A luta continua, after all these years

EVEN in the late 1980s, Umkhonto we Sizwe activities were being planned from inside residences on the Wits campus.

Young people, students, black and white, were being developed as cadres by the ANC, some of them handled by top commanders operating out of units in Swaziland, others by comrades on the ground inside the country.

And when the apartheid police moved onto campus with their dogs, sjamboks and guns to fight not only those brave young people, but all the thousands of others who came out in solidarity for the freedom of this country, they knew they were fighting a much bigger might. The will of the people.

Two States of Emergency, which gave the security forces absolute impunity, would happen as the university opened itself up to and allowed its students to embark on revolution. And it was a frightening but exhilarating time as academics, students and workers stood together against the savage regime.

It’s difficult to imagine, but at that time there were many white students involved in the protests, and even a few recruited into MK. Dozens were among the young black people who sat en masse, cross-legged, from the Jorissen Street entrance down through the tunnel and up into campus, refusing to move even when apartheid’s security police spat and bellowed at them as the uniformed enemy threatened harm and violence.

With five minutes’ warning to disperse issued over a megaphone… three, two, one… no one moved. Then the dogs would be let loose, biting and attacking while the police drew out their whips and beat whomever was in range. Young women were not spared, neither were old women. Everyone was fair game.

The students, black and white, would then start running together as one, helping each other up, even carrying each other, thundering through the residences and past the swimming pool and around the concourse, tracked by screaming white police, shunting their weapons, dragged by their angry dogs, everyone under threat of detention, and some, like those MK cadres, of torture.

Yet the courage continued. Students, workers and lecturers bolstered each other. There was an overwhelming belief that what they were doing was right – and there was no way they intended to stop.

I’m proud to say I was among those students, living at Sunnyside residence and being actively conscientised, even though I had grown up in a small, viciously racist town. So were many others who are today luminaries, who grew out of that era of fearless student protest.

This week, the Wits students of 2015 marched past the magnificent Corinthian columns, through the doors to the Great Hall, pouring down those illustrious corridors singing, and filling up Senate House where the university’s leadership promised, and then failed, to address them. Surely many are the sons and daughters of those alumni of the late 1980s, driven only at the liberation of all?

It’s remarkable to see the students today, developing as a mighty revolutionary power with all the potency of Rhodes, UCT, Stellenbosch, Tuks, Unisa and others behind them. On paper, everything has changed. The ANC is in power, when, back then, even the word “Amandla!” was all but banned. We hadn’t seen Nelson Mandela. We were nurtured by way of forbidden literature quoting the great OR Tambo and others. With no social media, fortunate individuals were privy to shortwave that broadcast Radio Freedom.

But mostly on campus, there was nothing but ourselves and student leaders who, through extraordinary acts, guided us forward. It is the same today.

It was illuminating this week to see how few academics stepped out, although those who did were met by loving, rousing applause. It was even more striking how few white students took part. Is it a case of, they can afford their studies and do not care? That must be the privilege of having parents in the top 10 percent whose lives were barely touched by apartheid.

Ultimately, though, it’s about the privilege of freedom, which all too many take entirely for granted.