Amidst an air of distrust and tension, a year after the #feesmustfall movement started, South Africa’s national student protests have once again erupted. Julian Brown looks at how these students are now part of the process of remaking South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy.
Poor communities in South Africa have been protesting for years – sometimes in the glare of publicity, but more often not. Sometimes these protests were immediately effective, leading to the delivery of services or the recognition of specific local complaints – but more often these protests have led to partial or incomplete outcomes, and to communities continuing to reinvent their struggles.
In most cases, these communities have been on the periphery of South Africa’s economic and social order: living in informal settlements, in the inner city’s ‘bad buildings’, or in under-resourced townships. But late last year, protest erupted at the heart of an elite institution.
On 14 October 2015 students at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, protested against a proposed increase in fees for the coming year. Large groups of students blockaded the main entrances to the campus, preventing cars from entering or leaving. They marched out on the thoroughfares around the campus, disrupting traffic and – at points – clashing with the police.