STUDENT PROTESTS IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH Annotated sources (1918-2018) Barbara Potthast, Katharina Schembs (eds.) Editors Barbara Potthast, Katharina Schembs Layout and Design Constanze Alpen – Department of Public Mirjam Utz – Department of Public Relations & Communication, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Cologne Print Hausdruckerei | Abt.54 | Universität zu Köln Publisher Printed with support of the Global South Studies Center (GSSC) of the University of Cologne All rights reserved. © 2019 All illustrations have been reproduced by kind permission of the respective photographers/copyright holders. ISBN-Nummer 978-3-9805326-0-0 Editor University of Cologne Department of Iberian and Latin American History Albertus Magnus Platz D 50923 Köln Phone 0049 (0) 221/470 – 5657 Fax 0049 (0) 221/470 – 4996 Email sekretariat-ihila@uni-koeln.de Web http://ihila.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/ STUDENT PROTESTS IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH Annotated sources (1918-2018) Barbara Potthast, Katharina Schembs (eds.) CONTENTS I II III IV V Introduction Barbara Potthast and Katharina Schembs ...................... West Berlin, Paris, Mexico City. How Global was the Protest Movement of 1967/68? Aribert Reimann ................................................................. The University Reform and the Student Movements in Latin America Valeria Manzano ................................................................. Africa’s 1968: Protests and Uprisings across the Continent Heike Becker and David Seddon ............................................ South African student protests 1968 to 2016 Heike Becker ............................................................................ 7 13 23 31 43 VI 1. Sources Actors ............................................................................ 1.1 Europe ................................................................. 1.2 Latin America ...................................................... 1.3 South Asia ...................................................... 1.4 Africa ................................................................. 56 56 70 77 78 2. Academic Goals ................................................................. 2.1 Europe ................................................................. 2.2 Latin America ...................................................... 88 88 93 4 2.3 South Asia ...................................................... 2.4 Africa ................................................................. 108 110 3. Sociopolitical goals ...................................................... 3.1 Europe ................................................................. 3.2 Latin America ...................................................... 3.3 South Asia ...................................................... 3.4 Africa ................................................................. 115 115 119 124 129 4. Protest Forms ................................................................. 4.1 Latin America ...................................................... 4.2 South Asia ...................................................... 4.3 Africa ................................................................. 139 139 151 155 Appendix Timeline ............................................................................ Chronology of events by region ........................................... Latin America ...................................................... South Asia ................................................................ Africa ................................................................ Authors ........................................................................... 160 162 162 164 165 168 5 6 I. INTRODUCTION Barbara Potthast and Katharina Schembs V iolent Student protests have character- during the so-called Arab Spring. The period 2015/16 ized European history since the begin- saw massive student protests in South Africa and ning of the 19th century, although India. These are only a few examples of events that during the 20th century they seemed led historians and anthropologists collaborating in an increase in violence and scale. Especially the global international project called Re-Mapping the Global protests around the year 1968 are remembered as South to organize an autumn school on the topic of a turning point in university politics and culture, as student protests in the Global South. well as society in general. Fifty years later, in 2018, Funded by the German Academic Exchange Service many European countries, along with the USA, DAAD, the project looks at the re-mapping and re-or- remembered these protests of 1968, which triggered dering of social, economic, and cultural relations in a series of social, cultural, and political changes in the the Global South. Rapid urbanization processes are “Western” world. The protests did not however focus linked to major social and political challenges. In only on national problems. Transnational contacts addition, accelerating forms of mobility facilitate were important, and politics and conflicts in the then the movement of more and more people, ideas, and so-called “Third World” were crucial for the revolt, as technologies. While these recent changes are in the can be seen in West Berlin, where protests against the focus of anthropological and geographical research, visit of the emperor Shah Reza Pahlevi of Iran initiated historians remind us that they are based on long-term the rebellion. The Vietnam War played a prominent developments. This is why a group of researchers role in these contexts, as did the political situation in who study social movements in the Global South South America. Most accounts of the events around picked the history of students protests in countries “1968,” be they academic or popular, take note of the Global South as an important, innovative, and of this international dimension, but do not address highly interesting topic for an international summer parallel student protests in “non-Western” countries or, in this case, autumn school. Professors from the themselves. Even in academic contexts, most (Euro- University of Cologne, where the school took place pean or North American) researchers are not aware of in October 2017, in collaboration with our network an African, Asian, or Latin American “1968.” partners from the University of Cape Town (South Latin Americans however, remember not only fifty Africa) and the Universidad de San Martín (Argen- years of student protest since 1968, but also an impor- tina) invited graduate students and PhD candidates as tant student movement hundred years ago in 1918, well as colleagues from other universities in Germany which changed university culture and curricula, and to participate in this event. For this reason, there is greatly influenced politics and society in the subse- a certain bias toward these countries in the present quent decades. The movement started in Argentina, reader. but soon attained continent-wide dimensions. We did not want to publish a traditional reader with While student protests in Europe have become scholarly articles, however, but to prepare an anno- scarcer in the 21st century, and are mostly concen- tated anthology of primary sources which can be used trated on university politics, like the protests against for teaching purposes and further research by our the Bologna Reforms, many countries of the Global colleagues or interested graduate students. Our aim South have been shaken by massive student protests was to provide room for contemporary statements in the last years. Several of the protests developed from the protesters in the Global South, including into substantial public movements, like the recent one their specific forms of voicing and ways performing against the autocratic rule of Daniel Ortega in Nica- their critique, and thus to enable a direct dialog with ragua in 2018. In 2011, major student protests shook the protagonists and movements. By focusing on Chile and Columbia, and also the Arabian countries the Global South, we intend to highlight events and 7 sources beyond the classical scenes of action in Berlin, student protests in West Berlin in this sense consti- Paris, and San Francisco tuted an exception: There, on the one hand, partly We start, however, with a comparative article which because of the “special situation of [the] city,” focuses on the “classical” sites in Berlin and Paris, students incorporated international topics, such as but also includes Mexico City. This paper brings us to opposition to the autocratic regime in Iran or to the the events of 1968 in these cities in order to outline Vietnam War, into their agenda. In Paris, on the other the setting and the context, but also because we hand, protests were sparked by purely academic want to highlight the importance of “Third World” and domestic issues, while tactics like fights over politics and actors within the European student barricades were reminiscent of French revolutionary movement. The anthology provides some sources traditions. In Mexico, too, clashes between police on precisely that topic in the German 1968 protest forces and students erupted over national topics, and movement. Because the summer school took place were the result of growing youth opposition to an in Cologne, we also included a few sources on the increasingly authoritarian one-party regime. Engaging fairly unknown protests in this city. Besides that, our with concepts like generational experience, Reimann focus lies on Africa and Latin America, with some concludes that it was in “participants’ collective additional sources on South Asia. The selection is of memory that the notion of a global protest move- course highly eclectic, but it can be considered as a ment has taken root more than anywhere else.” starting point for further research and an amplifica- The student protests in Mexico in 1968 stood in tion of this project. The Global South perspective as the tradition of Latin American University Reform we have it already calls for the inclusion of new topics movements that, as Valeria Manzano explains in into the history of the 1968 protests, like racism and the following article, had departed from the Argen- decolonization, and for a nuanced analysis of local as tine University Reform in 1918. This seminal reform, well as transnational causes that led to the protests. resulting in more democratic structures within Argen- It also reveals transnational networks of persons tine universities, along with their autonomy, was of and organizations that are marginalized in a purely continental importance and subsequently spread national perspective. The historical analysis of earlier to most other Latin American countries. The youth protests, such as the call for University Reform in suddenly appeared as agents of not only educational, Latin America in 1918, reminds us that transnational but possibly also more general societal change. In her ties were already crucial at the beginning of the last overview of student protests in Latin America in the century. In addition, the historical dimension allows 20th century, Manzano argues that all later student us to trace continuities in topics, forms of protest, and movements had to take a stand on the 1910s and sociopolitical consequences. They also help to explain -20s reformism, either endorsing or rejecting it. While the dynamics of local and transnational causes of the protesters in the late 1960s in countries such as protests. Argentina or Mexico found that their demands could We start the volume with three general introductions; not be limited to the campuses but had to be taken besides the comparative one on Europe and Mexico out “to the people”, students during the 1970s and there is one article covering student revolts in Latin -80s military dictatorships – partly because of brutal America since the beginning of the 20th century, one state repression (with the largest proportion of victims on fifty years of student movements in South Africa, of state violence being between 16 and 30 years of and another on the 1968 protests in Africa. age) – returned to protesting about merely academic Aribert Reimann looks at the chronologies of student issues. It was only towards the end and after the fall protests in West Berlin, Paris, and Mexico City that of these dictatorial regimes that the scope of student evolved between June 1967 and October 1968. By activity was widened again to include topics related to stating that there was no “chronological overlap” human rights or the criticism of neoliberalism. between the events that took place in those three Africa is usually the most neglected geo-political area cities, he challenges the notion of 1968 as a global when it comes to global references to the events in moment, as it has been labeled by an abundant body 1968, and this is why we include a paper by Heike of literature. In fact, students’ demands differed Becker and David Seddon on “Africa´s 1968: Protests greatly in the three cases in question and were often and Uprisings Across the Continent.” The authors guided by national issues. As the author argues, characterize the 1960s as “an exceptional decade of 8 popular protests across Africa.” In the 1960s, most form of education.” African states had recently gained their independ- The language related to the overcoming of racism ence and still struggled with the transformation of the and the “decolonization” of society and politics has various national liberation movements into protests marked South African student protests ever since against the establishment of one-party states and then. It was also crucial for the 2015/16 “fallist” authoritarian populism, as well as against neo-co- movements (#RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall). lonialism. The authors highlight the importance of Heike Becker’s article traces the theoretical as well national or local settings in order to explain the differ- as social background of the South African student ences in the claims and forms of protest of the 1968 protests over the last fifty years and highlights how movements on the African continent. the thoughts, struggles, and experiences of the In some cases, like the protests in Tunisia, there is a younger generation in the 1960s and 1970s shaped clear connection with the events in Paris in 1968, and the subsequent cohorts of activists, who then devel- the authors argue that post-colonial relationships can oped new forms of protest. produce not only “webs of empire” but also “webs The introductory articles are followed by the sources of resistance.” In Senegal and Congo, important section, which is divided into four different sub-sec- student and worker protests took place in 1968, but tions. Within these the documents are grouped the article also refers to lesser-known protests in East geographically and chronologically. The four chapters Africa, like those in Ethiopia, which, after receiving focus on actors, academic aims, socio-political aims, some concessions like the demission of the minister and protest forms, notwithstanding the circumstance of education, was suppressed violently. In other coun- that these sections overlap. Each source has a short tries with “progressive” governments, like that of introduction which contextualizes the document, as Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, the movements revealed well as some suggestions for further reading. the ambivalent role of students as privileged members The first chapter introduces some of the main actors, of society, who protested against democratic short- both individual and collective. Not all student move- comings. These are but a few examples of the highly ments, however, are politically left-oriented, as diverse but active revolts in Africa in the 1960s. the document on the occupation of the Rectorate The following article by Heike Becker takes up the in Cologne in 1968 reminds us. This measure was South African example and the 1968 revolts in censured by conservative and right-wing student Senegal in more detail, and then traces the South groups, who held a majority in the student parlia- African student movements up to the violent protests ment at that time. These groups did voice the same at the beginning of the 21st century. In South Africa, demands for more student participation in the deci- students from the 1960s onwards fought against the sions regarding the university; they were of differing Apartheid system and later against continuation of opinions, however, about the means to achieve post-colonial marginalization of black and coloured these goals, as well as about the political mandate students and teachers, as well as against colonial of the student representatives. Some of them also relics in the curricula. The anti-colonial manifest of questioned the idea of a general political mandate the Caribbean author Franz Fanon was read by the of the student associations. After this, some impor- students of the South African Black Consciousness tant actors of the German student movement in the movement in the 1960s, and taken up again by the 1960s are presented, who embodied the importance protesters at the beginning of the 21st century. of transnational ties and international issues. German Student protests in South Africa involved not only writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger was a central figure violent protests such as the Soweto riots in 1976, but in establishing this transnational network, which also the development and implementation of crit- brought people together from the then so-called ical thinking. This led to the formation of the Black “Third World”, who lived and studied in Germany, Consciousness movement, which resulted in the but who also influenced the leading figures of the foundation of a coloured student union. Heike Becker German student movement and shaped their interest states that it no longer demanded “that ‘black’ in and vision of these countries. The Latin American education be equal to ‘white’ education; instead the section then brings us to the University Reform of organization embarked on a profound critique of 1918. We are introduced to some of the most impor- ‘white’ education, a domesticating and dominating tant thinkers and activists, and again can follow the 9 transnational scope of the network of student activ- 1918 onwards. Solidarity with workers in the univer- ists. sity and social programs for poorly educated people Other sources relate to student organizations in are other important issues that have been included Mexico, as well as an anti-caste activist in India in since the beginning of the 20th century. The sources 1947. Then, for South Africa, we meet one of the allow us to trace a line from the foundation of exten- most important figures of South African tudent sión (outreach) programs in Argentine universities as protest and promoter of the Black Consciousness part of the reforms of 1918 to the demands to end movement, Steve Biko, as well as a spokesperson of the outsourcing of workers in South African univer- the 2015/6 riots, Nombuso Mathibela, who opposed sities in the context of the 2015/16 revolts. These not only racism but also sexism in South African issues often led to a general solidarity with workers or Society and academia. These different actors allow us oppressed people, and thus to more general sociopo- to trace the importance of antiracist and anticolonial litical demands. The same holds true for the Argentine thinking in student movements over time and across Reform Movement, which in general terms sought to continents. define a new model of man, university, and science The goals of most of the student activists were thus and, therefore, of politics. Similar ideals also inspired academic as well as generally socio-political. Even the 1968 movements. though it is often difficult to clearly distinguish Some specific goals concerning the curricula are between the two goals, since they overlap, we did voiced by the movement of critical economics, group them according to their scope. Many move- although the connection of purely academic with ments started from particular university issues like more general aims can also be observed in the docu- the hiring of teaching personnel, curricula, or fees. ments which relate to the formation of an Interna- However, these issues mirrored authoritarian, classist, tional Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics. It or patriarchal structures of politics and society, and started in Argentina and Uruguay at the end of the thus led to more general sociopolitical demands. 1990s, and led to a movement that currently involves Not surprisingly, the most important academic aim in 65 economics student groups from more than 30 almost all regions of the world was to achieve a better countries from all over the world. The group started participation of students in the decision-making advocating for the diversification of economic theory processes of the universities. This includes adminis- in university curricula, but soon made connections tration, appointment of professors and lecturers, and with other social movements, like those which pursue changes in the curricula. Especially in the countries of gender issues, since, in the end, narrow economic the Global South, the improvement of university facil- theory also affects gender relations and other social ities – such as housing, libraries, classrooms – are also questions. an important claim. In countries without a free and public university system, like the former British colo- Although protests might have initially erupted nies in Asia and Africa, a major concern is the amount because of what students perceived as deficiencies in of fees that students have to pay. As the sources for the educational systems, goals of student movements the #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa show, were hardly ever only of an academic nature. Instead this topic goes far beyond mere economic concerns. they often reached out to include broader sociopolit- If interpreted in the perspective of “decolonizing” ical issues, either on a national or even international and “depatrializing” education, it reaches out to scale. include society and politics in general. As the source As Reimann states in his introductory article, the states: “The struggle for free decolonized, Afrocen- demonstration of solidarity with international events, tric education cannot be divorced from the struggle like the US movement against the Vietnam War, was against patriarchy and rape culture at institutions.” a characteristic of the West German student move- Another important academic issue throughout the ment. That this was not only true for students based time span covered in this reader are demands for the in West Berlin but also for other German towns is creation of a popular and better education for the shown by the sources included in section 3 on soci- majority of people, and autonomy of the university opolitical goals, such as an Anti-Vietnam-War leaflet from the state. All these topics are already present in issued by a Cologne student group, where they the claims of the Latin American Reform Movement of tended to be more Christian and conservative. Apart 10 from the Vietnam War, other events in the so-called national: from rather “classic” methods originally “Third World”, like the state repression of student inspired by the US American Civil Rights Movement, protests in Mexico preceding the opening of the like sit-ins, marches, and occupations – including e.g. Olympic Games in October 1968, served as occasions university facilities in South Africa in 1968 or in the for West German students – in this case the German Mexican state of Sonora from the late 1960s to the Socialist Student Federation of Tübingen (SDS) – to 1990s – we move to more artistic genres like graphic denounce the escalation of violence. arts and performances, and rather tragic measures Switching from Europe to Latin America, an article like suicides. in a 1920s Cuban student magazine founded by the Posters from the Mexican student movement of 1968 Communist Party leader Julio Antonio Mella shows demonstrate how graphic artists engaged with the that, although immediate academic demands like the official symbology of the Olympic Games in order to democratization of university structures could not be criticize the government as well as the sport event. met at the time, the youth were still called upon to Other visual sources deal with a performance that the fight for democracy outside educational institutions in art professor and queer activist Pedro Lemebel held the political arena. The next source, from Argentina, at the University of Chile in 1988 in opposition to makes it clear how the influential University Reform the Pinochet-regime. By means of the performance, of 1918 was still an important point of reference 50 he wanted to call attention to the marginalization of years later, but was criticized by Argentine students at sexual minorities not only by the dictatorship but also the same time for its mainly academic scope. by the Chilean student movement itself. Moving to The examples from South Asia demonstrate how more recent strategies, photographs illustrate how student organizations were not always critical of the in Argentina cultural practices known as aguante political regime. In the immediate post-independ- (“endurance” or “resistance”) that originated among ence context in Pakistan in the 1950s for example, soccer or rock-music fans were taken up by student they were often in line with the government of the unions. young nation-state. Not only concerned with national Lastly, two sources from India bring to light extreme matters, more left-leaning Pakistani student publica- forms of protest in relation to caste-specific topics: tions placed their then recent overcoming of colonial self-immolation and suicides by students. In one rule in a global context, and declared their solidarity case, an upper-caste student immolated himself, with youth still suffering from imperialism elsewhere. because he disapproved of the increased percentage In another postcolonial context, in South Africa, the of student places reserved for “backward castes” in fight against racism was explicitly taken up into the higher education (1990); in the second case, a Dalit agenda of student organizations. In 1968, the South PhD student killed himself because he had suffered African Student Organisation (SASO) broke away continued harassment at the University of Hyder- from the white-dominated National Union of South abad (2016). Both incidents led to prolonged periods African Students (NUSAS), because black students had of student protests, either in favor of or against the felt insufficiently represented by the latter. Leaping inclusion of “backward castes” at Indian universities. forward in time, the following source is taken from the 2015 student campaign for the removal of the As a documentary reader focusing on the Global statue of the British colonialist Cecil John Rhodes at South, this is a unique publication, but it is far from the University of Cape Town, which led to an overall representative in the sense of covering the most debate about racism at South African universities. We important movements in this part of the world. We can then draw a line from the “falling” of the statue want this reader to be a starting point which will to the demand for a “fall” or reduction in the cost initiate further readings and research, to deepen of university fees, (#FeesMustFall-campaign) directed historically and enlarge geographically what we have against the neoliberal educational reforms of the been able to publish here. Zuma government and the insecure working conditions of campus workers. In section 4, we consider different forms of protest Cologne, January 2019 that – as many scholars have argued – were the aspects of students’ movements that were most trans- 11 12 II. WEST BERLIN, PARIS, MEXICO CITY HOW GLOBAL WAS THE PROTEST MOVEMENT OF 1967/68? Aribert Reimann F ew historical events have been viewed in nial turn which diverted attention away from conven- recent scholarly literature as so profoundly tional narratives of Western progress, supremacy transnational and globalized as the wave of and exceptionalism towards alternative identities youth and student protest movements that and perspectives inspired by the former periphery of emerged during the second half of the 1960s across Western colonialism. North America, Europe and parts of Asia. Echoing In December 1969, little more than a year after the the perceptions of the protagonists of protest, the violent suppression of the Mexican student move- so-called Generation of ‘68 thereby appears to repre- ment, Ramón Ramírez, economics professor at the sent the first truly globalized cohort of youth which Autonomous National University of Mexico, published transcended national politics and established a trans- his account of the events of 1968. In the very first two national discourse of protest opposed to established sentences of his account Ramírez immediately placed institutions of political power, both domestically and his observations within a global context without on the international stage. Transnational connections which the events to him seemed unintelligible: between different regional developments existed “It is a tangible reality that the social unrest among on different levels of the contemporary experience. the students has an international dimension; that for Current historical research often assumes a set of years it exists in several countries of Europe, Latin generational experiences which helped form a trans- America, the United States, and the Asian continent. national outlook of the post-war decades: the expe- In all of these regions, and despite the differences, rience of relative affluence and progress during the which are more assumed than real, the students boom years of the post-war economic recovery of speak the same language because their problems are the capitalist West; the emergence of a youth-specific often identical” (Ramírez 1969: 15). consumer culture and a less disciplined, more rebellious code of behavior; a changing context of modern These words by a sympathetic Mexican academic media which – since the television revolution of the teacher resonate with a widespread, almost proverbial 1960s – raised awareness of transnational trends summary of the protest movements which emerged not just in fashion and entertainment, but, above all, from the memory of the participants – the notion that of critical developments in world politics; increased the students of different countries may have spoken mobility as part of the socialization of youth which in different tongues, but had raised the same voice contributed to the transfer of ideas and knowledge; around the globe. Concentrating on the events in the attempts to modernize the higher education West Berlin, Paris, and Mexico City, this approach to system which led to investment in modern peripheral the events of 1967/68 visits the main urban centers campus universities; the fading attraction of orthodox of the protest movements which – unlike in the Communism as a rallying point for radical left-wing U.S. – appear geographically concentrated in the political activism since 1956 which opened new capital cities of (former) West Germany, France, and spaces for the political re-orientation of a New Left; Mexico. The task of this analysis will be to establish and finally, the advent of the intellectual post-colo- the balance between global context and local events. 13 Beyond that, any assessment of the established narra- higher education sector in order to attract students tive of global protest should and must also take into from West Germany to the city, and throughout the account the relationship between subjective experi- 1960s, students did indeed migrate into the city and ence and collective memory. began to form a critical sub-group distinct from the When we talk about the student protest movement of rest of the resident population in terms of lifestyle and the late 1960s we are neither talking about an event politics. The city’s exposed situation had turned it into nor even about one coherent global wave of protest, a showcase of Western affluence, and after the erec- but rather a long-term succession of protest activi- tion of the wall it also became a regular stop-over for ties which, in these three cases, spanned 16 months foreign dignitaries who visited the Federal Republic. during 1967 and 1968. We do not even find any Such state visits contained the potential for conflict chronological overlap between the protest events in with the critical student body. At the Free University of the three cities, as the protests in West Berlin mainly West Berlin there was a brewing conflict over univer- occurred between June 1967 and April 1968, the sity politics that centered on internal matters, such as relevant events in Paris were rather tightly concen- the administration of lecture rooms for student-or- trated during May 1968, and the protest movement ganized events, plans to introduce a limit of matricu- in Mexico City erupted in late July 1968, before it was lation, and some high-profile cases of academic staff violently suppressed on the 2nd of October. This is who were fighting for the extension of their contracts. not to say that protest activities did not occur outside The students adopted demonstration tactics from the these core periods, but that their impact on and reso- US-American protest movement, such as sit-ins, and nance with the global public was limited in chrono- in April 1967, the university authorities reacted by logical terms. calling in the police to break up such demonstrations. A state visit was planned in West Berlin for the 2nd Core Periods of protest during 1967/68 June 2nd April of June 1967 for the emperor Shah Reza Pahlevi of May July October 15th West-Berlin Paris 3rd 30th 22nd Mexico City 2nd Among our three case studies, the situation in West Iran, a close and important ally of the United States Berlin was certainly the most unusual, since the city in the Middle East. Before the Shah arrived in West (which was only half a city) existed in a bizarre state Berlin, a student meeting at the Free University of uncertainty at the very heart of the Cold War. West mobilized for protest against this visit. Among the Berlin technically never belonged to either German speakers was the Iranian post-doctoral researcher state, but represented the last part of occupied terri- Bahman Nirumand who informed the students about tory under the command of the US-American, British, poverty, social injustice and the repressive nature of and French allied powers. Since 1961, West Berlin had the Shah’s regime. The transnational character of this been hermetically sealed off from the surrounding protest initiative became clear when Rudi Dutschke territory of East Germany as well as from the eastern (who would become the most recognizable face of Soviet sector of the city, which resulted in a severe the German protest movement) exclaimed to the economic and demographic crisis. One response to audience: “Tomorrow, during the visit of the Shah, this situation was the concerted effort to develop the we are dealing with Vietnam!” The intention was to 14 raise public awareness of the character of the regime West Berlin with a gun, sought out Dutschke’s where- in Iran and to mobilize public opinion against it as well abouts and shot him several times in broad daylight. as the US-American engagement in Vietnam. Suffering gunshots to his head, Dutschke narrowly The next day marked the beginning of the core survived, but within hours, the news of the assassi- period of student protest in West Berlin. During a nation attempt brought about a weekend of unprec- first encounter with the police in front of the city hall edented violent unrest in West Berlin and across West of West Berlin, student protesters were attacked by Germany. In Berlin, the main target of violent attacks undercover Iranian secret service agents while the were the headquarters of the publishing company Berlin police at first did nothing more than watch, Springer which the protesters held responsible for the they soon after intervened against the demonstra- negative press campaign against Dutschke, and ulti- tors. Hours later, another stand-off occurred in front mately for creating the atmosphere that had made of the opera house where the Shah was watching a the assassination attempt possible. The so-called East- performance of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. After er-Riots marked the apogee, but also the end of the the imperial couple had entered the opera, the police core period of student protest in West Germany. The attacked the protesters with unprecedented brutality movement soon disintegrated into different factions and chased the crowd into neighboring streets, and never regained its momentum or its impact on where the student Benno Ohnesorg was shot dead public opinion. at point-blank range by a plain-clothes police officer. By comparison, the events in Paris were chronolog- Overnight, his death galvanized and multiplied the ically far more condensed but also far more critical. protest movement in West Berlin and beyond. Student unrest in Paris originated from the Univer- Protest activities continued during the following sity of Nanterre, a modern campus university on the months in the form of mass demonstrations, for western outskirts of the city. During the early months example in October 1967 when protesters in West of 1968, a conflict had emerged over relatively harm- Berlin joined an international day of protest against less everyday issues of student life on campus, such the Vietnam War. At the Free University, visits by as the organization of the student dormitories. The the German philosopher Herbert Marcuse, who had conflict over questions of campus discipline and fled the Nazi dictatorship 35 years earlier, attracted demands for student participation in administrative interest in unorthodox theories of revolution that matters soon became politicized, and on 22nd of rejected the communist model of Leninism, and the March, a group later to become known as the Move- students began to organize the so-called Critical ment 22nd of March broke into the administrative University which offered self-administered lectures offices and occupied them. Even though the occu- and seminars which dealt with radical approaches to pation soon ended, the conflict between students academic studies in order to introduce revolutionary and the university administration escalated until the perspectives into the academic discourse. Conflicts university campus was closed on the 2nd of May. with the conservative mainstream of popular opinion The students of Nanterre University then lobbied came to a head in West Berlin in February 1968 when for solidarity from the student body of other univer- the activists of the Free University hosted the Interna- sities in the city. On the 3rd of May, a meeting at tional Vietnam Congress. Hundreds of delegates from the Sorbonne University in the heart of the Quartier around the world gathered to discuss international Latin was broken up by police forces called in by the perspectives of revolutionary politics across the globe, university authorities. This action was interpreted by and the Congress received prominent media atten- the onlooking crowds of students as an arrest, and tion. Among the most recognizable faces of the event within hours an open street fight ensued, which the was that of Rudi Dutschke, who by now embodied police broke up with tear-gas. The following day, the the student protest movement in Germany. His media decision to close the Sorbonne University lead to the presence included an extensive interview on national creation of a united strike by students and academic television in November 1967, but was mainly shaped teachers. The critical moment occurred on the 10th by rather hostile coverage in the printed press that of May when the police prevented a demonstration sought to demonize him as a threat to the security of about 20,000 students from crossing the river. The of West Berlin. On Good Friday, the 11th April 1968, demonstrators ended up in the Quartier Latin, imme- an ancillary worker from West Germany traveled to diately surrounding the Sorbonne University, where 15 the protest leaders took the decision to occupy this Teachers. A special ingredient of the French move- part of the city and defend it against the police. The ment were the Situationists, a small group of subver- protest situation thereby became firmly localized in sive neo-avantgarde activists who since the 1950s the city’s geography. The result was the first Night of had developed tactics for undermining public order, the Barricades which turned into the most spectacular state authority and the established order of capitalist May events in Paris. Students were quickly building consumption by means of targeted provocation, barricades around the Quartier before the riot police ironic subversive slogans and the creation of polit- was sent in shortly after 2 a.m. to break up the ring of ical happenings, so-called “situations of liberation”. barricades by any force necessary. The pictures of this While the debates in the Odeon Theater took on a extremely violent night in the heart of the city soon character of a permanent collective conversation created an atmosphere of revolutionary crisis, while about utopian perspectives of revolutionary politics, the police were accused of excessive use of force many buildings across the city were covered with situ- against the students. ationist slogans. Two developments were of significance during these The government reacted to the general strike by days in mid-May: the residents of the Quartier had taking up negotiations with the striking workers, shown open solidarity with the students, at times offering substantial wage increases in order to break providing food and shelter for the students, while, up the coalition of workers and students. These nego- secondly, the unrest spread beyond the student tiations resulted in the Agreement of Grenelle of 27th milieu into the French labor movement. On the 14th May which, indeed, soon ended the strike movement, of May, shop stewards at major factory plants of with the labor force slowly returning back to work. In the companies Aviation-Sud and Renault declared a radio speech on 24th of May, the French president unauthorized strikes in solidarity with the student Charles de Gaulle offered a national referendum on movement. This sudden emergence of an unauthor- executive powers to introduce democratic reforms to ized strike movement was immediately rejected by the higher education system. However, this was widely the French communists and their trade union, the perceived as a sign of the government’s weakness in CGT, as a counterproductive anarchist movement, handling the situation and it directly contributed to a but it became clear that the representatives of the second wave of demonstrations which saw another communist left no longer commanded much control night of the barricades and clashes with police force over the strike movement, which quickly spread as in the Quartier Latin. It is significant that the protest workers occupied their factory plants. After a few movement did not possess any clear and coherent days, the whole country was in the grip of a spon- agenda for action, but chose its targets rather arbi- taneous general strike that paralyzed not only indus- trarily and spontaneously – during this night, a few trial production but also basic infrastructure, most hundred protesters managed to set fire to the Paris importantly fuel supplies and electricity. Quicker than Stock Exchange after they discovered that it would anyone would have thought possible, the conflict be impossible to storm the City Hall. With the protest between students and the police had turned into a and strike movements paralyzing the country, presi- fundamental crisis of state authority. dent de Gaulle took the dramatic decision to leave the Meanwhile, the student protest movement in Paris country on the 29th of May. His destination was the had begun to take over not just university and faculty headquarters of the French Armed Forces in Germany buildings, but also the Odeon Theater, which was where he spent the night in consultation with his turned into a permanent debating chamber for the generals, possibly discussing the option of using the protest movement. It is also important to note that army to bring the situation in France back under the student movement in Paris never established any control. Upon his return, he addressed the nation in centralized bodies of control or organization of the another radio speech, announcing general elections protest activities, but consisted of a loose network within a month and thereby demonstrating that he of independent groups ranging from the Movement intended to uphold the constitutional order by mobi- 22nd of March from Nanterre across the whole spec- lizing his conservative voter base. The effects of his trum of leftist organizations of Trotzkyists, Maoists, speech were dramatic: On the 30th of May, hundreds to more moderate organizations such as the National of thousands of his followers filled the Champs- Students Union (UNEF) and the Union of University Elysées and the momentum of the situation shifted 16 decisively to the political right. Lacking the continuing and, after finding the main gate blocked, blew it open support of the general strike movement, the student by means of an anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade. protest movement faltered almost as suddenly as it This event scandalized not only the student body but had erupted four weeks earlier. The parliamentary motivated the academic leadership of both universi- elections in June 1968 resulted in a landslide victory ties to show solidarity with their students, while at the for the conservative Gaullists. same time trying to de-escalate the situation. On the Meanwhile, in Mexico City the preparations for the 1st of August 1968, the rector of the UNAM, Javier Olympic Games of 1968 were in full swing. The Barros Sierra, personally led a peaceful protest down events that unfolded during the Mexican student Insurgentes Avenue while carefully avoiding leading protest movement of 1968 are impossible to under- the students into the city center. stand without keeping the 12th of October in mind, During these days, the students formulated a set of the day set for the opening ceremony. Until July, demands which included the release of all imprisoned nothing out of the ordinary was registered among the students, the abolition of laws against “social disin- student body, and, in hindsight, the reason for the tegration” (paragraphs of the penal code that were eruption of the student protest movement appears commonly used to criminalize the political opposi- almost tragicomical: the two major universities of the tion), the abolition of the riot police, and the firing of city, the Autonomous National University (UNAM) police commanders. The stalemate that ensued kept and the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), main- the mobilization among the students at a high level, tained preparatory colleges for high-school alumni resulting in the establishment of a National Strike preparing for their university courses. A traditional Council of students (CNH) which tried to coordinate rivalry existed between the students of both institu- the activities. Such efforts culminated on the 27th tions, and on the 22nd July a confrontation between of August in a mass demonstration of about 30,000 students of the Preparatoria of the UNAM and the students heading for the main city plaza, the Zócalo Vocacional of the IPN turned violent. When the police in the city center. The place held special prominence intervened (not just any police, but the Granaderos, in the symbolic order of politics in Mexico as it repre- a special riot police force), the result was the arrest sented the geographical heart of national politics, of several students. Protests against this police action usually being reserved for the celebration of national by the students were met by more police action festivities or for displays of loyalty to the post-revolu- against the colleges, and on 26th July participants tionary regime of the governing state party PRI and its of one of several protest demonstrations ended up corporatist control over all sectors of public life. When in violent confrontation with the riot police in the some members of the student demonstration of 27th Centro Historico, resulting in hundreds of injured August lowered the national flag, which traditionally students and even more arrests. Among a multitude hangs on the flagpole in the middle of the Zócalo, of organizers of one of the marches that night had and replaced it with the black-and-red banner of been the Communist Youth, since the date of the anarchism, they dealt a distinctive symbolic blow to 26th of July holds special significance for commu- the social and political order of the nation. After a nists in Latin America. The Movimiento 26 de Julio few hundred demonstrators had tried to occupy the had been the name of Fidel Castro’s resistance move- Zócalo throughout the night, the square was finally ment named after his ill-fated attack on the Moncada cleared by army units that used armored vehicles to Barracks in 1953. The fact that soon some student disperse the crowd. It was on this occasion that shots protesters in Mexico would re-adopt this label in 1968 were fired from windows overlooking the plaza. in reference to the violent clashes with the police in Violence escalated on both sides during the month of the city center must have alarmed the authorities. September when military forces tried to take control The government of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz and the of the university campuses. On 18th of September, press loyal to the governing state party PRI used the the army invaded the campus of Ciudad Universitaria allegation (however misguided it was) of communist of the UNAM and fought a violent battle to take influence over the student protest movement to legit- control of installations of the Polytechnic Institute a imize a robust response by the state. The meaning of few days later, resulting in hundreds of student inju- “robust” became clear on the 30th of July when riot ries and arrests. The rector of the UNAM resigned police tried to storm the Preparatoria of the UNAM in public protest on the 23rd of September. By the 17 end of September, with the opening ceremony of the residential building to open fire on students and Olympic Games just two weeks away, the situation soldiers alike to create a chaotic situation of cross- seemed insoluble when on the 30th of September fire which would cause the soldiers to fire into the the army suddenly left the Ciudad Universitaria, thus crowd and allow the authorities to claim that students handing the UNAM campus back to the university had been firing at the soldiers as they moved into the authorities. Because none of the original demands of plaza. The massacre was thus carefully planned and the National Strike Council of students had been met, choreographed to cause a maximum number of casu- the protest movement continued to organize against alties and to give an impression that would allow the excessive police and the army violence of the past two authorities to put the blame on the student move- months. ment. During the following decade, the so-called A peaceful demonstration gathered on the afternoon Guerra Sucia, the government’s ‘dirty war’ against of the 2nd of October in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas political dissent, continued to claim many more in the city district of Tlatelolco. The organizers used victims of police violence and undercover opera- the balconies of an adjacent residential building as the tions. This repressive government campaign came to stage for the speakers when at around 6 p.m. a heli- resemble the military dictatorships of South America copter appeared overhead and dropped two bengal in all but name. flares onto the square. This was the signal for what When reviewing the events in West Berlin, Paris, and became known as the Massacre of Tlatelolco. The Mexico City, the situation in West Berlin is marked events have never been fully investigated, but exten- by public opposition to international state visits, the sive efforts to establish the facts, mainly by journal- application of protest tactics inspired by the US-Amer- ists, have gathered substantial information about this ican civil rights movement, and the concentration on meticulously planned attack on the student demon- post-colonial issues of international conflict, above all stration. Immediately following the two flares, army the Vietnam War. This distinctly international outlook units entered the square from several directions with may have to do with the special situation of a city orders to disperse the crowd and clear the area when without a national government to confront and, they suddenly found themselves under gun fire from as an occupied city, its unique exposure to interna- the residential building where the speakers’ balcony tional politics. Some of the most radical elements had been installed. Believing they had entered an of the protest movement in West Berlin even devel- ambush by armed students in the building the soldiers oped utopian ideas of turning the city into a “free returned the fire, and the students in the square city” independent from either camp of the Cold ended up in the crossfire. The number of victims War in order to establish a subversive geographical among the students has been extremely controversial, center for campaigns on behalf of the post-colonial with official government figures originally registering world. In Paris, by contrast, we can observe a much only about 20 fatalities, while independent sources more nationalized discourse of protest, employing reported hundreds (usually around 300) of student tactics (such as the fight over barricades) which are deaths. The chase for student activists in the area far more reminiscent of French national revolutionary and in the adjacent buildings continued throughout traditions. The reasons for protest originated almost the night, and the scene was quickly and thoroughly entirely from within the university system and were cleaned up so that little evidence remained. Eye-wit- directed at a conservative political and academic elite nesses speak of truck loads of corpses being hastily that represented the French state. In conjunction with driven away during the night. the general strike movement, this led to a classic revo- Days later at a press conference the National Strike lutionary situation of which no one was prepared to Council of students maintained that the students take advantage. The strength of the French protest had been unarmed and peaceful, but further waves movement – its flexibility and spontaneity – was also of arrests still followed. The massacre of the 2nd of its greatest weakness in terms of conquering political October thus marked the end of the student protest power. Finally, the protest movement in Mexico City movement, and it took decades to establish the basic rested on a national tradition of strike and protest facts about what had occurred during that day. A movements dating back to the late 1950s that had unit of undercover special government forces, the manifested itself in the form of public mass demon- so-called Batallón Olimpia, had been installed in the strations and meetings. The origins of the conflict 18 here pointed directly at the relationship between confrontation, and they were often accompanied by an increasingly authoritarian one-party regime on the memory of the (pop-)cultural context of protest, the one hand, which claimed to protect the tradi- which also acquired a global appeal. It is therefore in tions of the Mexican Revolution 50 years earlier and, the area of the participants’ collective memory that on the other hand, the emergence of a liberal and the notion of a global protest movement has taken more democratic civil society. The main issue of the root more than anywhere else. conflict between protesters and the state was the conflict itself, the excessive use of violence by the police and the military, and the absence of a culture of democratic participation. The heightened interna- Primary sources tional media interest directed at Mexico preceding the Olympic Games did nothing to moderate the state’s Fuentes, Carlos: Los 68. París, Praga, México, México response – on the contrary, the expectation of global D.F. 2005. attention served as a trigger to use military force against the protest movement. Nevertheless, alterna- Guevara Niebla, Gilberto: “La Democracia en la Calle. tive channels of communication among transnational Crónica del movimiento estudiantil mexicano”, in: networks of protest could transport the news of the Alcira Soler Durán (ed.), Memoria Histórica del 68 en violent suppression of the Mexican protest move- México: Antología, Cuernavaca 2014, pp. 195-215. ment to provincial German universities, as in the case of Tübingen, where the German Socialist Student Häußermann, Hartmut / Kadritzke, Nils / Nevermann, Federation issued a leaflet during early October 1968 Knut (eds.): Die Rebellen von Berlin. Studentenpolitik denouncing the atrocities of Tlatelolco (see source an der Freien Universität, Dokumentation von Jens pp.114/115). Hager, Cologne 1967. Against this differentiated panorama of protest activities in West Berlin, Paris, and Mexico City, the Miermeister, Jürgen / Staadt, Jochen (eds.): Provoka- enduring appeal of the notion of a “global protest tionen. Die Studenten- und Jugendrevolte in ihren movement” during the late 1960s needs to be Flugblättern 1965-1971, Darmstadt / Neuwied 1980. explained by additional factors. If one aspect connects all experiences of the years 1967/68 around the globe, Ramírez Gómez, Ramón: El Movimiento Estudiantil de then it must be a sense of failure. However differ- México: julio – diciembre 1968, 2 Vols., México D.F. ently failure manifested itself in each case, at no point 1969. did the concrete achievements of the protest movements (if there were any) live up to the high, in some Schnapp, Alain / Vidal-Naquet, Pierre: Journal de la cases utopian hopes that had initially been attached Commune étudiante: textes et documents, novembre to them. If failure connected all activists around the 1967 – juin 1968, Paris 1969. globe, then the construction of a collective memory of protest by those who perceived themselves, above Vienet, René: Enragés et Situationnistes dans le all, as part of a global generation tended to concen- Mouvement des Occupations, Paris 1968. trate on less tangible achievements: a heightened awareness of global issues of international politics, economic development, and instances of marginali- Literature zation; the experience of transnational interconnectedness, be it through personal networks or via new, Carey, Elaine: Plaza of Sacrifice: gender, power, and alternative channels of information and communica- terror in 1968 Mexico, Albuquerque 2005. tion; a more democratic and more egalitarian political discourse that survived in the form of less formal Cornils, Ingo / Waters, Sarah (eds.): Memories of or hierarchical relationships between its participants. 