Across the world, generations of student activists have played key roles in the radical movements that have driven the transitions and transformations of the 20th and 21st centuries. In SA, it is inconceivable, if not profoundly flawed, to think of the anti-apartheid struggle and the transition to democracy, as well as the ongoing struggles for fundamental change (radical socio-economic transformation), without acknowledging the role of the student movement.
This year we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the birth and legacy of the nonracial student organisation in SA’s higher education sector, the South African Students Congress (Sasco). This is a moment to pause and ponder, retrace our steps, and an opportunity to chart a way into the future. A promising future of opportunities and prosperity.
We have come a long way. There were several generations of student leaders before us. Many are no longer around to witness and commemorate the three decades since the birth of a giant, born from their efforts and struggles. We are here to give testimony to the sterling work and historic contributions of those who came before us. The present constitute a cohort of different periods, hence the intergenerational nature of the student movement, each with its distinctive epoch.
The formation of Nusas (National Union of South African Students) in 1924, the establishment of the African Student Association in the early 1960s, the South African Student Organisation (Saso) in the late 1960s, the Azanian Students’ Organisation (Azaso) in the late 1970s, the South African National Students’ Congress (Sansco) in the 1980s, right up to the birth of Sasco 30 years ago has been an arduous journey of historical proportions and magnitude spanning more than 97 years. This is testimony to the truth that the student movement has been part of the historical contours of the struggle for freedom and justice in our land.
Nusas was born under hostile conditions of extreme racial supremacy and colonial consolidation. However, those conditions did not derail the emergence of a movement at whose primacy was the deracialisation and integration of the fragmented higher education system. Over decades, many organisations that purported to be opposed to apartheid racial bigotry had to transform themselves to reflect the nonracial principles and aspirations for which they strove. Nusas became central in advocating for a nonracial tertiary education system with unfettered access, irrespective of affordability, background and colour.
The formation of Saso was a response to the struggles of black students within Nusas and the prevailing mood that black people had to shape their own destiny. Nusas became a nuisance to the architects of apartheid. It detested and rejected the odious conscription campaign, which enlisted young white men into the army, in peacetime. It produced some of the most consistent opponents of apartheid and many proponents of nonracial democracy. Among its leaders we count advocate Fink Haysom, advocate Paul Pretorious SC, Cameron Dugmore (Western Cape ANC leader of the ANC caucus), Margaret Marshall, John Didcott, Andries Nel and many more who remained resolute in the fight for free higher education and apartheid’s demise.
Nusas was also a breeding ground for many white South Africans who joined the ANC, SACP and Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), and played a key role in the formation and revival of the sectoral formations of the congress movement in the 1970s and 1980s of the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM), led by the United Democratic Front (UDF). Many student leaders, black and white, were dealt with brutally by the repressive apartheid state machinery: banned, detained or killed. At worst, it went beyond borders, undermining the sovereignty of other African states. In its deadly trail, Bheki Mlangeni and Onkgopotse Tiro, among many others, died at the hands of the apartheid security forces. Even students were not spared.
At the time, higher education was widely fragmented and racialised, configured on the foundational principles of apartheid monstrosity, institutionalised racism and a gutter education system irrelevant to development and perpetuating white minority privilege and rule.
What are we celebrating? Of what significance is this history? In the course of its evolution and struggles, Nusas existed alongside a predominantly black student organisation, Saso, founded on the ideology of black consciousness. This was an organisation of Steve Biko, Dr Mamphele Ramphele, Dr Strini Moodley, Dr Barney Pityana and many others who believed in black consciousness. Saso broke away from Nusas due to discontent about its liberal ideology and what was deemed to be lack of genuine commitment to pursuing the struggles of black students. The argument being that the lived experiences of black people dictated that blacks take ownership of their destiny and thus guarantee their own political freedom.
From Saso came the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania (led by Mosibudi Mangena from 1981 onwards in exile) and the Black People’s Convention (BPC), with Dean Farisani as its inaugural president. Ultimately the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) was born. At the time, higher education was widely fragmented and racialised, configured on the foundational principles of apartheid monstrosity, institutionalised racism and a gutter education system irrelevant to development and perpetuating white minority privilege and rule.
