“Shall We Ever Get A Fair Deal in This Land?”[1]
The Second Onkgopotse Tiro Annual Lecture
Windybrow Theatre, Johannesburg
1 February 2001
University of Pretoria
I feel truly humbled by your invitation to
deliver this Second Onkgoposte Tiro Public Lecture, 29 years after the
unforgettable Turfloop Testimony.
Technically, this is the Third Lecture, since the first one was presented on 29
April 1972 at the University of the North by O.R. Tiro himself.
Chair, if you would allow a personal note of
reflection. I was at high school in the turbulent and dangerous townships of
Cape Town when I first heard of a person we called ‘Abram Tiro.’ My political
awakening, like so many of my generation that grew-up in the 1970s, came
through the work of Tiro, Biko, Isaacs and others in the black consciousness
movement of the times. The damaging insertion of “coloured identity” into the
apartheid vision of a rainbow nation was partially (though, sad to say, not
completely) eroded through the courage and foresight of O.R. Tiro and B.C.
activists of that period. I stand grateful, therefore, to Tiro for paying the
ultimate price for our freedom (though incomplete) from the racial and ethic
tyranny imposed by classification systems, for the right to name ourselves, and
to write what we like.
There are, indeed, few South African
intellectuals and activists who could in such a daring and articulate manner,
describe the arrogance of political power (then represented in the apartheid state) as well as the
complicity of black people within the project of racial oppression and economic
exploitation.
It is worth recalling the account of his
Testimony and its consequences from two of the most respected historians of
African politics in the period:[2]
“Turfloop’s graduation ceremonies were held on April 29. Speaking for
the graduates, the 1971 Student' Representative Council (SRC) president, OR
Tiro, shocked the assembled dignitaries by attacking the segregated university
system (Document 47). Even on its own terms, he said, the separate system of
black universities was a failure because blacks were not in charge. Even where
blacks were put in charge, as within the homelands framework, they became
"the bolts of the same machine which is crushing us as a nation". But
times were changing, he concluded, to loud student applause. "The magic
story of human achievement gives irrefutable proof that as soon as nationalism
is awakened among the intelligentsia it becomes the vanguard in the struggle
against alien rule." Ultimately, no amount of coercion could halt the
drive toward human freedom.
Tiro's speech stepped far over the boundaries of official tolerance, and on May 3, he was expelled from his post-graduate diploma course. Students began a lecture boycott and sit-in university's main hall in protest the next morning, police were brought onto the campus, the university was closed, and all 1,146 students were expelled. Rather than discouraging dissent, the expulsions sparked sympathy strikes on other campuses. When SASO held a formation school at the Federal Theological Seminary at Alice in the eastern Cape over the weekend of May 12, those present adopted a strike resolution that they named the "Alice Declaration" (Document 48). Noting that the situation could be "escalated into a major confrontation with the authorities," the Declaration resolved that students nationwide should close down black institutions of higher education through lecture boycotts."
In many ways, the Turfloop Testimony is timeless, for as this paper is written, 29
years later, the same University of the North (UNIN) remains in crisis. A
(white) Administrator has been appointed to run the University. The
Administrator has just been held hostage by the students and the staff removed
from the buildings. An earlier report on the University, conducted on behalf of
Minister Asmal, leads one to conclude that Turfloop stopped being a University
at least 10 years ago as it lurched from one crisis to the next. Student
numbers are down; deficits are up. The University has, in fact, become
ungovernable. There are connections between the politics of the 1970s and the
politics of the current period, three decades after the Testimony.
What I want to do this evening, however, is to
draw-out important points from Tiro’s Testimony
that might inform and stimulate debates in South Africa with respect to
intellectuals and future of education in South Africa.
As a presentation strategy, I will use the
technique deployed by Tiro in his Testimony
by restating his own rhetorical questions from that famous Speech, and then
responding with what I believe are relevant observations from contemporary
struggles and debates within South African society, politics and education.
·
What is There in European Education
which is not good for the African?
