Seeding a New World: Lessons from the FeesMustFall Movement for the Advancement of Social Justice

Habib, Adam

Abstract

The author interrogates the empirical experience of #FeesMustFall—which is extensively detailed in the book Rebels & Rage from which this article flows—with a view to understanding social movements and in turn enhancing the effectiveness of social justice struggles in the future. He discusses the value of social mobilization in effecting change, but demonstrates that this is only sustainable if the protest is structured within certain strategic and ethical parameters. He then proceeds to interrogate the issues of violence, the framing of the struggle and outcomes, the decision-making processes associated with the protest, and the importance of ethical conduct by leaders and activists. He concludes by underscoring the legitimacy of the social justice struggles but insists that these have to be more effectively conducted if they are to culminate in the establishment of a more humane social order.

Citation

Habib, A. (2022). Seeding a New World: Lessons from the FeesMustFall Movement for the Advancement of Social Justice. In J. Glückler, H.-D. Meyer, & L. Suarsana (Eds.), Knowledge and Civil Society (275-290). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71147-4_13

• Online Publication Date: Dec 9, 2021
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 14, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 14, 2025
• Publisher: Springer
• Pages: 275-290
• Series Title: Knowledge and Space (KNAS)
• Series Number: 17
• Series ISSN: 1877-9220
• Book Title: Knowledge and Civil Society
• ISBN: 9783030711467
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71147-4_13
• Keywords: #FeesMustFall, social mobilization, protest, political violence, political ethics, non-racialism, social justice, sustainability
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-71147-4_13