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 ofPresidential 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 to the South African presidential motorcade. Following on this incident, the FW de Klerk Foundation's ''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 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 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