Keynote Address by ANC Western Cape Chairperson (International Relations and Co-operation Deputy Minister) Marius L. Fransman, SAVE OUR SCHOOLS Campaign, Interfaith Service, St Georges Cathedral, Cape Town, September 30 2012

The Dean of St. Georges Cathedral, Father Michael Weeder and all clergy represented here today, fellow comrades of organised labour formations, civil society structures represented, educators, compatriots, concerned parents, community leaders, our scholars and friends. 

We are gathered today at our city home St. Georges Cathedral, where in time gone by we often had gathered in protest of Apartheid, its systems and the evil it inflicted on the black masses of South Africa. 

When we gather again today on this Sunday, the last of September 2012, it is to remind ourselves that this Cathedral has hosted many of our campaigns, so it is to St. Georges we return to register our latest challenge exemplified in Western Cape education embrace. Since we are gathered in perhaps the Mother City-Church of our Western Cape province, one is tempted to ask why we gather today for what cause, and in whose interest? 

What brings us back to the church, arguably the cradle of our liberation struggle, the church that as an institution has consistently been the beacon of hope? We do celebrate in this heritage season the elongated and celebrated history of joined revolutionary pursuit and contribution the Church has and continues to make. 

We are therefore today in familiar territory and in good company between the walls of the Cathedral. We echo the words of Joachim Jeremias the German theologian when warns, "The Church must always believe what it always believed."  

It was Paul Tillich another theologian who helped us better understood the symbiotic nature and relationship between religion and culture when he asserts, "culture is the form of religion, and religion is the heart of culture." 

When we gather here in this our season of heritage celebration and awareness we remain cognisant of the role the church played back then and throughout the course of our liberation struggle.

It is against the backdrop of this reality that Church defined as religion has shaped our culture even our liberation culture and equally our culture is often associated with being the heart of our religion. We therefore must celebrate in this Heritage Month the church's role as our proud heritage in our fight against the tyranny of apartheid. 

Close examination would dictate that our gathering today is in the interest of our children. Yes, the black child whose future is under threat, whose rights to education is questioned, and whose inalienable constitutional right is trampled upon by adults in a Zille and DA-led action. 

As education is the only solution to fight the stubborn triple challenge of unemployment, inequality, and poverty. Education is the highest priority for the ANC-led Jacob Zuma Administration. 

On an occasion the Deputy President of the country was asked what are the three top priorities for the sitting Zuma presidency, Deputy President Motlanthe responded, Education is President Zuma's first, second and third priority.

Since we are in this atmosphere of Church it is perhaps therefore befitting to remind us today of a text in Matthew 19: 14, when Jesus Christ had to rebuke his own disciples for denying parents to bring their children to Him. 

In this passage of scripture, Jesus Christ underscores the importance of our children when He in that 14th verse unequivocally states "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 

It is clear that the people He addressed were adults for they had the power to deny the children access unto Him. At the risk of being tempted to prognosticate in preaching here today, I am compelled to ask what Jesus Christ would have said of the denial of our children's education access under a Zille and the DA in the Western Cape in 2012. 

For the fact that our children are denied access to education today is not hearsay but an undeniable fact. 

When we gather here today, it is to confirm our findings that the closing of schools in particular the 27 as earmarked by the Zille and the DA proves an injustice being served in an era of democracy. 

When we argue it an injustice we do so patently conscious that when the ANC Western Cape, the COSATU secretariat and other structures such as Equal Education, CTPA and SADTU convened on the subject matter it affirmed that the decision to close the schools on the part of Zille and the DA's Donald Grant was necessarily arbitrarily, subjective and less honest.  

The Save Our Schools Campaign concludes on this matter that the DA is not acting in good faith on the subject matter of school closure. Its findings attest to the fact that the Zille and the DA-led Education Department is engaged in closing down more schools than building anymore. 

It furthermore makes known that the premise for the schools closure as raised by the Zille and the DA in the letters sent to schools, proves inconsistent less congruent and contrary to the actual reality as depicting in the schools. 

