Wits munites

The last couple of weeks have been difficult for he FMF movement, but nonetheless we still hold fast to the believe that we will see free quality education in our lifetime, maybe even NOW. i just want to highlight the challenges we’ve faced thus far and the plan of action moving forward.
 
CHALLENGES
  1. The first challenged we faced in the very beginning of the year was securing accommodation for students writing deferred exams, which shouldn’t even have been a problem seeing that we had already agreed with management on this matter last year already. We are, however, proud to announce that all students were accommodate free of charge at either Jubilee or Men’s res during the course of their examinations.
  2. The second challenged was finding ways to provide food to students during this period, especially those students who really couldn’t afford even a single meal per day. despite our relentless efforts, all we managed to secure was one meal per day
  3. We started with campus shut down soon after exams, but we were met with a violent eviction at Solomon House and the ultimate militarization of our campus
  4. An interdict was served to us, and a consequent intimidation and fear of exercising the right to protest was imparted.
  5. Students (most of whom are involved in the movement) were thrown out of res and left stranded without accommodation.
  6. There has been a great shortage of funding and food supplies
Despite all of this, I’ve seen an amazing group of students who remain resilient and determined to carry this course through. The courage I’ve seen in these students is inspiring and unheard of, and I salute these cadres with the hope that we will all be like them.
 
Through trying circumstances, we had to find strategic ways to protest and mobilize, and we will continue till we are heard by the state.
 
PLAN OF ACTION
  1. WEDNESDAY (27/01/2016– We will have an artist demonstration in the form of a die-in. Please come with white T-shirts and/or a donation of any artistic material
  2. THURSDAY (28/01/2016)- We will be hosting an event where will have a panel discussing the feasibility and affordability of free education. The purpose of this event is to advice the government on how to implement free education so that money and time will not be wasted on task teams and commissions.
  3. FRIDAY (29/01/2016)- REGISTRATION DAY, in order for us to continue to fight all returning fallists are encouraged to register and look for accommodation and sort out all admin thereto. Those with problem in this regard are encouraged to come forward so we could see how we can help one another.
  4. SATURDAY (30/01/2016) PLENARY AND MARKETING MEETING. We like to invite all member to mass plenary meeting in order for us to plan for the year of 2016 and also form new task team.a representative from  a marketing company that offered to help FMF will be meeting with us on Saturday, we ask that all Fallists attend so that FMF may truly be representative of the student population in the decision making processes. 
  5. NEXT WEEK- POLITICAL SCHOOL WILL RESUME:) (contact Mbekezeli (MBE) and Aya in this regard)
Like eagles, we soar on even in the mist of great distress and tribulation; and the greater the opposing force, the higher we soar. Let the year of free quality education begin.
 
for further details on all things FMF, please contact the people listed below using the FMF email account and quoting the name of the contact person in the subject line.
  • NTOKOZO
  • CATHERINE
  • SARAH 
  • FATIMA
  • VUYANI
  • JAFTA
  • RAY
  • MPHO
ALUTA CONTINUA

Students’ demands

As we embark on the no registration fee campaign to ensure that the gates of the university are open to all black people. This movement is geared towards the attainment of free education and the immediate implementation of free education in South Africa. Education in this country is reflective of our socio-economic conditions that perpetuate black poverty and exclusion. Black students across universities in South Africa are perpetually financially excluded and locked into debt.

For this reason we are calling for the end of commodifying education. We want the doors of higher learning to be open to every student in South Africa. Access to education must not be based on one’s ability to pay; it must be open to all! We do not want ‘payment plans’ and ‘student loans’. We want #FreeEducationForAll. We are fighting for the decommodification of education. We are committed to this project and we are not alone! Students from all over the country are calling for #FreeEducationNow. We are saying #AsinaMali. It must be recognised that this year being the 40th anniversary of the 1976 student uprising where young black students challenged the apartheid government and lost their lives, we’re inspired by the undying commitment shown by black martyrs and feel the lives lost should not have been in vain as is the current status quo.

