Let it be a good fight
YESTERDAY, a replica of late former president Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island cell was unveiled at a Mitchell’s Plain High School on the Cape Flats. On the same day, mam Winnie Madikizela-Mandela celebrated her 80th birthday.
The lives of these icons of the struggle against apartheid remind us of the sacrifice and hardships that it took to get us the freedoms we now enjoy.
Their efforts and those of many others, who did not even live to see the dawning of a democratic South Africa, are what have made possible the opportunities for education, dignity, equality and progress that were out of the reach of the majority of this country’s people.
The doors of education were open and young people from previously disadvantaged backgrounds have trod the former sacred white spaces of historically white universities.
But that was only the beginning. A lot of work still has to be done to transform those institutions into truly inclusive and representative spaces that embrace all peoples. That’s what students want. It is a good thing for their voices to be heard but at what cost?
Students who are protesting for free education and transformation may be highlighting pertinent issues. They may be fighting the right fight, addressing the right problems and may be calling on universities and the government to account for the right matters.
The students of #FeesMustFall have, however, missed one very crucial point. They have not learnt the one lesson that Madiba’s life, post Robben Island, taught us. That we do not fight the good fight at all cost. That in our battle to see justice and redress, we should not destroy for destruction’s sake. It is because of this that many are so bold as to call Madiba a sellout.
How does it serve the student’s cause to burn libraries, lecture halls and halls of residence? They are destroying the very infrastructure that they are complaining of being already insufficient to meet the needs of the many students who are struggling to access and afford higher education.
If they are burning their way through problems instead of thinking through them, less than convincing the nation that they are fighting a good fight, they are unwittingly admitting that they are unfit to enjoy the privilege of being in the corridors of higher education.
Higher education is about producing thinkers who will find innovative ways of solving society’s problems; not arsonists.
#FeesMustFall students need to decide whether their legacy will be a well-fought fight for free education or one of ashes and destruction that will lock millions more out of universities for many years to come.
Burning university infrastructure comes at a cost. Resources will be diverted from free education to repairing the damage they have caused.