1968. International Perspectives, Oxford et al. 2011. Such areas of subtle changes were far more plausibly connected with a global experience of protest Davies, Meredid Puw: “Zwei, drei, viele West-Berlin? than with the experiences and events of the political West German Anti-authoritarianism and the Vietnam 19 conflict”, in: German Monitor (2008), pp. 143-62. Gildea, Robert / Mark, James / Warring, Anette (eds.): Europe’s 1968: Voices of Revolt, Oxford 2013. Davis, Belinda: “The City as a Theater of Protest: West Berlin and West Germany, 1962-1983”, in: Gyan Hockerts, Hans Günter: “‘1968‘ als weltweite Bewe- Prakash / Kevin M. Kruse (eds.), The Spaces of the gung”, in: Venanz Schubert (ed.), 1968. 30 Jahre Modern City. Imaginaries, politics, and everyday life, danach, St. Ottilien 1999, pp. 13-34. Princeton / Oxford 2008, pp. 247-74. Horn, Gerd-Rüdiger: The Spirit of ’68. Rebellion in Ead.: “The Whole World Opening Up. Transcul- Western Europe and North America, 1956-1976, tural contact, difference, and the politicization of Oxford 2007. “New Left activists”, in: ead. et al. (eds.), Changing the World, Changing Oneself. Political protest and Hosek, Jennifer Ruth: “’Subaltern Nationalism’ and collective identities in West Germany and the U.S. in the West Berlin Anti-Authoritarians”, in: German Poli- the 1960s and 1970s, New York / Oxford 2010, pp. tics and Society 86 (2008), pp. 57-81. 255-73. Jobs, Richard Ivan: Youth Movements: Travel, protest, DeGroot, Gerald: The Sixties unplugged: a kaleido- and Europe in 1968, in: American Historical Review scopic history of a disorderly decade, London 2008. 114/2 (2009), pp. 376-404. Derix, Simone: “Der Symbolkomplex Berlin. Berlin- Klimke, Martin: “1968 als transnationales Ereignis”, Diskurs und Berlin-Praktiken nach 1945”, in: Michael in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 14-15 (2008), pp. C. Bienert / Uwe Schaper / Hermann Wentker (eds.), 22-7. Hauptstadtanspruch und symbolische Politik. Die Bundespräsenz im geteilten Berlin (1949-1990), Berlin Id.: The Other Alliance. Global protest and student 2012, pp. 183-208. unrest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties, Princeton 2011. Dumontier, Pascal: Les Situationnistes et Mai 1968. Théorie et pratique de la révolution (1966-1972), Id. / Scharloth, Joachim (eds.): 1968 in Europe: A Paris 1990. History of Protest and Activism, 1956-1977, New York / Basingstoke 2008. Feenberg, Andrew / Feenberg, Jim: When Poetry ruled the Streets. The French May events of 1968, Id.: “Die transatlantische Protestkultur. Der zivile Albany 2001. Ungehorsam als amerikanisches Exempel und als bundesdeutsche Adaption”, in: Heinz Bude / Bernd Fink, Carol / Gassert, Philipp / Junker, Detlef: Greiner (eds.), Westbindungen. Amerika in der 1968. The World Transformed, Washington D.C. / Bundesrepublik, Hamburg 1999, pp. 257–84. Cambridge 1998. Merritt, Richard L.: “The Student Protest Movement Flaherty, George F.: Hotel Mexico. Dwelling on the in West Berlin”, in: Comparative Politics 1/4 (1969), ’68 Movement, Oakland 2016. pp. 516-33. Frei, Norbert: 1968. Jugendrevolte und globaler Pensado, Jaime M.: Rebel Mexico: student unrest and Protest, Munich 2008. authoritarian political culture during the Long Sixties, Stanford 2013. Gilcher-Holtey, Ingrid (ed.): Die 68er-Bewegung: Deutschland, Westeuropa, USA, Munich 2001. Schildt, Axel / Siegfried, Detlef (eds.): Between Marx and Coca-Cola. Youth Cultures in Changing Euro- Ead.: “Die Phantasie an die Macht”. Mai 1968 in pean Societies, 1960-1980, Oxford 2006. Frankreich, Frankfurt a.M. 1995. Sloan, Julia: “Revolution on the national stage: 20 Mexico, the PRI, and the student movement in 1968”, A very detailed analysis by La Jornada and Canal Seis in: Samantha Christiansen / Zachary A. Scarlett (eds.), De Julio of the events of the Massacre of Tlatelolco The Third World in the global 60s, New York / Oxford on 2nd October; original footage, sounds, interviews 2013, pp. 171-81. with eye-witnesses, and analysis of events, background information, and political and military respon- Soukup, Uwe: Wie starb Benno Ohnesorg? Der 2. Juni sibility; investigative television journalism containing 1967, Berlin 2007. important and rare footage and still photography of the events; forensic approach including some internal Stokes, Sarah: Student Activism in 1968 in Paris and CIA documents. Mexico City, Oxford 2011.c. Documentary Film Footage: Der Polizeistaatsbesuch: https://vimeo.com/114480638 (German) Documentary on the state visit of the Shah of Iran to West Germany and West Berlin in May/June 1967; intended to be a satirical take on the excessive cost, security provisions, and the comically deferential attitude of ordinary Germans, the shooting of the film turned into an eye-witness account of the violent clashes in West Berlin on 2nd June that resulted in the death of Benno Ohnesorg. The second half of the documentary (commencing at minute 23:50 with the student meeting of 1st of June at the Free University of Berlin) is dedicated to the confrontation in West Berlin. Confrontation: Paris 1968: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UP3RLGmciM (English) US-American documentary on the events of May 1968 in Paris; extensive footage on student meetings, street protests and violence, occupation of Sorbonne University and the Odeon Theater. Chronological account of the escalation of protests and violence, and the protest’s sudden loss of momentum at the end of May. El Grito: (Spanish) Documentary footage assembled by the Mexican student movement (UNAM), chronologically documenting the events of July – October 1968; extensive footage of protest marches, meetings, speeches, sounds and songs. El Grito is somewhat arranged and edited (with helicopters as the recurring theme) to dramatically lead to the events of Tlatelolco on 2nd October (only still photography). Talatelolco - Las Claves de la Masacre: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=I1Q67ckeEO0 (Spanish) 21 22 III. THE UNIVERSITY REFORM AND THE STUDENT MOVEMENTS IN LATIN AMERICA Valeria Manzano A century-long student movement, an nium 1905-7, with the creation of the Federación de identity for the progressive middle Estudiantes Chilenos (FECH, Federation of Chilean classes, a way of constructing and Students, 1906); the Federación Universitaria de aspiring to democracy in the univer- Buenos Aires (FUBA, University Federation of Buenos sity system and society at large: the University Reform Aires, 1908) and a more ephemeral Federation of Movement, or reformism, entails all of these descrip- Uruguayan Students (1907). The founding of these tions and more. In its first century, the Reform Move- federations was based on student aspirations towards ment was entwined with the dynamics of local, the transformation of the curricula and teaching national, and transnational politics; and, most obvi- styles, and expressed criticism of the hierarchical and ously, with the formation and transformations of the conservative systems of college life. In some cases, student movements as political, rather than corpo- these student groups drew on, the ideas set forth rative, actors. This paper will focus on the relation- by the Uruguayan writer José Enrique Rodó in his ships between the University Reform Movement and famous Ariel, while at the same time contributing to the student movements in several Latin American its dissemination. Published in 1900, the short book countries. In doing so, I will try not to naturalize that represented the pinnacle of the aesthetic and ideal- relation. On the one hand, throughout the twentieth istic trends that challenged the contemporary hegem- century different university-based actors embraced onic positivism in the intellectual milieu. The book the University Reform Movement, including profes- was constructed as a collation speech, and directly sors, alumni, and researchers. On the other hand, interpellates the university students, conceived of as not all the students who participated in politics did the metaphor for Latin America, that is, as reservoirs so in the frame of Reformist groups. This being said, of culture and change. This stood in contrast to both I will argue that, after 1918, the student movements the so-called decadent European ideas and values in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, and Cuba (among and the materialism associated with North America. other countries) had to come to terms with the ideas In terms of Rodó (1979), the “new American gener- and programs of the Reform Movement, as it soon ation” had the immense task of constructing a Latin became the major landmark for positioning them- American identity. In Buenos Aires and Montevideo, selves vis-à-vis university politics in particular, and the groups of university students reacted to that inter- relations between students and politics in general. pellation: they created clubs and ateneos to carry out those mandates. However, not all the mobilized students shared those “idealist” perspectives. In Buenos Aires, for example, a group of “scientificist The Reformist Moment students” linked to the Socialist Party in 1915 created In the Southern Cone of Latin America (Argentina, a Popular University with the goal of “educating” Chile, and Uruguay), student activism and militancy the working class regarding issues of social thought, started in the twentieth century. The first moment of hygiene, and the body. Meanwhile, in Santiago de organizational effervescence took place in the bien- Chile, student groups also forged ties with socialist 23 and anarchist workers. These groups created the Córdoba 1918). Universidad Popular Victorino Lastarria and were The University Reform Movement represents a key active participants in the large popular mobilizations episode in Latin American social and political history. for better food supply (Bustelo 2013; Salazar / Pinto On the one hand, this movement had a continental 2001: 194). In the decade that followed, both the scale, spreading very quickly from Córdoba to the rest “idealist” and the “scientificist” trends, although in of Argentina and from there to Chile, Peru, Vene- permanent intellectual and political tensions, partici- zuela, Cuba and Mexico, among other countries. The pated in the University Reform Movement. students created communication networks (expressed Launched in Cordoba in 1918, the University Reform in publications, congresses, and travel practices) and Movement initially had limited goals, such as curric- delineated the contours of an intellectual and polit- ular changes and transformations in the ways in ical “counter-elite” that aimed to transform univer- which the professors gained access to their positions. sities and societies alike (Martinez Mazzola / Bergel Backed by the new political scenario associated with 2010). On the other hand, these student networks the government of Hypólito Yrigoyen, the first demo- established modes of solidarity that, in key junctures, cratically elected president (1916), through secret, built on the ideal of a Latin American confraternity, mandatory and universal male suffrage, the Córdoba rather than on nationalist ties. Such was the case, students called a strike to demand the inclusion of for example, of the alliance established between more professors into the decision-making processes Chilean and Peruvian students in the context of an at their university. Their initial alliance was with a imminent war between the two countries in 1919. group of professors that they saw as opposed to the In that context, the FECH launched a call to refuse clericalism that, in their view, governed their univer- participation in armed violence, which right-wing, sity. Yet that alliance was soon broken, and with it nationalist youth groups interpreted as “treason to the initial, quite modest demands were surpassed. the fatherland”. The FECH decision was met with After the failure of the more moderate paths, the bloody repression and hundreds of students went to students followed a path towards radicalization. They prison, including the poet Domingo Gómez Rojas, broadened their repertoire of activities, including who died after spending months in prison. In addi- strikes, street demonstrations and barricades, and, tion, the principles of Latin American solidarity and fundamentally, established further connections with the claims of the people’s rights to self-determination students across the country and segments of the (especially against the hegemonic pretensions of the labor movement (Portantiero 1978). United States) were common currency in the declara- Such a route of radicalization was already palpable tions of student congresses, beginning with the first in the Manifiesto Liminar, published in June of 1918 of them that was held in Mexico City in 1921. and written by the recent graduate Deodoro Roca. All over Latin America, the Reform Movement Addressed to the “free men of America”, the mani- contributed to locating the students within the festo laid the foundation for the reform project political scenario. Throughout the 1920s, national regarding the universities (which included claims of student federations flourished, sometimes becoming autonomy, academic freedom and student participa- the battlegrounds for the disputes within leftist and tion in university governance) and was largely artic- “progressive parties”, even at the regional level. One ulated in three central points. First, it postulated the such dispute involved the Cuban communist activist idea of a “university demos” that would be based on and student leader Julio Mella (see source pp.75) and the equality of its members (professors, alumni and the Peruvian Haya de la Torre. In contexts of state students) and the exercise of internal democracy. repression and political backlash in both countries, Such demos would also be the model with which Mella and Haya agreed that the student movement to conceive democracy at a societal level. Second, should play the “role” as vector towards democracy it conceived the youth as agents of change, which and anti-imperialism. However, Haya de la Torre went would ideally start, yet not stop, at the university a step further: drawing on generational thought (very level, as it had to spread to society as a whole. Finally, popular in the 1920s) and a heterodox view of class the manifesto called for the making of a “new Amer- alliances, he formally founded the Alianza Popular ican generation” and proclaimed that the students Revolucionaria Americana (APRA, American Popular would be its vanguard (Federación Universitaria de and Revolutionary Alliance) in 1926, positing that the 24 student movement, as the ideological vanguard of 1960, rising to 20 % in 1972. That growth showed the “middle classes”, should eventually lead the way further similar characteristics with other countries: towards democracy, a statement that Mella, as most the student body became increasingly feminized and of the communist students and activists, deeply ques- more socially heterogeneous, as it gradually included tioned (Melgar Bao 2013). Haya de la Torre’s concep- more youth from the middle classes (Manzano tualization of the student movement and its role in the 2014). All in all, the student bodies were larger and making of “national and popular” parties had some more diverse than in the first half of the twentieth followers in the years that followed. However, in the century, and this represented a source of pride for Southern Cone and Cuba, the students socialized in many “developmentalist” politicians that interpreted the framework of the Reform Movement more likely it as a sign of the modernization of their countries. engaged with (and nurtured the growth of) existing Second, many of the university students who initi- parties, fundamentally at the center and left of the ated their political socialization in the “long sixties”, political spectrum. The Reform Movement, thus, especially towards the end of the decade, endorsed was the platform where progressive, lay, and “Latin an ambivalent position vis-à-vis the universities: they Americanist” middle- and upper-class youth devel- understood that the universities were not an arena oped leadership and rhetoric skills. From Salvador of social transformation per se, but rather a space Allende in Chile to Fidel Castro in Cuba, a plethora of from which to develop bridges to “the people” and would-be major political players had made their first their organizations. In this respect, they reinterpreted steps in politics while participating in the movement, the legacies and memories of the Reform Movement, which became the hegemonic trend within the Latin which they conceived of as outdated in relation to American student movements from the 1920s to the the mandates of a revolution that many viewed as 1950s. impending. Those tensions and ambivalences vis-à-vis the university and student politics at large were also at the center of the “juncture of 1968” that, with Between Reform and Revolution different modalities and intensities, many Latin American countries experienced. The 1960s were the golden age for the links between By mid-1968, university and secondary school youth and politics around the world. As the cultural students from Brazil, Uruguay, and Mexico were critic Diana Sorensen highlighted, the “long” Latin engaged in intense mobilizations (Langland 2013; American sixties (that started with the triumph of Markarian 2013). The Mexican experience was, the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and ended with the however, the most dramatic. On July 26, university military coup d’état in Chile in 1973), were pervaded students linked to different leftist groups gathered by a “feeling of imminence, of change about to in Mexico City to commemorate another anniversary happen or to be voluntaristically ushered in” (2007: of the Cuban homonymous movement and crossed 7). Young people, chiefly university students, were paths with secondary school students protesting at the center of this feeling of imminence and the against the porras (right-wing youth groups) in their transformative political and social projects of the era. schools. Both marches were severely repressed and First, as almost everywhere else in the world, enroll- two dozen students were arrested, which prompted ments in higher education exponentially expanded. In the declaration of a student strike. With the occu- Brazil, for example, total enrollment almost doubled pation of universities and schools, a National Strike in only four years, going from 142,000 students Committee was created, which brought together in 1964 to 258,000 in 1968, while in Mexico it delegates from 77 educational institutions. The jumped from 70,000 in 1959 to 440,000 in 1974. demands that the students outlined were far from Argentina showed more dramatic dynamics: total being “corporative” or limited to university and enrollment increased sevenfold between 1945 and school life: they were rather entirely political as they 1972, ballooning from 48,000 to 330,000 students. had been from the beginning of the “movement”. Although a minority, in Argentina the percentage In August, the Committee agreed on a six-point peti- of university students among the twenty to twenty- tion (including the release of political prisoners and four-year-olds steadily grew: 5 % of that age group the dismissal of the police chiefs) that, as a whole, was enrolled in 1950; the figure jumped to 11 % in questioned the authoritarianism of the Mexican state. 25 At the same time, the Committee favored the crea- decided to suppress university autonomy: the imme- tion of student “brigades” that were disseminated in diate result was the resignation of 1,200 professors the popular neighborhoods of the main cities in an and, unintentionally, the emergence of a new, more effort to gain support and create those “bridges” that diverse and radicalized student movement. When the most leftwing student activists aimed to create. The government decided to outlaw the reformist-oriented “movement” reached its peak on August 27, when federations and centers, a myriad student groups 500,000 people marched across Mexico City’s down- in Córdoba and Buenos Aires started to gather in town streets and ended at the gates of Lecumberri parishes, where they interacted with many priests prison, resulting in 600 new arrests. embedded into the debates triggered by the Second The intensification of the repressive policy by the Vatican Council (1962-65). Many students, whether government of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz ran parallel to Catholic or not, vindicated the political legacy of the preparations for the Olympic Games, which Camilo Torres, the Colombian priest turned guer- ideally would go to show the world a prosperous rilla (assassinated in 1966). They had the occasion and modernized Mexico. That was the backdrop that of reading a broadly-publicized letter addressed marked the times of both the “movement” and the to students, wherein Torres reminded them that government, which built a repressive architecture they were privileged in “underdeveloped societies” that combined the action of regular security forces (1966:19). If they wanted to become revolutionary, and parapolice groups. On the afternoon of October Torres asked them to “ascend to the masses and 2, those forces broke into a student sit-in on the Plaza share their poverty” (ibid.). de Tlatelolco. Although the statistics have been a Whether Catholic, Peronist, or Marxist, the most source of contention, scholars estimate that between prominent groups in late-1960s Argentina rejected 250 and 300 students were killed. The Tlatelolco what they perceived as the main legacies of Massacre was key in the construction of the expe- reformism—the focus on the university as a place riences of Latin American state terrorism (including for generating social reform and the belief that strategies to “disappear” bodies by throwing them democratizing university life would pave the way to into the sea), and dramatically marked the end of the democratizing the country, emphasizing the need to “movement” 68 in Mexico (Pensado 2013). create “bridges towards the people”, which were That momentous juncture, however, was also expe- palpable in the Argentine May. In 1968, on the occa- rienced in Argentina, the “home” of the Reform sion of the fiftieth anniversary of the launching of the Movement. In the first half of the 1960s, the student Reform Movement, the students with the recently- movement itself was a battlefield between the various created Federación de Estudiantes Nacionales (FEN, fractions of the left. At the time the debates revolved National Student Federation) noted that “initially the around the reevaluation of Peronism (a movement Reform was an important link in the movement for that, although proscribed since 1955, continued to democratic reforms”. However, they argued, “the attract the adhesion of the majority of the workers); reformists isolated themselves in the University.” the legitimacy of armed struggle after the triumph The Reform represented “the past” and now these of the Cuban guerrillas; and, in university terms, the groups aimed to build “bridges towards the people” limits of the Reform Movement. In fact, between (CEDINCI 1968). In the Argentine May (of 1969), the 1956 and 1966, Argentine universities were ruled by students “connected” with the people: they were key reformist tenets, namely, university autonomy, one of the most dynamic actors in the popular revolts freedom of cathedra, and student participation in the that set the beginning of the end of the military university’s governing system. According to leftwing regime. In Corrientes, Rosario and, finally, Córdoba, reformist students, however, those principles were the university student movement combined some not enough to prevent the universities from becoming “corporative demands” (such as lowering the price of merely “scientificist”, or, as one leader defined it, the student canteens and reacting against the enroll- ruled by “the ideology of those who modernized the ment limits) and their own repertoire of mobilization university so that it forms scientists for imperialism”. (strikes, sit-ins, barricades) with others adopted from In its attempt to deactivate what was conceived as segments of the labor movement. The Argentine May a “communist focus”, the military government that of 1969, like the Mexican and Uruguayan cycles of the imposed the Argentine Revolution (1966-1973) previous year, brought into play a dynamic of mobi- 26 lization and repression that was escalating with each during the second half of the 1970s there was a death, which totaled 14 (seven students). Also, that significant youth involvement in Catholic activism, May, and in particular its final episode, the Cordo- especially in the most popular neighborhoods. The bazo, where the workers were the decisive actor, led Chilean Catholic Church (that did not endorse Pino- to a deep questioning of the “role” of students in the chetism) offered spaces for youth to gather, develop political process. Most leftwing groups were willing experiences of social work, and participate in an to subsume “the student” within the framework of extensive network of artistic and literary workshops. a “worker-student alliance” whose contours, modes Along with that movement, between 1977 and 1982 of action and programs remained open to different student groups of the University of Chile created the interpretations (Manzano 2018). In any case, the University Cultural Action, which focused on cultural practical search for those answers organized the cycle and political activities within and outside the univer- of student and youth politicization that followed sities (Muñoz Tamayo 2006). In the three countries, the Argentine May, whereby the Reform Movement however, more traditional experiences and spaces of came to fundamentally represent a remnant of the student activism (and, in fact, the very existence of past. Especially in the Southern Cone countries of student movements) were severely curtailed. In the Latin America, the aftermath of 1968 represented an case of Argentina, some initial studies show that the first signs of “recomposition” of the student move- intense moment of revolutionary projects. ment took place at the intersection of the 1970s and 1980s. In a context of profound economic crisis, for From Dictatorships to Democratization example, some student groups started to sign petitions and even ask for interviews with the authorities After the coup d’etat led by Augusto Pinochet in Chile to reduce the university fees. The incipient public visi- in September 1973, a counterinsurgency project was bility of the students and their demands overlapped consolidated throughout Latin America in general, with the renewal of political activity that, accelerated and the Southern Cone countries in particular. As the after the military defeat in the Falklands War, initiated historian Steve Stern (2006: xiv) stated, those dicta- a transition towards democratization. torships implemented a “politicide”: they sought As part of the processes of democratization initi- (and contingently succeeded) to thwart the projects ated in Argentina (in 1983) and Uruguay (1985), the of radical transformation of the societies that, over elected authorities agreed on ruling the universities the “long sixties” had swept across the region. These by following the basic tenets of the Reform Move- projects had attracted a cohort of young militants. In ment, especially university autonomy and student Argentina, the last military dictatorship (1976-1983) participation in the university governing bodies. set in motion a basic mechanism of state terror that In contrast to their counterparts in the long sixties, consisted in the kidnapping, torture, and “disappear- the renovated student movements of the 1980s did ance” of 30,000 people. As detailed by the National praise those tenets and many thought of them as the Commission on the Disappearance of Persons baseline for developing democratic practices within (CONADEP) (1995: 67), 70 % of the disappeared and outside the universities. The student move- were between 16 and 30 years old at the time of ments also redrafted their demands and updated their abduction: they were members of that cohort of ideological components related to the legacies of militants that the military intended to physically anni- the Reform Movement. First, many of the leftwing hilate. In the Southern Cone countries, that “polit- and center groups that acted among the students icide” was overprinted with attempts to discipline adopted the language of the contemporary human and control society as a whole. As part of that effort, rights discourse, becoming key participants in the the military regimes tried to completely deactivate, or large mobilizations to guarantee truth and justice strictly control, the political scene, including the activ- vis-à-vis the recent experiences of state terrorism. ities of parties and student federations. Second, the student movements combined specific Even in the zenith of the dictatorial experiences of the demands regarding educational conditions with more Southern Cone, however, there were forms of youth general ones linked to the processes of indebted- sociability and student activism that escaped the ness and economic crisis. Since the mid-1980s, the logic of discipline and control. In Chile, for example, demand for an increase in the educational budget 27 has figured prominently in the student mobilization Even in this new context, in the three Southern Cone agendas, and has been a claim that fostered the rela- countries, the student movements persisted and tionship between students and professors. Finally, made use of the formal democratic conditions to the student movements were at the forefront of the preserve and transform their institutions and organ- solidarity with both the Nicaraguan Revolution, thus izations, which were far from disappearing. Although updating the long-lasting anti-imperialism and Latin the student movements attracted less militants and Americanism among reformists, and with the Chilean activists than in the 1920s, the “long sixties”, and students who fought against Pinochet. (Gonzalez even the 1980s, were nevertheless crucial in the Vaillant 2013: 377-396; Cristal 2018) myriad initiatives to confront neoliberalism as it was In the 1980s, the Chilean student movement devel- experienced within and outside university life. oped in an entirely different political context, yet it experienced an organizational effervescence similar to the experience of their peers in the Southern Cone. Conclusions After a decade of prohibitions and official attempts to create pro-regime organizations, student groups As a century-long movement, reformism has served started the reconstitution of the Federation of Chilean as one of the most significant platforms to organize Students (FECH) in 1983, at least at the University of student politics in many Latin American countries. Chile. During this process, intra- and extra-university Either for endorsing its fundamental principles agreements prevailed, which made possible the party regarding university life or for questioning its limits as activity and the creation of a kind of “island” where a university-based phenomenon, successive cohorts the exercise of the representative democracy and of students, in their processes of politicization, had debate was possible (while it was restricted outside to come to terms with the Reform Movement. In this the university environment). The political student respect, the history of the student movements in twen- groups from different political orientations prior- tieth-century Latin America is inseparable from the itized two agreements: first, the reconstruction of Reform Movement. This entwinement has produced the student institutions and second, to focus on the longstanding effects, which I will summarize in three economic and social conditions that affected univer- clusters. First, the university student movement was sity life, in particular the effects of privatization and far from being merely a “corporative” actor: although entry barriers. In 1984 and 1985, additionally, the intermittently, it was largely a political actor from the FECH aimed to connect the student movement with 1920s onwards. Second, in the construction of such the residents by organizing activities such as summer a political actor, the production of “encounters” university camps. (Muñoz Tamayo 2012) Likewise, with other social subjects was crucial, more notably, the FECH and other university groups throughout the and ideally, the labor movement. Oftentimes those country actively participated in the cycle of popular encounters took place in the frame of party politics. protests that began in 1983 and lasted until 1986. As in other geographical settings, the student move- The FECH became frustrated with the intense repres- ment had strong connections with party politics, and sive wave that the military regime unleashed on the vice versa. Finally, besides the “core principles” for population, and conditioned the Chilean “transition organizing university life and thinking about the role towards democracy”, which was formally initiated in of the university in the larger society, the Reform 1990. Movement provided successive cohorts of students Especially in Chile, but also in the other Latin American with a framework for understanding the nation, and countries, the 1990s were marked by the deepening for constructing a so-called Latin American iden- of neoliberal policies that “shrink” the state structure tity. That framework was embedded into notions of (including educational budgets) and forced thousands anti-imperialism, which, with different modalities and of people, especially young people, into precarious intensities, made for one of the most significant ideo- jobs or unemployment. This combination of struc- logical components of this century-long movement. tural transformations with changes in the ways of managing politics (which was supposed to become merely “administration”) changed the ways in which political activism was constructed and performed. 28 Literature Id.: Generaciones: juventud universitaria e izquierdas políticas en Chile y México (Universidad de Chile- Bustelo, Natalia: “La juventud universitaria en Buenos UNAM, 1984-2006), Santiago de Chile 2012. Aires y sus vínculos con las izquierdas en los inicios de la Reforma Universitaria (1914-1922),” in: Izquierdas Pensado, Jaime: Rebel Mexico: Student Unrest and 16 (2013), pp.1-30. Authoritarian Political Culture in the Long Sixties, Stanford 2013. Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas: Nunca Más, Buenos Aires 1995. Portantiero, Juan Carlos: Estudiantes y política en América Latina: el movimiento de la Reforma Univer- Cristal, Yann: “El movimiento estudiantil de la UBA sitaria, Mexico D.F. 1978. en los 80”, in: Pablo Buchbinder, Juventudes Universitarias en América Latina, Buenos Aires 2018. Rodó, José Enrique: Ariel, Caracas 1979 [1900]. Salazar, Gabriel / Pinto, Julio: Historia General de Chile Federación Universitaria de Córdoba, “Manifiesto Vol. V: Niñez y Juventud, Santiago de Chile 2001. liminar,” Gaceta Universitaria, June 21, 1918. Sorensen, Diana: A Turbulent Decade Remembered: González Vaillant, Gabriela: “The Politics of Tempo- Scenes from the Latin American Sixties, Stanford rality: An Analysis of Leftist Youth Politics and Gener- 2007. ational Contention,” in: Social Movement Studies 12 (2013), pp. 377-396. Stern, Steve: Remembering Pinochet’s Chile: On the Eve of London 1998, Durham 2006. Langland, Victoria: Speaking of Flowers: the Making and Remembering of 1968 in Authoritarian Brazil, Torres, Camilo: “Carta a los estudiantes”, in: Cristian- Durham 2013. ismo y Revolución (November of 1966), p. 19. Manzano, Valeria: The Age of Youth in Argentina: Culture, Politics, and Sexuality from Perón to Videla, Chapel Hill 2014. Ead.: “La reforma (no) ha caducado, 1969-1974”, in: Alejandro Eujanian (ed.), A cien años de la Reforma Universitaria Vol. V, Rosario 2018. Markarian, Vania: El 68 Uruguayo, entre cócteles molotov y música beat, Bernal 2013. Martinez Mazzola, Ricardo / Bergel, Martín: “América Latina como práctica: modos de sociabilidad intelectual de los reformistas universitarios (1918-1930)”, in: Carlos Altamirano (ed.), Historia de los Intelectuales en América Latina. II Los avatares de la ciudad letrada en el Siglo XX, Buenos Aires 2010. Melgar Bao, Ricardo: Vivir el exilio en la ciudad, 1928: Haya de la Torre y Mella, Mexico City 2013. Muñoz Tamayo, Víctor: ACU: Rescatando el asombro, Santiago de Chile 2006. 29 30 IV. AFRICA’S 1968: PROTESTS AND UPRISINGS ACROSS THE CONTINENT Heike Becker and David Seddon First published in: http://roape.net/2018/05/31/africas-1968-protests-and-uprisings-across-the-continent/ (Accessed: 01/02/2019). Global 1968 very fast. It seems striking, therefore, that even those discussions of the 1968 “events” that have empha- F ifty years ago, in May 1968, what sised their international or “global” nature have failed started as a localized student protest by and large to discuss the extent to which popular against proposed reforms in higher protest and conflict in Africa that year – and indeed education at the Nanterre campus of throughout the 1960s – had both their own internal the University of Paris became a major upsurge of dynamics and yet were also linked closely with wider popular protest that, at its height, mobilised millions international events and developments. of students and intellectuals, workers and trade For most commentators and scholars, it was only unionists, as well as Communist and Socialist Party events in the Global North that constituted ‘Global members, in revolt against the Gaullist state overseen 1968’. None of the relevant overviews brings related by Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and President events on the African continent to the fore. “What”, Charles de Gaulle. It rocked France for two months Becker has already asked (see the blogpost by Becker during May and June 1968, and had an impact across on roape.net), “is the reason for the fact that in Europe and North America, and beyond. the current debates on ‘1968’ and its legacy on the In a piece on Why 1968 still matters, Peter Taafe African continent are almost never mentioned?” (2018) wrote recently in ‘Socialism Today’ both on the Burleigh Hendrickson similarly remarked in 2012, global context of the French revolt and also on some “in spite of this global turn, many of these studies of the events that took place across the world in that have reproduced Eurocentric narratives by focusing year. He argues that the “events” in France were one on actions in the transatlantic First World. Popular aspect of ‘a year of revolution… and to a lesser extent student and worker movements of the 1960s occur- counter-revolution throughout the world’. Yet he ring in the ”Third World”, including North Africa, does not mention in his ‘overview’ of popular protest have received far less attention”. among students and workers much about Africa; yet there too, 1968 was a year of political turmoil. In the days before social media – which played a A Decade of Struggle Across Africa significant role in the mobilization of protests during the so-called Arab Spring in 2011 and during recent In fact, the 1960s as a whole constituted an excep- mobilizations across Africa – news of the events in tional decade of popular protest across Africa. From France often took some time to reach Africa. But this 1960 onwards, in much of Africa, when so many was not always the case, however. African students former colonial territories gained their political inde- in Europe and on the African sub-continent were in pendence, the various national liberation movements contact with each other and were therefore aware were transformed, in a complex and uneven fashion, of what was happening elsewhere (Plaut 2011); into struggles against the widespread establishment news of the “events” in Paris certainly reached the of one-party states and the espousal by many new French-speaking public in West and Central Africa nationalist (often military) governments of various 31 forms of authoritarian populism, as well as against of Cairo) protesting the military court’s lenient ruling neo-colonialism and post-colonial imperialism. In the in the case of the military aviation officers accused of southern parts of the continent, where White minority negligence during the June war. They were joined on regimes still held power, the struggles against settler 21 February – which is Egyptian Student Day – by up colonialism and apartheid were taken up afresh by a to 100,000 students from major universities in Cairo new generation. and Alexandria. The Cairo uprising alone resulted In all of these struggles, students, as well as workers in the death of two workers and the wounding of and the unemployed, socialist and communist polit- 77 citizens, as well as 146 police officers. Some 635 ical parties played a key role. But not only was ‘the people were also arrested, and some vehicles and 1960s’ a decade of struggle in many individual coun- buildings were destroyed in the capital. The protest tries across the African continent, but the rise of obliged Nasser to give a major speech in response, radical protest was also “international”, in the sense which, in the light of the June 1967 defeat, was that not only did these struggles take place at around exceptionally conciliatory. the same time, in similar or comparable circum- Seen by some as the most significant public chal- stances, but there were often direct links between lenge to is regime since workers’ protests in March protest in one country and protest in another, and 1954, this popular movement forced Nasser to issue there was also a movement of political activists across a manifesto promising the restoration of civil liber- continents which served to stimulate and invigorate ties, greater parliamentary independence from the local struggles and to reinforce the inter-relationship executive, major structural changes, and a campaign between them all. to rid the government of corrupt elements. A public Even commentators who identify popular protest in referendum approved the proposed measures in the Congo, in Guinea, in Upper Volta and Senegal, May 1968, and elections were held for the Supreme and in Kenya and Ethiopia, fail to recognize some of Executive Committee. Hailed at the time as signaling the cases that we consider below, notably those in an important shift from political repression to liber- North Africa. Our own contribution can rectify this alization, the manifesto and the promised measures only to a certain extent, simply because there was too would largely remain unfulfilled. much happening in Africa in the 1960s to be able to Further student unrest broke out in November 1968 cover it all in one article, so our approach is necessarily following the announcement of a new education selective. law. The uprising began with protests by high school students in the city of Mansoura. They were joined by university students and others, including peasants, Case Studies: North Africa and the next day, demonstrations resulted in clashes with the security forces which led to the death of EGYPT three students and a farmer as well as the wounding of 32 protesters, nine police officers and 14 soldiers. In Egypt, in the early 1950s, a military coup had News of the events in Mansoura reached Alexan- displaced the British puppet king and led to the estab- dria University, where leaders of the student move- lishment of a regime under Gemal Abdel Nasser, ment from the engineering faculty launched massive which, while “speaking for the people” (the peas- protests and clashed with police forces, in which ants and workers) was hostile not only to the feudal some 53 policemen and 30 students were injured. landowners but also to any political opposition or any The head of the Faculty of Engineering Student attempt to create independent trade unions to repre- Union, Atef Al-Shater, and three of his colleagues sent the working class directly. Egypt’s defeat by Israel were arrested. The governor of Alexandria tried to in June 1967 led to a political as well as a military crisis convince the students not to escalate the situation, and Nasser’s resignation as president. He returned but they held him inside the faculty and did not after massive popular demonstrations in his support. allow him to leave until Al-Shater and his colleagues But his credentials were damaged. were released. The national assembly discussed the In February 1968, students and workers launched problem of the new law the day after the governor protests calling for political reforms. The first move of Alexandria was detained. On 25 November there was made by steel workers in Helwan (to the south was a strike by workers in Alexandria as well as large- 32 scale demonstrations which ended in clashes with the march to demand the right to public higher education. police, resulting in 16 deaths. Arriving at the street in front of the French cultural Fifty public buses were smashed, along with 270 centre, the demonstration was brutally dispersed by tram windshields, 116 traffic lights, 29 stalls, 11 shop the security forces who fired on the demonstrators. windows and a number of other public transport and The students were thus compelled to retreat into private vehicles and lampposts. A sit-in staged by the the poorer neighbourhoods of the city, where they Faculty of Engineering ended without achieving any explained their grievances to local workers and the significant results because of the lack of food during unemployed. They agreed to join up and meet again the days of Ramadan and power outages suffered the following day. by the protestors, as well as the withdrawal of the On March 23, the students gathered again at the union leader from the sit-in and the governor’s threat stadium of Lycée Mohammed-V. They were soon to evacuate the building by force. Those who were joined by their parents, workers, and the unem- arrested during the sit-in were transferred to the ployed, as well as people coming from the bidonvilles courts for trial, but ultimately, no trials were held. (slums). This time, the assembly was not so peaceful. After three months of being detained, the students The advancing protesters vandalized stores, burned were released but their leaders were sent for military buses and cars, threw stones, and chanted slogans service. against the king. The response was swift and decisive: In the late 1960s, the Egyptian economy went the army and the police were mobilized. Tanks were from stagnation to the verge of collapse, political deployed for two days to quell the protestors, and repression (particularly of the Muslim Brotherhood) General Mohamed Oufkir, the Minister of the Interior, increased and the first steps towards privatization and had no hesitation in firing on the crowd from a heli- liberalization – that would be continued and acceler- copter. King Hassan II blamed the events on teachers ated under his successor Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat and parents. He declared, in a message to the nation – were taken by Nasser, who then died in September on March 30, 1965: “Allow me to tell you that there 1970. Sadat was unpopular with the more radical is no greater danger to the State than a so-called students both because of his moves to liberalize the intellectual. It would have been better if you were all economy and to effectively reverse Nasser’s “Arab illiterate.” socialism” in favour of a form of “neo-liberalism” and After the events of March 23, the opportunity also because he promised on more than one occasion was taken to arrest suspected dissidents including that there would be ‘a final reckoning’ with Israel but communists and Iraqi teachers. In April, the king also did nothing to pursue such a policy. This led in 1972 tried to come to terms with the more radical political to the outbreak of yet another uprising in the Egyp- opposition, notably the UNFP (Union nationale des tian universities. forces populaires). These discussions came to nothing and in June the king declared a state of emergency. MOROCCO The UNFP continued to criticize the regime and on 29 October 1965, its leader, Mehdi Ben Barka, was In Morocco, the national minister of education, abducted and assassinated in Paris. Students in Casa- Youssef Belabbès, published a decree in 1965 blanca mobilized for an anniversary demonstration preventing young people above the age of 17 from on 23 March the following year, and many were attending in the second cycle of lycée (high school). arrested. In practice, this rule affected 60 per cent of students. By 1968, although students in Morocco were certainly Although at that time the Baccalauréat concerned aware of what was happening in France, they were only a few (1,500 per year) it became a rallying no longer inclined to rise up in protest against the symbol which set off student unrest in Casablanca, regime. The state of emergency declared in June Rabat, and other cities. 1965 lasted until 1970. The “Years of Lead” is the On March 22, thousands of students gathered on the term used to describe a period of the rule of King soccer field at Lycée Mohammed-V in Casablanca. Hassan II (mainly the 1960s through to the 1980s); According to an eye-witness, there were almost a period marked by state violence against dissidents 15,000 high school students present that morning. and democracy activists. The goal of the assembly was to organize a peaceful 33 TUNISIA provided access to information censored in Tunisia from the comparatively safe distance of the former It is not clear to what extent the Egyptian and metropole, and Paris became a meeting place for Moroccan students who were involved in protests in activists from other former colonies who were sympa- the 1960s were directly influenced by the ‘events’ of thetic to the Tunisian cause. 