strike two

Strikes continue on UKZN campus. Down in the drama department all morning, people were fantasizing about what could be going on up on top of the hill. Fear of the unknown took root. Kids started traveling in pairs, in groups, with a watchful eye.

I ventured out of my study hole at lunch to loud choral singing. Curiosity lead me up the hill, where a crowd of other onlookers had gathered. Across the road, on the slope in front of the Law building, at least two to three hundred students had gathered, singing and dancing in unison.

But was it a protest for University financial aid and housing? Were the students asking for more computer labs? Politics are officially not allowed to enter campus, but this sure looked like an ANC rally. Men and women sporting shirts with Zuma were the ones in charge of the megaphones. The songs were songs from the apartheid era.

Sarah and I got our roti and sat on the curb, facing the choir. It could have only been more fitting if we had popcorn. Behind us, students were being shooed away from the sidewalk, “This is a no student zone!” police yelled. But we just sat there. A man with a ponytail stood up to the police, saying, I can stand here. The police man retorted, “You have to move, you might get shot!” “No one is going to start shooting.” Exasperated, the policeman left, and the man with the ponytail stayed, and also ate his roti.

When we left, Sarah and I walked right down the middle of the street, between the actors and spect-actors, between the sea of singing blacks, and the shore of policemen and white students who were watching. No one bothered us. No one spoke to us. But I noticed, in the front line, was my student, the one who missed class today, singing her heart out. I am glad that she is able to put her voice to something she believes in; I hope she does not turn violent in the crowd.

Welcome to varsity in South Africa, Sarah says, as we walk. Apparently this happens every year, in some form or another. On our way to my car, we see that all the computer labs are closed, and students are sparse. The parking lot is emptier than I have ever seen it.

Andrea called me this afternoon, and reported that she had been evacuated from the library. Students had been forced out of classrooms, kicked out of the computer labs. And she said it was going to be worse tomorrow. Worse is a funny word, without knowing it, the word makes a division. For some, the strike will be more effective tomorrow, for others more disruptive.

It is rumored that windows have been broken. It is rumored that a girl who was not quick enough to leave her computer was either strangled or whipped. It is rumored that a student was asked who she was going to vote for, and when she did not answer ANC, she was beaten.

Is the strike losing focus? Does non-violent protest really work? Sure, we have the example of Martin Luther King Jr, but would his efforts been as effective without the simultaneous works of Malcolm X? And if a model of non-violence works in America, who is to say that it will work in South Africa?