SLICE OF LIFE: Loving our African people

by | Mar 12, 2017 | Featured 1, Opinion

SLICE PICTURE

African people have become hostile towards each other over the past couple of years, and there have been quite a few people who have remained silent about the impact it has on the relations between African countries and its people.
Following the xenophobic protests and attacks against foreigners in Tshwane over a week ago, I had my daily check-in from social media and morning news channels. It honestly did not have any effect on me until a very close friend (partner) from Nigeria said to me; “Thuli, did you hear about these xenophobia attacks? Yah, nor it’s scary. I am not safe in South Africa at all.” That moment “shook” me. I stood still and had no response to his question, comment and fear.
Xenophobia is understood to be the dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries. South Africa has been one of the few countries on this continent that has regularly experienced xenophobic attacks against foreign African migrants for almost 10 years.
Well, this is my response.
How does a South African, like myself, maintain a level of patriotism when my fellow South Africans are involved in deliberate attacks against a fellow African? Why do we (South Africa) have to go through discriminatory violence and prejudice? Who is to blame for this incitement of violence?
In December 2016, Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba made some reckless public statements blaming illegal immigrants for crime and calling on them to leave the city. “Illegal immigrants are holding our country to ransom and I am going to be the last South African to allow it,” said Mayor Mashaba.
Africa is a beautiful and a big-enough continent to accommodate all those who wish to live here. One finds it hard to believe that South Africa is an exception. For instance, during the apartheid regime a number of people escaped to different African countries, and those countries opened borders and homes to accommodate them. How quickly we (South Africans) have forgotten.

How does a South African, like myself, maintain a level of patriotism when my fellow South Africans are involved in deliberate attacks against a fellow African?

On March 5, 2017, Eyewitness News reported that a coalition of organisations had warned government leaders and politicians to refrain from making statements which could incite xenophobia. The organisations, including Sonke Gender Justice and refugee organisation UniFam, marched to Parliament last Saturday to demand that government protect foreign nationals.
As a reaction towards the recent xenophobic attacks, the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Enugu state chapter, threatened it would fight back if the killing of Nigerians in South Africa reoccurs, saying, “enough is enough”.
The worst thing one can experience when visiting a family member, friend or workplace is to find that your presence is unwelcomed.
Why can’t we live as one community with all our differences of race, nationality, ethnicity and religions? Africa is for all Africans.

I believe that we are African before we are South Africans. My support lies with those who are against the attacks on foreign nationals.

I believe that we are African before we are South Africans. My support lies with those who are against the attacks on foreign nationals.
“South Africa never leaves one indifferent. Its history, its population, its landscapes and cultures – all speak to the visitor, to the student, to the friend of Africa,” wrote Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss-Moroccan academic, philosopher and writer.
Xenophobia and unfair discrimination of human beings is childish and unacceptable and it needs to stop now.

 

RELATED ARTICLES 
Wits Vuvuzela, Witsies say ‘no!’ to xenophobia. April 2015.

Wits Vuvuzela,  New website to blow the whistle on xenophobia. August 2016.

Wits Vuvuzela, Youth league marches against xenophobia. April 2015.

Sharing the pain of “adulting”

by | Feb 26, 2017 | Opinion

I remember my mother sending me a text message late last year in December nonchalantly saying: “By the way you’re on your own for medical aid beginning next year…”

She was speaking of 2017.

The amount of sad and crying face emojis I sent her immediately tossed her into a laughing frenzy. This was her way of telling me, “Welcome to the world of adults.”

Shock! Horror! “Adulting” soon became a reality. One that still has me #shook.

I felt like I was being kicked while I was down and out. Ok, maybe not down and out. But in my eyes, having just moved back home as a graduate, after years of being away at varsity and being broke counted towards my struggle argument.

Do you remember your first day in first grade, high school and the dreaded first day of university? Well, none of these phases could have prepared you for the “adulting” world that social media has turned into a trend.

If you haven’t noticed, Twitter and Instagram have become abuzz with the #Adulting craze lately. These are mostly young adults who have taken to these platforms to share their daily struggles and victories of being an adult. Most, who are not of our generation, think of “adulting” as a vain manner in which we self-congratulate.

Writer Danielle Tullo in Cosmopolitan insists that the word “adulting” implies that being an adult is not a necessary part of growing up but rather a life choice you’re hesitant to fully buy into.