It is important to record, at the outset, that
in all nine provinces we witness the continuing under-provision of black education. What was established in the School Register of Needs continues to be
observed in all nine provinces, and especially in rural areas and informal
settlements. That is, there are huge backlogs in basic facilities among
especially black and rural schools in South Africa. In many ways, these
backlogs have at best remained stagnant since the Register or, at worst, black school infrastructure has fallen
further behind.
It is equally important to record that in all nine
provinces we witness the continuing under-performance
of black education. The modest improvement in matriculation results, based
on averages, overshadow the steady decay in the real learning achievement of
school children. A more reliable set of assessments are UNESCO’s Monitoring of
Learning Achievement (MLA) study of literacy, numeracy and life skills among
Grade 4 learners in which the national average scores in all three areas fall
below 50%, and only 30% in numeracy; or the TIMSS report of mathematics and
science achievement that places our Grade 8 learners stone last among 38
countries, including Morocco and Tunisia.[3]
What these international studies of South Africa’s education system
demonstrate, is that we have over-inflated national Grade 12 performance when
the system is measured against itself. In the harsh light of international
comparison, and especially in relation to other third world states, South
Africa’s record of learning achievement is shockingly low. We have entered a
game of mutual self-deception where, in our desperation to address a political
crisis for those in power, we manipulate the story of matriculation results.
It would be irresponsible, on this solemn
occasion, not to report on the growing disparity between black and white
education. We have, in effect, two systems of education in South Africa: one
for whites and the middle classes, another for blacks and the under-classes. No
amount of ministerial zeal and political manipulation should be allowed to
impress on the public that we have a single, beautifully integrated, national
system of education. To be sure, the administrative arrangements for
deracialising the education system have been implemented, and we know call
things by different names (although I am still puzzled that the email address
for Gauteng-based government officials still reads ‘@ pwv’; or that officials
and the public still refer to “model C schools”). But the stark reality of life
in schools (where schooling infrastructure exists) is still experienced in racial
terms. Class, no doubt, plays a role. White schools (depending on the degree of
deracialisation) have been allowed to use the class base of the parent body to
both expand physical infrastructure and to retain small teacher/learner ratios
through so-called “governing body posts.” In effect, therefore, the
under-investment of government in black schooling and the supplementary
investments of white parents in white schooling, have sustained the reality of
two schooling systems, divided on the basis of race. There are useful
anecdotes, of course, about the deracialisation
of white schools in the suburbs, if not, as Salim Vally of WITS puts it, the integration of learners and teachers
within those schools. But we should remind ourselves that more than 90% of
South Africa’s schools remain uni-racial. We have two systems of education, one
black and neglected, the other white and resourced.
This tale of two school systems make’s Tiro’s
observation very relevant: What is there
in European Education which is not good for the African? The political and
economic mechanisms for sustaining two racially divided school systems differ
markedly from the 1970s to the early part of this new millennium. The results,
however, have not changed very much.
In Tiro’s worlds: “In America there is nothing
like Negro Education, Red Indian Education, Coloured Education and European
Education. We do not have a system of education common to all South Africans.”
While Tiro might in retrospect be only half-right about a racially divided American
education system, his complaint about the lack of “a system of education common
to all” remains legitimate.
·
How Do Black Lecturers Contribute to
the Administration of this University?
A second question posed by Tiro during his Testimony was the compliance and
complicity of black academics within the apartheid project. Have our roles with
respect to official power changed? Have black academics become more prominent
and assertive in a liberatory project after apartheid? Is Tiro’s complaint
still relevant?
Reports on research production by either the
National Research Foundation or the Human Sciences Research Council continue to
bemoan the ongoing intellectual dominance of white authority in the realm of
ideas. This arrogance, especially on the part of white English-speaking
academics, is something black academics live with and experience everyday.
There is a taken-for-grantedness
about white intellectual authority within the day-to-day experiences of black
scholars in all our institutions. Black scholars remain sidelined within the
project of scholarship where, for example, ritual self-citations (and a myriad
of small, erosive acts) within the white tribe maintain the authority (and
mediocrity) of white writing.
