When Adults Act Petty and Puerile – Digesting SADTUs Mannya About Turn

by Nomalanga Mkhize

Songezo Zibi wrote this article on Sadtu’s incomprehensible about turn on Modidima Mannya’s firing and Angie Motshekga’s role in this http://www.fm.co.za/opinion/editorial/2013/03/14/a-litmus-test

His article was quite cutting; I felt it merited a response. In fact, it merits a whole national discussion.

As a rural child, I was brought up to believe that adults, especially elders who hold some leadership or social rank, are hardly ever wrong.

As we grew up, we were then taught how to politely point out to adults or elders when they had erred without explicitly humiliating them. I found it hilarious as a child when an adult who had been caught out would cheekily tell us – “umuntu omdala akaqambi amanga, ‘uyaphosisa'”.

This is a cornerstone of traditionalist societies – maintaining respect and decorum between the young and the senior.

This was back in the past of my childhood in the rural idylls of Mpumalanga and Pietermaritzburg where it felt like the universe of norms was relatively intact. Everybody knew their place and responsibility.

But I recall an incident which punctures my rose-tinted memories.

This is when a relative of mine who was a highly respected teacher practically dragged himself home, through the streets of the township, dirt streaks on his half unbuttoned white shirt, stomach exposed, zip and belt half undone, sopping drunk, incoherent. Cousins were dispatched to help him along. It was a painful sight for me, I was barely 5.

There are moments when adults can behave, in the full glare of the public, in ways that are so immature and so childish that one is just left feeling downright perplexed.

A week ago when I read the latest press statement by the executive of the South African Democratic Teachers Union I had such a feeling of complete disbelief.

As Zibi points out, the press statement, criticises Minister Motshekga for making public utterances that hinted at non-procedural dismissal of then Eastern Cape Education HOD Modidima Mannya.

Hawu. Hayibo. Kanti? Imani. Wait. A. Minute. No. Let’s wait two minutes, and reflect.

This is the SADTU that crippled Eastern Cape education for three weeks in 2012 to have Mannya unprocedurally fired.

On the ground, communities were scrambling to organise tutorials for panicked children. I was one of those people who got lots of phone calls from parents “Nomalanga, khawuncede, Nomalanga, abantwana, please”.

In my town of Grahamstown, SADTU officials went from meeting to meeting to explain to angry parents about why Mannya must go. At one meeting, tribalism even emerged as one union official said “He is not even one of us, he is from another ethnic group outside this province”.

Hawu. Ngavele ngaphelelwa amazwi. I was lost for words.

But let’s accept that was the ignorance of one person and not the culture of SADTU nationally. The parents at the meeting dismissed this tribalist sentiment immediately.

Those three weeks of the go-slow were some of the toughest three weeks for Eastern Cape education.

As citizen’s we got together and issued this letter to the local newspapers – in our anger and concern for the children – https://imfundo.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/letter.jpg

We were so angry we could not even bring ourselves to write the letter in English.

We needed to be clearly and properly understood.

Fast forward to March 2013. It is as if SADTU never had a role in the Mannya debacle. It is as if a debilitating go-slow never happened.

Do they take us for fools?

Perhaps, they do!

Or perhaps it may be worse, they are indifferent to pain they cause because they have become so stuck in their bad habits, so unable to reflect on their collective behaviour as seniors and elders.

Just like my drunk relative, rolling down the streets of the township, dignity all gone, family shame exposed.

16 SCHOOLS LOCKED-DOWN, 12 000 KIDS UNSCHOOLED, 0 LEADERSHIP FROM STATE

By Nomalanga Mkhize

Approximately 12 000 learners in the Eastern Cape have had their schools forcibly placed under lockdown by their parents over the past four weeks. Across Uitenhage, the P.E. Northern Areas, and even in Grahamstown we have seen these dramatic shutdowns. [See Herald http://www.peherald.com/news/article/12834.%5D

Gates are locked; no one may enter, at least not for educational purposes. In some schools, staff members who attempt to breach the lockdown may find themselves on the nasty side of angry parents.

And these parents are angry, very angry. Their children’s schools are under-funded; they have teacher/pupil ratios of on average 1:90. Children go to school and find themselves idling or unheard in huge classes where the teachers struggle to control them.

Discipline goes out of the window, teachers get gatvol, principals come close to nervous breakdowns, and the school life slowly disintegrates.

Under such conditions, would you keep sending your child to school? These parents have decided enough. Such schools have become unsafe environments.

In the discussions around the public education system in South Africa, there is often an uncritical moralism advocating for children to be ‘kept at school at all costs’, for ‘education to not be disrupted’, ‘children to be in classrooms at all times’.

This is because, as the narrative goes, education is the key to all our problems, schooling must never be disrupted – it is sacrosanct.

This position is understandable in a country where school is often disrupted for frivolous or unsound reasons, usually advanced by teacher union politics.

However, it is also a naïve view because there are times when schooling must be justifiably disrupted. This is when conditions can be considered abnormal or no longer conducive to learning. In the 1970s and 80s, the apartheid regime created such an inhumane environment within society as a whole.

Today, however, abnormality in human relations is often found in the local microcosm that is the public school itself. Abnormality is the norm, such that we now consider our schools with their litany of problems to be normal so long as they are not being burnt or stoned.

Yet, we know that much of what children experience in our public schools cannot in any way be considered normal. The problems are very well known, they need not be listed again here. The more destructive elements such as violence, rape, drug-trafficking are acknowledged, nobody denies their existence.

Less acknowledged, however, is the systematic erosion of children’s sense of self, dignity, and intellectual personhood that takes place as a result of going to schools which are badly run, severely under-resourced, overcrowded etc. Even without the gangsters, the drugs and the violence, attending a public school in South Africa can be a highly unpleasant daily experience.

For example, the problem of being a girl who is menstruating in a school with broken toilets and intermittent water service. Of being a child who has to hold it in or run to the bush because there are no ablutions of any kind. Of being that child that must learn to be physically aggressive because bullying is endemic in the school. Of being a boy who is socialised into a culture where male teachers routinely harass your female peers. Of being that girl who is being harassed.