1968 in Paris; the Moroccan protests preceded those For Hendrickson, the ties – both hostile and friendly in Paris by three years, while those in Egypt appear to – that linked Tunisians with Paris and the French have been a response to the specific circumstances with Tunis are evidence of a wider global process of of Egypt after the 1967 military defeat. In the case building networks of resistance that resonated well of Tunisia, however, there is little doubt that there beyond the moment of ‘68 itself. Moreover, Bourgui- were direct links between the student protests there ba’s extreme reaction to the 1968 protests contrib- and in France. Burleigh Hendrickson (2012) has made uted to a shift in the nature of protesters’ claims, it clear, that, in his view, during the series of events which was eventually manifested in the creation of surrounding the student protests of March 1968 at the Tunisian League for Human Rights (Ligue Tunisi- the University of Tunis, political activists across Tunisia enne des Droits de l’Homme) in 1976 and the estab- and France forged communication networks or drew lishment of the first Amnesty International section upon existing ones in order to further their political in Tunisia in 1981, in which 68’ers played an instru- claims. mental role. The state’s repression of activists fuelled He argues that ties with the former metropole unprecedented activism in the region, conducted shaped students’ demands and that a strictly nation- initially from afar, making 1968 seminal in the devel- alist perspective of events is insufficient. In response opment and articulation of opposition to a Tunisian to state repression, Tunisian activists shifted their single-party state. Tunisia’s place in the ‘global 1968’ struggle from global anti-imperialism towards the thus goes far beyond the fact that it occurred simul- expansion of human rights at the national level. The taneously with other movements around the world. networks between France and Tunisia proliferated over the course of 1968 and beyond as concrete realities shaped the direction of new claims. Further- Case Studies: Central Africa more, while certain aspects of the Tunisian movement were specific to the local context, it was also transna- African countries south of the Sahara also experienced tional for several reasons: 1) activists identified with student and broader popular protest during “Global international and anti-colonial causes such as Pales- 1968”. Although the protests took different forms, tinian liberation and opposition to the Vietnam War; many involved mass mobilisation together with other 2) actors and organizations involved in the protests sections of society, including workers and the unem- frequently crossed national borders, especially those ployed. In some cases, the protests were successful, at of Tunisia and France; and 3) the Tunisian and French least to some extent in provoking significant change; states responded to specifically transnational activism in other cases they were not. One of the most signif- with varying degrees of repression. icant examples is that of Senegal (see Becker’s blog- He argues that Tunisia’s post-colonial relationship post on roape.net). with France established important Franco–Tunisian networks of students and intellectuals that took on THE CONGO new forms during and after the protests of March 1968. Just as imperial knowledge was constructed University students had been consistent and vocal in a “web of empire” in which the colonies acted critics of Joseph Mobutu’s regime since the early as relays of knowledge transmission, transnational 1960s. During the first two years after Mobutu’s circuits of activists emerged in the postcolonial era to 1965 coup student groups supported his programme constitute “webs of resistance”. These networks of of nationalisation and Africanisation, the national Tunisians moving between France and Tunisia and of student body Union Générale des Étudiants du Congo French activists who had ties to Tunisia enabled the (UGEC) – though cautious – took his radical rhetoric trans-nationalization of political activism—and often at face value. This relationship is easy to dismiss today, made it more difficult for states to contain. They but as we have seen Mobutu was speaking from a 34 radical script, condemning tribalism and calling for a of the now-banned UGEC did not however silence new nationalism that would return the Congo to its student activism. The next years were marked by African roots. The renaming of cities, town and prov- violent demonstrations and strikes across the country. inces and later the insistence that European names In 1969 sixty students from the University of Kinshasa be replaced by “authentic” African ones was confor- were killed. In what was to become a familiar mation to the student body of Mobutu’s sincerity. gesture of solidarity students in Lubumbashi marched Mobutu also saw the co-option of the student body – through the city bare-footed and bare-chested in and principally its main representative body the UGEC support of their fallen comrades in the capital almost – as a key element in his control of potentially the two thousand miles away. Other universities came most important opposition group in society. Taking out in support, and hundreds of activists and student the lead of the UGEC the new government even leaders were expelled. recognised Lumumba as a national hero. The student movement was regarded as a vital element in Mobutu’s attempt to conquer civil society. Case Studies: East Africa Was the regime exaggerating the threat from students? The organisational and political coherence ETHIOPIA of student groups – in the national union and university affiliates – was far greater than other groups in From the very outset, in the kingdom of Ethiopia, the civil society, a situation that was common in many curriculum and other aspects of student life at the sub-Saharan African countries after independence. University College of Addis Ababa (founded in 1951) Mobutu was desperate to control his unruly students, were strictly controlled; Emperor Haile Selassie was and to convince them of his national project. himself Chancellor and many members of the govern- However, the alliance did not last. The tension between ment sat on the ruling council of the University. Tight the regime and students was graphically demonstrated censorship was imposed on the student newspapers on the 4 January 1968. When the vice-president of that began to appear in the late 1950s. the United States Hubert H. Humphrey attempted to In spite of, or perhaps because of, the tight control lay a bouquet of flowers at the Lumumba memorial of ideas and actions, unrest began to boil among in Kinshasa, students from Lovanium University who the university students in the early 1960s. Students had turned up for the occasion pelted the vice-presi- began their push for political and social change and dent with eggs and tomatoes. A UGEC communiqué participation subtly in the form of poetry. In 1962, stated that the protest had been called to prevent “a at Student Day Ceremonies in May, students read profanation by the same people who had yesterday poems that were charged with political commentary done everything [so that] the great fighter for Congo’s that criticized Selassie’s regime. After the readings, and Africa’s freedom disappear[ed]” (Nzongola-Nta- several students were suspended and many more laja, 2002: 177). The event caused the regime obvious warned not to meddle in politics, but this did not embarrassment, but also clarified the reality of Mobu- hinder the students from doing so. tu’s fake anti-imperialism. The definitive rupture came Although the unrest was widespread in the early later in 1968 when the regime banned the UGEC 1960’s, the students of Addis Ababa lacked any following the arrest of the president André N’Kan- central leadership or a unifying cause. But distur- za-Dulumingu and student protests in Lubumbashi, bances in the forms of protests continued, causing Kinshasa and Kisangani. the university to shut down in 1963. In 1964 and Mobutu’s strategy of co-opting the student leadership 1965 students held large demonstrations under the of UGEC eventually won out. Apart from the national slogan Land to the Tiller! which called for a redistribu- president N’Kanza-Dulumingu who refused co-option tion of land from wealthy landlords to working class for years, other leaders caved in. The MPR would not tenants. The students did not direct their protests at tolerate an independent voice of student organisa- Emperor Selassie, but instead appealed to Parliament, tion, instead the ruling party created the Jeunesse du which was in the midst of debating the polarizing Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (JMPR), whose question of land distribution. Students held demon- leadership saw their political futures tied to a blind strations outside the Parliament building in 1965 in loyalty to the regime. The co-option by the regime favor of redistribution, and their cause was bolstered 35 from abroad, as nations like Sweden threatened to to be shut down due to massive demonstrations, cut ties if reforms were not made. school boycotts, and riots. When secondary schools Despite the protests and pressures from abroad, the attempted to reopen, students staged a sit-in in regime did not budge on the issue and created a law schools that resulted in 500 arrests and one death banning student organizations, unions, and demon- when police arrived to break up the action. strations. In 1966, the students added a new cause to Haile Selassie tried hard to hide the massive unrest their movement, demonstrating against the imprison- from international eyes, heavily censoring newspa- ment of beggars in camps outside Addis Ababa. Their pers and publications. Finally, though, he made an demonstrations led to small improvements in the appearance on television agreeing to discuss the camps’ facilities and treatment of the incarcerated. demands with the students, but at the same time “The Enthused by their small victory, students reorganized Struggle” was banned. By the end of 1969, Selassie their efforts in 1967, when the movement became had made some concessions by firing his minister more unified and cohesive. The student unions of education and pardoning some of those arrested that were protesting various issues they had with earlier that year. However, these concessions were the government joined into one organization, the not enough to stop the student movement. Over the University Students Union of Addis Ababa (USUAA) next few years, the government cracked down hard and focused on overthrowing the government. The on the student movement, violently dispersing organ- University newspaper ‘News and Views’ was replaced ized demonstrations. by a much more politically charged publication called The Struggle. The student movement now had a TANZANIA single, unified voice. A major issue that drove the movement was opposi- Student activism has been common at the University tion to the large military presence that the USA had of Dar es Salaam throughout its history and has played in Ethiopia at the time. The students saw the US as a part in its institutional development, as well as in keeping Emperor Selassie in power and focused their helping shape the wider social and political agenda in actions on opposing Western influence in Ethiopia, Tanzania. As the country’s flagship university, it was and worldwide. In March 1968 students protested at always going to play an important role in Tanzania’s a fashion show in protest of mini-skirts, a style that development, but there was a contradiction – here as the students saw as un-Ethiopian. They organized a in other African countries – between students as an student boycott and picket lines and attempted to educated cadre for the progressive transformation of stage a large demonstration in the streets surrounding economy and society on the one hand, and students Addis Ababa. Police cracked down immediately, as a privileged elite on the other. resulting in violent clashes, involving beating and Nyerere, like most other African leaders, had some shooting of students and other protestors, and numerous confrontations with students through the some fringe violence from students, including stoning late 1960s and 1970s as the government of Tanzania buses and the US Embassy, and overturning cars. – rather as in Ghana – increasingly drew the University Protests continued into 1969 at the University College of Dar es Salaam and those it regarded as its privi- of Addis Ababa and spread to other colleges, universi- leged cadres into its initiatives for development, many ties, and even high schools. The USUAA drew up a list of which were regarded by the students as blatant of ten demands on the government, distributing them “top-down” state intervention inimical to partici- widely in pamphlets and by word of mouth. These patory democracy. The student demonstration that demands included the overturning of new school received the most support in 1968, was one held in fees, the expulsion of the American Peace Corps from Dar es Salaam in July to protest against an agreement Ethiopia, an overhaul of the government and educa- recently signed by the government to receive Amer- tion system, and trials for police officers who had ican aid, thus highlighting the strong anti-imperi- fired on students at peaceful demonstrations. alist, and specifically anti-American, attitude of many They also accused the government of mismanaging Tanzanian students during the Vietnam war. resources and criticized the state of education in Ethiopia. The movement snowballed among younger students until a large part of the school system had KENYA 36 “white” and elsewhere, largely among the “black” Student attitudes towards the USA were somewhat community but also among some sections of the different in Kenya. As early as 1959, before Kenya “Asian”, “coloured” and “white” communities. attained independence on 12 December 1963, nation- The demonstrations against the pass laws in Sharpe- alist leader Tom Mboya had begun a programme, ville and Langa in 1960 were brutally crushed. Shortly funded by Americans, of sending talented youth to afterwards, the African National Congress (ANC) the United States for higher education. British colo- and the Pan-African Congress (PAC) were banned nial officials opposed the programme. The next year under the Unlawful Organisations Act No. 34 which Senator John F. Kennedy helped fund the programme, provided for organisations “threatening public order which is said to have trained some 70 per cent of or the safety of the public” to be declared unlawful. the top leaders of the new nation, including the first Even the Liberal Party came under pressure, with 35 African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, environ- of its leading members arrested and detained at the mentalist Wangari Maathai. Fort in Johannesburg and banning orders under the The development of the University College of Nairobi Suppression of Communism Act restricting the polit- from its origins as a technical college in the late 1950s ical activities of 41 leading members of the party for took place in piecemeal fashion over several years. In the next five years. 1968, however, hundreds of students from the Univer- The imprisonment, execution, escape or departure sity College marched through the streets of Nairobi, into exile of so many opposition leaders and activists accompanied by a contingent of anti-riot police, to during 1964 undoubtedly had a negative impact on protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia the ability of the opposition to maintain the same and eventually the president of the students’ union, level of activity in the second half of the decade Chibule wa Tsuma, handed over a strongly-worded as it had during the early years of the 1960s. As memorandum to the Soviet Ambassador urging the Raymond Suttner commented in 2012, in his essay withdrawal of troops from Czechoslovakia, and the on the “long and difficult journey” of the ANC at the release of Mr Dubcek and all of the other arrested time of its centenary, its initiatives under the rubric political leaders. of the “armed struggle” (through the ANC’s armed- In March the following year, students from the wing MK) “were brought to a swift halt, first with University College organised a demonstration to the arrest of the national leaders… and then with the protest against the hanging of African nationalists ‘mopping up’ of smaller units over the following two in Rhodesia. One of those involved was arrested years” (2012 :729). But it is not correct to suggest and convicted of “incitement to the defiance of that protest and opposition to the apartheid regime lawful authority” and “assaulting a police officer”, died away entirely in the second half of the decade. for having twice attempted to break a police cordon Suttner points out that while “until recently, histo- in front of the British High Commission and having rians record the period between the Rivonia Trial and exhorted other students to stage a “sit-down”, and the 1976 Soweto uprising as one of almost complete also for having thrown a stone which hit a policeman. inactivity”, in reality “a substantial number of supporters and members remained outside prison”, many of whom formed underground units in both Case Studies: South Africa urban and rural areas, and continued the struggle, albeit on a significantly smaller scale. “In the mean- The 1960s are widely regarded as the decade in which while’, he suggests, ‘the gap left by the ANC in the mass protest in South Africa was effectively repressed public domain was partially filled by liberal organiza- and the leadership of the ANC and PAC either forced tions and the new vibrant self-assertion of the Black into exile or put on trial and imprisoned. It is true Consciousness Movement (BCM). There was also that the first years of the decade saw much oppo- active support now from the international community sition crushed by the apartheid state. But the 1960s and from ‘anti-apartheid movements’ in many parts in South Africa were, like the decade that preceded of the world.” it and those that succeeded it, years in which the During these years students were regarded as a particu- struggle continued, even if to some extent in more larly dangerous source of protest against the apart- muted forms, in the universities both “black” and heid regime, and further “segregation” was seen as a 37 method of control. On 1 January 1960, for example, tary confinement, possibly because of his suspected the Minister of Bantu Education assumed control of involvement in the African Resistance Movement the University of Fort Hare (already identified as a key (ARM), a small group of young white militants. source of resistance and rebellion) and all “black” At the ‘black’ universities which had been established students (including “Coloured” and “Indian”) were as apartheid institutions in the early 1960s small prohibited from attending formerly ‘open universi- numbers of students joined NUSAS, and at some ties’, particularly the Universities of Cape Town (UCT) institutions of tertiary learning battles took place for and the Witwatersrand (Wits). Under the 1959 inap- permission to form autonomous Student Represent- propriately named Extension of University Education ative Councils (SRC) and to affiliate to NUSAS. An Act, Fort Hare was transformed into an ethnic insti- exception was the longer-established University of tution for Xhosa-speaking students, and a number of Fort Hare, where – in contrast – the SRC temporarily ethnic ‘bush colleges’ were founded for various racial disaffiliated from NUSAS in 1952 because of frustra- and ethnic groups, including also the University of tion about racist tendencies within the student asso- the Western Cape (UWC) for “Coloureds” and the ciation. The Fort Hare students argued that they had University of Durban-Westville (UDW) for “Indians”. not been too successful in their attempts to radicalise Notwithstanding these oppressive moves under the NUSAS. They also raised concerns of alleged racial regime’s grand apartheid scheme, the latter part slights. of the 1960s saw the emergence of opposition to They argued that that NUSAS, despite its multira- apartheid among students and some university and cial membership, was essentially dominated and college staff, as well as among other broadly liberal controlled by white students. This was what Steve organizations. Student protests and reformations of Biko, a student at the all-black University of Natal the organised student movements were significant Medical School (UNMS) had in mind when he too. The developments need to be understood in expressed in his column, I Write what I Like, in the respect to major student organisations of the time, SASO Newsletter, his objection to “the intellectual particularly NUSAS (founded in 1924), the Afrikaanse arrogance of white people that makes them believe Nationale Studentebond (ANSB) founded in 1933, that white leadership is a sine qua non in this country and the South African Students Organisation (SASO), and that whites are divinely appointed pace-setters in founded in 1968. After the establishment of the progress” (Biko 1987: 24). ANSB, students from Universities of Bloemfontein, Biko was frustrated that NUSAS and other anti-apart- Potchefstroom and Pretoria withdrew from NUSAS, heid groups were dominated by white liberals, rather followed at a later date by Stellenbosch. NUSAS was than by the blacks who were most affected by apart- always vocal in its criticism of the apartheid regime heid. He believed that even when well-intentioned, of the National Party and backed the ANC in their white liberals failed to comprehend the black expe- campaign against repression, and adopted the rience and often acted in a paternalistic manner. In Freedom Charter and involved its members in non-ra- 1968, he and others thus formed the South African cial political projects in education, the arts and trade Student Organisation, which for political reasons union spheres. offered membership to students of all ‘black’ sections In the 1950s and 1960s NUSAS ideologically empha- of the population, which included those assigned to sised ‘multiracialism’, and ‘liberalism’ of the South the apartheid categories of “African”, “Coloured” African variant that claimed incompatibility between and “Indian”. apartheid and capitalism. Even then, however, a small Biko and his associates believed that to avoid white number of Marxists and members of the South African domination, black people had to organise inde- Communist Party were members of the student asso- pendently. Influenced by Frantz Fanon and the Afri- ciation. In the 1960s there were direct confronta- can-American Black Power movement, Biko and his tions between government and the NUSAS leader- compatriots developed Black Consciousness (BC) as ship, which at some instances resulted in detention, SASO’s official ideology. The movement campaigned banning, deportation and withdrawal of passports for an end to apartheid and the transition of South for the office-bearers. NUSAS President Jonty Driver, Africa toward universal suffrage and a socialist for instance, was detained in August and September economy. It organised Black Community Programmes 1964 without trial by the police and held in soli- (BCPs) and focused on the psychological empower- 38 ment of black people. Biko believed that black people to the Soweto uprising, the massive uprisings of the needed to rid themselves of any sense of racial inferi- 1980s and eventually the demise of the regime. Like ority, an idea he expressed by popularizing the slogan his friend and comrade Biko, Turner was assassinated ‘black is beautiful’. by the apartheid state in 1978. In the early years, the new all-black SASO was allowed space to grow at the black universities, in part because the government regarded the separate The Mafeje Affair black student association and its emphasis on largely psychological-oriented Black Consciousness as quite Apart from the significant organizational develop- compatible with the apartheid ideology. They were ments during that year, South Africa too had its 1968 to learn very soon that SASO, and more generally moment of ‘transgressive’ student activism (J. Brown the Black Conscious Movement that Biko promoted, 2016). At the country’s oldest university, the University posed a major threat to the regime. But by the of Cape Town, Archie Mafeje, a black master’s grad- time that SASO began to be more active in political uate of UCT (cum laude) and by then in the process campaigns, from about 1972-3 onwards, the organ- of completing his PhD at the University of Cambridge, isation had established already firm structural roots, was appointed in 1968 to a senior lecturer position which made it difficult for the government to entirely in social anthropology. The university offered him suppress it despite brutal repression, best exemplified the job, but then, after government pressure by the by the murder of Biko in 1977. apartheid regime, rescinded the offer. Despite their organisational split, white and black The issue was discussed at the congress of NUSAS, student activists of NUSAS and SASO continued which organized most of the UCT students at the working together. In the early 1970s, a new generation time, and the idea emerged of a sit-in along the lines of white students also became active in increasingly of the university occupations then taking place in the radical politics. Radical anti-apartheid and increas- rest of the world. Some of those who were involved ingly New Left white students organised campaigns remember that the European protests (in Paris and to rediscover the history of resistance which had been elsewhere) were widely reported in South Africa hidden through the repressive climate of the 1960s. and that students followed them with interest (Plaut They then embarked on a massive campaign for the 2011). So, when the university authorities failed to release of all political prisoners. At the University of stand up against the government intervention in its Witwatersrand, they took the protest beyond the hiring policies in August 1968, a mass meeting took confines of the campus into the city of Johannes- place in the university’s grand Jameson Hall, normally burg. Students engaged with the workers and labour the site of graduations and other academic events. conditions on the campuses and founded “wages After rousing speeches from student leaders, most of commissions”. Radical students and a few younger the one thousand–strong audience marched out, and academics became instrumental in laying the grounds about six hundred students occupied the university’s for the new black trade unions that emerged in the administration building. 1970s. Yet, for a brief moment in August 1968, South Africa In some instances, black and white students, and a had its taste of “1968”. Those involved remember the few younger, radical academics, worked together inspiration and solidarity they received from Paris and in these new leftist politics. Radical academics were London. Beyond media connections, Rick Turner who involved particularly in the efforts around strikes and had recently returned from his doctoral studies at the the emergence of structures and ultimately new black Sorbonne provided a personal link of lived experience labour unions in the first half of the 1970s. Of special (for a full account of the Mafeje affair see Becker´s significance was Richard (Rick) Turner, a lecturer in article in this reader, pp. 43 -52). philosophy at the University of Natal in Durban, who The events at UCT are hardly remembered today, few worked closely with Steve Biko. Their political cooper- of the international debates on the 1968 movements ation and personal friendship played a significant role take note of the protests against the university’s in the Durban moment, a massive wave of strikes in dismal attitude during what has become known as the 1972-3, which is often regarded as the harbinger, if “Mafeje affair”, nor is there much memory of these not the start, of the new wave of resistance that led 1960s student protests in South Africa itself. For most 39 observers, “student uprising” in South Africa refers Literature in the first place to the events commonly known as “Soweto 1976” – which is generally regarded as the Bianchini, Pascal: “Le mouvement étudiant sénégalais: beginning of the country’s student protests. Un essai d’interpretation.”, in: Momar Coumba Diop Though the Soweto uprising was in the main focus (ed.), La société sénégalaise entre le local et le global, due to the protests by school-going pupils and high Paris 2002, pp. 359–396. school students, and not led by university students, it was connected to, and ideologically grew out of devel- Biko, Steve: I write What I Like: Selected Writings by opments at South African universities, which started Steve Biko, London 1987. in 1968. Most prominently, of course, this included the Black Consciousness Movement, commonly asso- Brown, Julian: The road to Soweto: Resistance and ciated with Steve Biko and SASO. the uprising of 16 June 2016, Johannesburg 2016. Brown, Timothy Scott: West Germany and the global Conclusion sixties: The anti-authoritarian revolt, 1962–1978, Cambridge 2013. Although a comprehensive discussion of “1968” on the African continent is impossible here, the exam- Carey, Elaine: “Mexico’s 1968 Olympic dream”, in: ples we have presented demonstrate that students, ead. (ed.), Protests in the streets: 1968 across the workers and often the unemployed urban poor globe, Indianapolis 2016, pp. 91–119. revolted in different ways and in contexts different from than those that took place in the North Amer- Frei, Norbert: 1968: Jugendrevolte und globaler ican and Western European settings. However, Protest, Munich 2017. even a selective survey like this, let alone a closer comparison, of the many uprisings in Africa’s 1968 Hendrickson, Burleigh: “Finding Tunisia in the Global shows the diversity of settings and forms of activism 1960s”, in: Monde(s) 11 (2017), pp. 61-78. on the continent. Our survey also suggests that the 1960s were a crucial decade for popular protest and Kurlansky, Mark: 1968: The year that rocked the “revolt” across Africa – as they were elsewhere across world, London 2005. the world. Despite a few honourable exceptions the problems with the huge amount of literature that Luhanga, Matthew Laban: Courage for Change: poured out of the social movements in the late 1960s re-engineering the University of Dar es Salaam, Dar and 1970s (and continues to) was its extraordinary es Salaam 2009. eurocentrisism. As we have shown the decade was as important for activists and other groups in Africa as it Monaville, Pedro A.G.: “Decolonizing the university: was in Europe and North America. 1968 was a crucial Postal politics, the student movement, and global year for student revolutionaries on the continent. In 1968 in the Congo”, Michigan 2013. Senegal, in events that some have claimed predated the upheavals in France, students were central to the Moss, Glenn: The New Radicals: A Generational worst political crisis the President, Leopold Senghor, Memoir of the 1970s, Johannesburg 2014. had faced since independence eight years previ- Nzongola-Ntalaja, George: 2002. A People’s History ously. Forcing him to flee the capital and call in the of the Congo, London 2002. French army to restore order, after only eight years of independence. The unfolding of these events and Plaut, Martin: “How the 1968 revolution reached the fact that they took place at the same time and Cape Town”, in: MartinPlaut blog (01.09.2011). often in relation to protests in the Western centres URL: of the”global movement” indicate conclusively that the-1968-revolution-reaches-cape-town Africa should not be left blank on the map of schol- 29.01.2019). arship that seeks to understand ”1968” in a global perspective. 40 martinplaut.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/ (accessed: STUDENT PROTESTS IN AFRICA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY Source: https://gorahtah.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/publicaction_pdf-for-web_pages1.pdf, p. 61 (Accessed: 15.01.2019) 41 Seddon, David: “Che Guevara in the Congo”, in: Jacobin (04.04.2017). URL: www.jacobinmag. com/2017/04/che-guevara-cuba-castro-congo-patrice-lumumba-colonialism (accessed: 29.01.2019). Id.: “RoAPE Project on ‘Popular Protest, Social Movements and Class Struggle in Africa”, in: Review of African Political Economy (2017-2018). URL: roape. net. Suttner, Raymond: “The African National Congress Centenary: a long and difficult journey”. International Affairs 88 (2012), pp. 719–738. Taafe, Peter: “Why 1968 Still Matters”, in: Socialism Today 218 (2018), p. 11. West, Michael / Martin, William / Wilkins, Fanon Che: From Toussaint to Tupac: the Black International since the Age of Revolution, Chapel Hill 2009. Zeilig, Leo: Revolt and protest: Student politics and activism in Sub-Saharan Africa, London 2007. 42 V. SOUTH AFRICAN STUDENT PROTESTS 1968 TO 2016 Heike Becker 1968 and the African continent The introduction to the documents that have been emerging from the most recent large-scale South F ifty years after student protests shook African student protests requires some historical up much of the Cold War world, in notes on protest and revolt on the African continent. the “West” and in the “East”, “Global In addition to including a few documents from South 1968” has become the catchword to African student movements of the late 1960s and describe these profound generational revolts. West- 1970s, I will start by presenting a glimpse of Senegal’s Berlin, Paris and Berkeley immediately come to mind, capital Dakar in the continent’s West and then zoom as well as Prague behind what at the time was the in on Cape Town, South Africa’s second-largest city. “Iron Curtain” (Frey 2017). The 1968 events in Mexico City may occasionally receive brief mention in the discussion; in contrast none, of the relevant Student-led protests against rising food prices and overviews bring related events to the fore that may neo-colonialism: Dakar 1968 have happened on the African continent in general and in South Africa in particular. However, we still You may be surprised to hear that in May 1968 it need to ask how global the protest movement of was not only France where a student-led revolt almost 1967/68 really was. And what does it mean today, sent a government packing, but that something five decades later, when we speak about contempo- similar happened in Senegal. Students in the Senega- rary protests of students and youth? These are critical lese capital Dakar had been on strike from March of questions, particularly if we are interested in related 1968, initially because of conditions at the university; investigations of the African continent, which has from April, they adopted broader societal concerns, recently become a hotbed of significant protests of such as the high price of local staple food, the fall in young people who share a great desire for democracy the standard of living, unemployment among gradu- and social justice. From Senegal and Burkina Faso in ates, and foreign domination of the domestic industry the West to Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa in (Zeilig 2007: 181f.). In May, the Senegalese trade the Southern parts of the continent, young Africans unions adopted the students’ slogans and joined the have hit the streets in their hundreds of thousands. struggles. Leo Zeilig, who has studied African student South Africa for one saw a massive revolt of university movements, particularly the Senegalese protests, students during the 2015 and 2016 academic years, describes the events in Dakar in 1968 as follows: which match those of past significant uprisings in “On demonstrations the crowd declared: ideology and activist practice. ‘Power to the people: freedom for unions’, ‘We want work and rice.’ The coalition of student Yet, in the current debates on “1968” and its legacy, and working-class demands culminated in the the African continent is almost never mentioned. Did general strike that started on 31 May. Between nothing that happened on the continent match the 1 and 3 June ‘we had the impression that the activism of the revolting generation elsewhere? Or government was vacant […] ministers were did students in African countries contribute to the confined to the administrative buildings … and global uprising with their own interpretations that the leaders of the party and state hid in their have been forgotten in the global discourse? houses!’ … 43 “[…] The government reacted to the strike by the offer after the Apartheid government of the ordering the army onto the university campus, time put pressure on them. with instructions to shoot on sight. During a demonstration after these events, workers and The issue was discussed at the congress of the students decided to march to the presidential National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), palace, which was protected by the army. which organised most of the UCT students at the French troops openly intervened, occupying time. The idea of a sit-in emerged that was along key installations in the town, the airport, the the lines of the occupations that were taking place presidential palace and of course the French around the rest of the world. Some of those who embassy. The university was closed, foreign were involved remember that the European protests students were sent home and thousands of got a lot of media attention in South Africa and that students were arrested” (Zeilig 2007: 182). students followed the reports with interest. There has been some discussion among former activ- The university authorities failed to stand up to the ists and analysts in how far the events in Dakar were government and in August 1968, a mass meeting connected to those in Paris. Although it seems clear took place in the imposing surroundings of the that they were certainly were not distant ripples of university’s Jameson Hall. After rousing speeches the storm in the French metropole, authors like Zeilig from student leaders, most of the audience, which maintain that they were indeed a part of the global was 1,000 people strong, marched out and 600 movement of the 1968 youth revolt. While the students occupied the university’s administration 1968 events in Dakar were related to those in Paris, building. Thus, ten per cent of the university’s the capital of Senegal’s former colonial rulers, they student population of 6,000 at the time took part were just as connected to local histories of protest, in the protest. What is particularly significant about such as those at the U.S. embassy in Dakar after this activism in the context of the South African the assassination of the Congolese leader Patrice political situation at the time is that almost all, if not Lumumba. They also need to be considered in the all of the student protesters belonged to the coun- context of broader waves of student activism and try’s white minority. rebellion on the African continent; again the Congo played a prominent role, where after the assassina- Eventually, the occupiers – approximately 90 tion of Lumumba student politics had become radi- students had stayed the course – gave up and calized, with impact on both the local, the African, left after nine days. A white anthropologist was and indeed the international (Global North) student appointed in Mafeje’s place. UCT, South Africa’s movements. Student revolt took different forms oldest university, had caved in to the demands of in response to varying local, national and regional the apartheid policy regarding university educa- conditions, yet the late 1960s saw protests across tion. Since 1959, South African students had been the continent, including Sudan, Gambia, Ethiopia, admitted to universities along racial and ethnic lines. and a range of other countries. UCT, had been declared a white institution and black students were only admitted under exceptional circumstances, having to apply for a special Student protests against apartheid and institutional permit from the government. Although this law racism: Cape Town 1968 did not apply to academic staff members, Mafeje’s appointment was still prevented. South Africa also had its moment of 1968 transgressive student activism. At the country’s oldest Yet, for a brief moment in August of 1968, South university, the University of Cape Town (UCT) Archie Africa got its taste of “1968”. Martin Plaut, one of Mafeje, a black Master’s graduate of UCT (“cum the occupiers, described the activities of a substan- laude”) and by then in the process of completing tial number of South African white students: his PhD at Cambridge, was appointed to a senior lecturer position in social anthropology in 1968. The “Six hundred of us decided to participate in the university offered him the job, but then rescinded occupation, determined not to leave until UCT 44 reversed its decision. For ten days we held out, sleeping on the floors. Food was cooked commu- The developments need to be understood in respect nally – even by the men who, at that time, were to major student organizations of the time, particu- largely ignorant of the workings of a kitchen. larly NUSAS and SASO (South African Students Plenty of wine and marijuana were consumed Organisation). and virginities were lost, but on the whole it was a carefully managed protest, with a signs asking NUSAS, which had been founded in 1924, was for rubbish to be removed and the areas being open to students of all races. In the earlier Apart- occupied to be kept clean. Messages of support heid period of the 1950s and 1960s, NUSAS ideo- flowed in from students in Paris and London and logically emphasized “multiracialism”, and “liber- there was favorable coverage in the international alism” of the South African variant that claimed media. incompatibility between apartheid and capitalism. Perhaps the most important thing was that we Though even then a small number of Marxists and discovered intellectual liberation. Alternative members of the South African Communist Party lectures were organized on the stairs. We got were members of the student association. a newspaper up and running. In one fell swoop we had thrown off our mental shackles. At last At the ‘black’ universities, which had been estab- we were not just some isolated racist outpost lished as apartheid institutions in the early 1960s, of empire, but part of an international student small numbers of students joined NUSAS, and movement” (Plaut 2011). battles took place at some tertiary learning institutions to gain permission to form autonomous Student Representative Councils (SRC) and affiliate This conclusion was indeed significant: the student with NUSAS. An exception was the longer-estab- protesters felt that through their manifold trans- lished University of Fort Hare, where – in contrast gressive activism they had gained a sense of intellec- – the SRC temporarily broke its affiliation with tual freedom and self-respect, which the academic NUSAS in 1952 because of frustration over racist institution, though proud of its “liberal” stance, was tendencies within the student association. The Fort not able to maintain. Hare students argued that “they had not been too successful in their attempts to radicalise NUSAS. There was also some sensitivity on the part of Fort The 1970s in South Africa: student politics of trans- Harians to alleged racial slights [...]” (Burchell 1986: gression, in black and white 157). The main issue was that NUSAS, despite its multiracial membership, was essentially dominated These events at UCT are hardly remembered today, and controlled by white students. neither the international debates on the 1968 move- This was what Steve Biko, a student at the all-black ments take note of the protests against the universi- University of Natal Medical School (UNMS) had in ty’s dismal attitude during what has become known mind when he wrote the following in his column, as the “Mafeje affair”, nor is there much memory of “I Write what I Like”, in the SASO Newsletter: the student protests in South Africa itself. For most [I object] to “the intellectual arrogance of white observers, “student uprisings” in South Africa refer people that makes them believe that white leader- to the events commonly known as “Soweto 1976”, ship is a sine qua non in this country and that whites which is generally regarded as the beginning of are divinely appointed pace-setters in progress” the country’s student protests. Though the Soweto (Biko 1987: 24). In 1968, he and others thus formed uprising was led by pupils and high school students, the South African Student Organisation, which for and not by university students, it was connected to, political reasons offered membership to students and ideologically grew out of developments at South of all “black” sections of the population, which African universities starting around 1968/69. Most included those assigned to the apartheid categories prominently, this included the Black Consciousness of “African”, “Coloured” and “Indian”. (BC) movement, which is commonly associated with In the early years, the new all-black SASO was the name Steve Biko. allowed space to grow at the black universities, in 45 part because the government regarded the sepa- This history of transgressive students, and, to a rate black student association and its emphasis on lesser extent, wider intellectual politics, is indeed largely psychological-oriented Black Consciousness significant in order to understand the events of as quite compatible with the apartheid ideology. 2015/2016. For this reason, when SASO became more active in political campaigns from about 1972/73 onwards, the organization had already established firm struc- The 2015-2016 events: What happened tural roots, which made it difficult for the government to entirely suppress the organization despite Students at South African universities rose up in brutal repression, the best known case of which was a mass revolt, the beginning of which is generally the state’s murder of Steve Biko in 1977. dated in March 2015. They marched on campuses, Despite the organizational split, white and black attacked “holy cows” of colonial legacy (statues, student activists of NUSAS and SASO continued buildings) with graffiti, and sometimes used other, working together. In the early 1970s, a new genera- more controversial means of destruction. They made tion of white students also became active in increas- their voices heard on their campuses, in the streets, ingly radical politics (Moss 2014). Radical anti-apart- on the grounds of the Parliament in Cape Town, heid and increasingly New Left white students and on the lawns of the Union Buildings, the seat of organized campaigns to rediscover the history of national government in Pretoria. Students brought resistance, which had been hidden through the down a symbol of colonialism and exploitation, they repressive climate of the 1960s. They then embarked fought against fee increases for higher education on a massive campaign for the release of all polit- and demanded free education for all, called for the ical prisoners. At the University of Witwatersrand end of racism, and of the neo-liberal outsourcing (Wits), they took the protest beyond the confines of practices of support services at universities. the campus into the city of Johannesburg. Initially, students engaged with the workers, addressing Students demanded free education in more labor conditions on the campuses and founding than one sense – demanding that tuition fees be “wages commissions”. They became instrumental scrapped, and that the contents, methods and in laying the groundwork for the new black trade academic teachers reflect the post-apartheid “free” unions that emerged in the 1970s. South Africa. In some instances, black and white students, and a few younger, radical academics, worked together The movements, which became active at all South in these new leftist politics. In particular, radical African universities in the later months of 2015, academics were involved in the efforts around flared up again after the start of the new academic strikes and black labor unions. Richard (Rick) Turner, year in February 2016. After some months of a lull, a young lecturer in philosophy at the University of they became forceful and controversial in September Natal in Durban who worked closely with Steve 2016 after the then Higher Education and Training Biko, was of special significance. Their political Minister Blade Nzimande announced that South cooperation and personal friendship played a signif- African universities could increase fees for 2017 – icant role in the “Durban moment”, a massive wave which contradicted the government’s concession of strikes in 1972/73, which is often regarded as to forgo any fee increases for the 2016 academic the harbinger, if not the catalyst, of the new wave year, which it had declared in late October 2015 of resistance that led to the Soweto uprising, the following the massive ‘#FeesMustFall’ campaigns massive uprisings of the 1980s and eventually the across the country. demise of the regime. Like Biko, Turner was assassinated by the apartheid state. Other radical young academics of the 1970s included the sociologist From #RhodesMustFall to #FeesMustFall Eddie Webster, who also began his teaching career in Durban before moving on to Wits in 1976, and The struggle against tuition fees (#FeesMustFall) Phil Bonner, who started teaching in history at Wits has received a lot of attention in the public debate. in 1971. However, the mobilization that has spread out 46 across South African campuses has much deeper of curricula, which they said conveyed racist and roots, and it certainly has not been about financial colonialist forms of knowledge and ignored, even issues alone. scorned, African intellectual experience. The beginnings show this clearly: In March 2015, All this had happened before the campaigns for students at UCT had begun a forceful campaign, affordable tuition started. This long-term perspec- dubbed #RhodesMustFall, to have the statue of the tive is significant in order to understand that the British colonialist and mining magnate Cecil John #FeesMustFall movement goes beyond demands for Rhodes removed, which had been sitting on the lower tuition fees and, ultimately, free public univer- university grounds in a prominent position for the sity education. past eighty years. It all started with an individual activist’s spectacular deed. On 9 March UCT student After the first wave of protests in 2015, which saw Chumani Maxwele threw a bucket full of human massive demonstrations and considerable public excrement onto the statue of a seated Cecil Rhodes. support for the students’ demands, from early 2016 a more critical debate arose about certain From the initial defacing act, the movement quickly practices of the movements. These include ques- gained traction. Three days later, a well-attended tions of ‘violence’ and the destruction of university meeting took place to discuss the future of the assets in particular, which in a few instances had statue. A week later, students marched to the seat extended to setting campus buildings on fire. There of the UCT administration and demanded a date has also been increasing friction within the student for the removal of the statue. While Vice-chan- movements, which are often related to matters of cellor Max Price was addressing the protesters gender, sexuality and power. Some activists of the about the removal of the statue, students occupied movements have spoken out on these issues. the Bremner administrative building, which they renamed Azania House, thus expressing an ideo- Understanding the events and issues of the complex logical affiliation with Pan-Africanist positions. Over 2015-2016 protests requires a considerable degree the next few weeks, students occupied the building, of insights into the background of the revolt, supported by academics from UCT and other univer- including evolving activist practices, demands, and sities in the Cape Town area, along with members of the movements’ ideological and intellectual founda- the public. Activists successfully disrupted everyday tion. business on the UCT campus, and initiated a debate about racism and demands to decolonize education. The movement succeeded in finding the support of Trajectories of ideology: From Black Consciousness the university’s governing bodies; on 9 April, the to decolonization objectionable statue was removed under the thunderous applause of a large crowd who had gathered A consideration of the movements’ ideological to watch this significant moment. underpinnings shall appropriately start with comparative notes on the 2015/16 student uprisings and The movement spread quickly to other universi- earlier South African student protests. ties, initially mostly to those that are similar to UCT – historically white institutions with English as a There has already been reference to the Soweto medium of instruction that are steeped in the”‘lib- 1976 uprisings, which started at high schools but eral” South African tradition, with deep roots in soon reached universities in the mid-1970s and is British colonialism and a corresponding institutional generally regarded as the groundbreaking move- culture. Throughout the South African winter and ment that eventually led to the end of apartheid spring of 2015, students campaigned for changes fifteen years later. The students of 1976 significantly to their universities’ symbolism; they demanded the resisted unequal and segregated education and the removal of colonial memorials and the renaming of societal system of apartheid. buildings. They called for the appointment of more black academics. And they insisted upon the reform The momentous Black Consciousness movement, 47 however, which critically engaged education and wider society, had already gone a step further by Decolonizing institutions, decolonizing knowledge then. From 1969 onwards, SASO, the BC-oriented and decolonizing the mind have thus become the South African Student Organization, stopped key words of the new generation of activists. South demanding “equality” in education – they did no Africa’s student activists have asked new questions, longer demand that ‘black’ education be equal they have challenged the country’s old and new to ‘whiteʼ education; instead the organization establishments; they have also forged new alliances embarked on a profound critique of ‘white’ educa- and engaged in new forms of politics. tion as a domesticating and dominating form of education. Decolonization & intersectionality Black Consciousness philosophy and associated Pan-Africanist perspectives have once again become Central to the movement’s pursuit was the aim of significant over the past few years through a range “decolonizing the mind”. The hunger for new forms of student campaigns, particularly at the formerly of knowledge, the extraordinary return to critical “white” universities, such as UCT, Wits, Rhodes black intellectual traditions, to black feminism, queer and also at the exceedingly conservative universities theory, and critical race studies was palpable. Activ- where Afrikaans is the medium of instruction, such ists particularly drew on theories of intersectionality, as Stellenbosch University near Cape Town. While which they fused with radical thought inspired by the demographics of most of these institutions have the writings of Frantz Fanon, the Martinique-born changed dramatically, with a few exceptions, most militant philosopher of revolutionary, anticolonial notably Stellenbosch University, whose student humanism. body is still predominantly white, they now have a black majority among their student body, their In addition to Fanon, who has arguably been the institutional cultures, symbolism, and curricula have most influential theorist, other important authors changed only marginally, which became a crucial that have been called upon with respect to Black issue of the new South African student movement. Consciousness and, often read as interlinked, Pan-Af- The same very slow “transformation” has also kept ricanist ideas include South Africans Steve Biko and the demographics of the teachers at these institu- the former President of the Pan Africanist Congress tions largely unchanged, especially in the higher (PAC), Robert Sobukwe; though to a lesser extent, ranks; one of the particular concerns that was raised the new South African student movement also drew was, for instance, that they have appointed only a on activists and intellectuals from the wider conti- miniscule number of black South African women nent, such as the Guinean social thinker and poli- professors. At some “leading” universities there are tician Amilcar Cabral, the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa still no black South African women appointed to Thiongo, and Thomas Sankara, the former President professorial rank at all, and that twenty-five years of Burkina Faso, a radical leader who is sometimes after the end of apartheid. referred to as the “African Che Guevara”, who was assassinated while in office. Black students have described their experiences on campus as alienating, observing that the norm Steve Biko, the murdered founder of SASO and at universities continues to cater to white, middle- BC intellectual, has been read again extensively by class, able-bodied male students who adhere to young students who consider his call to autono- heterosexual norms The BC ideology calls on black mous Black action still being relevant for contem- people to first free their own minds, become aware porary South Africa. Most notably, however, the of their own condition and that of others, and new generation celebrated the writings of Fanon, work together to change the material conditions of especially taking up his philosophical critique of black students. These, in a nutshell, have been the racism and insisting on the need for Black people guiding principles of the new South African student to seize recognition, as he did. At the peak of the movements. The language they adopted, however, #RhodesMustFall campaign, UCT students put emphasized the term ‘decolonization’. Fanon’s notion of mutual recognition as a precon- 48 dition of true humanism into practice when they then the respective outgoing and incoming SRC walked around campus with ‘recognize me’ written president at Wits. on placards hanging around their necks. This extraordinary initiative got students and academics Things changed, however, in 2016, when the move- engaged in vibrant conversations about inclusion ments’ strategies and tactics became more belli- and decolonization. Furthermore, radical critics took cose and dominated by what some activists have up Fanon’s incisive comments on the perils of the described in conversation as “macho” attitudes. postcolonial period as applicable for post-apart- This included, in a poignant and intensely debated heid South Africa. Fanon has been engaged by the moment, burnings of works of art at the University student activists also for his militant critique of the of Cape Town in early 2016 (see the film “Shutting normative compulsion to non-violence. Down the Rainbow Nation”). With keen re-readings of Fanon and his incisive The staggering militancy included a ‘bonfire of South African disciple Steve Biko, the new genera- colonial vanities’, as Van Graan (2016) has called tion has taken up a philosophical critique of racism it. The burning of artwork in particular has been and the postcolonial condition, insisting on radical, denounced as ‘barbarism’ by many in South African often controversial and at times problematic prac- public and social media discourses, including the tices in the need for Blacks to seize recognition. art world, while others have insisted on the polit- With claims to mutual recognition and decoloniza- ical significance of putting fire to paintings as colo- tion as a precondition of true humanism, the activ- nial signifiers. In this situation, Fanon has also been ist’s practice has focused on disruption: disruption of engaged by radical activists for his militant critique the spaces at universities and beyond, insisting that of the normative compulsion to non-violence. business as usual has prevented the decolonization of the post-1994 South African society. On the other hand, the increasing machismo and homophobia of male militants and leaders, However, the concept of intersectionality, which combined with attempts to foster exclusion and acknowledges a number of interlinking oppres- introduce hierarchies within the movement that had sive systems which need to be combated together, formerly had a flat organization came under attack primarily race, class and gender (but also heteronor- when members of UCT’s Trans Collective (an alli- mativity, disability, etc.), became central too. Here ance of transsexual and queer students) stopped the the theoretical underpinnings have drawn promi- launch of an exhibition that was jointly curated by nently on African American feminist theorists, such the #RhodesMustFall movement and the Centre for as Audre Lorde, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and bell hooks. African Studies (CAS) on 9 March . The protesters argued that they had been systematically sidelined The notion of intersectionality was central to in #RMF structures, which they states as their moti- discussions and practices. In the early stages of vation for blocking the launch, and defacing some the protests, spirited debates about racism, but of the exhibits using red paint. In April, a coalition also about sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia of “feminist, queer, trans and marginalized bodies” were prominent. During the protests demanding convened at Wits in protest against patriarchal the removal of the Rhodes statue, a placard was practices in student movements, raising question held up by students that significantly stated: “Dear regarding a planned protest. Although they were history/this revolution has women, gays, queers & not always of such high visibility, such frictions and trans/Remember that.” During the #RhodesMust- contradictions were present in the movements at Fall campaign of 2015, the occupied administrative universities across the country. building Azania House at UCT in particular was a space of vigorous and at times controversial discussions of these issues. In the second half of 2015, the #FeesMustFall campaigns were prominently led by young women, most outstandingly the well-known duo of Shaeera Kalla and Nompendulo Mkatshwa, 49 Against social inequality: protests in the streets and Now it was university students, however, who townships used human excrements to emphasize their point, blocked roads, occupied and “renamed” buildings The student protests arose from a situation that has on their campuses, and who held mass meetings been marked by growing socioeconomic inequality that forced senior university administrators into in post-apartheid South Africa and by the African negotiations. Often coming from poor black families Nation Congress (ANC) government’s policies of and without guaranteed career perspectives, they neoliberal restructuring. The positions of both poor adopted the political forms and protest practices of students and low-wage workers have been rendered the urban poor’s popular protests. This also became precarious in the corporate university. This precari- reflected in developing intellectual interests. ousness has quickly emerged with the neoliberal restructuring of the higher education sector. On the Initially race and racism was the key concern, in other hand, increasingly corrupt patronage politics reading as well as movement practice. Later in the has been the hallmark of the Zuma administration year, however, new alliances between students and since 2009. workers emerged, and with them the recognition of class as a profound category for understanding South Africa’s new affluent elite, with connections a grossly unequal, racist society. The concerns of to those in government, ostensibly asserts its Afri- socioeconomic inequality, in turn, inspired new canity. As pointed out by Nigel Gibson (2011), intellectual desires. The Wits University-based post- a neoliberal (or: corporate) Black Consciousness colonial theorist Achille Mbembe observed that the discourse prevails in South Africa today. However, preoccupations of critical black studies were now this exclusionist ideology has little in common with being coupled with a renewed critique of political the militant Black Consciousness philosophy associ- economy, which aimed at dialectically bringing ated with Steve Biko. Rather, in the “new” dispen- together questions of race and property, class and sation the “dehumanizing and derogating attitudes inequality, and identity and lived experience. formerly projected towards all Blacks are now channeled towards the Black poor”. Put together, these #EndOutsourcing: class struggles at the neoliberal developments have caused a disaffection of urban South African university youth with the ANC government. For many young people, the older generation’s claim to respect on Most analyses of the recent South African student the basis of struggle credentials does not hold true movements emphasize politics of identity, decoloni- anymore. zation, and intergenerational relations. Students constituted the first social movement since tions, but the category of class and class alliance the end of apartheid that engaged in mass protest politics should be considered a significant dimen- on a national scale. However, protests have been sion as well. Like previous generations, including occurring in informal settlements and townships the radical white students of the early 1970s, the since 2004 that are generally dubbed “service movement of 2015 also took an interest in the labor delivery protests” because of their demands of conditions on university campuses. access to services, such as sanitation, new land occu- The workers at the neoliberal university, however, pations, etc. Forms of disruptive activism had been were not simply “liberated” by radicalized students. practiced in the struggles of the urban poor. On Workers showed tremendous agency. At some many occasions, roads were blocked, and even the universities, “poo politics” that prominently sparked the #RMF battles against outsourcing had seen anti-neoliberal campaign in March 2015 was not very innovative: workers’ politics since 2000. human feces were dumped at the Cape Town Inter- The Oct6 movement brought together workers, national Airport during the so-called “poo protests” some academics and certain factions of the student in June 2013. movement in early October 2015, at a time when All these were and have been significant motiva- especially at Wits, long-standing the decolonization battles had been going on for several months, and just days before mass protests 50 broke out. The Oct6 protests against outsourcing Disruption, transgression, subversion: continuities and the labor conditions of workers on university and ruptures of South African student movements campuses took place across campuses in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Their manifest spoke a traditional leftist, Marxist language. This orientation This article has shown the ideological trajectories fueled some of the #EndOutsourcing protests, when that connect the 2015/16 student movements to it identified the ‘reforms’ of the corporate univer- those of the 1970s. While much of the analysis of sity as “a product of a longstanding project of racial the new South African student movement has high- capitalism in South Africa”. The movement took a lighted “disruption” as a key strategy of the protests, radical stance in their declaration “that efforts to a closer look at resistance, and especially student ‘transform’ since the end of formal apartheid have protests even before the 1976 Soweto uprising, not done enough to change deep-seated inequal- points out that disruptive actions had already ities at universities”. The authors, including promi- erupted during the decade before 1976, such as nent student activists, radical academics and worker those that happened at UCT in 1968 against the activists from Johannesburg and Cape Town, university’s reprehensible alignment with the apart- argued that “ in fact, while some progressive gains heid authorities in the “Mafeje affair”. As it has been have been made in the post-apartheid period, South pointed out, these experiences shaped new groups African universities have slid into more conservative of activists, new forms of protests and new political practices. One of the most serious instances of this dreams. They united students of different races and conservativism has been the treatment of university backgrounds, as well as students and workers, some workers. The mass outsourcing of university workers academics and others in alliances though they were to private companies since 1999 is a blight on the sometimes frought. Different strands emerged, such record of post-apartheid universities” (See the mani- as the politics of radicalized white students in the festo in this volume pp. 131-133). early 1970s, the emergence of the Black Conscious- In contrast to this leftist manifesto, in most instances ness movement, and the new workers’ movements the student movements in alliance with campus that emerged from labor protests in 1972/73. At workers seem to have reached a broader constit- times they coalesced, at others they clashed. uency among the students with a language that Careful historical narratives of these different referred to the relations between students and strands of resistance in the later 1960s and first university workers in terms of kinship; student activ- half of the 1970s, however, show how resistance ists addressed the workers as their “parents”. This was reimagined, as the historian Julian Brown has appears more congruent with the race-based iden- argued: “It is in the shadow of our shared history tifications, as evident also in the students’ self-refer- – a different history to that which is ordinarily told ence to the suffering of “the black child”. – that the post-apartheid present is developing.” What was interesting is that, in the new alliance (Brown 2016: vii) politics of students and workers, workers at most The documents included in this reader thus need to universities organized independently of and on some be read considering the dynamic tension between occasions clashed with the established trade unions. historically evolving subjectivities and the polit- This reflected the situation among the students, ical, economic and social world. This includes very where the activists generally organized outside the specific local conditions (and, as a case by case anal- officially recognized structures of student repre- ysis of South African universities over the past two sentative councils. At some universities, such as the years would show, significantly different demands University of the Western Cape, a majority-black during protests at different institutions), national working-class university, the activists even clashed developments, continental histories, and global fervently with the ANC-aligned SRC. contexts. [1] Historically Afrikaans was the only medium of instruction, now it is both Afrikaans and English. However, in the South African context the language also indicates cultural politics. 