It further argues that the DA under Zille is yet to present a comprehensive and structured plan for the Western Cape since it took office in 2009.  

As a result of this the SAVE OUR SCHOOLS Campaign under the patronage of Ms. Florrie De Villiers, convenor Mr Archie Vergotini and secretariat Ms. Mathilda Vantura concluded that all the affected schools be contacted and a regional meeting be convened followed by a mass meeting with civil society and those who prove progressive in support of the initiative. 

I shall submit to you today that we cannot contextualise the threat of school closure in a vacuum. If we are back here today at the Cathedral, it is not for a celebratory moment of matrimonial occasion but one of deep mourning hence  to mobilise against the evil of a new form of apartheid.  
It is clear that the actions of the DA as led by Helen Zille, proves less sensitive to the plea of the founding fathers of our Liberation who gathered in Kliptown in 1955, to adopt the Freedom Charter as the guiding and instructive plan for our liberation as a people in particular those reduced to a second-class citizenry. 

The Freedom Charter is clear on the subject of Education. Iit is unparalleled in a categorical instructive declaration: "The doors of learning shall be open." 

What would those who constitute our parents and true visionaries of our freedom say if they hear that in the Western Cape almost 20 years into democracy a Zille and her DA's orientation is closing the very doors of learning for the black child. 

We fear no contradiction to conclude that our forebears and those who gave their lives for the liberation of our people and South Africa, would be insulted, done in and burdened to ask why?

When we categorically assert today here that Helen Zille and the DA Led WCED administration actions to close our schools by the end of December 2012, is an injustice, it is to argue the intention to close our schools borders on morally reprehensible behaviour. 

We do so because the SOS, report further informs us that procedurally the process to close the schools was not followed. The Zille and DA MEC Donald Grant issued a notice of closure to all schools instead of notice of intention to close. Since on receipt of the letters sent to the affected schools, a subsequent letter was received from the DA's Grant informing the SGB's that the schools will be closed. 

The merits for our argument on an overt intention is further amplified when we can conclude that the scales or standards used for assessment lends itself to a claim of discrimination on the basis of race and acting inconsistently in the selection of schools to be closed. 

The SOS Report can confirm that if the principle of population size was the barometer that there are schools with less numbers, which is saved this action of closure. 

To cite a few  Eendekuil, Ou Plaas, Merweville, Breerivier and Van Der Hoven  Primary Schools all had decreasing numbers from 2009 and shows a consistent decline in scholar population. Yet these are saved the action. We dare not ask why. Our is not to raise these here to argue for their equal closure but only to highlight the inconsistency and to flag the disparity on the subject matter. 

If we in the Western Cape face a threat of school closure one is compelled to ask the context of this. The action of the DA-led government making stands in the same tradition of a litany of actions that communicates a deeper message to us.

One of the schools in Premier Helen Zille's target for closure is Zonnebloem Nest, one of the oldest schools in the Cape Peninsula history located in the heart of Cape Town. This school, its infrastructure owned by the Anglican Church dates back to a time in the 1800's. It was founded in 1858 and predates the very ANC movement of liberation struggle who's centenary who celebrate this year by almost 60 years. 

Zonnebloem Nest's history if closely examined will educate those willing to learn, that this was a training grounds of the Chieftaincy mostly from the Eastern Cape and other smaller areas. These had sent their children to be educated to ensure better governance and administration was secured in their homesteads. 

In a time when ‘coloured' people all over South Africa is rightfully, claiming historical and oppressed Khoi-San roots. This particular time unprecedented in itself marks a unique season when the leader of the ANC and South Africa President Jacob G. Zuma is leading the charge for a legitimate cause, due respect and relevance of the historical owners of land and more so the Cape. Yet the Western Cape Premier Helen Zille and DA-led administration chooses to insult the very historic dotted lines we as nation attempts to embolden. 

