The core activities associated with the #Fees Must Fall (FMF) movement in South Africa may be understood as forms of “disruptive power” (Piven [2006]. Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America. Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers). By illuminating the fluid nature of student–worker solidarity in the related #Outsourcing Must Fall (OMF) campaign at the University of the Free State (UFS), the article argues that the specific historical context and politics that underpin “disruptive power” should be given greater emphasis. Drawing on original empirical research including in-depth interviews and observation, the article explores two major demonstrations at UFS: its shutdown in late October 2015 and the occupation of a rugby field (during a homecoming game) by black students and workers in February 2016. The findings reveal that the ability of students and workers to disrupt the normal activities of others on campus, to put universities on hold, enables them to access power. It is concluded that “disruptive power” remains a method which students and workers should continue to employ at South African universities in order that the gains made by both FMF and OMF are extended, rather than reversed.
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In this chapter, we read the 2015-2016 #MustFall movement as an “event” in Badiou’s sense of the word. Employing Badiou’s (2005, 2013) interpretive scheme, we suggest that the #MustFall movement fractured the appearance of regularity of the South African higher education landscape to such an extent that it can be considered the kind of ‘event’ that Badiou defines as “something that brings to light a possibility that was invisible or even unthinkable. [It] is, in a certain way, merely a proposition. It proposes something to us” (Badiou, 2013:9-10). Reflecting on a long-term research project on ‘transformative student citizenship’ that started in 2011, we argue that the #MustFall movement’s contemporary emergence and forms of political action that disrupted the functioning of the social order can be perceived as a demand for ‘retreating’ rights. We suggest that the ‘event’ breaks with established power’s control over what should or should not be considered possible. While established power institutes and sustains this distinction through the use of state apparatus and capital, the ‘event’ extracts the possible from the impossible: “the ‘event’, for its part, will transform what has been declared impossible into a possibility” (Badiou, 2013:11). Though much work needs to be done within the realm of what is pragmatically possible, the case for a free, ‘decolonised’ higher education system has most certainly been snatched from the realm of the impossible. We tentatively explore what possibilities are proposed by #MustFall–The Event. For this chapter, #MustFall–The Event will designate the protests prior, during and after the 2015-2016 student ‘uprising’. This ‘uprising’ nearly brought the country to a standstill and temporarily disrupted the appearance of social stability. Mainly peaceful, productive and unsettling, the protests were also accompanied by violence, damage to property, intimidation and bullying across a wide spectrum, and political opportunism and proprietary inclinations of all sorts. Our analysis here does not make any judgements in these regards, nor will it attempt to provide an explanatory historical interpretation. These matters are well-traversed in a large number of opinion pieces as well as substantial studies such as Free Fall: Why South African Universities are in a Race against Time (Ray, 2016) and Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa (Booysen, 2016). Instead, we make a modest attempt at formulating the possibilities that have been opened up by #MustFall–The Event. To do so, we briefly provide a context for positioning student politics and protests within broader societal processes. We then proceed to read the #MustFall movements as a Badioun ‘event’, followed by an exploration of #MustFall–The Event as an instance for ‘retreating’ rights. In conclusion, we contemplate the implications of our analysis for the discourse on social justice.
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This article analyses the 2015 student mobilizations in South Africa (SA), which arose in opposition to a 10% hike in tuition fees planned for 2016 at the University of Witwatersrand (WITS) and spurred a massive student reaction across all the universities of the country. After only 10 days of mobilization, the protest, also known as #FeesMustFall by virtue of the most popular Twitter hashtag associated with it, succeeded in halting the hike. How and why did the protesters win? To answer this question, this study combined various qualitative methods of analysis. The author carried out in-depth interviews with all the relevant actors involved in the issue, and analysed documents relating to the movement elaborated by the students in the year of the protest (2015), as well as the main policy documents on higher education in post-apartheid South Africa (1994-2016) released by the government. The author argues that massive and disruptive student protests play a crucial role in 'young' democracies, as is the case of today's South Africa, in which higher education is still considered an important societal issue, and university-level students a legitimate political actor. Where students are perceived as a legitimate element of the political system, it is more likely for them to have an impact on society.
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Global Labour Journal
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This article explores the forms of popular politics that rose out of massive student protests in South Africa at the end of 2015. By delving deeper into the way higher education has been structured in post-apartheid South Africa, the author explains the ways in which race and class privilege have been reified in South African universities. The spatial location of the university within South Africa and the place of the university within the African continent is not reflected in institutional culture of higher education but is deeply embedded in the student protests. By exploring the collective decision making structures of students the author explores students growing lack of faith in higher education institutions to effect any transformational change.
