Heavy price of fees protest

A LARGELY ignored aspect of the #FeesMustFall protests that swept the country last year was the impact the protests had on young women.

University students have been elevated and given the status of heroes, but what has not been looked at is what impact leading the protests has had on their personal lives.

While university students have been elevated and given the status of heroes, their personal lives took a knock.

One young woman leader who is willing to address the issue is Anele Nzimande, part of the Economic Freedom Fighters student command at Wits University.

She said: “One thing we have been hesitant to interrogate is the impact of the protest on the personal. For me it has really been difficult to get back into activism.

“Before getting into this, no one warned us about the toll it would take on our emotional, physical and spiritual health. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like to grow up in the 1980s and during apartheid.”

Nzimande said she and her comrades walked into the protests wanting to cause lasting changes in the education sector.

Instead, they were met by a system that was hostile to them and institutions that were not hesitant to suspend them and get them arrested.

Nzimande was suspended from Wits for her part in the protest.

“It was very disheartening that the system was not reciprocal. We had to find other ways to cope. I saw people turn to alcoholism to cope. It was horrific.”

As a result of the “turmoil”, she was admitted to hospital.

Subsequently, she decided to be silent and abstained from activism, she said.

“Hierarchies were broken. People were taken to jail. It was a very traumatic time for me and it took me so long to recover,” she said.

Nzimande said as a “bornfree”, there was always the idea that opportunities were plentiful.

“You think you are a born-free and one day you awaken to a lie. There was a great unravelling leading to #FeesMustFall. “We had to ponder class issues. “It was all a build-up. The realisation of black people brought up to believe that they are the ones with opportunities and never have to struggle and then experiencing the intensity of struggling to afford education was hard to deal with,” she said.

Nzimande said she had to reconcile with how she grew up.

“You have to reconcile with the fact that you went to a Model C school where you were not allowed to speak an African language or have natural hair. You realise all that doesn’t save you from the struggles,” she said.

Despite all this, Nzimande believes the protest was worth it.

“It was a month of sleepless nights, talking and fighting with comrades, taking the country forward and building new relationships. I will definitely do it again,” she said.