OPINION

Sinister intentions behind those opposing free higher education

Lazola Ndamase says it is typical of those living in comfort to raise alarm about affordability of social welfare

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.

No one suggests that there should be no concern for the implementation process, if it is articulated in a manner that seeks to cause alarm rather than provide solutions, it is difficult to realize that the naysayers seek to destroy rather than build.

Having skilfully sought to foreground devoid of the dialectic their disdainful application of the Gramscian pessimism of the intellect, they use it to browbeat into quietude any suggestions that there is even a glimmer of hope in the announcement. Theirs is intended to ensure that none are able to think that the decision could have implications far surpassing the potential opportunism that may have driven the timing of the announcer.

Rather than find comfort to learn that the struggles of the oppressed have broken the barriers to the point that even those who seek, to opportunistically swing political support their way, are prompted to lean on Free Education as a cog towards a Conference of the ANC, this is discounted altogether.

Those, who spend their time in struggle, understand that everything under the sun, is in itself contested. Thus, even the methodology for the implementation of Free Higher Education is a site of struggle, that must be contested in such a way that it does not have negative implications on the somewhat limping social welfare provided to those suffering under the yoke of capitalism in our country.

The potentially opportunistic timing of the announcement of Free Education on the eve of an elective Conference, whatever its basis, should in no way frighten those who understand the progressive nature of the decision itself because of the loud obfuscators, who do not support the decision, least for its timing, but more for its meaning to those they consider culturally and socially decrepit.

The fact that the decision shows disdain against the Heher Commission’s proposal which would have further led to the massive pilfering of the public purse by Banks and their ilk is also cause for great celebration.

Those who stood to benefit from the swindling of the state should not gain an iota of public sympathy because of the potential impolitic nature of the announcement, by a beleaguered President, but rather, anyone who shares the goal of the success of the Freedom Charter’s demand for the opening of the doors of learning should join the struggle that will in any case ensue to shape the form and content of the Free Education decision in a manner that does not destroy but builds upon and deepens existing social services.

We need to deploy the Gramscian optimism of the will, with its faith on the ingenuity of human capacity in struggle to surpass whatever is thrown at them, unshackling themselves from loan sharks that benefit from the commodification of education, thereby increasing access to Education and unshackling masses of the Africans that have historically been understood in our country to rightly sit beyond the purview of the Education system, whose inclusion has always been met with disdain as evinced by Verwoerd, his ancestors and some of his present ilk.

Lazola Ndamase is 2nd Deputy Provincial Secretary of the SACP in the Eastern Cape