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University This is to certify that the thesis entitled Education, Liberation and the Creative Act presented by Toby Tafirenyika Moyana has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph .D . degree in Secondary Education and Curriculum Date February 24, 1978 0-7 639 "O 1) _~_ ,1: J> © 1978 TOBY TAFI RENY I KA MOYANA ALL RI GHTS RESERVED EDUCATION, LIBERATION AND THE CREATIVE ACT By Toby Tafirenyika Moyana A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Secondary Education and Curriculum 1978 g5 ABSTRACT EDUCATION, LIBERATION AND THE CREATIVE ACT By Toby Tafirenyika Moyana This study deals with the problem of developing, among students in an oppressive society, a heightened consciousness of their oppressed status. The assumption is held that oppression as such does not lead to revolution, nor is revolution merely the overthrow of those in power. Rather, it is change in peoples' consciousness--their awareness of themselves as their own liberators--that leads to and defines a revolution. Conscientization, the pedagogical process of creating that awareness, is the central concern of this work. Consciousness is presented as the property that determines whether man is either liberated or enslaved. On a societal level, the nature of a peoples' culture is an index of their level of conscious- ness. Hence the need for cultural imperialism by the oppressors, and the desire for a cultural revolution by the conscientized oppressed. This is shown clearly in the centrality of the schools to the rhetoric and practice of both revolutionaries and colonialists. This work centers on the use of the school as an agent of domestication and exploitation in settler-ruled Rhodesia (l953-1970). Within that con- text, the author's attempt to conscientize within the context of classroom practice is presented. Toby Tafirenyika Moyana The vehicle for conscientization is language teaching. The philosophical basis for viewing language as a crucial aspect of domestication and liberation in education arises from the capacity of language to becloud or reveal perceivable reality. The author's experimentation involved the teaching of creative writing within the context of a highly structured, examination geared system with regular government inspections. The methodology was a variation of that used by Paulo Freire among South American peasants and discussed in detail in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In this case it consisted of students describing what they see, hear, touch, smell, taste, etc., in situ, and dialoguing on their writings and their perceived reality. From sensory experiences, the exercises rise progressively to writing and dialoguing about more complex experiences that can reach mystical and psychical levels, with profound social, economic and political implications. Thus sensory experience becomes a handle with which to probe the causes, complexities and limitless implica- tions of human behavior in general and man's role in the existing socio-economic, and political system in particular. From an analysis of students works are drawn the following conclusions: (l) Conscientizing processes in creative writing must start with students experiencing accurately through their senses the artifacts of domination they live with. (2) The sharpening of the senses which is aided by dialogical discussions in small groups leads to increased concreteness and precision in the students use of words as well as an individuality of language that indicates the function- ing of a liberated consciousness. (3) On-going discussions and Toby Tafirenyika Moyana observation and analysis of what is experienced and written about lead logically and through well defined hierarchical categories to a discovery of the whole complex of an exploiting order as a system. This is the desirable level of critical consciousness, whereby the students, freed from both romanticism and fanaticism, arrive at a realistic recognition that they stand as the antithesis of the oppressor and that their ontological vocation is to revolutionize society for man's greater humanization. Dedicated to my dear wife, Olivina Patricia and to our children, Vushomuzi, Tamera and Kundai, who patiently endured the absence of a husband and father to allow this work to be completed. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all who helped me in so many ways to produce this dissertation. First and foremost Dr. Marvin Grandstaff, Chairman of my Doctoral Committee and Professor in the Department of Secondary Education and Curriculum, who provided much of the intellectual impetus that transformed a class seminar paper into a larger project of a doctoral dissertation. His help at every stage of planning and writing of this work was invaluable to me. My gratitude also goes to other members of my doctoral committee, Dr. Ben Bohnhorst, Professor in the Department of Secondary Education and Curriculum and Dr. Stephen Judy, Professor in the Department of English. They were always ready with helpful and supportive counsel and suggestions for reading material. It is particularly gratifying to note that for upwards of three