This while the education administrators send their children to schools with freshly clipped hedges, trimmed green grass, pretty flowers, shady trees and a sense of routine, order and pride.

Schools have never been easy places for children, that is known. Teachers have been grumpy since time immemorial, and children learn to navigate that terrain in their own ways.

However, there is a minimum required for dignity; many of our public schools no longer offer dignity to our children.

Under these circumstances, parents are perfectly within their rights to lockdown schools and demand effective and urgent action from the state.

But, where has the state been as these over 12 000 children face this meltdown? Nowhere to be seen. There is absolutely not one figure of authority either in provincial or national government who has taken the public into their confidence to say – we are sorry your children are suffering, this is the plan, this is how we must walk forward with this mess.

In 2011 Minister Angie Motshekga instituted a constitutional take-over of the Eastern Cape education department. Frankly, it was a publicity stunt, an ill-informed crisis management strategy. The root causes of the problem – corruption, union politicking, tenderpreneurship in the department were not addressed.

Although the organisation I work for was sceptical of this now famous ‘Section 100’, we nevertheless compelled her to go to court to ensure that it would work. We were on weak footing because on paper, her lawyers insisted they had the means to make it work. But in real life, we knew their technical arguments were a joke.

Over 16 schools have shutdown, we await the promises of Section 100 to trickle down. The latest meltdown has been a long time coming, aren’t they always?

One usually ends off a piece like this with some kind of ‘should’ or ‘ought’.

But at this point, this is futile. There is nothing to be done or said as we watch these adults watch portions of the public schooling system break off and disintegrate.

No doubt schooling will be restored, but if I have the choice, the money, my child will never sit in a school that suffers these problems, and no child should have to.

You can find out more about the community education work I support at blog.sosac.org.za

Imbila Yaswela Umsila Ngokuyalezela

By Unathi Kondile

It’s 4am.

I’ve been asleep since 3pm.

I suppose this happens when you spend an entire week on the road.

5446 kilometres travelled in one week – distributing Isigidimi SamaXhosa, talking to chiefs, teachers, ward councilors, rural community dwellers, shebeen patrons (oolova baseKasi) and my favourite – children.

The overall experience: I am gutted by how our people have resigned themselves to a life of dependency. It’s as if we’ve become addicted to help. Drive past any SASSA office in the Eastern Cape and you will see hoards of iinkonde neenkondekazi (the elderly) queuing there all day long – for grants and grants to be granted by grantors.

“Bhuti, sicela usiphe imali yedrinki!” were the words three Thembalethu High School girls uttered as I drove past them, in George. I stopped. Gazed at how short their uniform was.

Thought was not: “Damn, that’s sexy!”

Thought was: “All school girls must wear long gray school trousers!”

This thing of showing so much thigh at school is distracting, to put it lightly.

“Andinayo!” was my response, “imali yam igqitywe leliphepha lesiXhosa lam” as I showed them a copy of the newspaper.

“Kodwa uhamba ngemoto entle kangaka!” said one pointing to the rented I20 I was driving. “Sicela usiphe ilift ke; uyosibeka ekhaya!” That’s another thing about our township and rural communities – a car attracts attention like faeces attract flies.

I caved in, gave them a lift but along the way gems came out of their mouths – things like “poverty is inherited bhuti, maybe we will stop asking for things when we are older!” and more was said by these girls. As they got out they asked for copies of the newspaper and promised to write about what’s going on in Thembalethu. I am not going to hold my breath for that.

Throughout my travels in the Eastern Cape one theme kept reasserting itself: girls are easy prey there; especially if you’re driving whatever you’re driving. If you have wheels and can afford a six pack of Red Square or Hunters Extreme you are a woman’s dream-come-true waiting to happen in some parts of this country.

My conclusion: If only all those feminists in big cities would take a break from conferences, art and Twitter, and head down to rural areas and townships to empower young girls there; perhaps change would come.

On the subject of conferences, Twitter and being busy I have further concluded in my head that change will not come from people who are busy presenting in conferences, speaking at breakfasts or people who are locked down in 9-to-5 jobs. Change will come from people who are prepared to down tools or commit career suicide (as Nomalanga would put it). We are not going to change anything in this country if we are resigned to this thing called work. We have to resign first.

This trend of young people finishing school, getting a job, buying expensive wheels and committing themselves to buying things they can’t even pronounce must come to an end. People who are committed to creating debt for themselves cannot possibly be the same people who can commit to changing any society. If there are people in this country who can live on R1200 per month grants I think anyone who earns above that is overpaid and surely can make an effort in terms of saving their money. By this I mean anyone earning above R1200 is in a good position to resign after a few years and go do some good with their savings. This however requires a culture of saving and divorcing the what-will-people-say complex, first.

I have seen many such young professionals gracing activist initiatives like the Education Stokvels and other similar black empowerment initiatives. The reception is great. Everyone comes and pledges their support to initiatives that promise to improve the lives of the majority. A launch is done. Canapes and wine are served. All attend. Within a week it’s as if nothing ever happened. Promises. Promises. Pledges. Pledges. But nothing.

People are way too busy being busy. Busy servicing debt. Busy working towards enriching their employers. Such that doing side social gigs become difficult for them. Look at the dead end jobs we’re in – who do we serve? Do our employers allow us time to go and fix where we come from? No. You’re working, working, working from one pay EFT to the next – never a moment to spare to go do some community work, build a school with friends or so on.

No such.

Tough cookies.

And when it becomes hard for you to do social work it becomes easier for you to look to government. Blame government. You easily develop the Government-Must! syndrome many liberals suffer from. This syndrome blinds you to the reality of “I too, can make a difference, with the little that I have.”

Sadly, it becomes the empowered, well-positioned, too-busy-being-busy types who consistently put the blame on government’s foot.

I am absolutely sick and tired of hearing about government. The problem is not government; it is us. We are the ones who vote. How on earth do we “employ” someone then call them “boss” or a leader soon thereafter? We are the employers. That’s like employing a babysitter and thereafter treating that babysitter as if they were the parent that is you.

