Very clearly "the system" is not working. Aside from the technical glitches that the techies were focusing on, the social aspects of "the system" are clearly also "not working". Someone, somewhere, thought that simply asking all staff to follow (reasonably) simple instructions to confirm their identity before a cut-off date not too long in the future would allow for ICTS to distinguish "live" accounts from dormant, duplicate or deceased ones.
That might have worked, had this been Stellenbosch or Pretoria. Luckily it's not, and so things didn't work out quite as planned. Some people complied immediately. Some people tried, and then discovered that because they did not use the Prescribed And Supported Browser, it did not work. Others tried and discovered that for some reason the system did not think they existed. Others tried, but were unable to interpret the instructions in a manner that led to a successful outcome. And then there were others who didn't try. And a significant number who were away, and didn't even know to try.
Which led, the day before Doomsday, to there being almost 3000 "unclaimed" user accounts. I've no idea of the number of *claimed* accounts, but 3000-odd unclaimed accounts is surely at least as many as those claimed. This is, after all, not the public service - we don't have _that_ many ghost employees (though students queuing hopefully outside locked doors during posted "consultation times" might be led to think differently...).
What was interesting to me on the list of "unclaimed accounts" was the presence of both of the VC's accounts, at least one DVC and a couple of Deans, and several HODs. And some entire departments. I had some thrilling moments entertaining fantasies of ICTS disabling all these accounts... rather like the Rene Clair film, where the factory runs itself and the workers sit out in the sunshine on the riverbank, fishing. Only the factory wouldn't be running itself. It would be standing idle, aside from the coffee outlets which would have long queues.
Exams would not happen. Books would not be able to be issued in the Library. The issue of the "national" anthem at Grad would be spurious, as Grad wouldn't happen. Applications for 2006 wouldn't be processed. Budget would remain unspent. Planning and preparation would cease. Research output would dwindle. Relationships would end.
Even Osama's best choreographed plans would not lead to such an efficient shut-down.
Some people would stress, and move from their offices to rubber rooms. Others would relax, and move from their offices to the tables outside the coffee outlets, or the beach, or the Bahamas. Angry parents would phone, but no one would be on hand to answer the phones. Cobwebs would form over the windows. Virginia Creeper would grow over what were once doorways - and the cornerstone of the Library commemorating its laying by the "honorable" DF Malan. Like Herculaneum, but without the people, Campus would be covered in a shroud of silence, preserved intact for future generations of Lara Crofts to explore, imagine, record in scholarly publications.
Sadly, though, at least one rational mind was still in operation. The disabling of accounts was put on hold. But instead of reviewing "the system", the remedy invoked was... to devolve it. Push it onto the laps of people in departments and faculties, who were closer to the source of "the problem" and thus - in theory - more able to address the "non-compliance". Again, had this been Stellenbosch or Pretoria, one could have predicted the response. This not being the case, the response was variable. How many accounts remain, at the time of writing, "unclaimed", I've no idea. I'm not sure if the VC is still among those, or how many departments are still "in default".
But the fact that it happened this way fills me with hope. Despite the death of a culture of debate, and despite the increasing levels of apathy, there is still a high level of "non-conformity", of critical resistance and questioning, across the Campus. We're not yet the technikon predicted by JM Coetzee, not yet the slavish automatons feared by the opponents of flying-the-flag-and-singing-the-anthem, not yet the worker-clones resisted by the critics of Managerialsm. Somewhere, buried deep in the silence and passive aggression, are the seeds of hope that we might again become a Real University.