Critical Analysis of Racial Segregation at Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke

Devan Moonsamy

The first term of school this year has not gotten off to the best start for some children and their parents. At Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke in North West Province, a teacher has been suspended over racial segregation of children in a class. A photo was sent to parents by WhatsApp by the teacher which clearly shows a large group of white children seated together, and a few black children separated from the group at another desk. That’s a red flag, and a political protest was held outside the school.

But is this what people so quickly assume it to be? A number of explanations have surfaced. Firstly, this is simply the work of a racist teacher showing preference to the white children. Schweizer-Reneke is a town said to have deep racial divisions, and some say the teacher was even doing the right thing because of these tensions and because integration takes time.

Secondly, that the black children were new at the school and could not speak Afrikaans or English. Why this was in fact necessary was not made clear by the school. One reason could be that the children required a different teaching intervention which the teacher planned to give them in a small group setting. Separating learners according to needs in this way is a common practice and seems to make sense.

However, it is strange that the children who are said to need special attention are placed at the back of the class in the corner. Was it necessary to make them feel even more excluded in this way? It just doesn’t add up. MEC Sello Lehari who went in to address the situation has rejected this excuse and is investigating further.

Thirdly, it has been said that the children were allowed to sit where they wanted, and so the seating arrangements were their choice. This last reason is somewhat plausible because we do all tend towards ‘birds of a feather’ habits, and perhaps more so for young children in such a setting. But it would still seem unlikely that the children end up in the particular arrangement shown in the picture on their own. Does it not seem too well organised for these small children aged between four and six?

On social media, people were angered, and said it is unacceptable, while others say it is a ‘fake racial event’. Another teacher is to take the suspended teacher’s place, but some parents have already removed their children from the school.

Making an analysis this soon is difficult. More information is needed. However, I propose that it is the duty of the teacher in question and the school to make a formal apology at the very least for an insensitive way of arranging the children in the class. The teacher ought not to have placed the black children away from the others and at the back, especially if they needed more attention due to a language barrier.

Whether intentionally racist or not, it is highly offensive, and it is what we are supposed to be working very hard to prevent. Education has long been a site of racial contention, and we need to tread carefully. People of colour already feel marginalised in many settings. There is no need to throw that in their faces, and in such a personal way.

People are also naturally very protective of their own and other people’s children, and rightly so. It is not unfair to take to social media seeking public attention and comment on this photo. We need to debate this and ensure that children across South Africa are not subject to segregation or favouritism for any reason.

Let this be a warning to all teachers, educators, schools, colleagues, universities, trainers, etc. – we must be sensitised on these issues of racism in education.

Devan Moonsamy is the author of Racism, Classism, Sexism, And The Other ISMs That Divide Us, available from the ICHAF Training Institute.

The book tackles contemporary issues in the South African workplace, including a variety of diversity-related challenges and how these can be overcome. It is an excellent guide for managers to harnessing diversity for success.

ICHAF offers SETA-approved training in business skills, computer use, and soft skills. Devan specialises in conflict and diversity management, and regularly conducts seminars on these issues for corporates. To book a seminar with Devan or for other training courses, please use the contact details below.

Tel: 011 262 2461 | Email: devan@ichaftraining.co.za | Website: ichaftraining.co.za

By Devan Moonsamy

In an interview earlier this year, Jessica Horn, director of programmes at the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) voiced concern about the type of work African women are involved in, or, rather, the type of work that is thought to be suitable for them and into which they are often drawn due to low education levels.

Jessica Horn said that economic empowerment initiatives too often teach women to make handicrafts such as cheap beaded jewellery. The same may be said for men who make wooden carvings which they try to sell on the roadside. These women and men tend to make low-priced goods and work for relatively low pay. They often also rely on seasonal work, only making sufficient income when enough tourists are around. They are thus stuck in informal and unprotected employment, or in the so-called ‘gig economy’.

The market is flooded with African curios and artworks made by the nameless or, sometimes, they may even be sold for high prices under someone else’s name. Of course, the real creators aren’t credited for their creations, and a fair income doesn’t find its way to the creators either. If artworks don’t sell, it is also the creators who end up taking the blame, and sometimes they are forced to pay for this, and even to dismantle their unappreciated artworks. This problem echoes colonial exploitation and disparities in power.

