4 Decades from '68, South Africa Remembers a Student Fight Against Apartheid

The student protests and revolutions that swept across the world in 1968 and 1969 still have a powerful effect on the people and institutions we live with and within today. In Cape Town, South Africa, it is no different. From Cape Argus [emphasis mine]:

The University of Cape Town is awash with nostalgia this week as it pays tribute to a student protest that shook the campus exactly 40 years ago, after a black academic was prevented from taking up a post there during apartheid.

On Sunday a group of ex-students, now in their 60s, reunited at Bremner Building in a room that changed their lives - and the student movement in the country - in August 1968.

During this month, UCT appointed Archie Mafeje - a black anthropology lecturer - to its staff. But, when the government resisted the appointment, UCT acquiesced and withdrew the job offer.

This led to the start of a nine-day sit-in at the Bremner building by the student body.
[...]
"The one is the global and the other is about domestic politics. The student protests that took place in Paris earlier that year influenced the students at UCT," he said.

And the Mafeje sit-in had radicalised the student protest movement in SA. "Up until that year, and for about 10 years before that, Nusas and the student movement had engaged in ritualistic protest.

"It had been a period of polite reactive protest but, after the occupation on campus, students took the struggle way beyond campus. This had a long-term impact and it is good to see this past event being recognised for doing that."

One of the lessons that can be learned from this is: even though our campuses may seem small, what we do on them can have an impact in unexpected ways, all over the world, and years in the future. And while this blog tends to emphasize radicalizing structures, this example shows the nature of radicalizing actions.