The University of KwaZulu-Natal Westville campus has been under siege from students for the past two weeks.

The anger centres around the university’s demand that some students must pay a portion (around 15%) of their historic debt before they can register for the year, with students and security clashing in a number of violent scenes.

Students torched mattresses and fridges, and also set the gymnasium alight.

One incident that has really struck a nerve involves an assault on Professor Erwin Brüning, 77, a maths researcher at the university, who was attacked when he approached a blockade that had been set up on the Westville campus.

TimesLIVE reports:

A political and social commentator has offered a reward of R10,000 for the arrest of a University of KwaZulu-Natal student who was caught on camera assaulting an emeritus professor during a protest on Wednesday…

UKZN confirmed the incident.

“Yesterday, an emeritus professor was assaulted on the Westville campus. He sustained a slight injury to his hand. We are working closely with SAPS to identify the suspects involved. Management has been in contact with the professor and is providing him with support as well as counselling,” the university said in a statement.

The emergence of the footage on social media has sparked outrage, prompting former alumnus Kiru Naidoo, to offer a R10,000 reward for information that may lead to the arrest of the student.

It’s really not the degree of the injury sustained that has caused such anger across social media, with the video widely shared this week.

Here is the first video, where Brüning approaches the barricade:

UKZN westville students aren’t serious uncle Joshua just wants to to work pic.twitter.com/dfMLa4dnQz

— idlozi lakini (@TheKleev) February 19, 2020

In the second video, shared below by Naidoo, the student that strikes Brüning can be heard shouting ‘voetsek’ (some say ‘voetsak’, but I must disagree):

Please help me find this lad. Let me have his parents’ details too so that I can visit to share how he has dishonoured them. The assaulted man has already stood up more courageously than the lad ever will. I am putting up R10000 to help @UKZN find & discipline the perpetrator. pic.twitter.com/2tcX5NMWtb

— Kiru Naidoo (@kirunaidoo) February 19, 2020

I really wouldn’t be surprised if the assaulter isn’t actually a student at all, and it’s actions like these that undermine actual arguments put forward by protesting students.

Naidoo says he’s offering the R10 000 reward because someone needs to take action:

“The university is a sacred space. The professoriate must be respected and defended, not bullied and beaten. The young man’s conduct is disgraceful and if I have anything to do with it he will face the consequences. The offer of a reward to identify the perpetrator has brought a torrent of leads which I have passed on to law enforcement.”

Whether or not law enforcement act with any sense of urgency is another matter, but let’s hope the assaulter is found and hauled over the coals.

There is protesting in pursuit of higher education, and there’s violence for the sake of violence. Kicking a 77-year-old man who is just trying to get to work is the latter.

[source:timeslive]