The following was delivered by a Mosibudi Rassie Rasethaba at a panel discussion at the University of Pretoria on the 14th April 2016
“Good Afternoon fellow panellists, colleagues and fallists
When I was asked to be on this panel today I was a bit
reluctant as I believe that I was not in the right state of mind to have this
talk yet. I am still trying to figure out where the fallist movement is and
where it is going and what it really stands for. So do not expect too many
answers from what I will say here today and with that said, let me start off
with this.
“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or
betray it, in relative opacity.” This is a quote from the popular and widely
read Frantz Fanon.
I start off with this quote because I believe we have a
mission and it was long discovered before we were born. Our mission was
discovered by those that went before us. You can find them all over the African
continent, some are known but many have been erased from our collective memory.
These are the young women and men of Africa who refused to be the subjects and
servants of the Queens and Kings of Europe, who defied the unjust and brutal
rulership of Kings and Queens unknown to them. These are the Haitians that led
a revolution against the colonial masters.
Its 2016 and not much has changed from the colonial times.
Yes, we might have what we call a democratic country, access to universities
such as these but it is all the same. What we have today is a neo-colonial
system that is not run by monarchs but multi-national corporations, bankers and
Western powers. They dictate to the world, their colonies what they should do.
Like the old colonial system that was managed by the indigenous elites who
served the interests of their masters in Europe, the not so new system is
managed by Governments and heads of institutions such as our very own
University.
Now one of the question that was posed to us, is how the
University of Pretoria together with government reacted to the demands put
forward by the students? And the simple answer to that is that they responded
like any good manger of the colonial system would. The university together with
government responded to short term and immediate solutions to silence the
potential overthrow of the unjust system. They pacified the students by
throwing a 0% increase on fees and forming so called transformation committees
with no true intention to transform or in this case decolonize as the fallist
movement has imagined it.
The main focus of today’s discussion is decolonization of
the curriculum. But before I go into that I want to say it is impossible to
have a decolonized curriculum whilst we live in the colony. The so called
curriculum will serve no good to the people of the colony, because in order for
citizens to live and prosper in the colony they need the tools of the colony.
So what I am proposing here today is that we decolonize Africa. The land and
wealth must be returned to its rightful owners, and once that is done we can
start speaking. When the indigenous people of Africa reclaim back the land
their dignity and humanity will be restored and they will be able to speak on
issues that matter to them. At the current moment it is difficult and near
impossible to speak of a decolonized curriculum because academics know where
their bread and butter comes from. Teaching or producing any knowledge outside
of the dominant Eurocentric epistemology means no food on the table for you.
This puts academics in a very difficult position, even though they want to
deviate from the popular Eurocentric world view they are unable to.
With that said, I think focus needs to be put into the new
student movements or fallist movement. Those are the spaces where a decolonized
education needs to be taught. These are the spaces that help shape our thinking
in order to overthrow the current unjust system that seeks to benefit a select
few whilst marginalising and subjugating the majority. What is very evident is
that these progressive spaces themselves need some house cleaning, failure to
do so will only see a new group of elite intellectuals being produced. What the
fallist movement has taught us, is that colonialism and imperialism has
affected us violently in multiple and different ways. This means that whatever
knowledge that is being discussed and produced needs to be intersectional in
nature and be aware of how power and oppression operates on different levels.
This is in order for the overthrow of the current unjust system as to usher in
a new system that does not recreate the old oppressive and violent tendencies
of the colony.
The fallist movement finds itself in a very difficult
position. There isn’t one dominant guiding ideology, making it difficult for
unity thus slowing down the progress. However through open dialogue, honesty
and willingness to learn from each other the movement can achieve what those
that have gone before us have failed to do. Overthrow the colonial masters,
reclaim our humanity, dignity and the land.
To end off, I would like to say that if our movement cannot
speak to the gogo in Giyani, the girl in Kuruman, the miner in Marikana it is
a useless movement that is really not concerned with the true liberation of our
people.
It would be unfair of me to not acknowledge the
resistance that has been shown by our black sisters and brothers in the former
black universities, to our sisters in brothers in Rhodes must fall, Open
Stellenbosh, BSM, Transform Wits and other Progressive student formations such
as EFFSC and PASMA. Without their collective effort the project of
decolinisation would be limited to just a few. They have helped reawaken our
mission, but this time round we it is our duty as the daughters and sons of the
soil to complete the mission.”Mosibudi Rassie Rasethaba
