UKZN STUDENT LAW REVIEW

BURNING UNIVERSITIES: THE 2016 STUDENTS' UPRISING - HOWARD STUDENT LEADERS SPEAK TO THE SLR

 

Nonhle Chamane

LL.B, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College

UKZN Student Law Review Editor

 

The fees must fall campaign brought a refreshing energy to the country, and this was a welcomed energy at that. The country had been besieged by political leadership scandals of looting and plundering state resources. We had for a long time been forced to watch as top political leadership took some seriously questionable decisions for a leader of such a progressive state. When the students’ protest on free education gained momentum, we lapped it up. The media covered the campaign from all corners of the globe. For a good moment there, the campaign was one of the most positive events this country has seen in a long time. But that was until it started to get violent and destructive, then the world went into a state of shock, the campaign had finally turned into just another South African violent fracas and no one was interested in another fracas, the students, just like the top political leadership had started taking some strange choices. What went wrong?