Post-1994 South Africa is founded on the principle of progressive access to privilege. This principle implies that those in the suburbs will continue to live there while those in shacks will be progressively admitted into the ranks of those with houses and amenities. It also implies that those that earn decent salaries will continue to […]
#FeesMustFall
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
‘On a knife-edge’: Anti-blackness and economic violence at Rhodes University
All around South Africa, this is a time where predominantly young people flock campuses, straight out of high school to begin the next chapter of their lives. At the university currently known as “Rhodes”, this was no different. All one could spot were groups of enthusiastic young people parading through campus attending various activities orientating […]
Posted inNews/Politics
#RhodesMustFall: Universities are crumbling under the hegemony of youth morality
The burning of assets at UCT is not solely about the vandalism of property, but rather the depreciation of the sum total of parts that make an education valuable. It is safe to say that many students do not want knowledge primarily for knowledge’s sake; if that were the case then many more might consider […]
Posted inNews/Politics
#ZumaMustFall: Whose hashtag is it anyway?
In the build-up to the #ZumaMustFall marches on December 16 (Reconciliation Day), a number of critical voices came to the fore. I wondered whether some #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall activists were perhaps not proprietary in their response to the new hashtag and the planned marches, which appeared to be driven largely by white, middle and upper-class […]
Posted inNews/Politics
‘You are killing your children’
November 13 was a cool summer’s night. Students and university workers gathered in the park over the road from the University of Johannesburg to partake in a peaceful vigil against police brutality and in continuation of the #FeesMustFall protest. They hoped it would not rain as the vigil was to last a few hours. A […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Decolonisation and the end of white male hegemony
Western civilisation has, since the dawn of patriarchy, privileged white masculine reasoning and meanings and depreciated the experience, knowledge and voices of women. With the advent of colonialism people indigenous to the Americas, Africa and other colonised lands, were also brutally constructed as less than human, “othered” and devalued by this monolithic white masculinist logic. […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
On violence: Whose bodies matter?
By Barbara Boswell Violence is never acceptable. In a democracy, where legal instruments exist as a remedy to injustice, the use of brute force to seek and maintain power or settle scores is abhorrent and unacceptable. Yet we live in a country saturated with violence. Violence is in sharp focus as it spills over into […]
Posted inEquality
When institutional integrity trumps student rights
We have seen many frightening, exhilarating and liberating things over the last few months in South Africa. Student protests have swept the country and grabbed international attention for pushing back against an unjust and exploitative economic model. Since the announcement that there will be a 0% hike in student fees in 2016, some campuses have […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Revolution, Minuted
The revolution will be bureaucratised Sanitised, civilised Minuted in committee With truth sitting pretty Waiting for approval by sub-committee By the executive with every consecutive directive, objective Formalised, circumscribed You might wonder why We even tried We even cried For positive change For positive days… — (colony)
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Are violent protests cleansing, like Fanon said?
By Liezille Jacobs and Julian Jacobs Frantz Fanon, often referred to as the psychiatrist who prescribed violence, would turn in his grave at the condemnation of the student protests because he believed overcoming oppression could be realised through a violent uprising of the masses. Fanon said the slave thinks of overthrowing his master while being […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The burden of black privilege
By Sinegugu Ngwenya What an absurd notion. How offensive. What an insensitive response to a people deep in struggle. The thought of privileged blacks is a spit in the face of the “underprivileged” badge we so rightfully wear. For years I despised everything that happened to me, how I was reduced to melanin. From a […]
Posted inNews/Politics, Tech
Could compulsory UKZN laptops be a game-changer?
On May 7 this year Renuka Vithal, University of KwaZulu-Natal’s deputy vice-chancellor of teaching and learning, sent out an internal email indicating that the university would be adopting Moodle as its on-line learning management system. All disciplines would be required to place first and second-year module material online. And first and second-year students would need […]