The Response to UFS vs NMMU violence

How many wars are we meant to fight at the same time? Dear Reader, my heart is heavy, rent asunder by the video I have just seen of the violence at UFS during the University of Free State vs Nelson Mandela University. 

What I saw was racial violence. And South Africa really prides its self on the "unity in diversity" slogan. South Africa has been hidden under a smoke screen of racial tensions that have been bleeding through more and more. This Writer is not racially bound. Understand my place on this planet and this cosmos has widened my scope. Evil is evil. When it is implanted and nurtured, hidden and lied about, it grows. Viraly so. These kids that are seen in this video, stomping on other fellow South Africans who are protesting, they are expressing what has been in them for about 20 years. look upon the age groups they seem to be in.

Simple data nodes:

• They are varsity students
• It's a Rugby game.
• The university athlete (predominantly) has supporters within his/her age group.

So these kids are around age 19 - 27. This means that they were either born in the "new" South Africa, or went through the liberation period of the early 90s during infancy. How then, does racism live inside these people? It was engendered. It was put in there. The systems of sociology and anthropology have been mired with the racism of the current space. Let me put the international Reader into the context: The Free State, which used to be known as the Orange Free State, is a place of heavy racial tensions and a bastion for extreme Right Wing Afrikaaners. Historically, Black oppression was rife, there. Lots of natives died there. Killed by shooting, lynching and gutting, amongst many other tortures. There are still strongholds of the AWB in the Free State. The AWB is pretty much a Nazi separatist group disguised as a solidarity and welfare group for Afrikaaners only. Their old leader, Eugene Tereblanche, is infamous for spouting hate speech and White Power rhetoric while mounting a black steed. 

The schools in the Free State often teach in Afrikaans, and it is not surprising to find a school that has classes that are separated by language. English and Afrikaans, of course. The Universities have been pretty much the same. during the struggles of the 70s and 80s, Black students had to suffer humiliations at least, beatings and death at worst, whilst attempting to get an education.

Fast forward to South Africa in the 90s. Transformation is coming. Mandela is free. He is bringing with him the first Democratic election, 4 years after his release. He is voted into power. South Africa seems hopeful. 1995, our national Rugby team wins the Rugby World Cup. Mandela is the with Francois Pienaar. They hold the trophy together. South Africa is coming together, or so it seems.

But the racists are

 not dead. They have been making babies. Teaching them to hate on Blacks. Teaching them to preserve the Afrikaaner purity. When I'm out travelling South Africa, I run into many a racist. Too many, for my own comfort. Some are overt racists, some not so. Some are trying rehabilitation. They are trying to buy into the schpiel that Black and White are brothers and we can build South Africa together. But sometimes, just sometimes, the tongue reveals the bloodstained webs of the heart. 

The racist is released. The problem is that, in many true ways, the South African transformation was a sham. There are many texts that speak of this, and i will not elucidate at length on this. But it is an important point to ponder and live with. Transformation did not occur where it was truly needed. The banks are till run by the same foreign corporations and their in-border lackeys/agents. The mining sector is pretty much the the same. Be it oil or precious metals, they are run by the externals, on our soil. The externals happen to be American and European. The fact that Cape Town is loaded with Germans is no mistake. It has historical roots and explanations. Our wine estates are mostly owned by foreigners, who then produce a "Made In South Africa' sticker on their wines while the money goes to Germany, France and Sweden. 

So when students, who have gone through the wire of the south African education system want to protest, I believe they have every right to. Their complaints are mostly valid. The only thing lacking is creativity in engagement. What this attack at the stadium proves is that the racist mind refuses to change and will respond violently when exposed. The youth that is protesting at our universities all over south Africa, has seen "freedom' and they have seen the lie therein. The systems need to truly transform. And they won't do it willingly, it seems.  I am sickened to my core, and the writing hand will not rest. The state of South Africa has been dire. The kindling for this fire has evolved into coal that burns long and strong. We are in a precarious time and must follow through with tact and wisdom. we don't need a racial civil war. We really don't. But we also cannot hide behind the guise of keeping peace while our educational institutions promote one culture at the expense of another. The right to study in one's home language is entrenched in the South African Bill of Rights. And we have 11 official languages. Yet some universities will not respect that fact. Their Afrikaans and English students often see no problem, therefore, no solution is needed. Yet South Africa is predominantly Black. And yet our institutions of higher learning do not reflect the diversity entrenched in the Constitution. 

We are in a dangerous time, people. Let us not be hasty and answer violence and stupidity in kind. I know what it's like to angry and treated as a lower class citizen. I know what it's like to be racially maligned. But the solutions we put in place must be evolutionary, not just revolutionary. I do not want to wear a boot and stomp White faces into the mud. And I do not want a boot over mine. We must find the peace that removes the jackboot from our foot and walk in the soil together. Otherwise we're just repeating the cycles of the past. 'Those who don't learn from history..." and all that. 

There's so much to say, and truly I'd like to say, but the blood in me still boils. I can't get over the announcer in the stadium saying "This is disgusting!" So how many wars then. Do we now have a new problem to solve or is this an old one that just keeps rearing its head? The current movements want the destruction of the old. It all "Must Fall' lately. Because truly, most of these systems have been up so long they've dug their roots deep into the foundational psyche. And as this video shows, the Black students were the ones being stomped upon. This was a racial occurrence, therefore it cannot be discussed without discussing race dynamics. 

WE sign out for now, but are all eyes peeled. This issue is far from done.


=====================

Addendum: at 14:35 23/2/2016

Another violent clash amongst students. Going the wrong direction at solving the problem. THe violence is a symptom of greater, deeper ills.

https://www.facebook.com/168892509821961/videos/1125429094168293/