As an example, one South African has other artists paint for them and then their signature is stamped on each painting. The real artist remains nameless. In other cases, it may be, for example, rural women who are taught to bake cookies or recycle materials into artworks for sale in the cities. On the surface, there is nothing wrong with this. Teaching baking and craft-making can mean some income for a person who had no chance at education and very few employment prospects.

However, as Jessica Horn emphasises, worthwhile projects must lead to increased income generation and greater political participation. They must have large-scale potential, and they must lead to women having significant economic and political power, enabling them to advocate for their political rights and engage on various platforms. Women must be able to grow their income over time, not remaining stagnant and stuck on low-wage work which benefits others more than it does themselves.

Kabelo Malatsie, director of Visual Arts Network of South Africa, fights for artists’ rights and is working to end the exploitation of struggling artists. She says that exploitation is rife and, in the fine art world, that there may be a mere 15 ‘good’ galleries in the whole country.

Among the concerns of activists like Horn and Malatsie are that artists need to be creative, working very hard to be original, have good administrative skills, and time to dedicate to both, as well as a support structure, and funding to get their artworks in the public eye. They also need to be adept in the use of social media, have good interpersonal skills, networks and confidence. Many artists can’t manage all this, they lose hope, and end up leaving the industry altogether, especially if they are tired of being invisible. Partners, commissioners, and employers of artists who do have certain other skills and funding end up taking all the credit for the artists’ work.

Jessica Horn of AWDF thus wants to change the traditional development model which is intended to promote women’s equality and empowerment. She explains: ‘Nobody likes being oppressed, but sometimes resisting carries too much loss, stigma, so a lot of people fear that.’ On the other hand, those who need to be resisted are more confident and have no qualms about using others.  She thus concludes that ‘it’s about being able to meet that attitude.’ This requires completely different skills to those traditionally taught to women.  Rather than teaching handicrafts (alone), women need confidence-building, administrative and business skills, entrepreneurial skills, job skills to help secure employment, and social media, communication and technology use skills. Training may need to begin with literacy and numeracy in some cases as well.

Devan Moonsamy is the author of Racism, Classism, Sexism, And The Other ISMs That Divide Us, available from the ICHAF Training Institute.

The book tackles contemporary issues in the South African workplace, including a variety of diversity-related challenges and how these can be overcome. It is an excellent guide for managers to harnessing diversity for success.

ICHAF offers SETA-approved training in business skills, computer use, and soft skills. Devan specialises in conflict and diversity management, and regularly conducts seminars on these issues for corporates. To book a seminar with Devan or for other training courses, please use the contact details below.

Tel: 011 262 2461 | Email: info@ichaftraining.co.za | Website: ichaftraining.co.za

By DevanMoonsamy

Will it work or will we be worse off?

The financial exclusion is a global problem with over 1 billion having no access to formal financial systems. But what does ‘formal financial system exclusion’ mean exactly? If people are choosing to hide their money under the mattress rather than bank it, it is perhaps understandable. Many governments have used socialist arguments to seize control of banks. This never goes well, and people lose their savings and investments.The banks are then very poorly run, bank staff are laid off or don’t get paid,and the institution ends up closing, at least to public access.

This is likely the way forward for South Africa in the long term since the government has taken serious steps to end private ownership of land. Recent developments may seem like a benign concession intended to help the poor, but history has shown over the past 200 and more years that these government policies always leave the poor in a worse off position. Government officials’ greed knows no bounds in such situations. Access to citizens’ banking system is a massive risk, and it is inevitably next on the agenda once land expropriation has been perpetrated.

The people of Russia and other Slavic nations,and many African nations struggle to this day because of these exact types of policies. Recently, Venezuela has tried to warn South Africans not to proceed with land expropriation because it leads to economic hardships, but politicians are about to get access to our land, and there seems to be nothing we can do to stop them. If they can change our Constitution once in this way, we can expect that politicians with divisive agendas will continue to do so, and we are on a road to losing more of our hard-won rights.

