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This week’s Wits fees protests are a further indication of the failings of a neoliberal capitalist system, and prevailing apartheid architecture, that continues to burden the poorest in the country.
Conversations this week have revealed the extent to which many are deeply invested in the prevailing oppressive race-class system in South Africa, and the lengths they will go to to defend it. One example of this is the emphasis on “excellence”.
The “just be excellent/get good marks and get a scholarship/get a job” narrative ignores the exceptionality (which is always accompanied by various forms of violence) needed to become part of the elite who can even consider and enter, let alone finish, university.
This is because it is not only higher education that remains largely untransformed, but South African society as a whole that continues to be racist, sexist, ableist and elitist.
Moreover, the narrative of “excellence” is inherently anti-poor. It paints those who cannot “overcome” systemic and institutional violence and oppression as not being “good enough”, or “just not cutting it”, when in fact to be disenfranchised and marginalised and still survive is a mammoth act of hard work already.
It assumes people aren’t already working their hardest, and despite that, still remain unable to compete in the current economy and afford prohibitively expensive tertiary education.
The “work harder” and “be better” narrative masquerades as a solution, when in fact it is a distraction and trap that disguises the manner in which many of us refuse to dismantle oppressive structures.
Excellence and “more” of the sort many are demanding of poorer students also stands in contrast with the values of human rights.
This is because excellence becomes a hoop for poorer students to jump through to prove themselves worthy of access to education.
We are in essence asking poor people, who are already dealing with the violence of poverty, to prove themselves worthy of rights that the privileged attain through their positions. It speaks to the manner in which many have accepted inequality and violence, where education has become a privilege available to those who can pay for it.
Human rights for sale are not human rights for all.
We cannot in good faith claim to believe in the rights enshrined in our Constitution when we insist that those already denied so many of those rights must further violate themselves by trying to attain them.
Our society needs to be better, not the people it oppresses and excludes.
Find me on Twitter @GugsM
