Secret to surviving, and thriving, amid squalor and hardship

Why do some communities lift themselves up from squalor and hardship and others simply wallow in their misery?

It is a question that has preoccupied my mind in recent times as I move around the country and see exceptional character in one community and unbelievable degradation in another.

On the one hand, you have 82-year-old Modiakgotla Jacob Kgothule, a retired school principal from Virginia in the Free State, who runs an aftercare programme for children that helps them with their homework until their parents come home from work.

On the other hand, thieves are literally stripping the metal off electricity pylons that this week plunged parts of Pretoria into darkness.

The little bit of social psychology in my background tells me that if we can figure out what makes Kgothule spend his retirement years uplifting poor communities, then maybe we can transfer those insights to those who do nothing or, worse, rob us blind.

Last week I was invited to launch my book Corrupted at a school in Bonteheuwel on the Cape Flats.

I have two memories of the place from my youth.

One, the memory of a dangerous, gang-ridden place you try to avoid at all costs, then and now.

Another memory is that this area produced one of the most courageous youth-led, anti-apartheid forces, the Bonteheuwel Military Wing (BMW),  from which parts came heroes like Ashley Kriel and Coline Williams.

Now, years later, things still looked bleak as I entered Bonteheuwel, defying its name meaning brightly colourful hills.

Apartheid had this habit of giving dour places ironic names.

At the gates of Modderdam High School sat a young man hurling vomit, high on something, I told myself. And then the miracle.

Inside the school was one of the most beautiful libraries I had seen anywhere in the country.

It was spacious and colourful, simple yet elegant, welcoming and well-organised with a modest but impressive stock of books.

The pupils were immaculately dressed, and the teachers attended the early evening event alongside members of the community.

The pupil leadership managed the proceedings and then something else struck me:  the diversity of the school — Muslim and Christian, foreign national and locals, Coloured and African.

I was thrilled. This is the kind of South African school people died for in Bonteheuwel, I told myself.

For two hours the audience engaged me on the ideas in the book. Why are universities corrupt?

Are they any different from other state-owned enterprises, so to speak? Is there still hope to turn things around?

The pupils’ questions were particularly good during and after the formal talk.

It was almost time for Iftar, the breaking of the fast, and so I tried to wrap up the formal presentation.

The pupils run the library committee with such aplomb and yet, if I had interviewed each of them, I would no doubt have heard stories of hardship.

On my way to the car, happily exhausted from signing books and talking education, another little miracle.

Huge pots of food were being laid out for the hungry and the poor in the surrounding community.

Sadaqah, my Muslim friends call this act of generosity, where you share what you have with those around you, all for a higher purpose.

Here the school and the community were fused together through this beautiful act that combined charity, compassion and education as if it was the most natural thing to do.

Here, I thought, was the answer to my starting question. Where communities lift themselves up from hardship, at least three things must be in place.

One, a strong sense of steering values which in this case comes from a quiet but demonstrative inter-faith community. 

Two, a commitment to education beyond examination performance, one in which reading books is highly valued, as evident in the library infrastructure built from the ground up.

Three, the visible presence of on-the-ground leadership which comes from the lead teachers and the pupil committees which guide this democratic school.

Modderdam High was battered under apartheid and grossly neglected after apartheid; here its given name was cruelly on point, dam of mud, to match nearby Modderdam Road, which thankfully has been renamed as Robert Sobukwe, running all the way to the University of the Western Cape.

And yet, despite the intertwined history of past suppression and current neglect, the young and older leadership of this school decided that there were not victims of the past, that they were invested with agency, and that they could make a difference at Modderdam High and in the surrounding community.

As I drove off the school grounds, the hurling young man was still lying near the entrance throwing up something.

Why would he lie here, given the vast expanses of Bonteheuwel?

Maybe he knows that this school might be his only hope.