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The Space of the University: Time, and Time Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2019

Mark Sanders
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Abstract

Scholarly analyses of the South African hashtag campus movements of 2015–2016, #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall, have evaluated them in terms of their success in bringing about political change in a linear causal fashion. Through a reading of Thando Mgqolozana’s novel, Unimportance (2014), the history of the University of the Western Cape, as well as scholarly commentary on #RMF and #FMF, this article argues that an attention to the cyclicality of time as it unfolds within the space of the university is crucial for properly understanding the events of 2015–2016.

Keywords

UniversitySouth AfricaMgqolozanaThandoUniversity of the Western Cape#RhodesMustFall#FeesMustFall
Type
Articles
Information
Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , April 2019 , pp. 257 - 271
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

1 Herz, Manuel, Schröder, Ingrid, Focketyn, Hans, and Jamrozik, Julia, eds., African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence: Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia (Zurich, Switzerland: Park, 2015), 552–553 Google Scholar .

2 Mgqolozana, Thando, Unimportance (Johannesburg, South Africa: Jacana, 2014), 25 Google Scholar . Mgqolozana is the author of two previous novels, A Man Who Is Not a Man (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2009) and Hear Me Alone (Johannesburg, South Africa: Jacana, 2011). He also cowrote the screenplay for the film, Inxeba [The Wound] (2017).

3 I thank Chantall Botes, of Residential Services, University of the Western Cape, for confirming this, and for informing me that the “tunnel,” a passageway connecting the two blocks, was renovated and converted into communal kitchens a few years ago. Email to author, July 11, 2018. The first two of UWC’s student residences, Cecil Esau and Cassinga, designed by the Public Works Department and built in the 1960s, were among the campus’s original buildings. The campus was remade in the 1980s, with the addition of several new buildings. These buildings, including a meeting hall, library, student center, as well as new student residences, were designed by various leading South African architects, including Julian Elliot (1928–2015), who designed the campus of the University of Zambia; see Noëleen Murray, “A Campus Apart,” in Becoming UWC: Reflections, Pathways and Unmaking Apartheid’s Legacy 2e, eds. Premesh Lalu and Noëleen Murray (Bellville, South Africa: Centre for Humanities Research, UWC, 2013), 63–87. This edition, from which I quote throughout, was dedicated to Jakes Gerwel, who died in 2012. The first edition, published in 2012, omits its date of publication from the copyright page, and, because it does not include the front matter dedicating it to Gerwel, follows a different pagination.

4 I thank Matthew Cooke for informing me of this.

5 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 144.

6 Jacques Derrida, “The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of Its Pupils,” in Eyes of the University: Right to Philosophy 2, trans. Jan Plug, et al. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), 139–40.

7 Murray, “A Campus Apart,” 68.

8 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 55.

9 Martin, Julia, “An Open Space,” in Becoming UWC: Reflections, Pathways and Unmaking Apartheid’s Legacy 2e, eds. Premesh Lalu and Noëleen Murray (Bellville, South Africa: Centre for Humanities Research, UWC, 2013), 32 Google Scholar .

10 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 55.

11 Wicomb, Zoë, “A Clearing in the Bush,” in You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town (London, England: Virago, 1987), 37–61 Google Scholar .

12 Gerwel, G. J., Literatuur en apartheid: konsepsies van “gekleurdes” in die Afrikaanse roman tot 1948 [Literature and Apartheid: Conceptions of “Colored People” in the Afrikaans Novel Until 1948] (Kasselsvlei, South Africa: Kampen, 1983)Google Scholar .

13 G. J. Gerwel, “Inaugural Address by Jakes Gerwel as UWC Vice-Chancellor and Rector (5 June 1987),” Jakes Gerwel Foundation. https://jgf.org.za/inaugural-address-by-jakes-gerwel-as-uwc-vice-chancellor-and-rector-5-june-1987/.

14 For another account of this turn, see Wolpe, Harold, “The Debate on University Transformation in South Africa: The Case of the University of the Western Cape,” Comparative Education 31.2 (1995): 283–286 Google Scholar .

