We are fighting a desperate fight for every boy child and girl child in the crime-infested, gangridden northern areas in the Eastern Cape. We are fighting for unity and freedom. No, we are demanding unity and freedom for all. How do we build a nation, a nation that is free from apartheid and racism, free from poverty, mental torment, trauma, and how do we break free from a system suffering in a dummy democracy, how do we build happy and healthy children, not idle youth, but dignified youth who are well-equipped with education, the youth as witness to the liberation from the shackles of the social evils of the brutal and violent regime of apartheid, and the wishful thinking that exists today in this post-apartheid, post-covid era.
The dispensation of the Promulgation of the Group Areas Act and the forced removals must never be forgotten. We can forgive but we must never forget. Exploitation of the masses, of the working classes, of the majority, the exploitation of humanity must be diminished, erased, eliminated by any means necessary, at all costs, through non-violent means. For far too long we have not rejected the apartheid system. Our task that is cemented in history is this, to accept each other as equals and to accept this fact, that the mind is truly the weapon of the masses and of the oppressed.
Remember this: in the past, the oppressors didn’t want change, they didn’t feel for the oppressed, they thwarted the education system, they forced destructive policies upon us that we are still paying for today with the challenges and problems we are faced with on a daily basis in the northern areas, but it was education that provided an answer. It was and is education that offered and offers us personal freedom, upliftment, human rights and empowerment from apartheid to present day South Africa.
There are many assumptions that have shaped the northern areas of Gqeberha, and just as many that form the psychological framework of the backbone of the upbringing, character and background, psyche and intellect of the boy child and the girl child known as the mulatto. But none have been more damaging than the language that apartheid educators, historians and researchers used from the syllabus in the classroom to the historical documentation in the textbook.
So, arose the making of the dilemma of the Coloured, the ‘Coloured Nation’ and out of ‘gutter’ education, or ‘ghetto’ education, and the living environment of a two-room, one outside toilet to a large family, matchbox house grew the mentality of the ‘slums’ which resulted in the lack of education, poor upbringing, the exposure to street violence, gangsterism, gun violence amongst the male element of the youth. The mixed-race female ends up in a very sad situation where she ends up facing life as a single parent. She is marooned. There are no options available to her, there is nowhere to turn.
She struggles to make ends meet. She struggles to put food on the table. In most cases, she has to be both caretaker and nurturer to her child or children. With no resources at her disposal, she doesn’t finish her education, she doesn’t matriculate and she has no one to take up her case if her family disowns her. This is the stereotype of the northern areas.
The boy child and girl child of the northern areas grow up not with a sense of entitlement, not with status, or power, the knowledge of values, but from birth they are taught, instilled that they belong to the disenfranchised, to the marginalised. Poverty-stricken they have to learn how to cope, how to handle the distress of their enslavement, their conscience hurts from being constantly humiliated. If this is what has happened to the Coloured boy child and girl child, the Christian child and the Muslim child, if their identity is fractured and spoiled, then what is happening to the Black boy child and girl child in the location, stuck in the hopeless situation of racial discrimination, prejudice, exploitation, enslavement of the mind, at the hands of the system founded on the beliefs of the capitalist-imperialist.
The brown and black boy child and girl child are constantly under attack. Their rights are being violated in the worst way possible. Pain of the mind is more terrible than the pain of the body.
The church has the pulpit. The religious leader has their voice. The challenges that exist in the northern areas confront both the Christian and the Muslim, both the Christian boy child and girl child, both the Muslim boy child and girl child.
How are we going to solve this problem? It is really a problem for humanity, and not just South Africa. Well, this is how I see it. Let us start by pooling our resources, changing policies, rewriting laws, revising the syllabus, writing the history of the Freedom Fighter, and the liberatory struggle and even going as far as restructuring the department of education as it exists today. Yes, an apology would be nice but we must also look at solutions. To name the enemy, which is the regime of apartheid and yes, even the policies that came out of the post-apartheid dispensation have sabotaged our democracy. Many people have said that nothing has changed. We have to look at a holistic approach.