I beg to differ. The thing is,we are already in this “adulting” thing whether we like it or not. We are fully aware of it but we choose to share these “adulting” moments with friends, acquaintances and loved ones because of a simple need to feel like we are not alone in the struggle. Yeah sure, we get a couple of giggles and likes along the way. But it is the mere fact of knowing that I am not the only twenty-something-year-old stressed about bills, savings and responsibilities with my barely-enough-to-go-around salary – we’re in this together.

“Adulting” is having to deal with the fact that for the first time in your life you are expected to have it all together: career, finances and relationships, amongst other things. It is finding yourself sitting behind your work desk even when it is raining cats and dogs outside and you would honestly rather be at home in your pyjamas watching series. But you understand being here pays your salary and that will ultimately afford you that first car you’ve been dreaming of.

Now that I have my newfound freedom – including no curfews – you’d think I’d have more time to hangout and party with friends but hardly any of that is coming my way. See, with “adulting”, spontaneity is almost always a myth because now you resort to planning engagements with friends since everyone is always busy. Delayed gratification becomes the norm.

The reality of taking on adult responsibilities is no easy task. There are days when I’m able to get through the ups and downs. There are other mornings when the dread and constant feeling of being thrown into the deep end can be overwhelming, making me want to crawl into bed next to my mother and have her comfort me through it all.

The reality of “adulting” is having to make things work even when you don’t have it all figured out.

So, excuse me and the other young adults who want to self-celebrate and give ourselves a pat on the back every now and then for even the smallest achievements of this “adulting” life.

Existing outside social media

by | Feb 12, 2017 | Opinion

I recently deactivated and deleted all my social media accounts. The idea struck me on my drive home to the Eastern Cape for December holidays late last year. I drove down the Smithfield/Rouxville/Aliwal North route. Those who’ve gone down that part of the world will agree that there exists an abundance of land and sky and clean air, a welcome reprieve from the corrosive claustrophobia of the city.

A closer look at those large swathes of land along the N6 reveals barbed fences behind which spacious pastoral homesteads, concealed by clumps of trees, form the core building units from which the fulcrum of small towns like Aliwal North spreads out like a spider’s web.

Mud and corrugated iron townships dart the rims of this web, supplying farms and farm owners with black bodies to command and possess. Wikipedia says Aliwal North was named in tribute to Sir Harry Smith who was the governor of the Cape Colony when he established the town in 1849. According to the same Wiki entry he named the town “Aliwal” in memory of his victory over the Sikhs at the Battle of Aliwal during the First Sikh War in India in 1846. The entry doesn’t mention whether there were people already living in the area when Smith made it his own. Our so-called South African history is a compendium of subtractions and erasures. Our own collective amnesia further compounded by urgency of the politics of now.

This sudden realisation – sudden for I’d been preoccupied with Donald Trump and whatever else passes for a punchline on my social media timeliness – made me think, seriously, about what I choose to subtract from my everyday experience of the world. At that moment I was either going to instagram Umtali Inn (where I spent the evening) or I was going to google it and discover that it was more than 60 years old.

That in its colourful history people of my skin colour weren’t allowed to shack up in its tastelessly decorated rooms that still reeked of 80s apartheid aesthetic. My companion and I went for a swim in the unlit pool that evening and watched the stars stare back at our scantily privileged black bodies enjoying the exclusive decadence of apartheid in this small town where white men still call a black man ‘boy’.

In my bag I’d packed Paul Beatty’s The Sellout. It was sheer coincidence. In the book the narrator, Bonbon, re-instates segregation in a fictional Los Angeles town of Dickens. And here we were in this softly segregated town, no more segregated than the suburbs from the townships in the city. I wondered if there is much difference between class segregation and other institutional segregations. My thoughts recalled that old Orwellian metaphor about some animals being more equal than others.

I imagined there are books that make sense of post-colonies in current global capitalism and culture. I began to suspect that in these books I’d probably make sense of my place in the current form of the world. A world I have helped create whether by choice, by force, or by necessity. Later, I deactivated Instagram and its carefully curated scenes of happy, interesting lives. I thought of Aliwal North and relics like Rouxville and pondered how they performed non-racial, non-sexist post-apartheid democracy. And so, instead of looking for another world calamity or gossip on Twitter during the holidays I spent time at home reading Mahmood Mamdani’s Citizen and Subject and argued politics with my uncle over beers. The internet is bloated with free e-books and essays and lectures and good journalism. I’ve been downloading, borrowing from the library and jacking free music online. At times when I’m in the library reading a novel or a short story or a play (Parentheses of Blood by Sony Labou Tansi is worth a look) I wonder what I have been doing with my life these past 3 years.

