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6 Anglophone university students and Anglophone nationalist struggles Introduction The dramatic changes that have been affecting the position of university students in African countries since the 1980s are being highlighted in an increasing number of studies (cf. Kpatinde 1991; Cruise O’Brien 1996; Lebeau 1997; Federici et al. 2000; Zeilig 2007). Students in the first decades following African independence belonged to the most privileged group in the political system and were assured the desired elite status after graduation, but successive generations have been faced with deteriorating living and study conditions on campuses and bleak prospects after graduating . African universities are in deep crisis nowadays (cf. Lebeau & Ogunsanya 2000; Nyamnjoh & Jua 2002). Academic standards have been falling rapidly because the universities lack the basic infrastructure needed to cope with the massive growth in the student population (Mbembe 1985; Tedga 1988; Lebeau 1997; Konings 2002a) and the severe economic crisis and the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) are aggravating the situation further. The increasing withdrawal of state support for universities, university students and university graduates is seen in the drastic cuts in university budgets, the imposition of tuition fees and additional levies on the student population, and a virtual halt in the recruitment of new graduates into already over-sized state bureaucracies (Caffentzis 2000). Many graduates are finding themselves obliged to defer their entry into adulthood indefinitely as they are unable to achieve economic independence, to marry and start a family of their own. They are also being forced to abandon their aspirations for elite status. ANGLOPHONE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND NATIONALIST STRUGGLES 93 Given these conditions, the question to be posed is: how is the current generation of African university students reacting to their growing marginalisation? Most of the existing studies (cf. Kpatinde 1991; Federici 2000; Amutabi 2002) claim that these students have refused to become a ‘lost’ or ‘abandoned’ generation (Cruise O’Brien 1996: 56). To bring about the needed reforms in the university and society at large they have instead become engaged in struggles against the corrupt and authoritarian political elite whom they hold responsible for their predicament and have received the support of other groups including secondary school students, their teachers, and organised labour, all of whom feel equally marginalised by the state (Bratton & Van de Walle 1992; Albert 1995). In a few countries they have been at the forefront of struggles for political liberalisation (Smith 1997) but in most they have increased the intensity of their struggles after the introduction of political liberalisation . It has created more space for students to voice their multiple grievances, to organise and to establish alliances with newly founded opposition parties and civil society organisations. While in the past, with few exceptions, African student protest was sporadic, today it has become endemic in many countries, continuing year after year in spite of frequent closures of the universities in what appears to have become protracted warfare. Federici & Caffentzis (2000: 115-150) have published a chronology of African university students’ struggles between 1985 and 1998 that provides an impressive list of the violent confrontations between students and the forces of law and order in African states. Some of the existing studies also attempt to explain why both parties appear to prefer violence to dialogue and negotiations in solving student problems. They emphasise that government authorities continue to look upon students as ‘minors’ or ‘cadets’ who, according to African tradition, should listen to their elders and simply obey orders. These officials therefore often fail to take students and their grievances seriously and usually refuse to create channels of regular communication or to enter into peaceful negotiations. They continue to present students as a privileged and unproductive minority group that, on the basis of state largesse, is being offered the opportunity to prepare itself for its future leading role in national reconstruction . Consequently, students are expected to express their gratitude to the state through ‘responsible’ behaviour, devoting their time to study and not to politics (Mbembe 1985: 53).1 In these circumstances, the use of violence has different meanings for the different actors. For students, it is often the only means of pressing home their demands to the government authorities. For government officials, it serves as a deterrent to the cadets from engaging in any similar ‘irresponsible’ 1 Although they have often warned students that the university is a temple of learning and not a haven of politics, one-party and military regimes have never discouraged student motions and demonstrations of support. They have often even encouraged the...

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