The breaking point was in 1979, with the birth of Azaso. Why the breaking point? Azaso adopted the Freedom Charter, nonracialism and inclusive higher education. This it shared with Nusas, which at the time had black students in its midst, until a breakaway to establish Azaso. According to Dr Billy Ramokgopa, its former president and now national chairperson of the Strategic Dialogue Group (SDG), the turning point came when Azaso severed ties with its Azapo mother body. It shifted radically from the black consciousness philosophy as the main guiding principle to waging the liberation struggle. Azaso threw its weight behind the national democratic struggle, as led and propagated by the Congress Movement, the principles of which were embodied in the Freedom Charter. The struggle was no longer a black vs white concept, but the nonracial democratic struggle of which the working class was seen as the vanguard.
The impact of the 1976 student uprisings and the ideological struggles between congress and black consciousness politics had a huge impact on the higher education terrain. Already at that time the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) and Nusas were operating within the realms of the Congress Movement and collaborating with trade unions and civic organisations. This was a struggle of unity and strategic and tactical alliances. In fierce battles with the apartheid authorities, many of Azaso leaders were detained and banned. Some were expelled from institutions of higher learning. Others were exiled, joining MK.
The birth of Azaso was proposed at Azapo’s launch conference in 1978. The late Curtis Nkondo was elected president of Azapo, despite being known to be an ANC activist. Azapo was used as an interim sanctuary to host essentially an ANC-aligned student formation at its neonate stage. Hence only one NEC member, Molefe Tsele, was black consciousness-aligned. There is evidence of the role and influence of ANC and SACP underground activists in the formation of Azaso and the ideological stance it took. Nkondo later rose to vice-president of the UDF. Azaso was formed in 1979 to fill the void that was left after Saso was banned. Its inaugural president was Tom Nkoane. Though it adopted black consciousness, its annual conference in 1981 was dominated by debates on nonracialism and socialism. The outcome was the adoption of the Freedom Charter as a guiding document. Azaso subsequently gravitated to greater cooperation with Cosas and the UDF, therefore earning the status of being an ANC-aligned student formation for the tertiary education sector.
The leadership of Cosas at the time was initially opposed to the formation of Azaso as it believed there should be one countrywide student formation across all levels of education. Cosas’s stance was defeated. It also forged a working alliance with Nusas. Azaso was entrusted with championing the Education Charter Campaign. Whereas Nusas was a confederation of SRCs, Azaso sought to distinguish itself by identifying with the struggles of the working class on and off campus.
Among the leaders of Azaso were Joe Phaahla, Giyani Mduli, Tiego Moseneke, Paul Sefularo, David Johnson, Salim Badat, Ishmail Moss, Simphiwe Mgoduso and Benny Monama. The repression of the mid-1980s, in particular the declaration of the State of Emergency in 1985, drove many progressive formations to the ground. The leadership of these were either detained, maimed or exiled, thus restricting their potency to further their objectives with vigour. Progressive formations sought creative means to evade bannings and stay relevant. Within Azaso the debate continued about its name and non-resonance with its charterist ideological stance. It is this debate and other political considerations that led to Azaso being renamed the South African National Students’ Congress (Sansco) in 1986. This coincided with the formation of Cosatu, led by the late Elijah Barayi, and the broader consolidation of the struggle against apartheid, as led by the UDF. Sansco continued pursuing the objective of being a mass-based student formation and forged increased links with Nusas, Cosas and the South African Youth Congress (Sayco), which was formed in 1987.
Azaso had been tasked in 1982, with Cosas, with establishing individual youth congresses in various townships, villages and regions. By 1986 there were in excess of 600 such congresses across SA. This culminated in the formation of Sayco, led by Peter Mokaba, which integrated with the ANC Youth League after the unbanning of the ANC. Student organisations such as Sansco, the Student Union for Christian Action (Suca) and Young Christian Students (YCS) also collaborated with the Union of Democratic University Staff Association (Udusa), the front-runner to the National Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) on many campus struggles and campaigns. Sansco met its fate with the repressive regime and was banned in 1988, together with all formations under the UDF banner.
At that time the ANC in exile was intensifying the struggle on all fronts, in tandem with its four pillars - mass mobilisation, international solidarity, armed struggle and underground. The country was increasingly becoming ungovernable and apartheid unworkable. At the time, the defeat of South African forces in Cuito Cuanavale cleared the path towards a negotiated settlement in Namibia. There were other developments in Nicaragua and elsewhere across the globe that were tilting the balance of forces in favour of the progressive movement. All these served as great inspiration to the oppressed in SA and the student movement in particular. The release of political prisoners was more and more imminent and the call for unbanning of people’s organisations became louder.
