"Rhodes must fall" and "buildings must burn"
It starts with excrement thrown on a statue and ends with R300 million rands' worth of damage to university property. Quite a high price for hailing the vandal who threw the excrement as a hero, as so many people did, among them politicians, academics, university administrative staff, journalists, and other members of the middle class thrilled with the excitement of it all. Even the minister of higher education, Blade Nzimande, seems to be shocked by the damage inflicted during student "protests" in the 2015-2016 financial year.
The University of Cape Town (UCT), origin of the "protests" successfully demanding the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, got off relatively lightly. Damage to property there amounted to R3.2 million. But the University of the North West suffered R151 million in damage, while R47 million worth of destruction was inflicted at the University of the Western Cape.
It will be interesting to see how many alumni of all these institutions cough up as they struggle to meet escalating student demands while fees have been frozen by order of President Jacob Zuma. It will be argued that violence and destruction were the work of a minority. This may be true, but it does not wash when a policy of appeasement was followed right from the start.
UCT in fact continues this policy with its removal of paintings that some people find offensive. Does this institution no longer understand freedom of expression? If it does understand it, is it no longer willing to defend it? At what stage will UCT actually stop being a university?
Right from the start, of course, the seriousness of what was happening was played down by the use of euphemisms. Throwing "poo" somehow doesn't sound quite as bad as throwing "shit", although the workers - no doubt black - who had to clean up the statue of Rhodes probably didn't see things in quite such delicate terms as "poo". Many an academic excused the vandalism as a legitimate expression of "black pain". Is R300 million worth of damage also then an expression of "black pain"?