No place for gun-toting idiots on campus

Katlego Monareng and Mlungisi Madonsela are names many of us would in all likelihood soon forget as soon as headlines redirect their focus to other news of the minute.

But not so for their families. Their families will be torn: how can they can send their young, loved ones to university, yet these young, black and gifted children come back home in body bags, without the desired university degree?

Monareng was a student killed by the police during a protest at Tshwane University of Technology last year in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria. This week saw the callous murder of Madonsela by armed guards at the Durban University of Technology (DUT).

As much as most of us were critical of the violent nature and damage that accompanied the historical #FeesMustFall movement, most South Africans nonetheless supported the cause and what it aimed to achieve.

The goal at the time went beyond tuition fees. It also covered permanent employment of freelance and contract workers in university campuses.

Despite some concessions and agreements made regarding free education, unfortunately, dear reader, we still have a long way to go until we fix the mess that is higher education in South Africa.

What assures us we won’t in 2020 see students sleeping on university floors as they yet again failed to pay their university residence and are shut out?

The exclusionary education is a topic that we should surely continue to engage, disagree, learn, unlearn and relearn from past mistakes and the current status quo.

We all know of the reckless message that was made by then president Jacob Zuma on the eve of Nasrec in 2017. A costly, stupendous message that really did not help the desired camp to clinch Nasrec votes.

What we certainly cannot postpone for another day is the militarisation of our university campuses. As much as students protest and university management view them as being driven by violence at times, is it really necessary to bring armed guards into campus who will then turn trigger-happy using live ammunition?

The Madonsela family should not be the ones asking this question, we should, as level-headed South Africans, ask this question and really get to see and understand the nuances we attach to sending a message using violence, even deadly at times.

South Africa, at the fear of reminding you of the obvious, is a largely violent country where this violence grips homes, streets, workplaces and places of leisure.

We should be worried if this violence is allowed to become commonplace in our schools, as we see with endless viral videos, and our higher education campuses also join the norm of its business as usual and another violent day in South Africa.

The management of DUT should explain how on earth a decision was made to allow gun-toting idiots into a learning institution. South Africa is a land of protests that really go pear-shaped most of the time in terms of vandalism and whether it was justified. Imagine if, at every protest, a person was killed. What kind of a murderous state will we be?

Madonsela’s killers must be brought to book. The DUT management must actively help the criminal justice system to send these barbaric, gun-toting idiots to jail.

Moalusi is a former newspaper editor