The 2015 #movements in South Africa: From #RhodesMustFall to #Luister and #FeesMustFall

 Last night I had a fascinating Skype call from New York from the former vice-chancellor of Rhodes University in South Africa, who is the current program director of the Mellon Foundation for international higher education and South Africa: Prof Saleem Badat. Now what many may not know, Prof Saleem Badat is not only a former university vice-chancellor and before that, the first CEO of the SA Council on Higher Education, Badat is also a serious scholar - a critical sociologist by training - who has never stopped being a critical voice in the higher education sector. Before he established the CHE he was a professor of higher education studies at the University of the Western Cape working amongst others with Prof Harold Wolpe.
Now, Prof Badat is also an expert on student politics in South Africa. Indeed he has published a great number of books, including The Forgotten People:  Political Banishment under Apartheid (Brill, 2013), Black Man, You are on Your Own (STE Publishers, 2009) and Black Student Politics, Higher Education and Apartheid (RoutledgeFalmer, 2002); co-author of National Policy and a Regional Response in South African Higher Education (James Currey, 2004); and co-editor of Apartheid Education and Popular Struggles in South Africa (Zed Books, 1991). His 2002 book Black Student Politics, Higher Education and Apartheid is the most authorative book on black student politics under apartheid in South Africa.


So it is no wonder Badat has great interest in the 2015 student movement in South Africa, the #movements. And, given his training and intellect, the call was so fascinating because he was asking me questions that will occupy me for many months to come: what is the ideological and class character of the #RMF, #FMF etc #movement? Are these concepts helpful in understanding the #movements? And what is the significance of the 2015 student movement... socially, politically, for the higher education sector, for deep transformation?

And then he made me laugh. "Thierry", he said, "the movement has not even stopped and already the analyses and papers are being circulated". I guess in parts this was a comment on the chapter Manja and I drafted and which I sent to him for comments; the chapter on student organising in 21st century Africa includes a first consideration of #FeesMustFall as a "internet age student movement". Sharp.