Violent student protests continue to dominate headlines in South Africa. Drawing from powerful images and testimonies, a new publication by the HSRC reveals how students explain the use of violence, linking their struggles to deeper histories of injustice, systemic exclusion, self-defence and perpetual victimhood.
On Tuesday, 15 April 2025, a student protest at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha turned deadly. Sparked by anger over poor residence conditions, tensions rose when students confronted a residence manager who allegedly shot and killed a student and injured two others, claiming self-defence. The incident escalated protests, prompting the university to shut down the campus indefinitely.
Unfortunately, this is not the first student protest to turn violent in South Africa in the past decade. Between 2015 and 2016, what began as calls for free, decolonised education often escalated into clashes with security forces, campus shutdowns and property damage in the #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall protests.
According to Prof. Thierry M. Luescher, a former research director with the HSRC, now at the University of Cape Town, in a recent article, student activism remains a potent force in the twenty-first century. Luescher also noted that in South Africa, such movements frequently stand out as especially violent. It is not uncommon for peaceful student protests to escalate into violence, a cycle worsened when universities deploy police or private security. But what drives this shift from peaceful protest to confrontation?
Luescher used photovoice, a research method where individuals capture their lived experiences through photography and narrative, to understand how student activists explain the use of violence.
To do this, Luescher used and analysed photos and captions submitted by 35 former student activists who participated in a 2018 to 2022 study titled Understanding Violence and Wellbeing in the Context of the Student Movement.
Understanding violence in local and global contexts
Luescher argued that violent protests in South Africa did not take place outside of global and local contexts or institutional dynamics. For example, he said that students were often not the sole instigators of violence. “In response to student protests (whether they are violent or not), university authorities often choose to call police and private security to act against protesting students,” he wrote. “This kind of response is known to escalate violence on both sides.”
Luescher also found that student activists connected their struggles to broader social movements, rather than being limited to a single campus or moment. For example, it was common for students to reference the anti-apartheid movement, global campaigns like Black Lives Matter, and issues like gender-based violence and class oppression.
Four justifications
“The struggle is real”
Luescher called the first justification of violence “the struggle is real”. In this discourse, violence was an assertion of identity and agency in the context of intergenerational and emancipatory struggles. In South Africa, students argued that violence was just another part of the long fight that began with resisting colonialism and apartheid.
Students who used this explanation were primarily concerned with the awareness of, and resistance to, intergenerational structural violence, referencing identity politics that contributed to inequality, privilege, marginalisation and exclusion.
For example, Kamohelo Maphike, a student at the University of the Free State (UFS), submitted a photo (Figure 1) of a colonial era statue, which he wrote represented, “uninterrupted white hegemony, racism, and an extreme attitude of symbolic anti-blackness”. This statue was removed in 2020 and was one of several taken down at South African universities following the #RhodesMustFall movement.
Figure 1. A photo of the statue of Marthinus Theunis Steyn, the last president of the Afrikaner Republic of the Orange Free State (1896–1902), at the University of the Free State.
Source: Kamohelo Maphike
The historic fight for women’s rights was also referenced as an example of this justification. As seen in Figure 2, a student submitted a photo of protesters marching against gender-based violence and added a caption that included the words, “The struggle for women is real and it continues to be a pillar of the revolution”.
Figure 2. A photo titled “There is no revolution without women” depicts female student marchers at the University of Venda, in Thohoyandou in Limpopo Province.
Source: Anonymous
“We were fighting for a just cause”
Luescher dubbed another of the protesters’ justification for violence as “fighting for a just cause”. In this argument, students saw violence as advocacy for social justice and rights. Students argued that violence was a necessity to achieve what they viewed as basic rights, such as affordable education, safety, dignity and representation.
For example, a photo submitted by Kulani Mlambo, a former student leader and activist at the University of Venda, shows two women with a shopping trolley containing bricks (Figure 3). These women were involved in a protest against the unequal treatment and persistent hardship faced by black students, and the bricks were a symbol of their support for violence.
