Labour Wrap: Nothing new in campus chaos

THERE is nothing really new about the present crisis on university campuses; in many ways, it is a more extreme re-run of what occurred in 1998, says Terry Bell in his latest Labour Wrap. However, the basic reason for the protests and the often heavy-handed response by poorly trained police and security personnel is the same.

What is different is that the protests 18 years ago occurred at a time before the widespread use of the internet and, especially, of social media and instant messaging such as WhatsApp. As a result, he says, those earlier protests, often supported by trade unions, were fragmented.

However, some of the clashes were violent. At the University of Transkei, for example, students were reportedly teargassed while in their beds in residences. Several were injured, jumping from second storey windows to escape.

But the underlying issue was the same: finance. However, in 1998, the protestors were primarily concerned about the financial exclusion from university of academically qualified students. There were also not so many political agendas in play and the emergence of nihilism as a tactic had not made an appearance.

The 1998 uproar followed a “stakeholder meeting” in 1996 called when protests threatened. At the meeting, government pledged to devise means to halt financial exclusions and move towards promises of the Freedom Charter. But nothing was done and, two years later, there was an eruption of protest.

Bell maintains that despite what Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande and ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe say, the Freedom Charter does call for free and equal education, right across the board. To this, he says, has been added the same promise in the Bill of Rights and in resolutions of the ANC conference at Polokwane.

The existing gulf between promise and practice led to simmering anger that has again boiled over with the demand for free education now. Government responded this week by calling another stakeholder imbizo. At the imbizo trade unions, academics and students pointed out that there is more than enough money to fund free education for all.

What is missing, says Bell, is the political will to source the funding and to properly allocate it.

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