Did Nelson Mandela betray South Africa’s university students?

Did Nelson Mandela betray South Africa’s university students?

Emeritus Prof. Tim Crowe

My initial reaction to an article sympathizing with the views of Oxford-educated Fallist Ntokozo Sbo Qwabe and US Prof. Cornel West that defenders of President Nelson Mandela and religion should “shut the f**k up!!!” and embrace atheism https://theconversation.com/why-the-loss-of-faith-in-heroes-like-mandela-may-not-be-such-a-bad-thing-65690?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%205709&utm_content=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%205709+CID_461ddc344dad11554ec50aaec1cedff3&utm_source=campaign_monitor_africa&utm_term=Why%20the%20loss%20of%20faith%20in%20heroes%20like%20Mandela%20may%20not%20be%20such%20a%20bad%20thing was scepticism to say the least.  Indeed, my original, knee-jerk response to the Fallist ‘protestations’ of 2015, was   disgust with the proponents’ vulgar behaviour and their overall ignorance (or misrepresentation) of history. 

 

With regard to the latter, all respectable historians and participants in CODESA, the 1994 elections and the drafting of the 1996 Constitution agree on one thing.  Mandela, de Klerk, Tutu and their respective negotiating teams: ended rapidly escalating violence and socio-economic collapse that would have culminated in a local (perhaps even nuclear) Armageddon; dismantled the evil Apartheid legislation; and replaced it with perhaps the most democratic of the world’s constitutions.  While this was happening, in a free-and-fair election, the ANC was given unfettered power which it was renewed, again and again, for more than two decades. The Mandela/Tutu driven Truth and Reconciliation Commission, although not a panacea, identified perpetrators and victims and allowed them to defend/expose their acts/suffering.  In the end, however, many victims were unsatisfied with the results, especially with regard to socio-economic reparation/compensation.  No one to my knowledge has provided a workable strategy as to how this might have been done.  If, instead of the TRC, there has been Nuremburg-like, truly bi-partisan and transparent trial for acts committed during the “Struggle”, one wonders what would have transpired for the likes of Winnie Mandela, Joe Modise and Jacob Zuma.

So, if Mandela et al. betrayed South Africa in any way, the post-Apartheid ANC government had the power to ‘put things right’ after he retired from politics.  If voters were dissatisfied with its performance and/or delivery, they could have voted the ANC out of power on many occasions.   If the oppressed masses were unwilling or unable to vote, they could have resuscitated peaceful demonstrations/resistance that characterized the early Struggle.  But, all that has happened are violent and destructive non-service-delivery ‘protests’ (frequently involving burning schools, libraries and hospitals), often dealt with even more violently (even murderously - Marikana) by the SAPS.  It is a rare event that illegal activities on either side end up with trials and convictions after long and very expensive, government-appointed ‘commissions’.

With regard to the initial treatment of Fallists, nevertheless, the local (UCT) community accepted the  university executive’s decision to treat the ‘protesters’ leniently with the expectation that the situation would improve.

It did not.  In fact, the Fallists did nothing but escalate their protests and demands into intimidation of individual staff/students and shorten their deadlines for compliance.  Despite this, the UCT Executive persisted with inaction other than granting leniency to Fallists and complying with their demands.

At this stage, I and others called for: Fallist academics and students to provide substantive strategies for ‘decolonization’ - beyond what might need to be expurgated - in terms of curricula and personnel; effective, ideally deterrent, action by the Executive against unlawful protest; and a survey of the UCT Community to identify its views vis-à-vis Fallist demands.

Again the Executive took no ‘action’ beyond continued compliance and issuing requests for the now Fallist provocateurs to engage in substantive discussions.  The Fallists offered no strategies. They: refused to engage; began to vigorously condemn Mandela, Tutu et al. personally and the Truth and Reconciliation process in general; and escalated their protests into violence and destruction on campus, including torching the vice chancellor’s office.

In the meantime, decades of the comprehensive mismanagement of school education by the ANC government’s Department of Basic Education had reduced the quality of education to levels inferior to that of the despicable Bantu Education.  At best, only the children of the wealthy (regardless of ‘race’) received adequate education.  Further still, the ANC-dominated Department of Higher Education and Training persisted in demands for UCT to increase admittance of academically disabled matriculants, while at the same time progressively underfunding its financial support.  Despite this, the ANC still received an overall majority of votes in the 2016 municipal election.  UCT, on its part, has failed to provide these educationally disabled students with mentoring desperately needed to succeed.  Most of these students fail along the way; fail to complete their studies in the allocated time or with high marks; or pass and fail to find meaningful (to cover costs of loans and ‘Black Tax’) employment.   Neither has UCT been successful in transforming the demographics of its academic staff (especially at the professorial level) to meet the pressing demands of Fallists.

Now, as I write this response, UCT is closed with no clear expectation of the reopening necessary to prevent yet another “lost generation” of poor students.  However, the good news is that there have been referenda at UCT and Wits that demonstrate, overwhelmingly, that their university communities want to get back to the processes of education and research.

Despite all this, the author still calls for readers to understand the Fallist view that Mandela et al. betrayed South Africa’s university students. 

 

I am not persuaded.

The fundamental problem with the betrayal of South African students in general and the poor in particular began (and continues to begin) on the first day that a child begins her/his education.  It ends, normally without mercy, when scholars abandon school prematurely to become skollies and ‘matriculants’ most of whom enter the unemployed population or are shunted to university.  See Prof. Jonathan Jansen’s various writings for irrefutable evidence and explanation of the disaster in South African schools.

I refer the Fallists who seek betrayers at school level to the various teachers’ unions (especially the pro-ANC SADTU) and the ANC-controlled, massively funded Department of Basic Education.  They might also search amongst the ‘cronyized’ civil service to focus on incompetent incumbents who occupy posts that could be filled by university graduates and supplement their unearned salaries with bribes or the proceeds of theft.

The proto-Fallists who enter universities need to look elsewhere for betrayers.  But, this would, in part, require them to attend lectures and intellectually challenge racist educators to justify their ‘colonialist drivel’.  However, for the poorest of the poor, I encourage them to seek support from the well-dressed, expensively coiffed and ‘cell-phoned’ Fallists who will benefit most from not having to pay fees.  They might also seek out the members of the co-self-identified academe for counselling/mentoring that might help them to survive the “painful”, “suffocating” university experience.  At the least, these empathetic academics could help to alleviate it by offering an appropriately ‘centric’ curriculum to facilitate their education so that they will find jobs or, better still, careers that create jobs.  Sadly, I am unaware of any such formal support group.

Hopefully, a much-touted forthcoming biography of Mandela will set things straight. But, given its announced title Nelson Mandela: Romantic Hero, Tragic Figure, I won’t hold my breath.