University violence: Occupy and protect your domain – Solidarity
27 October 2016
Dr Dirk Hermann, Chief Executive of the Solidarity trade union, addressed university staff, members and other interested parties this week at a workshop in Bloemfontein and his message was, “Occupy and protect your domain.”
Trade union Solidarity organised this workshop to set the process in motion to find solutions for the current spate of campus violence across the country. The objective of this meeting was to garner input from people attending the meeting in order to come up with practical solutions and to discuss the problems experienced by them.
“At a university, the students’ centre of power should be vested with the majority who want to study. A university should never allow students’ centre of power to vest with a minority group of anarchists,” Hermann said.
According to Hermann, the essence of a university is formed by critical thinking. “Universities should not shy away from new ideas. New ideas should be formed through critical thinking,” Hermann said.