Clashes over language policy at UP
Lectures were suspended today amid clashes over the language policy at the University of Pretoria. (more…)
Shivambu calls for a “proper vice chancellor” at Wits
Members of the Economic Freedom Fighters visited Wits University yesterday to show their support for the suspended Wits EFF and students. The organisation is planning to take the university to court over the suspensions.
SUPPORT FOR THE SUSPENDED: Protestors made themselves heard yesterday in Senate House as they took a stand aginst the suspension of 7 Wits students last week. Photo: Tanisha Heiberg.
Members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have stepped in to assist members of the suspended Wits branch and in the process, have called for a “proper vice chancellor”, at Wits University. EFF deputy president, Floyd Shivambu, together with national chairperson, Advocate Dali Mpofu, visited the campus yesterday and declared that the suspension of seven Wits students, and their elimination from this year’s SRC (Student Representative Council) elections, will be challenged in court.
Speaking to EFF supporters in Senate House, Shivambu declared that Wits vice chancellor, Professor Adam Habib, will not last much longer. “ I can assure you he is not staying here for a very long time”, he said.
“This university must get a proper vice chancellor, which is going to protect the students and make sure that the interests of students are at the forefront and not about themselves only”, he said. “You can’t disqualify students on the basis of your own imagination.”
“He removes SRC presidents (referring to Mcebo Dlamini), he charges students as he wishes without a proper process, and we must never allow such to happen. That is why we say that Habib, and all who support him, must fall,” said the former Witsie.
Shivambu went on to say that EFF will be lodging an urgent court interdict this morning. Through this they hope to compel Habib to allow all students to stand for elections if they are candidates.
The protest was arranged and attended by members of Wits Men’s Res. Vuyani Pambo, president of the now suspended Wits EFF, and one of the students suspended was also in attendance.
Shivambu ended his address by saying, “We must continue to fight together and unite even from all political parties, unite and defend students”.
Allister Sparks talks papers and politicians
Long time journalist and public commentator Allister Sparks (82) found himself at the centre of a social media storm when he declared Apartheid architect Hendrick Verwoerd was a ‘smart politician’. Wits Vuvuzela spoke to Sparks at the Menell Media Exchange conference in Sandton about the state of journalism in South Africa and the shifts in the political landscape.
VETERAN JOURNALIST: Allister Sparks remains vocal about dying newspapers, the ‘gimmicks’ of the EFF, and the ‘unbalanced’ Baleka Mbete. Photo: Dinesh Balliah
What stood out for you at this year’s conference and is there anything you expect to hear?
I was particularly taken by yesterday’s session by Catherine Kennedy (of the South African History Archive). I didn’t go to the branding, maybe I missed something there, I guess I feel it’s a bit too late for me to brand myself at my age (laughs). For me Catherine was the highlight. Particularly John Perlman and Songezo Zibi, I thought there were wise thoughts that came out of them.
On parliament in South Africa today …
Parliament has been a very refined and remote place, now it’s in the public eye and I think that’s good. [However] it will have to take a grip on itself, and it needs a better speaker than we have at the moment, because it can easily become a laughing stock, it can really damage its reputation.
On the EFF and their disruption in Parliament, and Baleka Mbete …
I do think the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters), has brought something, but it’s got to be very carefully monitored by a much better speaker than we’ve got. I think Max Sisulu would have managed it, Max was a very good speaker and Frene Ginwala likewise, not a partisan speaker who’s the chairman of a party, and her lack of balance shows so glaringly, nobody takes her seriously.
I think the red garments [of the EFF] was a gimmick, I guess once you’ve got them it’s very hard to get rid of them, I don’t think it has any impact anymore, it had an impact in the beginning. The gimmicks need to be limited, but they can only be limited by the speaker, and that’s got to be by persuasion, not by bringing in the police. She (Mbete) needs to call in the whips and say ‘How do we deal with this?’
I think a lot of it [parliament] is archaic language and it’s a bit absurd; it’s meant to preserve a tradition, but at the same time its got to give way to the modern world and the modern South Africa where not everybody shares the British tradition. There has to be some kind of control in the transformation of parliament and only a really wise, strong, and influential speaker can do that.
On Business Day editor Songezo Zibi …
I think he’s a very thoughtful young man and I think he has some very important insights … he’s a real asset to the media. He’s a young man and he’s a very important addition to our galaxies of editors, he’s thoughtful and cares about the media. John Perlman has been around for a long time, but this is a newcomer really [Zibi] out of a different profession, and he has a great career ahead of him.
