‘The Fall’ reminds SA of 2015’s Fallist movement a decade on

The brand new manufacturing of The Fall on the Market Theatre takes place on a stage marked by a big crimson hashtag. Throughout it, scored in neat rows throughout the ground and the backdrop, are dozens of smaller hashtags. If you recognize something about SA universities circa 2015-2016, you recognize what the icons signify: #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall.

Ten years on, these social media throwbacks could seem slightly quaint. On the time, nonetheless, they solicited highly effective responses from college students, college workers members, dad and mom and members of the general public — euphoria, dread, idealism, cynicism. The Fallist motion marked a brand new departure in post-apartheid SA: an overdue reckoning with the sluggish tempo of institutional change, a damning indictment of state neglect, and an pressing name for socioeconomic redress…