#Shackville: This is what it looks like to be at an institution so resistant to change

Last night on lower campus. Fire, police vans and screaming students – this is what it looks like to be at an institution so resistant to change that it would rather eat itself from within.

I’ve been here 6 years and every year brings the same stories of heartlessness from student housing: of students sleeping on campus because they have no where to go, of students from rural KZN, Limpopo etc getting off busses with nothing but a plastic bag and being told they don’t have the bed and food they were promised.

Last night the police were grabbing students at random on Rondebosch main so the argument that they were dealing with specific aggressors isn’t true. I had a gun pointed me while literally standing on the sidewalk and tweeting.

I honestly wish people would stop clogging up social media with so called social commentary and just be honest about the fact that they’d rather everything remain the same. They’d rather not know about the countless stories of dispossession and desperation because it makes them uncomfortable and it makes them complicit for saying nothing. I grew up middle class – I know that we are socialised into ignoring the struggles of the poor – things are going to have to change whether you want them to or not. ‪#‎HomelessAtUCT‬ ‪#‎Shackville‬

(Photo Credit 1: Okay Africa) (Photo Credit 2: Mail & Guardian / Lerato Maduna / Gallo)

About Dela Buhle Gwala

Dela Buhle Gwala is a feminist activist researcher writer currently based in Cape Town.