Figure 3. Women protesters pushing a shopping cart of bricks at the University of Venda protest.
Source: Kulani Mlambo
“It is painful to see ourselves fighting for academic freedom while other students were receiving everything on a silver platter,” Mlambo wrote in the photo caption. “As we threw each and every stone, we saw ourselves getting closer to freedom.”
“We were responding to the violence”
“Probably the most common justification for the use of political violence in discourses of resistance, whether in the context of the student movement or elsewhere, is the self-defence argument,” wrote Luescher.
In this explanation, students argued that police and private‑security crackdowns that escalated to the use of rubber bullets, tear gas and beatings came first, forcing them to fight back.
One participating student activist, Asandiswa Bomvana, submitted a photo of three student activists, one of whom is holding a cardboard sign that states “You kill us, we kill you” (Figure 4). This photo was taken at the University of the Western Cape during the #FeesMustFall protests. Bomvana captioned the photo, “For me, the cardboard shows the true narrative of how it was, it is a true eye-opener”.
Figure 4. A student activist holds up a sign during a #FeesMustFall protest in 2015 at the University of the Western Cape.
Source: Wandile Kasibe and Asandiswa Bomvana
“Here lies the remains”
In the final justification, students argued that they were the perpetual victims of violence, whether they observed, initiated or took part in the clashes. In this justification, violence was an expression of, and response to, victimhood.
For example, an anonymous student submitted a photo of their academic record entitled, “A violent record” (Figure 5). The transcript shows a deterioration in their academic performance over three years. The student wrote, “Here lies the remains of what could have been a brilliant future, the impact of systematic violence is very psychological and long-term. We are suffering from collective trauma as black students in this institution.”
Figure 5. The academic transcript of an anonymous student from the University of the Free State
Source: Anonymous
Why address violent student protests?
While some student activists saw it as necessary, Luescher warned that normalising violence risked undermining the very goals activists hoped to achieve, including justice, equity and transformation. “Violence of whatever nature should never be at the centre of the educational experience,” wrote Luescher.
Violent protests also have significant impacts on other members of the university community. “Non-activist students often experience interruptions to their education, compounding anxiety and potentially delaying their studies and graduation,” said Luescher. “Similarly, university staff face the academic and emotional toll of prolonged protests and university closures.”
How to address student violence?
According to the publication, the recurrence of violence in student protests pointed to deep-seated inequities in South Africa’s higher education system. “Although some of the ‘systemic oppressions’ identified by the students require a concerted macro-political, economic and social response, the higher education system and institutions can and must consider ways in which they may be addressed within the sector,” wrote Luescher. “Rethinking inclusion and developing academic, governance and social interventions is crucial.”
He argued that policymakers, university leaders, academics and student affairs practitioners needed to seriously engage with the inequities and dysfunctions that students articulated and that perpetuated various types of violence and protests.“I hope that creating a better understanding of students’ justifications for violence provides an opportunity to address grievances through proactive, non-violent dialogue and systemic reforms,” he wrote.
Acknowledgements
This article was written by HSRC science writer, Jessie-Lee Smith, based on the paper, Why the Violence? Translocal Justifications of Violence in Student Protests, by Dr Thierry Luescher, previously principal investigator of the HSRC’s “Understanding Violence and Wellbeing in the Context of the Student Movement” research project. For more information, please contact Prof. Sharlene Swartz, divisional executive of the HSRC’s Equitable Education and Economies research division
Luescher was supported in the research project by Dr Keamogetse Morwe (co-principal investigator, University of Venda), Dr Angelina Wilson-Fadiji, Antonio Erasmus, Dr Tshireletso Letsoalo and Seipati Mokhema; as well as over 35 student participants of the project, including Asandiswa Bomvana, Azania Simthandile Tyhali, Kamohelo Maphike, and Sphelele Khumalo who commented on the published article.