Sansco continued to struggle, in spite of the repressive conditions. Among its leadership were Mzoxolo Michael “Mike” Koyana, Chule “KK” Papiyana, Bongani More, Moses Sekhu, Joel Ngoepe, Kovin Naidoo, Themba James Maseko, Derick Masuku and Bongani Gxilishe. In pursuance of higher education transformation, free higher education and an education system linked to the human resource need and strategy of the country for future development and sustainability the student movement played a critical role in shaping society by its conviction that “students are members of society before they are students”.
These struggles they carried with progressive labour organisations on campuses and off-campus community organisations. The student movement recognised institutions of higher learning as an integral part of society and community assets, hence their dialectical relationship with the broader national liberation struggles. It is within this context of the transformation of ivory tower-type institutions of higher learning into people’s institutions that campus struggles were a focal point, in view of their strategic nature as instruments of change and development beyond epistemology and pedagogy. Key to the outlook was how education could be applied to advance development that is symbiotically linked to people’s struggles and a higher education system aligned to the essence upon which the student movement pivoted and, most critically, its existence in relation to fighting apartheid for the total liberation of the country. And an education system symmetrical to development. This was in contrast to the war cry of “freedom now, education later”, which the ANC leadership considered regressive to the revolutionary cause in view of the potent nature of education in prosecuting the class struggle and the struggle for political freedom. And building a future leadership pipeline with the intellectual wherewithal, political theory and clarity that would constitute a regimen for the prosperity of posterity.
One notable feature of these struggles was their unitary character. For instance it was fashionable for a student outside a particular region to lead in that particular area without being classified as an outsider, of this colour and from this tribe. The struggle knew no boundaries. It was a national struggle for national liberation. This was firmly entrenched in the solemn injunction and declaration that “South Africa belongs to those who live in it”. The student movement contributed immensely in the national liberation struggle. Military operations, recruitment and training were clandestinely conducted on campuses. The student movement had its fair share of maiming and brutality at the brutal hands of the heinous regime under PW Botha.
In 1990, the collaboration between white SRCs and Black Students’ Societies (BSS) in uniting students and their non-racist outlook and character were a precursor to the formation of single representative, inclusive nonracial SRCs. Talks of unity, facilitated and brokered by Cosas, were taking place between the white Nusas and black Sansco. This culminated in the Rhodes University launch of Sasco. At the time, university management was divided, with some members offering support, while others chose an iron-fisted approach to protect the institution. The relationship between the management of these institutions varied from institution to institution, influenced and shaped by the conditions of the time. From 1986 to 1989 the University of Limpopo was occupied by the South African Defence Force (SADF). This was unprecedented. For three years students studied under their heavy artillery. Turfloop resembled a war zone. There was no political activity, no SRC. Students were arrested and some banned. This was reminiscent of the events during the pro-Frelimo rallies on campuses and the ultimate banning of Onkgopotse Abram Tiro in 1972. This was a prevalent trend to silence activists.
On October 29 1983, ANC-aligned students of the University of Zululand (Unizulu) were attacked by an IFP impi in what is today known as 'The Seige of Ongoye', as Unizulu is famously called. Scores of students were killed and many wounded. The incursion was triggered by the rise in popularity of the UDF and the dwindling of IFP support.
On October 29 1983, ANC-aligned students of the University of Zululand (Unizulu) were attacked by an IFP impi in what is today known as “The Siege of Ongoye”, as Unizulu is famously called. Scores of students were killed and many wounded. The incursion was triggered by the rise in popularity of the UDF and the dwindling of IFP support. Also, students aligned to the ANC opposed IFP leader Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s use of the campus to commemorate King Cetshwayo, one of the greatest kings of the Zulu nation. Innocent blood of students was spilt, an act Buthelezi today contemptuously rejects as political poppycock.
The common strands and denominators across these organisations, albeit existing in different epochs and conditions, each shaping their ideology, orientation, strategies and tactics, were higher education transformation, free higher education, non-sexism, community service and the integration of these struggles with national liberation. Each of these organisations had their own incomparable distinctive periods. Nusas, Azaso and Sansco adopted non-sexism, nonracialism and unity as their foundational principles. It is from these fundamental principles that a programme of action and strategies of shaping society are derived, hence the quest for and contribution towards a non-sexist, nonracial united SA. The South African higher education set-up comprised deep clefts that mirrored a fragmented apartheid set-up. There were white universities against specific segments of South African society.