years my library was graced with invaluable texts from Dr. Judy's own personal collection. I owe further gratitude to Professor Nancy Martin of the Institude of Education, London, for a very informative conversation on latest developments in creative writing work associated with her Institute and for passing on to me a most exhaustive bibliography. My gratitude also goes to the very many students and former students of mine who made available to me some of their writings for this project. Above all my warmest gratitude goes to do Grandstaff for performing the indefatigable task of typing and putting a rough hewn text into neat iii printable form and in the process, re-educating me on so many of the hidden skills of footnoting and editing. Needless to add that though I owe so much to so many in producing this dissertation, the faults and opinions therein remain mine alone. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l 11. CONSCIOUSNESS AND SOCIAL REFORM . . . . . . . 12 III. EDUCATION, ACCULTURATION AND OPPRESSION . . . . . 28 IV. LANGUAGE AND CONSCIOUSNESS . . . . . . . . . 44 V. EDUCATION AND OPPRESSION IN RHODESIA 1953-1970 . . 58 VI. LIBERATION AND THE CREATIVE EXPERIENCE . . . . . l02 VII. EDUCATION, LIBERATION AND THE CREATIVE ACT . . . . l6l VIII. THE AFRICAN EXPERIENCE . . . . . . . . . . 176 APPENDIX . '. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l93 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The Problem A crucial problem of any revolutionary period is that of cultivating a revolutionary consciousness among the oppressed. Long after the material conditions for a revolution have matured, the revolution might still not take place; simply because the peoples' consciousness, their sense of awareness of themselves as victims of exploitation is low. Or alternatively, the ruling power can be over- thrown and replaced by a few individuals without the majority of the people experiencing a revolution. For a revolution is not a replace- ment of masters. It is a movement that qualitatively changes both the individuals and the society they live in. It alters the total outlook of the people: their ideas, their behavior, their arts and their basic assumptions about society. This change in outlook is what is meant by the growth of revolutionary consciousness. Change in consciousness is thus the definitive essential of any revolution. How to achieve that change is the central issue to which I address myself in this dissertation. This is a much more difficult problem than the physical overthrow of the reigning power. Yet in its effects it is more far-reaching than any other activity in the revolution. The exploiting powers are aware of this. They know that it is not the guns, the bombs, nor the police that will be the ultimate support of their power, but their ability to recondition the minds of the oppressed so that the latter can acquiesce in, if not fully accept, their predominant position. And so the conquest of the mind becomes a predominant pre-occupation of every exploiting power. When we consider the efforts made to carry out the cultural estrangement so characteristic of the colonial epoch, we realize that nothing has been left to chance, and that the total result looked for by colonial domination was indeed to convince the natives that colonialism came to lighten their burdens. To attain this objective, the exploiting powers had to distort a peoples' history, demean their ancestors, despise their culture, their language, their philosophy, in short, reinterpret their outlook on life in accordance with an arbitrary developmental scale that relegates the oppressed to the role of the "child-peoples" of the world. Even their intellectuals are indoctrinated with theories of Western bourgeois liberalism. Faithful to the traditions of the Enlightenment, these alienated intellectuals begin to see development as the "economic and political consequences of the applications of 2 They now look upon themselves the products of reason and science." and their people as lacking in science and reason and thus incapable of improving their lot on their own initiative. An acute sense of inferiority develops. So often do they (the oppressed) hear that they are good for nothing, know nothing, and are incapable of learning anything--that they are sick, lazy and unproductive--that in the end they become convinced of their own unfitness. Side by side with this campaign of instilling an inferiority complex among the oppressed, the oppressor must present himself and his culture as a model of excellence, heroism and humanity. So writes Britain's arch-imperialist John Cecil Rhodes: I contend that we are the finest race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings. What alteration there would be in them if they were brought under Anglo—Saxon rule.4 The idea is to make the oppressed feel ashamed of themselves, yet admire the oppressor so much that they emulate his ways and his language and behavior and thus submissively accept his right to rule. Cecil Rhodes was the founder of the British colony of Rhodesia. His successors have faithfully stuck to the positions he so clearly enunciated. As a result, Rhodesia offers