PROTESTERS set tyres ablaze. Police sprayed rubber bullets and tear gas on university campuses. Angry students chanted struggle songs and danced the “toyi-toyi”, a knees-high jog made famous during protests against apartheid. It was like a scene from South Africa during the chaotic years of the 1980s; instead, it was this week.
The echoes of the struggle era were striking: white university students even moved to the front of protests in the belief that police would be less likely to open fire on them than on black students. Yet the differences are also striking: these protests are not directed at a parliament devoted to upholding white supremacy but at a democratically elected government controlled by the African National Congress (ANC), the party that ushered in non-racial democracy under Nelson Mandela.
The protests started as scattered marches against plans to increase tuition fees by 10% at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town, two of the country’s best. Trouble had been brewing on campuses for months as student activists marched against...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1NDbWQy
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