One of South Africa’s favourite pastimes is debating race — driven by controversies such as the schools pledge and the University of Free State (UFS) debacle. But the weird thing about these debates is that they do not reach a consensus on the contentious issues that divide the rainbow nation. There is simply an ongoing din.
South Africa is as racially divided now as it was in 1994. Only at the tourism-brochure, television-ad and slogan level are we united.
People in high places must have thought that once the “rainbow nation” was constructed at this level, it would seep into the fabric of the nation and no real work would have to be done to deconstruct the centuries-old racial divide. Government is almost criminally guilty of refusing to force real change on South Africa, especially in the education sector — that is the education of the ordinary black child.
It should have been pretty basic in 1994 to realise that to reverse the structural subjugation and improverishment of black people the state would have to provide quality education to their children as quickly as possible.
Colonialism and apartheid used third-rate education for black people to keep them oppressed. Amazingly, in post-apartheid South Africa, the government has well and truly maintained this system, providing a substandard education to millions of black children, ensuring that, after 14 years of democracy, the child of the “maid” is very likely to become a “maid” herself.
Rather than hyperventilating about racial divisions at UFS, we should be in constant protest mode against the fact that in 2008 millions of black parents still look with envious eyes at the first-class education on the other side of the divide.
A developed world education gives white children (and those few blacks with access to it) a criminally unjust head start in life. Somehow our democratic government has refused or failed — depending on how one looks at it — to use education as an equalising force. Even the now-crazy Robert Mugabe did that.
The skilled workforce flocking into South Africa from its neighbour is made up of children of illiterate people, given a route out of inferiority by education after independence.
Not so South Africa. Instead, the government has simply thrown social grants at children. Little has been done to ensure that the child on a social grant today does not become the parent of another child on a social grant 18 years from now.
In short, there is a much more critical question facing South Africa than that of four advantaged young people reverting to racism when it is suggested they share breathing space with blacks.
It is that of ensuring the children of our land are given a way out of historical disadvantage through a good education. This is not just another matter for endless discussion. It is a matter of urgency.
Laura Miti is a freelance writer based in East London