South African state-led pro-Palestinian activism and the reluctance of the academe to show solidarity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20853/39-5-7649Keywords:
academic activism, coloniality, Gaza-Israel, educide, ethicsAbstract
South Africa’s higher education landscape remains fragmented and uneven, shaped by a long history of colonialism and apartheid. In this context, this article interrogates the inertia and silence of many South African universities in response to the escalating humanitarian crisis in Palestine, particularly the destruction of educational institutions and loss of academic lives. While the South African government has adopted an unapologetically pro-Palestinian stance—pursuing legal action through international courts—this principled political position has not filtered meaningfully into higher education institutions or the wider public discourse. The article explores the reasons behind the sector’s divergent responses, which range from muteness to active solidarity, and questions the thresholds of tolerance that seem to govern academic inaction. It argues that universities have an ethical and political obligation to engage in development activism as a form of academic activism.
Downloads
References
Akbar, M. Fabian., and Manuel Beltrán Genovés, M. B. 2024. South Africa sues International Court over Israel's Palestinian genocide under international law. Lampung Journal of International Law 6(2): 83‒94.
Braidotti, Rosi. 2019. Posthuman knowledge. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Department of Higher Education and Training (South Africa). 2024. “Minister Blade Nzimande on the Decision of the Senate of Stellenbosch University on the Palestine-Israel Conflict.” Media release, 2024. https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/minister-blade-nzimande-decision-senate-stellenbosch-university-palestine. Accessed June 5, 2024.
Fataar, Aslam, Shireen Motala, Andre Keet, Premesh Lalu, Sarah Nuttall, Kirti Menon, and Luan Staphorst. 2023. “The university in techno-rational times: Critical university studies, South Africa.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 55(7): 835–843. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2022.2142555.
Friedman, Steven. 2023. Good Jew, Bad Jew: Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Assault on Meaning. New York: NYU Press.
Habib, Adam, Sean Morrow, and Kristina Bentley. “Academic freedom, institutional autonomy and the corporatised university in contemporary South Africa.” Social Dynamics 34(2): 140–155.
Jeenah, Na'eem. 2024. Democratic South Africa’s relations with Israel and Palestine.
Khan, Mishal and Alu Tinua. 2024. “Israel–Palestine: Dehumanisation and Silencing.” The Lancet 403(10429): 805–806.
Landsberg, Christopher. 2016. “African Solutions for African Problems: Quiet Diplomacy and South Africa's Diplomatic Strategy Towards Zimbabwe.” Journal for Contemporary History 41(1): 126–148.
Maistry, Suriamurthee Moonsamy and Lesley le Grange. 2023. “South African higher education as mutating plantation: Critical reflections on navigating a racialized space.” Educational Studies 59(4): 420‒439.
Netswera, Fanie. 2014. “The underlying factors behind violent municipal service delivery protests in South Africa.” Journal of Public Administration 49(1): 261–273.
Ngubane, Mbongeni, Siyabonga Mndebele, and Irshaad Kaseeram. 2023 “Economic growth, unemployment and poverty: Linear and non-Linear evidence from South Africa.” Heliyon 9(10): e20267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20267.
Padayachee, Vishnu and Robert van Niekerk. 2019. Shadow of liberation: Contestation and compromise in the economic and social policy of the African National Congress, 1943–1996. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Primorac, Max. 2024. “Time to cut U.S. foreign aid to South Africa.” Backgrounder 3833, May 22, 2024.
Satgar, Vishwas. 2020. “The South African precariat, COVID-19 and #BIGNOW.” Global Labour Journal 11(2): 173–177.
Soni, S. 2023. Gaza and international law: The global obligation to protect life and health. South African Journal of Bioethics and Law 16(3): 80‒81.
Southall, R. (2025). Ramaphosa’s contretemps in the White House. The Round Table, 1‒4.
Steyn, Melissa. 2012. “The ignorance contract: Recollections of apartheid childhoods and the construction of epistemologies of ignorance.” Identities 19(1): 8–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2012.672840.
Sultany, Nimer. 2024. “A threshold crossed: On genocidal intent and the duty to prevent genocide in Palestine.” Journal of Genocide Research 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2024.2351261
Taylor, Rupert. 1991. “The narrow ground: Critical intellectual work on South Africa under apartheid.” Critical Arts 5(4): 30–48.
Van Niekerk, R., and Padayachee, V. (2019). Shadow of Liberation: Contestation and Compromise in the Economic and Social Policy of the African National Congress, 1943–1996. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 L. Le Grange, Suriamurthee Maistry
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
This journal is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors, copyright holders, may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors' publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal homepage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: This is an electronic version of an article published in SAJHE, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX “XXX", DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/SAJHE) may be found.
Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University Institutional Repository SUNScholar.
Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.
The following license applies:
Attribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
