Strikers in South Africa attacked by police...34 die.

There is something going on in South Africa, so significant that it is the equivalent of Apartheid tragedies, I needed to share it with you. Tension in the country is building. I felt the best way to do this was to post an article to shed more light on the subject and then put in my two cents. The original article can be found here: www.nytimes.com. In my responses, sometimes I get angry. I don't apologize for that. But I don't just get angry, I start thinking of ways to put my anger into action.

South African Official Defends Police Killing of 34

Themba Hadebe/Associated Press

A protest on Friday near the mine where 34 miners were killed by the police on Thursday in South Africa’s worst labor-related violence since 1994. More Photos »

By LYDIA POLGREEN

Published: August 17, 2012

MARIKANA, South Africa — South Africa’s police commissioner on Friday defended the actions of officers who opened fire on miners a day earlier during a wildcat strike at a platinum mine. She said the episode left 34 people dead and 78 wounded, a sharply higher toll than initially reported.  

 

Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

Police officers surround the bodies of miners after opening fire on a crowd at the Lonmin platinum mine in South Africa on Thursday. More Photos »

 

The strike in Marikana has pitted the country’s largest mine workers union against a radical upstart union demanding sharp increases in pay and faster action to improve the grim living and working standards for miners. More Photos »

 

The commissioner, Riah Phiyega, described a desperate struggle by the police to contain the machete-wielding crowd of thousands of angry miners who broke through two lines of defense, leaving officers with no choice but to open fire with live ammunition. 

“The militant group stormed toward the police firing shots and wielding dangerous weapons,” Ms. Phiyega said at an emotional news conference here, using an extensive array of aerial photographs and video to demonstrate how the violence unfolded. Previous attempts by the 500-strong police force to repel the crowd with rubber bullets, water cannons and stun grenades had failed, she said.

“This is no time for finger-pointing,” Ms. Phiyega said. “It is a time for us to mourn the sad and dark moment we experienced as a country.” 

It was South Africa’s worst labor-related violence since 1994. The shootings stunned the nation: front pages of newspapers were plastered with pictures of dead miners lying in a field above headlines like “Bloodbath” and “Killing Fields.” 

President Jacob Zuma cut short his trip to neighboring Mozambique for a regional summit meeting to rush to the site of the bloody protest, 60 miles northwest of Johannesburg. 

“These events are not what we want to see or what we want to become accustomed to in a democracy that is bound by rule of law,” Mr. Zuma said in prepared remarks. He announced the formation of a commission of inquiry to investigate the illegal strike and the response of the police.

The police retrieved six guns from the protesters, including one that had been taken from a police officer who was hacked to death by the workers earlier in the week, Ms. Phiyega said, as well as many machetes, cudgels and spears. 

Miners who escaped the melee gave a very different account of what happened when the police closed in on the rocky outcropping they had occupied. A 36-year-old mine employee named Paulos was among the striking workers on Thursday when the police began encircling the rocky hill with razor wire. 

“They started shooting at us with rubber bullets,” Paulos said. “Then I saw people were falling and dying for real. I knew then they were proper bullets.” 

He struggled to understand why the police had opened fire with live rounds. 

“I never thought this would happen,” he said. “We thought the police were there to protect us.”

Women who said they were wives of missing miners gathered at the site of the protest, waving wooden sticks and singing protest songs. 

“I don’t know where my husband is, whether he is in jail, among the dead or the injured,” said a woman named Mbalenhle who declined to give her last name. “Our husbands were only fighting for their rights, but the police are killing them.” 

The shootout followed a tense week of protests by workers at the platinum mine, owned by Lonmin, a London company. The miners walked off the job last Friday, demanding that their wages be tripled.

The striking workers are members of a radical labor union that splintered off from the National Union of Mineworkers, one of the country’s biggest and oldest unions. 

The splinter group claims that the older union, which is closely allied to the African National Congress, is too cozy with big business and the political elite. 

Frans Baleni, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, rejected that notion and said the rival union, the Association of Mine Workers and Construction Union, was giving people false hope, with tragic consequences. 

