Musings on learning and transformation with an alumni lens (Part 2)
By Ján Michalko
with Ben, Dela, Isadora, Jess, and Tamzin
This is the second instalment of a two-part essay series in which Ján reflects on the role of inter-generational dialogue and learning with the help of our friends and colleagues from around the world. Focusing on crises and transitions, it shows how schools and young people engage in difficult conversations on histories and social justice and how alumni play a role in the process of social transformation.
“Ignorance of history serves many ends. Sometimes it papers over the crimes of the present by attributing too much power to the past. Perhaps more often, it covers up past crimes in order to legitimise the way society is arranged in the present.”
These words are from the pen of Simukai Chigudu, a professor of African politics at Oxford University. In his article for the Guardian, published in early 2021, Professor Chigudu critically analyses his experiences growing up in Rhodesia, present day Zimbabwe, and getting educated in the UK. He situates himself in the context of his school, St George’s, as well as the historical political processes, leading him to the forefront of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.
Rhodes Must Fall took South Africa and the UK by a storm. And it is very much ongoing. In and out of the university classrooms it continues because the statue of colonialist brute Cecil Rhodes still stands at Oriel College and because higher education is far from being decolonized. It persists alongside other initiatives which tackle how we learn and understand history, such as the Black Curriculum or Why Is My Curriculum White.
Building on the giants of various liberation struggles, they are a manifestation of the long durée of struggles of people of colour* to reveal one-sided narratives of the past, which silence the disempowered and erase the marginalized. Coming to terms with these histories is sometimes purposely resisted with the help of the label ‘post’ as it is tied to colonisation and coloniality. ‘Post-colonial’, as well as ‘post-socialist’ that I encounter in my home context of Slovakia, allow some people to claim that certain struggles have been overcome and have no longer any relevance.
Many alumni communities have taken it upon themselves to demask the hidden continuities and offer us learning to avoid similar mistakes for transitions of the future.
A letter to spark a debate on race
Tamzin and Isadora pushed their school in the South West of England to look into the persistent racism that Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students like them experience. Zooming from her home, Tamzin says that growing up, she had not even realized that the comments she would hear from her classmates were racist. Masked as jokes or seemingly benign remarks poking fun of her Asian features, it was only in conversation with other students years later that she fully processed these experiences as racist. The police murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 were another reminder of the continued racism in the UK and other countries steeped in colonial racist othering of BME people.
Tamzin enlisted the help of Isadora, and together they wrote an open letter to their former headmaster. The letter did not come maliciously or with anger that would alienate the audience they were trying to influence. Quite to the contrary, both of them tell me they feel a sense of appreciation for the good quality education they had received there. And with Isadora’s insights as BME officer at her university, they found the language to constructively steer the school towards seeing where practical changes could be made.
Staying away from anger and frustration, however, does not come easy. The systematic disadvantages and everyday acts of micro-aggression take a huge toll on BME youth. While they are a constant in their lives, those protected by privilege and untrained to look for them are oblivious. An example that Isadora shares is a simple encounter on public transport. She tells us a story of being stared at by an older white woman, effectively saying – the seat next to me is taken. Isadora’s partner, a white male, had not realized what they have experienced together numerous times, until she brought it to his attention.
Tamzin pursued Fine Arts and works in media and marketing production. Currently she is doing consumer research for a live channel 4 TV show.
Isadora serves as BME officer at her university, pursuing a PhD.
Similarly, many teachers and school leaders, who are not trained to see racism or deal with its consequences, might fail to address it systematically at their institutions, which was the case for Isadora and Tamzin too. Their letter, which received much support from their fellow alumni, wanted to open people’s eyes.
Dear old boys, we must talk
Ben’s letter to his fellow alumni of Johannesburg’s Highlands North Boys High School was also such an attempt. Published on a leading South African news platform, the letter is a clarion call to recognize the racist, sexist and homophobic culture of an all boys’ former white school that Ben attended during the apartheid era.
Many alumni would deny such a characterisation of their school – and Ben has received a fair share of messages and calls to tell him as much. I think he must have thick skin, as he manages to laugh off these views. I think he does that because he sees the importance of the conversation he has started. As much as the current moment in South Africa is a ‘post-Apartheid’ one, Ben tells me that he is concerned about some of the practices that still continue to create toxic masculinity amongst the young men who attend the institution now.