an unparalleled (unportunity for a case study of the problem of consciousness in an exrfloitative society. It gives us a rare opportunity too of experi- merrting with Freirean pedagogy to develop a revolutionary conscious- ness among the oppressed through teaching. The education system in Rhodesia is designed to transform the African student into a humble subnrissive servant and admirer of the white man. The official literature of African education--from reports of white school Priru:ipals, reports of provincial inspectors to those of parliamentary secretaries and government comissions--are explicit in their denigra- tion (If the African background and personality and the need to PV‘OTetarize and Anglisize him. A government comission led by Sir Alexander Kerr, for example, described the African society before the coming of the whiteman as "primitive," dubbed the African moral code "low," described African arts as "crude" and called African life before the coming of the whiteman "hard and dangerous.“5 They saw the purpose of education among Africans as a project to "regenerate 6 They insisted on a kind of education that would “fashion a race." the (African's) life, his whole behavior to the needs of a huge and complicated industrial organization and the marvels of modern science."7 And just in case we miss the meaning of that last sentence the commissioners add: "In all native education, the prime importance and dignity of manual labour should be continually stressed and continuous endeavour should be made to build up keenness in this respect."8 The Kerr Commission (1953) was of paramount importance to the period of educational development--1953 to 1970--which will be used in 'this study to illustrate the practical application of the Freirean model of education for an oppressed society and to provide the' essential background for the reader to understand the significance of the creative writing project presented. I will present an inter- pretative analysis of the curriculum (written and unwritten) of Afri<:an education since 1953. The effects of such an obvious case of nris-education will be analyzed. Numerous writers have documented the type of man such an education would produce among them, John Dewey, Edward Blyden, Frantz Fanon and Julius Nyerere. He is that man 01: two worlds that Blyden described as a Nman of distorted 11351195. confused perception and resultless energy."9 Literary artists have scorned him as effiminate and impotent.10 Freire and Ali Mazrui have shown how this type of man displays a dependency mentality because since he internalized the oppressor, his struggle to be a man only means a struggle to be like the oppressor. He had lost any consciousness of himself as a person and as an anti-thesis to the oppressor. It is the business of getting the oppressed to eject the oppressor from their consciousness, of rehabilitating their own conceptual idiom of reality as legitimate and a viable way of viewing the world and getting them to develop a consciousness of themselves as an anti-thesis of the oppressor in a revolutionary situation, that this phi1050phica1 exposition is addressed to. The problem is viewed here as a pedagogical problem that can be handled in a classroom situation. The focus is on changes in linguistic behavior as shown irI students' writing during creative writing. The act of creation as a liberating act and the view of esthetics as antithetical to donrination give added weight to the use of creative writing as an approach to develop revolutionary consciousness among students. With regard to the pieces of student writing that illustrate the [aractical demonstration of the methodology advocated in this study there were special difficulties because of the nature of the Rhodesian system of education. The curriculum is provided and heavily structured. The objective is passing a country-wide examination. GOVer‘flment inspectors make regular inspections of the teacher and may watch liim in action in half a dozen periods in a term; they can tell him what not to teach and they study pupils' books to find out what the)! Write. Any work that involves conscientization of the pupils must be carried out with great circumspection and under the pretence of more innocent aims like: 'to encourage precision in language,’ or 'to develop pupils' imagination.‘ Basic Assumptions on the Methodology Suggested The basic assumption that enables Freirean pedagogy to be extended to the teaching of creative writing can be viewed from Freire's ideas on the nature of language. His ideas link up easily with those of Susanne Langer and those structuralists who see language as conceptual symbolism. In a sense language is conception and conception is the frame of perception or as Sapir has put it 'Language is heuristic . . . in that its forms predetermine for us 11 certain modes of observation and interpretation . . . .' Botfli Freire and Susanne Langer argue that this observation and 'hiterpretation must start with the individual being involved in the more rudimentary activity of naming. "To exist, to be human, is to nanue the world, to change it. Once named, the world in its turn rearapears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a