Don’t let the SRCs turn UKZN into a Banana Republic
By The Socialist Student Movement 29 August 2007
The SSM here publishes an urgent response to what appears as the most recent attempts by the UKZN Central and Local SRCs (led by the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) and the South African Students’ Congress (SASCO)) to stifle students’ democratic rights. As students, we have to stand up to defend our freedom to debate, vote and contest for power over our lives. This is not only a matter of principle or about constitutional paragraphs, but about our ability to fight for access to education, relevant curricula, adequate academic and social support to all, jobs and so on – to change society.
During the past week, the Howard College Local Student Representative Council (LSRC) as well as the Central SRC (CSRC) have kept the Annual General Meetings, meant for all students, virtual secrets. At Howard College, approximately ten people attended the AGM on Thursday, August 16. Only on the very same day, the authors observed one (1) poster informing about the meeting, and not a single notice was posted at the LAN notice system. Yet, the SRC constitution (Clause 12.2) states about the LSRC AGM that:
The details of the meeting, including the date, venue and agenda, shall be published on student notice boards and via the UKZN LAN notice system at least two weeks prior to the meeting.
Because this was not done, the meeting must be regarded as unconstitutional, and any decision it made should be declared null and void.
Every student needs a fair chance to hold the SRC to account on, for example, what they have done to address the pressing problems of financial and academic exclusions, lack of adequate facilities, rising fees; and how they have spent the X (only they and management know how much) million rand they received by the institution to govern us.
The SRC has not only failed to organize a proper AGM, but also to uphold their day-today duties. The CSRC and the LSRC, the supposed representatives of students on “University-wide matters and in the formulation of University-wide student policies, and on matters relating to specific campuses” respectively, have a constitutional obligation of reporting back to students on their activities “by means of meetings, posters, newsletters or other appropriate media”. Additionally, they are supposed to publish each quarter the state of their budgets. No reporting back has ever taken place, let alone the quarterly publication of budgets.
“Ordinary meetings of the CSRC and the LSRC”, the Constitution continues, “shall be held at least once every two weeks….Minutes shall be taken of all CSRC and LSRC meetings, and the approved minutes placed on a public student notice board.” Have these meetings taken place? Since the minutes have not been published for all students to see, as per clause 12.1 of the SRC Constitution, it would be very interesting to find out if they exist at all.
Additionally, the LSRC is required to “Convene a General Meeting of students on its campus at least once a semester.” The constitution further provides that
the details of the meeting, including the date, venue and agenda, shall be published on student notice boards and via the UKZN LAN notice system at least two weeks prior to the holding of the meeting.
As every student knows, none of this has materialized.
Recently, the CSRC has sunk the democratic credit of the SRCs to new depths as they held their AGM, the Institutional Students’ Congress (ISC), over the weekend of August 18-19. In Howard College campus, zero (0) notices or posters informing about the ISC were put up. In other words, the convening of the ISC has outrageously been kept a secret to the students, the real “owners” of the meeting. SSM comrades found out about the ISC through a coincidence, as we happened to see the invitation letter sent out to one of the invited speakers. No doubt as a conscious move, the CRSC completely disregarded their obligation as per their own constitution, to advertise the ISC according to the same regulations as above. They also contravened the part (Clause 12.3) which states that:
The CSRC AGM, to be known as the Institutional Student Congress (ISC), is open to all registered students.
When SSM comrades approached the Howard College SRC they were told that only “recognized clubs and societies” could send one representative each to the ISC. The SSM was further told that our organization is “not recognized” (since it was banned by the LSRC in April, again in complete defiance of their own constitution). Eventually, SSM comrades managed to put their names down on the “registration list”, which was a joke in itself as all students have a right to attend the meeting. Our comrades went to the venue set out in the leaked information about the ISC (Coastlands Hotel in South Beach) but it turned out that the meeting had been moved to Edgewood campus in Pinetown. Our comrades did not have means to travel all the way there.
