'I’d do it again': Adam Habib reflects on rocky tenure at Wits as he bows out

Wits University vice-chancellor Adam Habib is leaving to take up a top job in London. He was in the eye of the storm when protests brought Wits to a near-halt in 2016. I regret nothing, he tells Patrick Bulger, as he looks back on #FeesMustFall and calling in the cops

08 March 2020 - 00:00 By Patrick Bulger

Students of the Russian Revolution will know that the brilliant yet polarising revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, was hounded out of the politburo, and succumbed to the assassin’s ice pick, in Mexico, in 1940, at the order of his nemesis, the dictator Joseph Stalin. It’s a cautionary tale for any firebrand who would attempt to speak out against the inevitable resort to bureaucracy and authoritarianism that “liberators” often succumb to, usually when they’re out of ideas. A revolution is no place for idealists...

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