Since publishing the letter, Ben has been working to mobilize his fellow old boys to support the school, and in the process to find a new identity for themselves, which they could be proud of. Ben and I speak as he prepares for a ribbon cutting ceremony that has opened a new classroom at the school, which was funded by his classmates of 1981. The space is much needed, as over the last decades the school has not been sufficiently funded to ensure that the boys are able to receive the best quality education.
Alumni of Highlands North Ben Horowitz & Mike Bersiks with Headmaster Mike Masinge in front of new classroom being constructed.
This act of giving back is a way for the alumni to come to terms with the past that for many white South Africans is a shameful one or a difficult one at least. In such context, many alumni networks might even represent connections to the past that best be forgotten. A shared positive purpose as a transformative community could replace the experiences of the past and offer them a way forward. Speaking with the Black African young men who attend the institution now, as the school de-racialized in the 1990s, is one way that Ben believes the older generations can come to terms with the past and unlearn some of the mindsets that have continued into the democratic South Africa.
Alumni of colour take risks in settler societies
Dela has organized several such dialogues when she led the Restitution Foundation. Through 2020, they hosted online #YouSilenceWeAmplify dialogues to discuss the continued racism in schools like Ben’s.
The Restitution Foundation ran online dialogues in an effort to amplify the voices of alumni, students and parents who are often silenced by the institutions which need to control their public image and prestige.
What struck me, as Dela outlined to me some of the issues that emerged, were the risks that young Black alumni were taking by speaking out. They entered these formerly white spaces as the de-racialisation process was at its early stages. It was with the hope of expanding their social capital and access into networks of privilege, that their parents put them into these schools. Choosing to speak out about their experiences, however, threatens the capital they have struggled to gain.
It is remarkable how many young alumni summon the courage to be vulnerable in order to help their schools and wider society to progress further along the ‘post’ transitions. It is equally remarkable how similar their experiences are across geographies because of the pervasive nature of systems of exclusion in societies that can be described as settler colonies.
Stories that I hear from Jess, who is an alumni coordinator in a school in suburban Naarm/Melbourne, Australia resonate with those of Tamzin’s and Isadora’s, as well as those from Dela’s roundtables. Jess is a university student and a few years ago she graduated from a school that she describes as having an incredible diversity of student and teacher body. The ability of students to see themselves in their teachers is a great source of help for them. But Jess tells me that she also rallies her fellow alumni to talk to young people who have to deal with realities of their immigrant background.
During this year’s annual Cultural Diversity Week, Jess and her fellow Alumni Coordinator co-designed a new panel talk that explored the complexities of growing up when embodying different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Alumni served as role models for persevering through intergenerational miscommunication, disconnect, or feelings of confusion, and flourishing in their own ways.
Many of them from the Middle East, as well as the Pacific Islands, Asia and Africa, these young women and men face pressures on two fronts. On one hand, from the mainstream society and its racialised discriminations against people of immigrant background and on the other, they also navigate the expectations and lived experiences of their families, who have tried to integrate, blend in and not rock the boat.
The expectations that some families place on the young people, be it their careers or ways of being, creates intergenerational disjuncture and limits the pathways that they find possible for themselves. With all the best intentions, many parents seek to discourage activism and speaking out against the mainstream society in order to protect their children and to set them up for success.
From crisis to catharsis
The experiences of intergenerational dialogue and activism across the divides of the ‘pre’ and the ‘post’ that are taking place in some schools and communities in the UK, South Africa and Australia are a source of inspiration to me. In Slovakia the demand or pressure to have conversations about the socialist past are latent at best; but the benefits from learning about the past and coming to terms with its legacies are great. In addition to the liminal divides that deserve to be broken down are those that create North -South and West -East borders and silos for learning and inspiration.
So, here’s to learning lessons from incomplete transitions to build back better our post-pandemic world.
* In this essay, you will find various terms such as ‘people of colour,’ ‘Black and Minority Ethnic’ (BME), ‘Black and Brown people’ or Bla(c)k to describe racialised minorities which are oppressed by whiteness. I personally tend to use the term Black as understood by the South African intellectual tradition of Black Consciousness, which understands all racialised minorities which are oppressed by whiteness, as Black, acknowledging their diversity. It seeks to inscribe it as a positive political identity. In other contexts, activists and youth campaigners prefer other descriptors, depending on the intellectual traditions from which they draw and practices they prefer. Throughout the essay, I use these terms based on the preferences of my interlocutors.