15 Lalu, Premesh, “Constituting Community at the Intellectual Home of the Left,” in Becoming UWC: Reflections, Pathways and Unmaking Apartheid’s Legacy 2e, eds. Premesh Lalu and Noëleen Murray (Bellville, South Africa: Centre for Humanities Research, UWC, 2013), 111–113 Google Scholar . Lalu views the limitations of such a project as one common to the so-called “historically black universities,” in that, although there has long been a questioning of the “instrumental reason” of state racism at those institutions, there is insufficient questioning of a “disciplinary reason” that has meant, historically, that, at those universities, the “ ‘native question’ was answered from within the disciplinary apparatus locally in terms of the rational prospects confronting the black subject”; Lalu, “Constituting Community at the Intellectual Home of the Left,” 118–19.

16 For some, the 1994 election result became an occasion for soul searching. See Wicomb, Zoë, “Shame and Identity: The Case of the Coloured in South Africa,” in Writing South Africa: Literature, Apartheid, and Democracy, 1970–1995, eds. Derek Attridge and Rosemary Jolly (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1998), 91–107 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

17 Lalu, “Constituting Community at the Intellectual Home of the Left,” 113. See also Premesh Lalu, “Campus: A Discourse on the Grounds of an Apartheid University,” in Becoming UWC: Reflections, Pathways and Unmaking Apartheid’s Legacy 2e, eds. Premesh Lalu and Noëleen Murray (Bellville, South Africa: Centre for Humanities Research, UWC, 2013), 53–56.

18 Martin, “An Open Space,” 30.

19 For example, in his concluding remarks to the Becoming UWC, Lalu writes that “below the uneasy calm that descended upon UWC following the difficult years of the 1990s lay an enormous struggle for the redefinition of the university. There were many indications across its faculties that some change in the orientation of UWC was indeed demanded. Instead, by 1995, with relations strained both between students and academics, and between academics, non-academic staff and senior management, UWC faced the gloomy prospect of becoming yet another project that lagged behind in the transformation of black institutions in post-apartheid South Africa.” See Premesh Lalu, “Becoming UWC,” in Becoming UWC: Reflections, Pathways and Unmaking Apartheid’s Legacy 2e, eds. Premesh Lalu and Noëleen Murray (Bellville, South Africa: Centre for Humanities Research, UWC, 2013), 187. According to Andrew Nash, writing in 1993, “[t]he claim that UWC is striving to become an ‘intellectual home of the left’ is still part of the official rhetoric of the university. But very few students and academics believe that UWC is actually moving in this direction. If the new direction of UWC had to be summed up in a single phrase, we could say that its management, and those closest to them, are ‘preparing to govern.’ While doing so, they preside over a large degree of political disintegration: no SRC has been elected for the past three years, nor have students been able to organize themselves effectively in other ways; the staff association has practically ceased to function; there is increasing distrust and resentment of the university management.” See Andrew Nash, “The ‘Intellectual Home of the Left’ Prepares to Govern: UWC and the New South Africa,” Die Suid-Afrikaan (May/June 1993): 14.

20 “Nie-rassige, demokratiese Suid-Afrika die doel, sê Jakes Gerwel” [“Non-racial, Democratic South Africa the Goal, says Jakes Gerwel”], Die Suid-Afrikaan [October 1989, supplement]: 9. My translation. Embedded phrase in English in the original. On this point, see Anderson, Gregory M., Building a People’s University in South Africa: Race, Compensatory Education, and the Limits of Democratic Reform (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 66–67 Google Scholar .

21 Lalu, “Constituting Community at the Intellectual Home of the Left,” 113.

22 I draw in the next paragraph on the analysis provided by Anderson, Building a People’s University in South Africa, 58–82.

23 On this question, also see Maseko, Sipho S., “Student Power, Action and Problems: A Case Study of UWC SRC, 1981–92,” Transformation 24 (1994): 81 Google Scholar .