There is genuine cause for pausing in asking what sits really behind the push to have black schools closed? The attempt on the part of the Western Cape administration with this action unravels a very clear but meandering golden thread that confirms semblance of colonial and apartheid praxis at play. 

I shall argue the Zonnebloem Nest closure threat is understood in Makhaza and Khayelitsha resident's uprise on the inferior open toilet saga of May 2010. This infringing of constitutional rights of communities confirms the DA's prism of thinking on black people and what they deserve. 

Not only is this evident in the open toilet saga, but also finds meaning in the infamous tweet of Premier Zille, of a claimed refugee status of South Africans citizens in the ‘Republic of the Western Cape'. It is clear that for the DA as led by Zille, the Western Cape is a country on its own separate from the true and only Republic of South Africa, which we may remind Zille consists of nine and not eight Provinces. 

If the toilet saga and refugee claims specifically on black people were not enough, the Premier went a step further when she challenged by the flare-up of recent gang violence opted to ask President Zuma to unleash the army on the Cape Flats. The subliminal message in this request, which is a deceptive one, communicates firstly her ill regard or sense for the potential psychological consequences and ramifications this may hold for those communities targeted as ‘brandpunte' (hot spots). 

Secondly, it reveals her perhaps mendacious intent to set the president as Commander in Chief up to be later accused by her and the DA for a military intervention on his own, when body bags fill our breaking news slots. 

Thirdly, at a fundamental level it confirms the cheapness of black life in the mind of the DA leader and Western Cape Premier. 

This heavy handed tactics request clearly send many of us who lived in the early 80's in the Western Cape and those who currently live in particular on the Cape Flats to chambers of memory we  for sanity least want to revisit. 

For the presence of Casspirs and Nyala's, army equipment running up and down Eisleben, Klipfontein and Modderdam roads have scarred many in psychological challenge, yet the Premier - a former journalist who knows this history of apartheid heavy-handed tactics - deems it correct to ask the president to unleash the army because the police is incapable of dealing with such. 

It was only correct and astuteness of mind that prevailed for the president to have rightfully rejected her Apartheid informed request. 

The current unfolding civil unrest in which the DA-led administration conveniently singularly blame the ANCYL, as an excuse remains another spoke in the wheel of DA apartheid tendencies. If we to understand the unfolding Zonnebloem Nest school closure we must see it through the lens of a DA led administration who consistently in recent times seek in typical Apartheid style to blame civil unrest on youth formations such as the ANCYL, as threatening in high-treason sense the stability of the Province.

Zille and Patricia ‘who lost her voice' de Lille, decided the claim to make the province ungovernable constitutes a threat worthy of court-case investigation with a charge of treason as that which merits such.

These leaders both know out of their individual and our collective history - Zille as a journalist and De Lille as PAC member - that the ‘ungovernable' claim is a slogan commonly used by those who waged a struggle against apartheid, and spells no threat of physical harm to any human life. 

Yet in typical DA media sensation sense, it has used cameras to identify ‘culprits' in the hope of levelling charges and by so doing quell the simmering challenges of a disparate Western Cape, in which white privilege still remains celebrated, white life supreme, white interest the dominant interest and white education the meridian for assessment.  

It has refused to hear the plight of the people of the Western Cape, who is restless and brimming with defiance of the prevailing situation, and opts to make it a party political matter when people march or demonstrate. 

It is perhaps befitting to invoke the mind of the erstwhile astute longest serving president of the ANC Oliver Reginald Tambo when he conclusively asserts "It is our responsibility to break down barriers of division and create a country where there will be neither Whites nor Blacks - just South Africans - free and united in diversity." 

Helen Zille and the DA, in this season not breaking down these barriers as advanced by our icon, instead she is building new reinforced walls of separation in a democratic season along faulty racial lines.  

O.R. would have been highly charged to rebuke Zille for again in freedom seeking to deny the African, the ‘so-called coloured' and the Indian his right to education to ensure the black child remains entrapped in struggle of eternity. 

