The University of Cape Town: a place where “You can fool some of the people all of the time.”
The community of UCT, my alma mater and employer for 40+ years, has collapsed from a pulsating, educationally panmictic population of 26 000+ occupying a vibrant institution into small clusters of fearful academic and student ‘prisoners’ barricaded within beautiful (but defaced) buildings straddling the foothills of a World Heritage Site.
Connecting them are re-named roadways strewn with the rubble of destruction and uncollected refuse, and populated by small, unfettered gangs of hooded, would-be anarchists or just plain thugs, some of whom have no formal association with UCT.
The limited security personnel and government-employed police deployed to ‘deal’ with them seem incapable of detaining law-breaking miscreants of known identity (certainly apparent on widely viewed videos).
When they catch the odd one red-handed, the ‘protester’ is quickly released without being charged, or bailed out (opposed by the State) with the UCT Executive’s approval to migrate back to campus. This allows them to re-offend or, bizarrely, to participate in ‘negotiations’ about UCT’s future with its vice chancellor and his ‘right-side-of-history’ acolytes.
Even in the unlikely event that de facto, ‘non-negotiating’ protesters’ immediate demands for more pardons and no fees are met or resolved, they will undoubtedly be replaced. Next in the queue are ‘decolonization’ of staff and curricula and, ultimately ‘improved’ student ‘success’. Just what these demands might mean in reality is still far from clear.