Anyone with a social media account or access to South African media would have noticed that something rather profound went down last week. Perhaps not as much down as many would have ideologically hoped for (hence the ongoing of some protests), but down nonetheless.
Whatever your viewpoint is on the national student protests, you have to agree that the #feesmustfall movement is facilitating a few uncomfortable yet necessary debates in our nation. It is also revealing personal underlying ideologies and values.
I’m not going to attempt a socio-poltical-economic analysis of the repercussions of the 0% university fee increase that was announced by the President in response to the protests last week. I simply don’t have that knowledge at hand. Or the energy.
All I know is … someone’s gonna have to pay if students aren’t. World-class teaching, research and community-invested Universities don’t run on 0% year-on-year-increase budgets, unfortunately.
And this brings me to the focus of this article.
Over the past few weeks multiple narratives have surfaced when people engage with #feesmustfall, either in personal conversations or on social media. I will attempt to present a few of the narratives, and their counter-arguments, for the sake of showing how diverse perspectives can be. These narratives profoundly influence attitudes, and subsequently, decisions about action.
From what I could gather, one of the main narratives (different versions at different universities) of the student leaders of the #feesmustfall movement has been: If university fees continue to escalate lower- and middle-income students will be excluded from the quality education that they need to break the cycle of poverty and unemployment in this nation.
Hence, the call was for everyone, even “rich kids”, university staff and management, to join the protest: “We are not just protesting for ourselves but on behalf of those vulnerable to injustice. You are also impacted by this. Or your parents / trust-funds / children-one-day will be.” It is a profound narrative, and the one that most of the churches and religious institutions have endorsed publicly: “Stand up for the rights of the poor.” It has been a uniting narrative, and probably contributed to seeing a massive group of diverse students and staff at Stellenbosch University gather to sing the national anthem on the Rooiplein around 1am on Thursday morning. (Read my friends Bianca’s blog for an insight into this profound moment.)
Another narrative that has gone alongside this one is the narrative where the protests are finally mobilising a new generation of students to engage their democratic right to keep those in governmental (national and university-based) roles accountable. “It is about time that the students stand up to the authorities” – is the sentiment in this one. “Don’t fight the university, fight Zuma” is one of the side-message here. #ANCmustfall and #Zumamustfall got even a few right-wingers excited about toyi-toying. A slightly less politically correct version of this one has people saying: “Julle wou mos vir die ANC stem.” Like I said, people have their perspectives.
The political accountability narrative is also rather profound, and it’s the one that opposition political parties have endorsed (and some say, extorted) publicly. It has also, to a certain extent, been a unifying narrative. It is probably also the narrative that saw a massive group of students sing the national anthem at Parliament on Wednesday, and gather at the Union Buildings on Friday. To the background noise and dramatic scenes of riot police shooting stun grenades and tear gas. With image of 16 June 1976 re-emerging in the imaginations of people around the world. It is probably also the narrative that got “white-privilege” and “black pain” to break into struggle songs together in the bars of Stellenbosch on the Friday evening of the week before their exams were supposed to start …
On that note, there are also the “those students are just lazy and looking for an excuse not to study” narratives. Uhmm … some of the people who lead the #stelliesfeesmustfall movement are cum-laude PhD students. Personal conversations with some of the leaders of the campaign reveal that they are also feeling the pressure of wanting to finish their year well academically, but they have a deep personal conviction that this is a cause that they are not just championing for themselves. That is their narrative. Some of their class mates have different narratives.
Another narrative that is now also emerging is the one where those who chose to not participate in the protests have been impacted by decisions made to postpone exams with a week (at Stellenbosch) in response to the #stelliesfeesmustfall requests. Flights need to be moved, holidays need to be cancelled, money needs to be spent by parents (or students who work part-time to fund all their own studies and those holidays that now need to be cancelled). The university is trying to help, though. Here is an official letter that Stellenbosch students can present to airlines etc. Lecturers need to now mark 250 final-year exam papers over-night to have marks ready for December graduation purposes. Extra marking assistance is being hired in. People are really trying to make this work …
Potentially angry parents. Who pay the taxes that will eventually have to cover the 0% increase. Potentially angry staff. Who worry about a) their students and b) perhaps not getting their hard-earned fair salary increases. Potential angry students who just want to graduate and get on with it. The commitment to conversations is however ongoing.
Yes, the cause is critical.
The challenge is dealing with the emotions of people who perceive that they are being negatively impacted by consequences of choices that they feel they didn’t make.
The counter-narrative from the pro-protest camp to these grumbling voices have mostly been: You need to sacrifice your personal agendas for the bigger cause. What is one sacrificed plane-ticket and one sacrificed overseas holiday in the light of thousands of students who would not have been able to return to varsity? “Stop being selfish. Suck it up. The cause is bigger than your inconvenience” – Is the unofficial narrative emerging against those who exercised their democratic rights to not protest. “So, now “poor” students are allowed a voice, but “rich” students aren’t …?!” – Is the unofficial retort. Some prophecy warnings against socialism. Some are making plans to flee communism. Others celebrate the victory of democratic justice.
“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” my dad used to echo.
Like I said, there are multiple narratives to one story.
Whatever your narratives are, you need to realise that this is a multi-stakeholder, multi-ideology and multi-cause moment in the history of this nation.
Idealism will clash with pragmatism when complicated administrative systems have to adapt to facilitate the necessary diffusing of complex time-bombs.
Pray for wisdom for everyone who needs to make decisions with long-term repercussions in this time.
A movement has multiple perilous side-streams. Don’t get caught-up in one of them.
#Luister. Vir almal.
Selah.
(PS Another voice to listen to is Brett Fish’s – he has been actively engaging practically and ideologically with different #feesmustfall narratives, and presents some of it in this blog and on his social media profiles.)
Tapestry of Thought 