Vuyisile Msila
Again this past week we saw how the schools are porous and not immune to societal influences, good or bad. A great tragedy if one has to think of what really happened in Limpopo province as people fought over issues of demarcation once again.
Schools could not eschew the parley as the country witnessed more than 20 schools torched, many of these razed to the ground. The questions still linger in this pandemonium: will the burning of schools bring service delivery and make the government listen to community grievances?
Some in that province answer this question in the affirmative, claiming that this is the only language that government understands; hence it will respond much faster. This may or may not be true, but the truth is that thousands of pupils are without classrooms as winter looms and as the government struggles to improve the communities, it is now going back a thousand steps because it needs to raise a further half a billion to build the schools that were swallowed by embers of ravenous conflagration. All those who love their country and their future looked at the dying smoke with lumps in their throats. The quagmire puts the future of the teachers, the pupils and the communities in uncertainty.
Three aspects glaringly come as lessons for our pupils in the acts of arson in the Vuwani area. Firstly, the pupils learnt that we should continue solving our societal problems by destroying precious property. If the community members can be rampant and burn schools like this, then nothing will stop them from destroying clinics, religious places of worship and other government institutions. This is such an ill-informed lesson considering that the young people are forming ways of redressing anomalies in their own future.
Secondly, the pupils probably learnt that education may not be that important after all if some adults would take a lead in the destruction of schools. With the government’s struggle to end mud schools, there are even more schools that need to be built now.
Moreover, we do not know how many children will fall off the bus when they know they have no school to go to. No one will enjoy learning under a tree on a cold wintry day. We also cannot hope for improvement of teaching and learning for the thousands of affected pupils.
Thirdly and more importantly is the sad fact that it is detrimental to the nation-building the founding mothers and fathers envisaged.
Much as many roleplayers may play down the tribal divisions that distinguish Vhavenda from VaTsonga. There are several roleplayers who draw their arguments and battle lines according to this schism unfortunately. The children learnt that it is acceptable to hate the other and, obviously, this kills the foundations of our democracy and Africanness.
Therefore, the destruction of schools is much more than the damage to school buildings and other school materials such as books. The destruction affects the fibre of the society as the soot will conjure several symbols for the wandering children, who will soon be trying to find meaning in dilapidated structures.
Long after the municipal elections, the images of burning schools will tell stories of a community divided. Not that this did not happen in Malamulele last year, it did. Unfortunately, when it died down we hoped that it would never happen again. Yet, this time when it started it was bigger and more destructive.
Who has failed our schools and our communities? Were these spontaneous acts that are far from being politically motivated? Well, the king of the Vhavenda, Toni Mphephu Ramabulana, called for a political intervention for the mêlée that is brewing in Vuwani and surrounding areas.
Others though are blaming the government for responding sluggishly to the demands of desperate communities. It is also so unfortunate that schools will always find themselves at the crossroads between what the society is and the dreams of what we want it to become.
Those who ransacked and burnt more than 20 schools knew the immense ruction these acts would incinerate in the society.
Schools by their nature of holding dreams of society are malleable and are easy to be used as pawns by many who have no pedagogic goals or intentions.
But the destruction of these 20-odd schools will hit the poor families more; families who have nothing but are constantly trying to invest more in the future of their children. We have fewer chances of changing the lives of many without the existence of schools that attempt to do well. The worst of all in this tragedy is that nobody knows when normality will be brought back.
There are various community members who had vowed that this would continue until August. Yet we all know that missing school in one week leads to a drop in school progress, but missing school for four months is a catastrophe that leads to utter disaster for all pupils.
Yet as we try to focus on the destruction of schools, we should not forget about the other problems that have been linked with these acts of plunder and violence. Long after these schools are rebuilt, we may have newly established municipalities and we might still remain with below par service delivery and, most poignantly, the disrespect between the Vhavenda and the VaTsonga may persist.
True or not, we should be very afraid in a country that is striving to support the rebirth of the African continent; people should not be judging one another according to their ethnicity.
This is so morbid and truly un-African. The cycle of hatred and separateness agenda pervades even in present times and children are fast learning that it is better to belong to this ethnic group than the other.
The basic legitimate calls for service delivery are overshadowed by reckless destruction and violence as well as tribalism. Yet the reasons for the upheaval may be legitimate because people talk about joblessness, absence of clean water and the need to better the outlook of these municipalities. But the communities are destroying the very institutions they need to better their lives.
We cannot burn clinics, libraries and schools because we need such institutions. One would hope that this is not just a ploy to manufacture failure for some party before the coming municipal elections. It will be cruel, very cruel to experiment with children in a province which, together with the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, is always at the bottom end of the matric pass rate list.
Schools should be sacrosanct; they are the very institutions that would help us address the ills of society.
l Professor Msila is the head of Unisa’s Institute for African Renaissance Studies. He writes in his personal capacity.