Well, what started with some poo flinging has now officially become a fully-fledged shit storm.

It was only ten days ago that protesters threw faeces on the UCT Cecil John Rhodes statue, and since then we have seen the Vice-Chancellor getting involved (HERE and HERE), with the disharmony spreading to Rhodes University in Grahamstown (HERE).

Now we find out that the famed Jameson Hall has been defiled with this poster.

If you guessed that this might upset some of UCT’s Jewish students you guessed right. Here is the full statement from the official South African Union of Jewish Students (SAUJS) Facebook page. We’ve added the bold to highlight some of the choicer bits.

SAUJS Western Cape is shocked and appalled by the installation of posters bearing the face of Adolf Hitler and large swastikas on the pillars of Jameson Hall today.

The posters, which were quickly taken down by members of UCT’s Jewish student community and brought to the attention of SAUJS committee members, caused significant distress to the students on Jameson plaza who saw them. They appeared without any explanation or contextualization. Shortly after they were taken down, it was brought to SAUJS’s attention that the students responsible for the posters were organisers of the Black Monday campaign, and that they were intended as a protest against the continued presence of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes on campus. The series of protests of which Black Monday is a part has already seen other students throwing human excrement at the statue.

In a combined meeting with SAUJS and the UCT Students’ Representative Council this afternoon, the students responsible for the posters explained that they were meant as an attempt to show that Cecil John Rhodes was “just as bad as Hitler”. They explained that it was impossible for white students to understand “the struggle of the black child”, and the outrage that black students feel upon seeing the statue daily. Thus, the swastikas were supposed to serve the purpose of putting their struggle against the statue into a form that “Jews could understand.” The students were unapologetic for the use of the images, and said they had similar poster campaigns planned for the remainder of this week.

SAUJS believes that the shock that people experience upon seeing images associated with Nazism should never be exploited for political aims, regardless of whether or not the images are put into the context of that campaign. These students’ attempt to reappropriate the Holocaust for the purposes of their own political aims is unacceptable, and trivializes the greatest crime against humanity in history.

SAUJS supports the struggle of black South Africans to redress inequality and remove the structural discrimination which exists against them as a result of colonialism. Cecil John Rhodes was responsible for crimes against humanity, and the systematic oppression of black people. That being said, we do not believe his crimes can be equated with those of Hitler. Rhodes never attempted the complete extermination of a group of people: while clearly guilty of the grave exploitation and disregard for the lives of blacks, Rhodes never attempted genocide against them. The fact that it is necessary to debunk the myth of the two figures’ equivalence shows a serious misunderstanding of the Holocaust, which resulted in the deaths of 11 million blacks, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jews and others.
A more important issue to be considered, however, is the blatant disregard these students have shown for students at UCT, who have the right to attend university without feeling threatened. When a swastika appears in a public place (especially without any context, as occurred today) this is often construed as an imminent threat of violence against Jews. Recent anti-Semitic attacks in Europe and the United States have used the symbol as a tool of intimidation. Jewish students, being aware of this, inevitably feel unsafe upon seeing the symbol. No attempt has been made by the protestors to understand this fear, or to understand the visceral emotional reaction experienced by Jews upon seeing symbols of Nazism. Instead, they seem intent on using these emotions as an example with which to prove a political point.

SAUJS remains committed to ensuring that Jewish students feel safe on campus. We have met with University Management and the SRC, who have opened a formal investigation into the matter. We will demand that disciplinary proceedings are brought against these students, and that a precedent is set by which students understand that the use of symbols of genocide against the Jewish people is not a justifiable form of protest. We call on all interested parties to join us in calling for these students to be brought to justice.

It looks like everyone is getting ready to bring out the big guns. For the good of all the UCT students let’s hope this gets resolved before things become more unsavoury.

[source:saujs]