Education can end inequality Cape Points

KHANYA Mathambo makes many good points about the remnants of white privilege (“White privilege still prevails”, Cape Argus, July 14).

She writes with surprising authority for her age, ironically from a very privileged position, having a private education at, seemingly, a predominantly white school, and she will talk my language in a typically superior fashion, from which she will never escape.

But it will do very well for her in her future career. (I should point out that she and I are at the opposite extremes of the age spectrum, she most likely being around 18, and I very nearly 88).

I do not intend to argue against any of the points that she raises because I didn’t arrive in South Africa – from Britain – until late 1982. Although we accepted the privileges we received at the time, through apartheid, this was never ever our objective, but purely the end-years to retirement in my professional career in the nuclear industry.

I have not studied township life – we read a lot about it in the press. But we do have our township version associated with Milnerton: Joe Slovo across the other side of Koeberg Road. We drove through it on Monday and, yes, it really does reflect life in townships such as Khayelitsha.

But we have a very good ex-Model C secondary school in Milnerton, which their children are able to attend, for which I am delighted, for the sake of their education. Our youngest son and, later, a grandson, were educated there. Our son is a principle lecturer in architecture at a British university, and our grandson is doing very well in information technology.

I understand that the Joe Slovo primary school is run quite well, too.

In my limited opinion, I believe that what remains of the effects of apartheid are largely the fault of the ANC, a political party which has wielded power in, arguably, the worst possible manner, with so-called cadre deployments and an appalling level of corruption, instead of with good, impeccable capable governance.

Just consider what we read about typical township education: whose basic fault is it that it’s generally so appallingly bad? The government’s, no less. Thus a 30 percent pass for matric? Who has previously ever heard of anything so ludicrous?

Khanya has a long way to go, and I have no doubt, and hope, that she will succeed. But, like it or not, she will have achieved her ambitions through white privilege, no less – one of the lucky ones over the past 21 years. I don’t make that remark to be clever, but to be pragmatic – because it’s nothing less than the truth.

And she must make full use of that privilege for the benefit of all South Africans.

I trust that Khanya will come to appreciate that the African continent cannot operate in isolation from the rest of the world, whether it’s the West, or the East where China dominates, having the greatest population and land area of any country.

And, like it or not, even the Chinese recognise that the West can’t be ignored. That’s why they would seem to go for English as a preferred second language, rather than some other European language. Well, the US obviously can’t be ignored, either.

But if there is concern about the remnants of apartheid still being apparent, then whatever government is ruling in future years has to ensure that the population is properly educated for them to be able to escape from it. Only then will apartheid truly become past history.

MIKE THURGOOD

Milnerton