International community has tried to warn us but politicians are deaf

In2009, Venezuela began what South Africa is doing now, land grabs, but Venezuela’s situation only got worse and in a very short time. One problem Venezuela had at the outset was that it imported food rather than producing enough. It was believed that by getting land into government hands, it could then be given to the poor who would then grow more food. This sounds good in theory, but in practice, it is disastrous for many reasons.

Venezuela soon began buying even more food into the country than before. This sounds a lot like what has happened in Zimbabwe. Those with knowledge of history and foresight are worried about what is about to happen in South Africa. Experts even now feel that Venezuela is too far gone and a ‘lost cause’. Its poor are starving, and its labour skills have been drained as thousands have immigrated.

Among  the reasons why Venezuela failed in this endeavour was poor planning and decision-making. Farming is a complex, labour-intensive, and often highly specialised affair. If you have ever lived on a farm you will know this. It’s not a matter of sending cows off to graze in a meadow and milk flows abundantly, or of throwing seeds on the ground and returning a few months later to reap piles of food. Profitable or sustainable farming requires day and night vigilance, careful planning, intensive monitoring, and quick action at times to save cattle and crops. It often requires enormous investment which will not see a return for years, sometimes even decades, or it develops into very unfortunate and painful losses despite best efforts put in.

But the idea people have is that land access is a quick fix. Land somehow equates to wealth. This is not true. So much depends on what land and how it is cared for. Some land is not being used because it is unsuitable for farming, and thus people incorrectly think it is going to waste. Some is protected for wildlife – which we need far more than we think (for example,where do bees come from to pollinate our crops?).

Being given land, even with buildings on it, can even become a major burden. South Africa needs to do much more than simply give away land. We must very carefully prepare, select, train, and equip the right people to farm. Otherwise it will be disastrous. Not everyone is suited to the demands of farming or similar endeavours. We have a large urban population (65%) who is not actually keen on making a living that way.

Farming can certainly bring prosperity, but for some,it feels like a curse. In the UK, for example,some people have inherited large estates which have been in the family for generations, but it becomes a massive burden. They cannot sustain it, so they abandon it. Likewise, in many cases where people have won lavish homes,they cannot pay the electricity, water and taxes on the house and it also becomes a greater burden than their previous situation. Why not just sell it then? It’s not so simple. There isn’t always a market for it, and some laws bind a family to a property. Moving to a farm also makes great demands on individual families, sometimes ending in divorce as well as child labour.

This is not to say that poor people shouldn’t be helped, including with landownership. But we must be smart about it and ensure it is not a sunken investment which leaves South Africans worse off. Start-up funding and skills are just as important, probably more so,than land ownership. It is more important that people be trained and that any endeavour be meticulously planned with the help of experts. Will this happen?

Corruption will strangle hopes of land ‘reform’

Corruption also happened in the case of Venezuela by favouring candidates for landownership who were politically aligned and had some sway over voters. This only perpetuates the exclusion of the poor and is likely to happen in South Africa too.

Venezuela was once the wealthiest nation on the South American continent. South Africa is also the wealthiest and most advanced nation in Africa. But this may not last.Land expropriation has greater negative consequences than we people want to believe. Venezuelans soon found themselves queuing for six hours a day to get food.

In the coming years, we could slip down to being one of the poorest nations in Africa, importing food at high prices, with unbearable inflation. The poor just surviving on handouts from richer nations, and a massive brain drain the like of which we have never seen before, leaving us bereft of enough people who can try to clean up the mess.This does, however, leave some politicians in a very powerful and comfy position. A poor, hungry nation depending on food rations and without skills is easily controlled. This is a long-term political strategy which has worked very well for governments in the past. This all may sound quite foreign to some. Not in South Africa, that won’t happen…

A colleague of mine out-sourced some work to a man from Kenya a while ago. When it came time to pay him, he sent an urgent email asking not to be paid yet. The bank he was with had just been seized by the government, supposedly for‘national interests’. He could not access his account and the branches were closed. His savings were out of reach including the money he put away for his children’s school fees. What could he do? The money was paid into a friend’s bank account and immediately withdrawn.A relatively small amount to try keep the family going until the next job came along.