51 Literature Van Graan, Mike: “Barbarism, burnings and Beckett”, in: Mail & Guardian (03.03. 2016). URL: Becker, Heike: “South Africa’s May 1968: Decol- https://mg.co.za/article/2016-03-03-barbarism- onising Institutions and Minds”, in: Review of burnings-and-beckett-1 (accessed: 29/01/2019). African Political Economy (2016). URL: http://roape. net/2016/02/17/south-africas-may-1968-decolonis- Zeilig, Leo: Revolt and Protest: Student Politics and ing-institutions-and-minds/ (accessed: 05/01/2018). Activism in Sub-Saharan Africa, London 2007. Biko, Steve: I write what I like: Selected Writings by “Shutting Down the Rainbow Nation”: https://www. Steve Biko, London 1987. youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=ksgrJyOrd7A Booysen, Susan (ed.): Fees Must Fall: Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, Johannesburg 2016. www.sahistory.org.za/topic/south-african-student-organisation-saso Brown, Julian: The Road to Soweto: Resistance and the Uprising of 16 June 1976, London 2016. www.sahistory.org.za/.../national-union-south-african-students-nusas Gibson, Nigel: Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo, Pietermaritzburg 2011. Heffernan, Anne / Nieftagodien, Noor (eds.): Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto ’76, Johannesburg 2016. Hirson, Baruch. Year of Fire, Year of Ash: The Soweto Revolt, London (1979) 2016. Mbembe, Achille: “The State of South African Political Life”, in: Africa is a Country (19.9.2015). URL: africasacountry.com/2015/09/achille-mbem- be-on-the-state-of-south-african-politics/ (accessed: 10/02/2016). Moss, Glenn: The New Radicals: A Generational Memoir of the 1970s, Johannesburg 2014. Nyamnjoh, Francis B.: #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa, Bamenda 2016. Plaut, Martin: “How the 1968 revolution reached Cape Town” in: MartinPlaut blog (2011). URL: martinplaut.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/ the-1968-revolution-reaches-cape-town/ (accessed: 05/01/2018) 52 53 VI. SOURCES 1. ACTORS 1.1 EUROPE Ring Christlich Demokratischer Studenten (Germany 1968) Katharina Wonnemann T he members of the Sozialistischer RCDS). At many West German universities these Deutscher Studentenbund (Socialist student groups founded themselves as opposition of German Student League, SDS), espe- the SDS. Although left and right groups had similar cially the males, are often seen as the goals on issues regarding higher education policy or main actors of the West German student movement. society, their suggested solutions differed greatly and Central figures in Berlin, such as the spokesman of were split between revolution and system-immanent the local SDS, Rudi Dutschke, often stand for the reforms (Goltz 2010). At the University of Cologne the entire so-called “generation of 68”. For many years, Aktion 67 (Action 67) was founded in 1967. At the historical perspectives rarely considered any other beginning of 1968, the group renamed itself Kölner perspectives (Hodenberg 2018). However, at many Studenten-Union (Cologne Student Union, KSU). The West German universities around the year 1968 there often costly canvassing of the conservative groups in was a wide range of university groups, among which Cologne seemed to be modern and progressive, and the SDS was only one of several leftist groups. They through an alliance between the RCDS and KSU both stood in opposition to conservative university groups groups were voted into the AStA during the winter that were just as strongly represented as them (Goltz semester of 1968/69. At the zenith of the student 2010). protests most of the Cologne students who voted did The political university groups at the University of so for conservative university groups that voiced their Cologne, whose members could be elected into the support for a reform of their own university, but also Student Parliament (SP) once a year by the student their opposition against a general political mandate body, belonged to the main actors of the protests of the AStA (Bartz 1998). The student protests in around the year 1968. The most popular groups ran Cologne therefore concentrated primarily on topics the Allgemeinen Studierendenausschuss (General regarding higher education policy. They supported Students’ Committee, AStA), which was also an university reform and transparency, also for all actor. Only in 1967 was there a left majority in the university committees, and demanded more rights SP. Different groups affiliated with the SDS and the for student participation in university politics. Most Sozialdemokratischer Hochschulbund (Social-Dem- university groups of the whole spectrum supported ocratic University Association, SHB) ran the AStA the same goals (Leggewie 2018). from February until November 1968. Furthermore, the Cologne SDS was internally divided into different wings. From the summer semester of 1969 onward, primarily Fachschaften (student associations from the departments) and leftist basic groups organized political activities, such as lecture boycotts (Bartz 2000). Conservative university groups were often more successful in the SP elections, above all the so-called student unions and the Ring Christlich Demokratischer Studenten (Ring of Christian Democratic Students, 56 Source: Archive of the University of Cologne, collection of leaflets, 1968. Further readings Mobilisierung an westdeutschen Universitäten“, in: Massimiliano Livi et al. (eds.), Die 1970er Jahre – auch Bartz, Olaf: “Konservative Studenten und die Studen- ein schwarzes Jahrzehnt? Politisierungs- und Mobilis- tenbewegung. Die ‘Kölner Studenten-Union‘ (KSU)“, ierungsprozesse zwischen rechter Mitte und extremer in: Westfälische Forschungen 48 (1998), pp. 241-256. Rechter in Italien und der Bundesrepublik 1967-1982, Bielefeld 2010. Id.: “Mauerblümchen des Protests oder Hort pragmatischer Hochschulpolitik? Die Universität zu Köln und Hodenberg, Christina von: Das andere Achtund- die Studentenbewegung von 1968“, in: Geschichte in sechzig. Köln 47 (2000), pp. 107-119. Munich 2018. Gesellschaftsgeschichte einer Revolte, Dohms, Peter: “Die Studentenbewegung an den Holl, Kurt / Glunz, Claudia: 1968 am Rhein. Satisfac- traditionellen Hochschulen in Nordrhein-Westfalen“, tion und ruhender Verkehr. This is the companion in: Peter Dohms / Johann Paul (eds.), Die Studenten- volume of an exhibition, that was initiated 1998 by bewegung von 1968 in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Sieg- the contemporary witnesses Holl and Glunz, in coop- burg 2008. eration with “KölnArchiv e.V.”. The editors quote here an article of the Kölner Stadtanzeiger of May 13, Frei, Norbert: 1968. Jugendrevolte und globaler 1970. Cologne 2008, pp. 82-85. Protest, Munich 2008. Leggewie, Claus: 50 Jahre ‘68. Köln und seine ProtestGoltz, Anna von der: “Eine Gegen-Generation von geschichte, Cologne 2018. 1968? Politische Polarisierung und konservative 57 Gaston Salvatore (Chile 1941 - Italy 2015) and Bahmann Nirumand (*Iran 1936) at the International Vietnam Conference in West Berlin (Germany 1968) Dorothee Weitbrecht G aston Salvatore was born in Chile in Nirumand at the Goethe Institute in Tehran during 1941. After getting his law degree in a 1963 reading tour. Nirumand moved to Berlin in Chile, he was invited to participate in 1966, where he became member of the executive the Institute for East European Studies’ board of the CIS/NU and one of the leading activ- program for the “Special training of Latin Amer- ists in the student movement. While still in Tehran, ican candidates in the field of East Europe Studies Enzensberger had talked to the literary scholar about and Soviet Communism.” Between 1966 and 1968, putting together a collection of documents on the Salvatore was one of Rudi Dutschke’s closest friends Iranian dictatorship, which he published in West and for a short time, together with Dutschke and Germany in March 1967. From the very beginning, Ulrike Meinhof, he was one of the co-editors of the Nirumand’s extensive criticism of the authoritarian German magazine konkret. Salvatore and Dutschke Iranian government was part of the internationalistic published the translation of Che Guevara’s 1967 canon of the German student movement. More than letter to the executive secretary’s office of the Cuban 100,000 copies were sold and the publication legiti- Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, mized the protest against the Shah in West Germany. Africa and Latin America under the title “Create two, Nirumand made a connection between the struggle three, many Vietnams.” This title became one of the of the Iranian opposition and the social struggles in best known slogans of the West German protest the “Third World” in general. movement. In 1969, Salvatore returned to Chile for a while and joined the Movimiento de Izquierde Revolu- Program of the international Vietnam Conference – cionaria (MIR) and, according to himself, became an West Berlin 1968 important member of the movement. He was briefly under arrest for the possession of revolutionary liter- Speakers include: Tariq Ali, Pakistan ature. After returning to Germany in the early 1970s, Gaston Salvatore, Chile he became co-editor of the German magazine Trans- Bahman Nirumand, Persia Atlantik, together with Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Representatives of foreign student He would later go on to become a stringer for the organizations German Magazine Stern. February 17, 1968 Writer Bahmann Nirumand was born in Iran in 1936 Conference on the topic: to the adjutant of the Persian Shah Reza Pahlevi. He The struggle of the Vietnamese people and the global went to Germany for the first time as a pupil in the strategy of imperialism 1950s, going to school in Munich, West Berlin and [...] Tübingen. In Tübingen, he organized a reading group Panel I The Vietnamese Revolution and helped establish the Iranian student association Panel II The Vietnamese Revolution and the Revolu- Confederation of Iranian Students/National Union tion in the Third World (CIS/NU). After getting his PhD in 1960, he returned - Open discussion - to Iran and taught at the University of Tehran. Niru- - Break - mand was subject to state persecution because of Panel III The anti-imperialistic and anti-capitalistic his left-wing political activism and, in 1965, German fight in capitalist countries writer and journalist Hans Magnus Enzensberger helped him return to Germany. Enzensberger had met Source: Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, RUD 250. 58 Original Source in German: Programm der Internationalen Vietnamkonferenz – Westberlin 1968 Forum I Die vietnamesische Revolution Forum II Die vietnamesische Revolution und die Revolution in der Dritten Welt- Offene Diskussion - 17. Februar 1968 - Pause - Kongreß zu dem Thema: Forum III Der anti-imperialistische und anti-kapitalistische Der Kampf des vietnamesischen Volkes und die Globalstrat- Kampf in den kapitalistischen Ländern egie des Imperialismus […] Hans Magnus Enzensberger (*Germany 1929) Dorothee Weitbrecht H ans Magnus Enzensberger was born in 1929 and was a German writer, poet, publisher and editor. Even long before the student protests began, he advocated for more consideration of southern countries and their problems, not only as a writer but also in an interactive manner. In 1955, he publicly defended Chilean poet Pablo Neruda after he was discredited for siding with Stalin. Nirumand Bahmann and Gaston Salvatore were some of his closest friends within the protest movement, the latter was his co-editor of the cultural magazine TransAtlantik from 1980 to 1982. By 1960, one-third more of than German students had heard Enzensberger’s name; six years of writers, politicians and university teachers and later, he was included in the list of recommended Enzensberger was ranked number one. In 1965, he reads by the Berlin SDS. A 1965 survey of students established the leading opinion-forming medium of at different universities inquired about the standing the protest movement with Kursbuch. It was moti- 59 vated by Enzensberger’s wish to counteract the World” liberation movements. It was in this spirit of systematic manipulation of society through misin- not only idealistic, but also active transnational soli- formation and to create a platform for discussion darity that Enzensberger spent a few months in Cuba of international political and cultural developments. at the end of 1968 as a “revolution tourist”. There, he More than anything, the Kursbuch became a source participated in political education classes and worked of revolutionary and liberation theoretical texts during the sugar cane and coffee harvest in Fidel’s written by well-known representatives from southern Cuba. countries. The Kursbuch clearly positioned itself as unconditional supporter of solidarity with “Third 60 Arqueles Morales (AM): Over the last few years, in May. What the students demand is not just a and among the most advanced West European intelli- substitute for the current owners of the information gentsia, the term “cultural revolution” has often been industry, putting it in the hands of different managers; used to express one of the elements of a new revo- they demand a change of the very structure of the lutionary perspective. How valid would it be to inter- mass media, turning them into a large big-character pret this term in the sense that it has already been poster or a bulletin board or a news program on the popularized in the world? Furthermore, what would it radio or on TV in order to create a new form of mass really mean for Western European intellectuals? media using the latest technology that are accessible to each and everyone. This is a clear example of what Hans Magnus Enzensberger (HME): I don’t intend a cultural revolution could look like in Europe. […] No to answer this question on behalf of these greatly one thinks that the cultural revolution will happen at advanced groups. What you are saying rather reflects some desk in an office. The difficult unity of theory the prevailing opinions in the student movement. and praxis is missing, along with concrete activities in So let’s set aside any exclusivity and let’s talk about the streets and at the nerve center of the metropoles. common spaces, at least common in some activist At a decisive moment, revolutionary action, small as and militant sectors that don’t always coincide with it may be, needs to contribute to the enlightenment intellectual circles. For us, cultural revolution is both of the masses. indispensable and deceptive at the same time, which is why it is pertinent to clarify it. Of course, we’ve let AM: Since it has been integrated into the global go of Mao Tse Tung’s theory and the practice of the strategy of imperialism over the last few years, the Cultural Revolution (capitalized). In Europe, there has West German government has increased its efforts to been no lack of trying on the part of Maoist groups to play a role in the cultural erosion of the Third World, mechanically apply those teachings and experiences as well as in the penetration, neutralization and utili- to our countries, which to me seems to be not only zation of intellectual groups. In the specific case of contrary to the dialectic spirit of Mao Tse Tung, but Latin America, we find ourselves faced with activities also dangerously disconcerting. In reality, the cultural by organizations such as the German Federal Ministry revolution as a perspective for countries that have for Economic Cooperation and Development and the economically developed through capitalism has very Konrad Adenauer foundation. How does an intellec- little to do with the Chinese context. [...] tual, a writer from the Federal Republic of Germany, So now for us, the cultural revolution has turned view these activities and how would you categorize into a key phrase for two reasons. On a strictly polit- and counteract them? ical level, it expresses demands that go beyond the socialist revolution as we know it in eastern Europe. HME: The activities of imperialistic governments This revolution, which is essentially the socialization of clearly show the same tendencies that can be found the means of production, is an unavoidable necessity in advanced industrialized nations, it is reproduced on for all capitalist countries, but at the same time it is an an international level. […] In my opinion, the efforts insufficient objective. You cannot offer the Western of the West German government in this context corre- European wage earners a revolutionary alternative spond with an international division of “civilizing” that would be no more than centralized state bureau- imperialistic work. The underdeveloped world seems cracy which, in copying the Eastern European experi- to have been divided into “regions of influence”. ence, would monopolize the political and economic The Federal Republic of Germany, for example, was leadership of society. On the contrary, the only valid given very specific world regions where it can exert point of departure would be to break the oppressive its influence, especially in Asia, more specifically Iran state power in order to establish effective self-govern- and Pakistan. With regards to Latin America, German ment of the masses, be it in the industry, agriculture political culture serves as a pawn. The North Ameri- or education: demands that are in no way new, but cans still set the direction, but in case of conflict with that constitute the very foundation of classic Marxism. the USA, the second in line, West Germany, would […] What were the initial objectives the student come into play. movement tackled? Their most violent activities were [...] mainly directed at the monopolies in the press and radio, in West Germany as well as in Italy and France 61 AM: Over the past few years there has often been talk en una nueva perspectiva revolucionaria. ¿En qué that Western Europe has rediscovered the Third World. medida sería válido interpretar ese término en el Many European intellectuals have turned their atten- sentido ya popularizado por el mundo y por otra tion to Asia, Africa and Latin America, in particular. parte, qué significaría realmente para los intelectuales What do you think has sparked the increased interest de la Europa occidental? of European intellectuals in the struggles and problems of our continent? HME: Por cuenta de aquellos círculos más avanzados no presumo contestarle; lo que diga reflejará más bien HME: It is trivial to say that the revolutions in China opiniones prevalecientes en el movimiento estudiantil. (post factum), Vietnam, Algeria and Cuba have Dejemos entonces toda exclusividad y hablemos de become increasingly interesting in Europe over the lugares comunes, comunes por lo menos, a algunos last 15 years. The open and sometimes violent repu- sectores activos y militantes que no siempre coinciden diation of the North American aggression in Vietnam, con los círculos de la intelectualidad. Para nosotros, the enormous influence of Che Guevara’s thoughts la revolución cultural es un concepto a la vez indis- and struggle are a given. At the moment, a group pensable y engañoso, y de ahí que sea cosa urgente such as the Tupamaros of Uruguay are showing us aclararlo. Naturalmente, se desprende de la teoría forms of struggle that can and should be directly de Mao Tse Tung y de la práctica de la Revolución applied in Europe. And let us not forget that the Cultural (con mayúsculas). No han faltado, en Europa, concept of the Third World, although it is based on tentativas, por parte de grupos maoistas, de aplicar, socioeconomic facts, is weak from a political and mecánicamente, aquellas enseñanzas y experiencias cultural point of view. […] The Latin American conti- a nuestros países, lo que me parece no solamente nent seems more accessible for the (limited, insuffi- contrario al espíritu dialéctico del mismo Mao Tse cient) European mind. For us, the Cuban Revolution Tung, sino desconcertante de modo peligroso. En represents, above all, a very special and determinant realidad, la revolución cultural como perspectiva para point of historic connection since Cuba, in its political los países desarrollados por el capitalismo, tiene muy and social configuration, possesses characteristics of poco que ver con los acontecimientos y situaciones all three worlds at once. But I didn’t want to finish en China. [...] this conversation with an atmosphere of harmony Ahora bien, la revolución cultural se ha convertido, and false optimism. Speaking a lot about the Third para nosotros, en un término clave, por dos motivos. World in Western Europe has yet to turn into material En el plano estrictamente político, expresa reivin- force (except in the case of Vietnam) that is able to dicaciones que van más allá de la revolución social- change history. […] Solidarity with the Third World is ista, tal y como la conocemos en la Europa oriental. often abstract and rhetorical and Europeans’ position Esta revolución, esencialmente la socialización de regarding revolutionary events on other continents los medios de producción, es para todos los países often continues to be a sort of attitude of consump- capitalistas una necesidad ineludible, pero al mismo tion. I think it is the responsibility of intellectuals to tiempo es un objetivo insuficiente. A las masas asalari- work incessantly at self-critique and demystification in adas de la Europa Occidental, no se les puede ofrecer order to end up with a “revolutionary” tertulia. una alternativa revolucionaria que se agota en el establecimiento de una burocracia estatal centralizada, la cual, copiando la experiencia de los países de Europa Source: Arqueles Morales, “Entrevista con Hans Magnus Enzensberger”, in: Casa de las Américas 55 (1969), pp. 117–121. oriental, monopoliza la dirección política y económica de la sociedad. La única salida válida será, al contrario, quebrar el poder estatal represivo para llegar a un efectivo autogobierno de las masas, ya sea en la Original Source in Spanish industria, en la agricultura o en la enseñanza: reivindicaciones que por supuesto de ninguna manera son AM: En los últimos años, y en los círculos más avan- nuevas, sino que constituyen el fundamento mismo zados de la intelectualidad europea occidental, se del marxismo clásico. [...] escucha a menudo el término “revolución cultural” [C]uales fueron los primeros objetivos que atacó el para expresar uno de los elementos contenidos movimiento estudiantil? Sus actividades más violentas 62 se han dirigido, en gran medida, contra los monop- una confrontación que se dirigiera contra los EE.UU., olios de la prensa y de la radiodifusión, tanto en la entraría en acción la segunda línea, la germanoocci- Alemania occidental como en Italia y en Francia del dental. mes de mayo. Lo que reclaman los estudiantes no [...] es un simple reemplazo de los dueños actuales de la industria de la conciencia, poniéndola en manos de AM: En los últimos años se habla a menudo en Europa otros dirigentes, sino un cambio de la misma estruc- occidental de un redescubrimiento del Tercer Mundo. tura de los medios de comunicación, para hacer de Muchos intelectuales europeos vuelven sus ojos hacia llos un enorme dazibao o diario mural, radial o tele- Asia, Africa y sobre todo hacia la América Latina. visivo, empleando las técnicas más modernas, accesi- ¿Qué sería lo que determina el creciente interés de los bles a todos y cada uno. He aquí un ejemplo muy claro intelectuales europeos por la lucha y los problemas de de lo que pueda significar en Europa, una revolución nuestro continente? cultural. [...] Nadie piensa que la revolución cultural se pueda hacer o iniciar desde el escritorio. Hace HME: Es cosa trivial decir que las revoluciones china falta una unidad difícil de teoría y práctica. Hacen (post factum), vietnamita, argelia y cubana han falta acciones muy concretas en las calles y en los conducido, en los últimos quince años, a una toma centros nerviosos de la metrópoli. La acción revolu- de conciencia general en Europa. El repudio abierto cionaria, por minoritaria que sea, debe convertirse en y a veces violento a la agresión norteamericana en un momento decisivo de la labor de esclarecimiento Vietnam, la influencia enorme del pensamiento y de entre las masas. la lucha del Che, son cosas sabidas. Actualmente, una organización como los Tupamaros de Uruguay AM: En los últimos años, el gobierno germanooc- nos demuestra formas de lucha que pueden y deben cidental ha venido redoblando sus esfuerzos por aplicarse directamente en Europa. desempeñar un papel, desde luego que integrado a Y no olvidemos que el concepto del Tercer Mundo, la estrategia global del imperalismo, en el socavam- aunque se base en hechos socioeconómicos bastante iento cultural del Tercer Mundo, en la penetración, sólidos, resulta muy frágil desde el punto de vista neutralización y utilización de los grupos intelectuales. político y cultural. [...] [E]l continente latinoameri- En el caso concreto de la América Latina, nos encon- cano parece más accesible al entendimiento (limitado, tramos frente a la acción de organisaziones como el insuficiente) europeo. La Revolución Cubana, sobre Servicio de Ayuda al Desarrollo. La Fundación Konrad todo, constituye, para nosotros, un punto de enlace Adenauer... ¿Cómo ve un intelectual, un escritor de la histórico muy especial y determinante, ya que Cuba República Federal Alemana la actividad de esas organ- reúne, en su configuración política y social, carac- izaciones, y cómo se podría tipificar y contrarrestar su terísticas de los tres mundos a la vez. actividad? Pero yo no querría concluir esta conversación en una atmósfera de armonía y optimismo ilusorio. El hablar HME: Estas actividades de los gobiernos imperialistas mucho, en la Europa occidental, del Tercer Mundo, muestran claramente que las mismas tendencias que hasta ahora no se ha convertido (salvo en el caso se hallan dentro de los países industrialmente avan- de Viet Nam) en fuerza material capaz de mover zados, se reproducen a nivel internacional. [...] Los la historia. [...] La solidaridad ocn el Tercer Mundo esfuerzos del gobierno germanooccidental en este muchas veces es abstracta y retórica, y la posición campo corresponden, a mi parecer, a una división de los europeos frente a los sucesos revolucionarios internacional del trabajo “civilizador” imperialista. El en otros continentes sigue siendo, a menudo, una mundo subdesarrollado parece haber sido repartido especie de actitud de consumo. Pienso que incumbe en “zonas de influencia”. La RFA [República Federal a los intelectuales una labor incesante de autocrítica Alemana], por ejemplo, ha recibido regiones muy defi- y demistificación para acabar con la tertulia “revolu- nidas para ejercer su influencia, sobre todo en Asia, y cionaria”.” más específicamente en Irán y Paquistán. En cuanto a la América Latina, la política cultural alemana sirve como peón; los norteamericanos ocupan hoy como ayer la primera línea, pero en el caso de producirse 63 Bolívar Echeverría (Ecuador 1941 – Mexico 2010) Dorothee Weitbrecht E cuadorian philosopher Bolívar Echev- Rudi Dutschke in a class at the Institute for East Euro- erría was born in 1941. As a member of pean Studies at the Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin) an oppositional political group in Quito, and invited him and his friend Bernd Rabehl to the he organized readings of Jean-Paul AELA meetings. The working group on Latin America Sartre. In November of 1961, he went to Germany contributed to the Kursbuch by putting together a on a DAAD scholarship, where he surrounded himself selected list of theoretical revolutionary texts for Hans with Latin American expatriates and students. The Magnus Enzensberger. The August 1965 edition of Asociación Kursbuch then published texts by Frantz Fanon, the de Estudiantes Latinomericanos en Alemania Occidental (AELA), which Echeverría became Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes and Fidel Castro. chairman of, met regularly. In 1964, Echeverría met 64 Mexico City, August 8, 1969 Dear Rudi, In hopes of establishing contact with you, and through you with everyone else during this new period of preparation, I would like to take this opportunity to send you news and ask you a few practical questions: The group that I work with here experienced an internal “fight” over the span of a few months, after which the group distanced themselves from the movement’s leaders. We weren’t prepared for a complete split, which is often the result of such fights, which is why we, as the “defeated”, had to accept taking on “peripheral” duties that the new leadership gave us. Luckily enough, these include educational work, which is why we can continue to defend our point of view. This gives me the opportunity to dedicate myself once again to theoretical issues. In order to refresh my knowledge regarding strict theorectical questions, while earning some money for myself, I have accepted an assignment from Ediciones ERA to translate your article “Die Wiederspruche [sic] des Spätkapitalismus…” (which was published in the Cuban magazine Pensamiento Crítico) and unfortunately had a lot of mistakes. Therefore, I would like to ask you the following questions: 1. Would you like to make any changes or additions to your article? 2. Would you have anything against me adding subheadings throughout your long text? 3. Would you be okay with a translation of “Spätkapitalismus” (late capitalism) as “neocapitalismo” (there isn’t an exact Spanish equivalent) even though it change the meaning? I hope that you receive this letter and that it is the first step to long-term contact with you all. Please give my regards to Gretchen, I send you firm handshake with the same intention as our beginning. Bolívar Source: Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, RUD 153. 65 Klaus Meschkat (*Germany 1935) Dorothee Weitbrecht K laus Meschkat had a leading position meetings came to a partial exchange of the results in the SDS from the mid-1950s to the of their respective analyses. Furthermore, during his late 1960s. He was the chairman of the stays in Colombia and Chile, Meschkat was able to SDS group in 1955 at the FU Berlin, travel to Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, AstA chairman at the FU in 1957 and chairman of Venezuela and Mexico, laying the groundwork for the Verband Deutscher Studentenschaften (VDS) the establishment of a research network. After the from 1958 to 1958 and an SDS member with lead- coup d´état in Chile, Meschkat found himself jailed for ership duties beginning in 1954. He was one of the three weeks on a prison island and was only set free co-founders of the Republican Club and was a close after Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski intervened. Meschkat friend of Rudi Dutschke’s. As a research assistant, was one of the founders of the Chile Committee and Meschkat taught seminars in the context of the initiated the year book “Latin America – Analyses and program “Special training of Latin American candi- Reports.” After completing a stay as guest professor dates in the field of East Europe Studies and Soviet at the University of Concepción, Meschkat took Communism”, which was organized by the Insti- over a chair at the Institute for Social Sciences at the tute for East European Studies at the FU Berlin. The University in Hanover with a research focus on Latin program was sponsored by the US-American Ford America. He managed numerous research projects Foundation. in Latin America, often in cooperation with the local The idea was that the candidates were to return home universities. and take up influential positions in the respective governments, media, in the trade union sector or other public positions and help society combat communist influences and potential indoctrination. However, Meschkat and Dutschke were able to recruit the Latin American students to the SDS. Under the influence of the political potential of the Berlin internationalists, the Latin Americans went back home having received thorough schooling in the exact opposite ideological direction and left Germany with new insights and theses about the social-revolutionary potential of Latin America. One of the students then invited Meschkat to teach at the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia in 1969; then, from 1970 to 1972, he worked in Colombia and Chile with the support from the German Research Foundation. At the university in Medellín, where he taught Marxist theory, Klaus Meschkat quickly connected with different left-wing political groups, which was the same case later in Chile. Among other thing, Meschkat’s scientific field research led to a cooperation with the “Golconda Group” and the MIR, which at the time were involved in intense work in the slums and rural areas; he also met representatives of different left-wing parties and groups in Chile, such as MAPU, Allende’s Partido Socialista (PC) and the Christians for Socialism. These 68 Santiago de Chile, March 20, 1972 Dear Rudi, […] I have been in Chile now for almost three months. It was only supposed to be a short break from the work I am doing in Colombia, but it has turned out to be so important for me that I am wondering where it’s better for me to be right now: in a country where everything requires such incredibly tedious and arduous preparation and where it’s nearly impossible to really get involved in revolutionary praxis; or here, where these barriers just don’t exist and where a conjuncture is being used by the revolutionary left in order to keep the process from slipping into a reformist bog or from being liquidated by the counterrevolution, a place where one can collaborate and learn, even though they’re not Chilean. I have been able to gain access to praxis at the grassroots level through comrades I met in Berlin. I’ve seen factories and rural work, which are the stage for the biggest confrontations, and where the irreconcilable contradiction between the KP strategy (that upholds the objective capitalistic structures) and the MIR (which is supported by the rural proletariat) is most visible. Chile is very important, and not because they are being peaceful, but rather because it is a testing field for new left-wing fighting strategies, the development of which are decisive for the impending showdown with the counterrevolution. The MIR has been successful in going beyond its original basis (first the universities and later the slums) and has been able to develop frentes among the most exploited groups of the proletariat. The self-activity of the basis has found its adequate expression in the frentes: first there’s the “movement of the revolutionary farmers” in rural areas, at the heart of which the migrant workers and poor farmers are organized; they have been left out of the official agrarian reform. Then in the industry there’s the Frente de Trabajadores Revolucionarios that gained a foothold where the nationalization has least changed the working and living conditions and where the KP bureaucracy simply took over where the old management left off, in mining. […] The plans for these different groups are not developed by someone in a MIR office, they are developed at the grassroots level, which is conform with the development of class struggle and is the great strength of the MIR as opposed to traditional parties, regardless of the elitist tendencies at the heart of its organization. Zoltan and I are planning on outlining these new organizational approaches and the logic of the polarization of the KP […] and the MIR in our documentation, […] I think it would also be important for West Germany, besides the flood of apologetic tourists in Chile, to inform people about the true class struggle here. Like I said, there are comrades here that were in Germany during our boom years who continually ask about you and tell me how happy they would be if you were here as well. I know that you want to finish your work and that it would be a great feat for you to learn a new language, but I think you should at least think about the offer. I can’t give you any advice on this either way because I don’t know enough about your current situation. The University in Concepción, for example, would love to have you and you would have very limited teaching responsibilities, and that goes for Santiago, as well (I found the option of going to Concepción better). Our friends have asked me to write you in order to extend this offer. As long as I am here, let me know if you would even think about the possibility so that I can inform our comrades. I will be here for the next four weeks. If you were to come here, it would give me a reason to change my plans and come back sooner than I had planned, if you would like. I think that together we could learn a lot and maybe even be of some use here. […] Let me know what you think. Your letters will probably reach me without having been censored (paradoxically, in some respects, Chile is the only “free” country in the sense of a civil democracy as it no longer exists in Europe - but of course only in its current state of transformation). I think an intensive year of learning here would be the best preparation before going back, and on that note I ask of you to think about the suggestion our comrades have made. It is too bad that it will be a year before I return to Europe, there’s so much I want to talk to you about. Let’s at least not lose touch again. Give my regards to Gretchen, and you can be sure: venceremos! Yours, Klaus Source: Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, RUD 156. Further readings Ali, Tariq: Streetfighting Years. Autobiographie eines Lützeler, Paul Michael (ed.): Schriftsteller und „Dritte ‘68ers, Cologne 1998. Welt“. Studien zum postkolonialen Blick, Tübingen 1998. Dutschke, Rudi: Jeder hat sein Leben ganz zu leben. Die Tagebücher 1963–1979, Gretchen Dutschke Nirumand, Bahman: Weit entfernt von dem Ort, an (ed.), Cologne 2003. dem ich sein müsste. Autobiographie, Reinbek 2011. Slobodian, Quinn: Foreign Front. Third World Politics Gandler, Stefan: Peripherer Marxismus. Kritische in Sixties West Germany, Durham / London 2012. Theorie in Mexiko, Berlin / Hamburg 1999. 69 1.2 LATIN AMERICA Deodoro Roca (Argentina 1890-1942) Facundo Bey C órdoba, the first Argentine university, founded in 1613 by the Jesuits, is where the Argentine University Reform began in 1918 and Deodoro Roca (1890-1942), lawyer, experienced student leader and heretical reader of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Karl Marx (1818-1883), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Lev Trotsky (1879-1940), was its driving force (Pittelli, Hermo: 2010, 150). Although the 1918 Reform was a student Reform, before the first acts of repression by the police and the army, the students had found the support of the workers in the streets. In general terms, the outbreak was philosophically and politically characterized by vehement anti-clerical secularism that was in turn accompanied by a humanist and democratic creed that was equally Source: Roca, Deodoro: El difícil tiempo nuevo, Buenos Aires 1956. opposed to feudal aristocratism, the conservatism of the political elites, Darwinian-biological positivism, petty bourgeois conformism, the bureaucratization in Córdoba. Taborda travelled to La Plata in 1920 to of the university as a “factory of diplomas” and the assume the Rectorate of the National School, which mercantilist culture of capitalism. The professional was a part of the National University of La Plata. He model of the university was also questioned, which left his mark there by initiating several educational was perceived by Roca as a mutilation of man. reforms with the intention of extending the reformist Many of these claims were later adopted by and principles, which at the time were required for higher adapted to the different reformist movements in education, to secondary education. Among other both Argentina and the rest of Latin America. The measures, he closed the boarding school and intro- main constellation of philosophers that went on to duced the so-called Student House, where the artistic influence the “diagnosis” of the era and the meta- avant-garde, teachers and students could interact, physical program of Córdoba’s reformists were (apart substituting the Anglo-Saxon paradigm with a from those already mentioned above): William James “spiritual home of open doors” more in line with the (1842-1910), Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), Paul tradition of Spanish universities (Taborda 1921: 126). Natorp (1854-1924), Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), In addition, the Student House had other important and Henri Bergson (1859-1941). functions: it served as the headquarters of University Saúl Taborda (1885-1944) was another one of the Federation of Students (FUA, Federación Universitaria great protagonists of the Reform in Córdoba and a Argentina), as a university museum to preserve the pedagogue who was greatly influenced by Rickert, historical memory of the Reform, and as a meeting Natorp, Georg Simmel (1858-1918), Wilhelm Dilthey place to approach and join the labor movement. (1833-1911), and Georg Kerschensteiner (1854- His direction of the school was oriented by the attrac- 1932), who was a fellow protagonist of the Reform tion to aesthetic education, the replacement of some 70 professors with those who were affiliated with the University Reform Movement and the pursuit of student participation in institutional matters of all kinds. The Rectorate of the National University of La Plata quickly voiced its resistance to these proposals and began a campaign of attacks against the pedagogue and his supporters. What followed was the closure of the National School, judicial and police intervention and, finally, the expulsion of Taborda in 1921. Alejandro Korn (Argentina 1860-1936) Facundo Bey T he National University of La Plata, (university outreach program) was already a reality, founded in 1905, was a modern for example, many reformists considered it to be like university in comparison to that of crumbs thrown at the poor, instead of constituting Córdoba by 1918. In fact, it had two reciprocal and dynamic movements: a univer- provided the model that the national government sity movement for the proletariat and another of the tried to implement in Córdoba in the first stage of proletariat supporting student causes. Such a cultural the Reform process, a model that was later rejected atmosphere in La Plata allowed for the genesis of an by the victorious students. Joaquín V. González even more radicalized critical consciousness. Although (1863-1923), its founder and first rector, organized González had hoped that the progress of the nation the government of the University of La Plata through would have come under the guidance of science the permanent renewal of the members of the High before the eyes of the reformist generation, the offi- Council and the Academic Council. This context cial discourse was nothing more than an aseptic and would help set a different course for the Reform in formal rhetoric, empty words disconnected from the La Plata. First of all, La Plata had a more scientific real social issues. than professional model, the latter identified with the Lastly, in La Plata, although the main claims of the University of Buenos Aires. González’ vision of the student movement were the same as in Córdoba, university was that of an integral formation, including the intellectual and philosophical debates were very ethical values and principles. The ultimate aim was to diverse. Unlike in Córdoba, where the Reformist move- foster the humanistic spirit in the university in order ment was basically anti-scholastic, in La Plata, where to overcome the fragmentation of higher education, clericalism was nearly non-existent, Reformism devel- whose harmful effects led to technification, which had oped as a reaction to nineteenth-century positivism. disintegrating effects on social life and the person- This anti-positivist reaction was led by Alejandro Korn ality of man. However, González and his successor, (1860-1936), a professor and Bergsonian philosopher, Rodolfo Rivarola (1857-1942), were reluctant to allow who was a fundamental reference for the student students to intervene in the election of university movement although he was 60 years old at the time. authorities or set up a regime of free attendance to In fact, he was the first university representative in theoretical classes. Although the university extensión Latin America to be elected officially by students. The 71 Platense anti-positivism implied a return to the study of the humanities, philosophy and the arts. The other leader of the Platense Reform was the socialist Julio V. González (1899-1955), son of the ex-rector. In 1918, he participated in Córdoba as a representative of the University Federation of Students of La Plata (FULP, Federación Universitaria de La Plata). He was secretary of the first National Congress of Students that established the doctrinal bases of the Reform. Source: Archivo General de la Nación Argentina. Carlos Cossio (Argentina 1903-1987) Facundo Bey T he University of Buenos Aires’ scenario Carlos Cossio (1903-1987), later a relevant jurist and was much more similar to that of La phenomenologist of law, wrote his doctoral thesis Plata than to that of Córdoba. Inspired on “The University Reform or the Problem of the by La Plata’s early reforms, between New Generation”, published in 1927. In his texts 1906 and 1908, Buenos Aires adopted a regime of he clearly synthesized the question that ignited the elective government without student participation. Reform, which was informed by different stages of In those years, the first student centers and the the theoretically and historically available answers: University Federation of Students were founded. In what would the faculty teach that it doesn’t already philosophical terms, positivism was the dominant in order to develop culture instead of merely tech- philosophical current and one of its main propo- niques? Cossio understood that there were different nents was the socialist José Ingenieros (1877-1925), answers to this question and different positions an outstanding interpreter of August Comte (1798- that had been represented throughout the Reform 1857) and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). process, which served as rehearsal stages during the 72 development of the moral idea that regulated the new social function of the university. He referred to the protagonists’ continuous questioning of the social role of the process by calling it “the history of the theoretical conscience of the Reform regarding the limits of its social function” (1930: 22). Taking Ingenieros as his starting point, Cossio would make an important distinction between the exclaustration of culture, that is to say, the propagation of teaching to the popular social classes, on one hand, and, on the other hand, the socialization of the culture, namely, its fruition “by the content of the teaching itself”, oriented towards society and humanity, that is, “to the permanent problems of the community, eager to capture the eternal concerns of humanity, of which all society takes part” (1930: 14). In this sense, for Cossio philosophical education appears to be “a Source: Periódico La Gaceta de Tucumán, archivo, 1949. concrete solution that, in the light of contemporary thought, dislodges other possible developments of the cultural approach -such as scientism and classicism or humanism in the historical sense” (1930: 22), considering that “being philosophy the reflection on the totality of the human culture, it finds in itself the whole cultural content […], adding a synthetic valuation of the culture in which philosophy comes in last place, within any educational system, regarding the disciplines that instruct the partial elements of that culture” (1930: 22). For Cossio, the University Reform set up what he called “the integral culture”, that is to say the awakening of the ethical and aesthetic sensibility, the meeting of man outside the cloister, with life as an ideal factor. Through a Kantian reading of Reform, Cossio understood that all ethics and aesthetics had to be idealistic in the face of the instrumentalism of scientific, economic, and political positivism and, therefore, it was necessary to found not only the university anew, but also the entire nation on the basis of idealism. 73 1918's Reform Figures' Movement among the three major Universities in Argentina in the 20th century Facundo Bey Further readings el gobierno de las universidades públicas en América Latina. Análisis comparado de cinco universidades”, in: Ciencia Política 6 (2011), pp. 6-40. Bermann, Gregorio: Juventudes de América, Buenos Aires 1946. Ciria, Alberto / Sanguinetti, Horacio: La reforma universitaria, Buenos Aires 1987. Pittelli, Cecilia / Hermo, Javier Pablo: “La reforma universitaria de Córdoba (Argentina) de 1918. Su influencia en el origen de un renovado pensamiento emancipatorio en América latina”, in: Historia de la Educación: Revista interuniversitaria 29 (2010), pp. 135-156. Cossio, Carlos: La Reforma universitaria. Desarrollo histórico de su idea, Buenos Aires 1930. Portantiero, Juan Carlos: Estudiantes y política en América Latina, México D. F. 1978. Cúneo, Dardo (ed.): La reforma universitaria (19181930), Caracas 1978. Taborda, Saúl: “Casa del estudiante en La Plata”, in: Revista de Filosofía 7 (1921), pp.121-129. Del Mazo, Gabriel (ed.): La Reforma Universitaria (3 Vols.), Lima 1967-1968. Tünnermann Bernheim, Carlos: Noventa años de la Reforma Universitaria de Córdoba (1918-2008), Buenos Aires 2008. Buchbinder, Pablo: Historia de las Universidades Argentinas, Buenos Aires 2005. Múnera Ruiz, Leopoldo: “La Reforma de Córdoba y 74 Julio A. Mella (Cuba 1903-Mexico 1929) Christine Hatzky J ulio A. Mella started his political career in in the Latin American university reform one of the founders of movement. This movement began in the Universidad Popular 1918 in the Argentinian city of Córdoba José Martí (José Martí 1922. He became and spread from there all over the continent, reaching Popular Cuba by the end of 1922 and leading to massive 1923 and a co-founder student protests. The Cuban students denounced of the Cuban communist the corrupt intrigues of the university administra- Party. His political activity tion and some professors, and demanded the right against the Cuban presi- to education for all, the autonomy and democratiza- dent Gerardo Machado tion of the university, which implied representation of Source: http://www.granma. cubasi.cu/2008/01/10/nacional/ artic04.html (Accessed: 21/01/2019). the students, as well as the professionalization and modernization of academic teaching and research. The Cuban students quickly considered themselves University) in forced him into Mexican exile in 1926, following a short period of imprisonment. In January 1929, part of the Latin American university reform move- alongside his comrade and lover, photographer Tina ment. The law student Mella, establishing himself as Modotti, he was assassinated in Mexico City under one of the leaders of the movement, was elected as circumstances that have yet to be explained. chairman of the Federación de Estudiantes de Cuba (Federation of Cuban Students), which was founded Student Federation and Student Committee of the University of Sonora (Mexico 1978) Daniel Ceceña T he student protests in the Mexican political ideas. state of Sonora stretched from the The FEUS was created in the early stages of the spring of 1967 to the summer of 1991, UNISON (University of Sonora) as an organism in ranging across several cities and towns, charge of developing future political figures in the comprising a variety of aims and demands and Mexican state party, PRI (Institutional Revolutionary showing a wide range of common protest forms. Party). After the first protest in 1967, the FEUS broke During the long period of student protests at the with the elites and new leaders began to shift the University of Sonora, the main actors consisted of FEUS to the left. During the 1970s, the organization leftist members of the FEUS (Student Federation of was the place for students to discuss new political the University of Sonora) and later the CEUS (Student ideas. It was also the first institution that was democ- Committee of the University of Sonora), but there ratized and had no hierarchy. In the early 1990s, the were also some young professors, workers’ unions institution renamed itself CEUS, but it was short-lived. and some civil society actors who shared the students’ After the imposition of a new university law by the 75 Source: Joel Alfonso Verdugo private archive. state, all the political power the students had held, Castellanos Moreno, Miguel Ángel: Historia de la was gone, and with it the CEUS. Universidad de Sonora. En una época de crisis, Tomo At the beginning of the social protest in 1967, the III, Hermosillo 2007. conservative students were caught off guard, they did not play an important role until the mid-1970s, when Favela García, Margarita: “Cambios en el sistema they were grouped together under a fascist type of político y en la protesta social en México, 1946-2000: organization called Movement of Christian Integra- interacción entre instituciones y acción social” in: tion (better known as MICOS). They had a strong rela- Estudios Sociológicos 23 (2005), pp. 535-559. tionship with the university’s authorities, the government and the press. Usually all of the violent actions Loaeza, Soledad: “México 1968: los orígenes de la this group initiated were overlooked by the police and transición”, in: Foro Internacional 30 1989, pp. 66-92. other authorities. In the early 1980s, their popularity peaked, creating mayhem among the students. After Moncada Ochoa, Carlos: Historia General de la Univer- an activist was assassinated, this group eventually sidad de Sonora (Tomos I,II, III,IV Y V), Hermosillo dissolved and was absorbed by elite groups, media 2009. outlets and political groups. Verdugo, Joel: Una reflexión socio-histórica de los movimientos estudiantiles en la Universidad de Sonora (1967-1992), a partir de la imagen fotográfica y el testimonio oral, Hermosillo 1999. Further readings Allier Montaño, Eugenia: “Presentes - Pasados del 68 Mexicano. Una historización de las memorias públicas del movimiento estudiantil, 1968 – 2007”, in: Revista Mexicana de Sociología 71 (2009), pp. 287-317. 