On newspapers in the new digital age …
I think two kinds of newspapers papers are going to survive in the new digital age: One is the local paper, the small town paper and the other is the serious paper. I think the popular press is going to die, and we have an awful lot of popular press here and its days are numbered.
There’s got to be one black newspaper that’s going to emerge as a serious one, [maybe] it is the Sowetan, City Press is getting there but it’s only a Sunday paper.
Wits EFF victory for hungry students
The Student Affairs (DSA) office at Wits University has responded to the pleas from the Wits EFF to feed hungry students on campus. On April 17, members of the student organisation stormed the main dining hall on campus to take surplus food for hungry students after, they claimed, students had contacted them for assistance. In response the office of Dr Pamela Dube, the Dean of Students, has responded with positive solutions.
Wits EFF chairperson, Vuyani Pambo told Wits Vuvuzela that his organisation is quite happy with the solutions being implemented: “That is the victory that the action got.”
During the dining hall incident, members of Wits EFF chanted that “Students cannot achieve academic excellence on an empty stomach”.
According to the DSA, some of the solutions include:
• The provision of an online form which a needy student has to complete before receiving assistance; So far, 17 students have benefitted from this resolution.
• A needy student is allocated 10 meals from the dining hall then provided with a meal pack from the Wits Food Bank run by the Wits Citizenship and Community Outreach (WCCO), depending on the individual needs of the student. The Food Bank packs contain Stop Hunger Now meal packs.
The DSA says it is also in discussions with the SRC (Student Representatives Council) and Bhakti Yoga society about getting hot meals twice a week from the Hare Krishna Movement, who will soon set up a kitchen at Constitution Hill to feed the hungry local residents. The Wits Food Bank is also planning to work with the national Food Sovereignty Campaign to possibly establish food gardens on campus.
Pambo called on fellow students and staff to donate non-perishable food to help those in need.
Q&A with Andile Mngxitama
Andile Mngxitama: EFF member and the member of Parliament Photo: Tendai Dube
Andile Mngxitama, Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF) MP holds an MA in sociology from Wits and has published the first four essays in the New Frank Talk series, a journal of critical essays. Mngxitama is also a columnist for the Sowetan and City Press
What do you think of the current education crisis tertiary institutions are facing?
Here when students say ‘we want free education’, which is a fundamental right, what comes is violence from the police, arrests and intimidation. It shows that this state is anti-black, and totally incapable of listening to the needs of black people, it reproduces the apartheid logic. We should be paying students to keep them at university.
How do you suggest the situation be resolved?
In Bolivia, they pay poor families in rural areas to keep their children in school. that’s what we should be doing.
We should be grateful that our students – after 12 years of kak education – somehow qualify to go to an institution of higher learning. They should be rewarded, not punished.
How did we get to this situation?
In South Africa to get a matric exemption, it’s like we celebrate. In white society, a child is born, they will end in university and it’s not a mystery – it’s a given, but for us, because we have to overcome so many hurdles to actually get a matric exemption or to get university entrance, it’s a huge thing. It is achieving a lot against massive odds and then you get punished in the end.
What are the EFF’s plans to combat the education crisis?
The problem is that the 12 years students spend at school in South Africa, black public schools, are f**cked, it doesn’t prepare them for anything.
So what you do is you bring all the Zimbabweans with O – levels into SA schools and make all our teachers write the basic test – they will fail.
Zimbabwe must become our center for educating. Those teachers who fail have two options, they can get a package and go home or they can get reeducated and we send them to Zimbabwe. Let’s not create a difficult life for ourselves, bring all the Zimbabweans and spread them in rural schools…You just give them a two weeks crash course on methodology.
“The Mngxitama ABCs to solve the education crisis.”
Our teachers are underprepared, uneducated, untrained, unmotivated and they can’t do their basic job, but if we inject this new process then I think that within five years we can get back lot of South Africans into the system who are able to teach. We must build schools also and put real money into those things.
At a university level, not a single student must apply for a bursary. As a student you literally walk up to your university and if you qualify they should take you.
And they can say beforehand that Wits is a pro-poor school therefore we will take sixty percent of all new intakes from bursary students, so I already know what is my bill which I then present to government, to say these are the number of needy students that we have taken. They must make the registration illegal, that thing is evil, once you’re in you must be in until you finish.
Wits EFF student leaders ‘detained’ after Pretoria protest
Two Wits Economic Freedom Front (EFF) leaders were detained by police after occupying offices at the Department of Higher Education in Pretoria on Thursday.
