“The revolution is not an apple which falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.” — Che Guevara.
South African students understand this ruthless reality and have premonitions of it. It is something they have chanted on the streets, showcasing deep wounds on their bodies from rubber bullets, and feeling it pop into their stomachs when they get financially excluded.
Every year, this cruel cycle repeats itself; the students are forced to fight for their right to education, while the state claims to not have money, universities tighten their fists, and the police respond violently with batons and water cannons.
A few students from the University of Witwatersrand have started a hunger strike, and similar protests were held at the universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch and the Free State where students experienced accommodation and fee problems.
This isn’t just a crisis, it is a betrayal.
From the 1976 Soweto Uprising to the 2015-2017 #FeesMustFall movement, young people have continuously struggled for the most basic right to education. They are met with repressive regimes and systematic changes that did not help solve the crux of the problem.
History continues to repeat itself despite these lessons. Students protest every year, institutions react with crackdowns, and the government has struggled to implement quick fixes rather than permanent ones.
The problems at its base — financial exclusion, NSFAS failures and the underfunding of higher education — remain unsolved. How many more student protests will happen before the authorities do anything tangible? The guarantee of free education remains largely unfulfilled, and inefficiencies, tardy payments and corruption plague NSFAS.
Thousands of students who should be supported are stranded every year unable to register for a course or secure accommodation. Institutions stuck in the middle of budget crunches and pressure from students, continue to uphold exclusionary practices, breeding resentment and insurrection.
At the heart of this latest crisis is a leadership failure. The commitment of the state to free higher education was made without a sustainable, coherent model of how the money was going to be funded. Instead of fixing the broken system, the government has allowed NSFAS to drift, while universities struggle to become financially sustainable while keeping studies accessible.
If this crisis is ever going to end, the state has to break its cycle of quick fixes and make a commitment to sustainable changes
Instead of actively responding to student complaints, authorities wait until protests escalate before they provide temporary fixes. This tendency for crisis management — avoiding the issue until there is mass mobilisation by students — only guarantees that history will continue to repeat itself.
If this crisis is ever going to end, the state has to break its cycle of quick fixes and make a commitment to sustainable changes.
This includes: permanently fixing NSFAS, funding education in the national budget, and talking to students rather than criminalising protests. South Africa has been here before, and unless things change, it will not escape the shame again.
The question is, how many times will students have to fight the same war before the powers that be finally put an end to it? Nothing has ever been provided for the youth of this country. Not in 1976, when Black students were murdered in Soweto for demanding a good education. Not in 2015, when students shut down universities with #FeesMustFall. And not today, as another generation is forced to fight against financial exclusion, state violence, and state repression.
The apple will not fall on its own. The students need to shake the tree so it falls.
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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