76 1.3 SOUTH ASIA Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (India 1891-1956) Sumeet Mhaskar and Prabodhan Pol S iddharth College is one of the several founded. Political debates featured prominently in the educational by functioning of the student parliaments, which were Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. Ambedkar institutions founded elected student bodies. These student parliaments was India’s foremost civil rights leader, were supposed to train future politicians. In July 1956, an ardent proponent of women’s rights and the chief Ambedkar had started a training institute in Mumbai, architect of independent India’s constitution. Under which was supposed to provide political training to his leadership, the anti-caste movement took a radical the future political leaders from the marginalized turn and was successful in obtaining rights for the communities. The educational institutions established untouchables, tribals and other socially and econom- by Ambedkar and his colleagues crucially helped in ically marginalized population. Ambedkar’s interven- creating a vibrant politicized student community in tions in the political arena resulted in a widespread western India. Consequently, these sites became the churning in the Indian politics. Ambedkar believed center for the next-generation’s anti-caste politics. It that students should have knowledge of the national were these educational spaces, which played a crucial and international politics, which would eventually role in the formation of the Dalit Panther’s movement help in making them a better citizen. He famously in the early 1970s. stated that ‘schools are workshops to prepare the Ambedkar continues to remain a source of inspira- best citizens’ and motivated Dalits to ‘educate, tion for the anti-caste politics as well as the for the agitate and organize.’ In a society, where women of Dalit feminist movement throughout the South Asian all castes and Shudra (serving castes) and Ati-Shudra sub-continent. During the last two decades, the (untouchable castes) men were historically excluded growth in the number of students from the socially and even prohibited from literary education, Ambed- marginalized castes into the university campuses kar’s intervention, like his predecessors Savitribai and Jotirao Phule, for democratizing the access to knowledge has had a long lasting impact. Although, the initial phase of Ambedkar led anti-caste movement inspired several student-led forums such as the Bahishkrut Vidyarthi Sammelan (Outcasts Students’ Conference) during the 1920s, it did not witness the formation of a formal student organization. It was only in the 1940s and 1950s that we witness the formation of anti-caste students’ organizations. Ambedkar was also instrumental in establishing “student parliaments” in the educational institutions he had Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dr._Ambedkar_addressing_to_students_of_ Siddharth_College,_Mumbai_during_the_inauguration_of_%27Students_Parliament%27_ on_25_September_1947.jpg (Accessed: 24/01/2019). 77 have brought anti-caste politics to the mainstream. Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) of the Hyderabad Central University came to the limelight following the suicide by ASA leader Rohith Vemula in 2016. Recent years have also witnessed the formation of anti-caste student organization such as BAPSA (Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association) in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi. JNU was historically known as a bastion of Left student politics dominated. BAPSA’s has forcefully raised the issue of caste-based discrimination faced by the students from socially marginalized groups, which were earlier ignored by the Left and progressive students’ organizations. The picture shows Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar addressing the students of the Siddharth College in Mumbai during the inauguration of the students’ parliament on the 25th of September 1947. 1.4 AFRICA Steve Biko (South Africa 1946-1977) excerpted from: https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-biko (Accessed: 24/01/2019). S tephen (Steve) Bantu Biko was a popular Biko and his peers were responding to developments voice of Black liberation in South Africa that emerged in the high phase of Apartheid, when between the mid-1960s and his death the Nationalist Party (NP), in power for almost two in police detention in 1977. This was the decades, was restructuring the country to conform period in which both the African National Congress to its policies of separate development. The NP went (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) had about untangling what little pockets of integration been officially banned and the disenfranchised Black and proximity there were between White, Black, population (especially the youth) were highly recep- Colored and Indian people by creating new residen- tive to the prospect of a new organization that could tial areas, new parallel institutions such as schools, carry their grievances against the Apartheid state. universities and administrative bodies, and indeed, Thus it was that Biko’s Black Consciousness Move- new ‘countries’, the tribal homelands. ment (BCM) came to prominence and although Biko Though Biko was killed before his thirty first birthday, was not its only leader, he was its most recognizable his influence on South Africa was, and continues to figure. It was Biko, along with others who guided be profound. Aside from the BCM, he is also credited the movement of student discontent into a political with launching the South African Students Organisa- force unprecedented in the history of South Africa. tion (SASO), which was created as a Black alternative 78 to the liberal National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). It is necessary to disambiguate this move, as Biko is frequently misunderstood to have been ”antiWhite.” This categorization is demonstrably untrue, as Biko had no issue with White people per se - his target was always, ultimately white supremacy and the Apartheid government. The decision to break away from NUSAS and the formation of the BCM was rather to create distance from liberal sympathizers who could attempt to speak for their Black counterparts but were nonetheless, by virtue of their race, beneficiaries of an iniquitous system. Biko is best remembered for empowering Black voices, installing a sense of Black pride similar to Césaire and Senghor’s “Negritude”, and for taking the liberation struggle forward and galvanizing the youth movement. Source: http://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/sasep70.pdf (Acessed: 24/01/2019). Interview with Nombuso Mathibela, 2017, who was involved in the 2015/16 Student Movement in South Africa Protest, Racism and Gender in South Africa R OAPE speaks to Nombuso Mathibela landlocked city in the province of Gauteng. When the about student protests, institutional time came for me to go to university, the first choice racism and gender in South Africa. was to get out of Johannesburg and I than decided to Mathibela was involved in the student move to Cape Town in the Western Cape. movement in South Africa in 2015-16 and is Fellow at the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education working Having lived in three historically and culturally different on expanding political education to assist social move- cities that equally have a distinct history of struggle – I ments in their struggles. began to understand the manifestations of colonial and apartheid rule to play out quite differently. So, in Durban the tensions between the Indian commu- Can you tell roape.net a little about yourself, where nities (most came to South Africa as indentured labor you grew up, your involvement in the student strug- and some as merchants) and Zulu communities were gles in South Africa in recent years? quite rife at a historical and interpersonal level – old wounds of internal division as a result of colonial I grew up in Durban, a coastal city in eastern South wars and apartheid, built up a lot of stereotypes and Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, I lived there for prejudices within these communities. But at the same about 13 years and then moved to Johannesburg a time, I saw a lot of solidarity, cultural co-creation 83 amongst these groups of people specifically within to the student movement, the people I met in this the working-class communities. This solidarity took space and the political formations that were made form through trading in the food markets as one on the basis of collective recognition that there is example– in fact you could find many working class something wrong with the University of Cape Town Indian people speaking isiZulu or dialects – in many (UCT), with the city and quite frankly South Africa as ways also defying the spatial separation between Zulu a whole. people in the ‘townships’ ‘informal living spaces’ and Indian people who were located in ‘Indian townships’ This collective recognition, from my understanding areas such Phoenix and Chatsworth. I grew up eating was the key catalyst in the formation of what then mostly Indian foods and Zulu traditional meals and became the MustFall Movement(s). People were no most of the people I grew up with came from these longer suffering in silos or agitating against power at communities – the tensions were there but some sort an interpersonal level but there was a recognition that of understanding too. the crisis in legal education for instance is a broader crisis of pedagogy and an institutional culture that Living in Durban shaped my understanding of race, the exists across South Africa. It doesn’t only concern the dynamics that exist within middle and working-class realities of knowledge production of the historically communities, and I also got to witness the legacy of dispossessed and oppressed. apartheid, specifically how it highlighted, exaggerated tribal and ethnic difference to the demise of So, I suppose I was one of those students who felt they oppressed people. This, then contextualized my expe- did not belong in the university and the struggles of rience of Cape Town, a city that reeks of dispossession other black students were quite personal. My involve- and hectic spatial inequality of racial and class lines. ment in the student movement sort of came from In some ways the relationship between ‘black’ and that place – a place of needing to deal with historical ‘colored’ people reminded me of my experiences in injustice, current manifestations of anti-blackness – Durban and helped me adjust to the political climate be it the curriculum, the financial exclusion of black that I found in the city. My early years of university students, the exploitation of outsourced workers and were quite politically different, the traditional struc- the patriarchal nature of the university. tural formation of party-aligned student organizations dominated quite clearly i.e. SASCO, PASMA Like many black student activists at UCT during the and DASO, which are student organizations that are time of #RhodesMustFall (RMF), I was involved in aligned and affiliated to the ruling party the ANC and supporting the struggles of the movement right its opposition parties. Student protests in South Africa through to the formation of the #feesmustfall and were already taking place way before the MustFall #endoutsourcing movements. Most of my involve- movement(s) in 2015, through party aligned organi- ment subsequently moved towards a law faculty zation and other student formations were also rallying based movement that students had formed called under Black Consciousness and Black feminism. But DecoloniseUCTLaw, which came out of the need to my critical involvement at a collective organized level, branch out; RMF couldn’t deal with all the demands came into being in 2015 when students formed the and some could be achieved at a faculty level. Hence, RhodeMustFall movement. we saw the formation of other faculty-based movements although not all explicitly RMF aligned. Can you discuss how you became involved in the The initial outburst of the ‘fallist’ movement was protests in South Africa, what were the major issues unfortunately understood as primarily an obsession to and how did these develop? remove the statue of a European settler and colonizer Cecil John Rhodes, situated at UCT overlooking the My experiences in Cape Town were largely shaped by city. But as many people have clarified, the demands my outsider status as someone who came to study were much broader, and the statue was simply a at one of the whitest universities on the continent. symbolic catalyst for us to talk about historical justice, It took a while to actually understand Cape Town the eurocentricity of curriculum, the racist and alien- outside of the university and part of this I am indebted ating institutional culture, the mentally destructive 84 space of UCT, the financial exclusion of black students ment became much stronger through this coalition. and exploitation of workers with undignified wages. With the uprising of students around South African Students and workers realized that their temporary universities the demands began to take a national power was in their combined numbers and their front were the main demands basically centered ability to stop the functioning of the university – so around free education and the end to outsourcing. there were many attempts to build this coalition These were two issues that all campus could rally though it was harder in some campuses because of behind and in fact many people saw the reformation stifling trade union involvement, the levels of secu- of the student-worker coalition as an important step ritization from the side of the university and the state towards contesting the current democratic dispen- became unbearable. Unfortunately, at a collective sation – moving the issues outside of our individual national level there was no consolidated national campuses and putting forward these two issues as a programme. Therefore, in most cases insourcing of national crisis. workers was partially won in some campuses, and in some of those campuses this victory came with a lot of punishment – through the retrenchment of many To start with in 2015, the protest wave at South workers to ‘compensate’ for the so-called ‘end to African universities raised questions of student fee outsourcing.’ At the moment we still have workers increments, but rapidly seemed to develop into a who have been dismissed at the University of Stel- more generalised movement that targeted the nature lenbosh, University of Western Cape, Cape Peninsula of the 1994 settlement. Reflecting on your direct University of Technology and other universities across involvement in these struggles how would you chart the country are having difficulties with insourcing. the rapid growth of the movement in 2015 and afterwards? As the movement grew, and drew in wider layers The movement(s) move towards critiquing the 1994 of students, lecturers and workers, other issues settlement began long before the RhodesMustFall were raised. These included questions of continued movement or the subsequent FeesMustFall move- ‘colonial’ control of the university curriculum, the ment(s), many of the student groups and political continued public symbols of the previous racist state blocs that came to form these movements were and the failure of real and lasting transformation for already calling the 1994 settlement into ques- the majority of black South Africans. What today tion. In fact, these groups infused this critique into are the major issues confronting the movement and the 2015 movements and the response was quite students? organic because their articulations aligned with the sentiments that students held with regards to the When RhodesMustFall formed, the movement took current state of South Africa. The radical call for free on a flat structure and it was known as a ‘leaderless’ education from some groups instead of ‘no fee incre- movement, which is complicated in itself because ment’ was in fact a response to the 1994 settlement ultimately there were people who formed some sort – because some of us saw this demand as a way of of leadership structure invisible or not. So, when the restructuring the nature education and its institutions FeesMustFall movements formed they sort of took on as a whole. That said, I think the rapid growth was this structure but in some campuses there was a more largely due to the formation of the student worker defined leadership structure – some political party coalition. The involvement of workers totally changed affiliated and in many ways this became one of the the dynamics of protest intervention and strikes, major issues confronting the movement. There’s no before then students were protesting alone; because consolidated national student movement but simply of the precarious nature of workers’ jobs most of the pockets of students organizing under FeesMustFall. time the strategy revolved around students having The movement has no membership, students move to shut down campus and dining halls on their own in and out of it, there is no organizational structure – through that intervention workers would then be and because of the political and personal differences ‘released’. We all know that these universities cannot it has become increasingly difficult to hold national function without workers so the FeesMustFall move- or even regional meetings to chart a way forward or 85 a programme of how students are going to build a and the university is merely a reflection of very real mass movement for free education, get the buy-in of national crisis. parents, civil organizations, workers etc. The power dynamics internally have become one of the stifling Thinking back on the #RhodesMustFall era, a slogan blocs for the student movement. This is merely one that went around ‘Dear history/ this revolution has aspect that has really troubled quite a few of us women, gays, queers & trans people – remember because it has made it quite difficult to assist students that’ – I think students were invoking the theory of – so a lot of people are sort of picking areas were intersectionality, that as black bodies we also exist in they think they can assist in corners but there is not different spaces and hold other identities that are the a consolidated voice that I am aware of even though cause of experiencing violence. There were attempts there are many people working in the background in at the time to center these voices and for quite some many campuses. time there was a power shift and quite a solid base of black queer women and trans people exercising power within the movement – however short lived. How have issues of sexism within wider society and What intersectionality did was allow ‘functional inside the movement played out during this period discomfort’ within the movement and make room for of activism? people to contest the direction of the movement – its strategies and tactics and the nature of demands Patriarchy and deep manifestations of sexism broke that were being put forward above others. I don’t down FeesMustFall’s momentum, in as much as think #RhodesMustFall or subsequently FeesMustFall movements like RhodesMustFall initially took up inter- succeeded in dealing with patriarchy and its mani- sectionality as an organising theory, the persistence of festations nor is this surprising because these move- specific hyper masculinities made it quite difficult for ments are a manifestation and a reflection of society bodies existing outside of those masculinities to find as it is, but some hard lessons came out of this expe- expression. Many black womxn found it really diffi- rience for many people about organizing. cult to organize within these movements but perhaps the groups that found it most difficult were the queer community and non-binary bodies. Many people felt What, would you say – and in your experience – that the space was extremely patriarchal and that it are the main challenges for the development of a centered the voices and expressions of male figures. progressive, non-sexist politics in South Africa? The division of labor within the movement was quite contested, who does what – when it came to I think the answer is both simple and complicated but speaking out in plenary session (meeting), who are for me – a politics that seeks to destroy gender as an the dominant voices, when students are in the middle oppressive organizing principle is the aspiration under of action who are the people on the ground leading different circumstances. It’s quite true that many men the programme of action, who writes statements are among the stifling factor in the quest to build a and sits in meetings with management, and who non-sexist politics because the current politics is prem- can publicly speak about the movement – all of this ised on the domination of specific gendered bodies at was contested. And remains contested. That said, the the level of politics. The levels at which black women worst aspects that made it very difficult to organize and non-binary people experience violence has neces- is the insidious culture of sexual violence within the sitated a politics that centers gender and queer theory student movement, this was a problem throughout and practice simply because the culture of marginali- the country; students at a university currently known zation is so rife. South Africa’s history of struggle is as Rhodes (UCKAR), black women and non-binary loaded with similar issues of patriarchy, sexism and people came out in full force launching a protest sexual violence – the collective sidelining of black campaign called the #Rureferencelist, which literally women and non-binary people is not a new phenom- revealed the rot of our university space and move- enon nor is it particular to South African history. ments. All of this is happening in country that has one of the most debilitating statistics of gender-based That is part of the challenge, that patriarchy and violence, so what is happening in our movements manifestations of sexist behavior have been able to 86 mutate at different levels of struggle – the scary part is that many people want to particularize these challenges to current movements and not look outside – that in itself is a challenge. This is a big question and I think people need to come together and think about these challenges , because of the nature of capitalism and colonialism it is that working class and black people in particular are impacted by different forms of oppression in a more accute way. These groups must be at the forefront of determining what way we move forward – in a sense that is a prerequisite and its something that cannot be solved by one person, it will have to be solved by a movement. Source: http://roape.net/2017/11/09/protest-racism-gender-speaking-nombuso-mathibela/ (Accessed: 24/01/2019). Further readings Becker, Heike: “South Africa’s May 1968: Decolonising Institutions and Minds”, in: Review of African Political Economy (2016). URL: http://roape. net/2016/02/17/south-africas-may-1968-decolonising-institutions-and-minds/ (accessed: 05.01.2018). Biko, Steve: I write what I like: Selected Writings by Steve Biko, London 1987. Booysen, Susan (ed.): Fees Must Fall: Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, Johannesburg 2016. Brown, Julian: The Road to Soweto: Resistance and the Uprising of 16 June 1976, London 2016. Heffernan, Anne / Nieftagodien, Noor (eds.): Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto ’76, Johannesburg 2016. Nyamnjoh, Francis B.: #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa, Bamenda 2016. Zeilig, Leo: Revolt and Protest: Student Politics and Activism in Sub-Saharan Africa, London 2007. 87 2. ACADEMIC GOALS 2.1 EUROPE Occupation of the Rector’s Office at the University of Cologne (Germany 1968) Katharina Wonnemann T he protests and activities at the Univer- During the summer semester of 1969, the students sity of Cologne dealt mostly with the of the University of Cologne were preoccupied with predominant rigid structures, and the introduction of planned higher education legisla- the students demanded more rights tion in North Rhine-Westphalia, which laid down the to participate in the university’s organisation (Bartz inner organisation of universities and the participa- 2000). The biggest sit-in took place in February 1968. tion of the different bodies by law. It was rejected by About 2,500 students discussed their fair representa- both leftist and conservative university groups. They tion in the academic senate and demanded the right criticized the lack of both student rights to participate to more participation, for example, in the nomina- and the missing democratization of universities. Fach- tions of lecturers and rectors. Activities and protests schaften (student associations from the departments) in Cologne increased during the summer semester of and student basic groups organized lecture boycotts 1968 and the appointments to high-ranking positions to strengthen their demands. In June 1969, after a in the university administration were made without student vote, even the conservative KSU-AStA called formal ceremonies. Thus, Heinz Hübner, who became upon the students to strike for two days. They wanted rector at that time, was sworn in rather privately to their boycott to be voluntary and it was authorized by avoid possible disruptions (Dohms 2008). rector Heinz Hübner (Bartz 1998). A first occupation of university rooms in Cologne Besides that, an anti-authoritarian wing developed happened in November 1968, as a group of about within the Cologne SDS which tried to politicize the fifty leftist students, primarily from the anti-authori- students through smaller activities and “happenings”. tarian wing of the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studen- Some of their activities were perceived as radical and tenbund (Socialist German Student League, SDS), they were met with resistance, even within the SDS occupied the rector’s office for one weekend. The itself. Thus, on June 7, 1969, they tried to prevent self-proclaimed Aktionskomitee Rektoratsbesetzung representatives of the conservative KSU-AStA from (action committee for the occupation of the rector’s voting for a new rector and there were violent inci- office) demanded the opening of all university meet- dents between both parties. The group soon earned ings to the public. This demand was elicited by a the nickname “linker Wanderzirkus” (leftist travelling November 23rd senate meeting that was moved to circus) (Bartz 2000). Their protests reached a critical an undisclosed location. 1,700 students approved of stage with the occupation of the AStA’s rooms. This the occupation at a closing teach-in on November 25, small group of students criticized the conservative but only with a narrow majority. The then chairman AStA’s course of action against the planned law on of the Allgemeiner Studierendenausschuss (General higher education for being too hesitant and they Students’ Committee, AStA), the conservative Thomas demanded more drastic measures (Dohms 2008). Koester (Kölner Studenten-Union, KSU), disapproved This is a further example showing that the imple- of the occupation as an “act of nonsense”. Although mentation of aims regarding higher education policy the aims of conservative and leftist student groups differed between the university groups and that the regarding higher education policy were very similar, KSU and the SDS have been established as opposing the implementation of their demands was divided sides (Bartz 1998). between reform and revolt (Bartz 1998). 88 KSU Kölner Studentenunion The meeting of the Senate on Saturday, which was important for the student body, was transfered on About the occupation of the Rectorate by the SDS Saturday morning by the Rector to a location kept secret “in order to prevent the intended distur- This afternoon at 17.00 in the Aula, the SDS will try bances”. to obtain surreptitiously your approval, by means of The participation of the two student representatives manipulative distortion of all facts, of an action of in this meeting proved to be highly important. They madness, the violent occupation of the Rectorate. agreed that On Saturday morning the doors of the Rectorat were Ÿ the constitution of the university will now be prepared by a new committee representated broken through with a hammer carried by a member equally by thirds (three parts) of the SDS Gothe. Subsequently, a group of about 30 Ÿ members of the SDS intruded into the rooms of the 357 applicants for the study of medicine, who Rector. otherwise would not have been accepted for the After this “heroic action”, on Saturday and Sunday admission exams, have now gained the life- the SDS members in the Rectorate made desperate important chance to achieve their aspired-to efforts to find reasons for their violent procedure and profession. means to achieve the solidarization of all Cologne Besides that, the new ASTA is catching up what the students. The SDS will not succeed in gaining this SDS-AStA had failed to do: for the next meeting of solidarization! the Senate, the petition for public availability is on The occupation of the Rectorate as a means of student the agenda. politics regarding the public availability of all Univer- Since it took over the office, the new AStA represents sity committees and the rules of order and discipline the interests of the students with success and persis- of the University was, at this particular moment, an tence. It is now up to every single Cologne student unuseful, improper and harmful act of brutishness what will happen at the University of Cologne in the staged by the Anti-reform movement of the SDS. future. The SDS performed this action, which runs against WHO APPROVES THE ACTIONS OF THE SDS THIS the interests of the students, AFTERNOON, STRENGTHENS THE ANTI-REFORM Ÿ in spite of the Rector having withdrawn the MOVEMENT OF THE SDS. penalty for tresspassing against five students last The last days have proved that the words of Günter Thursday Gaus, “Who is for the reform, has to be against the because of the intervention of the new AStA SDS”, are correct. in spite of the information given to all members Give a clear answer to the SDS and its behaviour this of the SP [student parliament] on Monday about afternoon. the assurance of the Rector that the reactionary VOTE FOR THE REFORM! Ÿ proposal for the university constitution by the Source: Archive of the University of Cologne, Zug. 457, no. 365. Senate committee will by no means be passed by the Senate Ÿ in spite of the omission of the former SDS-AStA chief Peterson, in accordance with the order of the student parliament, to introduce, in accordance with the regulations and within the specified time,a demand that all university comittees be made public. Despite this fact, Peterson and Lehndorff, who have already harmed the student body enough during the last half-year, have now impertinently helped to prepare the occupation of the Rectorate, [an act] which is hostile to the students, and thus [sought to] erase from memory their past conduct and their inability during their time in the ASTA. 90 Justification of the Occupation of the Rector’s Office (Cologne, Germany 1968) Katharina Wonnemann T Original Source in German: he crooked paths of the KSU! Die krummen Wege der KSU! The central argument of the KSU-AStA against the occupation of the Rectorate: Das zentrale Argument des KSU-AStA gegen die THE SDS-AStA presumably failed to put the petition Rektoratsbesetzung: for public availability on the agenda of the Senate Der SDS-AStA habe es im letzten Semester versäumt, according to the regulations. den Öffentlichkeitsantrag auf dem verfassungsmäßigen Weg in den Senat einzubringen. I. “The SDS-AStA never put forward a motion to the senate to open the self- II. I. Herstellung der Öffentlichkeit der public”. stverwaltungsgremien in den Senat einge (Little-Thomas on the question of whether bracht.“ he had broken the mug) (Klein-Thomas, auf die Frage, ob er den “I know of no mug”. Krug zerbrochen habe:) After Peterson picked out a copy of the „Ich weiß nichts von einem Krug.“ motion to the Senate from the papers of the III. „Der SDS-AStA hat nie einen Antrag auf administrative bodies of the university to the II. Selb Nachdem Peterson eine Kopie des Antrags AStA. an den Senat aus den Asta-Unterlagen “After putting the motion there was no herausgesucht hatte. more meeting of the Senate.” „Nach Einreichung des Antrags hat keine Litte-Thomas: “I never got a mug.” Senatssitzung mehr stattgefunden.“ After Peterson had proved that there had Klein-Thomas: „Ich habe nie einen Krug been, indeed, a meeting of the Senate: bekommen.“ “The motion has not been put according to III. Nachdem Peterson nachgewiesen hatte, time and formal requirements.” daß sehr wohl eine Senatssitzung Little-Thomas: “When I received the mug, it gefunden hat. was already broken.” „Der Antrag ist nicht frist- und statt formgerecht eingereicht worden.“ End of the crooked path of the KSU Klein-Thomas: „Als ich den Krug bekam, Responsible: “SDS-AStA” war er bereits zerbrochen.“ Ende des krummen Wegs der KSU Source: Archive of the University of Cologne, Zug. 457, no. Verantwortlich: „SDS-AStA“ 367. 91 Further readings Bartz, Olaf: “Konservative Studenten und die Studentenbewegung. Die ‘Kölner Studenten-Union’ (KSU)“, in: Westfälische Forschungen 48 (1998), pp. 241-256. Id.: „Mauerblümchen des Protests oder Hort pragmatischer Hochschulpolitik? Die Universität zu Köln und die Studentenbewegung von 1968“, in: Geschichte in Köln 47 (2000), pp. 107-119. Dohms, Peter: „Die Studentenbewegung an den traditionellen Hochschulen in Nordrhein-Westfalen“, in: Peter Dohms / Johann Paul (eds.), Die Studentenbewegung von 1968 in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Siegburg 2008 (Ortstermine. Historische Funde und Befunde aus der deutschen Provinz, Vol. 22). Frei, Norbert: 1968. Jugendrevolte und globaler Protest, Munich 2008. Goltz, Anna von der: „Eine Gegen-Generation von 1968? Politische Polarisierung und konservative Mobilisierung an westdeutschen Universitäten”, in: Massimiliano Livi et al. (eds.), Die 1970er Jahre – auch ein schwarzes Jahrzehnt? Politisierungs- und Mobilisierungsprozesse zwischen rechter Mitte und extremer Rechter in Italien und der Bundesrepublik 1967-1982, Bielefeld 2010. Hodenberg, Christina von: Das andere Achtundsechzig. Gesellschaftsgeschichte einer Revolte, Munich 2018. Holl, Kurt / Glunz, Claudia: „1968 am Rhein. Satisfaction und ruhender Verkehr”, 2nd edition, Cologne 2008, pp. 82-85. This is the companion volume of an exhibition, that was initiated 1998 by the contemporary witnesses Holl and Glunz, in cooperation with “KölnArchiv e.V.”. The editors quote here an article of the Kölner Stadtanzeiger of May 13, 1970. Leggewie, Claus: 50 Jahre ‘68. Köln und seine Protestgeschichte, Cologne 2018. 92 2.2 LATIN AMERICA The Argentine University Reform of 1918 Facundo Bey O n June 15th, 1918, the University the implementation of public lectures and parallel Reform broke out in Córdoba, the courses that would allow the students to choose adversaries of which were the conserv- among a variety of chairs; examining the contents ative groups and the power of the of the curricula in order to include modern scien- Jesuits at the University. During the tific material; developing linkages between student 1920s and 1930s, the Reform spread first across the politics and national politics, especially in relation to whole country and then throughout Latin America. It national social issues; organizing and expanding the had a number of immediate and well-known, novel university’s extensión politics, particularly the courses goals: achieving university autonomy, that is to say, offered to workers in order to develop fraternal bonds establishing the university’s right to choose its own with the proletariat; establishing tuition-free educa- government, professors and curriculum without the tion and defending open admission; finally, incorpo- intervention of the government or any other organiza- rating innovative teaching and learning methods (Del tion; the declaration and guarantee of secular higher Mazo 1967-8; Cúneo 1978; Portantiero 1978; Ciria education, free of Catholic dogmatism; establishing y Sanguinetti 1987; Buchbinder 2005; Tünnermann the participation of students, professors and gradu- Bernheim 2008). Through direct action, the Reform ates alike in the university government; allowing the achieved a real change in university legislation and possibility of optional classroom attendance; guaran- the organizational structure of higher education teeing the periodic rotation of the chairs and ending (Múnera Ruiz 2011). life tenures, which should be replaced by public The Reform as a movement, in general terms, sought teaching demonstrations in the selection process to define, by means of its main proponents, a new of new faculty members; preventing the reelection model of man, university and science and, therefore, of rectors and deans without an interim period; of politics. Although many times finding heterodox Source: Archivo General de la Nación Argentina. 93 affinities, the metaphysical renovation of the reform- Further readings ists was beyond the strict institutional structure of the political parties, trade unions and traditional Bermann, Gregorio: Juventudes de América, Buenos leaders, often maintaining the programmatic dogmas Aires 1946. of ideologies that were popular among students. In fact, among the reformists there were supporters Buchbinder, Pablo: Historia de las Universidades of socialism, anarchism, communism, radicalism, Argentinas, Buenos Aires 2005. liberalism and, even, Catholics and non-partisans (Bermann 1946). Ciria, Alberto / Sanguinetti, Horacio: La reforma If the University Reform did not come to develop a universitaria, Buenos Aires 1987. new order, at least a youth culture of unprecedented power was articulated not only at the local but also Cossio, Carlos: La Reforma universitaria. Desarrollo at the international level. The enthusiasm it generated histórico de su idea, Buenos Aires 1930. has been perceived as the second common enterprise of Latin American countries, after the cycle of their Cúneo, Dardo (ed.): La reforma universitaria (1918- political independence from the Spanish Empire. The 1930), Caracas 1978. echoes across the rest of the continent started with its immediate reception by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre Del Mazo, Gabriel (ed.): La Reforma Universitaria (3 (1895-1979) and in José Carlos Mariátegui’s (1894- Vols.), Lima 1967-1968. 1930) Peru, as well as in the Cuba of Julio Antonio Mella (1893-1929). The movement then expanded Múnera Ruiz, Leopoldo: “La Reforma de Córdoba y to Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Uruguay. After el gobierno de las universidades públicas en América 1930, a second wave arrived to Brasil, Paraguay, Latina. Análisis comparado de cinco universidades”, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela y Mexico (Portantiero in: Ciencia Política 6 (2011), pp. 6-40. 1978: 58). This perception of a common Latin American Pittelli, Cecilia / Hermo, Javier Pablo: “La reforma common endeavour was accentuated, especially universitaria de Córdoba (Argentina) de 1918. Su once the lighthouse of European humanism had been influencia en el origen de un renovado pensamiento turned off forever after the carnage of the First World emancipatorio en América latina”, in: Historia de la War, while the United States had demonstrated its Educación: Revista interuniversitaria 29 (2010), pp. thirst to conquer the American continent economi- 135-156. cally, culturally and militarily. In contrast, at the same time, the Mexican and Bolshevik revolution raised the Portantiero, Juan Carlos: Estudiantes y política en hope of a new and democratic era. In Argentina, this América Latina, México D.F. 1978. enthusiasm had a singular decline: these winds of renewal were met with an atmosphere full of demo- Taborda, Saúl: “Casa del estudiante en La Plata”, in: cratic passion. Only two years before the University Revista de Filosofía 7 (1921), pp.121-129. Reform there were free national elections for the first time and with them the middle classes, mostly Tünnermann Bernheim, Carlos: Noventa años de descendants of immigrants, felt their roles of polit- la Reforma Universitaria de Córdoba (1918-2008), ical protagonists, now represented by the brand-new Buenos Aires 2008. radical government that closed a cycle of decades of fraud and successive oligarchic governments, made up of an enlightened but undemocratic landowning bourgeoisie. 94 95 Liminal Manifesto. Córdoba‘s Youth to the Free Men of South America , Federation of University Students, Córdoba (Argentina 1918) Valeria Manzano T he First World War, the Mexican, and mutilated and grotesque, to serve the bureaucracy Russian Revolution created a climate […]. of political and social change that was taken up by the younger generations Our university system is anachronistic. It has been and led to a student revolt. It started founded on a sort of divine right: the divine right of in the Argentine city of Córdoba, seat of the oldest the university professors. The Federation of Univer- university of the country, founded in 1613. The sity Students in Córdoba stands to fight against this liminal manifesto, published in June 1918 by the regime and understands that, in doing so, lives could lawyer and student leader Deodoro Roca, demanded be lost. The Federation claims a democratic govern- the modernization of the university and self-admin- ment and argues that the university demos—which istration. It constituted the basis of the Argentine encompasses sovereignty and the right to self-gov- university reform, which the government of Hipólito ernment—belongs to the students. […] Authority in Yrigoyen (1916-1922, 1928-1930) adopted the same a home for students should be exercised not through year. Being explicitly directed at the “youth of South command, but through suggestion and love: through America”, the manifesto and its not only academic teaching. If there is not a spiritual link between the but also political demands quickly spread over the professor and the student, all teaching is hostile whole continent and influenced student movements and therefore sterile. [...] So we want to completely elsewhere. uproot from this university body the archaic and barbaric concept of Authority that, here, represents Men of a free republic, we have just broken the last mere tyranny and serves to protect the false dignity ties that, in the twentieth century, still bound us to and the false competence [of the professors]. the old royal and monastic rule […] Córdoba has been redeemed. Starting today, the country has one less […] The University Youth no longer is no longer embarrassment and greater freedom. The pains that asking. The University Youth is demanding representa- remain are the freedoms which we lack. We think we tion in the governing bodies of the university. The are not mistaken. The resonances of the heart warn University Youth is tired of tyrants. The University us: we are standing on the brink of a revolution, we Youth has experienced a revolution in conscious- are living an American hour. ness, which proves that it is capable of intervening in the government of its own house. The University […] The universities have so far been the secular Youth of Córdoba greets fellow students from all over refuge of the mediocre; a source of income for the America, and asks for their collaboration in the work ignorant; the secure hospitalization for the disabled; of freedom that has only just begun. and—what is worse—the place where all forms of bullying and insensitivity have found their home. The Source: Federación Universitaria de Córdoba: “Manifiesto universities have thus become mirrors of these deca- liminar”, in: Gaceta Universitaria (21.06.1918). dent societies that strive to deliver the sad spectacle of senile immobility. That is why Science passes by these houses of higher education in silence; or enters, 96 Original Source in Spanish: el derecho a exteriorizar ese pensamiento propio de los cuerpos universitarios por medio de sus representantes. Está cansada de soportar a los tiranos. Si ha Manifiesto Liminar, La Juventud Universitaria de Córdoba a los Hombres Libres de Sudamérica, 1918 sido capaz de realizar una revolución en las conciencias, no puede desconocérsele la capacidad de intervenir en el gobierno de su propia casa. La juventud universitaria de Córdoba, por intermedio de su Feder- Hombres de una república libre, acabamos de romper ación, saluda a los compañeros de la América toda y la última cadena que en pleno siglo XX nos ataba les incita a colaborar en la obra de libertad que inicia. a la antigua dominación monárquica y monástica […] Córdoba se redime. Desde hoy contamos para el país una vergüenza menos y una libertad más. Los dolores que nos quedan son las libertades que nos faltan. Creemos no equivocarnos, las resonancias del corazón nos lo advierten: estamos pisando sobre una revolución, estamos viviendo una hora americana. […] Las universidades han sido hasta aquí el refugio secular de los mediocres, la renta de los ignorantes, la hospitalización segura de los inválidos y -lo que es peor aún- el lugar en donde todas las formas de tiranizar y de insensibilizar hallaron la cátedra que las dictara. Las universidades han llegado a ser así el fiel reflejo de estas sociedades decadentes que se empeñan en ofrecer el triste espectáculo de una inmovilidad senil. Por eso es que la Ciencia, frente a estas casas mudas y cerradas, pasa silenciosa o entra mutilada y grotesca al servicio burocrático […] Nuestro régimen universitario – aún el más reciente – es anacrónico. Está fundado sobre una especie del derecho divino: el derecho divino del profesorado universitario. Se crea a sí mismo. En él nace y en él muere. Mantiene un alejamiento olímpico. La Federación Universitaria de Córdoba se alza para luchar contra este régimen y entiende que en ello le va la vida. Reclama un gobierno estrictamente democrático y sostiene que el demos universitario, la soberanía, el derecho a darse el gobierno propio radica principalmente en los estudiantes […] La autoridad en un hogar de estudiantes, no se ejercita mandando, sino sugiriendo y amando: Enseñando. Si no existe una vinculación espiritual entre el que enseña y el que aprende, toda enseñanza es hostil y de consiguiente infecunda […]. Por eso queremos arrancar de raíz en el organismo universitario el arcaico y bárbaro concepto de Autoridad que en estas Casas es un baluarte de absurda tiranía y sólo sirve para proteger criminalmente la falsa-dignidad y la falsa-competencia. […] La juventud ya no pide. Exige que se le reconozca 97 Declaration of Principles of the Student Federation of Cuba (1924) Christine Hatzky T he Latin American University Reform Latin America was the fruit of the University Reform Movement that had begun in the Movement, which cooperated with trade union activ- Argentinian city of Córdoba in 1918 ists and had an anarchist tradition. Another example and spread from there all over the is the González Prada Popular University, which was continent, reached Cuba by the end of founded in Peru by Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, one 1922 where it led to massive student protests. The of the leading activists of the continental student Cuban students denounced the corrupt intrigues of movement who later went on to found the Alianza the university administration and some professors, Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA, Revolu- and demanded the right to education for all, the tionary Popular Alliance of the Americas), a party that autonomy and democratization of the university, exists to this day. The popular universities were based which implied representation of the students, as on the principle of education for all, i.e., for people well as the professionalization and modernization of from all social classes. They had an emancipatory and academic teaching and research. The Cuban students revolutionary foundation that sought to empower quickly considered themselves part of the Latin Amer- people to liberate themselves from oppression and to ican University Reform Movement. The law student fight for a more just society. The goal was to create Julio Antonio Mella (see p. 75), establishing himself as “new men” and to establish a cultural counter-he- one of the leaders of the movement, was elected as gemony. Furthermore, the student teachers were chairman of the Federación de Estudiantes de Cuba expected to acknowledge their responsibility as privi- (Federation of Cuban Students), which was founded leged youth, passing on to marginalized social classes in 1922. the privilege of education that they had enjoyed. The following article published in the Cuban daily newspaper El Heraldo is a retrospective view of the Declaration of Principles Cuban University Reform Movement of the years between 1922 and 1924, written by Mella and one of The Student Federation has declared the following his closest allies, Leonardo Fernández Sánchez. After principles. the Cuban Student Congress at the end of 1923, a minority of radical students founded the Confeder- For the first time in Cuban history, all of its students ación de Estudiantes de Cuba (Cuban Confederation have joined together to fight for an improvement of of Students) with the aim of both promoting (further) class and the betterment of every person. university reform and asserting more far-reaching political demands – even at a Latin American level. The First Revolutionary Congress of Students dreamed Distancing himself from the U.S. governments’ of forming the Confederation of Students of Cuba, claim to hegemony over the American continent, which became fruitful reality through the enthusiasm the Cuban independence fighter and polymath José and idealism of a group of young people who have Martí (1853-1895) had defined Latin America as Our come to understand the necessities of education. America in one of his most famous writings in the late This new group has come to fight for the same princi- nineteenth century. The demands articulated here by ples as those of the movement of January 1922. Mella and Fernández Sánchez echoed Martí’s spirit. They were based on the experiences of the José Martí These principles were announced by the youth in Popular University, which they founded at the end Córdoba in 1918 and lead to the renewal of Argen- of 1923. The establishment of popular universities in tine universities through the only possible way, 98 through the sacred means of revolutionary upheaval. educated students be denied the same constitutional After illuminating the American continent, these prin- right to elect the government, which illiterate citizens ciples have spread in this country, encouraging the have. fight of a healthy and conscious youth. In the “social order”, the Confederation of Students Cuban students united in the first Congress declared of Cuba will work to raise the cultural level of the their solidarity with the activities of these university people, for it believes that it is only through cultural students and adopted the principles of the great proficiency that people can emancipate themselves. students of the cultured Argentine city and adapted Recognizing that new ideals are continuously born them to their own context. in the consciousness of the people, it proclaims its antipathy towards all principles supported by the ABSOLUTE INDEPENDENCE different political parties of Cuba. In accordance with the Declaration of Student Rights, ANTIPATHY TOWARDS POLITICAL PARTIES in the “educational order” the Confederation of Students of Cuba will fight to gain absolute inde- Antipathy towards the current governing powers has pendence from educational institutions (universities, lead [the Confederation] to find new ways to fight institutes, teacher training) under state control, for in order to form a more egalitarian, just society with experience has shown that an institution works best more democratic liberties. It aspires to achieve the when its members are able to take advantage of great apostolic saying “with everyone, for everyone” in the liberties in their actions. Republic. In the current society, the only element akin to the achievement of these ideas is the worker, the true brother of the student (future worker) and of the PURGING OF TEACHING STAFF professional. [The Confederation] will fight for the true purging of In the “international order”, the Confederation of the teaching staff. It affirms and supports the expul- Students of Cuba declares that the greatest enemy of sion of the department heads, which was realized in America’s people is Yankee imperialism, which bribes 1922 by the University Federation, in agreement with governments and corrupts public opinion in order this Institution that these men should never return to to exert its protection of Our American countries. the university, whatever the judgment of the initiated The Confederation thus declares itself an enemy of legal proceeding is, and stop receiving their salary for Yankee capitalism and of all of its supporters within services they don’t provide. the national territory. [The Confederation] will propagate an honest spirit of AMERICAN FRATERNITY ideological renewal in all educational institutions of the Republic, and while the new ideas have not taken The Confederation expresses its sympathy towards root in education, it will maintain a strong student South American student associations that uphold hegemony in order to realize the ideals of cultural principles similar to ours and towards “The National renewal. Without hypocrisy, which is at odds with Student Forum”, a US-American student organization the sincere character of the youth, it recognizes that that sympathizes with the implementation of justice progress has to be imposed by the most advanced at home and abroad. and far-sighted of the new ideals. The Confederation supports the unity of all of the continent’s youth to fight for future humanity. VOTE TO STUDENTS We close by inviting all of those who are new to Cuba Teaching positions much be filled by those most to form a united front against our enemies and to best equipped for the job, appointed fairly, and the fight for the ideas presented here. administration must be democratically appointed by Approved on August 18, 1924 at the University of students and professors, for it is unacceptable that Havana. 