This happens. Nannies become the real parents and parents end up bowing down to the very nannies they employed. Why? Because we are too busy being busy. And that being too busy of ours slowly breeds a culture of help and dependency. It breeds a culture of looking up to nannies like president Jacob Zuma for everything. We no longer know how to do things for ourselves. If it itches, we don’t scratch. That’d be too much effort. Get a masseuse to scratch the itch.

If you can’t even scratch yourself or raise your own child, how on earth can you help entire communities? You will inevitably end up looking for nannies to help you with your own problems.

We work, get paid, start debt and leave the rest to nannies called governments.

What on earth is that all about?

Government cannot do much for us. As I travelled the length and breadth of this country it became clearer that government is trying; but we – the parents of our problems – are not. The solution to this country is not a new government or nanny. The very same problems will persist irregardless of which nanny we employ; the problematic child will still be a problem child, even to that new nanny.

For things to work; we must nanny our own problems ourselves.

I have seen communities get together and build mud schools and thereafter roping in the services of retired teachers to teach for free in some rural areas of this country.

I have seen retired nurses coming out of retirement and converting their homes into clinics.

I have seen people who earn close to nothing taking care of the elderly and sick.

I have seen and learnt that no money is needed to help others.

We only need human capital, human care and human time.

How do we raise these three?

It was around 1986, in Cala – 46 kilometres from Queenstown, when learners burnt down Mazibuko Senior Secondary School.  Actually, many a school has been burnt down in our illustrious past. This culture of destroying libraries, schools and other services that benefit communities has long been with us. Its roots are firmly entrenched in defiance. You destroy that which is essential in the hope that it will grab attention. Attention Seeking 101 has never been easier. So when this destructive culture persists in 2012 protests we shouldn’t act surprised nor ask “why?” – that is the only working form of yanking attention, for some. And it works. Why stop doing something that works?

So anyway. 1986. Mazibuko Senior Secondary burnt down. Who rebuilt it within a month? The very same community whose children had burnt it down. Parents, teachers and farmers got together and rebuilt that school within a month. Children were back to school.

There are many more such schools in the Eastern Cape. They were built by the hands of the community with little or no support from government. That was in the 80s. Before 1994 we rarely ran to government when we had problems, we sorted things out ourselves, yet in 2012 we struggle to do anything for ourselves. Even though it is claimed we are free?

What on earth is that all about?

What exactly are we too busy doing? Busy being busy?

Anyway. Back to the Calas. Upon building those schools those that have cars went out and got textbooks from government departments. If said department had none they made photocopies of textbooks until government had. At times they approached the publishers direct and made deals. The point is they did something.

Moral: Just do something. Anything, but protest and running to courts. That is time wasted.

This dependency tendency towards Mr-Delivery-Will-Do-It simply leads to no textbooks getting to schools. In Xhosa we say “imbila yaswela umsila ngokuyalezela” – “the rock rabbit has no tail, because it chose to send someone else to get it for it” – this culture of having someone do something for you is foreign to us Xhosas. We cannot have situations where communities are obsequious to nannies and Mr Deliveries. To get things done, you do them yourselves. Government eventually responds and adds on a few buildings to what you have already built. That is called active citizenry. Especially where education is concerned. Those are our children. If the nanny refuses to change our children’s nappies, we have to be the ones that change them. We’ve become the parents that don’t mind children being in soiled nappies the whole day. Our problems in this country are our responsibility. We cannot sit and wait for things to get done on our behalf anymore. Those that have bakkies must go and get the textbooks for their community schools. What kind of nonsense is this that when a problem emerges no one does anything about it except to point to the nanny that is government?

What kind of culture is this that prefers to sit back and pontificate over its problems?

We all know what our problems are. Listing them and and establishing bitch-and-moan NGOs achieves nothing. We “Do” or “Doing” people. Enough with talking good English and asking the right questions. Do.

What kind of culture is this that is complacent with writing good articles and organizing marches for its own problems?

What on earth is that all about?

Is it because we are too busy? Too lazy? Or that we do not care anymore? The future of education in this country will not be resolved by government. The future of education in this country will be resolved by the resolve of communities like Cala who still are hands-on on the education of their children. If you, the parent or young black, do not care about the education of the future then I am afraid you should be afraid of the future.

Caring or activism is not marching to government buildings. Especially in 2012. Why on earth are you marching against someone you employed, yourself. The employer doth protest against the employee?

What on earth is that all about?

Caring or activism should be about doing. Especially in 2012. Activism should be going to communities, establishing what is missing and going out to get what is missing. You will find that in all this activism that is aplenty there is actually enough money to render services or do get things done. But instead that money is spent on tea, biscuits, venue hire, speakers’ flights and accommodation and so forth. So that people can sit, talk organise a march that they will talk about for days afterwards. That’s passivism. Not activism.

What on earth is that all about?

If we are serious about getting this right, if we are serious about helping one another then we have to get over this government-must-do-this-and-that complex. Government is clearly failing in some aspects of its functioning and running back and forth to their offices expecting miracles simply won’t work. What will work is us rolling up our sleeves and doing this work ourselves. Government will join us along the way. They always do – it’s part of their looking-for-success-stories-we-can-hijack mandate.

Until then, I only have these words to say: imbila yaswela umsila ngokuyalezela. Go and get that tail for yourself.

The hard fight for education in a short-termist political culture.

by Nomalanga Mkhize

I have on several platforms articulated the view that argues that the true crisis in South  African education is not primarily one of “administrative dysfunction” or “curriculum chaos” or even  “policy paralysis”, but that it is a crisis of “purpose” and “value” within Black society at large.

Is education valuable? What sort of education is valuable?

What is the “opportunity cost” of pursuing a longer path to education instead of going straight into the job market?

These are important questions for everyone who is in some form of education, but most important for those whose families are in socio-economic hardship and for whom education is considered one path towards family financial stability.

Similar questions on the “value” of education have been raised by Prof Jonathan Jansen, Rector of the University of the Free State, in a speech  entitled “Seven Dangerous Shift in the Public Education Crisis” .