At the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, the SRC served primarily the interests of white students, whereas the BSS represented the interests of black students who were categorised as a minority on white campuses. SRCs were a contested terrain of struggle and strategic instruments in furtherance of an agenda of a particular class and ideology beyond representing students. At the University of Durban-Westville a splinter organisation known as Taifalwatwa was formed to contest Sasco in SRC elections. In whose interests was this organisation formed and what agenda did it represent? This is the complex nature of SRC politics. Some of these organisations were formed to counter Sasco and subvert transformation.
This takes us back to the siege of Ongoye and the Turfloop occupation, and the banning and killing of students across institutions of higher learning. And the stance of universities in sowing divisions among students, and acts of propaganda by the apartheid authorities, including suspicions and allegations of espionage within the student movement.
The axis connecting progressive student and youth formations was almost standard across the country. In many homelands (such as Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei and Venda) universities became the sanctuary where activists would seek refuge to hold meetings under relatively safer conditions.
In the then Northern Transvaal MK had increasingly inflicted significant wounds on the apartheid security forces, thus bringing much hope that freedom was within reach. The far Northern Transvaal (in particular the erstwhile Venda homeland) witnessed a sweeping detention spree in 1989. This led to many students and youth activists fleeing to the urban centres, mainly Johannesburg. Some youth activists were even abducted in Johannesburg to be sent back to detention in Venda and other homelands.
The same experience prevailed on campuses such as the University of Transkei (Unitra) in Mthatha and Fort Hare, where several student leaders operated and conducted underground political activities, including recruiting comrades into MK. The Transkei regime harassed Unitra students, arresting, brutally torturing and killing many student leaders, among them Bathandwa Ndondo.
1989 heralded the release of the first group of Rivonia trialists, led by Walter Sisulu. This meant a pivotal bridge between the legitimate leaders of the struggle for political emancipation. Many other student leaders (including Mike Koyana) were released from prison. The leadership of the ANC in prison, underground and exile nudged the student movement in the tertiary sector to unite to form one nonracial progressive student organisation.
Negotiations towards the merger started in earnest in 1989. In 1990, at the instruction of the leadership of the movement, Sansco and Nusas held their annual congresses at the University of the Western Cape, at which Koyana and Steven Silver were elected presidents of Sansco and Nusas respectively. Apex in their mandates was the unification of the two formations. Among the leadership of the student movement were Bronwin Levy, James Maseko, Moss Sekhu, Moeti Mpuru and KK Papiyana.
There were heated debates on the outlook of the new organisation. Some of the key debates centred on whether it would assume the federal character of Nusas or be the mass-based formation Sasco was. One of the key questions was structural, particularly whether what was to be undertaken was a merger or an integration of one formation to another.
There were also intense ideological debates on principles of African leadership. African leadership and women leadership entailed a long-held position of the ANC that the struggle for liberation in SA was for the political emancipation of black people in general and Africans in particular. The principle of working-class leadership espoused the class struggle that characterised the revolution in SA from its inception. Attempts were also made, but did not prevail, to get the new organisation to adopt what was coined women leadership and for it to take a formal stance on championing the rights of the LGBTQI community. Sasco was ultimately launched in 1991, at Rhodes University. In the true character of intellectual student activists and the culture of robust debates in SA, hours were spent at that congress debating whether the pen in the logo should point downwards (as initially designed) or upwards (as currently depicted). The latter prevailed as recognition of the symbolism of a pen (read as meaning education) as an instrument of liberation, class advancement and development.
Among the inaugural leadership were Muthanyi Robison Ramaite (president), Lincoln Mali (deputy president), Kgomotso Masebelenga (secretary-general), Hope Papo (treasurer) and Litha Mcwabeni. At regional level, Sasco was inaugurally led by, among others, Phenyani Gaddafi Sedibe (Natal), Martin Mahosi (Northern Transvaal) and Naledzani Mashapa (Western Cape). From a leadership point of view, Naledzani Mashapa and Mahlengi Bhengu succeeded Robinson Ramaite and Kgomotso Masebelenga as president and secretary-general respectively. Though Sasco and its predecessors had elected women to the top leadership structures before, the election of Mahlengi to the position of the secretary-general was a powerful demonstration of the extent of commitment to women leadership, non-sexism and gender equality. The struggle against patriarchy was waged intensely by militant women on various campuses and inside the organisation throughout various generations. Non-sexism and nonracialism had to be won in practical battles instead of being lofty ideals and principles of Sasco, and are enshrined in its constitution.
