Student Resistance to Apartheid at the University of Fort Hare by Chapman Rico Devara;

Author:Chapman, Rico Devara;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Amid ideological differences and ongoing debates about the way forward for South Africa, students maintained some semblance of unity when it came to issues that affected them all regardless of political persuasion. About two months later, after the demonstrations in support of the ANC members executed in Pretoria, students went on a massive midnight march and set fire to the newly opened staff complex. The campus demonstrations involving several hundred students were in response to a letter from Lamprecht responding to student grievances and a proposed R330 increase in fees for the following year.[102] Interviewed students stated the unrest followed the decision of the University Council to increase residence and academic fees and not to supply buses for students to attend funerals of their fellow students.[103] The Argus Bureau reported: “One student said that the staff center was burnt because it was the newest building on campus symbolizing exploitation. Another said the increase in fees was a really hard blow because parents clearly could not afford such exorbitant fees on the meager salaries they earn.”[104] Lamprecht released a circular justifying the increase: “The university has no hidden supply of money, and like any other enterprises can go bankrupt if it manages its finances badly. The cost of food, for instance, has increased by approximately 25 percent in the last year, salaries and wages of staff have to be increased and the costs of other necessary services.”[105] Whether it was the tuition increase or the lack of the school’s support, students felt justified in destroying university property and making the campuses ungovernable, mirroring the mood in the townships throughout South Africa to make the entire country ungovernable.

This period of resistance of the 1980s was distinguished from the 1976 uprising by the large number of deaths attributed to conflict between African activists and perceived collaborators. The attacks on perceived collaborators “represented a first wave of direct confrontation with representatives of the apartheid system.”[106] To the students the homeland system represented the apartheid state and they saw and felt its lashes and bullets so students who did not go along with a boycott or demonstration were often seen as traitors. In the townships those who were accused of being informants or collaborators were harassed, beaten, and in many instances killed. Likewise, many students who did not consent or participate in political struggle were harassed. Vusi Pikoli, in his memoir describes the feeling he felt towards students who did not support the strikes: “We went back to campus and were furious when we saw a woman coming from class. I was so angry she had betrayed the cause that I threw a brick at her and narrowly missed her head. I wanted to hurt her because I considered her a sell-out and felt let down. At the time, I would have felt justified in causing her pain because we regarded the likes of her as sell-outs and dissenters but now, looking back and being a democrat, I believe that she had every right to do as she chose.

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