Reflecting on events in the Northern Cape which saw parents bar their kids from going to school because of local political grievance, he comments:

“I am asking a broader question: why would a community sacrifice the one route out of poverty for rural youth in a socially and economically oppressed community like Olifantshoek and other areas of the Northern Cape? There can be only one conclusion: that the value of education has lost all meaning for these rural communities.”

He further states:

“I have a sense that this negation of the value of education is spreading in the poorest communities of the country, and the reasons are many: the inability to keep enrolled students in school for reasons that include poor quality education; an unpredictable timetable; unreliable teaching; the shortage of basic resources (textbooks and basic science materials etc);the lack of responsiveness from local, provincial and national education authorities; and the visible lack of connection between education and economic well-being in local communities.”

In other words, as he goes on to conclude, and I agree with him – the public good that is education is so devalued in the eyes of South Africans, there is no collective social will, never mind political will from leaders, no social will in communities to truly rehabilitate and restore the schooling system. Instead, what South Africans are learning to value is private education, an alternative which most will never be able to afford.

There are deeper, more sociological questions one can ask about the value of education, relating to the jobs sector and what kind of education it actually respects (formal, experiential, technical, theoretical?) and also relating to confusing and conflicting trends in graduate unemployment.

However, that I shall deal with another day.

Let’s just focus on the question of “value” in the general social sense, the sense that Jansen invokes.

One of the strange experience that i confront in community education activism is the fact that I often feel like I have to persuade the community-at-large that education is important.

But it often becomes clear that my arguments do not wash. This is because these days, when people look around them in the Black community, the most “financially prominent” middle-class Black people are no longer, as it was in my day, the shopkeepers, the taxiowners, and teachers. No, these days it is the municipal councillors, the government directors, the mayors, the ministers etc — in short, the people who are either working for government or representing government.

In addition to these there’s another grouping – the new school wheelers and dealers, I don’t want to say “tenderpreneurs”, because many of them are decent business people. Either way, these are the people who know how to lobby and associate with politicians and state bureaucrats such that it results in them being favoured in state procurement. [I have no problem with this in principle].

Now, of course, many of these people have some level of education, a substantial portion have solid tertiary education.

However, what has become apparent is that this education plays a very marginal role in their successes in their ability to secure a job, a promotion, or a tender.

In and of itself, this is meaningless, education is a multifaceted creatured, one doesnt need to obtain it formally in a classroom.

But one can argue that there is something we can consider as an “educated mind”, one which applies itself according to what it has “learnt” in relation to that specific area of work. Whether that learning took place formally or informally.

The sense that one gets is that in these circles that are associated with access to state resources either by job or by tender, the “educated mind” , the mind which seeks to apply action on the basis of expertise rather than political directive, appears to be valuable in a functionalist sense, but not in the intrinsic sense. In fact, the “educatedness” of the mind seeking employment, appears to sometimes be incidental to the appointment.

Instead, what appears to be more important is whether and how the mind can be politically co-opted for partisan rather than policy ends.

The best is to keep quiet, do your job, which, if my friends working in government are anything to go by, also entails doing the jobs of those who were hired  in spite of their inability.

In our communities, where we all live together, drink together, commune, and on occasion fight each other we are keenly aware of the trends, because we see those we know enjoying the financial returns of political association.

The message we are given is that what counts in the game to get ahead, is political acumen, rather than a display of ability.

I have been thinking about this as I digest the reports on the alleged R200million price tag on renovations of the President’s personal house. What bothered me was not so much the price tag in and of itself, but the justifications by state officials who have labelled the criticism of this expenditure as being “disrespectful” of the Office of the President or just unwittingly “misplaced”.

There was an air of patronising dismissiveness in these response to the uproar as though citizens have no right to be outraged or critical on matters involving public expenditure!

In particular, public expenditure that in this case appears to have enriched the president personally by virtue of his home being refurbished with luxuries (astroturf is a luxury in my book).

And yet here we sit in a country where the majority of public schools have no libraries, no toilets, no electricity, no reliable water, no adequate playing fields, inadequate stocks of reading books and textbooks.

I was somewhat perplexed that state officials were angry that citizens were pointing this out. It almost seems that to them the fiscus is a rigid template and there can be no room for virement or transfer of funds from one thing to another. In another words, well, since this is allocated to the president in any case, what business do citizens have to demand that R200 mil instead be used on poor Black children!

But perhaps I thought, they have not yet had the common sense to see that the fiscus operates on a zero-sum basis, what is spent in area, has deprived another.

It struck me then that there it is almost futile to try and persuade communities that we need to revive a culture that produces “educated minds”, when it is apparent that even at the highest offices of state administration,  there is sometimes an absence of ethical and sensible reasoning when it comes to public expenditure, no display of “thoughtfulness” or “educatedness” and there are no real consequences for those state officials.

I #tweeted the following as I thought through this on my @NomalangaSA account:

– What a new generation, who will inherit this mess, what we must do, is articulate a model of how to exercise just, ethical, open leadership

– The generation before us, they were courageous, they taught us how to challenge power. We must teach them how to exercise power.

– The President is basically saying, show me respect by spending more money on me, not show me respect for being an honourable leader.

– Never underestimate the capacity of your leaders to lose common sense, along with the common touch.

– Er, African Presidents, if you would like houses that appear to be comparable to western heads of states, er, build comparable economies

– And yet, Mwalimu Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Thomas Sankara provided the alternative model. Presidents get simple cars, simple clothes. Qha.

Towards a Positive Black Image

By Unathi Kondile

I can, no longer
stomach South Africa’s media.

I can, no longer
click through the News24s.

I can, no longer
buy Sunday newspapers and all papers alike.

I can, no longer
subject myself to the sickness that resides therein.

I can, no longer.

Open any newspaper in this country and you will be confronted with corruption, crime, politicians and hoards of complaints; complaints ranging from the public right up to the editors themselves. Nothing else. And it’s the same thing over and over and over again.

Our news media – from print to broadcast – have become nothing but glorified masturbatoriums that will never impregnate society to do anything beyond the scope of stereotypes.

For how long will we continue to undermine how the media intentionally or unintentionally reinforces the negative stereotypes of this country?