  • We demand free education Now
  • No registration fee (even where there  is outstanding debt)
  • By-elections for SRC (Elections were unconstitutional)
  • Historic debt repayment for students who are graduating this year to scrapped in total.  
  • Access to academic record whether you are in debt or not.
  • Left-over food from all dining halls must be given to poor students and day scholars on campus (inclusive of weekends)
  • Suspensions and disciplinary action due to the protest that took place in 2015 should be revoked.
  • No Police presence on campus
  • African Students (International students) within the border of Africa should not pay an upfront fee payment of 75 percent but rather it should be pushed down to 50 percent.
  • Removal of upfront accommodation fee and students should be allowed to move upon registration.
  • Returning NSFAS Students in their final year should be given financial aid to complete their academic studies.

We are also stating that the negotiation processes towards the insourcing of university workers must continue in good faith. The task team which was set up in 2015 must not be disrupted and meetings towards the achievement of the insourcing of workers must continue as per plan. We have also towards this end sent a statement to the University Management stating our position on this matter.

 

Wits Fees Must Fall (FMF) student movement and the ongoing occupation at Solomon Mahlangu House (formerly known as Senate House).

 

In accordance with the ongoing struggle for free quality education; Wits Fees Must Fall (WitsFMF) recognizes that registration fee and/ or upfront fee payment contributes to the increasing number of students who are denied access to education due to their economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Wits FMF is dedicated to ensuring that historically thus economically disadvantaged students enjoy the same right at equilibrium with the historically privileged. The fact of our impossible reality is that we cannot afford the payment of registration together so with tuition and residence fees. Symbolically so we protest against registrations continuing as normal in accordance with the greater goal that ought to be achieved which is one of attaining free quality education in higher learning institutions in our lifetime. We understand that there is ability for our demands to be met, however for as long as the system continues to be anti-black and anti-poor we will continue to fight. Free education seems impossible; however we staunchly believe that it is only right and just that the struggle continue until the goal of free education is attained.  

The struggle for free education has been met with failure from management to meet our demands, one of them being no registration fee and/or upfront payment the across board. The nine point list of demands was handed over to management in the General Assembly  Secondly and mostly importantly, the university has failed to honor its word in reference to financial exclusions despite promising us on various media platforms about the registration fee and financial exclusion, clearly they think we have amnesia.  

The way we perceive it is that the Wits management offered us an illusion that we are on the same page hence our negotiations are all in good faith. But with the current situation it just confirms our long feared beliefs that we cannot trust such a structure that seeks to further inflict pain on black bodies through institutionalized racism in the form of financial exclusions, a ridiculous upfront fee that only a few can afford while the rest of us have to go to loan sharks in order to make ends meet and plenty other forms of institutionalized racism that excludes us black people.  It this therefore imperative like we did last year when we persisted with in sourcing  and refused to continue to learn before our parents are recognized as human beings not just a mere pawns that can be exploited whenever they feel like it.   Due to the neoliberal nature of contemporary racial capitalism the outsourced workers had no prima facie relationality with the capitalist class as per crude logics of Marxist analysis of class struggles. The nexus of the relationship gave them no political currency under the discourses of trade union economism.

The nine point demands that we submitted to management last year November have thus far being partially met and with the most important points deliberately left dangling, the issue of scrapping the registration fee and financial exclusions still remain unresolved. The Wits Fees Must Fall students’ movement has been in conversation with other varsities who are part of the FMF movement and have thus far established a solid relationship in which at the end of the day we envisage a south Africa with free decolonized education .Our commitment will take us as far as not having an academic year at all until our demands are fully met.

 

This movement seeks to fight against anti-black practices of the institution in all its forms. We seek to rectify the structural and epistemic violence which has led to the academic and financial exclusion of black students, the exploitation of black workers and the generalized intellectual dishonor of black academics and also bridge the gap between whites and blacks which have been acquired by over 500 years of land dispossession and oppression throughout the world. We also do acknowledge that our struggles, even though geographically separated with our brothers and sisters beyond the shore of our beloved Africa, our struggles against anti-blackness doesn’t exist in isolation and we therefore seek for global solidarity from similar movements around the world like Black Lives Matter and Rhodes must fall Oxford. This leads us to the desire and agency to end life of the University of the Witwatersrand as we know it!



