Opinion: The Fees Must Fall generation still living with trauma

When I found myself unable to get out of bed for days in late 2018, I finally had to admit it; I was depressed – morbidly depressed.

I couldn’t eat or sleep and found it difficult to be around other people. I blamed my depression on everything from birth control to work stress before I realised the underlying cause lay buried three years in my past.

 I was still experiencing the trauma of police brutality from my involvement in the Fees Must Fall (FMF) protests of 2015 and 2016. My depressive episodes featured haunting dreams, uncontrollable irritability and plummeting productivity, and eventually caused me to put my academic career on hold to focus on my health.

I’m not alone.

Students across the country have complained for years about the psychological toll they’ve undergone post-Fees Must Fall, without ever receiving the help needed from the South African government or higher institutions of learning.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Many are still dealing with the aftermath of being raped by private security guards that were deployed onto our campuses. The horror of being followed home, harassed and cat-called by the same people who were supposed to protect us, but who instead were protecting property; the walls, windows, stairs and pavements.

Others, such as Khanya Cekeshe who is currently facing a seven-year jail sentence for activities related to FMF, are experiencing the backhand of the law.

During protests hundreds of students were arrested. Many students (and staff) arrested were not even involved in the protests. I’m reminded of a professor arrested for the crime of merely walking past a demonstration taking place at the University of Johannesburg’s Auckland Park campus in 2015.

Police were given the order to arrest anyone and everyone, and as such students could be arrested, detained and charged for trivialities such as tossing a stone, or gathering in groups that exceeded the number fourteen.

The tactic the police used to stifle protest action was, ironically, to empty campuses of students.

 And it didn’t stop there.

Students vividly recall having tear gas canisters launched into their dorm rooms and arrests being made late at night. Students arrested during FMF are still having trouble clearing their names of charges, even now in 2019.

A black mark next to your name as a graduate or youth, struggling with the unemployment crisis, is simply put, a sick joke played on young people by the state. Law enforcement and politicians alike have since dragged their feet on rectifying the matter, placing the burden onto civil society organisations instead, and washing their hands of the whole thing.

Most of us are still facing the traumatising reality of having our rights stripped willy-nilly. This disregard for democratic values contrasted so drastically from the values we believed our elders had fought to secure for us in the past.

We were treated like children who needed to be reprimanded, rather than as concerned citizens exercising our constitutional right to demonstrate in the face of injustice. To paint a picture for you, consider that in the heat of FMF, minister of higher education Blade Nzimande can be quoted recklessly saying “If the students don’t accept this (decision), we will start a movement of our own: Students must fall.”

Despite his mismanagement of the situation, and gross inability to treat his constituency with respect, Nzimande has since been reinstated in his position under Cyril Ramaphosa’s leadership.

The state treated us like we were not people, but rather an inconvenience to their capitalist crusade on education. They turned from commodifying our intellect, to commodifying our bodies and health in mere moments.

We were disposable.

Not only were we violently silenced by police, harassed by private security (who acted pointedly like thugs); we also had our futures completely stripped from us. Students were expelled from higher institutions, banned from completing their studies and rendered unemployable with deteriorating mental health and mounting student debt.

It’s about time we see accountability from politicians and the stakeholders of the police state that squandered our potential in the name of pacifism.


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