Anger over racist teachers and the department’s failure to provide English- language classes sparked the Vryburg riots, reports Justin Pearce
Policemen were everywhere in Vryburg on Tuesday. Casspirs rumbled through the streets of the quiet farming town, and coils of razor wire surrounded the local Education Department office. Armed with shotguns and assault rifles, a dozen policemen guarded the Afrikaans Horskool Vryburg.
Over in Mmabatho, a phalanx of policemen, some of them in homeland uniforms, kept a nervous watch on a group of angry teenagers chanting outside a government building. One of the issues at stake was pupils being taught in Afrikaans when they wanted to be taught in English – an issue which echoed the debates over language and schools which are still stalling the completion of the new South African Constitution.
“It’s right back to the ’76 riots,” remarked one local journalist, referring to the stand- off between the Congress of South African Students (Cosas), the North-West Education Department and Horskool Vryburg which has rocked both Vryburg and Mmabatho over the past week.
Back to the days of the struggle? Yes and no.
Despite the razor wire and the swarms of police, the pupils were able to hold an all- night sit-in at the Education Department’s Vryburg office without the threat of teargas and quirts. The minister who came to address the pupils chanting on the steps of her office – North-West education MEC Mamokoena Gaoretelelwe – began her address with an amandla and a salvo of “long-lives”.
Pupils had indeed complained to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) about being called kaffirs and vuilgoed (trash) by white teachers, about teachers having no patience when the black pupils had difficulty in adjusting to learning in Afrikaans, and about one white youth who allegedly randomly beat up black pupils. But the bitter conflict had as much to do with misunderstandings and bungled agreements as it did with the naked racism of a few individuals.
“For me, the crux of the problem was a breakdown in communication and a lack of trust,” said Barney Pityana, chair of the HRC, who was approached three weeks ago by parents and pupils who were outraged at alleged racist behaviour by white teachers and pupils at the school.
A prosperous little town set amid cattle ranches on the scrubby edges of the Kalahari, Vryburg faces the classic South African education problem: the black school, Popaganang Secondary School, runs at 50% over capacity, while the white Horskool Vryburg has room to spare.
Right now, constitutional negotiators are deadlocked over the future of Afrikaans-only schools, yet Horskool Vryburg had agreed with the department to phase in English-language classes starting from standard six and seven, as far back as the beginning of 1995.
The plan collapsed when the department failed to supply English-speaking teachers. The agreement had been made at provincial level, and the department’s local office had decided relatively small numbers of pupils wanting to be taught in English did not justify the provision of more teachers. Of the l00 black pupils admitted last year, fewer than half returned this year.
Another fatal misunderstanding concerned school fees: parents had been told – allegedly by Cosas – that education at the Horskool would be free. Legal action by the school to obtain fees from defaulting parents did nothing to calm a tense situation.
The first attempts at resolving the crisis came from the Mass Democratic Movement, an alliance which included both the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union and Cosas – until Cosas pulled out in frustration because things weren’t moving as fast as it would have liked. Unlike other North-West towns, which were under Lucas Mangope’s fist until 1994, Vryburg was always under South African rule – and political liberalisation after 1990 allowed teacher and student organisations to flourish.
Vryburg exploded last Thursday, when certain Cosas members, frustrated by the department’s failure to close the school, turned violent, petrol-bombing the Horskool and shops in the town. Gulam Mayet, deputy director-general of education in the province, was held hostage when he went to meet Cosas at Colinda High. Cosas provincial chair Boyboy Sejake tells a different story: “Emotions were running high, and we decided to put Mayet in a safe place.”
On Tuesday, the pupils’ demands for closure of the school had not changed. After sitting out Monday night at the Education Department office in Vryburg, about 100 pupils boarded buses to Mmabatho. While a delegation of four met the MEC, there was a tense stand-off outside the buildings that once housed Mangope’s government, pupils taunting the police as “green beans” – a reference to the colour of the Bophuthat-swana Police uniforms.
“We are not going to negotiate until Horskool Vryburg is closed,” read one placard which captured the mood of demonstrators.
Amid jeers of “resign”, Gaoretelelwe emphasised that closure of the school must be a last resort, and negotiations would continue.
By mid-afternoon pupils were drifting away from the office and begging passersby for money to buy bread – they had not eaten since their sit-in began the previous night.
But the groundwork for a settlement had already been done on Monday, when a delegation from the HRC flew to the North-West for the commission’s first exercise in trouble- shooting. The delegation met representatives of Horskool Vryburg, the local police, the provincial government and Cosas to seek common ground.
“At first, the school received us with enormous suspicion,” Pityana said. “But we laid out the tasks of the commission, told them we were there to find the facts, and that our intention was to resolve the matter amicably.”
Given the acrimony of the conflict, the outcome of the HRC’s meeting with the school was extraordinary. In a joint statement issued by the HRC and the school, the school expressed its commitment to “the spirit, ethos and letter of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa”, and acknowledged its “pivotal role in educating all the scholars of this region, irrespective of race”. The school committed itself to investigating the complaints of racism received by the HRC, though the governing body would not answer questions from the press.
Education Department officials, too, have acknowleged the department’s mistake in not supplying the school with English-speaking teachers, as agreed.
Pityana said the success of the initial negotiations also vindicated the controversial presence on the HRC of people from across the political spectrum, including those who once aligned themselves with apartheid. “Such people bring an understanding of the people at the school that many of us don’t have.”
Pityana said that as a precedent, the HRC’s experience in handling the Vryburg affair was “very important for us – it enabled us to act in a proactive manner, to deal with structural issues such as racism and find solutions.”
Since Tuesday’s demonstration, Cosas has dropped its demand that the school be closed. “I am optimistic we are on the way to a solution now the most intransigent group is on board,” Mayet said. “We are not in the business of closing schools.”
Meetings are to continue next week, and a transformation committee convened by North- West Premier Popo Molefe will attempt to break the deadlocks over fees and enrolment. The most pressing task, according to Mayet, is to provide education to those pupils who were admitted to Horskool Vryburg, but left.
He is hopeful there is the will among pupils and the school alike to find a solution: “This is not a Potgietersrus situation,” Mayet insists. “This is not a case of a governing body being against having black pupils in the school.”