Morning Star.png Outcry Follows Violent SA University Clashes James Tweedie, The Morning Star, London, 24 February 2016 South Africa's liberation movement spoke out against racism in higher education yesterday after violent clashes at two universities. The University of the Free State (UFS) was closed yesterday and today following Sunday's violence during a Varsity Cup rugby match between UFS Shimlas and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Madibaz. Students and university workers invaded the pitch in a protest against outsourcing of services. White spectators responded by attacking the black demonstrators and chasing them from the field. Shocking video footage showed protesters surrounded and being kicked as they lay on the ground. On Monday, there were scuffles at the University of Pretoria during a demonstration against the use of Afrikaans as the language in lectures. Afrikaans Must Fall campaign protesters fought with counter-demonstrators from right-wing NGO AfriForum. Protests were expected to continue yesterday. Ostensibly a defender of the rights of Afrikaans-speakers, AfriForum has been accused by the Young Communist League and others of resisting the country's democratic transformation. The imposition of Afrikaans in apartheid-era "Bantu education" schools led to the 1976 student uprising and the ensuing massacre by police of 176 protesters. But Afrikaans is also the language of the majority of South Africa's Cape Coloured people, who were also oppressed under apartheid.On Monday, the university proposed an all-English curriculum. Young Communist League national secretary Mluleki Dlelanga said his organisation was "utterly revolted by the racist elements that continue to engulf our institutions of higher learning. "Violence that is fuelled by racism has no space in our institutions of higher learning and should be condemned with the contempt it deserves." Mr Dlelanga said that the pass rates among African students suffered from a lack of tuition in their mother tongues and called on Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande to investigate university language policies. African National Congress spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said the ruling party was "outraged by signs of deteriorating race relations and racial tensions," condemning the violence regardless of the political motives behind it. South Africa's universities were recently rocked by the Fees Must Fall campaign against rising tuition costs, with some protests degenerating into riots. From: <http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-9cf2-South-Africa-Outcry-at-university -racism-follows-two-violent-clashes#.Vs1Kafl9600> http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-9cf2-South-Africa-Outcry-at-university- racism-follows-two-violent-clashes#.Vs1Kafl9600 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
