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Tom Mhlanga, Personal Capacity, 24 June 2014 Let us support SADTU's call to make History Compulsory The call by the South African Democratic Teachers' Union to make History a compulsory subject should be supported without fear or favour. History is indeed one of the most important subject that can assist the country to deal with wounds of the past. It is not surprising that some sections of the white minority do not see this as a very sacrosanct matter. DA in particular has demonstrated that they do not support this call, they want pupil to be taught the same irrelevant history, the Western one in particular. The reality here is that there are no blank pages in history and South Africa is one of the countries that have a rich history. Though some would want us to believe that our history started with the arrival on the settlers with their master Jan van Riebeeck, in fact our history started long before their arrival. We understand that those who are against this call are scared of telling the real story of South Africa and of course this story include among others, the stealing of our land and cattle by the white colonizers. Some even went to the extent of claiming that when the whites settled in Mzansi, the land was unoccupied. This is just wrong to the extreme. The biggest fear is that no one can tell the story of South Africa without mentioning the ANC and its alliance partners' role they play in the liberation of this country after more than 300 years of colonialism and more than 5 decades of apartheid. They want the people of South Africa to forget everything and just focus on the future as if the future is delinked from the past. We have seen how the likes of the DA and the main stream media tried very hard to distance Dr Nelson Mandela from his role in the congress movement and yet these are the same people who use to call him a terrorist. The 'know your DA campaign' was another attempt to re-write the story of South Africa. Truth is that they never played any role in the liberation of this country. They are just a product of Black (and some few white) people's sacrifice in the struggle against Colonialism of a Special Type and apartheid. Young people in particular should demand and support SADTU's call in this regard, after all it in their best interest to do so. No country will ever go forward if it does not understand where it comes from. In the case of South Africa there is no such thing as levelling the playing field. Our wounds of the past are still in the process of healing. It is not surprising that many South Africans cannot even sing the national anthem; they are not very patriotic when it comes to the country. These are some of the results of failing to tell the real story of South Africa but we are too quick to learn about Napoleon and the rest which does not impact a lot on the ordinary South African. Those who are against this call should be ashamed of themselves; but then we understand that most of them are not even born South Africans. They are only here because the colour of the skin provided them with better opportunities than their Black counterparts. It is for this reason they find it befitting to call Black people 'dogs', 'poephols' and 'clowns'. They do not appreciate where we come from as a nation because to them it does not matter. The Minister of Basic Education must urgently intervene and speedily formalises the Bill to make History compulsory. After all this is our history whether they like it or not it should not be our issue. Those who are not comfortable with this must feel free to use their VISAS, after all no one is forced to live in South Africa. INDLELA IHLOBILE!!! - Tom Mhlanga is a BA student at Wits, writing in his personal capacity. 076 813 2613 / 078 708 7859 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