LOCKED UP: Wits EFF chairperson Vuyani Pambo talks freedom and education following his detainment at the Department of Higher Education yesterday. Photo: Tendai Dube.
Vuyani Pambo and Mbe Mbhele were detained at a police station in Pretoria. “They took us to the station … after a while they realised they can not hold us,” said Wits EFF chairperson Vuyani Pambo who described the detainment as a “game of intimidation.”
On Thursday morning 17 EFF members travelled by train from Johannesburg to the Higher Education Department in Pretoria to address student concerns over the lack of funding by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). Almost 3 000 Wits students who had been promised funding by the scheme have been left unable to register for studies this year.
Pambo said that before the Pretoria protest, they engaged with the university to understand the issue with NSFAS but after careful investigation realised that “this is bigger than what we thought – we were barking at the wrong tree, the university is not accountable for a national crisis.”
Shortly after their arrival at the Pretoria offices the protesters sought a meeting with senior officials at the department, but were asked to move off the premises by a South African Police Service (SAPS) special crowd control unit, who later escorted the two student leaders to the station. While they were detained, no official arrests were made.
“They tried to pacify us,” said Pambo who described the police officer’s attitudes as “fathers offering advice to their children.”
Director for security services at the department Richard Zungu denies that the students were detained, saying “the students were not detained and no meeting took place, even though they wanted a meeting.”
“The department says it is unable to secure funds because it doesn’t have funding from the government,” said Wits EFF member Sive Mqikela who was present at the protest.
EFF’s member of parliament Andile Mngixtama, who was meeting with EFF chairperson Vuyani Pambo, told Wits Vuvuzela: “They are criminalizing the poor, criminalizing blackness … Here students are saying they want education which is a fundamental right and what comes is the intimidation of the state.”
Mngixtama believes the solution to South Africa’s education crisis is to remove the bursary system and implement a free education for poor students.
Both Pambo and Mbhele have since been released without charges laid against them.
RELATED ARTICLES:
- Wits Vuvuzela: Wits Management and SRC reach agreement on NSFAS, January 23 2015.
- Wits Vuvuzela: PYA gives Wits NSFAS ultimatum, February 5 2015.
- Wits Vuvuzela: Wits students protest NSFAS application complication, Januray 21 2015.
Wits students protest NSFAS application complications
PAINED: A PYA member calls for students to unite in solidarity with those unable to pay the upfront registration fee. Photo: Ilanit Chernick
Around 60 Witsies gathered at Senate House on Wednesday to protest the upfront fee expected from NSFAS students.
Students who are awaiting National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) approval have been asked to pay a registration fee of R4 670.
The protesters sang “My mother was a kitchen girl, my father was a garden boy” and chanted “NSFAS voetsek! NSFAS voetsek!” while dancing.
Members of the Wits Student Representative Council (SRC), Progressive Youth Alliance, the Wits Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Project W attended the protest.
SRC president Mcebo Dlamini told protesters that Wits management was denying “poor students an education”. He called on Vice-chancellor Prof Adam Habib and management to waive the upfront fee.
“This has never happened at Wits. Why now? Only rich students can study here. We the students demand that you do away with these fee,” Dlamini said.
SNAP THAT: A PYA member takes photos as students protest outside the Great Hall. Photo: Ilanit Chernick
Secretary of the Wits EFF Mbe Mbhele accused NSFAS of having a policy to exclude black students at Wits and around academic institutions.
“It is only black students who are affected. This exclusion is a reflection of what is happening around South Africa. If it is not resolved we will take radical action,” Mbhele said.
Deputy Vice-chancellor of Academics Prof Andrew Crouch told Wits Vuvuzela that the upfront fee for NSFAS beneficiaries would only affect about 400 students. However, it was not possible to waive their upfront fees.
“If we waiver the fee for 400 students, which is 12 percent of students, than we would have to waiver the complete registration fee [of R9 340] for all Wits Students. We have to be fair here. Bear in mind 88% of students pay full fees,” Crouch said.
Crouch also said that the university are doing their best to deal with the situation.
He said that NSFAS give Wits four types of allocations for funding. The university is trying to move money from three of the four allocations into the NSFAS general allocation to allow for at least 400 students whose applications are pending to receive funding.
“The process will be completed by February,” he said.
Following the protest a joint press conference was held between the SRC and university management.
Habib told reporters that the issue was out of Wits’ hands and that NSFAS had given strict instructions to Wits not to go over its NSFAS bursary allocation as the university had done in 2013 and 2014.
