So what is expected of the exposed, “civilised colonial”? Is it remorse, guilt, identification as African, adopting Bafana Bafana, moving from the “white” suburbs to the “townships”, giving away a portion of their wealth in some way (whose accumulation is fundamentally questionable historically on moral and ethical grounds), adopting African names, learning African languages, “transferring their skills”…? The list of what may be expected of them and what they could become, is long. But there is only one thing they could do that makes a lot of sense to me. The list of things they could become is really their business, I cannot tell them how to conduct that business. I would not ask them to do what they did to me and the likes of me: that is, tell them who to become and pass laws to compel them bring them into being something else they have not been. But I do want to say that the pre-1994 social and personal sensibilities the “whites” evolved is unsustainable and no longer achievable in the society South Africa has been purposefully evolving into since 1994. That I, as a “black” person, am part of the numerical and visionary majority that committed to bring that society into being; that this majority would be the universal norm of human presence in that new society, but that the substance and mechanisms of bringing that norm into being are supremely negotiable within the constitutional parameters of a new democracy, going hand-in-hand with the human sensibility that accords moral legitimacy to that constitutional intention. So, the co-creation of South Africa remains a vital constitutional imperative. - Professor Njabulo S. Ndebele 10th Annual Helen Joseph Lecture.
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Science as a whole is a product of western modernity and the whole thing should be scratched off. Especially in Africa. I have a question for all the science people. There is a place in KwaZulu-Natal called Umhlab’uyalingana. They believe that through the magic‚ you call it black magic‚ they call it witchcraft‚ you are able to send lightening to strike someone. Can you explain that scientifically because it’s something that happens? … Western knowledge is totalising. It is saying that it was Newton and only Newton who knew and saw an apple falling and out of nowhere decided gravity existed and created an equation and that is it. Whether people knew Newton or not‚ or whatever happens in West Africa‚ Northern Africa‚ the thing is the only way to explain gravity is through Newton, who sat under a tree and saw an apple fall. So western modernity is the problem that decolonisation directly deals with. It’s to say that we are going to decolonise by having knowledge that is produced by us‚ that speaks to us and that is able to accommodate knowledge from our perspective. Decolonising the science would mean doing away with it entirely and starting all over again to deal with how we respond to the environment and how we understand it. – Presentation by UCT Fallist Mickey Moyo to Department of Science at the University. Source: BusinessLive/YouTube.
But to genuinely transform the academic project, universities must do explicit identity work with their students. Academics must engage in the human project, thinking about who their students are and what their previous experiences of mathematics and of learning mathematics have been. There have been attempts to transform the content of school mathematics curricula. These include ethnomathematics, which excavates the mathematics in cultural objects, artefacts and practices; and critical mathematics, where mathematics is used to critique aspects of society and where students critique mathematics, for example, how algorithms structure our lives in ways which reproduce inequality. - Karen Brodie, The Conversation.
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[Unclear] we will make sure you vacate the premises accordingly.
What is your name? Can I get your name?
You would like my name?
Yes. You know my name. And I would like to know your name.
My name is “Free Education Now.” I am dead serious. [Unclear] I am dead serious.
So you have no name and I have a name?
Well, I don’t have an office to put a name on. Unfortunately. But otherwise, this is your escort, she will make sure that nothing happens to you as you vacate the building. We are non-violent and very peaceful. Thank you for your cooperation.
- Exchange between Wits Fallist and EFF leader on campus, Cathrine Busisiwe Seabe, as she and others eject a Wits lecturer from his office during Shutdown protests. Source: Youtube.
We are not going to be intimated by Max Price and with his private thugs. It must be known that we are prepared to push the boundaries of power, for us there is no turning back beside death. We will usher into this country an attitude of black rage, black liberation, an attitude that threatened the foundation of whiteness. We are clear South Africa by the end of this year will have to confess to its sins. – UCT Fallist leader Masixole Mlandu. Source: Facebook.
I would rather die or be in prison than to go back to class just for the sake of pretending things are normal. Subjecting yourself once again to white supremacy is as good as pure death. Let us die so people can have their degrees ke and Max Price can maintain his whites only project that is UCT and fight against free education with the support of those who want a paper to assimilate to white capital and exist as sub-humans for the rest of their useless existence…. We will be the living sacrifice for black liberation and we will become #hashtags because people do not want to openly fight injustices because they are inconvenienced– Mickey Moyo again. Source: Facebook.
When will we kill them? ... South Africa. A country without a name. Just a location. A reminder to coloniser where the land mass is, which they stole. #HeritageDay …. Marikana. Andries Tatane. FeesMustFall. Fuck White People. … I have aspirations to kill white people, and this must be achieved! … UCT has shutdown. Come join discussion, on open institution that deals with colonial fuckups. Tomorrow, 12pm - 2:30pm Steve Biko Building. - UCT Fallist and BLF activist, Lindsay Maasdorp. Source: Twitter.
We can no longer talk of black pain as if it is not affecting black people. Neither can we talk of white privilege as if it is not benefiting white people. Black pain is because of white privilege. Black people are oppressed, because white people remain the oppressor. If we want to destroy white systems then we must too be prepared to destroy the ones those systems benefit. Its utter stupidity to think white people will allow us to destroy the thing that gives them privilege and us pain. We must now practice a degree of madness. Destroy the systems, capitalism, the neocolonial structure, burn the buildings, destroy the enemy! – Lindsay Maasdorp again. Source: Twitter.
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None more than the Fallist movement have brought to our attention the utter falsity of the “Rainbow nation” and the anomaly that Blacks continue to live in South Africa as an economic and cultural minority in the land of their birth. When I see the student movement, I do not see a Boko Haram-like violent mob as Mbembe does or a terrorist militia as Imraan Coovadia does. I see a brave generation attempting to valiantly overcome a plethora of historical injuries: economic exclusion, cultural decimation, racial dehumanisation, trauma, sexual violence, social pathologisation, poverty. – Joel Modiri, Daily Maverick.
Young people have an almost inbuilt sense of right and wrong, and it has been shown historically, in my time, in 1976, in the 80s, and here we are, back again. Young people have risen. And usually all of us confuse the spark with the actual course of the explosion. And no system can go on forever with certain sharp contradictions. With social inequity. This is a call for reprioritisation from young people. It is really a call for avoiding misgovernance. It is a call for a society which is serious about moving itself from the dark alleys of apartheid and economic inequality to the bright lights of greater promise. And greater fairness in society. – Former Deputy Chief Justice and Chancellor of Wits, Dikgang Moseneke. Source: eNCA.
"They [the Fallists] are saying the culture, the atmosphere, the habits... White domination doesn't disappear in daily life just because it's gone in constitutional terms. I think it's fantastic that they're raising those issues….My sense is our institutions are strong enough to contain the turmoil and to benefit from the idealism and the passion and the questioning and sometimes the very beautiful language that the young people are using." Former Constitutional Court Judge Albie Sachs. Source: News24.
At the [UCT] law school’s assembly last Friday a group of protesting law students entered the meeting wearing black and with black tape crossing their mouths. I admired the power with which they took over the meeting and expressed their complaints. At least one of my colleagues decided to leave at this point, but most stayed and, like me, no doubt learnt a lot. Regrettably, not all of us who happen to be white and/or privileged are willing to accept the power that comes with it, and the responsibility it imposes to listen even more carefully and to treat with absolutely seriousness the complaints that are presented to us. – Richard Calland, Daily Maverick.
With apologies to Private Eye.