The first five years (1991 to 1996) were a difficult formative and precarious period for Sasco. At the time, unlike that of its predecessors, political activity was free as a result of the unbanning of political organisations and the release from prison and return of many leaders from exile. The student movement had to define a new role for itself in the transition and start answering difficult questions about the future. But some higher education institutions were incalcitrant to transformation, resistant to change and still operating in ivory towers. Academic and financial exclusions were rife. One would have expected that so many positive changes in the country and the presence of black vice-chancellors in most historically disadvantaged institutions would change and accelerate transformation, ensuring greater access. It was not to be. Unfortunately, some of the principals were apartheid appendages who elevated institutional autonomy and academic excellence above free quality education aligned to development. This necessitated a shift in gear, intensifying the struggle to give impetus to transformation.
This was inimical to the elaborate attempts and policy interventions to give effect to “opening the doors of learning and culture”, as proclaimed by the Freedom Charter.
Through its pillar of international work and others, Sasco cemented its footprint locally and internationally. It interacted with and lobbied progressive international organisations across the globe. Key among its struggles was the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel. Thus it established links with Palestinian youth and student organisations, the UN and other regional blocs.
These included the independence of Namibia, the struggle of the people of Western Sahara against its illegal occupation by Morocco and the odious system of Tinkundla by the Dlamini dynasty in neighbouring Swaziland.
The student movement is still grappling with the impact of neo-liberal commodification and colonial epistemology on the higher education sector and this is what inspired the #FeesMustFall movement. The adoption of the SPoT document provided a great deal of theoretical clarity and programmatic coherence to Sasco’s campus, community, policy and international work.
Because of its impeccable and resolute stance on international matters, including human rights in 1993, Sasco was elected to the most powerful seat of secretary-general of the International Union of Students (IUS), situated in the then Czechoslovakia. It was represented by Moeti Mpuru.
There were two fundamental debates Sasco had to resolve. The first was ideological posture and its relationship with the ANC and SACP. Should it be a student wing of the ANC, a student wing of the SACP or an independent radical student movement that remained in the broad democratic movement? The latter became the choice of the 1992 National Congress at Durban-Westville on the basis of the paper written by the Turfloop Branch.
The other question was about the relationship it should have with the new government of national unity (GNU) led by President Nelson Mandela. Two seminal policy papers were written by the national executive committee (NEC) under the leadership of David Makhura as president and Charley Nkadimeng and Oupa Bodibe as secretaries-general in successive tenures.
First, Sasco adopted its policy blueprint known as the Strategic Perspective on Transformation (SPoT) at the 1995 National Congress, which has remained a guiding ideological and strategic policy framework and was reaffirmed by the 2020 National Congress. It must be noted that in view of the leadership problems plaguing Sasco at the time of this congress, the ANC deployed its powerful delegation of Sasco convocants - Thami Ncokwane, Mbulaheni Ramagoma, George Magoma, Abner Mosaase, David Maimela, Terror Yako, Vasco Ndebele, Malusi Gigaba and Nandipha Zonela, among others. This was a reaffirmation of the role convocants played in the life of Sasco.
The relationship with the GNU was defined as complementary and contradictory, depending on what stance the government took on matters affecting students and the fundamental transformation of the higher education sector.
The second policy paper was produced by the NEC in 1994 in response to the report of the newly established National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE). In a well argued and well researched response, Sasco advocated that the NCHE Report was setting the higher education sector on a neoliberal path that would see ongoing commodification of higher education and retention of colonial epistemology in the curriculum of the higher education institutions in post-apartheid SA.
The student movement is still grappling with the impact of neoliberal commodification and colonial epistemology on the higher education sector and this is what inspired the #FeesMustFall movement. The adoption of the SPoT document provided a great deal of theoretical clarity and programmatic coherence to Sasco’s campus, community, policy and international work. Sasco strengthened its international work in the changed global conditions of the post-1990 collapse of some socialist countries and the post-1994 period. It actively lobbied progressive international organisations across the globe. Higher education became widely fragmented with the battle for meagre funding, institutionalised racism and unequal distribution of resources. To obviate hurdles to its existence and to reaffirm its role and exert its hegemony in society and in higher education in particular, Sasco had to adapt or die. And, correctly so, it refused to die, adopting a complementary-contradictory approach which today it carries as its strategy of engagement and relationship with the ANC government.
