Protesting Has Gone Viral at South African Universities

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It used to be at the beginning of the year a few of the universities in South Africa used to have protests mainly over fees, usually in KZN and Johannesburg, but ever since the Rhodes must fall protests things have changed. When students protested for the Rhodes statue at the university of cape town to be taken down and they succeeded in having it torn down, things changed. Its like students realized how much power and influence they had and they realized lets not just stop with Rhodes must fall lets see what else we can change. Then the fees must fall protests happened towards the end of last year during or close to exam time, all the universities in the country got shut down even parliament got interrupted. Those protests got the attention from the leadership of this county and that in turn paid off for the students as all universities decided not to raise their fees for 2016.

When the fees must fall protests were happening, the employees at some universities were also protesting against outsourcing and they also got what they wanted. Other universities did not protest against outsourcing but recently workers and students from UFS have also started protesting against outsourcing. People have realized the power they have in numbers and protesting at universities and protesting seems to be going viral here in South Africa.


RMF (Rhodes Must Fall) has also been protesting over student housing at the University of Capetown and just last week a jammie which is a bus used to transport students and staff was burnt and also a bakkie owned by UCT as well as some expensive paintings donated/belonging to the university were burnt by protesters. Recently human waste was thrown by protesters into 5 buildings at UCT upper campus.

There have also been violent clashes at the University of Pretoria over the role of Afrikaans at the university. Students are divided with others calling for #AfrikaansMustFall whereas the Afrikaans speaking students have formed their own movement.


It is the students right to protest but we as students should protest within the confines of the law, violence and criminal acts are not the way hey. Someone will end up being seriously hurt or being charged and imprisoned (end up having a criminal record if they are caught).


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