Students Who Fail to Think First Are a Danger
BY THAMI MAZWAI
South Africa Business Day Live
08 APRIL 2015, 07:06
IT APPEARS our university students still have to identify their role in a transforming South Africa. Their peers of the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s knew their calling was to contribute to the struggle for a just society, and they lived up to expectations. Hence our democracy.
This was the basis of a heated discussion with friends over Easter as we dissected the hullabaloo over statues. It is evident, we agreed, that our students want a cause but are at a loss as to what it should be.
They reasoned that as their peers of yesteryear — the Peter Mokabas, Solomon Mahlangus, Tsietsi Mashininis, Khotso Seatlholos or Sibongile Mkhabelas — fought colonialism in all its manifestations, particularly the apartheid type, they too must find some colonialism to fight. They discovered there were statues of Cecil John Rhodes, King George V or Paul Kruger and, presto, they had found their cause. Speculation is some students are now looking for the wreckage of the Dromedaris, one of Jan van Riebeeck’s ships, to protest against.
Our students simply do not understand that, to recall Frantz Fanon: "Each generation must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it, in relative opacity." We agreed our students must be helped to find their calling in the new dispensation, rather than copy the past.
Even in the days of apartheid, students at the liberal universities of Witwatersrand and Cape Town had the university rags that raised funds for needs in black communities. The Alexandra Clinic was a recipient of this generosity. These students could not afford to see fellow human beings die of hunger or lack of health facilities. They found their cause, limited as it was.
To assist our students, their purpose must be to protect and deepen democracy and, above all, to fight against poverty, inequality and unemployment. These are a direct consequence of the colonialism they want to fight. To our dismay, students white and black have hardly uttered a whisper in the past against the poverty, unemployment and inequality that is ravaging communities and is a potent danger to our democracy.
The decision to crusade against statues was not an outcome of investigation, research and enlightened discussion, just as when students acted violently and boycotted lectures over shortages of funds for the education of needy students.
To rub salt into the taxpayer’s wounds, the decisions were taken by the Student Representative Councils (SRCs). Not one SRC member asked the obvious: what does the law prescribe about unwanted statues? They would have found that, thanks to our Department of Arts and Culture and the National Heritage Council, there are processes that enable unwanted statues to be brought down.
On money for needy students, simple research would have revealed such funding has grown a hundredfold in the past five years, thanks to the Department of Higher Education and Training. The problem is elsewhere. It is really sad when the action students embark on is not preceded by research and thinking, hallmarks of the environment they are in.
Hence some of us now speculate the decision to go for statues could have been the result of talk at a gig in which one "extremely happy" student shouted, "Down with Rhodes". Or, to put it in their everyday parlance, "Phansi ngo Rhodes".
Fortunately, the Easter holidays came just in time and the protests have sort of come to a halt. I sincerely hope parents will sit their children down and advise them they are not prepared to continue paying fees for young people who believe research and thinking are too much of a strain.
Heavens, our country will be in trouble when this lot takes over leadership, whether in business, civil society or government. Indeed, the statues must go, but our democracy has processes for this to happen.
• Mazwai is a former activist, journalist and editor.
South Africa Business Day Live
08 APRIL 2015, 07:06
IT APPEARS our university students still have to identify their role in a transforming South Africa. Their peers of the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s knew their calling was to contribute to the struggle for a just society, and they lived up to expectations. Hence our democracy.
This was the basis of a heated discussion with friends over Easter as we dissected the hullabaloo over statues. It is evident, we agreed, that our students want a cause but are at a loss as to what it should be.
They reasoned that as their peers of yesteryear — the Peter Mokabas, Solomon Mahlangus, Tsietsi Mashininis, Khotso Seatlholos or Sibongile Mkhabelas — fought colonialism in all its manifestations, particularly the apartheid type, they too must find some colonialism to fight. They discovered there were statues of Cecil John Rhodes, King George V or Paul Kruger and, presto, they had found their cause. Speculation is some students are now looking for the wreckage of the Dromedaris, one of Jan van Riebeeck’s ships, to protest against.
Our students simply do not understand that, to recall Frantz Fanon: "Each generation must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it, in relative opacity." We agreed our students must be helped to find their calling in the new dispensation, rather than copy the past.
Even in the days of apartheid, students at the liberal universities of Witwatersrand and Cape Town had the university rags that raised funds for needs in black communities. The Alexandra Clinic was a recipient of this generosity. These students could not afford to see fellow human beings die of hunger or lack of health facilities. They found their cause, limited as it was.
To assist our students, their purpose must be to protect and deepen democracy and, above all, to fight against poverty, inequality and unemployment. These are a direct consequence of the colonialism they want to fight. To our dismay, students white and black have hardly uttered a whisper in the past against the poverty, unemployment and inequality that is ravaging communities and is a potent danger to our democracy.
The decision to crusade against statues was not an outcome of investigation, research and enlightened discussion, just as when students acted violently and boycotted lectures over shortages of funds for the education of needy students.
To rub salt into the taxpayer’s wounds, the decisions were taken by the Student Representative Councils (SRCs). Not one SRC member asked the obvious: what does the law prescribe about unwanted statues? They would have found that, thanks to our Department of Arts and Culture and the National Heritage Council, there are processes that enable unwanted statues to be brought down.
On money for needy students, simple research would have revealed such funding has grown a hundredfold in the past five years, thanks to the Department of Higher Education and Training. The problem is elsewhere. It is really sad when the action students embark on is not preceded by research and thinking, hallmarks of the environment they are in.
Hence some of us now speculate the decision to go for statues could have been the result of talk at a gig in which one "extremely happy" student shouted, "Down with Rhodes". Or, to put it in their everyday parlance, "Phansi ngo Rhodes".
Fortunately, the Easter holidays came just in time and the protests have sort of come to a halt. I sincerely hope parents will sit their children down and advise them they are not prepared to continue paying fees for young people who believe research and thinking are too much of a strain.
Heavens, our country will be in trouble when this lot takes over leadership, whether in business, civil society or government. Indeed, the statues must go, but our democracy has processes for this to happen.
• Mazwai is a former activist, journalist and editor.
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