The ISC is therefore likely to have been an exclusive event for the “Progressive Youth Alliance”-supporters and the SRC-petty power mongers, with proposed speakers including Vice Chancellor Makgoba, national ANCYL and YCL leaders as well as an Umsobomvu Youth Fund representative. The proposed agenda, which most students had not even seen, also revealed that the SRC planned to pass certain, yet unpublished, amendments to the SRC constitution at the ISC. Apart from there being no advertising of the meeting, the proposed amendments should have been circulated to students with the agenda (Clause 12.3 of the SRC Constitution). A member of the Westville campus LSRC who has also spoken out against the “zanufication” (as in imitating ZANU-PF leader Robert Mugabe’s creeping introduction of dictatorship) of the SRC has now exposed these amendments as serving to allow the SRCs to derecognise any unwanted student organisation in a more or less arbitrary manner, as the only course of appealing such a decision is to be through the CSRC itself (instead of the current appeals process to a Recognition Appeals Committee composed of management, CSRC members and law students). Another supposed amendment is a prohibition of individual candidates to contest the SRC elections.
Clearly, the SASCO/ANCYL-led SRCs are trying to manipulate the constitution to cement their behinds to the SRC seats for an indefinite future: they are giving the sitting SRC (themselves) the right to decide who will be allowed to challenge their power in elections, already excluding independent candidates. The attempts to tamper with the constitution in order to justify the derecognition of the SSM as a result of our outspoken campaign against the financial exclusions and critique of the complacency and managerialism of the SRC can only be interpreted as the battle-cry for a total onslaught on students’ democratic political engagement. Allegedly, the Westville SRC has now also attempted to derecognise a religious organisation on that campus (His People Church) and the SRC president stopped the bus of students leaving for the ISC for one and a half hour as he tried (in vain) to throw off students from this organisation, apparently in a rage and using racist slurs. It is becoming a disturbing, to say the least, habit of the “progressive” organizations leading the Westville SRC to resort to racism when other intellectual resources run dry – the same was done in order to try and stop the SSM from picketing against the financial exclusions in April.
No one is probably any longer surprised at the revelation that the amendments were “passed” in an invalid manner at the ISC: with a mere mover and seconder (two individuals in other words) of the proposals. It is getting tiresome to quote the SRC Constitution, but it cannot be avoided. Clause 12.3 again: “Decisions taken at the ISC shall require a simple majority vote, with the exception of proposed amendments to the SRC Constitution which require a two-thirds majority.” That means there must be either a secret ballot or a show of hands.
As there has been no report-back on the ISC to the general student population, other amendments and decisions may also have been “passed”. In any case, it is clear that we must regard the LSRC AGM as well as the ISC as null and void.
Today (2007-08-24) it has appeared that the CSRC has been disciplined by the Executive Dean of Students, who had perhaps been alerted by the SSM’s and the Westville SRC member’s exposures of the blatant flaunting of the constitution. As a result, the ISC is to be reconvened on September 7. That is a small victory already, but we cannot accept that the ISC would only deal with the constitutional amendments (as the CSRC is now saying) because the whole process of convening the meeting was flawed. The ISC must give full time to reports by the SRC so that they can be held to account by the students. For example, a financial report that should amongst other things explain why we are now paying for two ISCs.
The complete contempt shown to students through this behaviour should be enough to motivate a vote of no confidence in the SRCs. The attempts to sneak the highest decision making organ of students behind our backs, reserving it for a select few, also shows why the SRCs are so afraid of the Socialist Student Movement (SSM), which, despite its small size, is the only organization that stands between SASCO/ANCYL/YCL and their own little UKZN banana republic. This explains why the Howard College SRC has defied its own constitution to withdraw the recognition of the SSM, and is refusing to comply with the process arising from our appeal against that effective banning order.
Tragically, this manipulation comes at a time when students would most need the SRC to lead a struggle against the threatening financial exclusions. The SSM is urging all students to demand that real AGMs be held on all campuses and centrally. Racism on behalf of SRC officers must be investigated, condemned and disciplined. We also ask students to demand the immediate recognition of the Socialist Student Movement at Howard College campus. Most importantly, the SRC must take up the fight against the financial exclusions that have so far hit over 400 students this year. The above demands are for the very minimum that could be expected of a genuine SRC. If the SRCs are incapable of complying with that minimum, it is high time they leave office.
socialiststudent@webmail
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