The
issue of #FessMustFall has brought with it much controversy and thus brought
the country to a standstill. This movement has often been characterized by what
people have called senseless violence. This violence has mostly been palmed off
to students have been standing up to a system that has and continues to exclude
the majority of black[1]
children from quality tertiary education. The Church has been caught off-guard,
especially with regards to ways that it supports the call for free, decolonized
education by the South African youth. It has often spoken along the lines, “We
support the call for free education but condemn the burning of buildings”. I have
thus associated the churches and most of society’s response to the student’s
call as one that supports, but condemns.
I
neither wish to speak on this issue from an economical nor a political lens,
but rather a theological one. Theologically, liberation orientated scholars
have often argued about the partiality of God, that God takes sides and is
never neutral in situations teeming with injustice. Furthermore, God does not
side with the powers that be, but rather with the victims of that power and/or
the collateral damage that it leaves in its wake. Can then, fundamentally, the
Church who is the chief manifestation of this prejudiced God, support but
condemn simultaneously? Is the Church effectively saying that it supports the
cries of the oppressed but condemns their attempt at breaking free from
intentional structural chains? On which side of the coin do we as a Church
belong? I understand that as part of the Church we cannot be seen to be
supporting any kind of violence, but we are at least called to search beneath the
surface to understand its causes. This assertion is primarily taken from the
premise that students are directly responsible for the burning of buildings,
which in reality is not an infallible fact. But let us assume that it is, does
it then, in principle hinder the Church from supporting without condemning?
In
his book, The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz
Fanon argues that violence is the only means through which a colonized or an oppressed
people can redefine or re-create themselves. In essence, Fanon argues that
decolonization is always a violent event[2]. I
therefore ponder if there is anything that can be known to be a peaceful
revolution. Can people revolt without violence being the by-product thereof? If
not, then where would the Church place itself, where would the Church locate
justice that it would side with it? Would it be the unjust system that has
disenfranchised black people for as long as we can remember, or the revolt that
is an intrinsically violent protest against such exclusion from your own
country’s resources? I ask again, in this context, can the Church that is a
manifestation of this prejudiced God still afford to “support but condemn”?
Upon
the ushering of the new democracy, free education was one of the foremost promises
made by the ruling party. This made sense because white and black people did
not stand on equal footing, and due to the dispensation of apartheid, many
black families would not be able to afford quality education. Therefore in
order for the black child to be educated in such a manner that they can
participate effectively in the economy of the country, education had to be free,
it had to be a right and not a privilege. Twenty two years later no strides
have been made to make good on the promise[3],
and we find that all of this violence abounds, in principle because of
something that was agreed upon twenty two years ago. I struggle when people pose
questions such as “where would government get the money from?” when they have
had twenty two years to figure that out. Perhaps the best way for us as the
Church to understand these violent outbursts is to understand black pain. For
how long were black people supposed to be obedient to exclusion, disenfranchisement
and structural racism in tertiary education? Perhaps we need to ponder where
justice lies between the powers that be and the victims of that power, such
that we might side with it. We nevertheless join the struggle for free,
quality, decolonized and Afro-centric education in our lifetime.
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