[PHOTO + SPEECH]: Prof Lucien van der Walt at fees protests: “Free higher education, complete national liberation,” at “Rhodes” University, 19 October 2015

Personal statement by “Rhodes” University professor Lucien van der Walt:

“Rights are not given from above but won from below. Fight for free higher education as part of the struggle for change and completing the black working class national liberation struggle in South Africa. Move the struggle from individual VCs and universities to confront the neo-liberal capitalist state which has gutted university spending from the 1980s, starting with NP, continuing with ANC.

Existing individual university incomes literally cannot fund the fees. The issue is not to recut a shrinking cake by budget tweaks but to tackle the state that shrinks the cake. Build student-worker-staff alliances, conscious of the revolutionary tasks, as basis for deeper change, a larger transition, working-class driven, for a libertarian (free, anarchist) self-managed system that can complete the struggle against all oppression, exploitation and domination.” ‪#‎feesmustfall‬ ‪#‎nationalshutdown‬ ‪#‎zumamustfall‬ ‪#‎blademustfall‬