To change lives, to impact the community of the northern areas, to build this beautiful nation of ours, we must consider a holistic approach. The grass isn’t going to be greener by choosing to emigrate at this moment in time. It is writers that have changed the world. The writer is not just an entertainer. It is time to teach the boy child and girl child to read and write, to instill, and cultivate within them good habits, so that they can navigate this world and follow the tradition of thought leaders and visionaries that came before, and leave their own legacy for the next generation. So they can change history through personal development and self-improvement.
Imagination, as Bob Proctor said, is the greatest nation.
Our children, every brown child, every black child, every Christian child, every Muslim child, needs an apology that apartheid happened in the first place. In the words of local Gqeberha community leader and filmmaker, Justin Oliphant, we are “an Endangered Species”.
We live in a society defined by the haves owning property and having title deeds to land, while the have nots cannot even feed their family. Yes, colonialism as I have said before is an intellectual genocide.
The homeless in the community are hungry ghosts. Adults who aren’t functioning in society. What becomes of them? My parents taught me that if my brother and sister have not eaten, then I have not eaten.
Who should pay for society’s failures, why has democracy failed us? The black majority is free, but they are still enslaved. They are still exploited, still violated, still eking out a living, trying to get by, trying to survive. I get emotional writing about this. I speak to the youth, education is our only path to freedom. Leonardo Da Vinci was a polymath. Polymath means to be a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning. We are going to need polymaths to build this nation and to secure a bright future for every boy child and girl child in the northern areas, every brown and every black child. If you don’t have a job, then start reading everything you can get your hands on, study part-time or fulltime if you can afford to, find mentors, apply for internships, and attend workshops in your career field.
Who do we blame for the dismal failing of the infrastructure of our city? We are living with a herd mentality. Perhaps the problem is not the law or our constitution but it’s rather a policy problem. Is the problem our leaders? It’s the poorest of the poor who are, sad to say, hoodwinked time and time again by empty promises. Who does the vote belong to? The vote belongs to the people, to the working class.
The blueprint of cronies and nepotism came out of the apartheid regime. It wasn’t started within the ranks of the ANC. It was the systematic denial of a white minority that led to Bantu Education, institutions like Bush University in the Western Cape, the Coloured Parliament. Need I say more? Public decency was dumbed down. Inhumane treatment of Black and Coloured citizens became the order of the day. People started being recruited into subversive organisations, going into exile and then they started disappearing into the underground.
Why aren’t the children of the northern areas even aware of the term Freedom Fighter, and why aren’t they learning about Ben Kies, Frank Musson, Arthur Nortje, Dennis Brutus, Neville Alexander, Bessie Head and Dulcie September, Dan Qeqe, Raymond Mhlaba, Ncebu Faku, Fikile Bam, Govan Mbeki, John Kani, Winston Ntshona, Robert Sobukwe, and the poets Mzi Mahola, and Mxolisi Nyewa? People know who Athol Fugard is on Broadway. They put on performances of his plays in America, and here? And here, in the northern areas? Have they even heard of the name Yvonne Bryceland, The Road To Mecca or the Owl House of Helen Martins?
Ask yourself this question, why are our intellectuals, our educators, our historians mum on this matter? It is not enough just to build a museum. You need to get history out of the museum and into the syllabus.
For a democracy cannot be sustainable under nepotism and cronyism. Nepotism is a distraction. Cronyism is a distraction. Imperialism and colonialism, now more than ever, must be challenged. The enslaved mind must be challenged.
This is not a casual task. To do service, to be humble.
Artistic ideas matter. Political ideas in my opinion are not as important as artistic ideas.
We must begin to challenge the status quo that defines gender roles in society, that defines us, the boy child and the girl child, by racial discrimination.
There is power in the pulpit. Our church leaders must never forget that. That is how close the youth are. The youth are within reach. We need a return to values, respect, self-respect, empathy, norms and principles. It is our religious leaders who carry more weight than our political leaders. We see the integrity within our religious leaders. We see the poor show of integrity in our political leaders, how they lack the capacity and the competency to lead.
This is a profound truth. Words carry power.
