University students in South Africa are protesting student fees. Last night a historic college law library was torched.
South African politicians have united to condemn the burning of one of the country’s finest law libraries during protests over university fees, in which students say a female classmate has been raped.
The book burning was likened to the activities of the youth wing of the Nazi party in 1930s Germany in a statement by the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
A law lecturer at UKZN, Franaaz Khan, told TMG Digital that while fire fighters had managed to bring the fire under control‚ the faculty had lost priceless material, including rare books dating back to the foundations of modern-day South African law in the 17th century.
“Many date back to early Roman-Dutch time,” she said. “Some are rare as well. It is devastating to watch the library in which you spent many hours as a student burn up in flames.”
Don’t burn the libraries.
Comments
6 responses to “Gone”
How fucked up is it when students are the ones burning libraries?
I’m sure it can be couched in terms of ‘Trigger Reduction.’ Some of those books might have contained …uncomfortable… notions from the ACTUAL past.
While most of those books are probably in wide circulation, unlike what was lost in the burning of the library of Alexandria, it’s still a horrific act. Once you start burning books, where do you stop? Not just books, either. Sooner or later, bodies end up on the fire.
I hope this turns out to be a one-off, and isn’t emulated by unhappy students all over the world.
Many of the books in that particular library are rare – that’s a major reason people are so distraught about it.
Student protesters are tweeting in support of the arson:
“That library had not even one single black author, maybe there’s 2, but the rest was all colonial dutch-law bullshit that came 1652 #ukzn”
“We want free decolonised black centered education why is that so hard to understand?”
“colonial education is of no benefit to an African student, which is of no benefit is burnt.”
“When you make books more important than humans, you have a new oppressor.”
“DECOLONISED!!!”
“so the burning of the library is the only thing that is going on in #ukzn? SA should wake up. Fees must fall. Simple.”
“I’m so hurt, people care more about how expensive library books are than our black bodies, who’s gonna be at that library if we die? #ukzn”
“Do whatever it takes to be heard.”
The Great God Pan @5
Yes, it’s all part of the decolonisation process. How do African students define “colonial education”? Presumably it doesn’t include Western science and technology since they used it to tweet their support for the arson attack on the library.
iknklast @3
The library at Alexandria probably perished as much from neglect as from a single act of deliberate destruction. The usual suspects, are of course Christians and Muslims, however, there’s no certainty. Under the Christian and Muslin theocracies people just didn’t value most of Greco-Roman culture enough to preserve it.