Response to stu­dent protests must be both firm and humane

The weary taxpayer is completely within their rights to ask: why can’t universities get their act together for a change? Once again there are protests on campus, sometimes violent, disruptive and threatening other people’s rights. It is rare these days to find a peaceful protest marked by persuasive arguments and calculated strategies for moving the needle on student exclusions, whether from class lectures or a place to sleep.

You would think that with all the brainpower occupying our universities, we would have had long-term solutions by now. It is not my goal to rehearse the reasons for the chaos. We know the causes, whether it is the unreliability of NSFAS funding or the corruption of the National Senior Certificate, where inflated marks in the form of bachelor’s passes (university entrance) push tens of thousands of students to universities with limited places for the top performers only.

What I wish to focus on, rather, is why universities are so inept at managing the violent and disruptive protests even if the students are knocking on the wrong door for the resolution of their problems. There are three discernible patterns of political dysfunction in our institutions. The first is the liberal curse of universities like UCT.

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When protests turn violent, public roads are disrupted and fellow students ejected from lecture rooms, the liberals at this institution go into handwringing fits of conscience best described as cringeworthy. Should we bring the police or security onto campus to protect public (that’s right) property? In those moments, leaders at the top find their hands tied even as flames engulf artworks, books burn and persons are assaulted.

These colleagues do not understand the difference between anti-apartheid protests and protests within a democratic order. Many of the handwringing liberals are white and middle class and can retreat into secure suburbs and gated communities while the campus burns and they deliver online lessons. The students (or at least those who are bona fide students) sense this racial ambivalence, and the historical record will reveal the ruins left strewn across this prized campus.

How do suspended students make their way onto campus, block entry to official meetings and get away with such actions? This is only possible when the police are compromised, the political authorities are implicated, and staffers on the inside of the campus are in collusion with disruptive forces outside the gates. The second is the authoritarian impulse of universities like Stellenbosch.

In recent weeks we have had small but manageable protests on familiar issues this time of the year, but you would have thought there were bomb threats given the armed security near and around the protesters. The idea is to nip things in the bud in case the protesters get out of control.

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