Durban - The #FeesMustFall protests sweeping the country’s universities were a result of the “West’s” being dead set on seeing regime change in South Africa through a local version of the Arab Spring.
This was the observation of KwaZulu-Natal ANC MPL and party provincial executive committee member Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu. She was addressing hundreds of ANC eThekwini delegates during the region’s conference at Coastlands Umhlanga Hotel on Sunday.
Simelane-Zulu made the comments as student protests were expected to shift into another gear this week. Media reports on Sunday indicated that Wits University protest leader Mcebo Dlamini and EFF chairman Dali Mpofu were set to arrive at UKZN on Monday to “provide support” to student leadership.
Simelane-Zulu made the remarks after weeks of students shutting down campuses across the country calling for free higher education for all. She argued that the initial noble cause had been “infiltrated” by “Western forces”.
“How do you say you want free education, yet you go and burn a library? It clearly tells you we have been infiltrated,” she said.
“The revolution has been taken over. Revolutions have been systematic over the last five years. It is only that they come in different forms - service delivery protests and, if that doesn’t succeed, then something else. At the end of the day, the West wants something in the form of a South African Arab Spring to happen.”
She said “those young people have been infiltrated” and led by the EFF.
“Yes, you have members of the ANC - Sasco and PYA (Progressive Youth Alliance) - but, if we are honest with ourselves, who is leading this campaign? It’s the EFF. The EFF is not leading in a sense, let’s meet and discuss issues’. You see them carrying stones wanting to throw them at the police,” Simelane-Zulu said.
“Are these people really fighting for education? No, they are trying to bring regime change, by hook or by crook. We won’t engage them like that.”
She said the ANC organisations had the muscle of the masses on their side and they relied on members “to address them correctly”.
The issue of free education was a campaign supported by the ANC as it had been initiated by the party, she said. That was why President Jacob Zuma commissioned the higher education fees commission currently under way. The commission was to advise on how to implement free and fair education for the poor.
“Let me tell you what it means to say 'free education for all’. I’ve been to varsity and I got whatever degrees I got. In essence you are saying to me, Nomagugu Simelane, a member of Parliament deployed by the ANC, must not pay for varsity education,” she said.
Allowing this would open the floodgates for abuse of the system.
“You have a pensioner’s child who needs this. Once you start having free education for all, spaces in universities will decrease because poor children will be competing with the wealthy. The rich are sending their children to private institutions, but once there is free education for all they will all flock to our universities,” she said.
She encouraged party members to “go back to our members and explain this and make them understand the challenges we are faced with”.
She said the public needed to understand that free education could not be achieved “overnight” and was a process which needed an implementation programme.
On Sunday the University KwaZulu-Natal, the Durban University of Technology and the University of Zululand all said they expected to continue with their academic programmes on Monday.
UKZN spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said on Sunday that studies and lectures had been running uninterrupted for the past three weeks and would continue to do so on Monday.
“Police and security personnel will remain on all campuses,” he added.
DUT also confirmed on Sunday that the academic programme would continue on Monday. Spokesman Alan Khan said the institution reopened last Wednesday after protests caused a shutdown of academic activities on Tuesday.
He said DUT was drawing up revised academic timetables.
Unizulu confirmed on Sunday that the academic programme would continue on Monday.
Spokeswoman Gcina Nhleko said changes to the academic programme would be implemented from Monday. This included additional weeks being added to the academic calendar; more hours per day dedicated to academics and an “acceleration of the teaching pace coupled with compacting of the material”.
The institution has suspended its SRC elections for the time being.
The Mercury