@WitsFMF

FROM FREE EDUCATION TO LAND APPROPRIATION! ALUTA CONTINUA!

Wits FeesMustFall Plenary Meeting

20 November 2015

18:30

Solomon House Atrium

Objective: Report back from Task Teams following the Task Team Meeting that took place on Wednesday, 18 November 2015

Agenda

  1. Opening and Welcome
  2. Message of support by parents
  3. Poetry by No Life and Sanelisiwe Yekani
  4. Section 77 Application – National Day of Action
  5. Introduction of newly formed Task Team
  6. Report back from Task Teams + Q&A
  7. Nomination of Regional Workshop representatives
  8. Nomination of representative to sit on Nzinga Collective FMF panel discussion
  9. Feedback from Insourcing Task Team
  10. [Trigger Warning: discussion of sexual assault]

Rape at Azania

  1. Any Other Business
  2. Closing

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Minutes

  1. Opening

The meeting was officially opened by Cde Sarah and Cde Yamkela, who co-chaired the meeting.

  1. Message of support by parents

Two parents came forward to relay their support for the FMF movement. Further, they stated that they would like to mobilize parents such that they can effectively support the movement which they feel is way over-due considering that they too are a stakeholder of the institution upon which the university relies for money. The house welcomed them and their pledge of support favourably. To this end, they suggested mobilizing parents around the upfront fee; that as their support, they are willing to not pay the upfront fee for their kids, regardless of affordability.

There was a suggestion to get a hold of the parents’ database to call for a mass parent meeting with WitsFMF to converse in detail about the kind of support wanted by students from the parents.

There was also a request from the floor to the parents, for them to also rally their colleagues at their various workplaces, that might not be parents or have their children who attend any University in the country – it is important that we have support from all sectors in society.

Moving forward, a Parent Solidarity Task team is to be established; this task team will act on directive given by the Wits FMF movement at large.

  1. Poetry

We had performing acts of poetry, courtesy of the Education Task Team. This is part of what will be an on-going effort to facilitate learning/knowledge sharing within the movement. The two poets were Sanelisiwe Yekani and No Life.

  1. Section 77 Application

The discussion was opened by Cde Ahmed; he is in contact with cdes from unions including NUMSA, GIWUSA who want to move on an action to submit a Section 77 application. This is an application for a protected National strike. This would allow the movement to organize a National Day of Action in 2016. A date does not have to be set in stone to avoid possible delay to approve application as a means to derail the movement. Cde Ahmed put it to the house to consider the political motivations of trade unions and weigh it up against the benefit such collaboration would have for the movement.

It was agreed upon that it would be worth our while to pursue this action in collaboration with the Unions.

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Moving forward, 3 members (preferably from the education task team) are requested to volunteer themselves who would work with the unions to draft application and articulate/advance our set of demands in this process. Ahmed emphasized that there is a sense of urgency to this proposal.

  1. Introduction to newly formed Task Team

A Communications task team was formed on Wednesday, 18 November with the aim of addressing the lapse in communication as expressed by multiple cdes. This task team will relieve media of all internal communication functions.

Making use of existing data base, this task teams will be responsible for all communication regarding meetings, including agendas, reminders and minutes via email.

Following from a suggestion put forward by the Education task team, The PR of the movement has been relegated to Cde Thato (from Media who has been of the cdes active in this since formation) as well as Nhlanhla (from Education) and finally, Anele.

Moving forward, these three cdes will work together with the newly formed Communications Team to improve our internal communication and strengthen our efforts to articulate and drive our own narrative consistent with our ideological grounding to the public and our allies.

  1. Task Team Report + QnA

Background

On Wednesday, 18 November, all tasks teams met with the purpose of reflecting back on the last couple of weeks since inception and charting a way forward in relation to how they will continue to contribute to sustainable movement building and practice. Commentary/feedback was given from the floor and where applicable, robust debate regarding proposals brought forward by task teams. Below is a summary of key points from each report.