99 By the Confederation of Students of Cuba (Universidades, Institutos y Normales) del control del actual Estado, pues conoce por experiencia que el JULIO ANTONIO MELLA mejor funcionamiento de una institución se obtie- President ne, por medio de la amplia libertad de acción de sus miembros. LEONARDO FERNÁNDEZ SÁNCHEZ Secretary DEPURACIÓN DEL PROFESORADO Source: Instituto de historia del movimiento comunista y la revolución socialista de Cuba: J. A. Mella. Documentos y Artículos, La Habana 1975.Source: Instituto de historia del movimiento comunista y la revolución socialista de Cuba: J. A. Mella. Documentos y Artículos, La Habana 1975. Luchará por obtener una verdadera depuración del profesorado. Ratifica y se solidariza con la expulsión de los catedráticos realizada en 1922 por la Federación Universitaria, opinando al igual que esta Institución que esos señores jamás deben volver a la Universidad cualquiera que sea el fallo de los expedientes iniciados y dejar de cobrar el sueldo que perciben por Original Source in Spanish: servicios que no prestan. Propagará un franco espíritu de renovación ideológica Declaración de Principios en todas las instituciones educacionales de la República, y mientras tanto las ideas nuevas no arraiguen La Federación de Estudiantes ha hecho la siguiente en la enseñanza, sostendrá una vigorosa hegemonía declaración de principios. estudiantil para la realización de los ideales de renovación cultural. Sin hipocresías, que riñen con el carácter Por vez primera en la Historia de Cuba todos los estu- sincero de la juventud, reconoce que el progreso tiene diantes se reúnen en un apretado haz para luchar por que ser impuesto por los más avanzados y videntes de el mejoramiento de su clase y de los hombres todos. los nuevos ideales. La Confederación de Estudiatntes de Cuba fue un VOTO AL ESTUDIANTE sueño del Primer Congreso Revolucionario de Estudiantes, convertido en fructífera realidad por el entusi- Los puestos de orden docente deben ser ejercidos por asmo y el idealismo de un grupo de jóvenes que han los más aptos, nombrados por los más justos, y los de sabido comprender las necesidades de la enseñanza. orden administrativo deben ser nombrados por estu- Este nuevo cuerpo viene a luchar por los mismos prin- diantes y profesores en igualdad democrática, pues cipios del movimiento de enero de 1922. Principios no se concibe que el derecho constitucional que el que enunciados por la juventud cordobesa en 1918 ciudadano analfabeto tiene de nombrar sus gober- llevaron a renovar las Universidades argentinas por el nantes le sea negado al estudiante culto. único medio posible, por el sagrado medio de la agi- En el “orden social” la Confederación de Estudiantes tación revolucionaria, y después de iluminar el conti- de Cuba laborará por la elevación cultural del pueb- nente indo-americano prendieron en este país, donde lo, pues cree que únicamente por el dominio de la llevaron a la lucha a una juventud sana y consciente. cultura podrán emanciparse los hombres. Reconoci- Los estudiantes de Cuba reunidos en su primer Con- endo que nuevos ideales nacen constantemente en greso dieron un voto de solidaridad a los universitarios la conciencia de los pueblos proclama su antipatía a por su actuación y se adoptaron aquellos postulados todos los principios que sostienen los distintos par- de los gloriosos estudiantes de la culta ciudad argen- tidos políticos de Cuba. tina al medio y la época. ANTIPATÍA A LOS PARTIDOS POLÍTICOS INDEPENDENCIA ABSOLUTA Esta antipatía ante las fuerzas triunfantes de hoy, lleDe acuerdo con la Declaración de Derechos del Estu- va a este organismo a luchar por nuevos senderos, diante, la Confederación de Estudiantes de Cuba en para formar una sociedad más igualitariamente justa el “orden educacional” luchará por obtener la inde- y más democráticamente libre. Aspira a realizar en la pendencia absoluta de las instituciones de enseñanza 100 República en toda su extensión y en su neuva acep- Further readings ción la frase del Apóstol: “con todos y para todos”. Para la realización de estas ideas sólo encuentra en Aguilar, Luis: Cuba 1933. Prologue to Revolution, la sociedad actual como elemento afín al trabajador, Ithaka / London 1972. hermano verdadero del estudiante (futuro trabajador) y del profesional. Aken, Mark J. van: “The Radicalization of the En el “orden internacional” la Confederación de Estu- Uruguayan Student Movement”, in: The Americas diantes de Cuba declara que el mayor enemigo que 33(1976), pp. 109-129. tienen los pueblos de América es el capitalismo imperialista yanqui, que soborna gobiernos y corrompe Cairo, Ana (ed.): Mella. 100 años (2 vols.), Santiago opiniones públicas para ejercer su tutela sobres los de Cuba / La Habana 2003. países de Nuestra América, por esta causa se declara enemigo del capitalismo yanqui y de todos sus aliados Hatzky, Christine: Julio Antonio Mella (1903-1929). en el territorio nacional. Eine Biographie, Frankfurt a.M. 2004. FRATERNIDAD AMERICANA Ead.: Julio A. Mella. Una biografía, Santiago de Cuba 2008. Demuestra sus simpatías hacia las asociaciones estudiantiles de Sur América que sustentan principios se- Ibarra, Jorge: Prologue to Revolution. Cuba 1858- mejantes a los nuestros y hacia “The National Student 1958, Boulder / London 1998. Forum”, organización de los Estados Unidos, que simpatiza con la ejecución de la justicia dentro y fuera Klaiber, Jeffrey L.: “The Popular Universities and the de su país. Origins of Aprismo, 1921-1924”, in: Hispanic Amer- Hace votos por la unión de todas las juventudes del ican Historical Review 55 (1975), pp. 693-715. continente para luchar por la Humanidad futura. Termina invitando a los hombres nuevos de Cuba a Masiello, formar un frente único contra nuestros enemigos y a Esthetics: Literature, Politics and Intelectual Commu- luchar por los ideales anteriormente expuestos. nitiy in Cuba’s Revista de Avance”, in: Latin American Aprobado en la Universidad de La Habana a los 18 Research Review 28 (1993), pp. 3-31. Francine: “Rethinking Neocolonial días del mes de agosto de mil novecientos veinte y cuatro. Melgar Bao, Ricardo / Ortega Breña, Mariana: “The Anti-Imperialist League of the Americas between the Por la Confederación de Estudiantes de Cuba. East and Latin America”, in: Latin American Perspectives 35 (2008), pp. 9-24. JULIO ANTONIO MELLA Presidente Mella, Julio Antonio: Documentos y artíclos (ed. Instituto de Historia del movimiento comunista y la LEONARDO FERNÁNDEZ SÁNCHEZ revolución socialista), La Habana 1975. Secretario Milanesio, Natalia: “The University Reform Movement in Argentina, 1918”, in: Journal of Social History 39 (2005), pp. 505-529. Walter, Richard J.: “The Intellectual Background of the 1918 University Reform in Argentina”, in: Hispanic American Historical Review (49) 1969, pp. 233-253. 101 Student Protests at the University of Sonora (Mexico 1970s) Daniel Ceceña B ecause of the long period of student protests in Sonora, Mexico, the aims and demands changed during the different peaks of the mobilization. However, the principle issues were always the same: they revolved around the right to participate in the decision making policy of the university, a popular and better education for the majority of the people, and the issue of the autonomy of the university from the state. At the beginning of the protest period, in 1967, the demands were basically political ones: destitutions of the police chief because of the violations of university autonomy and the ensuing student and popular repression; the resignation of the governor of Sonora for not intervening to cease the hostilities between the two political groups and, consequently, allowing the violence to break out; and a new electoral process. This early movement did not question the status quo ruling the university or the role that the state played in the institution policies. The lack of interest in these topics created a strong feeling of dissidence among the students, which was to explode in the next stages of the protest period. Abb. 14 – Source a: Joel Alfonso Verdugo private archive. During the early 1970s, the goals were focused on the university’s policies. The demand was mainly the implementation of a new law that governed the insti- implemented a law that gave the students even less tutions, one that was created by the students, teachers representation than before. and authorities in order to award the students better On the second half of the 1970s and most of the representation in the decision making policies, for 1980s, the aims of the university activists were example: the elections of the vice-chancellor, the focused on trying to repeal the new university law, election of authorities for the faculty and schools, to achieve the resignations of the vice-chancellor, participation in the development process of the study the implementation of the old draw law, and even plans, etc.; in other words, a co-government. These the support of other student movements, national demands were formulated during intense debates and international, as well as the unionization of the and highly charged with theory about how a univer- university’s workers. The movement was successful sity should work and what the role of the institution but short-lived. The occupation of the university’s in the development of a better society could be. After main office and vice-chancellor’s office by student the students and a number of professors introduced protesters caused a rupture between the different a proposal to replace the old law, the reaction of the activist groups, making it easier to install a different university authorities and government was to shut vice-chancellor who was allied with the government the university down, replaced the vice-chancellor and and creating an atmosphere of chaos. 102 In the 1990s, the goal was to maintain the university’s Further readings reputation in a smear campaign created by the state controlled media. When this failed and the govern- Allier Montaño, Eugenia: “Presentes - Pasados del 68 ment created and imposed a new law that removed Mexicano. Una historización de las memorias públicas all student representation from the University, the del movimiento estudiantil, 1968 – 2007”, in: Revista newly created CEUS tried (and failed) to run a counter Mexicana de Sociología 71 (2009), pp. 287-317. media campaign to abolish the new law. At the end of the period of protest, the aims focused on trying Castellanos Moreno, Miguel Ángel: Historia de la to maintain the little the students had gained, and set Universidad de Sonora. En una época de crisis, Tomo aside the ideas of a popular university and the role in III, Hermosillo 2007. the society. The graffiti (source a) in the main building of the University of Sonora dates from February 1979 Favela García, Margarita: “Cambios en el sistema and is directed against the meeting of the ANUIES político y en la protesta social en México, 1946-2000: (National Association of Universities and Institutions interacción entre instituciones y acción social”, in: of Superior Education). The picture (source b) shows Estudios Sociológicos 23 (2005), pp. 535-559. students on strike demanding democratic and free education on the university’s campus in May 1978. Loaeza, Soledad: “México 1968: los orígenes de la transición”, in: Foro Internacional 30 (1989), pp. 66-92. Moncada Ochoa, Carlos: Historia General de la Universidad de Sonora (Tomos I,II, III,IV Y V), Hermosillo 2009. Verdugo, Joel: Una reflexión socio-histórica de los movimientos estudiantiles en la Universidad de Sonora (1967-1992), a partir de la imagen fotográfica y el testimonio oral, Hermosillo 1999. Abb. 15 – Source b: Joel Alfonso Verdugo private archive. 103 Society of Critical Economics (Argentina/Uruguay 2013) Stella Loth I n 2014, critical students who demand consists of about 12 student groups, most of them the introduction of a more pluralist, based in national universities. These autonomous diverse range of theories, approaches and regional units closely collaborate with student asso- topics at universities formed the Interna- ciations, cultural centers, cooperatives, researchers tional Student Initiative for Pluralism in and academics from economics and other social Economics (ISIPE). The main critique of the Pluralism sciences. They organize reading circles, seminars and in Economics Movement addresses the overrep- lecture series, conferences and summer academies resentation of the neoclassical school of thought promoting different topics, theories and models. in the curricula, as well as too few reflexive courses The activists use manifold forms of creative protest and lacking knowledge exchange and links to other like stage performances, music gigs, short movies, social sciences. International surveys attest to the stickers, artistic flash mobs during university classes clear dominance of very few subjects in economics and other activities. curricula throughout the world. The dominant neoclassical school of thought is characterized by scarcity as a central problem, wherein efficiency is the only solution. Individuals are treated as selfish and fully rational actors without any informational restrictions. The world is seen as mathematically predictable, therefore rendering all risks calculable. Consequently, insufficiently trained economists offer political input concerning economic and social policies that, within other disciplines, are often highly controversial. Neoliberal policy recommendations are designed, for example, not to interfere with the “free market”, to foster privatization tendencies, deregulate markets and establish free trade agreements. On the other hand, only a minimal amount of time is devoted to other schools of thought, such as PostKeynesian Economics, Feminist Economics, Ecological Economics, Behavioral Economics or Marxian Political Economy, among others, let alone reflexive courses Source: Sociedad de Economía Crítica. such as Economic History, History of Economic Thought or Philosophy of Science. One of the most active organizations within the Latin American movement is the Sociedad de Economía Crítica (Society of Critical Economics). It can be traced back to 1997, but it has officially existed since 2013. The collaborative network of Argentinian and Uruguayan students, academics, and researchers serves to coordinate and promote a critical view towards economic science and its production of knowledge industry, the democratization of its teaching and pluralism of thought. The organization 104 Ni una menos (Not one [woman] less) (Argentina 2015) Stella Loth I n 2014, critical students who demand more universities began modifying their courses or the introduction of a more pluralist, adding new ones in response to the student’s critique. diverse range of theories, approaches and Within the movement, academics, activists, policy topics at universities formed the Interna- theorists, and practitioners of feminist economics also tional Student Initiative for Pluralism in support campaigns against gender-based violence, Economics (ISIPE). ISIPE is the autonomous and inter- like the protest marches “Ni una menos (Spanish for national umbrella organization of most local, regional “Not one [woman] less) a feminist movement that and national groups advocating for a reform of the started in 2015 in Argentina and has since spread to academic economics curricula and research. ISIPE several Latin American countries. Feminist Economics released an international manifesto on 5 May 2014. is the critical study of economics and economies The release of the open letter, signed by 42 student with a focus on gender perspectives. Most feminist groups across 19 countries was met with a large media economic research focuses on topics that have been echo in various countries. Since then the initiative neglected in the field of mainstream economics, like has grown significantly, now comprising 65 student unpaid care work, sex work, women´s work and groups from over 30 countries. Since the open letter how these subsidize capitalistic structures and patri- was published, there has been high media coverage archy. Feminist economists call attention to the social of the criticism of the discipline while mainstream constructions of traditional economics questioning economists generally tried to ignore the complaints. the extent to which it is positive and objective. The Nevertheless, there has also been open support from goal is to deepen the discussion and diffusion of several well-known academics. Students then started economic theories that include gender perspectives teaching themselves and others the topics that were in the academic environment and reflect on gender, missing from their curricula, they organized lectures, racial, and ethnic discrimination and inequity. reading circles, workshops, conferences and summer schools and strengthened ties with likeminded foundations and diverse supporters. In addition, more and Source: https://www.google.com/ search?q=ni+una+menos+buenos+aires+2015&client=firefox-b-ab&tbm=isch&source=lnt&tbs=sur:fmc&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiM7MjMjfXfAhXCK1AKHXwJDxMQpwUIIA&biw=1920&bih=966&dpr=1 (Accessed: 17/01/2019). 105 Students of the University of Chile’s Economy and Business Faculty demonstrate for an “economy in the service of the human being instead of the human being in the service of the economy” (Chile 2016) Stella Loth T he lack of intellectual diversity duction of a more pluralist, diverse range of theo- does not only restrain educa- ries, approaches and topics at universities formed tion and research. It limits the International Student Initiative for Pluralism in our ability to contend with Economics (ISIPE). ISIPE is the autonomous and inter- the chal- national umbrella organization of most local, regional lenges of the 21st century – from financial stability to and national groups advocating for a reform of the food security and climate change. […] United across academic economics curricula and research. It was borders, we call for a change of course. […] Pluralism founded as a coalition of 65 economics student will not only help to enrich teaching and research and groups from more than 30 countries from all over reinvigorate the discipline. More than this, pluralism the world, among them Argentina, Australia, Brazil, carries the promise of bringing economics back into Chile, Canada, France, Germany, India, Israel, the service of society” (ISIPE Open Letter, 2014). Mexico, Pakistan, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, the UK The movement for pluralism in economics can be and the USA. That same year, ISIPE published an traced to wider movements for progressive change open letter in 14 languages, calling for a reform of in the 1960s and 1970s, when critics of mainstream the economics curricula. economics called for a reform of the discipline. But In this picture students of the University of Chile’s the accusations that conventional economic teaching Economy and Business faculty demonstrate for an cannot adequately explain the complex dynamics and “economy in the service of the human being instead risks of modern economies has been in full swing of the human being in the service of the economy” in since 2008 at the latest, when economists failed to Santiago de Chile in 2016. multidimensional predict, let alone prevent, the global financial crisis and the global recession that it triggered. In 2014, critical students who demand the intro- Source: https://www.facebook.com/ RedDeEstudiosNuevaEconomia/phot os/a.178613702279884/695197117288204/?type=3&theater (Accessed: 17/01/2019). 106 Further readings Brue, Stanley: “Controversy and Change in the American Economics Curriculum”, in: The American Economist 40 (1996), pp. 44–51. Butler, Gavan / Jones, Evan / Stilwell, Frank (eds.): Political Economy Now! The struggle for alternative economics at the University of Sydney, Sydney 2009. Coyle, Diane et al.: “Teaching Economics After the Crisis”, in: The Royal Economic Society Newsletter 161 (2013), pp. 20-23. Egerer, Elsa / Fauser, Hannes (International Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics (ISIPE)): Micro, Macro, Maths: Is that all? An International Study on Economics Bachelor Curricula, Berlin 2017. Gärtner, Manfred / Griesbach, Björn / Jung, Florian: “Teaching Macroeconomics After the Crisis. A Survey Among Undergraduate Instructors in Europe and the United States”, in: The Journal of Economic Education 44 (2013), pp. 406–416. ISIPE: “Open Letter”, in: ISIPE (2014). URL: http:// www.isipe.net/home-de (accessed: 25.03.2018). Krugman, Paul: “A manifesto for Economic Sense”, in: The New York Times, Opinion Pages (28.6.2012). URL: https://krugman.blogs.nytimes. com/2012/06/28/a-manifesto-for-economic-sense/?scp=2&sq=krugman&st=Search (accessed: 25.03.2018). Petkus, Marie / Perry, John J. / Johnson, Bruce K.: “Core Requirements for the Economics Major”, in: The Journal of Economic Education 45 (2014), pp. 56–62. 107 2.3 SOUTH ASIA Educational Policy (Pakistan 1953) Sadia Bajwa T he Students’ Herald was a journal brought out by the leftist Democratic Students Federation (DSF), which was published regularly from January 1953 to July 1954. The DSF was founded in 1949 in Rawalpindi and became the leading student organization in Karachi in the early 1950s. It was meant to mobilize students for the goals of the DSF and to counter the efforts of the government to defame the group and its objectives as “communist” and as a wing of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP), which was under the scrutiny of the Pakistani state in the Cold War context of the early 1950s. The DSF was in not formally linked to the CPP and acted independently, but this did not hinder the fact that the former was banned by the state along with the Source: Democratic Students Federation: “Educational Policy”, in: Students’ Herald 7 (21.02.1953), p. 3. CPP in 1954. The following cartoon came out in the Students’ Herald in February 1953 and expresses the frustration of the students with the sorry state of educational facilities in Karachi and the disregard for student needs in the education planning and policy making. Draft Statement of Policy for All Pakistan Students’ Convention (Pakistan 1953) Sadia Bajwa I n February 1953, the Inter Collegiate taries of all the students’ unions. In 1949, students Body (ICB) drafted a manifesto called of the DOW Medical College founded the Karachi the “All Pakistan Students Convention chapter of the Democratic Students’ Federation Manifesto” which first appeared as (DSF), a left-leaning organization, which within the “Draft Statement of Policy for All Paki- next year swept most of the college union elections stan Students’ Convention” (February 21, 1953). The in Karachi and initiated the Inter-Collegiate Body (ICB) ICB consisted of the vice presidents and general secre- to unify the student unions under one banner. Most 108 of the student unions were in the hands of the DSF become a good citizen but also because but a few were also represented by other student the progress and prosperity of our country organizations, such as the Islami Jami’at-e-Tuleba depends upon the education of out people. (IJT), a student organization of the right-wing polit- The All-Pakistan Students’ Organization will ical party, Jama’at-e-Islami (JI). After its founding, the therefore unite the students and fight for:- DSF and under its lead, the ICB, initially concentrated ii. Free and compulsory primary iii. Cheap higher education within on student matters but soon began taking on larger education throughout the country issues of social and political relevance in Karachi, Pakistan, the region and even the world. The city of the reach of all Karachi, which became the first federal capital, had iv. seen major demographic changes after partition, and Increase in the number of educational institutions […] was facing the socio-economic and infrastructural v. Building a chain of hostels for vi. More emphasis on scientific challenges that came with it. Amongst these was the students […] issue of higher education in a city characterized by growing professional classes. and technical education so that The Convention referred to in the headline is the the students may contribute to All-Pakistan Students’ Convention that was organized the progress of the county. by ICB and the DSF following the events of January vii. 1953, when the newly founded state of Pakistan A system of large number of scholarships […] saw its student population come out on the streets with a list of demands relating to improvements in […] The present educational system was the educational system and facilities. The demonstra- imposed on our country by the imperialist tion turned violent with seven students being killed Britain to suit their own purposes. A salient in police firing. The news spread quickly, and proces- feature of the present system of education sions were taken out by students across Pakistan, is that there is no purpose behind educa- with solidarity protests taking place in the major cities tion. This does not suit the present require- of West and East Pakistan throughout the year 1953. ments of our country. […] Our efforts The DSF was banned in 1954 along with the Commu- should therefore be, to demand:-- nist Party of Pakistan. i. Revision of curriculum ii. Higher salaries for the teaching month of January this year has brought forward many iii. More and better libraries problems before us […] iv. The successful struggle of Karachi students in the staff […] Improvement in sports and cultural facilities so that the The Convening Committee formed by the students can take to healthy Inter-Collegiate Body of Karachi, has been entrusted extra-curricular activities with the task of organizing the Convention of the v. Periodical medical check-up and students of Pakistan to lay down the foundation of free medical treatment for all a mighty student’s movement which shall lead and students unit the students of the whole country. This draft statement is being issued on behalf of the Convening […] substantial increase in the expenditure Committee so that it may be the basis of discussion at on education […] the Convention. […] The students by pursuing studies have 1. The main aim of this organization certain objects [objectives] before them. will be to take up the just demands of the They spend the hard earned money of students and struggle for them. […] their parents on education so that after We believe it is the inalienable right of completion of their education they should Pakistani youth to receive education. It is not earn their livelihood and help their fami- only necessary because every Pakistani must lies. […] At the same time they contribute 109 with the knowledge and skill they have the Crossroads: South Asian Research, Policy and achieved towards the progress of the Development in a Globalized World, Karachi 2007, country. No student would like to roam S. 232-244. about unemployed after the completion of his education. […] The students must Khalid, Saleem Mansoor (ed.): Tulibah Tehreekain therefore raise a united voice to demand (Students’ Movements), Lahore 1989. security of employment for all. Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza: “Students, Islam, and Politics: […] Islami Jami’at-i Tulaba in Pakistan”, in: The Middle East Journal 46 (1992), pp. 59–76. Source: Democratic Students Federation: “Draft Statement of Policy for All Pakistan Students’ Convention”, in: Students’ Herald 7 (21.02.1953), pp. 7-8. Nelson, Matthew J.: “Embracing the Ummah: Student Politics beyond State Power in Pakistan.”, in: Modern Asian Studies 45 (2011), pp. 565–596. Paracha, Nadeem Farooq: “Student Politics in Paki- Further readings stan: A Celebration, Lament and History”, in: Dawn Blogs (03.07.2014). URL: https://www.dawn.com/ Ahmad, Azizuddin: Pakistan mein Tulaba Tehreek news/1116782 (accessed: 15.11.2018). (Student Movement in Pakistan), Lahore / Mashal 2000. Iqtidar, Humeira: “Radical Times: Students in Political mobilization during the 1960s and 1970s”, in: Sustainable Development Policy Institute (ed.), At 2.4 AFRICA Open Economics Uganda (2015) Stella Loth I In 2014, critical students who demand in economics are failing wider society when they the introduction of a more pluralist, ignore evidence from other disciplines. Moreover, diverse range of theories, approaches and it claims that theoretical and methodological diver- topics at universities formed the Interna- sity as well as interdisciplinarity is needed in order to tional Student Initiative for Pluralism in bring “economics back into the service of society”. Economics (ISIPE). It is the autonomous and interna- According to the students, the crisis exposed the tional umbrella organization of most local, regional latent inadequacies of economic models that often and national groups advocating for a reform of the fail to make sense of extreme macro-economic academic economics curricula and research. During events, such as crises, recessions and depressions.The the first wave of global protest against mainstream Ugandan association Open Economics Uganda was economic curricula, the initiative argued that courses founded in August 2015. Initially, it was incorporated 110 within Makerere University, Kampala and it is affiliated with Rethinking Economics, a global network of students, academics, and professionals that promotes pluralism in economics. It is a non-profit organization of students, young economists in their early careers and other young people interested in economics that have come together to form a platform that promotes and encourages critical, diverse and real-world focused Abb. 20 – Source: Photo credit Immaculate Nabayunga Kikalamu. pluralistic thinking in economics. The organization aims at introducing students and youth to policy discourse and prepare, train and help Sense”, in: The New York Times, Opinion Pages them rethink economics in a manner that serves the (28.6.2012). interest of development in Uganda and the African com/2012/06/28/a-manifesto-for-econom- continent as a whole, allowing them to contribute to ic-sense/?scp=2&sq=krugman&st=Search (accessed: policy debates geared towards social transformation 25.03.2018). URL: https://krugman.blogs.nytimes. in their communities. The Picture shows members of the Open Economics Group Uganda in 2015. Petkus, Marie / Perry, John J. / Johnson, Bruce K.: “Core Requirements for the Economics Major”, in: The Journal of Economic Education 45 (2014), pp. Further readings 56–62. Brue, Stanley: “Controversy and Change in the American Economics Curriculum”, in: The American Economist 40 (1996), pp. 44–51. Butler, Gavan / Jones, Evan / Stilwell, Frank (eds.): Political Economy Now! The struggle for alternative economics at the University of Sydney, Sydney 2009. Coyle, Diane et al.: “Teaching Economics After the Crisis”, in: The Royal Economic Society Newsletter 161 (2013), pp. 20-23. Egerer, Elsa / Fauser, Hannes (International Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics (ISIPE)): Micro, Macro, Maths: Is that all? An International Study on Economics Bachelor Curricula, Berlin 2017. Gärtner, Manfred / Griesbach, Björn / Jung, Florian: “Teaching Macroeconomics After the Crisis. A Survey Among Undergraduate Instructors in Europe and the United States”, in: The Journal of Economic Education 44 (2013), pp. 406–416. ISIPE: “Open Letter”, in: ISIPE (2014). URL: http:// www.isipe.net/home-de (accessed: 25.03.2018). Krugman, Paul: “A manifesto for Economic 111 Fees Must Fall, Western Cape Statement (South Africa 2016) Heike Becker W hile most of the South African further subjugate the black mind through enforcing universities now have a black an anti-black curriculum, #FeesMustFall seeks to fulfil majority among their student a generational call whose duty is to answer the unan- body, their institutional cultures, swered, give birth to the new, give hope to the hope- symbolism, and curricula have less and convince those who have been marginalized changed only slightly, and this to the sidelines of humanity that they too are human became a crucial issue within the new South African and that we love and care for them. student movement. There are also still very few black professors, let alone black female South African professors, which the student movement raised as a What is Fees Must Fall? particular issue of concern. Black students have described their experiences on Since the inception of Fees Must Fall in 2015, we campus as alienating, observing that the norm at have maintained the clear call for a Free Decolonized, universities continues to cater for white, middle class, Afrocentric education. This call is rooted in the libera- able-bodied and heteronormative male students. The tion of Black people and the total dismantling of the Black Consciousness ideology calls on black people to anti-black system that maintains black oppression. first free their own minds, become conscious of their We want a decolonised education in a decolonised own and each other’s conditions, and work together society. to change the material conditions of black students. Fees Must Fall is an intersectional movement within These, in a nutshell, have been the guiding principles the black community that aims to bring about a of the new South African student movements. The decolonised education. This means that the Fees language they adopted, however, emphasized the Must Fall movement is located as a part of the larger term ‘decolonization’. struggle to eradicate the western imperialist, colonial, capitalist patriarchal culture. We call upon all citizens of this country to descend Recognizing that FMF is intersectional, it is therefore to parliament and other strategic institutions on pivotal to respond to the call of insourcing of workers #26October 2016 which has been declared as the by institutions for a dignified salary. It is important national day of action. Following a year of protest to further note the violence of the state in collabo- action in our universities, it is crystal clear that the call ration with private security and university manage- for free decolonized, Afrocentric education cannot be ment, who victimise black workers and students. made by individual institutions, but through working Those who have rallied behind free Afrocentric and together with students and other civil society organ- socialist education now face expulsions, suspensions, izations, through unified action, we can strengthen academic and financial exclusion and dismissals. our call for maximum impact. We therefore send The excessive force of police and private security a clarion call to everyone in our society to join the in dealing with students are unacceptable and has march to parliament in what will surely go down in resulted in a number of injured students. the passages of history as the greatest demonstration The struggle for free decolonized, Afrocentric of all time by the wretched bodies of the earth, high education cannot be divorced from the struggle from hopes of a new day and full from hunger for a against patriarchy and rape culture at institutions. free and decolonized Azania. Currently university management across the country Taking inspiration from the youth of 1976 who defi- have sought to hide the statistical analysis of rape, antly stood against the apartheid state in its quest to pretending as if it does not exist, so as to remove 112 the stigma and negative sentiment that would be transition of South Africa in 1994 shows this clearly, attached to the institution/s. University management and the government did very little to undermine nor has made it clear as with all forms of oppression rectify this socio-economic structure. within the white-supremacist anti-black order; patri- The current anti-black curriculum is designed to archy, classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism reproduce systems of oppression. This anti-black will not be responded to and so the onus rests with education is driven by the exclusion of the majority. us who envisage a new society. FMF believes that the purpose of education is to Furthermore, the struggle of #FeesMustFall calls into allow for the transmission of knowledge and wisdom question the apartheid spatial planning that main- of society from one generation to another. This will tains the historic and current violence perpetuated prepare young people to actively participate in the against black bodies, and then asks; Can we decol- development of South Africa. This type of education onise an institution in a colonised country? Can we system will conserve the integrity of the community, end rape culture, without answering housing crisis perpetuating the agreed norms and values of society. and many other crises made manifest by the black Currently in South Africa, the education system is not struggles, which is a result of apartheid spatial plan- designed for the interests of the black community, ning and black landlessness! Understanding the link but those who intend to preserve the status quo between rape culture and landlessness, we then prac- which is a colonial education. tically experience that white supremacy permeates all sectors of the black lived experience. Thus deliv- Demands: ering on the #FeesMustFall call, to end all forms of oppression, including the struggles for a decommod- We call on Minister Bonginkosi “Blade” Nzimande ified education, an end to patriarchy, rape culture, and the South African state to etc. means a reimagining of black lived experience · make provision for funding free Afrocentric educa- and fundamentally responding to the neo-colonial tion up until undergraduate degree a reality for all entrenchment of white thieves as owners of land and excluded black people. An education that is rooted in economic wealth. putting black people first; both in learning content, how it is transferred · Scrap all historical debt dating back to 1992, What is a Decolonised Education? recognizing that debt is one of the key challenges hindering black graduates from making a meaningful South Africa inherited a system of education which impact on the economy and improving the lives of is in many ways both inadequate and inappropriate their families. for the new state. Its inadequacy is most immediately · End Outsourcing – Insource all workers, paying all obvious, especially since the protests of Fees Must a decent living wage and ensuring full institutional Fall in 2015. The education system is based upon benefits for employees. exclusion on race, class, gender and sexual difference · A national commission based on justice for students whereas the whole apartheid edifice and its exten- and workers. Immediate demilitarisation of campuses, sion in post 1994 under the supposed control of a insourced security must serve to protect students and black government has been based upon a rejection workers, all students and workers who have been of the building blocks that created it. suspended, interdicted, expelled, dismissed, finan- The history of colonialism and apartheid in South cially and/or academically excluded must return; this Africa, reflects a need of capital to be sustained as the basis for commission to seek justice for partici- through a pool of cheap, unskilled black labor for the pants in the broader #FeesMustFall Struggle. mining and production industries. These structural inequalities that were maintained during apartheid, 39 years after his death, Steve Biko’s undying words manifested in the 1953 Bantu’s Education Act. From reminds us of the duty we have to liberate our people this it is clear that the education system was designed when he says: to thwart the liberation of the Black child, in so doing “We have set out on a quest for true humanity, keeping them in the same position as the generations and somewhere on the distant horizon we before them through coercion and chicanery. The can see the glittering prize. Let us march forth 113 with courage and determination, drawing strength from our common plight and our [blackness]. In time we shall be in a position to bestow upon South Africa the greatest gift possible---a more human face”. Victory is certain! Contacts details Mischka lewis 078 611 1264 Monde Nonabe 079 012 6512 Khululwa mthi 079 199 4180 Sapho Mahilihili 072 499 6161 Source: https://www.facebook.com/FeesMustFallWC/ posts/547974228740044 (Accessed: 11/01/2019). Further readings Becker, Heike: “South Africa’s May 1968: Decolonising Institutions and Minds”, in: Review of African Political Economy (2016). URL: http://roape. net/2016/02/17/south-africas-may-1968-decolonising-institutions-and-minds/ (accessed: 05/01/2018). Biko, Steve: I write what I like: Selected Writings by Steve Biko, London 1987. Booysen, Susan (ed.): Fees Must Fall: Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, Johannesburg 2016. Brown, Julian: The Road to Soweto: Resistance and the Uprising of 16 June 1976, London 2016. Heffernan, Anne / Nieftagodien, Noor (eds.): Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto ’76, Johannesburg 2016. Nyamnjoh, Francis B.: #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa, Bamenda 2016. Zeilig, Leo: Revolt and Protest: Student Politics and Activism in Sub-Saharan Africa, London 2007. 114 3. SOCIOPOLITICAL GOALS 3.1 EUROPE Stop US Aggression. Vietnam Week (Cologne, Germany 1966) Katharina Wonnemann police officer during protests against the state visit of the then Iranian shah Reza Pahlavi to Berlin (Frei 2008: 112-114). As a result there were funeral marches and statements of solidarity at many West German universities, including Cologne. On June 7, about 6,000 students participated in a silent march through the city, which was the biggest student gathering in Cologne in the 1960s (Bartz 2000: 109). A further Source: Archive of the University of Cologne, Zug. 457, no. 463. cause for bigger demonstrations and protests in West German cities was the attempted assassination of Rudi Dutschke. On April 11, 1968, Dutschke was T opics regarding higher education shot by a supporter of the far right and only narrowly policy, such as discussions about survived. Many activists blamed the press for the more rights to participate in univer- attempted murder because they portrayed Dutschke sity education, the opening of internal as the “leader of the student movement” (Frei 2008: sessions and the general democratization of univer- 130). Only two days after the attempted assassina- sities were dominant at the University of Cologne tion there were demonstrations in Cologne during around the year 1968. In addition to that there were which about 400 demonstrators, mainly students, also different university groups in Cologne that paid blocked the big publishing house DuMont in down- attention to national as well as international social town Cologne to prevent the delivery of the news- and political issues. paper “Bild”, which was seen as the main agitator The slogan “Berlin brennt, Köln pennt!” (Berlin is against Dutschke (Bartz 2000: 110f.). burning, Cologne is sleeping) (Dohms, 2008:67), Apart from the “Berlin issues”, international matters which originated around the year 1968, strongly played a role in the Cologne protests, the start- demonstrates the pre-eminent role that the student ing-point of which was US foreign policy. The Cologne movement in West-Berlin played in the general SDS had already called for a “Vietnam-Week” in 1966 perception of the German context. Media reports and took the protests to downtown Cologne. Thus, mainly focused on the university groups at the Free these actions were met with little response among University of Berlin and their main actors, such as the the students (Dohms 2008: 93). However, during the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (Socialist 1960s and early 1970s, a peace movement devel- German Student League, SDS) and its spokesperson oped in Cologne that addressed topics in society as Rudi Dutschke (Hodenberg 2018: 35f.). The events in a whole. Especially Christian circles and supporters West Berlin had effects on other West German univer- of disarmament organized demonstrations against sities and caused protests there as well. In academic the Vietnam War throughout the city of Cologne literature, the death of Benno Ohnesorg on June 2, (Leggewie 2018: 72f.). The protests reached their 1967 is generally seen as the beginning of the student critical stage in May 1970, when the US army invaded movement in West Germany. Ohnesorg was shot by a Cambodia. On May 12, there were violent incidents 115 opics regarding higher education policy, such as SDS had already called for a “Vietnam-Week” in discussions about more rights to participate in univer- 1966 and took the protests to downtown Cologne. sity education, the opening of internal sessions and Thus, these actions were met with little response the general democratization of universities were among the students (Dohms 2008: 93). However, dominant at the University of Cologne around the during the 1960s and early 1970s, a peace move- year 1968. In addition to that there were also different ment developed in Cologne that addressed topics university groups in Cologne that paid attention to in society as a whole. Especially Christian circles and national as well as international social and political supporters of disarmament organized demonstra- issues. tions against the Vietnam War throughout the city of The slogan “Berlin brennt, Köln pennt!” (Berlin is Cologne (Leggewie 2018: 72f.). The protests reached burning, Cologne is sleeping) (Dohms, 2008:67), their critical stage in May 1970, when the US army which originated around the year 1968, strongly invaded Cambodia. On May 12, there were violent demonstrates the pre-eminent role that the student incidents between the police and demonstrators in movement in West-Berlin played in the general front of the Cologne “Amerikahaus”, a US cultural perception of the German context. Media reports institute (Holl / Glunz 2008: 82-85). mainly focused on the university groups at the Free University of Berlin and their main actors, such as the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (Socialist Further readings German Student League, SDS) and its spokesperson Rudi Dutschke (Hodenberg 2018: 35f.). The events in Bartz, Olaf: “Konservative Studenten und die Studen- West Berlin had effects on other West German univer- tenbewegung. Die ‘Kölner Studenten-Union‘ (KSU)“, sities and caused protests there as well. In academic in: Westfälische Forschungen 48 (1998), pp. 241-256. literature, the death of Benno Ohnesorg on June 2, 1967 is generally seen as the beginning of the student Id.: “Mauerblümchen des Protests oder Hort pragma- movement in West Germany. Ohnesorg was shot tischer Hochschulpolitik? Die Universität zu Köln und by a police officer during protests against the state die Studentenbewegung von 1968“, in: Geschichte visit of the then Iranian shah Reza Pahlavi to Berlin in Köln 47 (2000), pp. 107-119. (Frei 2008: 112-114). As a result there were funeral marches and statements of solidarity at many West Dohms, Peter: “Die Studentenbewegung an den German universities, including Cologne. On June 7, traditionellen Hochschulen in Nordrhein-Westfalen“, about 6,000 students participated in a silent march in: Peter Dohms / Johann Paul (eds.), Die Studenten- through the city, which was the biggest student gath- bewegung von 1968 in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Sieg- ering in Cologne in the 1960s (Bartz 2000: 109). A burg 2008. further cause for bigger demonstrations and protests in West German cities was the attempted assassina- Frei, Norbert: 1968. Jugendrevolte und globaler tion of Rudi Dutschke. On April 11, 1968, Dutschke Protest, Munich 2008. was shot by a supporter of the far right and only narrowly survived. Many activists blamed the press Goltz, Anna von der: “Eine Gegen-Generation von for the attempted murder because they portrayed 1968? Politische Polarisierung und konservative Dutschke as the “leader of the student movement” Mobilisierung an westdeutschen Universitäten“, in: (Frei 2008: 130). Only two days after the attempted Massimiliano Livi et al. (eds.), Die 1970er Jahre – assassination there were demonstrations in Cologne auch ein schwarzes Jahrzehnt? Politisierungs- und during which about 400 demonstrators, mainly Mobilisierungsprozesse zwischen rechter Mitte und students, blocked the big publishing house DuMont extremer Rechter in Italien und der Bundesrepublik in downtown Cologne to prevent the delivery of 1967-1982, Bielefeld 2010. the newspaper “Bild”, which was seen as the main agitator against Dutschke (Bartz 2000: 110f.). Hodenberg, Christina von: Das andere Achtund- Apart from the “Berlin issues”, international matters sechzig. played a role in the Cologne protests, the start- Munich 2018. ing-point of which was US foreign policy. The Cologne 116 Gesellschaftsgeschichte einer Revolte, Holl, Kurt / Glunz, Claudia: 1968 am Rhein. Satisfac- Leggewie, Claus: 50 Jahre ‘68. Köln und seine Protest- tion und ruhender Verkehr. This is the companion geschichte, Cologne 2018. volume of an exhibition, that was initiated 1998 by the contemporary witnesses Holl and Glunz, in cooperation with “KölnArchiv e.V.”. The editors quote here an article of the Kölner Stadtanzeiger of May 13, 1970. Cologne 2008, pp. 82-85. The Olympic Peace in Mexico (Germany 1968) Aribert Reimann A fter the violent suppression of was supported by the landless agricultural masses, the Mexican protest movement 25% of the best arable soil still remains in the hands on October 2, 1968 by the state of large-scale landowners; more than half of all peas- (Tlatelolco Massacre) the news ants still remain without land of their own. But even spread quickly due to the height- those who were given land are still scraping by at ened international media interest the minimum subsistence level because land alloca- preceding the Olympic. In the case of the German tion was insufficient, productivity remains extraordi- provincial University of Tübingen, this led to a publi- narily low because of the lack of loans and technical cation of a leaflet by the local section of the German consultancy as well as training. Hundreds of thou- Socialist Student Federation (SDS) in October 1968 sands migrate either to the US-American south to denouncing the atrocities of Tlatelolco. work as poorly-paid seasonal labor, or to domestic cities, living in miserable unemployment as cheap and expendable reserve labor in urban slums (where 1/3 of The Olympic Games – a pleasure for the rich that the the 7 million inhabitants of Mexico City are dwelling) poor are paying for to keep wages low. In order to keep these impover- (Leaflet by Mexican students) ished masses in check, the local bourgeoisie, which depends on U.S. capital, developed a gigantic police The Mexican upper class indulges in some luxury apparatus operating through terror and random Olympic Games with a price tag of 612,000,000 arrests. The rebellious students posed a threat to Deutsche Mark that is being paid for by 44 million the Olympic peace with their enlightening activism. Mexicans, more than 60% of which suffer from Already, the total revenue of the tourism sector is malnutrition and 40% of whom are illiterate. The equivalent to the entire Mexican state budget. monthly average wage of 89% of 5-6 member house- The Olympic peace was restored on the 2nd holds in Mexico amounts to 192 Deutsche Mark. Only of October: The army surrounded, and opened fire 17% of all homes have running water and only 18% on, 10,000 peaceful student protesters and inhabit- of houses are built of bricks. ants who showed their solidarity in the Square of the In 1953, 19 out the 31 biggest Mexican Three Cultures. Result: some 60 dead, hundreds of companies were owned by U.S. companies. U.S. wounded. Thousands of arrests. investment exceeded 1 billion dollars in 1960. U.S. To the Mexican masses, the Olympic companies such as Nestlé, General Motors, Ford, Games are an exotic event staged by unfathomable Woolworth and Colgate dominate the TV and radio foreigners. To Mexico the games mean police terror, programs as well as the entire consumer market. concentration camps in army barracks, mass arrests, 50 years after the Mexican revolution, which and political assassination. 117 THEREFORE, DOWN WITH THE OLYMPIC se vegetieren und als Reserve billiger austauschbarer GAMES FOR TOURISTS AND THE TV AUDIENCE. Arbeitskräfte die Löhne niedrig halten. Um diese Ver- SOLIDARITY WITH THE MEXICAN PEOPLE AND THE elendeten [sic] Massen in Schach, hat das einheimi- FIGHTING STUDENTS. FOR THE VICTORY OF THE sche Bürgertum, dessen Existenz mit dem US-Kapital MEXICAN REVOLUTION! verbunden ist, einen riesigen Polizeiapparat entwickelt, der mit Terror und willkürlichen Verhaftungen AStA (General Student Committee) – SDS (German arbeitet. Die dagegen rebellierenden Studenten be- Socialist Student Federation) – venceremos drohten durch ihre Aufklärungsaktionen den olympi- Responsible: SDS Tübingen, Friedrichstr. 11. schen Frieden des Kapitals. Schon heute ist das Einkommen aus der Touristenindustrie so gross wie der gesamte mexikanische Staatshaushalt. Source: Aribert Reimann private archive. Der olympische Friede wurde am 2. Okt. hergestellt: Die Armee umzingelte auf dem Platz der 3 Kulturen 10 000 friedlich demonstrierende Studenten und sich Original Source in German: mit ihnen solidarisierender [sic] Bevölkerung und eröffnete das Feuer. Ergebnis: An die 60 Tote, hunderte Die Olympiade – ein Vergnügen der Reichen, das die Armen bezahlen (Flugblatt mexikanischer Studenten) von Verletzten, Tausende von Verhafteten. Für die mexikanischen Massen ist die Olympiade eine exotische Veranstaltung unbegreiflicher Ausländer. Füt [sic] Mexiko bedeutet sie Polizeiterror, Konzentra- Die mexikanische Oberschicht leistet sich eine Lu- tionslager in den Kasernen, Massenverhaftungen und xus-Olympiade zum Preis von 612 000 000 DM, politischer [sic] Mord. bezahlt von: 44 Mill. Mexikanern, von denen mehr DESWEGEN NIEDER MIT DER OLYMPIADE DER TOU- als 60% unterernährt sind und über 40% Analpha- RISTEN UND FERNSEHZUSCHAUER. SOLIDARITÄT beten. Das monatliche Durchschnittseinkommen von MIT DER MEXIKANISCHEN BEVÖLKERUNG UND DEN 89% der (5-6-köpfigen) mexikanischen Familie liegt KÄMPFENDEN MEXIKANISCHEN STUDENTEN: FÜR bei 192 DM. Nur 17% aller Häusser [sic] haben eine DEN SIEG DER MEXIKANISCHEN REVOLUTION! Wasserleitung, nur 18% aller Häusser [sic] sind aus AStA – SDS – venceremos – AStA –SDS venceremos Ziegeln erbaut. – AstA – SDS Bereits 1953 befanden sich von den 31 grössten Un- Verantwortlich: sds Tü, Friedrichstr. 11 ternehmen des Landes 19 in USA-Besitz. 1960 beliefen sich die US-Investitionen über 1 Milliarde Dollar. Further readings US-Konzerne (Nestle, General Motors, Ford, Woolworth, Colgate) beherrschen die Fernseh- und Radioprogramme ebenso wie den gesamten Konsumgü- Cornils, Ingo / Waters, Sarah (eds.): Memories of termarkt. 1968. International Perspectives, Oxford et al. 2011. 50 Jahre nach der mexikanischen Revolution, ge- Feenberg, Andrew / Feenberg, Jim: When Poetry tragen von den Massen der landlosen Bauern, sind ruled the Streets. The French May events of 1968, immer noch 25% des besten, kultivierbaren Landes Albany 2001. in Grossgrundbesitz; über die Hälfte der Bauern sind nach wie vor ohne Land. Aber auch denjenigen, de- Gilcher-Holtey, Ingrid (ed.): Die 68er-Bewegung: nen Land zugeteilt wurde, leben am Existenzmini- Deutschland, Westeuropa, USA, Munich 2001. mum, da die Landzuteilung zu klein war und die Produktivität wegen fehlender Kredite und technischer Gildea, Robert / Mark, James / Warring, Anette (eds.): Beratung und Ausbildung ausserordentlich niedrig Europe’s 1968: Voices of Revolt, Oxford 2013. bleiben muss. Hockerts, Hans Günter: “‘1968‘ als weltweite Bewe- Hunderttausende wandern jährlich als unterbezahlte gung”, in: Venanz Schubert (ed.), 1968. 30 Jahre Saisonarbeiter in den Süden der USA oder strömen in danach, St. Ottilien 1999, pp. 13-34. die Städte, wo sie in Elendsvierteln (in denen 1/3 der Horn, Gerd-Rüdiger: The Spirit of ’68. Rebellion in Mill. Einwohner von Mexiko-City lebt) als Arbeitslo- 118 Western Europe and North America, 1956-1976, Oxford 2007. Klimke, Martin: “1968 als transnationales Ereignis”, in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 14-15 (2008), pp. 22-7. Id.: The Other Alliance. Global protest and student unrest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties, Princeton 2011. 3.2 LATIN AMERICA A great future lies ahead (Cuba 1923) Christine Hatzky J ulio Antonio Mella, who was assassi- from all over the continent. There Mella joined the nated in Mexican exile in 1929, was one communist Party and very soon became part of the of the most radical representatives of revolutionary and artistic avant-garde that included the Cuban student movement. Starting the famous mural artist Diego Rivera and the painter in 1922, its members soon formu- Frida Kahlo, among others. He continued his level of lated political demands that went beyond university political activism throughout exile. For example, he reform, aiming to overcome societal problems on a assumed leading roles in the All-American Anti-Im- national and continental scale and affiliating itself perialist League, the trade union movement, and the with other social movements. In Cuba, there was solidarity committee with Augusto César Sandino constant debate concerned with overcoming US influ- (who led the Nicaraguan rebellion against US inter- ence in economic and political matters. Mella there- vention) and planned the armed overthrow of Presi- fore sought to affiliate the movement with anti-impe- dent Machado from his Mexican exile. In Cuba, he is rialist groups, the movement of veterans and patriots still hailed as one of the most important precursors of of the Cuban War of Independence, and the workers’ the Cuban Revolution of 1959. and trade union movement. He became one of the The article was published in November 1923 in the founders of the Universidad Popular José Martí (José student magazine Juventud (Youth), which was Martí Popular University) in 1923 and a co-founder founded by Julio Mella. Mella wrote the article of the Cuban communist Party. His political activity shortly after the first national congress of pupils and against the Cuban president Gerardo Machado students in Cuba in October 1923. The congress was forced him into Mexican exile in 1926, following a the culmination of the Cuban student movement short period of imprisonment. At that time, his repu- that involved both students from the only Cuban tation was already so great that his banishment to university, based in Havana, and pupils from colleges Mexico led to protests in all of Latin America. and religious establishments of higher education Post-revolutionary Mexico welcomed political exiles from all over the island. The whole year of 1923 119 was turbulent, with student strikes organized by with the French Revolution, for them, life stopped on the Federation of Cuban Students, an occupation of the glorious day of August 4th, with those privileges the university organized by Mella, numerous protest abolished, they abolished the privilege. activities, and the suspension of several university That was a vane dreamer’s mistake. professors. The students had initially been supported Just as the [wife of] Lot, they turn into pillars of salt by the rector and some professors. The suspension for having looked back. of around 15 professors, a goal attained by pressure They fail to act because they deny the fact that we from the students, was withdrawn after a short time, are living in an extremely interesting time in human however, and the democratization of the university history, that there has been a complete renewal of through representative participation in university values, that history is waiting for new Mirabeaus, issues could not be achieved. At the end of 1923, the Dantons, Martís, Bolívars who bring new ideals, positive mood of public opinion was reversed, largely preconceived and born in the consciousness of due to a press campaign against the student move- humans through the precursors of a new era. ment. The debates during the congress were highly There is a great need for apostles, heroes and martyrs controversial, especially relating to the demands that to help further the cause, and these apostles, heroes went beyond university reform, e.g., the condem- and martyrs are among the youth in the universities nation of US imperialism and abolition of the Platt of our America. Amendment, an amendment to the Cuban Consti- The pueblo is free, at least that’s what they say, let’s tution of 1902 allowing far-reaching intervention in not talk to them about hating Spain, for it’s not at Cuban internal affairs by the US government, and an fault for having had the same kind of government avowal of sympathy with the Russian Revolution. The as those that have used us, with their vices, product left-wing nationalist and anticlerical-minded students of the tropical heat; let’s not talk to them about who represented these positions were outnumbered conquering the “unredeemed fatherland”, if it’s by pupils and students of the religious establishments. Peruvian, or about preparing for eventual wars, if it’s A group led by Mella left the Federation of Cuban Chilean; let’s take the frenzied fantasy of establishing Students in late 1923 and founded the José Martí new germanias in America away from the decrepit Popular University in cooperation with trade union governments and old leaders of national life in circles and the Confederación de Estudiantes de Argentina and Brazil; if there are any jackals or apes Cuba, which was a counterpart to the Federación de who have made it to the presidential office, such as Estudiantes de Cuba. The following article calls upon Gómez, Saavedra or Leguía, we will try to frighten the Cuban and Latin American students and youth them off, back to where they came from, back to to continue the political fight in order to overthrow where they belong; and if, as in Cuba, we encounter corrupt governments and dictatorships and to liberate some who are immoral in the name of national sover- the Latin American nations from US hegemony. eignty, and others who sell our country in the name of morality, we will try to crush the one or the other Among many young people, there is a true love because they are all made of the same stuff: political for the past that manifests itself in different ways, sludge. hindering fruitful, necessary action among them Liberating the pueblo is the current generation’s at the current moment. Some of them believe that mission, it is a slave because it is ignorant of its rights, Cuban history ended with the death of Martí, that all let’s show them, let us shower them with our knowl- of the glorious epic poems ended, that they had run edge about it, we cannot let secular and non-secular out in the past century of liberating revolutions. They education inject them with its poison of insincerity would have fought under the command of Maceo, and corruption. just like Francisco Gómez, a specimen of heroic and The battle steed is waiting in his harness, we take off, failed youth. Their lyre would have been the epic the old and sterile “the past was better” has taken of Heredia, capable of all “mambise” heroism, they the place of “the future has to be great”, an effec- repudiate civic heroism and, although many do not tive demonstration of action, of struggle. We haven’t deny the future, they have a sterile love of the past exchanged the dream in the past for the dream in the that is bigger than that of the future. future, but the struggle in the present for a better For them, the ideas and concepts of things ended future. 