Im conflicted about this latest UKZN strike. On the one hand, theyre obviously causing massive disruption and destruction and making things just bad for everyone; those who want to be on campus cannot be on campus, and those who have tests and such are now forced to sit in confusion and wonder about whether or not the tests will be postponed. On the other hand, I can empathise with the reasons for striking this time, I mean yeah sure studying at a tertiary institution is a privilege not meant for everyone but it would take a very sheltered and privileged person to condemn thousands of students for not wanting to pay R9000 upfront before even officially registering for a year of study at a university. For that reason, I get it. And I get that a quiet, peaceful strike would just be ignored by the university management. Which brings me to an interesting point of inflection regarding the UKZN managements management of this situation: Sure, they had a meeting yesterday with the SRC to discuss affairs and I guess we now know how that went down. But for the most part, weve had very little official communication from the university, with individual schools having to send emails regarding cancelled tests and lectures. Further, the escalation caused by the massive police and security presence did not help matters at all. Finally, at just past 9am there is still no official email stating that the university is closed for today, yet nobody is being allowed into the campus by security because the university is closed for today. Oddly, B Com third years are allegedly still set to write a test this afternoon. How? Im typically anti-protest when it comes to destruction and unnecessary, wanton chaos. I dont believe in comparing a university issue with the likes of apartheid; there are degrees of oppression and while this is, by dictionary definition, oppressive, its not at a level that warrants the burning of benches and toilets. However. This time I place the blame squarely at the feet of the UKZN management team who seem to be either entirely ignorant or living in denial, regarding this entire ordeal. I really hope that everyone who goes in today manages to stay safe and avoid any grievous harm to their persons and their persons. And if you havent got the message already: UKZN in its entirety is suffering strike action, so dont go in today.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 07:22:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015