Friends & Friction: It’s time to put our children first

Here at the 1820 Settlers’ Monument I stand. On the precinct is an old fort with uninterrupted views to forever, with two decommissioned canons that are facing Makana’s Skop in the east. Apparently, this is where Makana appeared with his army when attacking Lieutenant Colonel John Graham, or defending his country from British invaders.

Tonight the full moon is out, but the storm clouds act as a screen and light the scene to evoke a spooky feeling as if this were a black-and-white horror movie. The trees, the shrubs, the grass and the buildings look like they have been nourished by human blood, and the howling winds sound like lamenting voices of the unrested dead – spirits of the young and bitter who feel that they have died in vain.

Makana was captured of course, and sent to Robben Island. A true rebel, he and his army disarmed the prison guards, took the boats and rowed for the mainland. He capsized and drowned. I have heard different versions about Makana. Someone once told me that this was an Anglicised version of his name. His real name, he said, was “Makhanda”.

Although the person who told me this was a revolutionary, he was a computer science student and not a historian. Another version came from a princess of the Tshawe clan. She said his real name was Maqoma, and she once showed me pictures of him that were taken on Robben Island.

Shackled on the neck, hands and legs, and tied together with other men, perhaps deliberately demonised by the photographer, his eyes looked violent and fiery like those of the king of beasts ready to strike at anything it despises.

If every photograph tells a story, then the photographer sought to say: “You are safer when this man is in chains.”

The latter has been the story of our country, that the freedom of some can only be guaranteed if that of others is curtailed, which is why public roads are gated and manned by private armies. It is all done under the guise of controlling crime, but the undertones are both audible and direct.

Grahamstown, Rhini or Makana City, depending on which side of history you take, is a city of great inequality. There is no industry. It is dependent on Rhodes University and a few private boarding schools, which the locals can hardly afford. If young people want a better life they must leave the city, so condemning it to a constant brain haemorrhage.

Those who stay have to get government jobs or join the reserve army of servants and menial labourers. Often they wait and wait. Hope, with all its virtues, can break a spirit if it is unfulfilled, and you see this clearly in Grahamstown and many other places in this country. You see many young people, walking and begging in the streets, while high on methylated spirits.

Life happens, children are born, and the cycle starts all over again.

It’s time we changed the way we treat our young. Let’s put them first, and give them skills to become good citizens. So let us introduce compulsory national or community service for all young South Africans. This will give them the skills to work as a team. They will also get to live with their fellow countrymen and countrywomen from all walks of life, both rich and poor, and from different religious backgrounds, and that is how the historical divisions will crumble. The fear, the distrust and lack of opportunity cannot be the legacy that we leave our children.

If that sounds unreasonable in these trying times, then it is precisely the right thing to do. We have to make unreasonable demands on ourselves if we want to see our children progress.

Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive, an advertising agency.