This was diametrically opposed to the perilous notion that 1994 would automatically deliver free higher education. Ironically, the challenges that came with 1994 became gargantuan, necessitating new strategies by “shaping students’ unity for battles ahead”. Central to this was to build alliances with progressive forces. This included the ANCYL, SUCA and the Young Communist League (YCL), as well as the Student Christian Movement (SCM), depending on respective branch relations. This is what is today known as the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA). There were unfortunate periods in this history from which were drawn important lessons. With the unbanning of the ANC and the re-establishment of the ANCYL there was a debate on whether Sansco/Sasco should disband and make way for the ANCYL to be the sole ANC aligned formation to organise the youth intelligentsia.
A debate pitted the late Peter Mokaba and the late Mike Koyana against each other. Ironically, both were trained underground operatives of MK, but held different views on the role of the youth intelligentsia in the struggle for liberation and in championing the national democratic revolution (NDR). This resembled the debate between Cosas and Azaso in the years of the latter’s formation. This debate simmered and reached its conclusive height at the 1996 Sasco Mahikeng conference, the academic home of Solly Bokaba. After much debate about the ANC’s macroeconomic policy under its then president, Thabo Mbeki, who was a guest of Sasco, National Congress rejected the anti-working class and neoliberal macroeconomic policy of the government. The question of the establishment of the ANCYL in branches on campuses remained a vexed issue. At the time Mbeki, the country’s president, argued that the ANCYL did not need permission from Sasco as to where it should operate and exist in view of the leadership role of the ANC in society. This led to tensions between the ANCYL and Sasco. And these are still palpable today. Instead of a principled PYA, this breeds opportunism, accounting for loss of SRC elections. This is a space for Sasco, not the ANCYL.
The PYA was formed to manage these relations and to execute its programmes and further its objectives on the basis of its pillars. Higher education was configured along the divisive Bantustan lines, with white universities specialising in the military, oceanology, Christianity, law, engineering and medicine as a white-privileged aimed to prop up the apartheid regime and reserve important skills for whites. Hence admission to these university was an exclusive reserve. The stark differences between the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of the Western Cape (UWC, popularly known as BUSH and the Home for the Left), under the leadership of the late Prof Jakes Gerwel, which are kilometres apart, are classic examples of such dichotomy and the irreconcilable contradictions of the apartheid matrix.
One of the key highlights of the student movement was its strategic alliances, collaborations and partnerships. At the level of sport, it established and forged links with the South African Tertiary Institutions Sports Council (Satisco), on the basis that “there can never be a normal sport in an abnormal country”. Satisco worked closely with the National Olympic Committee of South Africa and the National Sports Council, led by Songezo Nayo, Bennett Bailey, the late Mvuso Mbebe, Mangaliso Mahlaba, Moss Mashishi and many student leaders who were part of the student movement. This led to the birth of Satisu in 1991, promoting inclusive, nonracial and non-sexist sport on the basis of its firm conviction that sport is a powerful change and social cohesion agent.
Today, SA grapples with transformation. The national teams’ selection is still white, with serious allegations of racism. Sasco has a moral duty, through higher education and school sports, in partnership with Cosas, to promote, identify, nurture and develop talent to build a truly representative nation under a united banner proud of the South African flag. We count in these struggles the rebel English cricket tour led by Mike Gatting, which South Africans rejected with contempt. Through student and community struggles, Gatting went home without bowling a single ball or hitting a six. On the arts and literary front, Nusas/Sansco and, later, Sasco worked with the South African Student Press Union (Saspu). One of the achievements was the initiative of the first community radio station at UWC, later relocated to Salt River and called Bush Radio. Campus radio stations led by Saspu launched the “Freedom of the Airwaves Campaign” and were instruments of information and communication in the exclusive mass media as an amplified voice of students and communities.
Under the leadership of the Lumko Mtimde (a Sansco and Saspu leader), the concept of community radio stations culminated in campus radio stations as a voice of communities in the country. Working with ANC Radio Freedom, Cosatu and the Campaign for Independent Broadcasting (CIB), this work resulted in legislative and regulatory changes, including transformation of the SABC from a state mouthpiece to the public broadcaster, and the licensing of several community and independent broadcasters.