For example:

What is the general image of blacks in South Africa’s media?

– They are largely criminals
– They are largely corrupt
– They are largely incompetent
– They are largely poor
– They are largely needy victims of self
– They are largely more than this list can accommodate

Of course the general image of whites in South Africa’s media is the exact opposite of the above.

Put simply: blacks are inherently inferior in how they are positioned and represented in the media. There’s a limited scope of expression and representation of blacks as humane, on par, equal, in the media. A media with a paucity of positive black models/images that go against pre-1994 stereotypes. The black South African’s image in the media is critical to how they are imagined by an other, and most importantly by themselves.

Take a look at news. If black people are always on the rampage, destroying things, stealing from state coffers and generally represented as social deviants with an inclination towards the worst – how do we suppose the black audience imagines itself? Tell people they are corrupt, corrupt, corrupt and it becomes common to such an extent that corruption doesn’t shock – owing to the extended desensitization to it, afforded to us by the media. Crime too is headed in this direction – we have become used to it, to such an extent that it no longer shocks. Black people dying is also another thing that has become deeply devoid of “another life gone!” – because of the rate at which such news fleet through our eyes and ears.

Just going back to the image of blacks in the media; it would seem that blacks are corrupt dumb savages with no moral GPS, if what our media serves us daily were to be examined closely.

Now, it becomes really easy to fall into the trap of saying, but the media mirrors society. It’s their job. These things are happening out there. Don’t blame the media, blame the people. Black people are like that, they are doing these things, they are corrupt etceteras – the media’s role is to provide accurate verbal, written and/or visual records.

They might teach journalism students the above paragraph in Media schools. But I am prepared to stand alone and say there is something horribly wrong in assuming such roles for journalism. Journalism, today, more than ever requires conscious journalists – not just empty vessels passing on news. It needs people and editors who’s main objectives surpass sales. We need human beings in newsrooms. Not those whinging morbidly depressing churnalists who are led by editors that were probably bullied in primary/high schools and are now venting their frustrations at anyone [read: government] who tries to control them.

Within the context of South Africa we cannot merely push accuracy in news or reflection of day-to-day actions without taking into account the audience’s understanding or what mental representation it stimulates. That would be to be irresponsible. So much so that you will now find people, like mam’ Mamphela Ramphele saying “That’s us! We are like that!” upon reflecting on the black’s image in the media. That, I am afraid, is the height of ignorance. We have somehow come to accept things as they are with scant regard for codes embedded therein, that leave no room for counter-schematic thought – thought that highlights that not all blacks are like that. “That’s us!” is not us. There are deeper areas we do not want to go into with regards to the media’s [mis]representation of the black image in South Africa. It’s very easy to show people news as they are, but seemingly hard to think about how this bodes for the national psyche. Our media convicts us in the confines of our past.

We need a thinking media.
We need a media attuned to the complexities of the societies they serve.
We need a media that is prepared to facilitate racial comity.
We need a media that is less commercially driven.
We need a media that doesn’t serve “imagined communities”, but Real Communities.

It is very easy to report. Very. Even a toddler can report on what they saw. If we limit ourselves to just reporting as we see it, we undermine conceptual and normative complexities of our times.

We need to think carefully about these things and submit ourselves to deeper self-critical awareness in our thinking. We cannot bumble about consuming information without understanding the side effects.

Taking the News pill, daily, comes with side effects that are not written on its packaging. No newspaper or broadcaster warns you that they are going to desensitize you or reinforce stereotypes in your head. None of them do.

And that’s the problem. We are not thinking on that level – on the level of images of one another that we have of one another in one another’s minds. Who reinforces and provides a steady stream of those images?

education is a love gift

BLACK PARENTS AND EDUCATION – PART 1

by Nomalanga Mkhize

The silence of parents from ‘black’ townships over education in South Africa is striking.

Last week I was at the Grahamstown High Court talking to parents, teachers, pastors and school governing body members from schools in the Bethelsdorp, a formerly ‘coloured-only’ neighbour in Port Elizabeth. They were protesting teacher shortages in their schools.

There were about 30 of them who had taken time off work and travelled all the way to Grahamstown to make their ire known to Minister Motshekga and her department.

Inside the High Court, their lawyers were meeting Minister Motshekga’s legal team which was busy defending itself, once again, from court action compelling them to do their job properly. (These lawyers also represented us in the case we brought to compel Minister Motshekga to make sec. 100 intervention in the Eastern Cape work. She said it was working and our case was ‘ill-conceived’. The case was settled. For our part, we were pleased the Minister re-affirmed that she was in charge of Eastern Cape education. We know exactly where the buck stops now.)

The parents told me that in addition to teacher shortages, the temporary teachers they had in school employ were not being paid by the Department. The SGB was expected to pay for them!

In other words, not only was the department not providing the requisite number of staff according to the schools needs, but it was making the school pay for those they had managed to prevent from leaving. Teachers had lost their cars, were barely making ends meet because of the department had not paid them.

What struck me about the protest, and what has struck me in similar protests by citizens from formerly ‘coloured-only’ areas, is that that parents, pastors and community leaders led the protest – not the teachers and principals. (The group by no means only coloured, there were parents of all different backgrounds and languages, indeed, many ‘coloured’ schools are composed of at least 50% ‘black’ learners.)

In contrast, every protest that I have attended for schools in ‘black townships’, it is the teachers union SADTU leading, and the parents following behind.

In fact, if SADTU did not organise these protests against teacher shortages or whatever other grievance, onen wonders if parents in Black townships would ever make a collective showing on these critical issues.

Well, of course there have been cases where black parents organise and lead themselves to make their dissatisfaction on education matters heard . But this is very rare. (I refer specifically to the Eastern Cape here).

What is happening here? Parents in ‘coloured’ areas feel they can speak for themselves. Parents in ‘black’ areas do not.

I have spoken on various platforms about the class and power relations within black townships.

Parents in black townships tend to find themselves caught up in contradictory social and political relationships which cause them to be silent on education matters.

They may see themselves as being too poor to contest a school principal or teacher who is protected by a powerful union, specifically SADTU.