MEDIA

The media team has managed to achieve the following:

Active social media presence; Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram account as well as a Website which covers content beyond Wits. The report notes that the number of active members has decreased significantly making delegation challenging. The Media Task Team is calling for members who have an interest in curating media content to join the team. They have also made a general call to everyone involved in the movement to submit content for the WitsFMF website in the form of any pictures, photo essays, articles, etc.

The suggestions that came from the house were as follows:

  • The material produced or curated by the Education Task Team should be made available on the WitsFMF website.

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  • Media team to work more closely with Education to effectivize broader knowledge sharing strategies.
  • We should also form links with organisations like Right2Know
  • Media list to be created which will include contact details of mainstream and indie media contacts and other organizations aligned to the movement such as Right to Know.
  • Media is working closely with persons who have been filming/documenting in order to ensure that final material is consistent with and accurately captures/represents our narrative

EDUCATION

This task team will intensify its efforts to effect political education within the movement. They will do this primarily through archiving for the purposes of a public library, which has already been set up in the middle of Solomon House, curating and facilitating public seminars and discussions, and finally making use of the creative arts for the same purpose.

The education task team is concerned about the false narrative being publicised by mainstream media. A call was made for the generation and issuing of statements through the newly formed Communications Team, the volunteers are cde Thato, Nhlanhla and Anele.

Finally, Education advised that they will establish an Alumni Facebook page for graduating students to still find expression and community within the movement.

The task team has planned programs as follows Political Education Sessions to be hosted every Thursday from 16:00-18:30. To this end, persons who feel they are able to contribute towards curating these should come forward. Details of the first two are as follows:

  • Blade’s Hidden Report -Quality Free Education For The Poor Is Possible (Thursday, 26 November 2015, 16:00 Solomon House)
  • Transformation vs Decolonization (Thursday, 03 December 2015, 16:00 Solomon House)

Further suggestions from the house were as follows:

  • There should be constant communication between the Education and Communications task teams, and there should be an itinerary and constant reminders of events scheduled to take place.
  • There should be an archive of booklets of values we possess as a movement.
  • Every first Thursday of the month should be for Political Education off campus, around Braamfontein.
  • WitsFMF should appropriate a notice board in Solomon House where hard copies of information can be shared over and above digital sharing.

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  • Members of WitsFMF should familiarize themselves with the Higher Education Act and the clause on Education in the Constitution of the country.
  • WitsFMF should have a ‘Free Education’ model that focuses solely on Wits as a university

DIRECT ACTION

This task team reported on their reflections and tensions (now resolved) within their team. Further, they clarified that while they have tasked themselves with being at the forefront of action taken to defend the movement, some plans such as mass action will need everyone’s participation and further, they derive their actions from what needs of the movement as defined by plenary. They also advised that movement must engage critically their perspectives on the epistemological understanding of subjective and objective violence. Since the actions of this task team will be guided by the movement’s stance on this, it is important that a clear position be taken on what characterizes ‘violent’ and ‘non-violent’ action.

They made the following proposals on how this task team can support our movement:

  • Focus their efforts on mass mobilization since no immediate threat to movement; re-capturing Wits, black professional bodies/associations and black student societies.
  • Focus efforts on building intellectual capacity by researching past and present social movements in order to borrow from what works, learn from what didn’t / does not and make such information known to everyone i.e. training on defence tactics, coping strategies, etc.
  • Deploying a nameless, faceless militant group who will have reasonable autonomy as well as a creative and strategic group, so as to through these subgroups, diversify tactics and build a stronger, more effective task team motivated with different goals (i.e. responding to police violence, mass mobilization, creative propaganda, etc).

Direct Action further proposed that the movement make time on its calendar to get together over a weekend to discuss and debate in detail the direction of the movement and define clear goals and objectives as this is currently lacking. This is to be pursued as a matter of urgency and the venue will be Solomon House.

Consensus was not reached as to which of the above strategies should be pursued. Further debate and discussion to be had regarding this.

