Cape Town - A prominent academic has likened UCT protesters to Nigerian terror group Boko Haram militants after they allegedly punched the university’s vice-chancellor Max Price.
Professor Achille Mbembe, who has worked at University of the Witwatersrand in Joburg and other institutions worldwide, on Sunday angered protesters after he penned and published online a response to the alleged altercation between students and Price on Friday afternoon at UCT.
Mbembe defended Price as the vice-chancellor of “one of the most important institutions of higher learning in our continent”.
“He has been at the receiving end of some of the most vicious and despicable attacks vice-chancellors in South African universities are nowadays routinely subjected to,” said Mbembe.
“He has been demonised by student militants and vilified by right-wing white constituencies which are nostalgic of the days of segregation.
“As I write, it is difficult to say when this will stop and who will stop what looks more and more like a Boko Haram style of violence - intimidation, filibustering, name calling, emotional blackmail and, increasingly, physical assault, the destruction of precious public assets and the use of fire as a sacrificial and pseudo-purificatory weapon.”
UCT arts student Dean Hutton, who has worked as a photojournalist for a number of years, responded to Mbembe.
“I am not Boko Haram and neither are any of the people I have associated with and this is a very, very damaging thing to evoke,” she said.
Mbembe replied: “I have no reason to not believe you. Boko Haram style or not, I simply do not see how physically assaulting Dr Price will bring about free education. If we cannot draw the line here, then we condone the unjustifiable.”
He said Boko Haram aimed “to decolonise so-called western knowledge and science”.
“We know where it ended up - atrocities, hostage taking, scorched earth tactics.”
Hutton asked Mbembe whether he had an “idea the kind of abuse of power any of us face when it comes to private security and police”.
She said Mbembe’s comments are the kind that “gives the state the excuse to continue throwing stun grenades, and shooting rubber bullets, then water cannons, and then live ammunition”.
Another response, from writer Gillian Schutte who has tackled racism and education previously, indicated frustration with Mbembe’s stance.
“Funny how Achille Mbembe has f*kall (f*ck all) to say on the trauma the students have had to deal with from the violence aimed at them by the securocrat neoliberal system,” said Schutte.
“How much longer is he going to demonise this student movement with poetic hysteria?”
Cape Town filmmaker Nadine Cloete, who made the film Action Kommandant about slain anti-apartheid activist Ashley Kriel, said she was at the meeting between Price and students on Friday.
“I was there when he was coming to make an appearance.When he left he was the one who pushed people out of the way,” said Cloete.
“There was a confrontation between him and students. But I didn’t see anyone touch him. All of a sudden there were stun grenades. Police were also there with cameras filming students.”
Cape Argus