To mark the centenary birthday of Harry Gwala, SADTU’s Mugwena Maluleke pays tribute to one of the most prominent stalwarts of the ANC and the SACP.
It was on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the ANC in 1992 that the organisation bestowed Harry “uMunt’omdala” Gwala with its highest honour for dedication, service and selfless commitment, Isithwalandwe. This was in recognition of Gwala’s unparalleled and robust leadership style paired with his extraordinary ability to speak truth to power.
Affectionately known as, “The Lion of the Midlands”, Gwala grew up in the Pietermaritzburg area and after completing his teacher’s diploma at Adams College, Amanzimtoti in 1941, he taught at Slangspruit, in the Pietermaritzburg area.
Those who were around him when he served his life sentence in Robben Island from 1977, spoke about his deep sense of appreciation for education and its ability to transform not just the person but the whole of society as well.
He was reputably firm, particularly amongst his younger protégés, and demanded of them utmost discipline and commitment in as far as their education was concerned, he saw this as a step closer towards the attainment of liberation for the oppressed masses of his country.
Despite the adversity that Gwala and others of his generation experienced, they still held firm to their conviction that it is through education that we can reach the promised land of a free and democratic South Africa. Since the dawn of democracy, the democratically elected government has been occupied with the urgent need to address the deep seated socio-economic inequalities with education being categorized as an “apex priority” in line with the National Development Plan.
There is national consensus about the central role that education has to play in our developmental agenda and it should thus go without saying that all the role players in the value chain should play their part and decisively so. SADTU has always maintained that education is a societal matter and that the school is a microcosm of the community.
As we remember uMunt’omadala on this occasion, it deeply concerns us that in a South African context, the school is not the safe haven that it ought to be and used to be. Before normal schooling activities were interrupted by the various lockdown regulations, it had no longer become shocking news to hear of a teacher being assaulted by a learner and learners attacking each other with brutal intentions. These scenes would often be captured by the learners themselves and distributed widely in social media platforms depicting a society in decline.
It has become a regular occurrence in South Africa to see community members protesting in demand of services to be delivered and utilising the school as a bargaining chip and as a consequence the future of their children.
It is not our intention to speak on behalf of the departed especially with the calibre of Harry Gwala but one can imagine that uMunt’omdala would have been repulsed by this unprecedented reality.
In response to this unsettling scourge of violence in our schools, SADTU launched its “I AM A SCHOOL FAN” campaign as informed by her 9th Congress in 2019. Through this campaign, the Union hopes to galvanize broader schooling communities and to encourage them to play a more proactive role towards ensuring that the school environment is safe from all forms of violence.
The school environment needs to be safe, learners and teachers need to feel safe for learning and teaching to occur. In memory of Harry Gwala, we are calling on the whole of society to rally behind SADTU’s campaign for safer schools, let us protect the dignity of the teachers and indeed that of the learners as well.
The safety concerns that both teachers and learners have do not only come from the conspicuous violence within the schools but currently the Covid-19 pandemic as well. As this is a topical issue and one that has occupied our national psyche for the past few months, it would be foolhardy for one not to briefly reflect on its impact on the education system.
It remains our well-considered view that as the country battles with the unprecedented pandemic, the safety of the teachers and the learners should be of priority concern above all else. It is common cause that the interruption of an academic year will have an impact on the schooling journey for many children of the working class and the poor. An important fact that should not be ignored is that the education system has been going through other systemic “pandemics” even before the novel Covid-19 one.
The pandemics that we refer to have seen teachers delivering lessons in front of mini-mass meetings, some with up to 80 learners instead of the required and ideal teacher/learners ratio for proper learning to take place. We still have an unacceptably high number of schools that require the basic education infrastructure like sanitation facilities, basic physical security measures, adequate class rooms, functional libraries and laboratories, administration blocks and education support personnel.
This is despite the fact that education has been considered an apex priority by successive democratic governments since 1994. In fact, we are convinced as the largest Union in the public service that uMphephethwa would have not found comfort with the fact that a country whose freedom he was prepared to sacrifice his life for now has two education systems evidently, one for the affluent and another one for the less affluent and the working class.
Whilst we battle with the appropriate mitigating strategies against the pandemic, the private schools will continue with their programmes uninterrupted, not even by a novel virus pandemic. We are living in a country that does not see a fundamental problem with the “haves” advancing whilst the “have nots” remain in the periphery of socio economic development.
We are living in a country that post a democratic dispensation, sees no cause for alarm with the continued existence of a two tier education system, one for the poor and one for the rich. It should come as no surprise that we are one of the most unequal societies in the world.
Perhaps this pandemic crisis that has led to the interruption of the schooling year gives us an opportunity to re-think, re-imagine and possibly re-invent how we see and do education in this country. We now have an opportunity to really go into the crux of the matter and eliminate the deep seated challenges that as a result have led to only 4 out of 10 learners that are enrolled for the first Grade completing the 12-year journey successfully. This is a major indictment for our country and for our democratic government.
Certainly, it will take a certain caliber of leadership to help us navigate through these rough seas, this is a leadership that will be based on a humane consultative approach and that will be able to place the interest of the working class child above bureaucratic and narrow political goals. This is a leadership that should be able to gain the trust and confidence of education workers as well without resorting to a divisive and condescending narrative as we have seen recently.
As one of the leading activists of the South African Council of Trade Union in the 60s, Gwala would have most likely found it concerning that some government leaders find it an acceptable part of the discourse to attack education workers and their right to a safe working environment and to earn a living, this they also do by trying to divide public servants and questioning the bona fides of the unions that represent them in what can only be described as a shocking lack of understanding of the education space.
Harry Gwala taught us to speak truth to power and this we have every intention to do without any fear or favour. This is the same attitude that we should all adopt when it comes to exposing the Covid-19 related looting bonanza by “tender-preneurs” whom we have rightfully classified as disaster capitalists. We all have a moral responsibility to expose and interrupt them as they have an uninhibited desire to maximise their profits through our collective pain and suffering as a nation. We owe it to uMunt’omdala to confront these capitalist vultures.
Ours is to save the future of our children and the working class in general.
Long live the undying spirit of The Lion of the Midlands!!!!