Last week I landed in South Africa to attend a funeral and the news headline that caught my eye was the students trashing their universities.
Apart from anything else, the key question is this: should someone who is stupid enough to burn down an establishment of higher education actually be at university? But then again, I suppose not everyone goes to university to get educated.
This is not just in South Africa by any means. At England’s Oxford University, the elitist of the elite, there was a campaign to destroy the statue of that running dog racist imperialist capitalist pig Cecil John Rhodes, because he was … well, all of the above.
The campaign was spearheaded by a South African guy called Ntokozo Qwabe, who claimed that exploited students at exclusive Oxford have to undergo extreme and “systemic racism, patriarchy and other oppressions” on a daily basis”.
Ironically Mr Qwabe, 24, is a Rhodes Scholar, which means he is only at one of the world’s most famous Universities due to a scholarship established by the aforementioned running dog racist capitalist etc. Other beneficiaries of Rhodes Scholarships are well known right-wing imperialists such as Bill Clinton (dubbed America’s first black president) and singer Kris Kristofferson, who is an admirer of fellow right-winger Che Guevara.
By today’s luvvie standards, there is no doubt that Cecil Rhodes was a running dog etc, but one of the greatest mistakes of the leftwing is that they judge people not by history but by modern pieties. There is equally no doubt that some of the stuff we currently believe to be set in stone will be laughed at by future generations.
Rhodes was an imperialist, but he was also a committed philanthropist and without him people like Mr Qwabe would almost certainly not be getting the superb education that they currently are.
But generally, the student scene across the world depresses the hell out of me. In almost all universities nowadays anyone without politically correct views is banned from speaking on campus. Voltaire’s famous statement, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it,” is consider to be some quaint outdated notion by today’s ‘brightest’. Donald Trump, a front runner for the American presidency, is barred from most campuses.
Apart from anything else, freedom of speech is fun. I, to my shame, spent more time surfing than studying in my student days, but occasionally if the weather was bad, I would attend political speeches – and they were a hoot. We had speakers from across the ideological spectrum and the heckling and arguments that followed were huge fun.
I remember the leader of the long-forgotten United Party, Sir De Villiers Graaf (that dates me) being introduced as Sir Devil Ears Giraffe, and another speaker had posters of a baby looking down a toilet saying “Excuse me, are you the Prime Minister?” festooning the Student Union hall.
The meetings were rough, rowdy and exuberant no matter what viewpoint you had. I wouldn’t have banned them for the world. Sadly, the Nationalist Party government in power at the time didn’t completely share those sentiments and banned all liberation movements from speaking on campuses, which puts today’s students in the same category as the Nats.
But on the other hand, if you want to get public opinion rocketing against something, just tell normal people that the students are for it.
In England there were huge protests in the streets when student fees were raised from £3,000 to £9,000, for the simple reason that underpaid lecturers were being poached by America. During the protests one ‘poor’ student, the son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, was photographed urinating on a war heroes’ memorial while another rich brat threw a fire hydrant from a building onto police below. Those two images in the press shredded any support the students may have had.
Then when you factor in that students are being subsidised by taxes paid predominantly by people who never had the privilege of getting tertiary education, it all gets put into perspective.