They may fear being seen to be a contrary voice in the community against people with strong political connections and ties, as many union heads have.

They may find themselves being ignored by education officials who are protected by the same union that protects teachers.

They may find themselves dealing with an SGB chair who is also a powerful political figure in the community, and by extension, powerfully connected to other elites such as teachers and principals.

In the ‘coloured’ townships however, power tends to be dispersed fairly evenly between different political parties and different teachers unions.

Churches in ex-‘coloured areas’ still occupy a powerful space in the politics of the community. Pastors are regularly involved in service delivery and socio-economic issues.

Clerical activism has become a thing of the past in black townships.

Should I say it? Yes, I think I will.

The political ‘in-betweenness’ of the coloured community since the end of apartheid is its most powerful advantage even though the discourse from disenchanted coloured citizens is that they are falling through the gap (the reality is, *all* working-class communities are falling through the gap; for every coloured community without services, we can find many ‘black’ ones without. That powerful coloured figures have been invisible in mainstream politics since the decline of the Mass Democratic Movement is however, a disquieting reality).

The ‘coloured’ community can make or break local governement and provincial elections in certain parts of the country, the DA and ANC know this well. There is a kind of power in
being part of ‘swing-vote’ community. Powerful unions cannot simply intimidate parents; principals still need buy-in from parents; pastors are still respected moral authorities entrusted to speak for citizens on community issues.

But black parents are not excused. Yes the unions, teachers, and other comrades in the community are powerful, but we are not excused.

End of Part 1

.

Mother Tongue Teaching in EC

In an effort to improve the standard of education, the Eastern Cape is the first province
in the country to move towards implementing mother tongue-based teaching, learning
and assessment in the foundation phases.

Already 74 primary schools in the Cofimvaba district have adopted the model, which is envisaged to be rolled out in the other 22 education districts in the province.

This week language experts, subject advisers, education officials, members of parliament and officials from the office of premier Noxolo Kiviet met for a two-day workshop at the Stirling Education Leadership Institute in East London to craft a standardized dictionary to be used for maths, science and technology at schools.

Xhosa textbooks, other than the normal English-worded material, will be provided to pupils. Children in the foundation phases (Grades 1 to 3) in the district are also to write their Annual National Assessment (ANA) exams this year in Xhosa.

Last year, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga released the country’s ANA results for foundation and intermediate phases (Grades 4 to 6) in the country.

Literacy and numeracy tests were conducted at a total of 164 schools in the Eastern Cape – and the results proved poor.

Grade 3 pupils scored 39% in literacy and 40% in maths, while Grade 6 pupils scored lower, managing only 29% in both subjects. Eastern Cape education department language policy manager Naledi Mbudeshale, who is driving the project, said the move by the district would improve the ANA results.

“I know that there are some fears that children will not know English and that these children will not have a bright future and there will not be a space for them at higher institutions of learning but these are untrue and unfounded,”
said Mbudeshale.

“These children are going to be taught English, but they will learn other subjects in their mothertongue. English will be just a resource subject.”

Mbudeshale said the Cofimvaba district had offered to teach the children in Xhosa because children were battling to understand their subjects in English. The bilingual approach would still be implemented, but Xhosa would be used as the first language instead of English.

She plans to present a report on the matter to education MEC Mandla Makupula and acting superintendent-general Mthunywa Ngonzo. It would then be handed to the Bhisho legislature.

Mbudeshale said publishers would be consulted to write books
based on standardised concepts. The department’s deputy director-
general of institutional operations management, Sithembele Zibi said the move would improve the standard of education. “It’s time to reclaim our status. In the past we were ahead compared to other provinces. We used to offer education to children coming from other provinces. Now we are behind,” said Zibi. “We have a challenge of shortages of teachers and those who are skilled in these subjects. Maybe this is the way to go and will ultimately lead to the improvement of matric results.”

The project comes as the ANC in the Eastern Cape attempts to push for children to be taught in their mother tongue and vernacular languages across the country.

The province has already had its policy proposal to have Xhosa speaking children in the Eastern Cape taught in their mother tongue accepted at the party’s national policy conference last month.

ANC provincial spokesman Mlibo Qoboshiyane confirmed that there were
plans to discuss the implementation of mother tongue education to the
other provinces at the party’s elective conference in Mangaung in
December.

Qoboshiyane said about 90% of the subjects were currently taught in
English and children whose first language is not English were battling
to understand lessons.

He said the proposal had received a lot of support from academics and
researchers from universities in the province. “What we were
advocating [at the recent conference] was the establishment of an
African Language Institute.

“This was accepted by the plenary of the policy conference so we can
have more educators of language[s] we are talking about.

“We said these steps must be taken to ensure that the second phase of
our transition respects our mother tongue. There was a total
acceptance of our proposal” said Qoboshiyane.

The following report first appeared in the Saturday Dispatch (14/07/2012), written by its education reporter – Msindisi Fengu.

Educating Xhosa Men

Written by Unathi Kondile in isiXhosa, here.

Translated by Pumla Dineo Gqola, below:

Tetse, a lad of 20, lived with his mother, near Matatiele. Every year he would broach this question to her, “O’lady, when will it be my turn to attend initiation school?”. This question was echoed each December and July.

Last year, the youngster decided to enter traditional manhood initiation without parental permission. He joined a group of boys whose school in the Matatiele hills would fall under Tat’ uJwarha’s supervision. Jwarha was a man now famous for the meandering walk of the intoxicated. A skillful traditional surgeon in bygone days, alcohol abuse had long erased his talent.

The long and short of my tale is that Tetse did not graduate from initiation school. Rumour has it he died from dehydration and an unnamed ailment.  In 2011, he was among the 25 other initiates who died.

As I write this, July is again upon us, and, as is the case in many years, youngsters are itching and acting out in anticipation of their turn to be turned initiate. Not all of them will graduate to manhood. Some will be news headline fodder, and as readers we will be cautioned against traditional manhood initiation processes (ukwaluka). We will be told by Westerners and the fools among our own, controlled by the former, screaming “Change this custom”, “This is thuggery, boys are dying!” and so forth.