But it would be a mistake to blame the dilemmas
of black scholarship only on white arrogance. The disappearance of the black
scholars into SAB, the SABC, Armscor, and the Media has in effect denied an
effective presence and power of black intellectuals within public spheres. This
criticism does not suggest, of course, that black intellectuals only exist in
universities. Quite often, they do not. The point is that these kinds of
institutions of “party redeployment” come with a specific set of expectations
that deny any space for criticism, free thought and dissent—critical strategies
for the intellectual. Our best talents within black scholarship have gone
underground. To be sure, the attraction of power, status and money are often
overpowering to those who experienced poverty and low self-esteem for much of
their lives. But the effects on intellectual life and the constriction of
democratic space have been palpable.
But the most common route followed to oblivion
has been the co-option of black intellectuals within government. I am still
amazed at how quickly black intellectuals, once they enter the halls of power,
not only change how they dress and speak, but how they understand external
realities. A new vocabulary is quickly acquired. ‘Drivers’, ‘moratoria’ and
‘rationalisation’ replace ‘stakeholders’, ‘transparency’ and ‘retrenchments.’
Any request for information (and I am not talking about nuclear secrets) is met
with puzzling delay and redirection in an environment where fear, fiction, and
façade remain as troubling legacies from our apartheid past. Some still pretend
to be intellectuals. But the black intellectual has been co-opted into the
machinery of government where compliance and conformity are more highly valued,
even to the point of dishonesty and self-denial. As one government official put
it to me recently, obviously thinking he was paying me a compliment: “I told
them to select you onto this Committee; that way you cannot question the work
of the Committee or its results!”
Parenthetically, the white intellectual,
desperate for recognition within the black post-apartheid order, is also
tempted into this labyrinth of power and status. Here rewards for past activism
and acknowledgement of white relevance come together as a powerful motivation
for drawing-in such intellectuals. But the effects are often the same: toe the
line, or return to where you came from.
I should, in this context of Tiro’s complaint
about black complicity in racial tyranny, raise another serious development
among intellectuals and institutions. Here I refer to the contribution of black
people to maintaining the growing divisions between shades of blackness,
immigrant status, gender differences, class differences and other divisions. It
is sad to witness the opportunism used by black people, citing tribe or ethnicity
or “non-Africanness”, to deny the voice or development of other black people.
This is a despicable act of self-annihilation that destroys the spirit of
Tiro’s work and sacrifice. As a prominent scholar at one of our rural
universities recently put it: “you people talk about stakeholders; at my
institution we simply call them ethnic groups.” It is important, on this
occasion, to reassert the need for continuing the struggle against racial
tyranny especially when this plays itself out among black scholars. In this
regard, I am especially pleased by the non-sectarian nature of this Lecture,
and the presence of intellectuals from a variety of different political
commitments and organisations.
·
“Shall We Ever Get A Fair Deal in
This Land?”
I wish to conclude by sharing some reflections
on perhaps the most riveting of Tiro’s rhetorical questions in the Tufloop Testimony: “Shall we ever get a
fair deal in this land?” I believe this question is especially relevant when it
comes to the role of intellectuals in our emerging but fragile democracy.
There are three (among many other) cases that
demonstrate the growing threat to intellectuals in our democracy, and to a
democracy for all South Africans. These cases are the debate on HIV/AIDS, the
debate on the Presidency, and the debate on Education.
The debate on HIV/AIDS was striking for the
silence of the intellectuals on what constituted, in my view, nothing less than
a public health crisis. Official doubts about the causal links between HIV
virus and AIDS, and the efficacy of AZT, created confusion and uncertainty
among the two most vulnerable groups within our society: women and young
people. It took a very long time to obtain a tame rebuttal in the public domain
from our eminent scientists, such as Coovadia and Makgoba, on what had remained
a relatively unchallenged official position from the President’s Office. No
doubt, the many scientists with expertise in this area calculated the risk
factor to careers and institutions if they dared to challenge official wisdom
on HIV/AIDS. But their silence might well have added to the erosion of a
democracy which should have insisted on “a fairer deal” for HIV/AIDS sufferers
and for criticism and dissent in the face of state authority.
