Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci advised that one should always exercise pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. As the Bell family flew from New Zealand in 1980 to start the ANC’s primary school in Tanzania, I exercised only optimism. This was based on a series of wished-for assumptions which I passed on to Barbara and the children. Reality ultimately provided a huge shock.
When we had been forced out of Zambia in 1970, I feared the ANC might implode, given the tensions and corruption that existed. And when, in the wake of the 1976 rebellion in South Africa, the ANC announced the establishment of a school for exiles, I idealistically added two and two together – and made a rapid six or seven.
Later, after checking in at the ANC office, promised transport to take us to the bus station failed to arrive and we managed to get to Morogoro in the afternoon, partly via a ride hitched with a local accountant. But the local ANC office was closed. Hours after nightfall we finally managed to find a taxi driver who knew where Mazimbu was and who drove us there.
It was also only much later that we realised we had walked into the middle of a protracted battle between ANC nationalists and communists. In our simplistic analysis at the time, it was only Us and the apartheid enemy. Anyone not for Us must be working for “the other side”. So, the scene was set for a series of battles, most of which we would lose, although we based our arguments on the expressed policies of the ANC and on the published decisions of that 1980 education council.
These ANC policies applied in particular to discipline and, expressly, to banning the use of corporal punishment. But, once the council ended and the dignitaries had departed, policies and principles were ignored. At a mass meeting on the use of corporal punishment, I quoted various studies and historical precedents about the harmful nature of corporal punishment. I was castigated, among other things, for “reading too much”.
A similar demand existed regarding any “cultural production” such as plays. And when a student and young former touring actor, Kush Mudau, fell foul of this, his play,was workshopped at night in the primary school. It was produced as a “surprise event” in the newly built school hall – and was hailed. It subsequently – shortly after we had left Somafco in 1982 – toured the Netherlands and Scandinavia, raising the profile of the ANC.
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