As part of the middle class we cannot continue to believe we are safe with our private education and private security writes Imraan Buccus.
There is a stone plaque at the entrance of the University of Dar es Salaam that reads, “those who receive this privilege therefore, have a
duty to repay the sacrifice which others have made. They are like the man who has been given all the food available in a starving village in order that he might have strength to bring supplies back from a distant place.”
The quote is from Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, first president of the United Republic of Tanzania. He was speaking to students about the responsibility their privileged education brings. To whom much is given, much is expected. It’s important that young people entering tertiary education heed his words.
And Nelson Mandela reminded us that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. It is a sentiment echoed by Karl Marx, who said, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”
Make that your mission. Change the world. Vow to leave the world a better place than what you found it.
We need to realise that we live in the most unequal society in the world, where the development deficits are significant. We learnt from the Oxfam report two weeks ago that three white men have the same wealth as close of half of SA’s population. This is unsustainable; especially in a context where 50% of South Africans are under 30 and the vast majority are poor and unemployed.
African spring
We have the ingredients for an African spring but liberation dividend (the idea of giving thanks to the liberator) holds.
As part of the middle class we cannot continue to retreat into gated estates and believe we are safe with our private education, private health and private security. As we think of our lives as students and graduates we need to think deeply and carefully about the contributions we will make in addressing South Africa’s development deficits.
You are about to enter universities at a time when students are re-asserting the struggle for access. This is an opportunity for you to ensure that young voices are recorded to be on the right side of history.
You would do well to walk in the footsteps of Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, medical doctor and philanthropist, founder of Gift of the Givers, working in some of the most dangerous conditions on the planet, for peace.
Walk in the footsteps of Pravin Gordhan – pharmacist and public servant of the highest integrity. Walk in the footsteps of Professor Quarraisha Abdool-Karim – a scholar of humble indentured origins now breaching the frontiers of medicine so that there can be a better life for all. Walk in the footsteps of Mam’Bertha Mkhize of Inanda, ejected from her tailor shop in Victoria Street by the Group Areas Act in the 1960s, but she worked every day in the service of those who had less than she had.
But also walk in the footsteps of the people who you will not read about in the headlines or on street names – the families who take in orphans, the community organisations that build school desks for communities that don’t have them, the congregation of the Grey Street mosque who join hands with their brothers and sisters from Emmanuel Cathedral in ensuring that refugees and the destitute get a hot bath and a meal.
Your education must equip you to be a person of value. Embrace the universal values of brotherhood and sisterhood, peace and justice, non-racialism and gender equality.
As you enter universities and places of work, think about how to embrace the unknown and different identities. Then you will see yourself connected to more people in the world.
* This is an edited extract of a speech delivered by Buccus at the Orient Islamic School’s matric awards evening this week. He is a senior research associate at ASRI, a research fellow in the School of Social Sciences at UKZN and an academic director of a university study abroad programme on political transformation.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.