#feesmustfall: It is time for an African rebirth

Feesmustfall

Education should not be a gift of privilege, it is should be a fundamental human right. It should be the responsibility of a nation to make its people are well prepared for a world that won’t always be forgiving.

The current protest in South Africa may seem like just another rowdy students throwing a fit because they can’t their way. I have heard people say this. I assure you it is not. The youth of South Africa, these students who are protesting peacefully, are asking a simple question. When are the freedoms that democracy promised going to be realized? These “bornfrees” who are meant to have a better future than that of their parents. When will this future arrive. Higher education is not privilege it is how a country builds its people to take their place on a global stage. If we block the roads that leads to the global stage what have done but taken our children and cut them off at their knees.

These protests have seen parents teach their kids how to survive teargas, a lesson no parent should teach. One that is necessary now. These parents encourage their kids to take a stand. We talk about this generation that they care about nothing but their phones and their status updates on Facebook. They are proving us wrong in the best way possible. They are not asking for free education, they want to pay they just need it to be reasonable because it is not. Education is not a privilege it is human right.

These protests addresses a bigger issue on the African continent. A continent that has stood by while governments did as they pleased. Africa is notorious for its passive aggression, we complain, moan about governments, corruption and the fact that our nations are in a mess, yet we do nothing about it. We allow our governments to get away with all manner of sins. We talk of the good old day, well buck up people because those days are not coming back. We are in the now and if we don’t stand up and fight for something now the future will be nothing but slum of broken dreams and could have been empires.

What is wrong with us? This the continent of mathematics, the continent of playwrights, nobel laureates and scientific breakthroughs. We should be a proud people, who refuse to be silenced by injustice. We cannot be letting our disruptors stand alone. We must teach our children to stand up for what is right, what is necessary and what they must.

Feesmustfall is about disrupting the status quo and we must disrupt it. You must disrupt the status quo when it does not represent the need of the people it vowed to protect. There is nothing political about feesmustfall, your political agendas are irrelevant. This is a generation of people taking back their country from people who will not look at for their interest.

Africa, we can no longer stand idly by and watch our countries taken from us by geriatrics who are stilling fight an old war that has nothing to do with our future. We cannot allow political agendas decide who we become or where we are going.

Image: Tawanda Moyo via Instagram

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