24 The decision in 1991 by the university to make English its “formal academic language” also contributed to divisions between Coloured students, many of whom spoke Afrikaans as their mother tongue, and African students, most of whom spoke neither Afrikaans nor English as their first language. I am grateful to Jane Taylor for alerting me to this point. For a sense of the complexities of how UWC’s language policy reshaped racial divisions, see Anderson, Building a People’s University in South Africa, 164–69.

25 As Gerwel noted in a 1989 interview, African students had begun to play a leading role in student politics at UWC by the end of the 1980s: “In our SRC . . . nine out of the eleven are African students [African-studente]. This is a potentially very significant development, this manifestation of African leadership [previous two words in English in the original], especially in the Western Cape. On the other hand, the question remains: Is it a sort of abdication on the part of brown activists?” “Nie-rassige, demokratiese Suid-Afrika die doel,” 9. My translation.

26 Some have questioned the durability of #FMF as a “movement”; see, for example, David Everatt, “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants? Successive Generations of Youth Sacrifice in South Africa,” in Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, ed. Susan Booysen (Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press, 2016), 135.

27 Catalysts for the emergence of the hashtag movements differed, depending on campus. For an account of the inception of #FMF at UWC as having followed a disputed SRC election result, see the remarks by Tyrone Pretorius, UWC’s rector and vice-chancellor, quoted in Jonathan Jansen, As By Fire: The End of the South African University (Cape Town, South Africa: Tafelberg, 2017), 110–11.

28 Jansen, As By Fire, 208–09. For the view that the students’ violence was isolated, or a reaction to the presence on campus of police and private security guards, see Godsell, Gillian, Lepere, Refiloe, Mafoko, Swankie, and Nase, Ayabonga, “Documenting the Revolution,” in Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, ed. Susan Booysen (Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press, 2016), 115–116 Google Scholar .

29 Jansen, As By Fire, 79–80; Booysen, Susan, “Two Weeks in October: Changing Governance in South Africa,” in Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, ed. Susan Booysen (Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press, 2016), 33, 46 Google Scholar .

30 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 58.

31 Mgqolozana has called himself a “Rhodes Must Fallist.” See Kwanele Sosibo, “Thando Mgqolozana—I’m Not Going to Wake up to a Decolonised SA,” Mail & Guardian, June 19, 2015. https://mg.co.za/article/2015-06-19-thando-mgqolozana-im-not-going-to-wake-up-to-a-decolonised-sa.

32 Jansen, As By Fire, 47.

33 “#FMF was about a mimetic politics.” See Satgar, Vishwas, “Bringing Class Back In: Against Outsourcing During #FeesMustFall at Wits,” in Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, ed. Susan Booysen (Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press, 2016), 217 Google Scholar .

34 Although identifying a “strategy of metaphorical campaigning,” which he regards as a signal contribution of #RMF and #FMF to “activism and mobilisation,” Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh does not draw a clear distinction between the metaphors; Mpofu-Walsh, Sizwe, “The Game’s the Same: ‘MustFall’ Moves to Euro-America,” in Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, ed. Susan Booysen (Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press, 2016), 83 Google Scholar .

35 See Booysen, “Introduction,” in Fees Must Fall, 3; Gillian Godsell and Rekgotsofetse Chikane, “The Roots of the Revolution,” in Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, ed. Susan Booysen, 60; Lynn Hewlett, Nomagugu Mukadah, Koffi Kouakou, and Horácio Zandamela, “Learning from Student Protests in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, ed. Susan Booysen, 160–61.

36 Jansen, As By Fire, xvii, 119.

37 Booysen, “Introduction,” Fees Must Fall, 19.

38 See Booysen, ed., Fees Must Fall.

39 See Hewlett, et al., “Learning from Student Protests.” Also see William Gumede, “Unfinished Revolutions: The North African Uprisings and Notes on South Africa,” in Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, ed. Susan Booysen (Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press, 2016), 148–68, 169–90.

40 Writing insightfully that “[s]tudent direct action has benefited from their being more centrally positioned than their community-member counterparts,” Susan Booysen employs a different explanatory metaphor. See “Two Weeks in October,” 46.

41 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 59.

