Chumani Maxwele (born 1985) is a South African political activist best known for his involvement in the
Rhodes Must Fall
Rhodes Must Fall was a protest movement that began on 9 March 2015, originally directed against a statue at the University of Cape Town (UCT) that commemorates Cecil Rhodes. The campaign for the statue's removal received global attention and ...
and the
#FeesMustFall movements.
Maxwele first gained prominence in 2010 after his wrongful arrest and interrogation for allegedly giving an
obscene hand gesture to President
Jacob Zuma's presidential motorcade convoy in Cape Town city traffic.
In December 2022 it was reported that Maxwele physically assaulted a University of Cape Town academic at a university function.
Early years
Maxwele spent most of his early years in a village in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa. His mother was a domestic worker and his father was a miner.
Two years after South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994 he moved to the Cape Town township of
Delft where he spent time volunteering for an HIV awareness campaign in nearby
Khayelitsha
Khayelitsha () is a township in Western Cape, South Africa, on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality. The name is Xhosa for ''New Home''. It is reputed to be the largest . He gained a scholarship to study Political Science at the
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...
(UCT).
Presidential hand gesture
On 10 February 2010 Maxwele was arrested and detained in Cape Town by members of the president's bodyguard for allegedly giving
the finger
In Western culture, "the finger", or the middle finger (as in giving someone the (middle) finger, the bird or flipping someone off) is an obscene hand gesture. The gesture communicates moderate to extreme contempt, and is roughly equivalent i ...
to the South African presidential motorcade. Following on this incident, the
FW de Klerk Foundation's ''
Centre for Constitutional Rights'' lodged a complaint with the
South African Human Rights Commission
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) was inaugurated in October 1995 as an independent chapter nine institution. It draws its mandate from the South African Constitution by way of the Human Rights Commission Act of 1994.
Commissioner ...
, arguing that members of the Presidential Special Protection Unit violated Maxwele's
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
as enshrined in the
South African Constitution
The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme law of the Republic of South Africa. It provides the legal foundation for the existence of the republic, it sets out the rights and duties of its citizens, and defines the structure of the Gover ...
.
Following an investigation, the Commission found that the following among Maxwele's rights had been violated during his wrongful arrest: Human Dignity (Section 10); Freedom and Security of the Person (Section 12); Privacy (Section 14); Freedom of Expression and peaceful/unarmed demonstration (Sections 16 & 17); Political Choice (Section 19) and the Rights of Detained Persons (Section 35).
Rhodes Must Fall & #FeesMustFall
In March 2015 Maxwele ignited a vigorous national debate about post-apartheid racial transformation by hurling human excrement at a prominent statue of
Cecil John Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.
An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his Brit ...
on the
University of Cape Town's Rondebosch campus, a result of which some media started referring to Maxwele as 'poo-flinger'.
He was subsequently an active member of the
Rhodes Must Fall
Rhodes Must Fall was a protest movement that began on 9 March 2015, originally directed against a statue at the University of Cape Town (UCT) that commemorates Cecil Rhodes. The campaign for the statue's removal received global attention and ...
protest movement,
before being suspended by the university after alleged abuse of a UCT staff member.
In October 2015, Maxwele was involved in a nationwide protest against rising costs of attending university otherwise known as the
#FeesMustFall movement, during which he was arrested outside Parliament. The case is to be heard in February 2016.
In April 2016, Maxwele was again involved in violent protests during an illegal #FeesMustFall protest taking place at the University of the Witwatersrand. During the protest, a lecture hall at the university was set on fire.
On 7 May 2015, Chumani Maxwele was given a provisional suspension order because UCT authorities "considered his continued presence on the campus as being a threat to the maintenance of good order."
The suspension related to an incident which is alleged to have occurred on 1 May 2015.
Upon appeal by Maxwele, UCT varied the suspension to allow him to attend classes and use the library.
Maxwele successfully challenged his suspension in the Western Cape High Court on the grounds that the presence of the deputy registrar of academic administration, Karen van Heerden, at his suspension hearing tainted the hearing with bias.
UCT spokesperson Patricia Lucas said while the university would abide by the court's findings, its decision did not interfere with UCT's disciplinary process and that disciplinary action in connection with the incident on 1 May 2015 would go ahead.
Maxwele had previously failed to attend a disciplinary hearing scheduled for 4 and 5 June 2015 after submitting a medical certificate indicating that he was unwell.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maxwele, Chumani
Living people
Place of birth missing (living people)
1985 births
South African activists
University of Cape Town alumni
People from Mthatha