World

Does

ANC educates South Africans
forced to flee persecution

In Tanzania sits a large school and com-
munity that would be a likely target for a
South African bomb or military trade, if it
weren't for the bad publicity such a raid
would bring.

Balungile Shembe is a graduate of that
school. Somewhat shy but plain-talking, the
young South African refugee says
SOMAFCO provides an alternate to the
inferior education granted black students at
home.

Therefore it is considered dangerous to
the country’s white minority rulers, says
Shembe, who was in Vancouver recently
while touring Canada with two other young
people.

The curriculum at SOMAFCO — the

) Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College —
_ includes the sciences and English, crucial
_ subjects denied most young Native South

Africans, she relates.
¢ former student activist in Capetown

_ has few kind words for the South African
_ education system as young blacks know it.

vides no books or laboratories, and no
career guidance “so students soon lose
interest in what they’re doing at school.”
School for blacks is neither free nor
compulsory — which it is for all white
children — and suffers from overcrowd-
ing, she says. ;

The regime also tries to force black stu-
dents to learn Afrikaans, the Dutch-derived
language spoken by some of the country’s
ruling whites, but virtually unknown out-
side South Africa. Black students instead
favour English, “the language of communi-
cation with the outside world,” Shembe
asserts.

But at SOMAFCO, South African refu-
gees can obtain a well-rounded education
from among the school’s five sectors:
nursery, primary and secondary schools,
adult education and orientation. -

The school, named after a young African
National Congress activist hanged by the
racist regime in 1979, received its inspiration
by the Soweto uprisings three years earlier.

if the government knows you are involved, you are
subject to all sorts of brutalities. And there was pressure

“It is within the laws of the apartheid

_ system that the Native child is going to get

an education that will make him a slave. It is

_ the kind that will prevent him from running
_ the country himself, so he must serve to get

by in life.”
The system Shembe grew up with pro-

_ on my parents, who were not involved, from the authori-
_ ties. knew my parents would continue to face all kinds
~ of difficulties if I stayed.

Protests in the streets by unarmed black-
students in the sprawling black township
outside the capital, Johannesburg, arose
over the very lack of education SOMAFCO
is designed to address. The subsequent vio-
lent putdown of the protest by security for-
ces made refugees of many young South

Africans.

The ANC began work on the school,
located on an abandoned plantation at
Mazimbu, near Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,
in 1979. Tanzania’s socialist government
donated the space, and the project has
gained the support of several organiz-
ations — most notably, churches — world-
wide. ;

When the school started, it was a humble
project. Now, though, it enrolls 300-400
students each in the primary and secondary
sectors, contains several workshops and
maintains an agricultural facility. It is
spread out through more than 40 buildings.

The school’s hospital, built by The
Netherlands, is staffed by Cuban doctors
and nurses from Nigeria. They represent a
fraction of the governmental and non-
governmental aid SOMAFCO receives.

“Tt’s not like the early Eighties. When we
left (South Africa) then it was unclear to us
what we faced. Now people have a place to
go,” says Shembe.

Shembe says the orientation centre helps
refugees overcome depression and feelings
of hopelessness, “which they usually do,
when they see what the ANC has to offer.”

Shembe was a student activist in Natal
Province in 1981 when she decided to leave
South Africa. :;

“If the government knows you are
involved, you are subject to all sorts of bru-
talities. And there was pressure on my par-
ents, who were not involved, from the
authorities. I knew my parents would con-
tinue to face all kinds of difficulties if I
stayed.”

Shembe left, travelling through Swazi-
land and other countries until she finally
enrolled at the school in 1982.

The ANC sees the school not only as
achieving the immediate goals of educating
students away from home, but as a model of
education to be implemented ina free South

4 i
..- school thrives

BALUNGILE SHEMBE.
with international aid.
Africa, she relates.

South African troops frequently make
raids against ANC refugee camps and offi-
ces in other African countries, and recently
upped the stakes with the assassination of a
congress representative in Paris.

The school constantly receives invasion
threats, but so far is unmolested. “The focus
of international attention probably protects
it,” Shembe observes.

The graduate student plans to work in
the school’s production facilities until she
receives an anticipated scholarship. She
notes that several graduates of SOMAFCO
are attending universities in Canada.

