Organised labour’s selfish acts anger many

I WAS preparing my weekly newspaper article when a young woman with a loud voice and roaring like a lion knocked on my door: “Your generation is selfish, you know what a graduation means to a person but each time Unisa invites us to a graduation ceremony, you stage an industrial action to sabotage our future, we are angry with your generation.”

She impressed upon me that her graduation at Unisa has been postponed more than three times due to the industrial action by National Education Health and Allied Workers Union. She showed me the perpetual message she receives from the Unisa each time the graduation is postponed: “Please note that the Graduation ceremonies for 3, 4 and 5 May at both 10:00 and 18:00 have been postponed till further notice. New date will be communicated in due course.”

I felt the knifing pain of the students who have been deprived of an opportunity to graduate by organised labour. I became worried about the destructive nature of the black race and the morality empty nest that will be bequeathed to the future generations.

I agree with Professor Xolela Mangcu’s sentiments on blind industrial action: “Biko died and we are left with trade unions that are actively destroying the education of black children.” One may safely say the unions are also destroying the morale and confidence of black children.

Any person who has laid their hands on Booker T Washington’s autobiography titled, Up from Slavery, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, written in 1900, would attest to two facts: first, the whole slavery machinery was an acute crime against the human race and second, education is the greatest equaliser.

Few South Africans know that slavery was not only an exercise of hobbling someone with chains of hard labour, it was also an exercise of dehumanising people by prohibiting them from writing and reading the Bible. By depriving our young people an opportunity to graduate, the black race is drifting back into self-servitude.

Kwame Nkrumah had no money to pay for his tuition fees in 1935 when he studied at Lincoln University but he had the nerve to persuade the dean to give him a chance. When Booker T Washington saw white boys and girls in class he mused: “I had a feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.”

The unions are preventing a black child from entering paradise. The long frustrated wish of emancipated slaves was to first acquire education and thereafter, they could do the rest. Ironically, we want to do the rest while relegating education to the background.

SJ Khosa composed the song Univhesithi ya Afrika Dzonga – The university of South Africa, in which he lauded Unisa as the mother of all South African universities. I hope that he is not rolling in his grave since Unisa is now a mother of all chaos.

All Unisa stakeholders should embrace Dr Ignor Grossman’s five pillars of wisdom: Seek opportunities to resolve conflicts, seek compromise, recognise the limits of personal knowledge and emotions, accept that more than one perspective may be relevant and accept that things may get worse before they get better.

My generation must exercise enough caution when dealing with the youth because of the looming time bomb. I stood accused for my generational mistakes. I pray that this anger does not turn into rage.