“You have opportunists who are abusing ignorant workers,” Mr. Baleni said. “We saw the results yesterday.”

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WOAH. When I opened up that article, the photo literally brought tears to my eyes and put fear in my heart. That tank like thing next to the people is a Casspir. These things were parked somewhere hidden until around the time of the xenophobic attacks of 2008. For goodness sake they were supposed to be a thing of the past, put on display at the Anti-Apartheid museum as a symbol of a time of violence gone by. These are the very same vehicles that made my kids clutch to me and look at me with eyes that could only have been saying "I don't understand... I'm afraid." Now they are busting them out and using them against STRIKERS? 

Look at Marikana, on Google Earth's satellite map. The place is a wasteland. Miles and miles of fields which spend most of the year charred and burned to clear out the remains of the crops. Miles of electrical wires and towers that I can assure you, ship their energy far from the source, if you catch my drift (there were a ridiculous amount of scheduled "power outages" in my township where the electricity was shut off completely, sometimes for hours on end... people were told it was part of a green initiative to save energy, but in reality this really took away from the productivity of their days). There is a highly crowded township North West of there, where I'm sure most of the miners live. That could explain a lot. 

Seriously, what do you expect people to do? Of course they are striking, they are hungry for so much more than food. How can an environment like that, an informal settlement with little access to the things humans need to live a quality life (clinics, hospitals, schools, grocery stores, places to buy clothes, taxi ranks for transportation) sustain life?! This is an anger that has been building up for years. It's like apartheid all over again, Africans against Africans. Why are these Black African police officers not joining in the strike? Their lives are affected by non-living wages too. I understand that many people have to think of just doing their jobs to survive, but if we always have that mentality then we will always let other rule us, take away from us... well, US! And the Unions who failed to serve their people... the ones that allegedly gave the strikers false information that lead them to tragic consequences... if this is true that is the lowest of lows. That warrants the deepest shame. 

Oh yes, let us call the strikers "militants." Let us justify their DEATHS because they were supposedly wielding machetes and waving them around... UM HELLO? THEY WERE PROTECTING THEMSELVES FROM GUNS. With LIVE bullets. Which do you think is more lethal? At the same time I grieve for the police officers' lack of solidarity with the miners, I grieve for the miners who may have attacked police officers, as well. I will not deny that tensions were running high on both sides but the point is, this is not Ubuntu. This is not democracy. This is divide and conquer of the different ethnic groups, classes, and this is some BULLSHIT that is going to keep happening if this puppet "Black" government for "Black people" doesn't wake the hell up and employ some Sankofa: look where you've been. Learn from it and move on.

Chicago bound...

There is something quite charming about the Midwest. Despite talking about wanted to leave this boring place and set up shop on the east coast, there will always be a part of me that loves the flat fields of beans and corn, green fenced in pastures with roaming cows and goats, creek beds lined with vines and wild lilies. I’m watching all of this pass me by on the train to Chicago. I love looking at the century old barns with collapsing roofs and silos long abandoned. It reminds of me where I grew up, smack dab in the middle of a cornfield. We lived right off a dirt road, which was paved some years later. The road would produce the most horrid potholes after a rain and a two minute trip down the street turned into a 10 minute one. We were so happy when the farmers spread new dirt over the road “grating” it as we said. I stayed outside for hours, playing in the woods behind the house, catching minnows in the creek, building bridges out of fallen branches, roaming through rows of corn. We’d have to close up all the windows on a few hot days (before my parents broke down and got air conditioning) when the tractors were plowing the fields, stirring up dust that would leave a thin layer of brown on everything in the house if not properly dealt with. I remember visiting Aunts and Uncles living up north with even bigger, better fields and woods to play in, with the added thrill of an electric fence and curious cows and horses with soft noses that came to see what the humans were up to.