All of this because of the irresponsibility of Jwarha-types and uncontained excitement by the likes of Tetse.

If I appear to lay the blame at the feet of Jwarha and Tetse, this is by design. There is nothing amiss in the actual custom. When we speak of custom, we refer to the procedures of a people according to their faith systems.  In historical writing, Sonkqishe and others defined tradition as that which is adhered to in each home in accordance with that family’s belief system.  There would be customary correlation within the same family lineage (isiduko). There is also the belief that custom is medicine – that people who exists outside of it can fall ill or be badly behaved.

From the above, then, the source of contemporary problems with men and manhood is evident. Many men today emerge out of initiation schools not with custom but with bad behaviour. The textures of this need extensive investigation. There are also distracting (destructive) conflations of traditional manhood initiation (ukwaluka) with mere circumcision (ukwaluswa). This simplistic conflation of a process and an event is particularly evident in the noise on television and newspaper pages.

Traditional manhood initiation processes used to be a protected custom, but it has since become an openly discussed matter. What is troubling is how few Xhosa men have intervened into these discussions of what has gone wrong. I am not sure whether this is due to jealousy or civilisation. Jealousy seems to be at the heart of the matter for me. Otherwise, how do you explain those of us who have benefitted from the lessons of traditional manhood initiation (ukwaluka) refusing to pass on this very same wisdom to youngsters who come after us?  Is it because we no longer see the role of ukwaluka in society?  Then, how dare we exclaim in horror when youngsters deemed officially men are so crude in behaviour?

They rape old women and children, beat up women, terrorise communities, kill one another – ask for cigarettes and alcohol from boys, are openly intoxicated in public, and live for alcohol.

That is the situation. We have been so infatuated with “Western” ways of being that we have forgotten that before a person was a person through communion with others, a people were human through adherence to their own customs.

Perhaps all matters customary are hard to swallow for some because of the involvement of ancestry veneration, something new Christians are repulsed by. Why are our people so ready to worship imported gods when these are as unscientific as ours? Why is it so easy to make the leap of faith towards that of another but not towards our very own? While we look down on all matters ancestor related we worship at the very throne of other faith narratives.

Yes, faith is a private matter. You have a right to choose. But as a Xhosa person, your starting point should be custom and ancestry – referenced as a source of strength, growth and protection. Instead we are saddled with men who are not only badly behaved in communities and society at large, they also abdicate their responsibilities within families. This is a crisis.

We need to ask again: what is a man?

Is it enough to simply go through a stage and end the story with the celebrations that follow? Last I checked, being a man meant graduating from boyhood in accordance with ukwaluka. A man is he who has been counselled by experts who have gone before, along with other wise elders. A Xhosa man is he who takes care of royalty, leaders and protects office bearers as per African tradition. No man lives alone. When the home is beset by problems, a man seeks counsel from his peers. Such a man supports others in the community and ensures that his home is well nourished. These days you notice how women shoulder all of the responsibilities I have listed, while men choose the infantile behaviour of boys. Today’s “men” choose the easy way out.

Can such an individual still be called a man? No. Why do they even bother going to traditional manhood school (esuthwini) these days? Given how such men behave, it becomes easy to look down on ukwaluka as an ineffective custom. No wonder outsiders call for the elimination of ukwaluko; there is no discernable difference between boys and these new men.

As a man who continues to go home, I am pained when I visit initiates in rural villages and townships alike and find their traditional caretakers (amakhankatha) gone missing, the places of confinement for initiates (amabhoma) littered with beer bottles competing for space with KFC packages.  I see any random men from the environs taking liberties with these initiates, offering inappropriate advice. Why then should initiates take such an institution seriously as a dignified station and role? It has simply become procedure, another stage, just so they can also declare “I am a man” at the end.

This is a problem. If we take neither responsibility nor pride in our own custom, how dare we expect outsiders to take us seriously? The calls for the end of this custom will continue to gather momentum.

I predict that larger numbers of initiates will enter hospitals, where their amabhoma will be Ward this and that number. These numbers will explode because most children are singlehandedly raised by their mothers. Where are the fathers? They have gone astray. They are indifferent to who will initiate their sons. What do we think of this enormous burden we continue to place on these single mothers? Do we really expect that these women, who stay and parent, will knowingly enter their sons into this disastrous situation?

We have long ceased caring, and our carelessness will be our decline. We bear witness to the fruits of that disregard. Yet we keep asking ourselves, “what is wrong with today’s youth?” and “what is wrong with today’s men?” We threw away customs that built us and now we feign shock and horror.

Although it is forbidden to discuss the internal workings of the initiation process, we have come to a place where we need to deviate from this secrecy and start writing the procedures down. Otherwise, we run the risk of further damage by pseudo-experts. We have come to a juncture where we also need cultural Bibles, like other peoples in the world. We certainly cannot rely on traditional leaders on this count given the dire state of those positions. Let us open this discussion and get the support we need in order to strengthen one another in the open, rather than harm ourselves in private. The priority needs to be ensuring adherence to custom in order to see how we can improve our collective fate again.

We, Xhosa people, have elaborate leadership and governance structures, advice giving and rehabilitation mechanisms that predate and survive the introduction of “Western” styles of rule. For example, this past weekend I was at a Gugulethu joint called Corner Lounge, where I suddenly saw different types of brandies arrive along with a group of men who settled next to me. I soon realised from their conversation that all of this alcohol was compensation paid by two men: one who had beaten his wife up and another who had been badly behaved in the community.  Witnessing this made me happy to see traditional Xhosa dispute resolution practices at play. People get punished in Xhosa society in ways that quickly address the wrong. The first man’s wife was reassured by these other men that should he behave inappropriately again, they would sort him out.

Don’t we agree that punishment is universal in Xhosa idiom?

The solutions to our problems lie before our very eyes. Let us return to exploring what manhood is. What does it mean to be a Xhosa man?

Let me conclude.

