Whose signature is that? The President responds to the backlash to the SAUJS partnership with the SRC

Banathi Nkehli

On 15 March 2023, the PSC UP, alongside a coalition of societies featuring: UP&OUT, Tuks4Climate Justice, South African Student Congress (SASCO), Socialist Youth Movement, Black Management Forum and other societies, conducted a demonstration to commit the SRC to withdraw from the agreement with SAUJS. The coalition was met by SRC counterparts - the president of the SRC, Njabulo Sibeko, and deputy secretary of the SRC, Christo Pretorius. Sibeko and Pretorius accepted the memorandum. PDBY bore witness to these events.

The demonstration

On 14 March 2023, the PSC UP posted a flyer on Instagram announcing their demonstration outside the DSA building as a part of a coalition of societies that collectively goes by “Students Against Apartheid”. The participants present at the demonstration aimed to hand over a memorandum of demands to the SRC relating to their dissatisfaction with the SRCs decision to work with Tuks SAUJS. The demands read as follows: “The multi-stakeholder coalition hereby encourages the Student Representative Council to: a) Receive the memorandum… b) Commit to withdrawing from the agreement with SAUJS and refusing funding from any apartheid states…” The memorandum was received by the president, who signed the memorandum and was given until 23 March 2023 to agree that the SRC would wait until 23 March 2023 to provide feedback on their decision.

Upon receiving the terms of the coalition, the floor was open for speakers to raise their concerns. Sibeko and Pretorius would then address former secretary of the SRC Tarik Lalla in asking him, “Where did you get the minutes?” to which Lalla responded, “Why does that matter, we are here to hold you to account.” Sibeko would continue by questioning the legitimacy of the minutes. He would go as far as to question the presence of his signature on those minutes, stating, “Those minutes do not have my signature.” When presented with those minutes, it was ostensibly proven that his signature was on those minutes. Hisresponse in the face of those minutes was, “then someone forged my signature, that is not my signature.”

[Scan the barcode below to compare the signatures on both documents.] Following this interaction, Sibeko and Pretorius left the demonstrators before the gathering would ultimately be adjourned.

The reception of the memorandum

The coalition was dissatisfied with Sibeko’s response. Sicelo Ngwenya, co-ordinator of SASCO UP stated, “What he did is indefensible, the whole SRC is indefensible…the fact that he, himself voted in the meeting in favour of this decision and is now saying he doesn’t know the minutes… we feel kind of disrespected here… we can’t have a president who undermines us.” Cam Rodrigues, chairperson of Socialist Youth Movement states, “We as students do not want Zionist money in our institution. We don’t want Zionism influencing any aspect of our lives. The fact that the president did not focus on the actual issue with the minutes was the problem, instead he was focused on how those minutes were released.” Natalie Kapsosideris, chairperson of Tuks4Climate Justice, said, “What this partnership indicates is that the SRC can be bought, they can choose sides, they are allowed to help some societies while they discriminate against other societies.” Meara Pillay, chairperson of the PSC UP, states, “I am pleased that the memorandum has been signed, but his reception of the content of the memorandum was sub-par.” Speaking on behalf of UP&OUT Rodrigues states, “regardless of the intimidation tactics and bribery from the SRC, we [UP&OUT] will stand for human rights.” The intimidation that Rodrigues is referring to concerns an email sent from Pretorius’ official SRC email concerning UP&OUT’s participation in the demonstration wherein he states, “I desperately ask UP&OUT to please withdraw themselves from this demonstration for the sake of being apolitical and serving a broader queer community… and it will help UP&OUT with the funding I know they need.” Chairperson of the black management forum, Varnu Govender, states, “The SRC currently flip-flops on the matter, an SRC with a culture of supporting the people of Palestine and now looked at this situation and said, ‘I think we should accept this Zionist blood money.’”

The reception on the other side

In response to this, head of Tuks SAUJS, Sasha Said does not agree with the opposition to the SRC’s decision stating, “I think it’s difficult, the part that I struggle with is that it feels like an exclusion. Because we believe in Zionism, because we are a Jewish organisation.” On the notion that SAUJS approached the SRC to “bribe them” Said clarifies, “In the meeting, they said ‘do you have any demands for us that come with this partnership?’ I said no, I have a request that is there a chance that during Israel Apartheid Week, you do not make a comment for either side? However, if you make the comment, freedom of speech.”

Sibeko and Pretorius did not comment before PDBY went to print. Any comments received will be reflected on pdby.co.za.