Johannesbirg - “My violence is a reaction to a violence and I no longer want to live as a reactionary black being, I want to breathe,” an exasperated student activist, Thenjiwe Mswane, said.
She pointed out how the absence of thorough analysis of the role of black women and LGBTIQ members of the FeesMustFall (#FMF) in the CSVR report was an act of erasure.
Along with other feminists on the panel discussing the report’s findings, she questioned the authenticity of a study that sought to examine the 2015-16 students’ protests if it had failed to address the groups which had driven the movement.
The failure by what students described as “patriarchal attitudes” to embrace intersectionality had been one of the main reasons behind the crumbling of the #FMF movement.
But the fact that even the report responsible for documenting the pain that had been unleashed on black women had been sidestepped in the report was too much.
Researcher Marcia Vilakazi’s attempted to pacify their anguish by explaining how another publication was in the works, addressing specifically that subject, did not suffice.
What was contained in the report were chapters exploring events at Rhodes University and briefly at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology where it’s said “the performance of militant, combative and anti-oppression hyper-masculinity enjoyed high rank within the student movement”.
Some of the CSVR recommendations
* University management needs to be open to dis-cussions and not use court interdicts as the first point of call.
* Universities need to act on issues of transformation instead of merely paying lip service to it.
* Student protest leaders need to know about their responsibilities and duties when organising in order to avoid violence, even in the face of provocation.
* The student body has to reflect on its own practices of exclusion and marginalisation based on race, gender and class.
* Peace and reconciliation initiatives should be undertaken to repair the currently polarised relations between all structures in universities.
* The police need to manage protests without the use of force by applying basic principles of public policing, including containment, facilitation and negotiation.
* The government needs to address the issue of higher education funding urgently and proactively.
* The media needs to reflect on its reporting of protests in general, instead of focusing on violent incidents that don't provide the full context and chronology of events.