Malamulele encapsulates how blindsided many politicians and activists are when in pursuit of a political goal, says Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya.
Durban - Last week the community of Malamulele in Limpopo woke up indignant. Someone had burnt down a school.
They demanded that the culprit be found and brought to justice for the criminal act.
You would think that this is an obvious reaction by any community. The importance of schools is self-evident.
What is missing in this analysis is that this was the same community which for most of this year has been on a rampage burning and destroying businesses and public amenities.
The burnt school that had brought shock and horror to this community was the fifth to be torched since 2015 began.
The only difference between this school and the previous four was that the latest school was burnt after the community had signed a peace pact with the state.
The same leaders who just a few days earlier would have lionised those who burnt other schools, now called the same people “criminals” and demanded that they get their day in court.
Malamulele perfectly encapsulates how blindsided many politicians and activists are when in pursuit of a political goal.
They forget that their activism or style of social engagement leaves a culture imprinted in the minds of those they lead.
They forget that such cultures endure long after whatever it was that was struggled for has been achieved.
I once asked a prominent South African who belongs to a Soweto based social club that counts among its members equally prominent South Africans from business, politics and academe why there were not many other formations like his.
His answer was that many South Africans, including black South Africans, have not fully grasped the impact of the June 1976 uprisings on the relationship between people in general and young people in particular on how to relate to authority and the establishment.
It has been 39 years since Soweto erupted, but the youngsters who were not born then have inherited their parents’ internalisation of chaos and disorder in the name of enforcing one’s rights.
It is well known that many township communities across the country continue not to pay for their rates and electricity because of the legacy of the rent boycott movement of the 1980s when the protest was against apartheid-imposed stooges pretending to be community leaders.
Why then would the so-called leaders in Malamulele think that the culture they had encouraged for weeks would suddenly disappear just because one community meeting sat and decided that burning schools was no longer such a great idea?
The Malamulele lessons must sound a warning to the likes of the Economic Freedom Fighters who have made a virtue of creating chaos anywhere and everywhere.
Supposing that they suddenly took over a municipality in the next local government elections, would they look kindly on communities who in their undisputed need for land and a place to call home, simply erected their dwellings anywhere?
I am acutely aware that there are those who over generations have been taught to believe that blacks got an inferior education because “they” were naturally inclined to destroy property hence the behaviour in Malamulele.
I will not give the ignoramus the dignity of a response.
It will be a waste of energy and time to try to explain to anyone why it is racist to create different education systems for different people based on their skin colours and to fund such a system in a way that privileges one group and punishes another.
Like tolerance for antisocial behaviour, racism is another that has been allowed to flourish because it is passed on to the next generation as if it is a gene.
Apartheid has not been in the statutes for just over two decades now.
Yet racism continues as if it is still law. We have in 2015 schools that think nothing of separating classes to ensure that white children are not contaminated by mixing with children of other races.
Like children in rural areas and townships who wonder why they are called born-frees, the white children sold this lie of white exceptionalism are being done a disservice by their parents.
They are being made to believe there is a place anywhere in the world for homogenous groups such as their classes to exist and prosper isolated from any other community.
They will get a smack of reality when they grow up and realise they are stuck with South Africans who do not look like them and there is nothing mommy or daddy can do about it.
They must instead come together with the rest of our communities to negotiate a new order of living.
History has proven many times that those who encourage chaos, criminality and bigotry will sooner or later become the victims of the monster they are raising.
These are not traits to be switched on or off at will.
As those who own vicious pit bull terriers often discover to their chagrin, under certain conditions, the little beasts have no loyalty to anyone including those who feed them. It’s best not to get too attached.
* Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya is editor of The Mercury. Follow him on Twitter @fikelelom
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