When I heard about the teacher cutbacks I was reminded, once again, that in South Africa equality remains elusive. I asked myself: ‘Will things ever change? Will the screams of apartheid-inflicted trauma, anguish and suffering in townships and informal settlements ever subside?’
by DR EBRAHIM ALEXANDER
I constantly remind myself not to think in racial terms about South African people; it’s detrimental to my mental health and contradicts my political and moral convictions.
I firmly believe that we are all human beings with the same basic aspirations, desires and goals for addressing our social, economic, health, educational and recreational needs.
Recently, I heard about the impending ‘retrenchment’ of 2 500 teachers in the Western Cape. The news hit me with a wave of conflicting emotions. I love South Africa, but I felt overwhelmed, struggling to find words for the mix of confusion and disgust I experienced.
Once again, I reminded myself, as I have done countless times, that many of the previously disenfranchised cannot escape the legacy of 350 years of colonial and apartheid oppression.
This oppression not only dispossessed them of physical spaces but also colonised their cognitive spaces, with the explicit intent of denying them their humanity.
As diabolical as it may sound, the slave masters imposed on the descendants of slaves the notion that they were intellectually inferior to ‘white’ people – a label the colonists accorded themselves. The ‘others’ were deemed impure and inferior, a belief that, despite its baselessness, justified their continued subjugation.
The architect of Apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd, in his own words, described the dehumanisation of the majority as ‘good neighbourliness,’ with a smirk that echoed through history. Ironically, figures like George Bush, Tony Blair, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump share this same legacy of racial supremacy.
When I heard about the teacher cutbacks I was reminded, once again, that in South Africa equality remains elusive. I asked myself: ‘Will things ever change? Will the screams of apartheid-inflicted trauma, anguish and suffering in townships and informal settlements ever subside? Will we ever be able to speak of South Africa as a ‘normal’ society?’
Teachers play a crucial role in mediating the trauma inflicted by apartheid on depressed communities. The stark reminders of racialised inequities, like the N1 and N2 highways dividing our society, persist despite the 1994 elections.
To deny people, after thirty years into the ‘new’ South Africa, a more humane interaction with the government – distinct from their apartheid experiences – is nothing short of murderous. The government must honour South Africa’s social contract by preventing these teacher cutbacks.
I must remind them of South Africa’s creed, as articulated in the preamble to our Constitution:
We, the people of South Africa,
Recognise the injustices of our past;
Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;
Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and
Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.
We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to –
Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and
Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.
Only through real, material change can we permanently bury the ghost of apartheid. If we fail, the nightmare of apartheid will persist.
As our youth die in droves, young girls become pregnant as a matter of routine and domestic violence ravages townships, we will have no one to blame, but the government. The people, through their votes and taxes, have given the government the power to end the ongoing South African Nakba (Catastrophe), and it is their responsibility to do so.
End apartheid by halting the ‘plausible’ teacher retrenchments. Break the 500-year colonial siege of South Africa and put an end to the never-ending nightmare.
- Dr Ebrahim Alexander has an MPhil in Science Education, an MA in Public Administration from University of the Western Cape and a PhD in Psycho-social and Applied Linguistics from University of Cape Town.