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Students’ protests against fees are not new in post-apartheid South Africa, especially in historically black universities. However, many of these protests were not widely covered in the mainstream media, raising questions in this report about who is worth media coverage. Jane Duncan (2016) argues that the media’s coverage of protests depends on who is involved and whether or not the protest is violent. Duncan (2015: 142) asserts that the media tends to focus mainly on violent protests, ‘creating the impression that the protests in South Africa are inherently violent, and that police action against them is warranted to protect property and public safety’. Student-led protests gained momentum in 2015/16 and spread across the country. The #FeesMustFall movement sparked heated debates on fee increases in universities. Other demands by students included the decolonisation of the educational system, transformation of universities to address racial and gender inequalities in terms of staff composition, as well as insourcing of general workers. The protests generally started peacefully within various universities, supported by academics and other concerned stakeholders. The message was clear that the costs of higher education were too high and unaffordable for the majority of poor black students. The #FeesMustFall movement was widely supported but things changed, especially when protests started turning violent. What form(s) did the violence take during #FeesMustFall? Why and how did it happen? What were the triggers of violence or the sequence of events leading to protests turning violent? Did the lack of positive response from broader university management structures and the state contribute to violence during the protests? How did the #FeesMustFall movement start at each university? Who were the key figures involved? What were the gender dynamics within the movement? How exactly did things start in 2015? What changed between 2015 and 2016? What were the sources of divisions within the movement? When did protests turn violent for each university? Did the actions of the police provoke violence? What are the lessons that can be learned from these protests, especially ways in which they can be managed and contained in future in order to prevent violence? These questions motivated the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation to undertake the current study to explore the dynamics of students’ protests in order to understand the manifestations of violence and the sequence of events within each university during #FeesMustFall. This report provides analyses of the #FeesMustFall protests in nine universities: the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), University of Zululand, Rhodes University, University of Limpopo(Turfloop Campus), Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), University of Cape Town (UCT), University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Student researchers were recruited to conduct research and write a report for each university. Some of the researchers were studying at these universities; others were not. Recruiting researchers who were students at the universities facilitated gaining access to key informants, especially protesting students who were highly paranoid about being interviewed by individuals whom they did not know. Some of the researchers were also actively involved in the protests, which helped them to provide an insider perspective. These student researchers were encouraged to be highly reflective about their own subjectivity, biases and lived experiences of being #FeesMustFall activists, while simultaneously researching the movement. However, not all researchers were students at these universities, and this initially posed challenges in gaining entry to key potential participants. Some interviewees were deeply suspicious about being interviewed, suspecting that the researchers might be informers due perceived militarisation of campuses which resulted in many student leaders being arrested. The researchers used their networks within their own universities to connect with other key informants from other universities. The process then snowballed into connecting with other protesting and non-protesting students as well as with informants such as general workers and union representatives. Individual and group interviews were conducted with student protest movement leaders, Student Representative Council (SRC) members, and protesting and non-protesting students. The majority of the participants interviewed were students, although there were also interviews with academic staff members, general workers and security officials. University management officials were not interviewed as the focus of this study was only students’ reflections and accounts of their participation or non-participation in the protests. Archival information such as official social media accounts, news articles and academic sources were also consulted in order to understand how the media was reporting on the protests. The main aim of each report was to prioritise the voices of the students and to uncover their views about politics, decolonisation, the violence, the tensions and contradictions that emerged out of the #FeesMustFall movement.
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The Role of Racial Division in the #FeesMustFall Movement: Exploring students’ personal experiences of the protests and the racial division in the #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa
South Africa experienced a wave of student protests from 2015 and onwards. The #FeesMustFall movement became the forerunner of student protests and continued its fight for free higher education for all through several protests each year. This thesis explores the views and perceptions of the #FeesMustFall movement’s participants by focusing on two key aspects. The first part explores how race played a role in the movement, including the division of roles and spaces based on race. The second part explores to what extent the movement and its protests affected students’ personal lives. In addition, this thesis explores why and how students participated in the movement, as well as why some chose not to participate. Through the theoretical framework of Relative Deprivation Theory, this thesis considers how the movement and its supporters have changed throughout the time. By focusing on Individual Relative Deprivation and Group Relative Deprivation, the thesis seeks to understand why and how students participated in the movement. The main research sources in this thesis is qualitative interviews that express the experiences and views of the research participants at a specific time, it is not a research goal to generalise the findings. The student movement has brought up issues of race and roles, defining who can be members (non-White students) and who can be supporters (White students). By doing this the movement indicate a change in how student movements operate in present-day South Africa. Through the conceptual framework of Black Consciousness, African Renaissance and Afrocentric Paradigm, as well as the theoretical framework of Critical Race Theory, this thesis emphasises the participants voices, both Coloured, White and Black voices. Because it is their story, and not mine, to tell. The personal experiences of the participants vary, but they all have in common that their experiences are highly personal and sensitive. I explored the issue of race in the movement and among its participants, which is also a personal issue and topic. One of the key findings in this study was the division of roles based on race. Non-White students (Blacks, Coloureds, Indians) could be active members, while White students only could be supporters. In addition, the focus and perceived need for a Black Space was evident in my findings. The data was gathered during a two-month fieldwork in Cape Town, through qualitative, semi-structured research interviews. I conducted interviews with students, or former students, at universities in Cape Town about their experiences of and from the movement.
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PArtecipazione e COnflitto. The Open Journal of Sociopolitical Studies
