Free Education naysayers should be understood exactly for what they represent
Yearly witnessing students throw themselves at glass doors, evading a hail of police rubber bullets, coming back reinvigorated, demanding access to institutions of Higher Learning, it is impossible not to receive the announcement by President Jacob Zuma of Free Higher Education with a tinge of jubilation rather than the sarcasm that has dominated the public discourse, punching holes at the timing and even methodology for implementation of the when some of those who punch holes had an opportunity to contribute to not only shaping the discourse but to bringing up a proper methodology for the successful implementation of Free Higher Education.
Only those haunted by the suffering of the masses of the oppressed, would embrace, however timid, let alone potentially opportunistic, the Free Education announcement by an embattled President late last year. This is because of an appreciation that, the announcement, in and of itself, is a step forward for those who wallow in penury. They would surely not join nor dance to the sarcastic chorus which focuses narrowly on the state of mind of the President as having been driven by an intention to sway political support in an ANC Conference, even if this may very well have been part of the calculation, while ignoring the fact that Free Education for the poor represents a step forward.
The fact that the naysayers, have sought to punch holes rather than spring to their feet and provide solutions, talks more to their sinister intentions which smack of nothing else but gratuitous disdain for the very decision itself, but are forced to skilfully, present it as driven by nothing but a benign demand for an implementation plan.
It is the time honoured disguise of those who live in insatiable comfort to pretentiously raise alarm about the timing or affordability of social welfare all in a vile attempt to cast aspersions where even the most disdainful of minds would not fail to notice the silver lining among the clouds. Seeking to destroy the implementation of social welfare for the oppressed, but afraid of being swept asunder by a strong current, they pour ice cold water on it under the pretext of questioning its timing or affordability, without offering anything about when precisely it will be timely or affordable.
Buoyed by mistrust for President Jacob Zuma, they cash in on it to thwart the glimmer of hope that is the implementation of something that has led many of the oppressed risk a hail of rubber-bullets for its realization. Rather than offer, what they would have many believe is their infinite wisdom on the decommodification of education, they negatively seek to reverse, through causing mass hysteria even among the potential beneficiaries of the decision by the President disguised under the somewhat understandable demand for answers on the process and its potential implications.