Fallist students' demands – clemency, conditional amnesty, restorative justice or a timeout between illegal acts?

What do lawbreaking University of Cape Town (UCT) Fallist students demand now – clemency, conditional amnesty, restorative justice or a timeout between illegal acts?

UCT Emeritus Prof. Tim Crowe [or “Jim Crow” in Fallist terminology]

A form published recently by UCT that has been signed by all but one of a bunch of lawbreaking students at UCT calls for clemency for “acts of violence" by Fallist students.  Clemency is leniency or mercy in relation to some punitive sentence. But, what are the fines and/or jail-time that are to be reduced or ameliorated?  The contentious form as it reads actually allows for conditional amnesty – a decision not to punish an offender subject to her/him giving some undertakings.  In this case not to break the law again while protesting.

This form is, in reality, a blatant attempt to reinforce the evidence-free accusations by Fallists and their supporters that UCT is a monolithic colonialist, sexist and racist institution and that the various Fallist movements have some meaningful philosophy and coherent structure. 

Let’s look at some of the form’s wording

Who “wield[s] the power” at UCT,  the management or obscenity spewing, semi-nude, lecture-theatre-invading lawbreakers bearing sticks, stones and firebombs?

Please direct readers to information on “the philosophy of the [any Fallist] Movement” and demonstrate how it “encouraged” anything other than “wanton acts of [illegal intimidation], violence and destruction”.

How do illegal acts of intimidation, violent assault and property destruction give “means of expression to [undocumented acts of] marginalization, exclusion, pain and suffering”?

Aren’t the “undisciplined elements perpetrating violence, destruction and mayhem” the Fallist students who are seeking clemency/amnesty?

How have the lawbreakers come to “acknowledge that violence does not advance our cause and only serves to discredit it”?   Is this epiphany nothing more than a ruse to allow the lawbreakers to make another attempt to continue whatever academic careers undertaken to date or, worse still, to give them more opportunities to break the law?

If the lawbreakers “do not condone such conduct”, why did they break the law in the first/multiple instance[s]?

What are the unfair/unjust elements in UCT’s longstanding “code of conduct and disciplinary procedures that should be subject to further engagement and adjustment”?

Please provide examples of the UCT “management not being even handed” and, once and for all, identify the persons “who provoke and threaten us”.

Expressing “deep regret” does not constitute restorative justice.

Restorative justice requires victims and offenders mediating a restitution agreement to the satisfaction of each, as well as involving the community [in this case UCT’s unconsulted “silenced majority”].  Victims must be allowed take an active role in the process. Meanwhile, offenders take meaningful responsibility (apologize) and undertake to avoid future offenses.

Several of those seeking clemency/amnesty are indeed multiple offenders who have been pardoned/not-punished over and over.  For example, after defacing Rhodes’ statue with human excrement, Chumani Maxwele is alleged to have with assaulted two woman (one while he was absent from classes  and protesting violently in Johannesburg), burnt valuable and irreplaceable university property and invaded and disrupted the AGM of the UCT Convocation.  I was at the Convocation AGM and saw/heard him https://www.biznews.com/mailbox/2016/12/16/uct-fallist-fiasco/ and others present saw him being “consoled” afterwards by VC Price.  Moreover, this founding Fallist has repeatedly (I hear eight times) evaded “subjecting himself to a just, fair and reasonable disciplinary process” within UCT relating to the first assault that was perpetrated on UCT’s Upper Campus.   Indeed, he accused the first allegedly assaulted woman of racism and she willingly subjected herself to adjudication and was vindicated. 

I understand that this woman, a lecturer, has heard nothing from the Academics Union, the UCT Executive or Ombudsman for months. 

Where is her justice – restorative, punitive, social or otherwise? 

Yet multiply-amnestied Maxwele walks free, illegally invaded and called me a “known racist” at the Convocation AGM.  VC Price has yet to console me in relation to another Fallist calling me a “Jim Crow”, “apartheid activist” and “killer of black people”.

What are the “deep divisions that exist within the university community”, other than those created by lawbreakers between students and staff and their lecture theatres, offices and laboratories?

A challenge to the amnestied and other Fallists

You have two opportunities to live up to the now peaceful ”philosophy” underpinning your “Movements”.  

On Tuesday, 28 February 2017, the reconvened Annual General Meeting of Convocation will be held in Lecture Theatre 1, Kramer Law Building, University of Cape Town at 16h30 for 17h00.   If you qualify as a members of the Convocation, Fallists and supporters  - please come and participate respectfully and peacefully. 

At this meeting I will, once again, try to present my motion calling for the 100000+ members of the Convocation to be allowed to express their confidence (or lack thereof) in the UCT Executive’s decision to grant conditional amnesty to and negotiate with lawbreaking Fallists who serve on the Steering Committee (SC) for the forthcoming Internal Reconciliation and Transformation Committee (IRTC) which will make recommendations that could have profound effects on UCT’s future.

On the following day, 1 March 2017, Prof. Penelope Andrews, the internationally respected Dean of UCT’s Faculty of Law and member of the IRTC SC, will be giving a talk at 18h00 for 18h30 entitled:  

"Transformation and decolonisation at UCT: Capitulation to student protests or a constitutional imperative?" at the Ned Doman High School, St Athens Road, Athlone.  Please attend and contribute respectfully and peacefully, especially with regard to communicating your definition of “decolonization” and your vision(s) for implementing it at UCT.

With regard to the rescheduled Convocation AGM, I have sent two e-mails to Convocation Secretary Royston Pillay (UCT’s Registrar) and VC Price.  Amongst other things, I have requested that there is adequate security to prevent another “unexpected” http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politics/this-is-what-happened-at-convocation--uct illegal invasion, detain (and hold accountable) invaders who persist and give me the opportunity to speak to my motion, debate with those who misrepresented it last time and address any queries from alumni present.  I would also like the AGM’s proceedings video-taped to ensure that any nefarious activities are documented unequivocally.  Only then can the University of Cape Town Community learn how their beloved institution is being ‘run’.

I have not even had an acknowledgement of the receipt of my e-mails from Price and/or Pillay.