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s rugby administrators are facing increased criticism for their failure to shed its white image. The tone of the debate is different this time, amid growing protests against inequality.Lyn Snodgrass, Associate Professor and Head of Department of Political and Conflict Studies, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/497762015-10-27T07:04:30Z2015-10-27T07:04:30ZSouth African student protests are about much more than just #feesmustfall<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99797/original/image-20151027-5004-1g5tl68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesting students make their way through South Africa's capital city, Pretoria.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kartaba/22409701965/in/photolist-A6Ziqm-A9gzDP-zcpnhg-zUTjtL-zUZ3w2-zfBc98-AbjyQJ-Aacuyw-zfBa6v-AbjwvU-zfB8up-zft25C-zfB6Y8-Abjtjy-zUTbz9-zUZ5Xz-zfB3St-zfsWsm-AcutLH-Adss8B-AcurWv-Adsqqi-zUUpFA-AbjiuJ-AacenE-Aacdxd-zUUkWG-zcgKAb">Paul Saad/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sembene Ousmane’s <a href="http://wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/godsbitsofwood.htm">harrowing novel</a> God’s Bits of Wood has been on my mind a lot lately. It explores the political dynamics underpinning the 1947 railway workers’ strike in Dakar, Senegal. </p>
<p>The novel’s potency lies in more than its analysis of the workers’ oppression. Ousmane crafts an intersectional examination of the strike’s socioeconomic implications. He weaves his plot cleverly around the themes of gender and sexual relations as well as the dismantling of patriarchal arrogance and complacency. All of this means that you can’t read the novel from a single perspective.</p>
<p>This is not a book review. But the intersectional dynamics Ousmane examines in God’s Bits of Wood have taken on a corporeal form for me during the protests nicknamed #FeesMustFall. The book offers an important way of explaining something about these protests, which I have taken part in every day for the past 13 days and counting.</p>
<h2>No single issue protest here</h2>
<p>Our protest is not just about “one thing”, even if that ubiquitous hashtag suggests otherwise. It is inherently intersectional, spanning various yet interrelated sociopolitical and economic issues. </p>
<p>It is, firstly, about access to equal and quality education. It is about teasing out the ever-so-confusing intricacies of class relations in post-apartheid South Africa. It is about eradicating the painful exclusions and daily micro aggressions which go hand-in-hand with institutional racism within these spaces. </p>
<p>And it is also about laying bare the failures of the heterosexual, patriarchal, neoliberal capitalist values which have become so characteristic of the country’s universities.</p>
<p>These may seem like disparate ideological positions. They aren’t. They all address the conditions of structural disenfranchisement under which many non-white and non-privileged students and outsourced workers languish on a daily basis in these institutions. The #RhodesMustFall, #OpenStellenbosch, and #FeesMustFall student movements, to name just a few among countless others throughout the country, have all been galvanised by the need for access to those opportunities through which we can improve our lives and those of our loved ones.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99697/original/image-20151026-18458-1h57jgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99697/original/image-20151026-18458-1h57jgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99697/original/image-20151026-18458-1h57jgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99697/original/image-20151026-18458-1h57jgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99697/original/image-20151026-18458-1h57jgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99697/original/image-20151026-18458-1h57jgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99697/original/image-20151026-18458-1h57jgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A student proves that there’s more than one issue behind the so-called #feesmustfall protests.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Katlego Disemelo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Education for liberation</h2>
<p>Contrary to what some people have opined, education is a human right. It <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=72">says so</a> in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-south-africas-freedom-charter-60-years-later-43647">Freedom Charter</a>, a document adopted in 1955 by the South African Congress Alliance to outline liberation movements’ core principles. </p>
<p>The Freedom Charter is bandied around at the convenience of the governing African National Congress (ANC) during election season. Long before it was in government, the ANC’s thinkers and leaders believed passionately in the role of education. In Lebogang Rasethaba’s documentary Prisoner 46764: The Untold Legacy of Andrew Mlangeni, ANC stalwart Mlangeni emphasises that the ultimate outcome of education is liberation. </p>
<p>That is precisely why we have been marching, singing, occupying and rebelling against the hateful policies and processes that continue to exclude thousands of non-white and non-privileged youth from so many institutions of higher learning in this country. We seek and demand liberation from poverty, racism, classism, sexism, and patriarchy because these are the very techniques of power which keep our people in continual debt and economic enslavement. </p>
