Unknown dangers

While in Mbotyi I interviewed the teachers of Mbotyi Junior Secondary School. That is, I tried to interview them, but they wouldn’t give me their names. Why, I asked them. Why don’t you want to be quoted?

They certainly had plenty to complain about and had spent about 15 minutes showing and telling me what was wrong with their school: no electricity so no photocopiers, computers or phones; no proper furniture - desks designed for infants are being used by teenagers; and no classroom for Grade 8 who have to be educated outside.

“We are still living in the past,” said one. “There has been no changes at all. It’s just like before [1994].”
“It’s all empty promises. We are just the step ladders to get them into power,” said another. "They always blame the apartheid era. They put the blame on other, but it is them.”
“We are not paid according to our worth. There are so many things promised to get, and we don’t get. It’s not that we like that [going on strike], it’s because we don’t see any other alternatives to force the government to do it.”

With such strong views, why don’t they want their voices to be heard?

Again they refused to tell me why.

“Are you afraid of something?” I asked. “Are you afraid you will lose your jobs or be attacked if you speak out?”

Still they wouldn’t answer. I pushed again. And again.

“You journalists,” said one with a glint in her eye. “You are always digging.”

“But why – explain it to me,” I said, exasperated.

“We are afraid of the unknown,” said one, finally.

That’s all she would say.

I remembered this conversation this morning while reading an opinion piece by Mvume Dandale, COPE’s parliamentary leader in the Sunday Times, headlined “ANC goal is to stifle all critical debate”.

His list of stifling tactics include the Ministry of Police demanding recently that crime statistics be debated in private, the Minister of Justice refusing to share information about the latest arms deals of the government, and expulsion from parliament of COPE MP Mlukeli George. All pretty high-level stuff, but if you can’t have critical debate in the very corridors created for it, what hope is there for civil servants down on the bottom rungs?

That's definitely unknown.