Let’s chant a dirge for the chief executives of one of South Africa’s most besieged economic sectors. Just consider the challenges they face daily. They head financially precarious entities in a field where both the raw-material inputs and the finished goods are of declining quality. A number of them preside over plants that once produced […]
university protests
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, 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 inMedia, News/Politics, Tech
#FeesMustFall: A movement of shares, likes, tweets and posts
In 2011 Chilean students began a protest movement to challenge the education system of their country. Known as the “Chilean Winter”, their dissatisfaction poured onto social media platforms. The students leveraged these sites to great effect to mobilise fellow academics, draw international support and express their own narratives which were ignored by the media. Fast-forward […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
#WitsOnFire: Student factionalism must fall
By Phaphama Dulwana The past two weeks have been something to marvel at. I watched for the first time in my life young black people take a stand against institutions and systems that perpetuate the poverty we have regrettably become so immune to. Every single day filled me up with an overwhelming sense of emotion […]
Posted inNews/Politics
ANC looking backward, looking forward
By Matthew Wate In early 2004 an enterprising businessman approached the ANC with a novel and interesting piece of gadgetry. Bactacles. These ingenious devices looked like normal sunglasses but actually had tiny cameras on the back and projected images onto the lenses, allowing wearers to see what is behind them at all times. The ANC […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
So #FeesHaveFallen but let’s not celebrate too quickly
By Marlyn Faure It’s all too easy to think now things can go back to normal. Of course, if by now you still don’t understand why students are protesting, please stop questioning the legitimacy of the struggle but rather the fibre of your conscience (or lack thereof). Over the last while there have been a […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Fix the public education system to grow the economy
The essence of good strategic thinking and planning requires, for an organization, a critical capacity to anticipate events in the future that may have the capacity to derail its strategy and develop remedial measures to mitigate the threat. This is also true for a government. The crippling financial burden of university education for the poor, […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
TUT students vs The coconut bourgeoisie
In my previous article on the #FeesMustFall protests I made the point that a hierarchy of legitimacy was being entrenched in having the state publicly respond to political claims originating from historically white institutions and not when they originate from historically black universities (HBU). These claims, which the HBUs have for the past couple of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Wisdom includes the art of picking the battles one knows one can win
Well done, students! You have done to this ANC government and establishment what years of scandal and maladministration have not. It has taken notice. It is worried. It is addressing the cause of your discontent. There will be no fee increases next year. I applaud your courage and convictions. The wise thing to do would […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
It is not about Rhodes, outsourcing, fees…it is about defining a new society for all South Africans
By Vissého Adjiwanou It started as a “mood swing” from some black academics at UCT, questioning the lack of transformation within their institution and challenging the inadequate responses from the administration. In their statement and later engagement with UCT, they called for the dismantling of any institutional discrimination, the recognition of the contribution of black […]