 

 

What about the right to study?

by | Oct 2, 2016 | Opinion

The recent disruptions at Wits this past week have led all of us to a difficult question. Is the goal of free higher education worth the potential destruction of the university, negatively affecting the economy by delaying students from graduating and demoralising lecturers?

From my point of view as a paying student, who has put himself into serious debt to attend varsity, no, it is not. Firstly we all need to understand that higher education, such as university is not a right and never will be. It is a privilege. As a paying student who is not financially well off I can understand the issue that some people face.

Attending varsity is receiving a service for which you must pay. Wits is a self-sustaining entity that cannot survive on government subsidies alone. What’s next? A student is hungry then they should get free Steers just because they want it and all paying Steers customers must leave the Drive Through but can’t take their cars with them? Why?

What did the paying students do? Last I checked Dr Blade[Nzimande] was the minister of higher education and Mr [Pravin] Gordhan was the finance minister. Not the paying students, who are made to feel guilty because they have found a way to fund their education in pursuit of bettering themselves.

If anyone understands the plight of underprivileged students, it’s their fellow students  and Wits staff . However, we are starting to lose sympathy for [protesting students] when we are attacked and locked on campus against our will. The goal of free education, while very unlikely, is a marathon and not a sprint. It has not been achieved by first world countries whose governments have a fraction of the corruption of the South African government.

We all need to understand that burning down what little we have is achieving equality of the lowest standard. It is not how we will progress to a better future and it is not how we will achieve free education, but rather how we destroy a country.

The fight must be taken to the government and not us paying students. We have paid for a service and have the right to receive it, without the fear of physical harm. That is a right no protester may take from us.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Wits Vuvuzela, Wits: Poll not the only decider, September 2016

As told to : I am completely against #FeesMustFall protests

by | Oct 2, 2016 | Opinion

A Wits student expresses her lack of support for the #FeesMustFall protests.

The amount of negativity and hate that I have for this protest is beyond belief. Before I get accused of having “white privilege” I’d love to state that I fully pay for my own university fees, without help from my parents, a bursary or loan. I work very hard doing promotional jobs, hostessing and waitressing so it is possible to pay for school fees no excuses. It just takes hard work.

Wits likes to pretend everything is okay and insists class will carry on as normal. They encourage us to come to class, yet when you try to leave the university you get attacked. My car is full of hand prints from where students slapped and hit my car and tried to push it. Beer was poured onto my car and because I wanted to leave the premises I was accused of “intimidating” the protesters. Meanwhile police and security watched this happen and did nothing about it.

Interviews with students show the protesters saying that they are non-violent yet evidence shows otherwise. Me needing to ditch my car and sneak out is not something I, nor anyone else, should be going through.

Protesters are being unreasonable and unrealistic. Firstly, inflation is an unavoidable reality. Secondly, free tertiary education won’t happen overnight and I believe it is really wishful thinking. I think they should rather focus on implementing free primary and high school education like many countries do (since basic education is a right whereas university is not a necessity).

I don’t know why they are striving for free tertiary education when primary and secondary education isn’t free yet. Surely if universities become free then the standard requirements for being accepted will be raised even higher? Then there will be protests about how poverty stricken applicants are being excluded because their basic education was just that – basic.

The problems with the protests range from destruction of property, the endangerment, intimidation and attacks on other students and police doing nothing (which I don’t entirely blame them for as the media portrays them as the villains and the protesters as the victims). Wits administration is also sloppy at letting us know what is going on.

I hate to say this but this is really an attitude of entitlement, I have had a job since I was 15 and a half years old. I took a gap year after matric and saved money because my parents couldn’t afford to pay for my university fees.. Free tertiary education is a pipe dream that takes steps and years to arrange, especially in a country like South Africa with so many political, economic and racial problems. This protest infringes on people’s rights, security and freedom of movement.

People work hard to pay for university whether it’s a student or a parent and no student should be harmed and attacked. These protesters need to get a grip and realise they just need to work hard, nothing in life comes for free. I don’t know what makes them think they’re so special that they deserve to study at a top ranking university in exchange for destroying its property and harming other students and staff.