“If we had the money to hand out we would but we just can’t at the moment.”
Habib said the reason behind the high upfront registration fee is because the government subsidy only comes into play from April each year.
“We have to make up the deficits of the first three months of the year and part of the money used to pay staff salaries and fund the university through this period is through the registration fee.”
Dlamini accused Habib of being “politically correct”.
“Our VC is playing politics,” he said. “It’s a sad moment, the university wants to eat its own like a pig.”
CALL TO ORDER: A member of the EFF calls for management to explain themselves to students. Photo: Ilanit Chernick
Dlamini also blamed Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande for not taking the NSFAS issue and the Wits SRC seriously.
“When we met with the minister he kept joking and talking about Nkandla,” Dlamini said. “We just hope he listened to us. He must start taking education seriously and allocate more money for higher education before students end up on the streets.”
Some students on Twitter had also threatened violence if students were excluded over a lack of NSFAS funding. Habib warned that violence on campus would be taken “seriously by the law”. Students found to be involved “in such actions will be expelled” with no chance to reapply to the university in the future.
Wits Great Hall stairs vandalised
Statements were found spray-painted on the Wits Great Hall stairs on Friday morning.
Photo: Luke Matthews
CORRECTION: The article originally omitted the word “building” giving the impression that Umthombo is a student residence. Additionally, the term “racial statements” in the photo caption has been changed to “statements”.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
“Black power, Biko lives” and “fuck white racism” were the words that greeted Witsies as they approached the Great Hall this morning.
The graffiti appeared overnight, sprayed in black paint, on the steps of Wits’ most iconic building.
Student residences Sunnyside, Mens Res and the Umthombo building were also targeted in separate but apparently related incidents. The graffiti appeared to favour the renaming of buildings on campus. Mens Res residents found their building sprayed with “Robert Sobukwe Hall” while students at Sunnyside res found their res had been “renamed” after Winnie Madikizela.
Susan Laname, a Sunnyside resident, claimed that the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters) may be responsible for the tagging of the buildings as the renaming of campus buildings was part of their election campaign.
Other buildings vandalised were Umthombo, Mens res and Sunnyside res.
Photo: Luke Matthews
EFF chairman Vuyani Pambo confirmed members of his organisation were not involved in the spraying of the graffiti, saying he had only found out about it through social networks.
“We are not responsible for the tagging, we engage the university directly as we did about our campaign, he added.
“I, for one, think it’s telling, maybe the pressure the students are feeling, and this is one way in which they are finding expression,” said Pambo.
Wits Campus Control say they have no strong leads and little evidence as to the guilty parties.
“So far we have received the complaint and we have seen the graffiti and we are taking it very serious and we are doing own investigation,” said Lucky Khumela, Campus Control’s security and liaison manager .
Mngxitama: ANC has failed the ideals of Steve Biko
The African National Congress (ANC) has succeeded in making black people accept that they’re third class citizens, said EFF’s (Economic Freedom Fighters) Andile Mngxitama, at Wits yesterday.
Mngxitama was speaking at the first in a series of lectures that commemorates the life of Black consciousness leader Steve Biko.
Speaking about the ideals of the Black consciousness movement to an audience of about 100 people, Mngitama said “[The] ANC has destroyed the capacity of blacks to take themselves seriously”.
“No sane person can defend the ANC … at least [give] a rational defence, at least [give] a pro black defence.” Mngxitama said that in South Africa people black people have to fight for RDP (Reconstruction and Development Programme) housing even though they should be entitled to these homes. He said many South Africans are not aware of their entitlements as citizens because of the ANC.
Mngxitama said the problem with the ruling party is that its policies are inherently “anti-black” He argued that Black consciousness as an ideal runs counter to non-racialism as the latter does not recognise “the black situation”. He said even the Freedom Charter, which was written by the ANC in 1955, is suspending black thought because its ideals do not empower black people.
Responding to recent incidents involving his party in parliament, Mngxitama said that “parliament is not a place of truth” and said that radical movements like the EFF are meant to turn places like parliament upside down.
VIDEO: Do you think the EFF has a place in Parliament?
Last week the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters), was kicked out of parliament after disrupting proceedings by insisting President Zuma answer questions about Nkandla. We asked Witsies if they thought the EFF has a place in parliament.
AUDIO: Vuvuzela journalists respond to backlash on VOWFM
On Monday Wits Vuvuzela journalists, Rofhiwa Madzena and Thabile Manala were invited to an interview by radio DJ 88 Keyez at VOWFM. This following the backlash from various student bodies after an article which was published by the journalists about Mcebo Sisulu who, in the article confessed to lying about his identity.
