By Michelle October What a time to be alive, students revolting and the flames of rebellion licking at the doors of the colonisers. The Rhodes Must Fall movement’s reignited its efforts and burning historic artworks at the University of Cape Town. This activism could just as easily be airlifted and placed outside Parliament’s doors because […]
#RhodesMustFall
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
In defence of Rhodes Must Fall
By Andrew Verrijdt It’s hard to justify the destruction of historical and cultural items that Rhodes Must Fall is undertaking, and I’m not going to. But how many of us have taken the time to find out what this current protest is actually about? It may interest one to know that the most immediate cause […]
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 inEquality, General
Language, belonging and the decolonial moment at South African universities
In recent months the spotlight has, yet again, been shone on universities in South Africa. This time, the focus was on the fact that leading institutions (all of whom were previously designated as for “whites only”) remains largely untransformed. This time around, though, the focus was not only on numbers (even though that remains an […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Redressing Rhodes’ legacy
When Rhodes fell in South Africa it reverberated globally. His statue, gazing over a changed country, is a metaphor for modern-day South Africa. Even though the country’s transition was relatively bloodless, its change mostly peaceful, and its black majority theoretically free; the Rainbow Nation’s democratic achievements are fiercely contested. The inherited systemic inequality, made worse […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Statues will fall: A critique of four newspaper columns
The Sunday Tribune carried four articles on April 12, 2015 analysing the Rhodes Must Fall debate in the context of transformation in general. Thank goodness for Shose Kessi’s brilliant analysis that saved those pages from being completely out of touch with activist sentiment on the ground. I want to unpack the complexities that each writer […]
Posted inEquality, General
Universities need vibrant student affairs officers to drive transformation
Did South African higher education have a hand in our resurgent student voice? Absolutely, student activists would argue, but for its lack of transformation serving as an obstacle rather than an ally in the project of change. Campus debates on change relate not only to transformation but also to how prominent and capable student voices […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The problem with #RhodesMustFall
South Africa has been consumed with statues in recent weeks. Statues have become a symbol of all the racial conflict bubbling beneath the surface of the “rainbow nation”. All at once, we agree that we need to talk about race and the colonial and apartheid history but at the same time we are afraid that […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Beware, the new statues
Dali Tambo’s struggle theme park self-proclaimed “the show business of history” will soon be an expensive blot on the landscape. But about such present-day bronzes our students have had, so far, little to say. Irrespective of the misgivings that some will have regarding Mr Tambo’s R600 million-R700 million boon most, one suspects, will have no fundamental objection […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Rhodes: Views from a black associate professor at UCT
By Caroline Ncube Amid the calls for radical transformation at the University of Cape Town (UCT), there are many voices seeking to be heard. That must be heard. I am compelled to speak too. I am a black African, non-South African, female associate professor at UCT. As a foreign national I make no bones about […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Give Rhodes to the artists
By Jordan Griffiths When I first heard of the #RhodesMustFall movement my response was simple, the statue must come down. For me it wasn’t even a question. I was privileged enough to have spent two years on the student council at the University of Pretoria (UP). I saw how aggressively transformation was fought at the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Confronting our white ignorance in a time when #RhodesMustFall
By Roné McFarlane As the #RhodesMustFall debate continues, there are aspects of white reactions that need to be talked about … by white people. There is, however, a danger in discussing whiteness in the time of the #RhodesMustFall protests. You could rightly argue that it would be detracting from black struggles that are receiving more […]