Speaking of Gerwel, the leadership of Sasco had access to the sage ears of many former student leaders who led HDIs. Profs Muxe Kondo, Biki Minyuku and many others rose to guide and nurture the leadership of the student movement. The ANC invested in the future of the country by investing in the skills and leadership qualities of the students through the Education Training Unit. With it, the ANC deployed its leaders across the country in universities and technical, education and agricultural colleges to provide political education and training. The danger of the absence of political theory in the revolution was predominant. At the time the quest for political education was intrinsic. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”, said Mandela.
Instead of being fountains of knowledge and excellence, institutions of higher learning have become burial grounds, with shocking acts of gender-based violence (GBV), drugs, alcohol and crime. The situation is untenable, warranting exigent intervention by authorities and student leaders.
Comrades understood the importance of leadership and the values of unity in student and community struggles. The conviction that “students are members of society before they are students” gained prominence and was reaffirmed and ingrained through a number of community activities. Sasco exerted its hegemony and vanguardism in the education space and communities. It became and still is the number one student organisation of choice due to its unique character and visionary leadership.
Today we celebrate the life of a colossus that underwent a huge metamorphosis. This is a titanic achievement amassed inter-generationally from 1924 to September 6 2021. Many years since its formation, higher education access is still difficult, with students living in squalor, unemployed graduates roaming the streets in search for employment, an economy incapable of creating jobs and the disjuncture between higher education output and the industrial job input.
Sasco celebrates this day in difficult, pandemic times. This has affected many students, especially those living in rural areas with no access to laptops, the internet and data, which are exorbitantly expensive. Covid-19 has exposed wide inequalities in society. Coronavirus changed the way of doing things, introducing modern technology in the context of the fourth Industrial Revolution and artificial intelligence. Instead of being fountains of knowledge and excellence, institutions of higher learning have become burial grounds, with shocking acts of gender-based violence (GBV), drugs, alcohol and crime. The situation is untenable, warranting exigent intervention by authorities and student leaders. The non-sexist character of the student movement culminated in a deliberate programme of action. Sasco and its predecessors took up major campaigns and battles in defence of female students and in championing their rights. This included transformation of gender relations, fighting patriarchy and misogyny, GBV and sexism. Today we mourn the atrocious killing of female students. Sasco dips its revolutionary flag. We remember Palesa Madiba, Jesse Hesse, Precious Ramabulana, Zolile Khumalo, Uyinene Mrwetyana, Nosicelo Mtebeni and many others.
“Comrades, there is no true social revolution without the liberation of women. May my eye never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence. I hear the roar of women’s silence. I sense the rumble of their storm and feel the fury of the revolt.” - Thomas Sankara
The student movement needs to reclaim the ground and restore institutions of higher learning as institutions of knowledge and not killing fields. This 30th commemoration occurs in the Year of Charlotte Maxeke and 56 years after the 1956 women’s march to the Union Buildings. History is instructive. The struggle for free higher education did not begin at a particular point in history. It was a continuous political and class struggle for economic emancipation. The #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall movements are further enunciations of deep-rooted struggles for a better South African society as espoused in the Freedom Charter. In the #FeesMustFall and the #RhodesMustFall period a number of questions required interrogation and a deep sense of reflection. When the country was on fire through the decolonisation and free education demands, and the transformation of the education sector for unencumbered access in the true context of “opening the doors of learning culture”, these struggles were exclusive to students, with the country a spectator. Unfortunately student financial exclusions were left to Sasco. These challenges indict society to rise to take charge and assume leadership in societal matters, going to the basics by becoming “members of the community” in a manner that is organised and coordinated.
Across the country exist convocation groups, all with interest in education and the country’s development. Key among their objectives is to organise former students around bursary access, higher education transformation, African leadership, research and job creation.
