Umm Abdillah, Radio Islam Programming, 2016.02.19 | 9 Jumadal Ula’ 1437 AH

Shackville has been a blazing part of news headlines in South Africa this week. Is there a story we’re ignoring beyond the burning cars and picture frames? If we agree that the University of Cape Town is world class, why shouldn’t the discourse that surrounds their social justice movements be as progressive, asks Umm Abdillah.

On Monday, the first day of lectures at the University of Cape Town, students built a shack on the upper campus. The upper campus is located on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, a part of Cape Town that has historically housed presidential and ministerial residences. This was to make a statement to the university about insufficient housing for students. The shack was complete with a porta-potty on the side, the way it would be in informal settlements.

After being asked to remove the shack, things turned violent. Students defied an order to move or remove the shack and private security and police moved in to dismantle the shack. The ensuing chaos will go down in the annals of history. UCT are in the process of obtaining an interdict and will bring criminal charges against those involved. Students from the Rhodes Must Fall movement in turn laid charges against the UCT. The charges include malicious damage to property, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and unlawful eviction.

Is that where this ends? We dismiss the protesters as barbarians who lack culture and an appreciation of academia, and continue bemoaning the future of South Africa?

Think about the (fake) destruction of museum artifacts by ISIS last year. The correct story never made news headlines, and we dismissed ISIS as barbarian fundamentalists. Most newspapers didn’t cover the rise of ISIS, nor do they ever take measures to point out the geopolitical factors and international (Western) funding that created ISIS in the first place. Radical Islamism takes the blame; just as militant protest movements like Rhodes Must Fall are scapegoated, at the peril of exploring underlying causes of inequality at UCT.

The University of Cape Town is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa. UCT’s Law and Commerce Faculties are consistently placed among the hundred best internationally. Among notable alumni are Professor Christiaan Barnard, Cosmologist George Ellis, who collaborated with Stephen Hawking, J. M. Coetzee and five other Nobel Laureates.

So, if we agree that the University is world class in every regard, shouldn’t their social justice movements be equally radical? The University of Cape Town, like most universities, is a microcosm for a broader South African story, and so it is fitting that it reflects not only our best, but also our worst. Is this not what universities are for – a place to stimulate radical social change, or at the bare minimum stimulating a discussion that resolves it? Surely, by removing the statute that commemorated Cecil Rhodes last year, the University and it’s students are duty-bound to a wider decolonisation of education across South Africa?

Protesters truly believe that Shackville is a representation of Black dispossession – of those who have been removed from land and dignity by settler colonialism, and forced to live in squalor.

One of the RMF leaders, Chumani Maxwele, said that the shack was symbolic of the way in which the university expected black students to live. He said that American and European students were being prioritised while black students were put on a never-ending waiting list. He said that if one were to visit a housing office, you would not see a single white student. Students have to walk and travel from squatter camps outside of the city to get to university.

“Since I got here, I never got residence. But as a black person, I’m used to surviving. But that doesn’t mean someone else is able to survive just like me?” (Protestor)

The University has conceded that they have an accommodation issue. 700 beds usually released in early January could not be released because of deferred exams, outstanding financial aid decisions based on increased National Student Financial Aid Scheme [NSFAS] funding made available from government, and an increased call from students for assistance with accommodation.

Further, the university only has 6,680 beds. Of the 27,000 students who needed accommodation, 75 percent had to live in private accommodation.

Can we trust our universities to demonstrate socially intelligent responses to the outrage? Students are wrong to burn and pillage, yet is arresting and throwing them in jail going to help, or further the flames of outrage? By dismissing them as mere troublemakers aren’t we stifling the discussion? Many students seem to be struggling with basic sociological concepts, such as their rights as students and their definition of ‘black and white’ at the top of that list.

A debate, known as the “Mamdani Affair” (1998) comes to mind.

‘How to teach Africa in a post-apartheid academy’ became the reason Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani left UCT. A manipulation of administrative processes with the objective of sidelining Mamdani’s course arose – simply because it did not reflect the tradition of African studies white South African scholars were accustomed to. Exposed, was the ignorance of many prominent, predominantly white South African scholars who, because of their racially privileged positions, had risen up the ranks without having to engage three decades of rigorous post-independence African scholarship. [Source]

There is a form of intellectual hypocrisy in not only the University’s response, but also our dinner table chats. We claim universities should be a place of academic rigour, and that’s why we send our children to them. Yet, when the institution related to tertiary education for all South Africans is challenged, we dismiss those challenging it as overgrown babies. Who’s being childish now?

Umm Abdillah is part of development and strategy at Radio Islam’s Programming department. Catch her on air hosting The Reminders Programme on Wednesdays between 10-11 am. She can be contacted at zanah@radioislamlive.com or @zanah_za on Twitter.