42 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 94. It should be noted, however, that campus protests of the early 2000s, for example, against fees increases and financial exclusion, have been attributed, in part, to the failure of SRCs, which are mandated by the 1997 Higher Education Act to work with university administration and governing bodies to resolve these issues, due to a “clear discontinuity between the deliberative democracy imposed by the 1997 HE Act and the concept of representative democracy that previously underpinned reliance on mass meetings.” See Koen, Charlton, Cele, Mlungisi, and Libhaber, Arial, “Student Activism and Student Exclusions in South Africa,” International Journal of Educational Development 26 (2006): 409 CrossRefGoogle Scholar . With #FMF, in 2015–16, there was, likewise, on several campuses a questioning of the representativeness of the SRC; see, for example, remarks by Max Price, vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, quoted in Jansen, As By Fire, 33.

43 Percy Zvomuya, “Thando Mgqolozana,” in “200 Young South Africans: Arts and Culture,” Mail & Guardian, June 14, 2010. https://mg.co.za/article/2010-06-14-200-young-south-africans-arts-and-culture.

44 As a researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council, Mgqolozana co-authored studies of the nursing profession. See Breier, Mignonne, Wildschut, Angelique, and Mgqolozana, Thando, Nursing in a New Era: The Profession and Education of Nurses in South Africa (Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press, 2009)Google Scholar ; “Nurses,” in Skills Shortages in South Africa: Case Studies of Key Professions, eds. Johan Erasmus and Mignonne Breier (Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press, 2009), 132–51.

45 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 141.

46 Brink, André P., A Dry White Season (London: W. H. Allen, 1979)Google Scholar .

47 Serote, Mongane, “For Don M. –Banned,” in Seasons Come to Pass: A Poetry Anthology for Southern African Students, eds. Es’kia Mphahlele and Helen Moffett (Cape Town, South Africa: Oxford University Press, 1994), 237 Google Scholar . “Under the terms of the banning order, Mattera’s career as a journalist was strictly curtailed: he could no longer work as a reporter on the Johannesburg Star, only as a sub-editor. He was not allowed to publish in South Africa or send his work abroad for publication. His spoken words and opinions could not be quoted by others. His private life was circumscribed by police controls, and he was forbidden to attend meetings.” In this context, Serote’s poem may be read as “quoting” Mattera, whose poetry includes figures of seasonal rebirth; for example: “The sun has died, the sun had died/ the sun has died/ But the sun will rise again/ And with it shall rise the dreams/ Of men and the hopes of children/ For this is a law winter carried out/ Since the beginning of time.” Don Mattera’s interview with Essop Patel can be found in Mattera, Don, “Out of the Twilight,” Index on Censorship 12.3 (1983): 7–10 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

48 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 31.

49 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 88–105.

50 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 101. On negotiations with students on payment of fees, and on readmission after academic failure, also see Jansen, As By Fire, 27–28, 38–40; Anderson, Building a People’s University in South Africa, 65; Koen, Cele, and Libhaber, “Student Activism and Student Exclusions in South Africa,” 409.

51 For a vivid account, see FitzGerald, Patrick and Seale, Oliver, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: University Management and the #FeesMustFall Campaign,” in Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, ed. Susan Booysen (Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press, 2016), 248–251 Google Scholar . Also see comments by Max Price, quoted in Jansen, As By Fire, 32.

52 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 108–15; see also 38.

53 Mpe, Phaswane, Welcome to Our Hillbrow (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of Natal Press, 2001)Google Scholar . Other notable post-apartheid South African campus fictions include Mpe’s posthumously published Brooding Clouds (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008); Niq Mhlongo, Dog Eat Dog (Cape Town, South Africa: Kwela, 2004) and After Tears (Cape Town, South Africa: Kwela, 2007); and J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace (New York: Viking, 1999).

