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#FeesMustFall: ‘Let’s stop romanticising the struggle’

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The cover of Writing and Rioting: Diaries of Wits fallists.
The cover of Writing and Rioting: Diaries of Wits fallists.

The Fees Must Fall movement had an opportunity for introspection as it received plaudits but also criticism during the third launch of the book Rioting and Writing: Diaries Of Wits Fallists.

The Solomon Mahlangu House Senate room was filled to capacity with students, academics and high school learners for the launch on Thursday evening.

Third-year sociology student, Keitumetse Fatimata Moutloatse, congratulated her peers because she was unable to contribute to the book herself.

“When it was happening I was still deeply entrenched in the movement, still dealing with my own psychological issues and having to deal with a friend who was admitted to a mental institution. Writing was not something I could do,” she said.

She also criticised the Fees Must Fall movement.

“When we talk about Fees Must Fall, there has been a glamorising effect and I want to blame it on the middle class student activists and academics,” said Moutloatse. “It is the constant romanticising of revolutionary practices that has taken out the true essence of it and has downplayed it and downplayed its effects.”

1976 student movement veteran, Danny Montsitsi, spoke of the energy of the student movements in his time as an activist.

“The schools became the basis where we could deliver the onslaught against apartheid.”

He stressed that the student movements must benefit the poor.

Some of the book’s editors presented a brief synopsis. Crispen Chinguno outlined the four major themes covered in the book. These themes included pan-Africanism, intersectionality, black radical feminism and student-worker solidarity.

The writers expressed that the objective of the book was not to speak on behalf of the entire movement, but to give personal accounts of their lived experiences.

A panel of lecturers and students had an opportunity to respond to the book. All the panelists congratulated the writers of producing the book but also offered strong criticism.

Sociology lecturer at Wits, Prishani Naidoo, said the criticism should not be responded to in a defensive way but rather approached with a willingness to learn. One of the main criticisms of the book was the portrayal of blackness as homogeneous.

“[The book] has very rich accounts of black lived experience; you also see a lot of differences across the chapters in terms of those accounts,” said Naidoo. “But particularly in the introduction there’s a sense given that blackness is homogeneous and that it’s just one thing. I think it’s important for us to reflect on the fact that although we have a shared set of the same lived experiences, we don’t all respond to them in the same way.”

She used an example of Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness. “Biko’s definition of black allowed us to transcend those racial categories, for us to stop imagining ourselves in the ways the apartheid system forced us to, and to stop thinking of ourselves in terms of the pigmentation of our skin and to rather define ourselves in positive terms.”

Psychology professor, Malose Langa, said there was a lack of contextualisation of issues in a global context in the book. He used the example of Venezuela, which he said the students could have learnt from.


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