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Dr Azaveli Feza Lwaitama
THINKING CRITICALLY
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Of late one has the impression that everyone is now an expert on the underlying reasons for the frequent students’ unrest on university campuses. Numerous feature articles and editorial comments on the subject have appeared in respectable daily and weekly newspapers. A series of news stories have particularly focused on the University of Dar es Salaam. Here, police using tear gas and cannons of smelly water that burns like fire upon contact with ones eyes, have since November last year been battling with students who, on and off, have been boycotting classes and holding demonstrations.
Some students were arrested and brought before the courts. Some students were brought before the disciplinary organs of the University of Dar es Salaam and given a chance to defend themselves against charges of organising illegal assemblies and perpetrating damage to property occasioned by heavy-handed tactics deployed against fellow students and some academic staff deemed to have acted as strike breakers.
These tactics have tarnished the nobility of the striking students’ cause and the students acknowledge this.
Suspensions were served on some of the students who are deemed to have been the ringleaders of the strike action and the anti- strikebreakers’ tactics. These suspensions in turn occasioned more students’ unrest and unruly behaviour.
Then, even more severe and merciless punishment was meted out, including total expulsion.However, of course, the students claim that their actions were meant to express displeasure with the adverse omissions of the relevant government authorities, including the Students Loans Board.
Thick newspaper news footage has continued to report on these events, but more and more presenting them as instances either of the lack of compaction on the part of University management or as an illustration of how uncultured and ill-mannered today’s university students are. Robust debate on the basic issue of the consequences of implementing the cost sharing policies imposed on Tanzania by the Breton Woods institutions beginning from the early 1990s has been lost.
Now we are treated to exciting news about police being stationed at the University of Dar es Salaam. Indeed, there were days this month, for example, when police personnel in riot gear, with gas masks on, occupied its entire Mwalimu Nyerere Campus.
This of course was meant to reassure students who wished to get on with the business of attending lectures, seminars and tutorials that they could do so undisturbed. Such police presence obviously thwarted the plans of those militant students who seem to take the view that without strikes and class boycotts that are seen to involve almost all the students, and not just the few militant ones, no attention would be given by the authorities to the students’ grievances , be they legitimate or misguided.
Sections of the media in the meantime have continued to report on the students’ unrest as the work of mischief making opposition politicians out to encourage students to go on strikes and demonstrations without any apparent legitimate grievance.
One headline screaming on the front page of the ruling party’s daily newspaper gave one to understand that the students who had been the subject of rustications, suspensions and expulsions were spoilt and rude youth who were under the influence of elements from an opposition party that it went along to name. The paper claimed that these opposition party elements were unruly and uncultured themselves, seeking to draw attention to themselves through misbehaviour and unprovoked disrespect for the law.
One is inclined to believe that there would be elements from the security services who may have already advised the university management to be tougher with the rioting students. One may not be surprised if such elements would wish the university authorities to expel as many students as dare to break the students’ by-laws even when such students happen to be drawn from the legitimate students’ governments. Some editorial writers, on the other hand, have suggested that the university management is to blame for being unnecessarily hawkish and that the expulsions and suspensions have been too harsh. Critical thinking suggests, however, that the media is giving the university management an unfair bad press.
The basic issue relating to the problem of some students being told in the fourth week of the first semester that there were no more possibilities of being granted government loans to continue with studies after having reported to the respective universities upon receiving admission notification is hardly entirely the fault of the university management. Yet, this basic issue is no longer being presented to the public by much of the media. Top ruling party government leaders are being let off the hook far too easily!
Dr Lwaitama is a senior lecturer, Philosophy Programme, University of Dar es Salaam
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