The applicant will be required to indicate whether his or her parents were classified as “Black African”, “Coloured”, “Indian” or “White” under apartheid legislation. Another option will be, “I don’t know and cannot find out”. By referring to the apartheid legislation and racial classification under that system, the University does not in any manner condone that system, or seek to perpetuate the effects of racial classification under that system. – University of Stellenbosch revised draft admissions policy.
I think you will agree with me that whatever countries you have been to, the majority in those countries are in control of the economy. If you are in China the Chinese are in control of their economy, if you are in India the Indians are in control of their economy. Wherever you go. But I think the case in South Africa is not the same. - President Jacob Zuma speech to the Black Business Council. Source: eNCA.
“Actually I think you worry yourself that the violence has gone too far. Surely you would not want Universities to burn?”
“It's obvious that I don't. All responsible organizers of #FeesMustFall have condemned arson. There is no need for u & DA to do a petition!”
“No need? Nobody has exclusive rights to wanting a peaceful solution.”
“It's not rights, but needs am aiming at. I get it though, u are the white brain behind it. Always preferring an apartheid response to protest”
“Wow your repertoire of cheap shots is endless.”
“Yes. Nothing is cheaper than a ‘white brain’! Brains should aim at being human! Not white! To be white is to presuppose black inferiority!”
- Exchange between DA MP Belinda Bozzoli and EFF spokesperson Mbuyeseni Ndlozi MP, over the forced shutdowns of the universities. Twitter.
Introducing a secret ballot at universities on whether the shutdown should be allowed to continue is seen by many as a naked attempt to marshal the silent majority – an attempt to buttress the inherent systemic inequality in higher education that the government seems intent on maintaining. Perhaps most disconcerting, to interfere from the outside with the right of the elected SRC to act on the basis of democratic mandate. – Rehad Desai, The Daily Maverick
This is a time when the disconnection between the narrative of a new South Africa for all, and the reality of an unequal, unjust and racist reality both in our broader society and here at UCT, is being exposed. The national student movement is articulating this truth and placing it on the national agenda through the specific demand for free, decolonized education. – Letter from Dr Lydia Cairncross and 34 other members of the Faculty of Health Sciences at UCT, in an open letter to VC Max Price. Source: GroundUp.
We have begun a radically peaceful creative process which includes political activations of the space, as well as interventions, talks and performances around how to shift a campus which continues to be a violent exclusionary space for poor, black, womxn, queer, trans and disabled bodies. In putting a stop to operations on campus, we firmly take the position that the current status quo erases, violates, and attempts to sanitise our struggles. Disruption, in this way, is a way to express love and recognise one another’s humanity, and any attempt to remove our intervention is an acknowledgment of, and conscious perpetuation of this oppression, and the pain that is being expressed. – Notice from the collective Umhlangano, Hiddingh Campus, UCT.
Neo-liberal states rely on their police force, their military and the massive privatised security industry because they need to protect the rich from the poor. South Africa is a prime example of this and it is clear our ANC-led government is captured by global capital via white monopoly capital and dictated to accordingly. Big business is in charge and they use their ANC shareholders to keep all other citizens in check. But it is the black body that is most brutally disciplined by the state and institutions. – Gillian Schutte, Sunday Independent.
I have spent my entire adult life in elite white universities such as Wits, Cornell, MIT, Harvard and blue-chip think tanks such as the Rockefeller Foundation and Brookings Institution. In none of these institutions did I experience the kind of racism I have received from my colleagues at UCT over the past five years. My elevation to full professor invited even greater racial hostility. – Xolela Mangcu, Sunday Independent.
What she failed to understand is that her conduct as an institutional figure gives power to the manifestations of anti-blackness and fuels racial violence in a faculty that is already inundated with racialised micro-aggressions. Her consistent appeals to white upper class students for support on her reactionary positions are a testament to her insecurities in leadership and demonstrate a betrayal of the collective struggle that made it possible for a black woman to be dean in a racist institution like UCT after so many years. - Statement issued by a “group of concerned black law students and alumni at UCT” in response to comments made at a meeting by Dean of Law, Penny Andrews, on the persistent efforts by protesters to forcibly disrupt law lectures. Source: Daily Vox.
#FeesForum woman says the knowledge in libraries is irreplaceable. Student shouts back - it's "Eurocentric knowledge." BB – Tweeted report from Fees Forum by Eyewitness News senior reporter Barry Bateman. Source: Twitter.
"We must ensure nothing happens on this campus until they can speak to us like human beings. We must remain resolute," he said to applause from students. "We're happy to coexist with white people, but they need to know, primarily these institutions belong to us." - Dr Lwazi Lushaba, speaking to the protesters who have been disrupting lectures on campus, Leslie Building, University of Cape Town. Source: News24.
If you were to ask me today, some years on, as a member of the Fallist movement, ‘What is wrong with these schools?’ my answer would be that the compromise deal that ended apartheid and the concept of a Rainbow Nation are what’s wrong. Nothing significant was given up by the white minority: These schools, like so much of our social order, have preserved white privilege, without real concessions to majority-black South Africa. Until we dismantle the continued white domination of post-apartheid South Africa, Mr. Mandela’s children will not find freedom in the Rainbow Nation. - Panashe Chigumadzi, New York Times.
* With apologies to Private Eye.
