This year South Africa celebrates 27 years of democracy. Yes, we are almost 30 years into a democracy but are we really free? It was this day that thousands of students protested against Bantu Education with Afrikaans being the medium of instruction in schools. 30 years later, racism allegations surface against esteemed privated schools. We have courageous individuals like Zulaikha Patel talking about racism and her experience with it. There is a lot of talk about decolonising education and Zulaikha shared something very interesting in an interview. She said that in order to decolonise education, we need to teach children how racism looks like now instead of pretending as if it is a thing of the past.
Secondly,it is that Covid-19 is our first pandemic but Gender Based Violence (GBV) really is. Many lives of women have been taken way before Corona hit the streets of Mzanzi. Who knew that a simple visit to a post office could result in the death and rape of a woman. This country is still held by the reigns of patriarchy where women still fight for placement in work spaces, equal salaries,to be heard and now just to be alive. The problem is we do not want to face that men have a problem and the way that our children are raised is also a problem. Cooking and cleaning are mandatory skills,they are not installed in the uterus.I could write a whole book about this.
Lastly, what I want to touch on is education. The unemployment rate is 32.6% most of which is the youth. Parents and caregivers pay huge sums of money to institutions only to have qualified children sitting at home? The digital divide shows us that we need to take a different direction in teaching, learning and living. Start preparing for a future where we can live our dreams and can become a developing country.
As we celebrate those who lost their lives this day so that we can live in a free and democratic society,may we say Amandla! I Afrika mayibuye, mayibuye i Afrika.
Comments
Post a Comment