Taking the time to read the rich and elongated history of a Zonnebloem Nest that dates back to 1858 it is simply impossible not to see the similarities with a much-celebrated Lovedale College in the Eastern Cape. Both institutions constitute an undeniable and important cog in the history of African Education and African struggle and the Africans right to self-determination. 

Both institutions produced leaders and groups of people who served and helped the cause of our emancipation, freedom, and ideal of equality in democratic embrace.  

Zonnebloem predates the formation of the oldest liberation movement the ANC by almost 60 years. The ANC, which firstly was called the South African Natives National Congress, at inception as led by its founders John Dube, Pixley ka Isaka Seme and Sol Plaatje, compromised of chiefs, clergy, intellectuals and others leaders. These leaders and people assembled in the Wesleyan Church of Waaihoek, Bloemfontein, with the explicit aim of uniting all tribes and natives to resist. 

What really sits behind the need to close down the school? 

Could it be that the intend to close  Zonnebloem Nest and others mirrors the mind of our historical colonial & Apartheid oppressors who understood that an obliteration of the oppressed history is essential in keeping them enslaved? Is it possible the Black Education's jewel in City Centre embrace proves a proverbial nagging fly in a white colonial and apartheid education supremacy dictate?

The threat of School closure, must be understood in the context of a typical apartheid mindset of denying people their rights to march, mobilise, demonstrate and picket, for it seeks to threaten the constitutional rights of those who are affronted with the disproportionate development of people in the  claimed ‘Republic of the Western Cape'.

The Zonnebloem saga communicates the flagrant disregard for traditional chieftaincy's foresight to educate the African child, to govern. It serves as callous denial of a black history of leadership and sense. It fundamentally serves as a denial of the elongated black struggle for freedom firstly led by the Khoi-San defenders against invaders and ultimately death of the young Ashley Kriel, in the door of his mother's house amidst a hail of bullets in 1985.  

Zonnebloem and all other schools targeted for closure confirms the undeniable truth that regardless to how Helen Zille may seek to claim an inspiration by Steve Bantu Biko, the South African face of black consciousness, she has not understood Biko, when he laments  "the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." (Steve Biko). 

Biko most definitely could not have appreciated the closure of any schools of black children less of Zonnebloem Nest if Zille claims an inspiration by the erstwhile educator and philosopher. 

Again Biko warned us of the liberalist agenda when he in his famous - I write what I like - pensively reflects on the toxicity of liberalism asserts, "Liberals pose as allies of blacks for the sake of securing a liberal future. But is a liberal future best for blacks? Although a "right-wing" future is patently anti-Black one has to offer black people more options from liberalism than simply its being better than the right-wing position." (Steve Biko)

This deliberate bludgeoning of the African's heritage in black education embrace warrants the necessary condemnation and resistance it deserves. 

In conclusion the SOS campaign will not cease. We shall not relent in. We will continue to remind the detractors of true liberation of the words of Jesus the Christ, to not forbid the children to come unto Him, that He may bless them. 

We will reassert the instructive mandate of the forebears of our liberation who cried on education ‘the doors of learning shall be open'. 

We shall remind this Zille and those she lead that you dare not in democracy embrace run roughshod over our constitutional rights and practice double standards with race as the subliminal deciding factor.

Our struggle shall be intensified, we will picket, we will demonstrate and we will fight you on every front for ours is a legitimate case and cause. Truth always outlives a lie. 

We are reminded of the words of the emerging thinker Niklos when he concludes on truth "truth does not straddle, it is necessarily one-sided, it proves less ambivalent never ambiguous, yet remains that which the sun captured and the moon attest too." 

Zille and the her cohorts can no longer lie to the Western Cape voters. It can no longer obfuscate the truth of the disrespect for black life, the black child, black history and our collective black destiny. We have truth on our side, and Jesus taught us a long time ago ‘you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.'

It is clear the DA-led administration is not to be trusted with our future, less the future of our children - if it today can apply double standards on a threat of school closure in a season when we demand the doors of learning to be wide open...

Thank you.

Issued by the ANC Western Cape, September 30 2012

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