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Abstract
In this paper, we trace debates on the origins and morphology of the Fallist student movement in South Africa, a social movement that advocated for decolonized, free university education, and an end to the exploitation and outsourcing of poorly paid Black university workers. As we argue, a neglected area of study is Fallism’s relation to cultural production. When examined through the lens of cultural production, it becomes apparent that artivist collectives in Cape Town created the space for Fallism to emerge into public view when it did, with calls for the removal of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town. Like these collectives, Fallism had decolonial impulses and nontraditional structures of leadership. In fact, we argue that collectives provided a model for Fallism to adopt an ethos of “leaderlessness,” or at least to morph in and out of being leaderless. Though thinkers such as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri see leaderlessness as predisposing social movements to the weakness of unsustainability, we argue that there is another way of interpreting the morphology of social movements that adopt a collective or leaderless ethos.
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Putuma, “1994: A Love Poem,” 101.
2 “Msunery” is an obscenity in isiZulu that is sometimes used in call-out culture to point to something as being outrageous nonsense.
3 Putuma, 101.
4 In 2016 Putuma also created, with City Varsity students, a play entitled “Woza Sarafina!” about a group of Fallist students who decide to blow up colonial statues in the “Company Gardens” of Cape Town.
5 Quoted in Peterson, “RMF Inspires US Activists.”
6 Hirson, 122.
7 Black feminist Kealeboga Ramaru agrees that UCT was the place where Fallism emerged from. She claims that the movement emerged and gain momentum here as “Cape Town is considered one of the least transformed cities in the country, with very little shifting in it since the dawn of democracy,” and because UCT was an historically-white university (Ramaru, “Feminist Reflections,” 89).
8 Ramaru, “Feminist Reflections,” 90-91.
9 Ibid., 92.
10 Naidoo, “Black Student Intellectuals,” iii.
11 We do not use the term “performance” or “performance art” to refer to artivism involving Black bodies in public spaces. Rather, we use terms such as “intervention,” “theatrical intervention,” “demonstration,” and “happening.” Black bodies are always racially interpellated when they “perform” under the white gaze, and this is what we resist when we do not use the phrase “performance” to describe some of the events that are important to our study.
12 Hardt and Negri, Assembly, 13.
13 Ibid., 9.
14 Ramaru, “Feminist Reflections,” 13.
15 Ibid., 10.
16 Quoted in Hardt and Negri, Assembly, 11.
17 Miller, “Excavating the Vernacular,” 270.
18 Quoted in “The Journalist,” “Disrupting the Silencing of Voices.”
19 Ibid.
20 The Company, “The Fall,” 27.
21 Ibid.
22 Mlandu, “Informal Interview.”
23 Gamedze, “Azania House,” 122.
24 Gamedze, “Editorial,” 2.
25 A shebeen is a space, usually in the township, that sells liquor without a license.
26 Lemu, 253.
27 The original Dutch lines of this poem read as follows:
28 Tokolos Stencils, “Contact the Tokolos.”
29 Quoted in Mazvarirwofa, “The Silent Scream of the tokoloshe.”
30 Tokolos Stencils, “About.”
31 Quoted in Davenport, “Rhodes Memorial Debate.”
32 Quoted in Knoetze, “‘Tokoloshes’ Vandalise Rhodes Statue.”
33 Tokolos Stencils, “Real Art.”
34 Ibid.
35 Tlhabi, “Is There Trouble in Paradise?”
36 Hardt and Negri, 3.
37 Dlakavu, “Khwezi Protest.”
38 Angelou, “Our Grandmothers,” 54.
39 Dlakavu, “Khwezi Protest.”
40 Ngcobo, “Gugs, in the House.”