<p>We are fully aware that education is our sharpest, most effective tool through which we will achieve that liberation. </p>
<p>Over the past two weeks I have witnessed an incredible rise in solidarity and a single-minded focus on that liberation. Students, workers and academics throughout the country have set aside petty squabbles and ideological differences in its name. I have witnessed the skillful distribution of scant resources – food, sanitary towels, medication, legal aid – in the name of that liberation. </p>
<p>I have witnessed strangers pouring milk and water into students’ teargassed eyes in the name of that liberation. I have witnessed fellow comrades studying on cold, concrete floors in the name of that liberation. I have also witnessed students cleaning their own toilets, corridors and lawns for that very liberation. </p>
<p>And I have watched South Africa come to a standstill, peel off the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/opinion/the-end-of-the-rainbow-nation-myth.html?_r=0">rainbow-coloured</a> bandage, and take a deep look into its festering abscesses so that we may, hopefully, address what we mean and what is stake when we talk about liberation. </p>
<p>These are a few of the aspects in the #FeesMustFall movement which will not gain any traction in the mainstream media. Blood, tears and images of marauding crowds make headlines. The dissolution of structural racism and disenfranchisement do not. But I shall set aside those misrepresentations of “violence” and vandalism for a moment so that I can make this clear: while the offer for 0% fee increase in 2016 is a hard-won and very welcome gain, it only marks the beginning of our fight for free, equal and quality education. </p>
<p>This fight, mind you, is neither, destructive nor divisive. It is a fight that is geared towards ensuring that we too can liberate and empower ourselves – and those around us – through education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katlego Disemelo receives funding from the University of the Witwatersrand and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.</span></em></p>Don’t let the name fool you: the #feesmustfall protests at South Africa’s universities are about far more than a single issue. A student who has been deeply involved in the protests explains.Katlego Disemelo, PhD candidate, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/494522015-10-20T13:07:15Z2015-10-20T13:07:15ZFive trends South Africa’s universities must reject if they really want change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99009/original/image-20151020-32225-ghlj6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students protest outside one of the University of Cape Town's main administration buildings.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Imraan Christian</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s no surprise that student movements are shutting down university campuses all over South Africa. More than two decades have passed since the advent of democracy and change in higher education appears to be stuttering. </p>
<p>Students and many academics are fed up with high fees, a teaching body that remains <a href="https://africacheck.org/reports/how-many-professors-are-there-in-sa/">stubbornly white and male</a>, and a curriculum that needs more relevance in an African country.</p>
<p>But I think it is a mistake to reduce this to a single story. This student movement is not just a call for change at institutional level. It is a reaction to the failure of the human capital model of education. We must look at how demands for free education and more black professors are part of a larger critique of crass capitalism in society.</p>
<p>South Africa’s national conversations are increasingly dominated by economic growth <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-doesnt-end-with-piketty-five-policies-that-could-reduce-inequality-in-south-africa-26199">discourses</a> – at the expense of policies and actions that are pro-poor. The language of the free market has become the norm in public fora. The state’s main function seems to be lubricating the way for big business in the vain hope that this will eventually lead to improved lives for the masses through the laughable notion of <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42986.0">trickle-down economics</a>. </p>
<p>It’s important not to neglect the potential that higher education institutions have to fight back against these forces.</p>
<p>There are many ways in which university structures can challenge the value systems of big business and the state. To do so, academia must say “no” to many processes that are fast becoming ubiquitous in our institutions. Here are five of these processes – and an exploration of how universities can reject them.</p>
<h2>Outsourcing</h2>
<p>It makes no financial sense for universities to run their own gardening, catering, maintenance and security divisions. Many universities globally and in South Africa have <a href="http://www.ihep.org/sites/default/files/uploads/docs/pubs/outsourcing.pdf">outsourced</a> these functions.</p>
