Thursday afternoon saw some nasty scenes play out at the University of Pretoria, AfriForum Youth members involved in a skirmish with supporters of both the EFF and the ANC.

We’ll apologise for that shoddy video quality up front, this is the only copy that seems to be doing the rounds so it will just have to do.

A round up of what went on from News24:

ANC Youth League Secretary at UP, Samkele Cetyiwe, said the group derailed plans for the meeting.

“We were going to debate language policy. AfriForum managed to get into the meeting and disrupted proceedings. One thing led to another and a black student was hit by a white student,” he claimed.

There was a stand-off between the different groups. Subsequently one group entered a mathematics class in the engineering faculty and disturbed proceedings, said one student who asked not to be named…

Security guards and police tried to separate the groups. Cetyiwe claimed security guards intervened, but only targeted black students.

“Whenever we are facing the mob, we are the only ones getting pepper-sprayed. We have decided that tomorrow [Friday] we will start addressing issues of transformation. There won’t be any lectures tomorrow,” he said.

According to AfriForum Youth’s national co-ordinator Morne Mostert the group has nothing to apologise for:

“Students on campus said they wanted Afrikaans to remain as a mother tongue language. The meeting was cancelled and we handed over a memorandum to ask that the university should recognise Afrikaans and Sepedi as mother tongues to be taught,” he said.

Mostert said the EFF protested and tried to intimidate AfriForum members.

It did not make sense for everything to be taught in English as only 10% of students were English speaking, he said.

“We are just asking for mutual recognition and respect of Afrikaans and Sepedi. We want everyone to feel welcome at the university,” Mostert said.

Very interesting times ahead for campuses around the country, that much we can be sure of.

[source:news24]