Schools and universities are probably the most likely places for “Old Boys’ Clubs” to form. Essentially, a bunch of students — typically boys — become friends at the school or university and have an identity fusion with that school or university. Lumumba Hall, named after Congo’s independence leader Patrice Lumumba, has been a socially and politically ‘activist hall’ since its opening in 1971. But there are plenty of schools, especially boarding schools, which have their own, extremely strong, sense of identity. Progress requires the “new” — we need to be sufficiently aware of the consequences, positive or otherwise, of the persistence of such Old Boys’ Clubs.