The debate on the Presidency was remarkable for
illustrating the growing campaign of intolerance and defamation waged against
black and white intellectuals in the media, in universities, in public life:
Sipho Seepe, Mashuphe Kghapole, Howard Barrell and many others. Public writings
on the expanding powers of the Presidency after Mandela, and the silence of
Ministers and others in power on issues where they should have disagreed (like
HIV/AIDS), would have constituted grounds for a healthy and open debate in most
genuine democracies. Instead, those in power launched scathing and personal
attacks on the writers, the net-effect of which was to try and silence such
voices. Another disturbing development was how official condemnation and attack
on critics of the Presidency spread into the public at large, with other voices
now also intent on demeaning and silencing the dissentors. It is this kind of intolerance that poses
serious threats to the viability of our young democracy for which so many
persons suffered (including those in power) and for whom so many died.
The debate on Education is perhaps the most
puzzling. Every single public commentary or disagreement with official policy
is responded to from the Minister’s Office. Every criticism is met with
personal attack on the colour, credentials or credibility of the critic. A
lecturer at the University of Zululand writes a polite and persuasive
educational case for 6-year olds to attend school; she is attacked with the
most vicious assault on her race and privilege that I have yet witnessed in the
pages of a newspaper. Issues are not addressed; persons and their integrity are
instead attacked. I remain puzzled by the angry and repeated ‘name-calling’
issued by the Minister to those who dared to question the sharp increase in the
2000 matriculation results. Studies to explain these results are dismissed as
“commissions of inquiry” that will be “treated with the contempt it deserves.”
It is this arrogance of power that not only disregards persons and undermines
democracy, but gradually chips away at any effort to build strong, democratic
practices in our fragile transition from apartheid. For the viciousness of
official attacks on intellectuals might very well end-up silencing any other
potential voices from daring to assume that criticism and dissent are useful
qualities in a democracy. Official attacks on intellectuals come with another
sinister twist: one the one hand, those in power are frequently heard to decry,
as a fashionable practice, “the absence of black intellectuals.” “Where”, ask
those in power, “are the intellectuals?” On the other hand, having called for
intellectuals, the same are bombarded for being unpatriotic and weak. The idea,
it seems, is to ensure that intellectuals provide criticism within the confined
spaces of power, not in the public domain; that criticism be absorbed within
party structures, not in open and public debate; that the terms and the
territory for public dissent itself be determined by those in power.
Shall we ever get a
fair deal in this land?
I think we will. But it will require an
assertion of the right to occupy public space, to exercise public dissent, to
provide public criticism. It will require the courage of O.R. Tiro. In the
closing paragraph of his Testimony,
Tiro says this:
“In Conclusion Mr Chancellor I say: Let the Lord be praised, for the day shall come, when all men shall be free to breathe the air of freedom and when that day shall come, no man, no matter how many tanks he has, will reverse the course of events.”
One need not think of literal “tanks” to
understand the importance of the ongoing quest to resist any attempts to stifle
criticism or deny dissent in the building of our democracy.
And now, in the final words of Onkgoposte
Ramothibe Tiro,
“God Bless you all.”
[1] O.R. Tiro, cited from a reproduction of the full April 1972 Speech (‘Bantu Education’) at Turfloop, in G.M. Nkondo (un), Turfloop Testimony, Ravan Press, pp. 91-93.
[2] In Thomas Karis and Gail Gerhart’s From Protest to Challenge, A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882-1990, Volume 5: Nadir and Resurgence, 1964-1979, Indiana University Press, pp. 125-126.
[3] See Sarah Howie (2001), Mathematics and Science Performance in Grade 8 in South Africa 1998/1999. Third International Mathematics and Science Study Repeat (TIMSS-R). Executive Summary. Pretoria: HSRC. And for references to the MLA Study, see J.P. Strauss, HJ van der Linde, and SJ Plekker (2000), Education and Manpower Development 1999, No. 19, Bloemfontein, Research Institute for Education Planning, University of the Orange Free State, pp.23-24.