I started out by pointing to the onset of July, some initiates have entered ukwaluka and some will not come out. We will be inundated by newspaper reportage on the evils of this custom. We will be unable to defend it. We will remain silent insisting on respecting the expected insider secrecy. We will miss an opportunity to educate society on the importance of making men, through education, respect, support and affirming counsel.

This custom tries to build, not to kill.

We will not ensure that those like Jwarha do not open their own initiation schools in the wild; we will not ensure that boys understand why they are there. We will not ensure that no boy enters without parental permission. We will not ensure that men in the community strengthen this custom or that we standardise its practice today.

While some say custom can embarrass us, I say to abandon it is to surrender the future.

Ayanda Mabulu vs Brett Murray

by Unathi Kondile

Firstly, I’d like to thank Brett Murray for his contribution to the arts.

Secondly, I wish I could deliver canapés and wine to all the South African households who have had the privilege of entering a gallery from the comfort of their homes, courtesy of our media’s walkabouts therein.

Thirdly, I’d like to talk about the state of the Art, in South Africa, as well as the neglected role of township / black artists in post-apartheid South Africa.

Let’s just rewind to 2010. An artist named Ayanda Mabulu. Pause. I thought this was a pseudonym at first, because this name and surname combo means “Afrikaners are expanding!” You have to love the irony of naming in Africa. Anyway, Ayanda Mabulu produces a piece titled “Ngcono ihlwempu kunesibhanxo sesityebi” (better a fool than a rich man’s nonsense, loosely translated). It’s exhibited at Worldart Gallery towards the end of 2010. This is it:

Without going into too much detail about the work (above), it shows President Jacob Zuma’s manhood in crutches and Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s manhood tied up as if it’s injured (both blurred out for the purposes of this site). Mabulu explained these representations as metaphors – the crutches on the president’s manhood indicate overuse and that it needs crutches to get by. Tutu’s tied up manhood alludes to how weakened the Archbishop has become, he is “incapacitated and ‘colonised’ by Western values – in pain, just like during initiation [circumcision].”

I would imagine such prominent penises would cause an outcry of bellowing proportions. But alas, calm prevailed, largely because this work remained in the elitist confines of the art world. Protected from the underdeveloped minds of those that aren’t acquainted to fine art. Protected from uncouth admirers who would gobble this up all too literally. Safe. ‘Outsiders’ could not access it and the media couldn’t give a toss about what some black artist had done.

Forward to today. Brett Murray produces The Spear which depicts the president of South Africa in a Lenin-like stance with his manhood dangling below. The City Press newspaper picks this spear up and runs with it. And boy do they run with it. The editor is beyond herself with bewilderment of selling papers to an art consuming market. She can’t wait. All those art connoisseurs buying her paper. Praise Murray! A few days later the ANC is up in arms about this depiction of the president. They’re even up in arms with the City Press, which gave a hand in the distribution… The rest is history, as they say. As all of this is relegated to the country’s latest frenzy – outcry on social media and only one or two iconoclastically inclined vandals are bold enough to do something about the work.

Question is: Why was there no outcry over Ayanda Mabulu’s depiction of president Zuma?

Yes, Brett Murray is a renowned artist (within his own or art circles), but not to the overwhelming majority that is against his work. Who he is is irrelevant to this outcry. So, why was there no outrage around Mabulu’s work? The answer to this is much more complex than because he is a black artist or it’s politics. The answer to this could tear South Africa’s art farce to pieces. Shred it. But today I do not feel like tearing anything. So I’ll be gentle. If we look at the current crop of black South African artists that are going places or have made it you will largely notice that their work revolves around identity: blackness and sexuality to be precise. Nothing else.

Whereas if you look at their white counterparts, who went to the same art institutions – they have the leisure of placing a box of Omo next to a box of Joko and calling that Joko Omo (Yoko Ono) in an art gallery. And praise prevails. If a black artist were to attempt to display such it would be ignored, laughed off as imbecility and not art. Only white artists are capable of conceptual art production. Blacks have to stick to the obvious “speak about yourself in your work! Tell us how lesbian you are, how black you feel, etcetera. Only.”

I could go on. But to keep this short, the reason Ayanda Mabulu’s artwork didn’t cause ripples is because  as far as art is concerned a black artist is intellectually incapable of producing a complex work – blacks are incapable of satire – until they are verified by their white counterparts. No conceptualism, surrealism, avant-gardism, post-modernism or post-postmodernism in black art. Keep it simple. Black stories must always be kept straightforward so as to not confuse the white reader.

It is only when the African story is told through the white lens that newspapers and the general public will pay attention. There are so many black artists in this country producing artworks that are screaming to be heard. Producing artworks about township life, poverty, inequality and how government has failed them. But I am afraid, until the overwhelmingly white curators, educators and narrators of art decide that such work is also art, we will only see the Mabulus when said white curator and white art educators are trying to defend their Brett Murrays. Suddenly we hear, “but Ayanda Mabulu did it too!” oh, so all along you knew about Mabulu’s work but failed to heap it with praise like you do to the Murrays? Okay.

So once again, I would like to thank Brett Murray for his artwork that has put art on the media map once again. The lack of media attention to Fine Art is a disgrace in this country. Considering we have a long history of resistance art that contributed to the liberation of this country too.

Today, more than ever, I feel that art can be flung out of those white cube spaces such as the Goodman Gallery and into public discourse, much like The Spear has been thrown around – so that it challenges the public and stimulates this kind of debate. Art must and can challenge service delivery in this country. It can challenge corruption, even. But the problem is that no one will pay attention to such art when it comes from black artists and if it comes from a white artist it will be dismissed as racism or black contempt easily.

I am hoping that all of this will cast light on the plight of black artists who are not allowed, by artistic norms and art education to express themselves beyond my-identity-this-my-identity-that.

Fine Art, like many other spears spheres of the Arts plays a fundamental role in the development of a society.

I trust that the media will keep its ear on the Fine Art ground from here onwards. There are stories there.

p.s: if you’re wondering how this ties up with Eastern Cape education and this site’s theme – think of the many young black children who will never realise their dreams as artists there, because of all the problems I’ve listed herein. Oh, and Ayanda Mabulu is from the Eastern Cape – King Williams Town to be exact.