By Lindokuhle Patiwe
It was Fidel Castro, in his speech addressing the South African Parliament in 1998, who pleaded that “let South Africa become the role model for a just and humane world of the future” (Castro, 1998). Castro gave this speech in a celebratory and fearful manner. It was celebratory because South Africa had just gone to its first “democratic” elections. But Castro was also very much concerned about the world economy. It was in that speech that he predicted the 2008 financial crises.
The South African government sadly has been unable to heed the call that was made. That is, to make South Africa a role model of a just and humane world. An overwhelming majority of the black masses are still languishing in the squalor that we call townships. Thousands of poor learners are still subjected to learning under mud ‘classrooms’ that they share with the resident goats. To some, even those mud schools are a privilege, for they still meet under a tree to access some semblance of knowledge, at the mercy of the elements of nature. South Africa has failed dismally in equalizing society and making dignity a reality for all of us. Our people remain subjected to inhumane conditions from cradle to grave. For most poor and black learners, the transition to formal education does little to offset this reality. Our children walk long distances barefoot, cross muddy waters and dangerous rivers to schools with no infrastructure including classrooms and toilets. The Department of Basic Education has continued year after year to release matric results for the country as if these huge problems in the system are just minor and negligible. Yet, year after year, the DBE releases matric results as if these huge problems in the system are just minor and negligible, and instead, taunts false promises of message of ‘conquering above all odds’ at the expense of millions of impoverished, dejected masses.
Last week I watched an episode of Cutting Edge documenting the lives of the people of Empindweni. The episode narrated a daunting story of the people of this community, which was a sobering reminder of the horrors that continue to haunt post democratic society, 26 years on. The tale of the consequence of an aborted liberation struggle. A reminder that indeed South Africa did not heed the call to be a model of a just and humane world. We must also not fool ourselves in thinking that the story of Empindwenni is just but one story. There are a number of communities like this one across the country. People that have been left behind for more than 25 years, and only ever existing on the margins of government’s policies and plans.We have mourned many deaths which were otherwise avoidable in the course of the past 2 decades and a half. Micheal Komape, the 5 year old who drowned in a school toilet in Mahlodumela primary school in Chebeng village is one of them. And there are many more. It is the everyday experience of millions of South Africans. Those who have been left behind while the country pretends to be moving forward without any hindrance.
The crises that the country and the rest of the world finds itself in, as a consequence of a global pandemic, has revealed to many (although we must beg the question:where have they been living this entire time?) the extreme inequalities that exist in South Africa. It has once more highlighted the plight of the many Empindweni’s of our country. In their response to the Covid-19 pandemic, many government institutions have been at pains in trying to prove that they will do in this short period, what they have failed to for close to 3 decades - prioritize the most marginalised. The global stage wherein most countries have the stage demanded that they suddenly acknowledge those who exist in the margins within the margins, so to speak. Those who have always existed, albeit not in their faces, at least in ways which threaten the privileged. . It took a pandemic for us to know that the government of the day actually has capacity to deliver on its responsibility to govern. We now know that the refusal to give the homeless shelters has nothing to do with the incapacity of the government to do so but simply their refusal to do so. This is true for the realisation by the department of water and sanitation that communities cannot live without water.
This pandemic, which has exposed the crisis of capitalism -crisis is a chance for South Africa to re-evaluate and redeem itself. It is the time to become what Castro had hoped that we would be, a country that values the human life and dignity. This is the time for the government to show its commitment to the wellbeing of our people . We are aware of the pressure by corporate South Africa to force the country into going back to business as usual. We urge the government to resist such corporate capture. Corporate SA is simply not interested in the preservation of human life, but rather, they are interested in making profit at all costs, even if it is at the cost of the lives of the future of the country. Let us remember the warning of the former president, Thabo Mbeki, when he warned that “everyday and during every hour of our time beyond sleep, the demons embedded in our society, that stalk us at every minute, seem always to beckon each one of us towards a realisable dream and nightmare. With every passing second, they advise, with rhythmic and hypnotic regularity - get rich! get rich! get rich” (Mbeki, 2006). This attitude from these corporate demons does not halt during a crises, it is in fact precisely at a crises that this kind of an attitude from some of our fellow citizens is heightened.
The decision by the government to phase in the reopening of schools is nothing but a sucking up to corporate demands. The department has not given a single scientific argument as to why there is a rush to open schools, apart from the mantra we need to save the academic year. There is nothing sacrosanct about an academic year. The lives of young future leaders of this country is far more precious than an academic year. We can quantify a loss of one academic year. Not a single person can begin to try and quantify a loss of a child. The potentiality of that child is beyond comprehension, and one life lost is one too many. The department has said that it will put measures in place to make sure that there is no spread of the virus when schools open. Chief among these is the maintenance of the social distances principle. In a country where we have overcrowded classes from a number of factors, some being the unavailability of teachers and sometimes just the lack of physical infrastructure to have more classes, it is unfathomable how the government plans to do this. What the department is basically asking us to do is to trust that it will be able to do in less than a month, what it has failed to do in more than 25 years.
If we allow this to happen, the country will continue to do what it has always done. To simply ignore the marginalised. Out of sight, out of mind. We all know that it is only the private and former model c schools that have the capacity to reopen and try and maintain social distance. And even in these schools, the risk of infection is there. If schools are to open, the children from quintile 1 to 3 schools will fail in mass and risk infecting not only themselves with the virus but their caregivers and family too.
The government needs to heed the call Fidel Castro made. A call which is espoused by the collective of Africanists to #Restructure2020 and halt E-learning; education for all or education for none! I am of the view that the redemption of this government is possible at this time. That Castro’s words for South Africa to be a role model of a just and humane world. It is possible. The demand is a simple one: close down schools for the remainder of the year and engage in a fast tracked programme of school infrastructure improvement across the country. Make sure that all our schools are capable of handling not just this pandemic, but future ones too. Put the lives of both our children and our teachers first. The only way to save lives is to hold off any plans for social integration until we are comfortably in the clear to do so. It cannot be business as usual - not yet, anyway.
Patiwe is an Affricanist, fallist, member of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, and PASMA Provincial Organizer in the Western Cape.