Following the interview on Monday, Rofhiwa and Franz Kruger, acting Head of Department at Wits Journalism went on VOWFM’s current affairs show Breaking Ground to discuss the issue further with the EFF Wits’ Tokelo Nhlapo. The EFF Wits released an official statement slamming the story which published on Sunday.
RELATED ARTICLES:
- Wits Vuvuzela, Vuvuzela slammed over “Sisulu” exposé, 03 June, 2014
- Wits Vuvuzela, Wits student known as a Sisulu finally admits to lying, 01 June, 2014
Vuvuzela slammed over “Sisulu” exposé
Wits Vuvuzela and the Wits Journalism department have been criticised after exposing a student politician who had been falsely claiming to be a member of the prestigious family of struggle hero Walter Sisulu.
Head of Wits Junction house committee Mcebo Freedom Dlamini had claimed to be “Mcebo Sisulu”, the grandchild of Walter Sisulu. Last week, he admitted to Wits Vuvuzela that this was not true and said he used “Sisulu” as a “stage name” or “when I’m excited”.
Reactions from the Wits community ranged from demanding Wits Vuvuzela to retract the article and issue a public apology to thanking the publication for revealing the truth about Dlamini.
“Of course we are aware that Wits Vuvuzela is ran [sic] by non-apologetic white racists,”
Wits Vuvuzela “sensationalist and insensitive”
The South African Students Congress (Sasco) Wits branch responded by calling Wits Vuvuzela “extremely sensationalist, insensitive and highly ignorant”. Wits Sasco criticised Wits Vuvuzela for publishing the article on Dlamini during exam period.
“We are unequivocally perturbed by Vuvuzela‘s degenerated and haphazard journalism which … has ‘transformed’ overnight into a publication-wing of the department of home affairs,” Wits Sasco said in a statement issued early yesterday morning.
Wits Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) co-ordinator Mbe Mbhele said in a statement that the publication of the article during exam period amounted to “malice” towards Dlamini.
Wits Journalism Department accused of racism
Wits EFF also leveled racism accusations against the Wits Journalism department in the statement released by Mbhele. The statement singled out head of department Prof. Anton Harber, course co-ordinator Jo-Anne Richards and adjunct professor Franz Krüger for criticism.
“Of course we are aware that Wits Vuvuzela is ran [sic] by non-apologetic white racists,” said Mbhele. “Who used two aspiring black journalists to defame and smear the character of a fellow student.”
“I personally don’t feel or have ever felt controlled by them. They really don’t impose themselves in the day to day running of the paper or the publishing of stories online,”
Wits Vuvuzela journalist Rofhiwa Madzena, one of the writers of the expose on Dlamini, rejected the accusations by Wits EFF.
“I personally don’t feel or have ever felt controlled by them. They really don’t impose themselves in the day to day running of the paper or the publishing of stories online,” Madzena said.
“Their role is essentially to equip us with the resources and the understanding of how we are supposed to put stories together,” Madzena said.
“The rest is up to us in terms of finding stories and putting them together.”
The Wits Journalism department has defended Wits Vuvuzela for its publication of the article on Dlamini.
“The story is a valid, well-researched news story, showing that a student representative has been misrepresenting himself to the student body and the campus community,” said Krüger in a statement on behalf of the department.
Krüger also rejected the accusations of racism made against the department by Wits EFF calling them “unfounded”.
“Accusations of racism leveled at members of our department are simply an attempt to divert attention from the real issue, which is: our students produced a piece of good journalism of great public interest to members of the student body,” Krüger said.
Call for student boycott of Wits Vuvuzela
Some students and student organisations have taken to Twitter to call for a boycott of Wits Vuvuzela.
“@WitsVuvuzela must be boycotted. They are failing to intellectually stimulate students of the 2nd best university on the continent,” said former SRC president Sibulele Mgudlwa (@Sibulele_).
However, along with the criticism, there has also been support from the Wits community on social media.
“I thought the article was well written and researched. I wouldn’t know why someone would criticize the publication of something that important,” said Witsie Houston Austin Muzamhindo on the Wits Vuvuzela Facebook page.
Some students said they believed the article was important because Dlamini is a student leader and he must face the music for his false claims.
“If you are going to lie, stand for it and eventually fall for it. Not all students disagree with @witsvuvuzela,” @2_Miza tweeted, yesterday afternoon.
For the full statement by the Wits Journalism department, click here.
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