Are South African students endangering their futures?

Last week’s images of South African students squaring off against police have brought Mandela’s famous edict to the forefront and, for many South Africans, prompted memories of 1976, the year of the infamous Soweto uprising.

Student leaders have vowed further action to push for other demands, including universal free education.

“We do need this to come to an end”, Habib said.

Students protesting during a mass demonstration on the steps of Jameson Hall at the University of Cape Town, yesterday.

The #FeesMustFall movement protesting the 10-15 percent fee hike for the 2016 academic year for higher education intuitions in South Africa continue to snowball. “We have won the battle, a great battle, but the war for free education continues with a renewed strategy”, said the Wits SRC.

Second, the student mass movement contains within it many, quite possibly a majority, of ANC-supporting students and ANC-aligned youth formations.

The protests have been marred by violence in many parts of the country, particular on Friday when thousands of students gathered outside the Union Buildings, the seat of government in Pretoria.

Lengthy meetings were held on Saturday and Sunday by students who could not agree on how to proceed with the “fees must fall” campaign that started at their institution two weeks ago.

During the clash, a few students – who hurled stones at riot police – were left injured when police used rubber bullets and teargas to disperse them.

In 2001 one out of 17 South Africans were university graduates.

Earlier this year, students took to social media to demand that a bronze figure of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes be removed from the University of Cape Town.

Even as President Zuma grants the students a temporary reprieve from the fee increases, a weak rand coupled with climbing national debt and the threat of a credit rating downgrade hints that the worst is not over.

The students argued that only one of their several demands had been agreed to (fees not rising) following a march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Friday. You have let South Africans believe that you do not take education seriously because you are not educated. But Wits already has the highest proportion of private sector funding of any South African university. Many of them might join the Economic Freedom Fighters or the Democratic Alliance. This cultural chasm fuels the resentment of students who are struggling financially and is creating the explosive cocktail that we are now witnessing. It’s also why national political parties are supposedly involved. Unlike your generation, white people haven’t made them angry. Free education for all was the new call to struggle, and everyone is responding.

Numerous universities facing protests were white-only institutions under the apartheid regime.

The protests at universities across the country are bigger than Wits.

Vice Chancellor Professor Tyrone Pretorius said that the university welcomed engagement with societal issues; and that while they respected the right to demonstrate peacefully, they did not support any form of intimidation on campus. They are also learning that they have not been born free, and their freedom is necessarily and inextricably linked to the freedom of those around them.