120 One thing has taken the place of the other in the hablemos de odiar a España, que no tiene la culpa same way that the 19th century took the place of the de haber tenido gobiernos de la misma calaña que 15th century, the same way the youth continuously los que nos gastamos, calcados en los europeos, con replaces the older generation, bringing to life the wise todos sus vicios y algunos más, producto del calor tro- sentence once said by González Prada: “Los viejos a pical; tampoco de conquistar la “patria irredenta”, si la tumba, los jóvenes a la obra”, or “to the grave with es peruano, o de prepararse para posibles guerras, si the old, to work with the young.” es chileno; quitémoslo la frenética fantasía de establecer nuevas germanias en la América a los gobiernos Source: Instituto de historia del movimiento comunista y la revolución socialista de Cuba: J. A. Mella. Documentos y Artículos, La Habana 1975. decrépitos y ancianos directores de la vida nacional en la Argentina y en el Brasil; si existen algunos chacales o simios encaramados en las sillas presidenciales, como Gómez, Saavedra y Leguía, procuremos ahuy- Original Source in Spanish: Todo tiempo futuro tiene que ser mejor entarlos hacia la selva donde están en su sitio; y si nos encontramos, como en Cuba, unos que son inmorales en nombre de la soberanía del país, y otros que venden el país en nombre de la moralidad, procuremos aplastar a unos y a otros, ya que están hechos del Existe entre muchos jóvenes un acendrado amor al pasado, que se manifiesta de distintas maneras, im- mismo material: de fango político. Libertemos al pueblo, esa es la misión de la actual posibilitándolos para la acción fecunda y necesaria en generación; es esclavo porque es ignorante de sus el momento actual, unos creen que al morir Martí ter- derechos, enseñémosle, vaciemos todos nuestros co- minó la historia cubana, que todas las epopeyas glo- nocimientos sobre él, no dejemos que la educación riosas terminaron, se agotaron, en el pasado siglo de clerical y la nacional le inyecten el veneno de la insin- las revoluciones empancipadoras, hubieran comba- ceridad y de la corrupción. tido a las órdenes de Maceo como el mismo Francisco El corcel de la batalla espera enjaezado, partamos, no Gómez, ese ejemplar de juventud heroica y malogra- miremos hacia atrás; al arcaico y estéril “Todo tiempo da; su lira hubiera sido la épica de Heredia, capaces pasado fue mejor”, ha sustituido el “Todo tiempo fu- de todos los heroísmos “mambises”, desconocen el turo tiene que ser mejor”, demostración efectiva de heroísmo ciudadano, y aunque muchos no renieguen acción, de lucha; no hemos cambiado el sueño en el del presente aman con esterilidad el pasado más que pasado por el sueño en el futuro, sino la lucha en el el futuro. presente para hacer el futuro mejor. Para éstos, las ideas y los conceptos de las cosas ter- Una cosa ha sustituido a la otra, de la misma manera minaron con la Revolución Francesa, para ellos la vida que el siglo XIX sustituyó al XV, como la juventud sus- se detuvo el glorioso 4 de agosto, abolidos aquellos tituye constantemente a la vejez cumpliendo la sabia privilegios, se abolió el privilegio. sentencia de González Prada: “Los viejos a la tumba, Vano error de ilusos. los jóvenes a la obra.” Quedan convertidos, como [la mujer de] Lot, en estatuas de sal por mirar hacia atrás. Desconocen – y por eso no actúan -, que vivimos una hora interesantísima en la historia de la humanidad, que haz una completa renovación de valores, que la historia espera nuvos Mirabeau, nuevos Dantón, nuevos Martí, nuevos Bolívar, que realicen nuevos ideales ya pensados y resueltos en las conciencias humanas por los precursores de la nueva era. Hay necesidad intensa de apóstoles, de heróes, de mártires para el triunfo de la causa, y esos apóstoles, héroes y mártires, están en la juventud universitaria de nuestra América. El pueblo es libre, por lo menos así se le dice, no le 121 Further readings Masiello, Francine: “Rethinking Neocolonial Esthetics: Aguilar, Luis: Cuba 1933. Prologue to Revolution, Literature, Politics and Intelectual Communitiy in Ithaka / London 1972. Cuba’s Revista de Avance”, in: Latin American Research Review 28 (1993), pp. 3-31. Aken, Mark J. van: “The Radicalization of the Uruguayan Student Movement”, in: The Americas Melgar Bao, Ricardo / Ortega Breña, Mariana: “The 33(1976), pp. 109-129. Anti-Imperialist League of the Americas between the East and Latin America”, in: Latin American Perspec- Cairo, Ana (ed.): Mella. 100 años (2 vols.), Santiago tives 35 (2008), pp. 9-24. de Cuba / La Habana 2003. Mella, Julio Antonio: Documentos y artíclos (ed. InstiHatzky, Christine: Julio Antonio Mella (1903-1929). tuto de Historia del movimiento comunista y la revolu- Eine Biographie, Frankfurt a. M. 2004. ción socialista), La Habana 1975. Milanesio, Natalia: “The University Reform Movement Ead.: Julio A. Mella. Una biografía, Santiago de Cuba in Argentina, 1918”, in: Journal of Social History 39 2008. (2005), pp. 505-529. Ibarra, Jorge: Prologue to Revolution. Cuba 1858- Walter, Richard J.: “The Intellectual Background of the 1958, Boulder / London 1998. 1918 University Reform in Argentina”, in: Hispanic American Historical Review (49) 1969, pp. 233-253. Klaiber, Jeffrey L.: “The Popular Universities and the Origins of Aprismo, 1921-1924”, in: Hispanic American Historical Review 55 (1975), pp. 693-715. The Reform, the Students, and Popular Struggles (Argentina 1968) Valeria Manzano T 1960s What defines the legitimacy of the university move- many Argentine university students ment is its ability to articulate itself within a program endorsed position tending to popular and national liberation. The vis-à-vis the universities: they under- University Reform Movement of 1918 was authen- stood that the universities were not tically part of the program of political and cultural an arena of social transformation per se, but rather a reforms. [...] But soon the Reform Movement broke space from which to develop bridges to “the people” the bridges that united it with the popular move- and their organizations. In this respect they reinter- ments and it became the sign of the university poli- preted the legacies and memories of the Reform tics systematically opposed to, and isolated from, Movement of 1918, which they conceived of as all the political processes that marked the popular outdated in relation to the mandates of a revolution participation in politics. It was soon in opposition to that many viewed as impending. In 1968 the Frente those orientations that favored political participa- Estudiantil Nacional (National Student Front) issued tion. Perhaps this has always been true because the the following pamphlet: University Reform Movement contained the belief owards the an end of the ambivalent that the whole university, alone, could be an agent 122 of social transformation. The Reform, when projected Further readings as such, became a political party of the university, and transformed itself into the platform for the political Manzano, Valeria: The Age of Youth in Argentina: enlightenment of Argentine youth. Culture, Politics, and Sexuality from Perón to Videla, We remember 1918 with the respect that the popular Chapel Hill 2014. struggles deserve, but we believe that the option between Reformism and anti-reformism is outdated. Sorensen, Diana: A Turbulent Decade Remembered: We must now build new bridges that connect us with Scenes from the Latin American Sixties, Stanford the popular movement. 2007. Source: Frente Estudiantil Nacional: La Reforma, los estudiantes y las luchas populares (pamphlet), June 1968, Centro de Investigación y Documentación de la Cultura de Izquierda (CEDINCI), Student Movement Collection, C9/5-2. Original Source in Spanish: La Reforma, los estudiantes y las luchas populares […] Lo que define la legitimidad del movimiento universitario es su posibilidad de articularse al interior del programa popular y de liberación nacional. El Movimiento del 18 fue auténticamente parte del programa de reformas en la cultura y el poder político. […] Pero bien pronto la Reforma quiebra los puentes que la unen al Movimiento popular y se convierte en el rótulo de la política universitaria que se opone sistemáticamente y se aísla de todos aquellos procesos políticos que marcan el ascenso popular; que se desubica, cuando no se halla a favor, de las orientaciones políticas que rompen la participación popular. Y esto es así desde un principio, porque la Reforma contenía la creencia que la universidad íntegra, sola, podía ser agente de transformación social. La Reforma, al proyectarse como tal, al constituirse en partido político de la universidad, pasa a ser una suerte de iluminismo político de la juventud argentina. Al 18 lo recordamos con el respeto que merecen las luchas populares, pero la opción entre reformismo y anti-reformismo está caduca. Tenemos que inventar ahora nuevos puentes que nos conecten con el movimiento popular. 123 3.3 SOUTH ASIA Hands off Asia, down with Imperialism, Freedom to Colonial Youth (Pakistan 1953) Sadia Bajwa S upplement issue of the Pakistani leftist the character of our Government that it too ordered student firing on a student demonstration at Dacca on the journal, Students’ Herald, February 21, 1953 brought out to same day of year 1952. commemorate the 21st February 1952, which came to be known as Shaheed Day WORLD STUDENTS DEMAND END OF COLONIAL (Martyr’s Day) and today is a national day in Bangla- RULES desh, also called Language Movement Day. On this day, Bengali students in then-East Pakistan rose up in British Students condemn Kenya oppression protest against the Pakistani government, demanding LONDON – Immediate rescinding of undemocratic that Bengali be given an equal status to Urdu as the emergency in Kenya and release or trial of all polit- national language of Pakistan, 54% of Pakistanis ical prisoners were demanded by students of the being Bengali. A number of students were killed by London School of Economics recently. A resolution police firing during these demonstrations. This issue was passed protesting against oppressive measures of the Students’ Herald places the commemoration in that country and endorsing the demands of the of the Shaheed Day in the context of anti-colonialism, Kenya African Union for land reform and removal of expressing its solidarity with colonized youth across racial discriminatory measures. the globe. The British government’s colonial policy was also condemned by students of the University College of the South West, in Exeter […] COLONIAL YOUTH GIVES FINAL BLOWS TO […] IMPERIALISM IUS MESSAGE TO IRAQI STUDENTS […] February 21 is a symbolic day in the history of colonial youth. It was on this day in 1946 that the PRAGUE – Following the killing and wounding of Jawans [Urdu/Hindi: youth] of the then Red Indian students and other demonstrators in Baghdad the Navy mutinied against their imperialist overloads [sic.] IUS has sent a message of solidarity to the Iraqi This followed a country-wide sympathy strike by the students struggling, side by side with their people, students. In 1947 British troops opened fire on the for the independence of their homeland and an end students of Cairo. On the same day of 1948 a mass to foreign occupation. […] rally of South East Asian youth was held in Calcutta [IUS: International Union of Students] which powerfully and unanimously gave the call of “HANDS OFF ASIA”. Since then firings have repeat- DSF PROTESTS TO MOSSADEQ. Military Occupation edly taken place on student demonstration in many of Tehran ‘Varsity countries, including those who have recently achieved constitutional independence like our country. Every The Democratic Students’ Federation [DSF], Karachi, year many young lives have to be sacrificed by those has in a cable to Premier Mossadeq of Iran protested agitating for their demands and for the independence against the police occupation of Tehran University of brotherly countries. It is a really sad commentary on and has demanded the release of all the arrested 124 Source: Democratic Students Federation: Students’ Herald 7 (21.02.1953) pp. 2, 4 -6 & title page. students and immediate withdrawal of the police NUMBER OF SOVIET STUDENTS HAS INCREASED from the University area. TWELVEFOLD SINCE 1917 The DSF has in cables to students’ Bodies of Teheran and Lebanon condemned police actions MOSCOW In 1917 there were 96 higher education against students there and pledged solidarity with establishments with a student body of 117,000 them. located mainly in the major centers of Russia, in A cable received by the DSF from Teheran the country. Today there are 887 institutes […] This sad that police has occupied the Teheran University information was brought out in reports at the XIXth and jailed 100 students. A cable from Lebanon has Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet said that police had attacked Syrian student demon- Union. […] strators. Constitution of Pakistan Youth Movement (Pakistan 1956) Sadia Bajwa P akistan Youth Movement is an example f. of student and youth movements emphasizing, in various ways the virtues pf honesty that were not regime critical and and integrity, courtesy and co-operation, self-help propounded the role of students as and self-respect, human feeling and fellowship being “apolitical”. Social welfare work g. to reform the moral life of the youth by to formulate any policies, to initiate any and providing and organizing extracurricular activi- schemes and undertake any projects and to adopt ties for students and youth in general were part of any measures which the Pakistan Youth Movement their main aims. These groups were often patronized thinks are in the interests of the country. by state officials, such as federal or provincial minis- Implementation: the aims and objects shall be ters, high-ranking bureaucrats, big business men or attained by by the university administration. The trope of the i. apolitical student was central to the state discourse Movement to discuss matters relating to its aims and that defined the role of students as being the ’torch- objects, bearers’ of national progress. ii. holding meetings of the Pakistan Youth setting up Youth Clubs and Hostels in the principal [sic.] towns of East and West Pakistan in Aims and Objectives: […] order to create opportunities for bringing together all a. to inculcate patriotism and promote national those interested in the social, cultural and intellectual spirit among the Pakistanis in general and the youth advancement of the country, and use them as phys- of the country in particular, ical training centres, b. to undertake social welfare work iii. c. to initiate and encourage educational, debates, discussion forums, etc., arranging lectures, seminars, meetings, cultural and literary activities, iv. d. East and West Pakistan, to raise the morals of the youth and build up organising youth rallies and festivals both in their character and personality, v. opening adult literacy centres [sic.], e. vi. providing social and civil relief to the areas to create health and consciousness and look after the physical wellbeing of the people in in need of it, in co-operation with the authorities, general and members of Pakistan Youth Movement vii. in particular, public complaints in the day to day administration of 126 setting up of machinery for attending to the country, viii. securing or providing for deserving students, scholarships, stipends, books, fee concessions and other facilities that may be needed in the course if their education, ix. giving a lead to the people and Government of Pakistan on all important national issues in the form of speeches, statements and resolutions, x. adopting any other proposals or means which the Central Service Committee may from time to time deem advisable in the interest of the country or in the furtherance of the cause of t the Pakistan Youth Movement. Source: Northern Pakistan Printing and Publishing company: Constitution of Pakistan Youth Movement, Lahore 1956. Nation above Self. West Pakistan Youth Movement (Pakistan 1959-1962) Sadia Bajwa T he below is the emblem of the humanitarian work of the organisation but also in West Pakistan Youth Movement, “a keeping aloof from party politics. The Manifesto socio-cultural organization” that was (1952) of the APYM stated that it was a non-political founded in January 1952, a few years “humanitarian movement” with the ideal “To Make after independence. It was a branch Pakistan a Model Welfare State.” of the All-Pakistan Youth Movement (APYM) that was “We are ‘anti’ none but evil. We are ‘pro’ none but established at the same time (distinct from the Paki- what is good. […] We pledge our highest loyalty to stan Youth Movement mentioned above, p. 121). The the safety and security of our state, and to work for APYM boasted a total membership of 12,000 in the the greater glory of our country. […] We want to early 1960s. It focused on the arrangement of social, arouse enthusiastic support for our programme by cultural, academic and sport activities for youth. It also awakening a sense of national duty in our people…” catered to students through fundraising for scholar- (West Pakistan Youth Movement: Manifesto of ships and guidance services as well as undertook relief APYM, 1952). work during natural disasters and social work. It was The ideal of establishing a ‘welfare state’ was in affiliated with the World Assembly of Youth for a few keeping with the official imaginings of the ‘Islamic years as well as being a cooperating organization of welfare state’ and was thus not considered “polit- the International Union of Socialist Youth. ical” by the state. The term was used interchange- The APYM described itself as ‘apolitical’ and ‘socio-cul- ably with ‘Islamic socialism’ from the late 1950 by tural’ and as the sole countrywide organization of the ruling military regime of Ayub Khan (1958-1969). Youth in Pakistan. The motto “Nation above Self” The leader of the popular opposition in the 1960s, reflected the image of youth as being the embodi- Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, adopted the term to describe his ment of the nation’s future. The “selfless” devotion vision for state and society. to the nation was manifested not only in social and 127 Nelson, Matthew J.: “Embracing the Ummah: Student Politics beyond State Power in Pakistan.” Modern Asian Studies 45 (2011), pp. 565–596. Paracha, Nadeem Farooq: “Student Politics in Pakistan: A Celebration, Lament and History”, in: Dawn Blogs (03.07.2014). URL: https://www.dawn.com/ news/1116782 (accessed: 15.11.2018). Source: “West Pakistan Youth Movement (A Socio-Cultural Organization)” (pamphlet), ca. 1962, International Institute of Social History Amsterdam, International Union of Socialist Youth Archive, File on All Pakistan Youth Movement 19631966, File No. 1608. Further readings Ahmad, Azizuddin: Pakistan mein Tulaba Tehreek (Student Movement in Pakistan), Lahore / Mashal 2000. Iqtidar, Humeira: “Radical Times: Students in Political mobilization during the 1960s and 1970s”, in: Sustainable Development Policy Institute (ed.), At the Crossroads: South Asian Research, Policy and Development in a Globalized World, Karachi 2007, pp. 232-244. Khalid, Saleem Mansoor (ed.): Tulibah Tehreekain (Students’ Movements), Lahore 1989. Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza: “Students, Islam, and Politics: Islami Jami’at-i Tulaba in Pakistan”, in: The Middle East Journal 46 (1992), pp. 59–76. 128 3.4 AFRICA The Constitution of the South African Student Organisation (SASO) (South Africa 1968) Exerpted from: https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/south-african-student-organisation-saso (Accessed: 25/01/2019). T he South African Student Organisation national religious movement that allowed students (SASO) was formed in 1968 after some from different universities to meet on a regular basis. members of the University of Natal’s It was influenced by Black Theology that taught reli- Black Campus SRC (Student Represent- gion from an oppressed person’s perspective. Libera- ative Council) decided to break away tion theology sought to transform society into a just from the National Union of South African Students and fraternal society. The aim of Black Theology was (NUSAS). NUSAS was a liberal organisation domi- to inspire black people to realise equality with white nated by White students. When it was formed in people and that their blackness and inferiority was 1924, it was an exclusively White student body that not a punishment nor a condition created by God. represented student interests. In the 1960s white The UCM accepted these teachings as relevant for members became sympathetic to the black students black South Africans and important for their libera- cause. As a result, black students membership began tion. Despite its orientation towards Black Theology, to increase. Many of these students, the majority of Steve Biko and his circle of associates were not whom were based at the University of Natal, became content with the UCM. They observed that the UCM increasingly dissatisfied with the inability of NUSAS to was reinforcing the inferior status of black people tackle deep racist structures and policies of both the by having a large number of white people in their government and universities. leadership structures, even though the majority of its One incident in particular, sparked the break away. In members were black. the period 1967-68 Steve Biko, a medical student at Subsequently, in 1968 during a UCM meeting, black Natal University, was one of the students who began students formed a black caucus that resolved that to analyze and criticise the unhealthy political situa- there was a need to form an exclusively Black student tion in the country. At Wentworth, Natal University’s organisation. The caucus then decided that a confer- medical school for Blacks, Biko was elected to the ence for black students should be organised. The Student’s Representative Council (SRC), and in 1967, conference, which was attended by thirty members attended a conference of students that was critical of from various SRCs from black universities, was held the government. Primarily because NUSAS was domi- at Marianhill, Natal. The conference saw the birth of nated by whites, Rhodes University, the conference SASO. The following year in July 1969 SASO had its host, refused to allow mixed-race accommodation inaugural conference which was held at the Univer- or eating facilities. Reacting angrily to the incident, sity of the North near Pietersburg (now Polokwane). Biko slated the incomplete integration of student poli- At this conference Steve Biko was elected its first tics under the existing system and dismissed talk of President and students from the University of Natal liberalism as an empty gesture by Whites who really played a pivotal role in the formation of this student wished to maintain the status quo and keep Blacks as structure. second-rate citizens. The decision to break away from NUSAS was The formation of SASO was preceded and influenced also motivated largely by the emergence of Black by the formation of the University Christian Move- Consciousness (BC) - founded by Steve Biko. BC was ment (UCM) in 1967. UCM was an inter-denomi- a new philosophy influenced by the development of 129 Black Theology among the University of Natal Black to adopt a cautious approach lest it alienated the students. The Black Consciousness Movement that bulk of students sympathetic to its cause because so Biko founded rejected the notion that whites could many held different views. play a role in the liberation of blacks. “The main Towards the middle of 1970s SASO began to assert thing was to get black people to articulate their own its ideological stance and political objectives. The struggle and reject the white liberal establishment organization had grown in confidence because of from prescribing to people,” said Barney Pityana increased student support and assertiveness of the (Biko’s friend). independent political organization. As a result, during Biko and his colleagues felt blacks needed to learn the first SASO General Student Council (GSC), the to speak for themselves. In fact, as Pityana recalled, ‘conservative’ first preamble was amended to assert for white students, “NUSAS was a nice friendly club, Black Consciousness and the independence of black another game you played while at university. Then students to act according to their own free will in you grew out of it,” but for Biko and other black response to Apartheid and racism in general. In July students, NUSAS was not militant enough. Other 1972 to encourage adult participation and promote liberal organizations like some churches were not their broad objectives, SASO leaders and represent- open to blacks either. For example, at a non-racial atives from some twenty-seven black organizations church conference, which Biko attended, white established an adult wing of their organization, the participants discouraged blacks from defying restric- Black People’s Convention (BPC) under the Presidency tions of the Group Areas Act, which limited blacks of Winnie Kgware. to 72 hours in a white area. Being told how students should act annoyed Biko very much. It also underlined the extent to which black South Africans were isolated even in the churches. SASO and NUSAS: Conflicting opinions SASO adopted a conciliatory tone towards NUSAS stating that its objective was to promote contact between black students in different universities as well as contact between white and black students. SASO was deeply concerned that breaking away from NUSAS would alienate it from those black students who were strongly committed to working within and with NUSAS. One such student was Ben Ngubane. Ngubane was of the opinion that black politics should not grow outside the liberal fold on the grounds that white liberals had also suffered from state abuse and humiliation and they deserved support, respect and the freedom to love Black South Africans. He was further concerned that breaking away from a national body like NUSAS to form an additional national body would weaken the liberation movement. Another student concerned with the formation of SASO was Aubrey Mokoape. Mokoape was an Africanist and former member of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) since his high school days. He was against the inclusion of “Coloureds” and “Indians” in the Black Consciousness Movement on the grounds that they were neither black nor Africans. Faced with these conflicting perspectives it became essential for SASO 130 Source: http://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/con19690700.032.009.743.pdf (Accessed: 17/01/2019). The #RhodesMustFall statements (South Africa 2015) Heike Becker I n March 2015, students at UCT began a In the early stages of the protests, not only vibrant forceful campaign called #RhodesMustFall debates about racism, but also about sexism, homo- to remove the statue of the British colo- phobia, and xenophobia were featured prominently. nialist and mining magnate Cecil John The cover of the Journal The Johannesburg Salon (09 Rhodes, which had stood on university / 2015), which is dedicated to the student protests, grounds in a prominent position for the past eighty shows a poster that was held up next to the contested years. The protests had been going on for about a Rhodes statue and proudly proclaimed: “Dear history, week when students occupied the Bremner admin- this revolution has women, gays, queers & trans. istrative building, which they renamed “Azania Remember that.” House”, thus expressing an ideological affiliation with Pan-Africanist positions. Over the next few weeks, THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN students occupied the building and were supported by academics from UCT and other universities in the Cape Town area, along with members of the public. We are an independent collective of students, workers Activists successfully disrupted everyday business and staff who have come together to end institution- on the UCT campus and initiated a debate about alised racism and patriarchy at UCT. This movement racism, demanding the decolonization of education. was sparked by Chumani Maxwele’s radical protest The movement succeeded in finding the support of against the statue of Cecil John Rhodes on Monday the university’s governing bodies; on April 9th, the 9 March 2015. This has brought to the surface the offensive statue was removed under the thunderous existing and justified rage of black students in the applause of a large crowd that had gathered to watch oppressive space cultivated and maintained by UCT, this significant moment. despite its rhetoric of ‘transformation’. We want to The movement spread quickly to other universities, be clear that this movement is not just concerned initially to those that are similar to UCT in particular with the removal of a statue. The statue has great – historically white institutions with English as a symbolic power; it glorifies a mass-murderer who working language that are steeped in the “liberal” exploited black labour and stole land from indige- South African tradition, with deep roots in British nous people. Its presence erases black history and colonialism and a corresponding institutional culture. is an act of violence against black students, workers Throughout the South African winter and spring of and staff – by “black” we refer to all people of colour. 2015, students campaigned for changes of their The statue was therefore the natural starting point of universities’ symbolism; they demanded the removal this movement. Its removal will not mark the end but of colonial memorials and the renaming of build- the beginning of the long overdue process of decolo- ings. They called for the appointment of more black nising this university. academics. They also insisted upon the reform of In our belief, the experiences seeking to be addressed curricula, which they stated conveyed racist and colo- by this movement are not unique to an elite institu- nialist forms of knowledge and ignored, and even tion such as UCT, but rather reflect broader dynamics scorned, African intellectual experience. of a racist and patriarchal society that has remained The campaigns for affordable tuition were later unchanged since the end of formal apartheid. started. This long-term perspective is important in This movement is not just about the removal of a order to understand that the #FeesMustFall move- statue. The statue has great symbolic power - it is ment goes beyond demands for lower tuition fees, a glorifying monument to a man who was undeni- and ultimately aims at free public university educa- ably a racist, imperialist, colonialist, and misogynist. tion. It stands at the centre of what supposedly is the 132 ‘greatest university in Africa’. This presence, which identification.” represents South Africa’s history of dispossession We support the White Privilege Project and encourage and exploitation of black people, is an act of violence white students to engage with that. They can against black students, workers and staff. The statue contribute through conscientising their own commu- is therefore the perfect embodiment of black aliena- nity on campus. We also welcome their participation tion and disempowerment at the hands of UCT’s insti- in radical action as a sign of solidarity, so long as that tutional culture, and was the natural starting point of participation takes place on our terms. this movement. The removal of the statue will not be the end of this movement, but rather the beginning of the decolonisation of the university. AN INTERSECTIONAL APPROACH We want to state that while this movement emerged CENTERING BLACK PAIN as a response to racism at UCT, we recognise that experiences of oppression on this campus are inter- At the root of this struggle is the dehumanisation of sectional and we aim to adopt an approach that is black people at UCT. This dehumanisation is a violence cognisant of this going forward. An intersectional exacted only against black people by a system that approach to our blackness takes into account that we privileges whiteness. Our definition of black includes are not only defined by our blackness, but that some all racially oppressed people of colour. We adopt this of us are also defined by our gender, our sexuality, our political identity not to disregard the huge differences able-bodiedness, our mental health, and our class, that exist between us, but precisely to interrogate among other things. We all have certain oppressions them, identify their roots in the divide-and-conquer and certain privileges and this must inform our organ- tactics of white supremacy, and act in unity to bring izing so that we do not silence groups among us, and about our collective liberation. It is therefore crucial so that no one should have to choose between their that this movement flows from the black voices and struggles. Our movement endeavours to make this a black pain that have been continuously ignored and reality in our struggle for decolonisation. silenced. With regard to white involvement, we refer to Biko: “What I have tried to show is that in South Africa, political power has always rested with white ON ‘ReVeRSe RAcISM’ society. Not only have the whites been guilty of being on the offensive but, by some skillful manoeuvres, In line with our positions, we reject the policing of they have managed to control the responses of the the responses of black students to their violent expe- blacks to the provocation. Not only have they kicked riences. We want to add that we feel that the Consti- the black but they have also told him how to react to tution’s conception of racism is fundamentally racist the kick. For a long time the black has been listening because it presupposes that racism is a universal with patience to the advice he has been receiving on experience, thus normalising the suffering of those how best to respond to the kick. With painful slow- who actually experience racism. “A derivation from ness he is now beginning to show signs that it is his the word ‘race’ is ‘racism’. The mere definition of right and duty to respond to the kick in the way he the word race does not amount to racism. Racism sees fit.” “The (white) liberal must understand that is a set of attitudes and social mores which devalue the days of the Noble Savage are gone; that the one race in order to empower another, as well as the blacks do not need a go between in this struggle for material power to deploy those values in the devalu- their own emancipation. No true liberal should feel ation or destruction of the lives of the devalued race. any resentment at the growth of Black Conscious- Therefore those at the receiving end of racism cannot ness. Rather, all true liberals should realise that the be racists. They may develop counter values which place for their fight for justice is within their white despise racists, but precisely because of racism, they society. The liberals must realise that they themselves lack the material power to implement those values” - are oppressed if they are true liberals and therefore Yvette Abrahams, UWC Women and Gender Studies they must fight for their own freedom and not that of Department. the nebulous “they” with whom they can hardly claim 133 The Constitution’s conception of racism has systemat- outsourced workers are used to deal with protests, ically been used to deter irrepressible urges by black despite their own exploitation at the hands of the South Africans to challenge racism and violence. An same institution, whilst management keeps itself example of this was the Human Rights Commission unseen. Their releasing of statements reflects the ruling against the way in which the university prioritises pacifying public Forum for Black Journalists, when white journalists opinion and defending its public image over the were banned from the organisation in February 2008 interests of its own black students. and this was declared unconstitutional and racist. An Our expectation is that management makes a examination of South Africa’s political history reveals genuine attempt at meeting with us, on our terms, the necessity for black people to organise to the which involves the removal of investigations that exclusion of white people in the fight against racism. frame us as criminals. It is laughable that UCT has a building named after Meaningful engagement cannot happen if one party Biko, when Biko himself said “Those who know, define is under duress. racism as discrimination by a group against another We also find it infuriating that management is for the purposes of subjugation or maintaining subju- attempting to open up a process of debate through gation. In other words one cannot be racist unless he their ‘Have Your Say’ campaign. Alumni have been has the power to subjugate. What blacks are doing emailed and asked for input, and notice boards have is merely to respond to a situation in which they find been put up near the statue to allow for comment themselves the objects of white racism. from the broader student body. This is not mean- We are in the position in which we are because of ingful engagement of black students by manage- our skin. We are collectively segregated against - ment, and in fact shows a complete disregard for what can be more logical than for us to respond as the black experience. Management is making clear a group?” that they are not interested in alleviating black pain unless the move to do so is validated by white voices. It is absurd that white people should have any say in STUDENT LEADERSHIP whether the statue should stay or not, because they can never truly empathise with the profound violence We have noted that the UCT SRC has supported exerted on the psyche of black students. Our pain and this movement, and we welcome their solidarity anger is at the centre of why the statue is being ques- and appreciate the strong stance they have taken. tioned, so this pain and anger must be responded to However, we are wary of the contradictions inherent in a way that only we can define. It must be high- in the SRC taking up such a cause. Given that they lighted that the push for dialogue around the statue are a structure specifically designed to work with reflects the disturbing normalisation of colonisation management, having them lead puts this movement and white supremacy at UCT. That the presence of in a compromised position in which we would have Rhodes is seen as debatable shows that management to negotiate with management on their terms. To be does not take seriously the terrible violence against clear, we see SRC involvement and support as crucial black people historically and presently. Finally, it is in this movement, but believe leadership and direction revealing that while black protestors are threatened must come from students themselves. Any attempt by with and are facing investigations, the racist backlash the SRC to coopt the movement will thus be rejected. from white students has not been dealt with by the university. ENGAGEMENT WITH MANAGEMENT OUR DEMANDS We find the way in which UCT management has ‘engaged’ with this movement to be disingenuous. At Our immediate demands are that we receive a date no point have we been engaged directly by manage- for the removal of the statue from campus grounds, ment. Management has responded to various media and that the university investigation of student houses and has made attempts to isolate individ- protesters be withdrawn. We find it unacceptable uals from within the movement to divide us. Black that management has presented a date on which 134 council will discuss the statue; we reject the notion decision making bodies which perpetuate that the university has any decision. Management institutional racism. has presented a date on which council will discuss • Re-evaluate the standards by which research areas the statue; we reject the notion that the university are decided - from areas that are lucrative and has any decision to make here. Our position is clear centre whiteness, to areas that are relevant to and will not be hampered by bureaucratic processes the lives of black people locally and on the which management hides behind. Our pain should be continent. the only factor taken into consideration, and there- • Introduce a curriculum and research scholarship fore the statue’s removal from UCT must be a non-ne- linked to social justice and the experiences of black gotiable, inevitable outcome. people. • Adopt an admissions policy that explicitly uses race as a proxy for disadvantage, prioritising black OUR LONG-TERM GOALS INCLUDE: applicants. • Remove the NBT as a requirement for admission • Remove all statues and plaques on campus because it systematically disadvantages all students celebrating white supremacists. except those who attend Model C schools and • Rename buildings and roads from names private schools. commemorating only white people, to names • Improve academic support programmes. of either black historical figures, or to names that • Meaningfully interrogate why black students are contribute to this university taking seriously its most often at the brunt of academic exclusion. • Develop an improved financial aid system. African positionality. • Replace artworks that exoticise the black • Radically reduce the currently extortionate fees. experience (by white, predominantly male artists) • Improve facilities which deal with sexual assault, as which are presented without context, with well as facilities which help black students deal artworks produced by young, black artists. with the psychological trauma as a result of racism. • Recognise that the history of those who built • Implement R10 000 pm minimum basic for UCT our university-enslaved and working class workers as a step towards a living wage, in the black people-has been erased through spirit of Marikana. institutional culture. Pay more attention to • Get rid of the Supplemented Living Level, which historical sites of violence, such as the slave prescribes a poverty wage. graves beneath the buildings in which we learn. • Stop using the Consumer Price Index which ensures • Implement of a curriculum which critically that wages never really increase, leaving workers centres Africa and the subaltern. By this we in poverty. mean treating African discourses as the point • end outsourcing. The companies must go, the of departure - through addressing not only workers must stay. content, but languages and methodologies of • There should be no capitalist companies making education and learning - and only examining profits at this public sector institution. Workers western traditions in so far as they are relevant to must know that their job is safe, has decent our own experience. working conditions and ensures comfortable lives. • Provide financial and research support to black • education for workers and their families must academics and staff. be free. • Radically change the representation of black • Stop the victimisation and intimidation of workers. lecturers across faculties. No worker must be penalised in any way for • Revise the limitations on access to senior supporting and joining protest action, including positions for black academics. This includes strike action, at UCT. interrogating the notion of “academic • Workers must be able, without penalty of any excellence” which is used to limit black academics kind, to refuse work that is a danger or hazard and students’ progression within the university. to their health and safety. • Increase the representation of black academics • Provide workers with access to services dealing on the currently predominantly white, male with labour, family, housing issues. 135 • Provide workers with avenues through which to report and address experiences of racism, sexism and other forms of abuse. These avenues must assist in enforcing legal action against the perpetrator. In solidarity, The Rhodes Must Fall Movement Source: https://gorahtah.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/ publicaction_pdf-for-web_pages1.pdf, (Accessed: 25/01/2019). #Oct 6: “We demand insourcing of all university workers” (South Africa 2017) Heike Becker T he student protests of 2015/16 arose “The last shall be first and the first last.’ in a situation that has been marked by Decolonisation is the putting into practice of growing socioeconomic inequality in this sentence.” post-apartheid South Africa and by the (Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1961) African Nation Congress (ANC) govern- ment policies of neoliberal restructuring. The posi- The new student movement in South Africa has called tions of both poor students and low-income laborers for the decolonisation of this country’s universities. have become precarious in the corporate university, Central to the call has been the understanding that which has developed quickly with the neoliberal our universities remain a product of a longstanding restructuring of the higher education sector. On the project of racial capitalism in South Africa, and that other hand, increasingly corrupt patronage politics efforts to ‘transform’ since the end of formal apart- has been the hallmark of the Zuma administration heid have not done enough to change deep-seated since 2009. inequalities at universities. The workers at the neoliberal university, however, In fact, while some progressive gains have been made were not simply “liberated” by radicalised students. in the post-apartheid period, South African universi- Workers showed tremendous agency. At some ties have slid into more conservative practices. One of universities, long-standing battles against outsourcing the most serious instances of this conservativism has had seen anti-neoliberal workers’ politics, especially been the treatment of university workers. The mass at Wits since 2000. The #Oct6 movement brought outsourcing of university workers to private compa- together workers, some academics and certain nies since 1999 is a blight on the record of post-apart- factions of the student movement in early October heid universities. Workers who have always earned 2015, at a time when the decolonization battles had the smallest salaries on campuses - cleaning build- been going on for several months, and just days ings, tending to campus gardens, providing security before the explosion of mass protests. and catering services - lost what meager benefits and status they had on campuses when universities trans- 136 ferred their contracts to private companies. Overnight acceptable feature of our society. If we cannot sustain workers lost up to 40% of their salaries, many of their a practice of equality in our universities, how are we benefits (including being able to send their children to expect other institutions to work against inequality to university for free), their job security, and much of in the most unequal country on earth? their bargaining power. From recent correspondence, it seems university For many years workers across universities have managements might be listening. Yet they mostly been struggling against outsourcing and the intoler- defer insourcing to some future time when govern- able conditions of work on campuses. Oct6 marks a ment funding to universities increases. Of course, turning point in the politics of outsourcing on univer- government must be petitioned to improve funding sity campuses. Oct6 represents the coming together to higher education to ensure that universities have of campus-specific struggles into a national campaign the resources to provide affordable, quality educa- for insourcing on campuses. It is a demand invigor- tion to students, and to guarantee its workers a ated by the new student movement and the emerging living wage that allows them to secure better lives significance of universities in national politics. for themselves and their children. But Oct6 is clear: Oct6 is the beginning of a long campaign across South insourcing cannot wait until government improves African universities, a campaign that puts forward funding to higher education. keys demands for a decolonised public African univer- It is the universities’ responsibility to find a way to sity. Oct6 is the inauguration of an effort to unite finance insourcing and living wages for its workers workers, students and academics on all campuses without increasing tuition fees, or reducing academic to create principled and progressive universities that staff salaries, from within its existing resources. stand for principled and progressive change in the Management argues that they do not have the society in which they work. The campaign begins with money to fund outsourcing. How then can univer- one of the most important issues on campuses: the sity managements routinely find money to fund mistreatment of workers. their priority projects: A-rated scientists who do not Oct6 is clear: all university workers must be insourced. teach our students, performance bonuses for senior On the 6th of October, university workers, students managers, glossy new buildings? The point is to ask and staff will gather outside and on campuses around what these projects and their funding say about the the country. We invite all media and supporters to join principles and priorities of universities, and how they us on Tuesday at Wits, the University of Johannesburg orient universities as drivers, rather than mitigators, and at UCT from 12h00 until 14h00. of inequality. In Fanon’s terms, outsourced workers are the very Towards a decolonised public African university: last on campuses. Academics report having to give Insourcing of all workers at universities Free university workers money privately because workers do not education An end to the criminalisation of student have enough money for food at the end of each protest Decolonisation of the curriculum Massive month. This while senior management bargains for public investment in universities. annual bonuses on top of their already swollen salaries. University management must understand that if Issued by the Oct6 Movement, endorsed by: they want to be taken seriously as agents of change Wits PYA, Wits SRC, Wits WSC, TransformWits, Wits in their institutions and in society they must work PSC, AKF Wits, MSA Wits, NASAWU, ASAWU, UJ against their own privilege in service of equalising MSA, UJ PSF, UJ Black Thought, UJ Black Academics and democratising these important institutions. It is Forum, UJ EFF, UJ Persistent Solidarity Forum, UJ in this spirit that insourcing must be a key task in the SASCO APK (PYA), RhodesMustFall, UCT NEHAWU decolonisation of South African universities: putting Joint Shop Stewards’ Council (JSSC), UCT Workers the first last and the last first. Forum, UCT Workers’ Solidarity Committee, UCT Left The raw inequality of campus life is a sign of a deeply Students’ Forum (LSF), UCT Palestine Solidarity Forum undemocratic system. Universities cannot imagine (PSF), Black Student Movement (‘Rhodes’ Univer- that they can serve as the cultivators of future democ- sity), Open Stellenbosch, UFS Socialist Youth Move- racy in South Africa if their own terms are saturated ment, UFS Progressive Student Collective, UFS EFFSC, by such inequality. It provides a tacit education to all Education Rights Campaign Nigeria, Democractic Left who learn at our universities that such inequality is an Front, Right2Know Gauteng 137 For further comment: University of Witwatersrand: Deliwe Mzobe - 076 753 7261 Thembi Luckett - 082 909 3203 Noor Nieftagodien - 082 457 4103 Leigh-Ann Naidoo - 072 023 7271 University of Johannesburg: Tshepo Moloi - 082 464 7337 Margaret Chauke - 079 069 4765 Claire Ceruti - 082 332 9874 University of Cape Town: Brian Kamanzi: 076 906 2572 Ru Slayen: 0832737242 Source: https://gorahtah.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/ publicaction_pdf-for-web_pages1.pdf, p. 31 (Accessed: 14/01/2019). Further readings Becker, Heike: “South Africa’s May 1968: Decolonising Institutions and Minds”, in: Review of African Political Economy (2016). URL: http://roape. net/2016/02/17/south-africas-may-1968-decolonising-institutions-and-minds/ (accessed 05.01.2018). Biko, Steve: I write What I Like: Selected Writings by Steve Biko, London 1987. Booysen, Susan (ed.): Fees Must Fall: Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, Johannesburg 2016. Brown, Julian: The Road to Soweto: Resistance and the Uprising of 16 June 1976, London 2016. Heffernan, Anne / Nieftagodien, Noor (eds.): Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto ’76, Johannesburg 2016. Nyamnjoh, Francis B.: #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa, Bamenda 2016. Zeilig, Leo: Revolt and Protest: Student Politics and Activism in Sub-Saharan Africa, London 2007. 138 4. PROTEST FORMS 4.1 LATIN AMERICA The Dialogue must be public (Mexico 1968) Marta Almeida A ll student movements over the world shop) promoted graphics as a “combat weapon” and in the latter part of the sixties exhib- used engraving as its reproduction technique, as it ited certain analogies in relation to the was cheap and easy to produce. Similarly, the 1968 nature of the protests and the way students used engraving and silkscreen printing, and, in which they were expressed: the “poster”. 1968 as in the case of the French Atelier Populaire, they witnessed an international movement of students were active students of the arts, mostly from the from Czechoslovakia, Germany, France to Mexico; National School of Plastic Arts (ENAP) that worked the street protests became one of its main resources. together with the National School of Painting, Sculp- 1968 represented a point of inflection in the Mexican ture and Engraving. student movement due to the impact of the univer- The demands of the student movement were based sity upheaval between July — when the student on the “Official Petition”, which became the primary union became consolidated within an atmosphere inspiration for the creation of posters. One of the of censorship propitiated by the government of Díaz objectives was an invitation “to dialogue” between Ordaz — and October, when the Tlatelolco Massacre students and government institutions. Nonetheless, took place. Furthermore, that same year, Mexico was the government was not willing to recognize the host to the Olympic Games, an event that, for the legitimacy and the existence of the student move- first time in history, was celebrated in Latin America. ment and refused to enter into any dialogue. In the The Mexico ‘68 Graphics provides an awareness of face of this silence by the State, the student commu- the determination of Mexico’s youth to democratize nity organized its “Silent protest march” during which the country. — in the place of words — only visual messages were The Mexican artistic movements had an undeniable employed. social content. The experiences of the 1910 Revolution with muralism and the creation in 1937 of the To illustrate the idea of dialogue, the students rein- Taller de Gráfica Popular (Popular Graphics Work- troduced the tradition of the Mesoamerican codices. In them “orality” was represented by a balloon emerging from the mouth represented by symbols of pre-Hispanic communication. Source: Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. 