54 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 92. According to Donald Woods, “In 1966 [Steve Biko] enrolled as a student at the University of Natal to study medicine, but after initial academic success became so involved in politics that his grades suffered and he was barred from further study. By this time, however, he was an acknowledged leader in several bodies he had founded or had helped to found, including the South African Students Organization (SASO) and the Black Community Programs, and became a fulltime organizer for these bodies, spreading the creed of the Black Consciousness movement he had launched, which had been the motivating philosophy behind the formation of these associations. Shortly thereafter, he had been banned and restricted to the King William’s Town area.” See Woods, Donald, Biko (New York: Paddington, 1978), 49 Google Scholar .

55 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 31.

56 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 54.

57 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 70–71; cf. 138–39. The renewal of the contract for managing The Barn, a popular campus bar, is also subject to political machinations linked to the SRC elections; Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 67. For further examples of how student politics can be corrupted by business interests linked to the competition for tenders, see Jansen, As By Fire, 100–103.

58 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 140.

59 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 57. The phrase “mother body” is typically applied to the ANC as a national or provincial political party. The alliance described by Zizi broadly reflects the structure of the ANC’s Progressive Youth Alliance, which is made up of the ANC Youth League, the Young Communist League, the Congress of South African Students, the South African Students Congress, and other organizations. Whereas the Congress of South African Students represents secondary school students, the South African Students Congress represents students in higher education. Unimportance, however, describes “a vicious campaign at the national level of the mother body to launch official branches of the Youth League on campuses to replace us.” In the novel, this “New Tendency is led by Sindane,” Zizi’s political rival; Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 58. The “Azanians” are probably PASMA (Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania); Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 137.

60 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 57.

61 Mgqolozana, Unimportance, 54–55. Also see Jansen, As By Fire, 41.

62 Ihron van Rensburg, vice-chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, quoted in Jansen, As By Fire, 35.

63 See the websites for the Public Investment Corporation at http://www.pic.gov.za/ and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) at https://www.dbsa.org/EN/Pages/default.aspx.

64 Hence the predicament of the “missing middle.” “The ‘missing middle’ is a term used during the fees protests to refer to students whose parental income is above the then NSFAS ceiling of R120 000 to qualify for government bursaries and loans, but still low enough to cause these students financial stress during their studies. Put differently, students in the missing middle are neither poor enough to qualify for financial support nor wealthy enough to pay for their own studies.” See Jansen, As By Fire, 256 n.1. See also remarks by Max Price, in Jansen, As By Fire, 32–33.

65 See Jansen, As By Fire, 32–33, 43–44.

66 “‘What has changed is that government will support poor and working-class students through an expanded bursary scheme, which replaces the previous loan and partial bursary scheme,’ said [Minister of Education Naledi Pandor]. Students entering universities or TVET colleges for the first time will not be expected to pay back their bursaries, but: ‘They will be expected to meet certain conditions and expectations, including those relating to satisfactory academic performance and service conditions.’ She said the exact details of this were still being finalised. . . . The full cost of study of the bursary scheme . . . is being phased in from 2018, starting with first-time entry students from families with a gross combined annual income of up to R350 000. ‘All continuing existing NSFAS-funded university students will receive their funding in 2018 and for the completion of their studies as grants rather than as loans.’ ” See Jan Gerber, “Here’s How Many Billions Government Has Unlocked for Free Higher Education,” News24. April 24, 2018. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/government-unlocks-billions-more-for-free-higher-education-20180424.

67 For an argument in favor of increasing state borrowing, and for lowering interest rates in order to increase investment in social spending, see Bond, Patrick, “To Win Free Education, Fossilised Neoliberalism Must Fall,” in Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, ed. Susan Booysen (Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press, 2016), 207–209 Google Scholar .

68 For a brief discussion of #FMF and democratization, comparing direct action with voting, see Booysen, “Two Weeks in October,” 45–47.

69 Read the present essay as a counterpart to my “Democracy in the Paranoid Style,” paper given at the Modern Language Association annual meeting, New York, New York on January 7, 2018.

70 “The cutbacks in funding for higher education driven by SAPs and government compliance with them translated into the end of the free fees era in many countries, affecting the less wealthy students. This . . . had severe implications for educational conditions and access.” See Hewlett, et al., “Learning from Student Protests,” 155.