She and graduates Jacob Motswaledi
and Khaya Dlula have been travelling
across Canada and meeting with supporters
as part of the 1988 Youth Against Apar-
theid tour, organized by the Inter-Church |

TRIBUNE PHOTO — DAN KEETON

Coalition on Africa.

Working class leading Palestinian insurrection

The Western media may want to char-
acterize developments in the occupied ter-
ritories as children throwing stones, but
Israel knows “this is a popular uprising
which will not end until its goals are
reached,” says a Palestinian activist.

Behind the stone throwing is a sophisti-
cated organization, stresses Rana Nasha-
shibi. “Officially, the unrest has been
blamed on a few ‘instigators,’ but the
uprising would not have lasted so long or
spread so far if it had been confined to one
faction or involved just one strata of the
population.”

She calls it ‘a unique happening — a
national movement involving workers,

women, young people and the elderly.” |

Strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and
street confrontations are all part of the
building pressure aimed at bringing Israel
to the negotiating table.

The working class is key to the struggle,
Nashashibi says. This is why their leaders
have been targeted. Over 60 per cent of
those killed in the almost five months of
fighting have been union activists. Half the
executive members of the General Council
of Trade Unions are under arrest.

A student counsellor, Nashashibi is on
the executive of the Union of Palestinian
Working Women Committees. Formed in
1981, the organization encourages women
to become active in their unions and pro-
motes child care and other services for
women workers.

McCuaig

In addition to providing the social ser-
vices the Israeli state won’t, the commit-
tees help women adjust psychologically to
the workplace.

Paid labour is a new phenomena for the
Palestinian woman, who was forced into
the labour market following the 1967
occupation. “It was a premature step,”
Nashashibi explains. “‘While it helped
women to mature politically, it has also
left them on the lowest rung in the work-
place.” —

The burden of occupation falls very
heavily on the Palestinian woman. Many
find themselves the sole support of fami-
lies where the men are dead, jailed or
exiled. But even married women are enter-
ing the workplace, pushed out of the home
by rising living costs. On the job, Palestini-
ans, both women and men, labour under a
structure not unlike the one used to con-
tain Blacks in South Africa.

Following the occupation, Israel des-
troyed the agrarian-based economy of the

Kerry

territories by diverting water supplies and
prohibiting the drilling of wells.

Farm families were forced into refugee
camps and villages where they form a
cheap labour pool of migrant labour.
Laws prevent Palestinians from entering .
Israel without special permits, and they
are not permitted in the country after cur-
few. It is therefore not uncommon for
workers to spend four hours a day being
bussed to and from Israeli factories.

The apartheid structures continue
inside the plants. A Palestinian’s wage
averages 48 per cent of her Israeli counter-
part. The Israeli labour federation, the
Histradut, bars Palestinian membership;
as a result they are not entitled to the
benefits won by the union, including
maternity leave, pensions, compensation
or paid holidays. Palestinian workers do,
however, pay dues to the Histradut — $6-
billion over the past 20 years.

This is typical of Palestinian-Israeli rela-
tions, says Nashashibi. Despite the brutal-

ity of the occupation, the average Israeli
has not been moved to challenge his or her
government’s actions.

Israel is a nation at war; to maintain the
fervour against the “enemy” it employs a
propaganda machine Goebbels would
envy. “The Palestinian has been so dehu-
manized in the eyes of the Israeli, the
atrocities can continue without protest,”
Nashashibi says.

The only voice for justice inside the
country is the Rakah, the Israeli Commu-
nist Party, which has consistently called
for recognition of the Palestinian Libera-
tion Organization and the establishment
of an independent Palestinian state.

The peace movement, Nashashibi con-
tends “is not doing its job.” Groups such
as Peace Now have been noticeably silent
during the confrontation. Their main mes-
sage has been to encourage the Palestini-
ans to “surrender — then we’ll negotiate.

“The government constantly feeds. the
people the message that a Palestinian state
will lead to the destruction of Israel,” she
explains. “This is another type of racism, it
says the Palestinian is aggressive, that we
don’t want peace and won’t honour any
agreement which is reached.”

On the contrary, Nashashibi says,
Palestinians have shown their willingness
to negotiate and to establish a just peace
with Israel, one recognizing the sover-
eignty and integrity of both nations.

Pacific Tribune, May 18, 1988 « 9