Ifwe think we as South Africans are somehow above such things, we are far too overconfident or naïve. What is perhaps most sad about this situation is that no independent banks means that we cannot conduct international trade. Online businesses will not be able to operate in such an environment. EFT payments are impossible, let alone forex trade, and what will we revert to?Cash and cheques perhaps, or some say cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which are not particularly safe options. The Internet has been opening up many opportunities for the unemployed youth, and we are giving those away before they really have a chance to establish themselves.

Learn how to use positive peer pressure to protect diversity in your workplace

Devan Moonsamy

It seems that executives are dropping like flies due to diversity-related disasters. I am too often involved in reactive responses to diversity problems, especially those related to race. More often than not, the destruction caused by colleagues’ refusal to get along merely on the basis ofc olour is completely unnecessary.

The clean-up for HR and people managers is daunting. People dig their heels in and refuse to see reason. Sometimes people lose their jobs for the silliest of things. There is serious racism from all directions which destroys careers and sometimes unnecessarily. South Africans need to acknowledge that if they are too easily offended by people’s comments and behaviour, the problem actually lies with them.

Good diversity relations can be established in the most heterogeneous of groups through diversity training designed for the South African workplace. We must work towards solidly cemented relationships and reaching mutual understanding.

One way we can manage diversity well is by learning to effectively apply peer pressure in a positive way. This is something that can be taught in training sessions with high success. Preventing interpersonal problems by bringing people together in a neutral space to learn how to self-manage and manage others in diverse contexts is a winning formula.

Still, interventions are too often reactive, and it is too late to build good relationships and teach the healthy habits of placing positive peer pressure on those around us and ourselves. How do we do so? How does positive peer pressure work? It requires five key elements:

• Be a good rolemodel in your speech and actions. Display maturity in your reactions and decision-making, even in difficult situations.
• In-group admonition. Calling a person out immediately when something offensive has been said or done is sometimes preferable, especially when the victim – a genuine victim and not someone playing the role – needs to be championed. The offender must know what they said or did was wrong. Delaying the reprimand delays the consequences that must be felt by the offender. If the matter is not dealt with swiftly, it will escalate. However, this is no time for everyone to climb on the bandwagon and start attacking someone who made a slip up.
• Peer-to-peer admonition. Apply positive peer pressure by taking othersaside afterwards. Analyse the situation with them and work towards constructivegoals to make amends for the wrong and prevent reoccurrences. This is done withthe victim and with the offender separately, and together, as appropriate.  
• Focus on new constructive goals. Encourage peopleto see beyond their own hang-ups, neuroses, complexes and over-sensitiveness. Setnew goals for interpersonal relationships, and to build respect andunderstanding among colleagues.
• Protect the disciplinary process from abuse. Ensure legitimate cases are takenseriously and individuals are not victimised through the processes.

We really need to be more careful in the use of the disciplinary process in race relations. People of colour need to be taken seriously when they have true grievances. By harping on small issues and making mountains out of molehills, those with real grievances are undermined. Less time is available to devote to those genuine grievances and to other critical programmes such a steam building.

Eventually, no one takes the person who repeatedly cries ‘Racist!’ seriously. Even when they have a genuine grievance, they won’t be taken seriously and supported. People of colour are poorly treated at times by racists. However, it is in your best interests to play your ‘race card’ carefully. You may only get one chance and, if it’s not legitimate, your reputation will be ruined.

Don’t wait for diversity issues to destroy interpersonal relationships and careers at your organisation. Train your staff on how to manage diversity,steer clear of race-related offences and towards optimum productivity and healthy workplace relationships.  

Book a seminar with diversity specialist Devan Moonsamy from the ICHAF Training Institute.

Devan has also recently published a book on the topic of diversity in the South African context entitled Racism,Classism, Sexism, And The Other ISMs That Divide Us (ISBN: 978-0-620-80807-1). Order copies for your managerial staff directly from ICHAF. It is specially designed for the needs of contemporary South African workplaces. It offers valuable insight into diversity-related challenges.

The book looks at overcoming instant separation magnets (ISMs), and how to manage diversity so that everybody wins. The aspects of diversity are considered in detail with real examples and practical information on dealing with and preventing diversity-related problems.

Tel: 011 262 2461

Email: devan@ichaftraining.co.za

Website: ichaftraining.co.za