Mutumwa Mawere

On 15 November 2009, I wrote my first installment of 30 articles with no idea of what the full collection would look like.

Today's article is the last one and for those who have followed the series, I sincerely hope that you have enjoyed the journey and more importantly the joy of sharing my own insights into the complex issues that challenge us as we try to advance the cause of human development and progress in Africa.

Knowledge is power and as Michel Foucault, the late French philosopher, sociologist and historian correctly argued, knowledge and power are like two sides of the same coin, it is important that we focus on tackling the role of knowledge production in affecting and constituting power relations in Africa.

We all want our leaders to be wise and compassionate. If the people with power were to be foolish then the people who do not have power will be discouraged from aspiring for higher positions in society.

Why education? Education does matter. I was privileged to attend a fund raising dinner on Friday, 21 May 2010, hosted by the Jacob G. Zuma RDP Education Trust http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=167176&id=540343576&ref=mf.

The moving speech by President Zuma made me to think about the role of everyday knowledge in society, the relationship between knowledge and power, knowledge and resistance, knowledge and poverty; and knowledge and politics.

We live in interesting times. The most advanced and affluent African state; is led by a person born in rural Nkandla, Zululand, who barely remembers his father who died when he was still a young boy and whose mother was a domestic worker. He only attended school up to standard 3 (the 5th grade at school) and did not receive any formal education after primary school.

His long journey to statehouse compels us to pause and reflect on the complex interplay between education and power.

We also have a President of the most powerful state on earth, the United States of America (USA), President Obama, who went to all the right schools and yet can never de-link himself from his African heritage. There was very little in his upbringing that prepared him to hold the office that he now holds.

I had no idea that in 1993, before the change of government in South Africa, President Zuma launched the Jacob Zuma RDP Education Trust that was officially registered in 1998 with a seed capital of R500,000 which was provided by the provincial government of the KZN where he was the Member of the Executive Committee of the province under the RDP discretionary fund.

At the dinner, President Zuma justified why he chose to target the funds towards education.

He had been deprived of education and his personal experiences taught him to value the critical importance of education.

There are many of us who have the luxury to describe ourselves as educated but rarely take time to think about the state of mind of those who because of financial, political and social reasons could not access education.

How do they really feel? Do they feel adequate when we talk about which university we attended? How do they feel when we ignore the plight of those who want to access education but cannot because the doors are closed due to financial constraints?

In the case of South Africa, President Zuma told the story that education was used as a tool to subjugate minds.

He is a product of informal education and his ascendancy to the mountaintop of South African politics must then be seen in the context of what the man has had to endure in a market that attempts to link formal education and wisdom.

We were informed that over 3,000 South Africans have benefited from the trust and this year alone the trust is supporting about 900 out of 4,000 eligible students that applied.

It is easy to take for granted what education means in terms of human dignity and confidence.

The fact that President Zuma did not have the kind of formal education that we expect from our leaders did not discourage members of the African National Congress from selecting him as their choice for the highest office in the land.

Some of us close our minds when our personal interests are met. The educated people belong to their own box and rarely do they attempt to think outside the box that life places them.

What Africa requires is for people who are outside this box of comfort to raise their consciousness on what needs to happen to make Africa the kind of society they would want to live in.

Is it not ironic that a person who never benefited from formal education finds himself as the champion of educating the African mind?

It would be easy for him to preach the gospel that formal education does not matter using his experiences but alas we find him even before his name captured the attention of millions of South Africans being a strong advocate of the cause of education in Africa.

If President Zuma can find time and resources to focus on one of the greatest disease that confronts and retards African progress, ignorance, the question is what are the African professionals and elites doing about this challenge.

The 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868) who became the Lord Chancellor of the UK eloquently captured the place of education in society by saying: "Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave."

Like President Zuma observed, the third President of the USA (1801-1809, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and one of the most influential founding fathers of the idea called America, correctly observed that: "Enlighten the people generally, tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."

Mr. Jefferson's successor, Mr. James Madison, also considered one of the founding fathers of the USA, observed that: "Learned institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people.

They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on public liberty."

The 6th President of the Supreme Executive of the Council of Pennsylvania and one of the founding fathers of the USA, eloquently observed that: "If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him.

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
The minds of the founding fathers of the USA were clearly occupied with the construction of a new democratic constitutional order.

They had no choice but to confront the issue of knowledge building and how such an investment dove tailed with the kind of social contract they wanted to put in place.

The observation that the USA was an idea whose nobility and genius was to be founded in the ability to give confidence to the citizen that with freedom and knowledge everything was possible and doable.

As Africans, we all now know that there is no value in a long walk to freedom without investing in the means to make the freedom real.

Ignorance and poverty are good friends and our job is to increase the number of people in the box of knowledge.
President Zuma has demonstrated through non-formal means that education can be acquired if the will power exists.

He has is a keen listener because it is only through absorbing other people's knowledge and experiences that makes him smart yet we have many so-called educated people who refuse to listen to others because they believe that they know everything.

South Africa has produced 4 Presidents in the first 16 years of its independence. He is the first President of South Africa not to have matriculated. The fact that South Africans chose him as the Fourth President, says a lot about his tenacity and character.

The Constitution of South Africa provides for any citizen to be a President. The founding fathers of the USA were acutely aware that they needed to put in place an institutional framework that could allow any citizen to occupy the highest office in the land but it was vital that an investment be made in education and knowledge building.

By understanding President Zuma's life experiences, we will appreciate where his humility comes from.

Apartheid can be rightly blamed for his lack of formal education but there are millions who remain outside the box of formal education in post-colonial Africa.

The size of the box will not be expanded by the actions of state actors alone but by all our actions.

What can we do to complement the efforts of people like President Zuma? He observed that the only guarantee to a better and secure life in Africa must be located in education.