UCT students dig in at occupied building
STUDENTS who have occupied an administration building at UCT throughout the weekend plan to stay put indefinitely, members of the group said yesterday.
Dozens of students from the “Rhodes Must Fall” movement have been convening and sleeping in the Bremner Building since Friday afternoon, when they occupied it in protest against the school’s failure to remove a statue of Cecil John Rhodes.
The protesters originally planned to occupy the Archie Mafeje Room until yesterday, but after what they consider an inadequate response from the university they have declined to commit to a date.
“The ‘Rhodes’ in ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ isn’t just about the statue, it’s symbolic of a failure in the university to reflect an African context,” student and protester Ru Slayen said. “This thing isn’t going to stop when the statue falls.”
In the lobby outside the Archie Mafeje Room, blankets, pillows and cardboard “Rhodes will fall” signs lay strewn below portraits of late UCT figureheads and university memorabilia.
Slayen said food and toiletry donations had flooded in from residents, as well as expressions of solidarity from student groups at other institutions, including Oxford and Rhodes University.
Student and protester Kealeboga Ramaru said moving into the space had strengthened the group as a unified body. Their hours-long sessions had effectively functioned as a symposium on identity, featuring personal sharing and artistic demonstrations in between more formal deliberations on plans of action.
They had drafted a formal statement discussing their demands for transformation and what they considered to be rampant institutionalised racism at the university. The statement would be made public today.
Gerda Kruger, executive director of UCT’s communications and marketing department, said she was pleased the students were staging a peaceful protest.
“We are impressed with the commitment of the members of the student representative council and their determination to make a difference. Our doors remain open and we have urged the SRC to come to the table. They are a most important voice in the next week as the rest of UCT and all members of the extended UCT community over the years consider and express their opinions about what should happen to the Rhodes statue.”