The Spark

Shutdowns have always been tactically used to put pressure on institutional management to submit to  the demands of the students or at least reach a halfway point of compromise. However, post-COVID-19 these shutdowns have had little to no effect in the broader scale of the struggle. These shutdowns have instead become an arena for the management to identify all the reactionaries, counterrevolutionaries, and potential sellouts and scabs to use so that they can purge all of those who are problematic to the system. In this article we will analyze the role played by shutdowns in our history of the struggle for free, quality, well-resourced and decolonized education. We will then analyze the status quo and the effectiveness of shutdowns. We will then conclude on what is to be done to advance the revolutionary struggle for free, quality well-resourced and decolonized education. Historical Role of Shutdowns Shutdowns have been a known feature in the struggle for a Socialist...

The EFFSC is a radical and militant student wing of the fastest growing political party in South Africa, and in Africa, the EFF. It is steeped in the politics of ensuring that the EFF manifests itself in every sector and space of society. The EFFSC exists to bring together all the revolutionary elements within student populace to ensure that students and workers in the sector of Higher Education are mobilized behind the banner of the EFF which seeks to attain economic freedom in our lifetime, and in this current epoch. The EFFSC is therefore important in the sector of Higher Education as it exists in this space to galvanize support for the EFF. In this document we will deal with three fundamental things: a) The Importance of the EFFSC in Institutions of Higher Learning b) The concept of relative autonomy c) The need to popularize the politics of the EFF & the EFFSC in the sector a) The importance of the EFFSC in Institutions of Higher Learning The EFFSC exists in the institutions o...

Heritage – an ambiguous term that transcends the boundaries of indoctrinated perspective, one that rests on opinion purely to highlight a commonality amongst people, a similarity amongst a diverse nation and most importantly a chance to openly reminisce on one’s undiluted history. Some may seem to assume that this message then seeks to support the claim that individuality is a sine quo non for the expression of heritage and indigenous pride, which may be true as envisioned by the founders of Apartheid who strongly aligned with stratified freedom through individual autonomy. The mention of the word “Apartheid” can certainly assert that the theory is therefore not valid but that is not where the crux of this contextualization rests or rather begins. This conversation begins by understanding that Heritage is defined the same but comprehended differently. Unlike organizations, society does not have a sole interpreter of philosophical concepts, hence people are always yearning to ...

SASCO in the University of Fort Hare is a shadow of its former self due to a litany of issues. One of those issues is a decline in ideological understanding. SASCO is a representation of movement that started on a revolutionary path, but due to interactions and alliances with bourgeois power structures they have become reformist. This is the case at a national level, and also at an institutional level. The decline of ideological understanding can be located in the development of a student aristocracy. The development of a student aristocracy over the past 28 years has led to SASCO being a brake in the student movement, and the biggest reformist/sellout organization in the broad politics of the higher education sector. This development of SASCO cannot be dislocated from the decline of the YCL and the ANCYL. It is public knowledge that these three organizations have an alliance (Progressive Youth Alliance) which seeks to unite the youth behind the banner of the politics of the tripartite...

Student Governance in the current context of the system is the cornerstone of student politics. Political Organisations and Societies contest this arena with the sole aim of reshaping the politics in the sector of Higher Education and Training. When Student Governance reaches the state of ebb, we as revolutionary Marxists must be worried. We must be worried not because there is a decline in the content of politics, but our worry must be in the state of our organisations. In this article I will explain why we need to need to renew Student Governance, and how we can achieve this renewal. Why do we need to renew Student Governance? Student Governance in the current context of the Higher Education Act espouses a sector where the SRC is the supreme representative of the Students. However, the shortcoming lies in the fact that it doesn't make room for an accountability organ. Therefore, the current Higher Education Act is logically flawed when we factor in the principles of the current c...

In the context of assemblies, and people’s many political ambitions to occupy this and that position, genuine policy questions which have the potential of advancing the struggle for economic freedom and free education and changing the material well being of students and workers lose their substance. They are reduced to fatuous sloganeering and empty rhetoric in an equally fatuous attempt to mobilize support for their political ambitions. The question of political education is one such policy which has been a victim of this fatuous political program. All those who wish to mobilize political support passionately chant politicaleducation this and political education that,without a clear understanding of what this political education is in relation to its form, content, and character, and how it is supposed to be delivered. This piece therefore seeks to briefly ponder on the question of political education, through providing some critique on our collective understanding of political educat...

In the previous article I discussed the State of Student Parliaments and their role in the development of student activism. This article is inspired by my election into the University of Fort Hare Institutional Students' Parliament Secretariat, and seeks to delve deeper on the role of Student Parliaments in general. I will discuss on why we should deepen the role of Student Parliaments, how can we deepen the role of Student Parliaments, and what is to be done to deepen their role in Student activist spaces. Why we should deepen the role of SPs? As discussed previously, Student Parliaments are spaces of Student Activism. They are a space where all societies, SRC & its sub-structures, and political organisations gather under one roof to shape and define the policies that govern students. This is the hotspot for activism through legislative and policymaking means. We have discovered that this space is also a space for political jockeying and position mongering due to the degenerat...