As by Fire. Jonathan Jansen

African Communist Party

      SADC Southern African Development Community

      SADESMO South African Democratic Students Movement

      SALDRU Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit

      SASCO South African Students Congress

      SASO South African Students Organisation

      SRC Student Representative Council

      SU Stellenbosch University

      TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission

      TUT Tshwane University of Technology

      TVET Technical and Vocational Education and Training

      UCT University of Cape Town

      UFS University of the Free State

      UJ University of Johannesburg

      UKZN University of KwaZulu-Natal

      UNISA University of South Africa

      UP University of Pretoria

      USAf Universities South Africa

      UWC University of the Western Cape

      WITS University of the Witwatersrand

      WSU Walter Sisulu University

      Introduction

      The Perfect Storm

      All waves, no matter how huge, start as rough spots –

      cats’ paws – on the surface of the water.

      – Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm, 1997

      The student protests of 2015–2016 caught South Africans by surprise. In a relatively short period of time, the defilement of a campus statue in Cape Town and a complaint about student fee increases in Johannesburg melded into a powerful protest movement that affected almost every one of the 26 public universities in the country. Even during the long, dark days of apartheid, no university had ever experienced this level of student protest in terms of scale, scope, intensity, and, in the course of time, violence.

      The African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s ruling party, was caught off guard, resting in an unmerited assurance that it enjoyed political dominance on most campuses through its student affiliates. The government was surprised, given its expanding pro-poor investments in student welfare, particularly through the national bursary aid scheme. Much of the broader community was shocked, in light of the widely accepted understanding of education as the key to personal and social mobility. The universities themselves were caught napping, unprepared for the sudden backlash for which they had neither the resources to meet student demands, the skill to negotiate the new politics, nor the security to protect campus lives and property.

      One group was not surprised: the university leaders, variously called rectors (at the Afrikaans-origin universities) or principals (at the English-origin universities) but commonly designated vice-chancellors of their institutions. Over the course of the protests, one after another university leader would say something like, ‘We tried to warn the government for more than a decade that a perfect storm was brewing.’ The ‘perfect storm’ metaphor would be heard again and again above the din of the protests to refer to the twin dangers of the decline in government subsidies and the steady increase in student fees. At some point these two planes would cross each other in foul weather with costly and potentially catastrophic consequences. And they did so with a vengeance in March 2015 and especially in October 2016. Yet even these vice-chancellors could not predict the intensity of the student revolt on their campuses and around the country. A seasoned veteran of campus politics as a student activist, one vice-chancellor would say repeatedly: ‘I was profoundly shocked by what was happening.’ What in the world was going on?

      This book attempts to answer three difficult questions about the crisis in South Africa universities in 2015–2016:

      •What in fact happened? Neither claims of some incipient political revolution nor an easy dismissal of protests as social pathology answers this question. What at first seems to be the obvious answer – angry students were upset with universities and reacted through peaceful and sometimes violent protests – clearly does not capture the many different faces of the revolt expressed in different ways on diverse campuses with varied consequences. Conclusions made at first glance are often too simple and cannot be read off the headlines in a newspaper or in an instant missive by a 750-word-limit columnist. This unprecedented disruption of public universities needs a clearer and deeper narration organised around an informed understanding of exactly what was taking place.

      •Why did it happen? As the protests broke out in earnest, there were thoughtful people who immediately opined that the desecration of the monument honouring Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and its eventual removal from a prominent position on Upper Campus, were not about the statue. Then what was it about? Here was a liberal university that had long ago opened its doors to black students under constant threat from the apartheid government. It had a proud tradition of anti-apartheid protest, freedom lectures, and critical centres for intellectual thought, as well as two black vice-chancellors in recent history. More than one scholar warned that the protests were not about student fee increases per se; rather, they expressed a much larger grievance against a grossly unequal society. Still, why would the liberal universities – including Nelson Mandela’s alma mater, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) – become the special targets of such fervent and sustained protest? Or were the protests about these very universities in the first place?

      •What does the protest crisis mean for the future of South African universities? The duration and intensity of the protests invariably raised questions about the long-term effects of the crisis on universities. In particular, the recognition of the unmanageability of the crisis in both financial and political terms cast doubt on the sustainability of public institutions. Protests on university campuses are certainly not unusual, but this streak did not seem to end. Countless attempts inside and outside higher education to resolve the impasse ended without success. Hours, days, and even weeks of negotiations would come to an abrupt end when protestors shifted the goalpost at the eleventh hour and disruptions continued, including heavy damage to university property and buildings. No interdict could stem the tide of protests, and no amount of private security or riot police could contain the assault on buildings and the disruption of classes. Eventually students and academics with options began signalling their plans to depart to private universities or institutions overseas. At this juncture we must ask: Under what conditions does the downward slide of public universities become irrevocable? What can we learn from post-independence universities in other African countries? And, most critically, can South African universities survive the present calamity?

      An insider view of the crisis

      The more reports and opinion pieces on the student protests that I read, the more I realised that what was missing in these many accounts from researchers, journalists, students, and general commentators was an insider’s view of the crisis from the perspective of those charged with leading public universities.1 These university leaders were women and men who had to balance budgets to sustain universities and engage students to ascertain budgetary priorities. Whether they liked it or not, they stood between the government, which required accountability, and the students, who demanded accessibility. These leaders had to ensure living-wage increases for their academics and workers but at the same time engage with students’ demand to insource contract workers, which threatened to collapse personnel budgets. As vice-chancellors, they had to reassure their senates that the academic project would not be compromised even while making adjustments to the academic calendar and examination timetable forced on them by relentless protest actions. They had to convey confidence and assure parents and alumni that their children were safe, and yet bring in added security that made some students feel unsafe. The vice-chancellors were easy targets for those needing a punching bag to alleviate their frustrations with the constant protest actions, campus instability, and the unpredictable teaching and examination schedules that resulted from the chronic disruption. As leaders, vice-chancellors had to reassure their own families about their safety even as