Several former Sasco leaders, such as David Maimela (its former president), continue to be involved in research, policy and academic enterprises, while others are in the state, civil society and the private sector providing thought leadership to the most critical and vexed social, economic and political questions facing our country and the globe. The organisations and former student movement leaders have an important role to play in contributing to societal transformation and supporting Sasco’s higher education transformation agenda. Sasco should remain the leader in the development of a new generation of organic intellectuals and critical thinkers for the progressive forces in SA. There is a need for partnerships and collaboration on a myriad issues affecting society and the higher education sector. One of the immediate tasks of Sasco is to unite all convocation groups under one banner and build a formidable force with a common objective of transforming higher education and society. The 30th anniversary is a period of mixed emotions. As Sasco celebrates this milestone its flag must fly at half mast, recognising those who fell in the course of its existence and in the line of duty. Sasco will remember the brutality unleashed against Josephine Moshobane, the generation of 1976 that changed the course of history and many of its members and leaders who were its beacons. As Frantz Fanon said, “Each generation must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it, in relative opacity.”
It is up this generation of the 21st Congress of Sasco to discover the mission of the student movement and the South African community, and, indeed, with relative opacity. As we celebrate this milestone of three decades of Sasco’s existence, we must objectively record accurately several victories so current and future generations can know the truth about our organisation and its predecessors:
⦁ The establishment and ongoing investment in the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), led by Ernest Khosa, former president of the University of Limpopo SRC;
⦁ Establishment of a single higher education authority and a representative National Higher Education Council (NCHE) charged with higher education leadership and policy development in congruence with the country’s development trajectory;
⦁ Establishment of a higher education system that integrates science and innovation in the age of technological, information and Industrial Revolution;
⦁ Establishment of community and campus radio stations to amplify the voice of the voiceless, information sharing, education and dissemination. This includes building a diverse media that resonates with communities and skills development in the media, communication and marketing space, acquired through the South African Students’ Press Union.
⦁ Development of a curriculum that is aligned to the imperatives and priorities of the developmental state and research capacity in the fields of virology, food security science and climate change, among others;
⦁ Investment and science and technological capacity. It is through these skills that challenges facing the country can be surmounted and that each person can unleash his/her own potential and contribute immensely in fighting the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment;
⦁ Building a future leadership pipeline and human capital that serves in various sectors of society to accelerate development and building a national democratic society;
⦁ Building a transformed, developmental higher education that is reflective of SA’s demographics and is nonracial and non-sexist;
⦁ Transforming higher education institutions from ivory towers to people’s institutions;
⦁ Intense political education for leadership capacity which is reflected through the leadership positions occupied in various sectors of society, the private sector and the state. The student movement built qualitative leadership members of its generational membership in line with its objectives of leadership development and capacity building for future leadership and development, the relationship between higher education and society, the student movement and society. This is a development linked approach; and
⦁ Contribution of Sasco to the leadership cadre and thought leaders in the parliamentary system, the judiciary, the civil service, academia, civil society, trade unions and business organisations and economy. The student movement produced and continues to produce ready-to-lead graduates as reflected by the composition of the private and public sectors. These are the achievements the progressive student movement has registered in the past few decades. Of course, on this colourful journey mistakes were made and lessons learnt. Some of the mistakes derive from the negative impact of power and incumbency on the entire democratic movement, including the student movement — what the ANC calls “sins of incumbency”. Sasco must also continue attend to the old problems of academic and financial exclusions and fight off commodification of education, curriculum transformation and decolonisation, patriarchy and GBV. Addressing the 29th Sasco anniversary in September 2020, David Makhura (former president of Sasco and now ANC Gauteng premier) argued that “if you can’t be radical as a youth or a student, you have wasted your youthful energy and ingenuity”.
Sasco must be proud to have been a factory of radical intellectuals and a critical mass of principled leaders in various sectors of postapartheid A. Its current leadership should stand tall as we mark the 30th anniversary with the colourful pride of a peacock, showing our political milestones, as opposed to a lamentable past. We can play a huge role in fixing the problems of our current society.
Under the current NEC, led by president Bamanye Matiwane and secretary-general Buthanani Goba, the organisation has no reason to flounder. They have inherited a colourful and proud history of sacrifice, service and intellectual rigour. Sasco remains an important part of the search for a genuinely radical alternative to neo-liberalism and a truly non-racial, non-sexist, united, democratic and prosperous SA, underpinned by a capable, ethical and developmental state in their hands
Martin Mahosi is a former member of the NEC of Sansco and a member of the ANC.
George Magoma is a former member of Sansco, Limpopo provincial chairperson of Sasco and a member of the ANC.
Lumko Mtimde is a former member of the NEC of Saspu, a former member of Satisco, Sansco and Sasco and a member of the ANC and SACP.
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