We are becoming a society that rewards thuggish behaviour

Last weekend a two-day conference that brought together probably the best brains, officialdom and stakeholders in education to tackle the crisis at South Africa's institutions of higher learning had to be called off after violence and intimidation by students invited to participate in the discussion.

It's a pity, because it had taken a lot of hard work by a lot of dedicated individuals - led by retired deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke - to bring together such a representative group to deal with what has been an intractable issue for more than three years.

The students, who apparently arrived late, proceeded to lay down the law: Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande and University of the Witwatersrand vice-chancellor Adam Habib were not to speak.

One of their number pompously lectured the esteemed assemblage on why the students had taken umbrage at being treated like everyone else: they were the most important stakeholders and deserved to be treated as such.

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It is perhaps a sign of the times that such an outrage passed off with little publicity. There's so much madness of this kind happening around the country all the time, it's difficult to keep up. Boorishness has become normal behaviour. Vandalism is a preferred mode of expression.

A few weeks ago a few such blockheads disrupted a talk by Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Such people don't recognise greatness even when it's staring them in the face. They can't learn from it. They spit at it.

Days later, protesting children in school uniform created pandemonium in central Johannesburg when they went on the rampage, looting shops and stealing from street vendors. Some of the pupils didn't even seem to know what the protest was about.

An abiding picture is of a woman, who could have been a mother or granny to these children, sitting on the pavement crying after her entire stock had been plundered by these brats. Such ill-bred scoundrels. Whose children are they?

Perhaps rampaging children can be forgiven for being too young to understand the consequences of their actions, but university students are adults and cannot hide behind such an excuse.

Chickens are coming home to roost. When the #RhodesMustFall campaign started, people who should've known better either kept quiet or averted their eyes from the burning and destruction that ensued. Those who expressed alarm were called all sorts of names.

Students, we were told, have to be radical - for radicalism's own sake, I guess. One wonders whether the proponents and their apologists can point to anything achieved by that campaign, except for the destruction of the reputations of institutions and individuals associated with them. #RhodesMustFall led to #FeesMustFall, and the burning and destruction continued.

I have absolutely no issue with protest. It is, after all, the stuff of democracy. But does it have to be violent? Do students and lecturers have to be intimidated from attending classes or writing exams? Should campuses be turned into war zones?

Free university education is a utopia that even the richest nations cannot afford. Besides, it has too many unintended consequences, which none of its advocates are prepared to acknowledge. But one can see the logic: freedom, I suppose, means everything should be free.

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The naive among us thought the problem had been solved when President Jacob Zuma agreed - with some alacrity - not to raise tuition fees two years ago. Instead, the mayhem has continued. The goalposts keep moving. The decolonisation of education - a concept I find difficult to wrap my simple head around - has been added to the mix for good measure.

But this is no longer about education or its affordability. Maybe it's a ruse or ploy for other, bigger fish. If it truly still is, why do you disrupt a rare opportunity to find a solution?

It's almost a misnomer to even call these people students. They are thugs, skilled in thuggery. They are rude, uncouth and uncultured.

They should take the limited time they have between hollering and burning and destroying things to check the meaning of "education" in the dictionary. That is, if they can read. Education is about teaching, but also learning from other people, which requires a capacity to listen. It should be enlightening.

But the biggest tragedy is the fact that the Establishment - the government, tertiary institutions and parents - have been cowed into silence or acquiescence. Parents speak in hushed tones about what their children have been up to. They've been intimidated.

At Saturday's meeting, for instance, the chairman thought the students' refusal to allow Nzimande and university principals to speak was a "fair point". How can one even begin to discuss the problems at tertiary institutions without the involvement of those who head them and Nzimande?

Everybody is, for whatever reason, bending over backwards to accommodate unacceptable behaviour.