139 Mexico '68 (Mexico 1968) Marta Almeida S tudent graphics was born to denounce The students also recycled the Olympic Games logo- the government of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz type and commemorative stamps to once again illus- (1964-1970) and the state controlled trate the political repression. To establish a criticism media to create awareness of their of the official discourse. The Olympics the students own version of the facts from a student reinterpreted the logo. The five Olympic rings were viewpoint that had no other form of expression. The associated with students being run over by tanks or only information that circulated was on the Olympic forming a wreath of mourning for the deaths. The Games, which the government used to show — by French Atelier Populaire in solidarity produced this means of a strong advertising campaign — a united, latter piece with the Mexican students: in the poster peaceful and modern country. Meanwhile, the the Olympic rings are made of barbed wire in allusion students sought to raise awareness of their demands to the European extermination camps (see source b). among the international community by means of a boycott of the Olympics. Thus, the visual urban universe became divided into two: on one hand, the Olympic graphics designed by architect Ramírez Vázquez’s modern international design team (see source a); on the other, the student activities in the urban space, expressed in posters — either parodic or ironical — denouncing the violence and cynicism of the informational approach of the press to the Olympics, omitting all reference to the students’ demands. Source a: International Olympic Committee: The Organization, Official Report of the Organising Committee of the Games of the XIXth Olympiad Mexico 68, Vol. 2, Mexico City 1969, pp. 166-167. Source b: Left: Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Right: Mexico 68”, pamphlet designed by the Atelier Populaire Marseille, Mouvement du 11 Mai, 1968. Source: unknown. 140 1968. The Year of the Sold Press (Mexico 1968) Marta Almeida G overnment members were repre- with illustrations of chains, padlocks and jails. The sented as animals. The students paro- painter David Siqueiros had already used chains died Díaz Ordaz envisioned as a dog within the Mexican imagery. Engraving — apart from and vulture to caricature him. In view being a cheap and rapid technique — offered the of the level of censorship exercised by thick strokes that gave expressive force and drama- his government, 1968 was declared “the year of the tism to the images. sold press.” The brigades concentrated on stressing the acts of censorship and deprivation of freedom Abb. 29 Source: Left: “Graphics 1968: the year of the sold press”, designed by Jorge Pérez Vega, 1968, Archivo Arnulfo Aquino. Center: “Disappearance of Grenadiers”, author unknown, 1968, Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG), California. Right: “Freedom of expression”, woodcut made by Adolfo Mexiac, 1968, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Urban Design for the Olympics (Mexico 1968) Marta Almeida T he government used the dove of Further readings peace as the main Olympic symbol, whereas the students wanted to Almeida, Marta: “Temas pendientes: la izquierda show that the military forces were francesa y alemana frente al Campeonato Mundial menacing them. They recycled the de Fútbol Argentina 78”: Anales 43, IAA, University dove and pierced it with a bayonet. of Buenos Aires (2013), pp. 21-36. The idea was to show this bleeding dove as “peace brutalized by the repression”. Castañeda, Luis: “Beyond Tlatelolco: Design, Media and Politics at Mexico ‘68”, in: Grey Room 40 (2010), pp. 100-126. 141 Abb. 30 Source: Left: Official urban design made by the Olympics, 1968. Source: International Olympic Committee: The Organization, Official Report of the Organising Committee of the Games of the XIXth Olympiad Mexico 68, Vol. 2, Mexico City 1969, p. 178. Right: “The dove and the bayonet”, author unknown, 1968, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Id., “Choreographing the Metropolis: Networks of Circulation and Power in Olympic Mexico”, in: Journal of Design History 3 (2012), pp. 285-303. Medina, Cuauthémoc / Debroise, Olivier (eds.): The Age of Discrepancies / Art and Visual Culture in Mexico 1968-1997, Mexico City 2014. Rivas, Carolina / Sarhandi, Daoud: “Graphic design. Olympic identity”, in: Eye magazine 56 (2005), pp. 24-37. Rodríguez Kuri, Ariel: “Hacia México ’68: Pedro Ramírez Vázquez y el Proyecto Olímpico”, in: Secuencia (56) 2003, pp. 37-73. Terrazas, Eduardo / Trueblood, Beatriz. “Letters: This is not Mexico”, in: Eye magazine (59), 2006. Zolov, Eric: “Showcasing the ‘Land of Tomorrow: Mexico and the 1968 Olympics” in: The Americas (2) 2004, pp. 159-188. 142 Student Protests during the 1970s in Sonora (Mexico) Daniel Ceceña B ecause of the long period of student of the protest period. protests in Sonora, Mexico, the aims The protest mainly took place in three different areas and demands changed during the of the city: one being the corridors and benches on different peaks of the mobilization. the university campus, and the other three were However, the principle issues were public spaces outside the campus, each one of them always the same: they revolved having been chosen for a specific reason. around the right to participate in the decision making • policy of the university, a popular and better educa- The university corridors and benches were a tion for the majority of the people, and the issue of disputed space. Meetings were called here and the autonomy of the university from the state. discussions with both professors and students At the beginning of the protest period, in 1967, the on different topics were a common event. demands were basically political ones: destitutions of However, there were also clashes here between the police chief because of the violations of univer- the students and police. sity autonomy and the ensuing student and popular • repression; the resignation of the governor of Sonora The area surrounding the Plaza Emiliana de for not intervening to cease the hostilities between Zubeldía: Situated between the main building of the two political groups and, consequently, allowing the university and the university museum, the the violence to break out; and a new electoral process. plaza is around 120 meters on each side, This early movement did not question the status quo covered with big dense yucateco trees (which for ruling the university or the role that the state played the most part are no longer there) was the in the institution policies. The lack of interest in these perfect place to deliver speeches and have mass topics created a strong feeling of dissidence among meetings, or organize others ways to protest, the students, which was to explode in the next stages making this a symbolic meeting place. Source a: Flash meeting (rally) in the Mercado Municipal, July 3, 1978, Joel Alfonso Verdugo private archive. 143 of the late entry of the students to the movements, and ending at the gates of Palacio Municipal at the Plaza Zaragoza. During the early 1970s, the Jardín Juárez lost importance, while the importance of the students grew. Therefore, the new route started at the Plaza Emiliana de Zubeldía, but basically followed the same path. From the mid-1970s, the route changed and has since remained the same, this new path integrates the two old ones and has included the Mercado Municipal because of its importance as a popular meeting point. • Flash meetings or rallies were most common during the 1970s. The idea was to send several small groups of students to inform the population about their goals and about how the students were on the side of the poor und dissatisfied. The working class neighborhoods were a very popular place, as was the Mercado Municipal. This usually involved the hijacking of university buses to use as a transport (see source a). Source b: Graffiti painting on the walls of the main building of the University of Sonora, February 7, 1979, Joel Alfonso Verdugo private archive. • Mercado Municipal: the municipal market was a gathering place for middle and lower-class people, easy to reach and almost always crowded, it was the perfect place to inform and recruit people for the students’ cause. • Plaza Ignacio Zaragoza is the main city plaza, surrounded by government and religious headquarters (mayor’s office, state governor’s office, state congress building and the cathedral). The marches ended at this plaza, when the protesters wanted to take their demands directly to the government, and demanded dialogue with the authorities. The repertoire of protest forms grew and changed during the nearly 40 years of protest: Marches were the most common act of protest, but the route they followed changed at least three times. During 1967, the starting point was the Jardín Source c: Cultural activity in the main building of the university in support of the student movement, 1978, Joel Alfonso Verdugo private archive. Juárez, a common place to organize political rallies, passing through Plaza Emiliana de Zubeldía, because 144 Source d: Sit-in protest in front of the museum, in the back the Plaza Emiliana de Zubeldía and the main building of the university, May 23, 1978, Joel Alfonso Verdugo private archive. • Printing and handing out leaflets and news- spaces chosen were the walls surrounding the papers as well as collecting money (also known campus. It was very common during the 1970s as boteo): The idea behind this was the same as and 1980s and was less popular during the 1990s with the flash meetings, you do not need a lot (see source b). of people to succeed. And you need to inform the public of what is happening. The university • Sit-in: The places varied, from the staircases of press printed the leaflets. The boteo was a the main building to discuss important decisions practical way to gather resources to continue of the movement, to the middle of the most the movement. Both of them were very common trafficked street in the city (to the west of the during most of the period and took place almost university and the Plaza Emiliana) to disrupt the city’s traffic and make everywhere (see source e). their demands visible. The practice declined during • Graffiti (also known as pintas): it was also a way the 1990s (see source e). to inform the public, but at the same time a way of marking a place as their own. Normally the • Occupation of the university’s radio installation and printing press: Mainly used during the 1990 to disrupt the smear campaign against the university and the students. Source e: Printing of leaflets and newspapers in support of the movement, January 1992, Joel Alfonso Verdugo private archive. 145 Most common Route of Protest Marches from the 1970s until today Daniel Ceceña Source: Google Maps Further readings Loaeza, Soledad: “México 1968: los orígenes de la transición”, in: Foro Internacional 30 (1989), pp. Allier Montaño, Eugenia: “Presentes - Pasados del 68 66-92. Mexicano. Una historización de las memorias públicas del movimiento estudiantil, 1968 – 2007”, in: Revista Moncada Ochoa, Carlos: Historia General de Mexicana de Sociología 71 (2009), pp. 287-317. la Universidad de Sonora (Tomos I,II, III,IV Y V), Hermosillo 2009. Castellanos Moreno, Miguel Ángel : Historia de la Universidad de Sonora. En una época de crisis, Tomo Verdugo, Joel: Una reflexión socio-histórica de los III, Hermosillo 2007. movimientos estudiantiles en la Universidad de Sonora (1967-1992), a partir de la imagen fotográfica Favela García, Margarita: “Cambios en el sistema y el testimonio oral, Hermosillo 1999. político y en la protesta social en México, 1946-2000: interacción entre instituciones y acción social” in: Estudios Sociológicos 23 (2005), pp. 535-559. 146 Refoundation of the University of Chile (1988) Francisco Ulloa P edro Mardones Lemebel, a Plastic, dicator) was organized by the left-wing movement queer, Art professor appeared as Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez. The novel recre- a political actor in Chile at the end ates the depoliticized daily life of a transvestite known of 1980s with performances and as La Loca del Frente – the queen of the corner –, discourses. In the 1990s, his/her writ- whose life intertwined with Carlos, a young leftist ings became popular and he/she had a radio program student who rented a room out to La Loca. As the on Radio Tierra, where he/she read his/her texts. novel unfolds, through the conversations between In the context of the fight to uphold memory, Carlos and La Loca del Frente, her daily life becomes Pedro Mardones Lemebel appeared with a new increasingly politicized as she develops a controversial approach and new form of protest: the use of the and resistant attitude towards the dictatorship, while body as a weapon to gain more recognition for the adopting a groundbreaking language far from the gay and trans-gender community. He/she appeared heterosexual normality of the revolutionary context. as an agent of instability through his/her body and The novel breaks the heteronormative relations language. By occupying spaces, writing and speaking between Carlos and La Loca del Frente. on the radio, Lemebel broke with the traditional The use of language, the friendship that developed Chilean, white, heterosexual norm and questioned between them and the companionship speak about a the unquestionable normality of the demands for re-education of the youthful, revolutionary student in democracy and freedom. In a context of memory and Carlos. The revolutionary heteronormativity is decon- using the student spaces we can see two examples in structed in the novel in Lemebel’s attempt to queer which Lemebel interacted directly with the students. our memory, creating opportunities to question the It is 1988, a few years before the end of the Chilean historiography that marginalizes the homosexual military dictatorship in the context of the occupation presence in the struggle against the Chilean dicta- of the Arts Faculty of Universidad de Chile, located on torship. the campus Juan Gómez Millas, a campus which was characterized as highly politicized and opposed to the dictatorship. Further readings Pedro Lemebel and Francisco Casas rode by the campus on a horse, completely naked, in a perfor- Almenara, Erika: “Escritura travestismo e izquierda en mance that was known as the Refoundation of the la escritura de Pedro Lemebel”, in: Revista Nomadías University of Chile. Paraphrasing Casas, it was a 21 (2016), pp. 81-96. parody of military foundation, an idea that is assumed a priori to be a male act (to erase and introduce one Carvajal, Fernanda: “Yeguas del apocalipsis. La reality in order to create a different one). In the same intrusión del cuerpo como desacato y desplazami- way, the proposal was contextualized at a time when ento”, in: Revista Carta 3 (2012), pp. 60-62. students were constantly fighting for the democratization of the university, Lemebel and Casas tried to Jeftanovic, Andrea: “Entrevista a Pedro Lemebel: denounce the marginalization of sexual minorities El Cronista de los Márgenes”, in: Proyecto Patri- on the part of the University as well as the student monio (2008). URL: http://www.letras.mysite.com/ movements themselves at the moment of making pl200608.html (accessed: 29.01.2019). their demands. Another form of protest consisted of his/her writing, Lemebel, Pedro: Tengo Miedo Torero, Barcelona for example their unique novel Tengo Miedo Torero 2001. (translated to English as My tender Matador). The novel is set in 1986, the year the attempted (and failed) assassination of Augusto Pinochet (the Chilean 147 Id.: Loco afán: crónica de un sidario, Santiago de Chile 1997. Id.: Poco hombre: crónicas escogidas, Santiago de Chile 2013. López García, Isabelle: “Imaginarios de género en la (Post)nación: Género y compromiso político en Tengo miedo torero del escritor Pedro Lemebel”, in: Hispanista 27 (2003), pp.1-8. Source: Photo credit Ulises Nilo, D21 Proyectos de Arte. Moulian, Tomas: Chile actual; anatomía de un mito, Santiago 1997. Power, Margaret: “La Unidad Popular y la masculinidad”, in: Ventana 6 (1997), pp. 250-270. Richard, Nelly: Arte en Chile desde 1973. Escena de avanzada y sociedad, Santiago de Chile 1987. Robles, Víctor Hugo: Bandera Hueca. Historia del movimiento homosexual en Chile, Santiago 2008. Stern, Steve: Battling for hearts and Minds: Memory struggles in Pinochet’s Chile, 1973-1988, Durham Source: Photo credit Ulises Nilo, D21 Proyectos de Arte. 2006. Source: Photo credit Ulises Nilo, D21 Proyectos de Arte. 148 Student Union’s Election Week at the Universidad of Buenos Aires and the Culture of endurance in Student Militancy (aguante) (Argentina 2016) Joaquín Zajac T he images are of student union elec- Among student activists, there is a mixture of football tions at the Social Sciences Faculty and rock aguante cultural practices. During riots and of the University of Buenos Aires in demonstrations, at the end of some political events 2016. The University of Buenos Aires, such as assemblies, internal meetings, vote counting, with 315,000 students, is the biggest etc., it is very common to see students behaving like university in Argentina (according to the 2016 census) soccer fans or rock concertgoers: Jumping, dancing and the second biggest in Latin America after the and moshing, playing percussion instruments, waving UNAM in Mexico, with 350,000 students. Each one flags with the organization’s colors and emblems. of the 13 faculties of the University of Buenos Aires It is also very common to hear students sing loud has its own officially recognized “student union”, songs with tunes derived from various popular music and together they form a federation (FUBA). Elections expressions and genres. The students write the lyrics, for these unions are held every year. Students can and unlike soccer or rock concert audiences, they try vote for one week and during that week, the facul- to reflect on the utopian concepts and emotional ties go through a transformation: there are posters aspects of their political ideologies, acclaimed histor- glued to every free wall, stair, and even to the floors ical events or figures. In addition, and more similar and ceilings, and not only in faculty corridors, but to the songs made by soccer or rock fans, they can in classrooms, bathrooms, etc. There are also many contain jokes about and criticism of other political activists handing out pamphlets regarding the elec- groups and organizations. tions. Sometimes they pursue apathetic students, These cultural practices have two very important trying to persuade them to take the pamphlets, or political effects: 1. The reinforcement of affective even to listen to their proposals. This can some- inter-group social links, keeping the group together, times lead to loud discussions between activists from fostering the individuals’ identification with their different organizations, with the individual students organizations 2. The attempt to “perform” a certain as a passive audience. At the end of the last day of correlation of forces between the groups, in other elections, the most important organizations gather to words, to show their political rivals that they have wait for the election results. They get some food and enough “morale”, even during “difficult times”, such drink, and from time to time they sing against each as electoral defeats and other adverse situations. other. It usually lasts all night. These images show student activists from La Cámpora and Nuevo Encuentro (the two main Kirchnerist youth Further readings organizations, the Peronist tendency that ruled Argentina from 2003 to 2015), during the vote count at the Alabarces, Pablo et al.: Hinchadas, Buenos Aires end of the election. These last moments are the most 2006. important in terms of practices of “aguante culture”. “Aguante culture“ emerged as a way to describe the Garriga Zucal, José / Salerno, Daniel: “Estadios, behavior of soccer fans. It also plays a very important hinchas y rockeros: Variaciones sobre el aguante”, role among young rock concert audiences. The literal in: Pablo Alabarces / María Graciela Rodríguez (eds.), translation would be “endurance” or “resistance”. Resistencias y Mediaciones, Estudios sobre Cultura However, the translation is in fact much more diffi- Popular, Buenos Aires 2008, pp.59-89. cult, and strongly depends on the different social contexts where they are present. 149 Source: Photo credit Joaquín Zajac. Source: Photo credit Joaquín Zajac. 150 4.2 SOUTH ASIA Anti-Reservation Student Protests, University of Delhi (India 1990) Sumeet Mhaskar and Prabodhan Pol R ajiv Goswami, a commerce student of the tive student groups. Rajiv Goswami’s act of self-immo- University of Delhi, attempted to self-im- lation made him the face of the Anti-Mandal agita- molate as a mark of protest in October tion. Subsequently, Rajiv Goswami was also elected 1990 against Government of India’s deci- as the president of Delhi University Students’ Union. sion to extend reservation (affirmative After Goswami’s self-immolation act, as many as 200 action) for other Backward Castes in the higher educa- students from upper caste community committed tional institutions. The decision by the government self-immolations. Out of them, it was estimated was based on the recommendations of the Second that 62 students finally succumbed to serious inju- Backward Classes Commission. This Commission was ries. Interestingly, several upper caste Leftist students formed on January 1, 1979 by Prime Minister Charan too joined the upper caste Hindu conservatives in Singh to investigate the socio-economic conditions of opposing the implementation of the quota for the the backward classes in India. In its report submitted OBCs. The anti-OBC quota protests were renewed in to the government in the year 1980, the commission 2006 when the then government implemented 27 % chaired by Mr. B. P. Mandal recommended that the reservation for the OBCs. This time, however, there members of Other Backward Castes (OBC) be granted were no cases of self-immolation. However, like the 27 per cent reservations in jobs and higher education. 1990s, several upper caste Leftist students joined The report submitted by Mandal remained in cold the upper caste Hindu conservatives in opposing storage for nine years due to the potential backlash the OBC quota. The implementation of the OBC from the upper castes. It was only after V. P. Singh quota in the higher education resulted in the gradual became the Prime Minister of India in 1989, the change of the caste profile of students. Dalit, tribal commission’s recommendations were implemented. and OBC students now constituted 50 % of the total The decision to implement recommendations in 1989 students on campuses. The change in students’ social met with staunch opposition by upper caste conserva- composition also brought about radical changes in the student politics. Hitherto undiscussed issues of caste based discrimination and social marginalization have acquired central importance, and social justice has since become the language of students’ politics. Source: Photo credit Mohammed Ilyas. 151 Rohith Vemula Suicide Note (India 2016) Sumeet Mhaskar and Prabodhan Pol O n 17th January 2016, Rohith Vemula, upper caste students, faculty members and admin- a Dalit (ex-untouchable) PhD student istrators towards Dalit and tribal students. It also at the Hyderabad Central University brought attention to the lacunae among the Left and leader of the Ambedkar Students and progressive students’ organizations that have Association (ASA), a prominent anti- remained silent on the issue of caste-based discrimi- caste organization, committed suicide and left a nation in the university campuses. powerful note before his departure. The suicide was a result of prolonged harassment and intimidation by the university administration that had received directions from high-level ministers by the Hindu right wing ruled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in New Delhi. Rohith was at the receiving end because he was critical of the Hindu right-wing politics and casteist ideologies, and stood for the freedom of speech and expression as well as confronted the conservative student’s organization on the questions of casteism and communalism. Rohith’s suicide sparked off massive waves of student agitations by the anticaste groups across the country. Outside India, too, several anti-caste groups and individuals organized protests. Following Rohith’s suicide, several prominent academics, important political leaders in the opposition as well as public personalities visited Hyderabad University campus to extend their solidarity to the protesting students and Rohith’s mother. A section of leftwing and liberal students, too, extended their solidarity to the protests organized by the anti-caste groups. Rohith is not the first Dalit student in the institute of higher education in India to have committed suicide. In Hyderabad Central University itself, about eight Dalit students have committed suicide in the last ten years. There have also been incidents of Dalit students committing suicide in India’s elite institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences because of caste discrimination by faculty members, administration as well as fellow upper-caste students. However, it was Rohith’s suicide and the subsequent large-scale protests that brought to the mainstream discussion the plight of students belonging to Dalit, tribal and other marginalized communities across Indian campuses. Rohith’s suicide highlighted how higher educational institutions in India have been historically plagued with caste-based prejudices expressed by 152 Source: Ambedkar Students Association, Hyderabad. Good morning, I would not be around when you read this letter. Don’t get angry on me. I know some of you truly cared for me, loved me and treated me very well. I have no complaints on anyone. It was always with myself I had problems. I feel a growing gap between my soul and my body. And I have become a monster. I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write. I loved Science, Stars, Nature, but then I loved people without knowing that people have long since divorced from nature. Our feelings are second handed. Our love is constructed. Our beliefs colored. Our originality valid through artificial art. It has become truly difficult to love without getting hurt. The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living. I am writing this kind of letter for the first time. My first time of a final letter. Forgive me if I fail to make sense. My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past. May be I was wrong, all the while, in understanding world. In understanding love, pain, life, death. There was no urgency. But I always was rushing. Desperate to start a life. All the while, some people, for them, life itself is curse. My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past. I am not hurt at this moment. I am not sad. I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That’s pathetic. And that’s why I am doing this. People may dub me as a coward. And selfish, or stupid once I am gone. I am not bothered about what I am called. I don’t believe in after-death stories, ghosts, or spirits. If there is anything at all I believe, I believe that I can travel to the stars. And know about the other worlds. If you, who is reading this letter can do anything for me, I have to get 7 months of my fellowship, one lakh and seventy five thousand rupees. Please see to it that my family is paid that. I have to give some 40 thousand to Ramji. He never asked them back. But please pay that to him from that. Let my funeral be silent and smooth. Behave like I just appeared and gone. Do not shed tears for me. Know that I am happy dead than being alive. “From shadows to the stars.” Bye Uma anna, sorry for using your room for this thing. To ASA family, sorry for disappointing all of you. You loved me very much. I wish all the very best for the future. For one last time, Jai Bheem I forgot to write the formalities. No one is responsible for this act of killing myself. No one has instigated me, whether by their acts or by their words to this act. This is my decision and I am the only one responsible for this. Do not trouble my friends and enemies on this after I am gone.” 154 4.3 AFRICA Student protests at the University of Cape Town (South Africa 1968) Heike Becker S outh Africa too had its 1968 moment of During the sit-in the students slept and lived in the transgressive student activism (J. Brown occupied building. While they reportedly took great 2016). At the country’s oldest univer- care to leave the university space in a clean and sity, the University of Cape Town (UCT), orderly state, they also engaged in typical coun- Archie Mafeje, a black master’s graduate ter-culture activities of the time, which included of UCT (cum laude) and by then in the process of indulging in cheap red wine and other soft stimu- completing his PhD at the University of Cambridge, lants, and exploring their sexualities – particularly was appointed in 1968 to a senior lecturer position important in the exceptionally prudent environment in social anthropology. The university offered him of Calvinist apartheid South Africa. They took great the job, but then, after government pressure by the care however to bring their points across to media Apartheid regime, rescinded the offer. outlets, and also set up their own newspaper on wall The issue was discussed at the congress of the paper, and altogether experienced a sense of “liber- National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), ation”, no longer feeling stuck in the tight space of which organized most of the UCT students at the being in a racist settler colonial society but having time, and the idea emerged of a sit-in along the lines joint the global student uprising of 1968. of the university occupations then taking place in the While the form of activism was thus fairly radical, rest of the world. Some of those who were involved the language of the protest, with its emphasis on remember that the European protests were widely “academic freedom,” remained within the limits reported in South Africa and that students followed of liberal opposition against the apartheid regime. them with interest (Plaut 2011). Significant for the South African political and So when the university authorities failed to stand up academic condition of the time is further that most against the government intervention in its hiring poli- if not all of the student protesters belonged to the cies in August 1968, a mass meeting took place in the country’s white minority. university’s grand Jameson Hall, normally the site of Eventually, the occupiers—about 90 had stayed the graduations and other academic events. After rousing course—gave up and left after one-and-a-half weeks. speeches from student leaders, most of the one thou- A white anthropologist was appointed in Mafeje’s sand–strong audience marched out, and about six place. South Africa’s oldest university had caved in hundred students occupied the university’s adminis- to the demands of the apartheid policy regarding tration building. The “sit-in” of students and some university education. academic staff, as the action was called following the The 1968 “Mafeje affair” must be understood as designation of similar forms of activism from Berkeley representative of the enforcement of apartheid to West Berlin, resolved “to sit in this Administration policies in the academy. From 1959 onward, South Building until such time as the University Council African students had been admitted to universities has met to 1. Appoint Mafeje to University Staff. 2. along racial and ethnic lines—at UCT, which had Make a statement of policy to ensure that the future been declared a white institution, black students were appointments be made solely on Academic grounds” admitted only under exceptional circumstances and (BUZV UCT). any “nonwhite” applicant aspiring to study at UCT 155 had to apply for a special permit from the govern- Source: ment. Although this law did not pertain to academic heike-becker-global-1968-on-the-african-continent/ staff members, Mafeje’s appointment was prevented. (Accessed: 30.01.2019). http://www.focaalblog.com/2018/02/09/ Source: CT Photograph and Clipping Collection—Special Collections, University of Cape Town Libraries. Source: CT Photograph and Clipping Collection—Special Collections, University of Cape Town Libraries. 156 APPENDIX APPENDIX Latin America Beginning of the Chilean University Reform. In Mexico, the first Ibero-American Student Congress is held. The IberoAmerican Student Confederation is born. Student Center of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires is founded, being the first student center in Latin America. (May) In Chile during the government of Juan Esteban Montero, university autonomy is finally incorporated into the statutes of the University of Chile. This makes possible for the rector’s election to be carried out by the deans of the institution (and no longer by the government). In addition, autonomy was cemented in the financial sphere. Beginning of the Argentine University Reform in Córdoba, Argentina (March). The Argentine University Federation (FUA) is born (April). Triumph of the reform movement in Córdoba, the interim minister announces a broad reorganization ranging from statutes to curricula (September). The movement expands and takes its particular shape at the University of La Plata and the University of Buenos Aires. 1918 1921 1924 1931 1955 1936 South Asia 1942 1952 The students across the country participate in the Quit India Movement demanding the end to the British rule in India. Formation of All India Students Federation (AISF) as the first Pan-Indian student organization against the backdrop of anti-colonial struggle. Africa Beginning of student protests at the University of Sonora, Mexico (March). The Mexican army ends the students' and popular movement by force (May). First Latin American Student Congress in Montevideo. The first International Student Congress is held in Mexico. 1894 Chilean performance artists Francisco Casas and Pedro Lemebel start working together with the performative name of Mares of the Apocalypse (Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis), until 1997. Formation of National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) as an officially non-racial organization. De facto it remains exclusively white. First inaugural conference in Bloemfontein. 1954 Democratic Students Federation and Communist Party of Pakistan banned by the Pakistani government. Bengali students protest the declaration of Urdu as the sole national language of Pakistan. Police fire on the protesters leading to fatalities. February 21 is commemorated in Bangladesh today as the Bhasha Andolan or Language Movement Day and is also known as the Martyr‘s Day. In 1999 UNESCO declared it the International Mother Language Day. 1967 Student marches against the imposition of a statesupported University Law and for the resignation of the university’s vicechancellor in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. Clashes between students and the police. Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City: a student meeting at the Plaza de las tres Culturas in Tlatelolco is repressed by the military, 267 students die, 1,200 are reported injured (October 2). Mexican president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz inaugurates the Olympic Games (October 12). Refoundation of the Universidad de Chile performed by Yeguas del Apocalipsis. 1968 1968 Several students of the University of Sonora debate with university authorities in publically televised forums regarding the imposition of a new and restrictive university law (January). Students organize a 2,000 km long march to Mexico City (May – August). 1988 1973 1969 1972 1974 1975 The Nav Nirman Andolan (Re-construction Movement), a student-led movement in which students owing allegiance to the Hindu extremist ideology, protests together with the middle classes against corruption in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The protest results in the removal of Gujarat Chief Minister. 1985 Student unrest in Columbia and Chile. 1992 2006 2011 2009-2014 2015 2016 The Government of India reserves 27 % of seats in higher education for Other Backward Castes (OBCs). This resulted in the anti-reservation protests by the upper caste right wing students leading to the formation of Youth for Equality (YFE) in the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Leftist students, too, join the anti-reservation movement. YFE gradually fades out the following year. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras administration in 2015 derecognizes anti-caste students collective Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC). Students across the country stand in solidarity with APSC. Following the mobilization, the ban on APSC is lifted. The All Assam Students Union (AASU) leads a six-year long agitation from 1979 for identifying and deporting the illegal immigrants who they claim were brought in before the elections. The agitation is successful in bringing the attention of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi where the student leaders were signatories of the accord. Following this event, AASU is transformed into a political party called the Asom Gana Parishad and PK Mahanta becomes the youngest ever Chief Minister of the north east Indian state of Assam Protests concerning Formation of South African accommodation and National Students’ Organisation (SASO) Student Financial Aid Scheme at Marianhill, Natal, exclusively (NSFAS), support at many attended by black students historically black universities. (December). Students protest after the Student Representative Council Kick-off of #RMF Movement at UCT (SRC) President, Onkgopotse (March). Tiro, is expelled from UNIN after Removal of Rhodes Statue at UCT speaking out against Bantu (April).Statement by Wits SRC in education during a graduation solidarity with upcoming October 6 ceremony at the university. Movement protest against unfair treatment of university workers The UNIN administration bans SASO from SASO is officially inaugurated (October). its campus for the mass student protests at the Turfloop campus of the Protests against fee increases under experienced at the campus and at other University of the North (UNIN) the hashtags #NationalShutDown and University campuses around the country. with Steve Bantu Biko as its first #FeesMustFall SASO holds its annual conference under President and Barney Pityana as President Jacob Zuma announces very difficult conditions. Only one member Secretary (July). suspension of fee increases for 2016. of the executive committee attends the meeting. The rest of the executive members are either banned or arrested Shackville protest by #RMF at UCT (February). (July). Protests against fee increases and for „free education“ at institutions across South Africa (September – November). CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS BY REGION* LATIN AMERICA May 1895 Student Center of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires is founded, being the first student center in Latin America. 1908 First American University Congress in Montevideo, Uruguay. University Federation of Buenos Aires (FUBA) is founded. 1910 Second American University Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina 1912 Third American University Congress in Lima, Peru 1918 Beginning of the Argentine University Reform in Córdoba, Argentina (March). The Argentine University Federation (FUA) is born (April). Triumph of the reform movement in Córdoba, the interim minister announces a broad reorganization ranging from statutes to curricula (September). The movement expands and takes its particular shape at the University of La Plata and the University of Buenos Aires. 1919 The ideology of the reform is projected onto Latin America: In March 1919, the first National Student Congress takes place in Cuzco, Peru. The Popular Universities González Prada are created, which offer free evening courses for workers. In October a law 4002 establishes university autonomy, university extension and the joint government of students and professors. 1920 In December the Argentine reformers sign an agreement with Chilean students. In 1921 the first student convention is held in Chile. 1921 The first International Student Congress is held in Mexico. 1922 In Cuba the University Students Federation (FEU) is created with Julio Antonio Mella as its first general secretary. 1923 The student movement of Havana declares the “Free University” with 20-year-old Mella as its interim rector. 1931 In Mexico, the first Ibero-American Student Congress is held. The Ibero-American Student Confederation is born. In Chile during the government of Juan Esteban Montero, university autonomy is finally incorporated into the statutes of the University of Chile. This makes possible for the rector’s election to be carried out by the deans of the institution (and no longer by the government). In addition, autonomy was cemented in the financial sphere. 1955 First Latin American Student Congress in Montevideo. 1957 Second Latin American Student Congress in La Plata, Argentina. 1959 Cuban Revolution. Third Latin American Student Congress, Caracas, Venezuela. 1966 Foundation of the Continental and Caribbean Student Organization (Organización Continental Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Estudiantes) in Havana. * Timeline and chronology of events only reflect the case studies from the Global South treated in the article and sources of this anthology. 162 1967 Beginning of the Chilean University Reform. Chilean performance artists Francisco Casas and Pedro Lemebel start working together with the performative name of Mares of the Apocalypse (Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis), until 1997. Beginning of student protests at the University of Sonora, Mexico (March). The Mexican army ends the students’ and popular movement by force (May). 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City: a student meeting at the Plaza de las tres Culturas in Tlatelolco is repressed by the military, 267 students die, 1,200 are reported injured (October 2). Mexican president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz inaugurates the Olympic Games (October 12). 1968 Student strike at the University of Sonora continues until November. 1972 In Argentina the UJS, main youth organization of the Trotzkist left and youth branch of the Partido Obrero, is founded. 1973 Student marches against the imposition of a state-supported University Law and for the resignation of the university’s vice-chancellor in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. Clashes between students and the police. 1978 At the University of Sonora students organize sit-in in support of the democratization of the university and the university’s workers unions, protest marches demanding the resignation of the university’s Vice-Chancellor and the democratization of the UNISON. 1986 Chilean queer activist Pedro Lemebel reads the manifesto I speak for my 1988 Refoundation of the Universidad de Chile performed by Yeguas del Apocalipsis. 1989 Yeguas del Apocalipsis perform The Conquest of America in the Chilean Commis- difference (Hablo por mi diferencia). sion on Human Rights (October 12). 1991 Students of the University of Sonora occupy the university’s radio office and broad- 1992 Several students of the University of Sonora debate with university authorities in cast information in support of the strike (November). publically televised forums regarding the imposition of a new and restrictive university law (January). Students organize a 2,000 km long march to Mexico City (May – August). 2006 In Argentina the students group Corriente Universitaria Julio Antonio Mella is founded. La Cámpora, the main youth organization of Kirchnerist Peronism, is born in December. 2011 Student unrest in Columbia and Chile. 2013 Formation of Sociedad de Economía Crítica (Society of Critical Economics) in Uruguay and Chile. 2014 In a context of student protests, Lemebel irrupts in the scene with his/her last performance Letra Molotov. 2015 Pedro Lemebel dies of cancer (January 23). 163 SOUTH ASIA 1903 Right-wing ideologue V. D. Savarkar, starts Abhinav Bharat Society (Young India Society) in Nasik. The society propagates the idea of armed revolution against the British rule and attracts several students in India. Indian students in London are also influenced by the society and some get involved in the assassination of the British officials. 1936 Formation of All India Students Federation (AISF) as the first Pan-Indian student organization against the backdrop of anti-colonial struggle. 1942 The students across the country participate in the Quit India Movement demanding the end to the British rule in India. 1947 Independence and Partition. India and Pakistan come into being after the end of colonial rule and the partition of India. December 1949 Islami Jami‘at-e-Talaba is founded by students in Lahore, Pakistan. 1949 Democratic Students Federation is founded in Gordon College, Rawalpindi and soon after moves its base to Karachi, Pakistan. 1951 Karachi University is established. 1952 Bengali students protest the declaration of Urdu as the sole national language of Pakistan. Police fire on the protesters leading to fatalities. February 21 is commemorated in Bangladesh today as the Bhasha Andolan or Language Movement Day and is also known as the Martyr‘s Day. In 1999 UNESCO declared it the International Mother Language Day. 1953 Demands Day student demonstrations in Karachi (January). Fatal police violence against the protesters leads to further demonstrations and strikes by students across cities in Pakistan. 1953 All Pakistan Students Convention in Karachi (December). 1954 Democratic Students Federation and Communist Party of Pakistan banned by the Pakistani government. 1972 The formation of Dalit Panthers in India draws in large number of Dalit students. The Dalit Panthers take up the issue of hostel facilities, fees, scholarships and discrimination faced by Dalit students in higher educational institutions. 1974 The Nav Nirman Andolan (Re-construction Movement), a student-led movement in which students owing allegiance to the Hindu extremist ideology, protests together with the middle classes against corruption in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The protest results in the removal of Gujarat Chief Minister. 1975-1977 National emergency is declared by the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi which goes on for two years. Opposition leaders and student activists across the country are arrested. 1985 The All Assam Students Union (AASU) leads a six-year long agitation from 1979 for identifying and deporting the illegal immigrants who they claim were brought in before the elections. The agitation is successful in bringing the attention of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi where the student leaders were signatories of the accord. Following this event, AASU is transformed into a political party called the Asom Gana Parishad and PK Mahanta becomes the youngest ever Chief Minister of the north east Indian state of Assam. 164 1990 The Government of India led by Prime Minister V. P. Singh announces 27 % reservation in public sector jobs Other Backward Castes (OBC). Together with the Scheduled Castes (Dalits, ex-untouchables) and Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis) the total reserved seats come up to 49.5 %. The government’s decision resulted in large-scale anti-reservation protests by upper caste right wing and leftist students. 2006 The Government of India reserves 27 % of seats in higher education for Other Backward Castes (OBCs). This resulted in the anti-reservation protests by the upper caste right wing students leading to the formation of Youth for Equality (YFE) in the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Leftist students, too, join the anti-reservation movement. YFE gradually fades out the following year. 2014 Formation of Birsa Phule Ambedkar Students Association (BAPSA) by anti-caste students in the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus, which since the 1970s was known for being the leftist bastion. BAPSA entry into the electoral arena results in the coming together of archrival left groups to jointly contested the elections 2015 The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras administration in 2015 derecognizes anti-caste students collective Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC). Students across the country stand in solidarity with APSC. Following the mobilization, the ban on APSC is lifted. 2016 The suicide by Ambedkarite student leader Rohith Vemula in January following the harassment by university administration, results in large-scale protests by anti-caste student groups across the country. The anti-caste student protests receives overwhelming support across the world and shook the right wing government in New Delhi. AFRICA 1924 Formation of National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) as an officially non-racial organization. De facto it remains exclusively white. First inaugural conference in Bloemfontein. 1933 Formation of Afrikaanse Nationale Studentebond (ANSB), influenced by Afrikaner nationalism. After the formation of ANSB, students from the Universities of Bloemfontein, Potchefstroom and Pretoria withdraw from NUSAS which leads to the split between Afrikaans and English speaking universities. 1945 Affiliation of Fort Hare University to NUSAS; officially an “open” (non-racial), in reality a “black” institution; from 1945 NUSAS thus becomes a non-racial organization. 1968 Formation of South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) at Marianhill, Natal, exclusively attended by Black students (December). 1969 SASO is officially inaugurated at the Turfloop campus of the University of the North (UNIN) with Steve Bantu Biko as its first President and Barney Pityana as Secretary (July). 1971 SASO Policy Manifesto sets out the Black Consciousness doctrine. A proposal is made at a NUSAS conference calling for a national effort for students to present research on labour conditions to university board meetings and to support workers in presenting their demands. 165 1972 Students protest after the Student Representative Council (SRC) President, Onkgopotse Tiro, is expelled from UNIN after speaking out against Bantu education during a graduation ceremony at the university. 1973 Eight SASO leaders are banned for five years by the apartheid government (February). 1974 SASO is listed as one of the affected organizations under the Affected Organisation Act of 1974. This prohibits it from receiving foreign funding to pursue its objectives. SASO condemns the presence of the Apartheid forces in Namibia, reaffirms the non-collaboration stance of the Black Consciousness Movement and condemns the Bantustan leaders (January). A Pro-FRELIMO rally to celebrate the ascension of FRELIMO (Mozambican liberation movement under the leadership of Samora Machel) into power in Mozambique is held at UNIN despite the administration’s refusal to grant permission for the action (September). Eighty SASO and Black People’s Convention (BPC) leaders are detained without trial for their support of the Pro-FRELIMO rally. 1975 The UNIN administration bans SASO from its campus for the mass student protests experienced at the campus and at other university campuses around the country. SASO holds its annual conference under very difficult conditions. Only one member of the executive committee attends the meeting. The rest of the executive members are either banned or arrested (July). 1976 The SASO and BPC leaders are convicted and jailed on Robben Island. The Soweto uprisings erupt as a result of the enforcement of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in Black schools (June). 1977 Steve Biko is detained in Port Elizabeth and held under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act (August). Biko is transferred to Pretoria. He is driven naked and chained lying on the floor of the Land Rover van for 740 miles to Pretoria after having suffered severe head and brain injuries. Biko dies in detention in Pretoria Central Prison (September). SASO and other Black Consciousness organizations are banned under the Internal Security Act (October). 1981 The Azanian Students’ Organisation (AZASO) is officially launched to fill the vacuum left by SASO after it was banned. AZASO adopts the ANC Freedom Charter that set AZASO apart from Black Consciousness ideology. AZASO and the Congress of South African Student (COSAS) lead Anti-Republic Day protests together. 1982 AZASO and COSAS begin the Education Charter campaign to collect the demands of the oppressed in the sphere of education. 1984 AZASO, COSAS and NUSAS hold joint student boycotts. 1986 AZASO becomes the South African National Student Congress (SANSCO). 1988 SANSCO is restricted under the State of Emergency. 1991 SANSCO and NUSAS merge to form South African Student Congress (SASCO) (Sep- 2009-2014 Protests concerning accommodation and National Student Financial Aid Scheme tember). (NSFAS), support at many historically black universities. 166 2015 Wits SRC launches ‘1 Million 1 Month’ campaign to raise funds for students on NSFAS who are still unable to pay registration fees (February). Kick-off of #RMF movement at UCT (March). Removal of Rhodes Statue at UCT (April). Students at Stellenbosch University release the film Luister (Listen) that documents black students’ daily experiences of racism and discrimination (August).Wits Council votes for the increase of tuition fees. Wits SRC releases a statement in solidarity with upcoming October 6 Movement protest against unfair treatment of workers by outsourcing companies and university management (October). October 6 Movement staged by workers and students at Wits and UJ to protest unfair treatment of workers (with support from student activists at UCT); a Charter is presented to management at Wits and UJ by the Wits Workers Solidarity Committee and other organizations. Wits SRC releases statement protesting the university’s decision, which would to entrench the financial exclusion of poor students. Wits SRC calls to systematically shutdown the university, students at Wits begin blockading entrances at Wits in response to proposed 10.5% fee hike for 2016. Lectures and other activities on Wits campus are suspended, and Wits shut-down begins. Protests against fee increases spread to institutions of higher education throughout South Africa under the hashtags #NationalShutDown and #FeesMustFall; local demands go further, at UWC students protest against levels of debt that prevent them from graduating. In Cape Town protesting students march to parliament and clash with police. In Johannesburg protesting students demonstrate outside the headquarters of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Students protest outside the Union Buildings (seat of national government) in Pretoria. President Jacob Zuma announces suspension of fee increases for 2016. 2016 Shackville protest by #RMF at UCT, a symbolic action against lack of accommodation on campus. Activists erect a shack between two residence halls. After the forceful removal of the structure protests turn violent and university artworks are burnt (February). Opening of ‘Echoing Voices from Within: A Rhodes Must Fall Exhibtion’ at UCT’s Centre for African Studies gallery is disrupted by the UCT TransCollective (March). Protests against fee increases and for ‘free education’ at institutions across South Africa; many protests turn violent; violent responses by riot police and private security companies; arrests of student activists across South Africa (September – November). 167 AUTHORS Marta Almeida Doctoral Student, Universidad de San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina Contact: info@martaalmeida.com Sadia Bajwa Doctoral Student, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany Contact: sadia.bajwa@asa.hu-berlin.de Heike Becker Professor of Anthropology, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa Contact: hbecker@uwc.ac.za Facundo Bey Doctoral Student, Universidad de San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina Contact: facundo.bey@gmail.com Daniel Ceceña Doctoral Student, Universität zu Köln, Germany Contact: daniel.cecenaa@gmail.com Christine Hatzky Professor of Latin American History, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany Contact: christine.hatzky@hist.uni-hannover.de Stella Loth Master Student, Universität zu Köln, Germany Contact: stella.loth@gmail.com Valeria Manzano Professor of History, Universidad de San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina Contact: amanzano@umail.iu.edu Sumeet Mhaskar Professor, O. P. Jindal Global University, India and Junior Research Partner, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen Contact: smhaskar@jgu.edu.in Prabodhan Pol Postdoctoral Fellow, Manipal University, India Contact: prabodhanpol@gmail.com Barbara Potthast Professor of Latin American History, Universität zu Köln, Germany Contact: Barbara.Potthast@uni-koeln.de 168 Aribert Reimann Contact: aribert.reimann@uni-koeln.de Katharina Schembs Research and Teaching Assistant, Universität zu Köln, Germany Contact: katharina.schembs@uni-koeln.de Francisco Ulloa Master Student, Universität zu Köln, Germany Contact: fulloaga@smail.uni-koeln.de Dorothee Weitbrecht Elisabeth-Käsemann-Stiftung, Stuttgart, Germany Contact: dweitbrecht@t-online.de Katharina Wonnemann Master Student, Universität zu Köln, Germany Contact: kwonnema@smail.uni-koeln.de Joaquín Zajac Doctoral Student, Universidad de San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina Contact: joaquinz@gmail.com 169