South African Student Protesters Win First Big Victory
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- Published on Sunday, 01 November 2015 23:30
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1181 .... November 2, 2015
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South African Student Protesters Win First Big Victory:
Decolonization, Race and Class Politics Fused in Epic Battle
Patrick Bond
The university students have been furious, as their cry “Fees must fall!” rang out on campuses and sites of political power across this society. An historic victory over South African neoliberalism was just won through the most intense three-week burst of activist mobilization since liberation from apartheid in 1994.
The liberation movement rulers in the African National Congress (ANC) have faced unprecedented socio-economic pressure and unrest. This is the most unequal of any major country, with a working class that the World Economic Forum last month judged to be the most militant on earth for the fourth straight year, and a deregulated corporate elite which... enjoys the world's third highest profits, yet which remains intent on looting the economy at a rate as fast as any. All these measures have amplified since the ANC took power in 1994. Suffering a 53 per cent official poverty rate, South Africa witnessed 2300 protests recorded by the police as ‘violent’ this year, a fifth more than last year.
The desperation flash point this month was the announcement of double-digit increases in university tuition fees. Students demonstrated not only against local managers at more than a dozen campuses. Their organizations united across the ideological spectrum, from socialist to nationalist to even the center-right student wing of the main opposition party, and hit national targets.
They began by storming the parliamentary precinct in Cape Town on October 21, then marched to the Johannesburg and Durban headquarters of the ANC on October 22 and 23, and finally demonstrated – tens of thousands strong – at President Jacob Zuma's Union Buildings office in Pretoria on October 23.
There, restraining fences were torn down by some of the activists and tyres and latrines were burned, with police once again responding by using stun grenades, rubber bullets and water cannons. Refusing to come out to address the crowd, instead Zuma held a press conference where he unexpectedly conceded to the students’ main demand: no fee increase for next year (in spite of general price inflation around 5 per cent).