LOGISTICS

Logistics reported a summary on all financial income and expenditure. They will make it available for viewing on the Anthropology notice board as well as hand it to Comms team for circulation. 6

Moving forward, we will do away with using Prof Joel Quirk’s personal account and open our own #WitsFeesMusFall stokvel account at FnB. The signatories to this account will be three cdes from Logistics (Enzio, Sarah and Mandlakazi). They will report duly to plenary.

Further, logistics have proposed that any money generated should be used primarily for transport and legal services as and when required. A further two proposals were 1) a commitment to maintain rejection of funding from political parties and Israeli associated groups in principle and 2) moving towards initiating more sustainable forms of income generation besides donors. The house was in agreement.

NATIONAL COORDINATION

This committee is leading efforts to build inter-campus solidarity. Nominations for regional reps were led by them. See agenda point 7.

  1. Nomination of Regional Workshop Representatives

There will be a regional FMF workshop to be held on the weekend of the 27th of November. This is following from national efforts to build strong ties between institutions with the view of organizing collectively on a National scale. The Western Cape has already started this process and have had their workshop in the past 2 weeks and the Eastern Cape is working on having their own workshop. The primary aim of these workshops is to share and build on each institution’s experiences and perspectives, critically assess and engage each other on gains and shortfalls and finally, formulate a framework for intensifying the struggle, which will be proposed to a similar National meeting.

The selection of the delegates followed an open nomination process. 10 delegates were selected with a 50/50 ration of women and men. The institutions who will be present, other than Wits are TUT, UP and UJ.

  1. Nomination of representative to sit on Nzinga Collective FMF panel discussion

Nzinga Collective is a Black Feminist and Pan Afrikanist organization which hosts public dialogues with the objective of raising consciousness within our society. They will on the 29th of November, host a panel discussion titled: Fees Must Fall: The Lessons and the Pitfalls. They requested the presence of a representative from WitsFMF who would give a presentation on the movement, decentralization of power and intersectionality. Cde Simbongile (from Media) was nominated and she accepted the invitation.

The discussion will be held in Newtown at Niki’s Oasis. The link to the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1655925984626013/

  1. Feedback from Insourcing Task Team

Ntokozo affirmed that insourcing will be happening as a matter of fact; the only mandate of this task team is get clear on, and finalize the details of how and when this will happen.

The task team will be chaired by Adv. Dali Mpofu and the arbiter will be Prof Chris Malikane. 7

  1. [TW] Rape at Azania

The was a call from cde Thando (direct action) to show visible support for and stand in solidarity with Rhodes Must Fall movement, and the victim in particular. She noted the importance of articulating a clear condemnation of what happened and interrogating the violent patriarchy and misogyny which continues to compromise the safety of women, queer and trans bodies that has gone largely unchecked in our own movement.

Thato (media) who co-runs the online publication, Ms Vanguard, offered to give their platform for cdes to submit content focusing/highlighting people’s experiences of marginalization and violence within the movement.

  1. AOB
  2. On the movement’s claim to physical space within Solomon House – it was noted that Student Services is said to move its offices out of Solomon House. A suggested was made then that we look into claiming this space as our new headquarters.
  3. On the manifesto – it was noted that it would have been worthwhile to collectively discuss/revise the manifesto before it was put up on the website, thus signifying its ratification. Although the manifesto represents a conclusion of a collective discussion which was open to all persons, it was agreed upon that further engagement is needed. To this end, comrades are requested to read it in their own time before the commencement of the next meeting. It will then be further discussed with a view of official adoption.

LINK: /manifestos/

  1. On funding – it was noted that we need to build a culture of being self-reliant in terms of funding. Movement t-shirts and hosting events in line with our work (i.e. poetry evenings) were put forward as some suggestions to generate our own funding. Further, a monthly financial contribution by those who are able to do so can be looked into as a means to get in the habit of self-funding.
  2. Closing

The meeting closed at 22:00.

The date and time of the next meeting was not decided upon, however comrades are urged to attend the first Political Education program this Thursday, 26 November at 16:00. As stated above, the discussion topic will be ‘Blade’s Hidden Report: Quality Free Education for the Poor is Possible”