<p>But it makes enormous moral and educational sense not to outsource. Scholars do not attain their understanding of the discipline of history or physics simply through access to the great minds of their professors and textbooks. Their educational progress is made possible, at least in part, by the people who prepare their meals, clean the floors and <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-10-06-rhodes-must-falls-busy-week-instalment-two-marching-against-outsourcing/#.ViYB3LSqqko">mow the lawns</a>. </p>
<p>If we truly believe that universities have a responsibility to develop critical citizens, then they have a concomitant responsibility to instil gratitude for those who make it possible and empathy with all lives around them. Universities must model what collegial, caring, decent employment looks like: it is the antithesis of the business model of outsourced “peripheral tasks” that’s taken hold at South Africa’s institutions.</p>
<h2>Performance management</h2>
<p>Following <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/03/universities-league-tables-distorting-research">international trends</a>, performance management has been implemented with a vengeance at many universities. If it can’t be listed on an Excel spreadsheet and contribute to a Key Performance Area, it didn’t happen. The notion that everything can and should be counted undermines the academic project in multiple ways. </p>
<p>But, not having a numeric measure of targets and achievements should not be the way in which academics who neither teach with commitment nor produce research avoid censure. </p>
<p>We need to have accountability and transparency – but we also need to have the nuanced understanding that the university is a complex system. Even within the academic staff there is, and needs to be, a wide array of focus areas and realms of expertise.</p>
<h2>Research backhanders</h2>
<p>Most South African universities reward researchers financially for <a href="http://che.ac.za/sites/default/files/publications/kagisano9.pdf">their output</a>. This could be money paid into a research account or, at some universities, part of one’s salary.</p>
<p>But research is fundamental to the university’s endeavour of contributing to knowledge, solving social ills and providing quality teaching. To give rewards for research and ignore other academic responsibilities like teaching and community <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-universities-obsessed-with-research-heres-what-falls-between-the-cracks-938">engagement</a> reinforces the hierarchy of academic work. </p>
<p>It leads to numerous <a href="https://theconversation.com/dishonest-academics-may-make-students-think-plagiarism-is-acceptable-45187">unintended consequences</a>, such as a perverse incentive for individualistic, un-collegial behaviour. Why mentor a junior colleague through co-publication when that would mean halving the money with her?</p>
<h2>Executive deans</h2>
<p>Academic management must change regularly and needs to strongly represent the voice and needs of a faculty’s staff and students. For deans to genuinely reflect the interests of these constituents they need to be active members in touch with the realities of the academy. They should be producing research and guiding postgraduate scholars. They should be invested in returning to these academic roles after their term of office. </p>
<p>This assumes that senior academics will be willing to put up their hands and take on these roles, secure in the knowledge that their colleagues support and trust them. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-deans-of-universities-need-help-to-become-better-leaders-48275">Most universities</a> in South Africa now hire executive deans, paying huge salaries to people who may bring an expertise in business management but have little knowledge about research production or concern for the transformation agenda.</p>
<h2>Rankings</h2>
<p>One major thrust in the “university as business” models is the ranking of universities in a competitive list. We are no longer a public sector working together to achieve a public good by contributing to knowledge and preparing skilled critical citizens.</p>
<p>Instead, we are a set of businesses trying to maximise our <a href="https://theconversation.com/ranking-african-universities-is-a-futile-endeavour-46692">brand value</a>. </p>
<p>Universities should be focused on how we function together as a sector rather than spending their energy on improving rankings.</p>
<h2>A battle ahead</h2>
<p>The university where I work has been able to hold out on all of these issues. </p>
<p>Perhaps this is because of its small size, or because both its previous and current vice-chancellors have been compassionate leaders who put people and the intellectual project above all else. But we should not rest on our laurels and assume it will retain these characteristics. </p>
<p>The university is just one small social structure. That doesn’t mean it has to replicate the injustices of broader society. As a sector, we must work together now as never before to resist the dangerous construction of higher education as big business.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sioux McKenna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Students and academics are fed up with the situation at South Africa’s universities. One way to improve conditions is for universities to be run as institutions of learning – not big businesses.Sioux McKenna, Professor and Higher Education Studies PhD Co-ordinator, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.