Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
Eastern Cape rural schools visit
I am in Mthatha with a delegation led by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, visiting various rural schools to draw attention to the inequalities in our education system and highlight the need for the formulation of detailed and precise norms and standards setting out, at the very least, the minimum conditions in which children will be able to learn with dignity.
I will write a more reflective piece when I get time. Meanwhile I post a few pictures taken yesterday.
At Putuma Junior Secondary School more than hundred children cram into one classroom. The school is known for its choir which won the national championship last year. This is a picture of one children in grade 9.
At Sea View Secondary School only 13% of matrics passed last year. These unfinished classrooms are being built by the community. Students waiting for fellow class mates to complete their lesson in the classroom they share, hang out in these unfinished classrooms.
