Today at 1:30 p.m. they closed the university. We got an email from the Vice Chancellor at 1:00 informing us we needed to leave our offices immediately and everyone had to be completely gone by 1:30. The reason? The police were coming in to take control of the university to end the student strike. Good enough reason for me to leave. I promptly did so.
This has been building all semester. First, some background. The government pays for students to attend university here. They get their tuition paid, plus their room and board and a stipend. Obviously in most ways this is a very good thing. Many kids from the small more remote villages get to come to school that most certainly wouldn't otherwise be able to do so.
The current uprising started a couple of weeks ago. Apparently this year the Ministry of Education made a decision to not provide stipends to students who were retaking a certain number of classes, and to not adjust the stipends of students moving off-campus. Students have been upset about this. They petitioned the Ministry, filed a case with the High Court, etc. When all this failed, they went on strike. At first they just stopped attending classes, then escalated to disturbing other classes so that other students would not attend class either. They disrupted classes in session, and chased students walking to class carrying books - in some cases knocking the books out of their hands and such. They also blocked students from entering the library and in some cases the dining halls. A couple of international exchange students had their plates of food knocked from their hands, prompting their universities in the U.S. to recall them. The rest of the exchange students were moved out of their hostels and into a hotel 8 kilometers from campus. They were told not to come to campus until it is over, and they have no means of transport anyway. I am sharing my office this semester with a professor from Cornell College in Iowa who brought over a group of students. Needless to say he was a little distressed and was concerned that his students were going a bit crazy being basically locked down in a hotel.
This week it has gotten more physical. They have started using sticks and rocks, surrounding security guards, physically threatening people trying to hold class, and destroying property. I have actually witnessed very little of this. There a number of disadvantages to having an office in a place known as Siberia, but one advantage appears to be that student riots don't really make it out that far. I have heard them chanting, and on Monday morning I ran into a professor I know right after she had gotten chased out of class - she was pretty shaken up.
The worst part for me has been the disruption of classes. On Tuesday mornings I meet with a group of students who wanted to take my Monday night class but couldn't because of schedules. So, I agreed to meet with them separately. Our routine has been that they come to my office on Tuesday mornings and then we go to the conference room at the Centre to meet. Yesterday they showed up without any paper, pens, or other school supplies because they said they would have been followed if they looked like they were going to class. We went to the Centre and I asked for the key to the conference room. The woman who had the key asked if I was having class in there. I wasn't sure what the right answer was to that question so I told her I was just meeting with a group of students. She said the rioting students were sending in "spies" to walk through the buildings to see if people were holding classes in alternate locations. She told me she would open the room for me if I wanted, but that we were risking being caught and harassed. At that point I really would have held class anyway except it was very clear to me that she was uncomfortable with us being there and I didn't want to prompt students to bring their chaos and destruction to the Centre. So, we disbanded.
All afternoon Tuesday there were rumors they would close the university, but it did not happen. I teach a different class on Tuesday nights, and again I really wanted to be defiant and hold class - I HATE getting behind in my syllabus, but after consultation with the department I decided to cancel it. I showed up this morning and things seemed normal from my view from Siberia, but then while sitting in a meeting with Bagele Chilisa at 1:00, both of our phones started ringing with people telling us the news. We quickly wrapped up our meeting and I went back to my office to shut off the air conditioner and get some things. This was the first time of the whole process that I was a little spooked. There were people, mostly students, running around every which way. I wasn't sure if they were the rioters or just regular students running back to their hostels to grab their things before they left. I left through the back gate and walked home as quickly as I could. It was a bit exodus-like. I have never walked home surrounded by that many people before.
The non-rioting students are the ones I feel the most sorry for. They have to leave campus too, and these are not the kind of students who can just jump in the car that Daddy bought them for graduation and drive home. Nor are they the kind of students who can just stay in a hotel for a night and charge it to their credit cards. For many of these students home is a full day's bus ride, followed in some cases by a long walk. For others, home is in Lesotho, Swaziland, or Zambia and going home is not even an option.
So, that is where things stand. I am told that faculty and staff can go back tomorrow if they have I.D. to get past the police guards. Students are not that lucky. There is no end date, but I am told classes will be shut down for a week, possibly two. The worse news: we will have to make up the lost time at the end of the semester. That is just annoying on a number of levels.
Please note that at no time have I felt like I was in danger, and certainly now that they have removed the students, any possibility of danger is gone.
Ted asked how we ended up in Berkeley instead of Botswana.
