Addressing Historical Inequalities in Institutions of Higher Learning in South Africa: The Government's Response to Student Protests and Movements

This study investigated whether democratic South Africa embraces democratic principles to respond to domestic problems or is merely an extension of colonial and apartheid states in implementing the same brutal means to address the challenges it faces. In contrast to the colonial and apartheid policies which resolved challenges through violence carried out by police, army, imprisonment, exile, or banishment from the country against protesters who demanded democratic rights, democratic states are expected to use democratic means such as engagement, negotiation, discussion, persuasion, and participation. This is a qualitative study that used secondary data extracted through the desktop. The reviews of journal articles, newspaper articles, and books were done to obtain data for this study. The study has found that democratic South Africa still embraced the same violence meted out by colonial and apartheid machinery to suppress demands from its citizens. Finally, it found that decolonization in South Africa was about the replacing of a ‘species’ of men with another ‘species’ of men without any change towards addressing student problems. This is revealed by the manner it handled the #FeesMustFall campaign. #FeesMustFall leaders as students were shot at, arrested, and imprisoned in the same jails built and used by the colonial and apartheid states. During the 1976 uprisings, the apartheid state unleashed its army and police on black children, with arrested, and murdered, others were forced into exile. This study recommends that South Africa should adopt democratic means that are within the parameters of human rights to resolve issues.