Sunday marked 10 years since the #RhodesMustFall movement shook the University of Cape Town and sparked conversations about transformation, access to education and racism. It began when Chumani Maxwele threw faeces at the Rhodes statue.
Image: Brenton Geach/Independent Newspapers (Archives)
A decade after students at the University of Cape Town threw faeces at the statue of Cecil John Rhodes, setting off the #RhodesMustFall movement, the fight for transformation in tertiary education remains unfinished.
The removal of the statue was a victory, but it was never the real fight. The movement was about breaking the barriers that kept black students from completing their studies; it was about access, affordability and the inequalities that still exist within South Africa’s universities.
Sunday marked 10 years since the #RhodesMustFall movement shook the University of Cape Town and sparked conversations about transformation, access to education and racism. It began when Chumani Maxwele threw faeces at the Rhodes statue. What followed was a wave of student activism that forces the country to confront the truth about the past and the present.
The same institutions that promised change still see many young people being excluded from education, not because of ability, but because they simply cannot afford it. The names on the buildings have changed, but the struggles inside them have not.
The movement was about addressing financial exclusion and questioning whether universities were really accessible to all. A month later the statue was removed, but the movement continued. It gave rise to #FeesMustFall, a global protest calling for free tertiary education and to end financial hurdles that kept black students from completing their studies.
The Minister of Higher Education has a responsibility to ensure that transformation is more than a discussion topic. Universities must not only open their doors, but create spaces where students can thrive and be free from inequalities of the past. The Minister cannot continue to watch from the sidelines while another generation is locked out of opportunities.
The #RhodesMustFall movement forced South Africa to confront its past, but looking back is not enough. A decade later, the deeper issues still remain unresolved and exposed. The movement may have removed the statute, but the fight for transformation at the universities continues. If South Africa is committed to decolonising education, then the government and universities must move beyond the debate and start delivering.
Cape Argus