Student Parliaments are centres of political activism in the student space in theory. However, the practice differs from theory due to the debasement of the idea of Student Parliaments. The debasement of Student Parliaments is directly caused by the interests of the Management to ensure that the Students do not raise their class consciousness, and identify the institution as a space of contestation. The less conscious the student is, the better. However, in most cases the Management uses the very same Students against other Students to ensure that they remain muddled in petty conflicts that do not assist in advancing and developing student politics. With this being the reality in most Student Parliaments across the country, we ought to ask ourselves three questions; where did we go wrong, how did we go wrong, and what is to be done?
Where did we go wrong?
It is easy for us to come with answers of where we went wrong. However, we might come to the realisation that most of these answers could possibly be wrong due to the use of the tools of analysis. How we use the tools of analysis is important as it will assist us in coming to a much more truthful and scientific conclusion of how we got to this point. When we take stock of our journey from 1994 till 2022 and assess the work of Student Pearliaments, we will come to a round conclusion that Student Parliaments have been enablers of reformism in our institutions. Student Parliaments have become rubber stamping tools which are used to suppress all kinds of radical and revolutionary postures. Student Parliaments in their nature are beholden to the institutional management. All critical and strategic decisions have to be approved by the Management.
The Management being a tool and a representation of the ruling class ultimately dictates the posture of the Student Governance space. This current mode of operation is predicated from the naive organisation of the State and the Sector by the governing party, the ANC. The institution is organised along reformist lines, and surrenders Student Activism to the hands of the Management. This is the first contradiction of the system, and Student leaders of the previous generation turned a blind eye to this contradiction for various reasons. Chief among those reasons was the relative proximity to resources, and comfort derived from the perks of being in governance. The members of the Student Parliaments at this point should have not allowed to be used as rubber stamps for this bourgeois aspirant lifestyle and mode of leadership. They should have instead taken the path of confronting this attempt to buy the revolutionary leadership of the Students. When the ruling class wants to stupefy and dumb down the masses they start by buying the leadership through perks and proximity to resources. In some cases they give you direct access to resources.
Student Parliaments allowed this process to unfold because those that led them were in on the stupefication and dumbing down of the masses. This is the reason why till today the average student doesn't know what the Student Parliament does or how it is supposed to assist the Student populace. Capturing the Student Parliaments was part of the strategy due to the potency that Student Parliaments could have within this reformist system. A Student Parliament exists to hold the SRC accountable; ensure that Political Organisations, Societies, and Clubs have maximum expression in the development and enhancing of the Student community; and develop policies that will assert the role of the Student as a major stakeholder in the Sector. Student Parliaments can also be used outside of the Sector to connect its work with the broader population which consists of the workers outside of the Sector. This can be done through policies that seek an alliance of student and workers across all struggles in the broader society. This is why it was critical for the Management to capture this organ so that it can suppress and distort its role. Unfortunately, our student leaders have allowed this assault on Student democracy and governance to continue.
How did we go wrong?
When we assess how we went wrong it is important to understand that the institution is a space of contestation between the ruling class and the oppressed classes of society. By virtue of one being a student that doesn't render them a new class. Students are products of families that belong to a certain socio-economic class, which is why we have different categories in the institution (self-funded & private bursary funded students, and NSFAS funded students) which mirror our class backgrounds. However, at times this can be distorted due to some working class students being funded by private bursaries, and some falling under the category of self funded due to the n+ rule.
The evolution of how we went wrong can be predicated from the fact that we naively believed that transformation would be carried from the top to the bottom. We naively believed that the ANC government can carry out transformation due to the revolutionary mission that the masses of our people tasked them with during the Apartheid era. In our naivety, we cooperated instead of contesting until we realised that cooperation had bred unbearable conditions for the Students, and had strengthened the hand of the Management. This realisation manifests itself in the form of #FeesMustFall, even though this movement was collapsed by institutional and State reaction. In order for institutional and State reaction to succeed they need a certain layer of the Student populace to sell out. This layer then becomes the divider between the revolutionary layers and the reactionary layers. This layer becomes the reformist layer.
The reformist layer in times of such crises aligns with the revolutionary layer in the beginning. Once the movement climaxes, the layer acts as a brake to the revolution and sides with the reactionary layer. This is because of the limited understanding which leads them to believe reforms are an end in itself. On the contrary, reforms are not an end in itself, but a means to an end. This reformist layer masks this under the guise of practicality, while on the sidelines they score some benefits for selling out. Student Parliaments have been instrumental in ensuring that this happens due to the depoliticisation which occured from 1994 to 2015. The repoliticisation occurs due to the rising consciousness of the students during the heat of the stuggle against commodified education. Hence, it has become the mandate for all Managements across the country to depoliticise Student Parliaments to blunt the activism in our institutions. By us not being able to ideologically grasp this, we have managed to sell out at every critical juncture because of our short sightedness and petty politics of position mongering.
What is to be done?
We need to be intentional about our attempt to reposition Student Parliaments as organs which will hold the SRC and the Management to account. However, we need to be honest that at this current juncture Student Parliaments are bound to succumb to Management due to their dependence on institutional resources. This doesn't mean we can't work within the system to radicalise the system. This in fact means that our attempts to radicalise the system within the system will be limited. Therefore, we must explore the option of organising ourselves outside of the system where Students will have direct control of their Parliaments. This system will allow and breed the ground for dual power within the institution, and will enable us to reach the workers quicker than the current method.
We also need to use Parliaments as they are to expose the hypocrisy of the system, while coordinating programmes that will raise the consciousness of the Students to that of revolutionary consciousness. This means that we must first contest Student Parliaments within the system before redirecting the masses to the red bases which are much more conducive for outright and open confrontation of the system. We must also begin the process of constituting porfolio committees that will hold the SRC to account and expand the powers of Faculty Councils. This is meant to connect the Faculties, the SRC, and ultimately SAUS & SAVETSA into one thread of Student Power and Democracy. While making these connections, we also need to pursue the course of setting up an All-South African Students' Parliament which will hold SAUS and SAVETSA accountable. We must also consider setting up an All-South African Students' Council which will also unify the struggles of TVETs and Universities. This means that all revolutionaries must begin the process of agitating and mobilising students towards an All-South African Students' Congress which will be inclusive of all Students studying in South Africa. The All-South African Students' Congress should be the organ that gives birth to these revolutionary organs.
We must be intentional in our approach of building an alternative democracy and ensure that the struggles of the Students are intertwined with the struggles of the Working class and the Peasantry. We must also pursue a programme that will first unify all revolutionary tendencies in the Student movement, and then unify the oppressed layers against the capitalist system incarnated in the form of commodified education.
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