Yes, I love all of these things, and no matter where I go there will be a part of me that hungers to see, touch, smell, and feel all of the things that were part of my young life. I realize how lucky I am to be able to say these things and describe them to you. I realize for some people, the Midwest means something different. It means abandoned buildings, half-burnt down houses, living on top of one another. It means cold streets, food deserts, and buses that don’t run when you need them most. It means broken down modular homes, crumbling apartments, and landlords that don’t care to make living conditions well, livable. When I realize this, a flood of emotions follow.

At first I feel guilty for having such an advantage, then I tell myself to stop that, and it gets more complicated. I get sad, frustrated, even pitiful, but I don’t know what I’m directing these emotions at. I think it all boils down to this. I know that I was truly blessed to have grown up where I did. It played a huge part in the development of who I am today. I went to college and found out that there was another world out there, where people didn’t have enough to eat, or a roof over their head, or even clean socks to wear everyday. My view of everyone and everything having the ability to overcome economic conditions and make a better life for themselves – the “American Dream”—was false.

Surprisingly, I was not resistant to this change, but rather embraced it. I started talking and learning about revolutions and new ways of organizing the government that were more people-powered than our so called democracy ran by politicians with personal and corporate interests in mind. I believe that most of the world isn’t like where I grew up. Things are getting worse, and less is being done about it by state, local, and federal governments. People who were hungry are now starving, and the pains are only getting more intense.

I am of the opinion that things will get worse before they get better. Things will burn, and things will change, people will be taking to the streets and making themselves heard. I can see it now—perhaps everyone won’t be throwing Molotov cocktails through the windows of government buildings, but there will be some kind of action. But look at how I’m talking here… I know where I stand. I can remove myself from this situation. I can make “them” the “other.” I know that I will always be able to retreat outside of this war, back to my fields and cows. I have the privilege to choose whether or not I want to stand and fight for change, for justice. For some people, it will either be that, or die. This choice, this unearned perpetual safety I think I’ll have frustrates me to the point of tears sometimes, then I realize that such guilt is futile. What’s important is—if such a war is ever waged, I will chose to leave the comforts I know and join in any way I can. Maybe if only to lend a voice, or provide comfort. But I will leave. Why? I don’t need to give any reason, really.

I’ll leave you with this—you are my brother, you are my sister. You and I share at least one drop of blood somewhere across the ages. I extend my hand to you in solidarity, because if you are hurting, I will hurt, or my children will hurt, or my children’s children’s children’s will hurt. We are all interconnected, and our streets will all cross somewhere. Right now, I’m just going to sit back and enjoy watching summer take over the plains of Michigan, and not feel guilty about it. Wish you were here. Much love to you.

Social justice and the school-- radical or practical?

In 1932, social activist and educator Dr. George S. Counts wrote a series of three pamphlets on the state of education and would significantly change the perceived roles of the teacher within this realm. The most notable of these pamphlets was titled "Dare the School Build a New Social Order?" and was given as a challenging speech to the Progressive Education Association in Baltimore. 

His message is simple: Dr. Counts wanted teachers to lead society instead of following society. He wanted schools to become a place of community development instead of a place of community coercion. In turn, schools would become places that fostered an environment for children and youth to become leaders in their own right-- informed, educated, and confident members of society, ready to take on and participate in a true democracy (maybe even a government based on the principals of Democratic Socialism? *GASP*). 

Counts even goes as far to suggest that teachers should not only be concerned with school matters but also political, economic, and moral matters. The latter is certainly a questionable point, but for the sake of brevity I would like to believe that in today's time it would mean to promote true multiculturalism, respect, and tolerance for those of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual/gender orientations, classes, etc. 

Counts believed that Americans schools specifically needed to pay close attention to the struggles of progressive forces such as labor unions, farmers' organizations, and minority groups which were extremely active in protest during this time. Teachers and schools could be at the forefront of joining groups that wanted to help change society, set the example for their students, and help set the stage for solving major issues that would lead to a new social order. Thinking about the global uprisings of 2011, I can't think of a more pertinent time to start thinking about these ideals again (see: "Year of Global Uprisings, from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street: A Special Look Back at 2011" http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/2/year_of_global_uprisings_from_the).

