Listening to the silent majority

[42]

With psychologist Nimrod Mkele I also discovered the division of blacks operating within the system (Group I) and those working outside the system (Group II). I asked whether he harboured more confidence in reforms under a regime led by Mr FW de Klerk. ‘I don't know,’ he replied, ‘we have little faith in the Nats.’ Did he expect the new Democratic Party to do any better? ‘No,’ replied Nimrod, ‘we just want to be part of the ongoing process changing South Africa. Our struggle is about change. Changes are taking place. That's why we are talking in the first place. We are now dealing with the management of change. We have got to be in the political arena, and all the way too, with no strings attached. We blacks must fully participate in mapping policies for the future and assist in deciding how the country will be run.’

A case in point is the Council for Education and Training. The Minister of Education and Development Aid, Dr Gerrit Viljoen, on May 16, 1989, inaugurated this Council for Education and Training representing parents, schools and professional teaching bodies. He stressed that black communities were obtaining full participation in political structures ‘which I urgently wish will come about as a result of negotiated constitutional reform’. He also mentioned that he could appoint only 5 experts on various education matters to the new council. The other members would be elected community and parent representatives, as chosen by parents, professional teacher and inspector associations, universities, technikons and colleges of education. Thus reported Brian Stuart in The Citizen.^26.

To discover how blacks looked upon Viljoen's initiative, I turned to a lengthy editorial by Sam Mabe in The Sowetan. This reasonable and intelligent writer commented on the same matter: ‘HAND-PICKED MEMBERS SNAG LAUNCH OF NEW EDUCATION BODY.’^27. One didn't

26. The Citizen, May 17, 1989

27. The Sowetan, by Sam Mabe, May 16, 1989

[p. 51]

learn from The Citizen that the council had a total membership of 24, nor that parents would hold 8 seats. For this information one had to turn to The Sowetan. Mabe: ‘Thirteen chairmen of area committees in the region, which comprises Soweto and Alexandra and, representing 330 schools, decided they would not participate in the new council after reaching a stalemate during a two-hour meeting they held with Deputy Minister of Education and Training, Sam de Beer.’ Differences apparently arose over members nominated to the council by Dr Viljoen, who were drawn from current and former department employees, or mostly school inspectors. Another argument against Viljoen's new council was that no-one canvassed parents' views on how the body was to be structured. In short, many blacks again questioned the mandate that the community supposedly had granted to the members of the new council.

I am not saying that I consider the attitude of the thirteen chairmen of area committees from Soweto and Alexandra a particularly reasonable or wise one. But then, some of these blacks fear that the community will look with disfavour on their participation in any governmental structure at all. The role that courage plays in these matters is often decisive. If The Sowetan can report on black opposition to Viljoen's new council, why doesn't The Citizen inform its readers more accurately on some of the negative sides to the proposed council? Blacks have an outspoken legitimate argument when they complain about the minority government continuing much of its old ingrained ways, when they make new proposals, new suggestions, even when it concerns simple trial balloons, without first consulting the black majority in a democratic way. As a result, the proposed newly-structured National Council for Education and Training was off again to a bumpy start. Why? A reform-oriented specialist such as Dr Gerrit Viljoen could have prevented another non-starter.