The Politics of Spectacle – reflections on the 2016 student protests
- Adam Habib
This reflection builds on my earlier analysis of the #FeesMustFall protests and reflecting strategically on the challenges facing higher education today.
I do not pretend that mine is an impartial voice, and I recognise that the story of the student protests will only be fully explained in the years to come.
In my last reflection, I stressed the legitimacy of the struggle of the student protesters for lower or no fees. I stand by this view. Fee increases were occasioned by a declining per capita subsidy to universities, and in an effort to retain quality, most higher education institutions annually increased fees, often in double digits.
This priced university education outside the affordability of not only the working but also the middle classes. University executives have known for some time that this is not sustainable, but government has not been responsive to their concerns.
The student protests changed this and have brought to an end this complacency. As I suggested previously, “the students achieved in 10 days what vice-chancellors had been trying to do for 10 years”.
My earlier reflection also bemoaned, at least implicitly, the lack of political leadership on the part of the state. This is still true despite the initial valiant attempts at consultation by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET).
In these consultations, the DHET was abandoned by other state departments, especially the Presidency. Once it announced the fee recommendations and the protests erupted across the higher education system, the DHET effectively retreated, leaving the universities to fend for themselves.
Violent protests
My earlier reflection also subjected the protesters to scathing criticism, suggesting that subsequent to the October 2015 protests, the movement became more factionalised with smaller groups becoming prone to racism and violence.
At Wits University, we could count at least eight groups including new informal student societies all of whom represented different political constituencies. These features of factionalisation, racism and violence consolidated in the student protests in 2016 and were especially apparent in the round of protests which emerged in September.
Perhaps the most disconcerting feature of the current round of protests has been the propensity to violence and arson. Some analysts of the movement – Jane Duncan in particular – have suggested that the violence is a result of police and security action. But this is a classic case of empirical facts not being allowed to stand in the way of the analyst’s conclusion. It is striking that the conclusion is often arrived at on the basis of an analysis of police action in community struggles and a selective reading of events on university campuses.
Let me demonstrate the fallacy of this conclusion through a study of events at Wits, which is the case that I know best. In January 2016, a small group of students disrupted our registration process. They were violent and threatened staff and students. When negotiations failed to resolve the issue, we brought in private security, and I made the case for this in a letter to the university community.
The decision was opposed by a small group of liberal and left-leaning academics, largely from one or two schools in the