I am very passionate about education policy reform, specifically steering education policy in the direction of social justice. By this, I mean that I believe that we should make schools places of welfare for students, their families, and the surrounding communities. Schools should not just be a place where it is mandatory that children go to for six to eight hours a day by law, but more of a family and community center, a place that encourages growth of mind, body, and spirit. I believe that students, to an extent, should be able to take ownership in the classroom (when I say to an extent, I am referring to a case where the child does not want to learn something simply because they don’t like it or find it too challenging). I believe in teaching a broad curriculum, including subjects like arts that allow for self-expression and vocational studies that allow students to learn a trade or a skill (Armstrong and Savage, 2009, p. 266).

This curriculum should be based on worldviews and philosophy, not just content from the Western canon. However, if goals are not put into a tangible plan with some kind of measurable outcomes, the plan for schools to be both a place of education and social welfare can become ineffective. It is very important, therefore, to properly place the roles in the curriculum, classroom, and teacher.  I am in favor that schools are a place to teach critical thinking skills that would help re-shape society, not just a place to “transfer” what knowledge, cultural heritage, and moral values that happen to be considered the norm. In many cases, even if they are not consciously done, this is how prejudice of every kind is taught to children, including but not limited to: racism, classism, sexism, cultural imperialism, etc. Students must be given the space to view their surrounding world and make sense of it on their own terms, so that they might be the most effective vessels of change possible.

Ideally, to make the school a place for community involvement and welfare, the school would begin as a place for the family. When students do not have the support of the family, that's when it becomes of even more importance that the school becomes a center of welfare. While I was living in South Africa, I had a chance to visit and volunteer at such an institution near the VVOCF center (check out my 2008 archived posts for more info). Just as a quick refresher, in 2008 I worked at an orphan care center called Vumundzuku-Bya Vana Our Children’s Future (VVOCF), in Zonkezizwe, South Africa. The center provides a number of services to children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, such as providing access to clothing, health care, and hot meals. There are also organized activities for the children and youth in the area of English, HIV/AIDS prevention, art, and sports.The main goal of the center is to provide a safe place for the children to let loose and just be kids, as well as have access to essential needs.

I would very much like to follow in the footsteps of George Counts, John Dewey, and Paulo Freire, and explore how schools can become a more integral part of the community as well as how education can both serve as a means to raise critical consciousness among our youth. Future research interests of mine include qualitative studies based on some of my experiences with the aforementioned students. I became very interested in the school system in the country after speaking with my children and youth. Most of the South African students are living in abject poverty, and are made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS somehow in their lives. They are all such beautiful, bright, and energetic children with large hopes and dreams; however, their circumstances in life are making their goals hard to reach.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has had a major influence on every sector in society, but notably a massive impact on South Africa’s education sector. Children and their families are finding themselves turning to schools for help that other social services cannot provide. The school can be a place to learn and grow, to find protection from the problems of every day life. It can be a way to help break the cycle of poverty and disease, and becomes a place that not only nourishes the body, but the soul as well. Those young people who are able to make it through to a higher education have a better chance at helping bringing themselves and their families out of poverty. It is not easy for them because of all their obstacles, but the ones that do the best are ones that have access to schools that act as a part of the community, and provide for the children. I would like to explore how schools can provide for the needs of their most vulnerable children, going past the idea of what a traditional school does, and become a bigger part of the community. My studies would be focusing on some of these potential research questions: How are schools helping these children who are so desperately looking for a better quality of life? What are schools currently doing or not doing in this respect? How does HIV/AIDS get in the way of these dreams, and what are the realities of educational policy today in South Africa? What more can schools do to accommodate learners made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS?

References: 

Armstrong, D. G., Henson, K. T., Savage T.V. (2009). Teaching today: An introduction to education (Eighth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

  

Dare the School Build a New Social Order on Google Books-- http://books.google.com/books?id=834RmjyjK6MC&dq=isbn:0809308789