Silence is violence: (critical) psychology in an era of Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall

When Chumani Maxwele threw faeces on the statue of Cecil John Rhodes on 9 March 2015, one wonders if the student from the University of Cape Town (UCT) knew that his act of defiance would be the tipping point for an international movement calling for the decolonisation of higher education, captured by the phrase #RhodesMustFall (RMF).Following insurmountable student and public pressure, UCT Council voted for the bronze statue's removal and, on 9 April 2015, Rhodes took his final imperialist survey over his old colony.RMF, as a collective of staff and students at UCT, note that 'the fall of "Rhodes" is symbolic for the inevitable fall of white supremacy and privilege at our campus' (Rhodes Must Fall, 2015).A full list of its aims, objectives, and vision was contained in an online petition to the South African public and world at large (Change.org,2015), igniting an explosion of analyses in the public sphere (e.g., Transform UCT, 2015).By October 2015, the spirit of mass action had fed into a wave of student protests across South Africa, this time for free higher education (Ludski, 2015).The #FeesMustFall (FMF) movement started in Johannesburg after the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) declaring an unaffordable rise in fees for 2016.Wits claimed that the subsidy of 5% from government would not be enough to accommodate the net increase in costs by the university, for library books, journal subscriptions, research equipment, and academics' salaries.Rhodes University in Grahamstown then announced a minimum initial payment of 50% of fees for 2016, meaning that the average student living in residence needed an upfront payment of R45000.The FMF movement became a rallying cry against financial exclusion and debt traps for economically disadvantaged students.Digital activism enabled both movements to flourish.Facebook, Twitter, and instant messaging services allowed supporters to swiftly communicate and organise meetings and protest marches.