new "12 Susanne Langer, on her part, sees the act of "giving nmning. something a name (as) the vastest generative idea that was ever con- cei ved: its influence might well transform the entire mode of living 13 For me and feeling in the whole species within a generation." these ideas on language illustrate its possibilities for mental liberation or domestication. They give me the theoretical basis “P0“ Which I can use language for developing a revolutionary con- sciousness through creative writing projects. But the start of the process must be the experience of the individual cognizing reality with his own senses. The very basic senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing must change if society is to change. Language becomes revolutionary the moment it becomes authentic, that is, when it succeeds in naming accurately the things truly seen, heard, tasted, touched and smelled: when it ceases to be a dehydrated cliche; lost to its referent, and alienated from the consciousness of its originator. The rehabilitation of human consciousness must mean above all the rehabilitation of the senses and the language that mediates for them.14 The creative work that is produced by a methodology that is based on confronting the world with a sharpened sensibility hits one like a brick with its concrete realism of word and imagery. Students now noticeably ceased to quarry for imagery and symbolism in archaic productions of European classical writers or great foreign writers of the past. What appeared to interest them now was the factory gate witfi the inevitable sign "no work" or "the hoe in sweltering hands" of the labourer or the garbage tin that the children of the poor ransacked for pieces of metal to make toys with. The freshness of the 'language and the tone of an individual voice that came through each of these pieces of writing left me convinced that the students had "regained their primordial right to speak their word."15 And the artistic sensibility so revealed was so permeated with a clear- headed recognition of the plight of their people in a system of Oppressjon that it was clear that the revolutionary consciousness had become part of their very biology. There is of course a further implication: that the nature of art under revolutionary conditions is symptomatic of revolutionary consciousness in general. Herbert Marcuse's theory that "the exigencies of sensibility" develop historically16 becomes the basis on which to theorize on the validity of the claim that these pupils' writings represent the esthetic sensibility of the "new man," who incidentally both Marcuse and Freire insist must appear not after but during the revolution. Summary of Objectives The major objective of this philosophical exposition is to suggest that Freire's pedagogy. which was intended for adult literacy classes in a peasant community can be developed for use in the class- rOOflllNlth similar revolutionary results. The dialogical method that he prOposes is in many ways a variant of the child-centered pro- gressive methodology that is so popular today. The social and political implications of the dialogical method, however, can trans- form the simple neutral activity of teaching a language into a revolu— tion. The present study is basically theoretical. The student writings that will be included represent literary productions of studerrts I taught through a modified form of the dialogical method. The purpose of these samples is to act as an aid to theory. A second aim of the thesis is to demonstrate the possibilities of using the teaching of creative writing to cultivate a revolutionary conscicnasness. And finally, I intend to show how the Rhodesian educational system fits into the Freirean model of education for exploitation. Structure of the Study The study will fall into three main parts. The first three chapters will be theoretical. They deal with consciousness: its role in social reform, its fate in an oppressed society, the possi- bilities of its distortion or recovery through language. The idea will be to lay a theoretical study for the case study that is to follow. The second part of the study will be a case analysis of Rhodesian African education (1953-1970) according to the theoretical model of education for exploitation laid down by Paulo Freire and as background to the creative writing exercise that follows. The third part.of the thesis will consist of a presentation of my creative in~iting teaching experience in Rhodesia: its methodology, samples of yaupils' writing, and a theoretization of their worth as a narrifestation of the growth of a revolutionary consciousness. There will be a postscript chapter generalizing on the differences between African literature produced by the alienated African writer and the rehabilitated revolutionary writer and the qualification of my students' work to claim a place among the latter. FOOTNOTES: CHAPTER I 1Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963), p. 170. 2Marvin Grandstaff, "Education and the Revolt of the Third World: The Context of Freire's Pedagogy," Michigan State University, 1975, p. 6 (mimeographed). 3Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Seabury Press, 1968), p. 49. 4Cited in Norman Atkinson, Teachigg_Rhodesians (London: Longmans, 1972), p. 5. (Kerr coifiifi‘éicfnif igiiiififllizEdéfiiéifiifieélqb‘liitggfmi3333’? $333k. 61bid. 7161a. 81bid., para 56. 9 Cited in Hollis Lynch, Black Spokesman (London: Cass, 1971). p. 223. 10 See Okot p'Bitek, Song of Lawino (Nairobi: Afro Press, 1968) . nSusanne Langer, Philosophy in New Key_(Cambridge: Harvard Press, 1974), p. 126. lereire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 76. 13Langer, p. 142. 14I have been surprised in my reading to discover an almost perfect marriage between Marxist epistemology and virtually all the blg theorists on creative writing on this point. So far as I know my aliliempt to effect this marriage in one work has never been madeuand I look forward to the uproar this will create when I finally put this theory into a book. 10 11 15Freire, Pegagody of the OPPTESSEd’ p. 77' 16Herbert Marcuse, Essay on Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), p. 37. CHAPTER II CONSCIOUSNESS AND SOCIAL REFORM This chapter sets out to define the Freirean view of con- sciousness which lies at the base of the pedagogical theory presented in this dissertation. I will attempt to show the relationship between Freirean consciousness and his view of human nature, his theory of history and identify three types of consciousness: the magical, the naive and the critical as marking three stages in man's mental growth from the domesticated mind to the free. It will also be necessary to show that the liberated mind represents the emergence of what socialists call "the new man." And since this work focuses its consciousness raising techniques on pedagogical processes, it will be necessary to examine the epistemological possibilities of the Freirean consciousness. The most crucial part of Paulo Freire’s work is his view of 'the role of consciousness in social change. A misunderstanding of lireire on this point has led many critics to distort his ideas. A number of critics look upon Freire as a simple minded utopian who has a one-sided and flat view of human nature;1 others have denounced ITim as a champion of bloody revolution that will create a heaven on earth day after the overthrow of the oppressor;2 still others see hinias an ineffectual and poorly read theorist of the student- 12 13 centered-education approach;3 and still others see the whole Freirean approach as an exclusively South American phenomena, which has little or no relevance to the rest of us.4 It is Freire's view of con- sciousness that explains the pedagogical process now inseparably linked to his name: conscientization.5 It is only in relation to his view of consciousness and the process of conscientization that his philoSOphy of man, of history, of revolution and of education can make sense. Dynamism is the basic tenet in Freire's treatment of con- sciousness. He sees consciousness as that aspect of man through which he can be either humanized or dehumanized. Man, according to Freire, is an "uncompleted being, conscious of his incompletion."6 It is what happens to his consciousness that determines whether he is being completed (humanization) or depleted (de-humanization). And there is no neutrality possible. Every societal act results in man's consciousness being either deformed or reformed: destroyed or re- created, humanized or de-humanized. The essence of consciousness is intentionality. Humanization involves the raising of men's con- sciousness "as consciousness intent upon the world."7 Freire deems 'It as a special characteristic of man that his consciousness is not Only intent on the world, but he is also conscious of his conscious- ness. "Dehumanization consists of inhibiting or domesticating the Tlitentionality of consciousness . . . thereby denying men their (Jntological and historical vocation of becoming more fully human."8 As a conscious being, man can reflect on his own existence and base his actions on his own objectives. Unlike animals, man can 14 objectify himself, his actions and the world. Liberation fbr man starts with a restoration of his intentionality, his self-awareness as a creative being engaged in an historical process of becoming more human. Freire's idea of consciousness arises from his view of man as an historical being and the role of man in history. His pedagogy is a pedagogy of the oppressed. His theory of consciousness thus recognizes a need "to make oppression and its causes objects of reflection, by the oppressed and from that reflection will come their "9 Freire necessary engagement in the struggle for their liberation. is talking about a world divided between the rich and the poor, the privileged and the underprivileged, the haves and the have-nots, the oppressor and.the oppressed. Within the system of oppression Freire identifies a view of consciousness that posits a dichotomy between man and the world: "Man is merely in the world not with the world not with others; man is spectator not recreator. In this view man is not a conscious being; he is empty mind passively open to the reception of deposits 10 CTF reality from the world outside." This static and flat view of cunnsciousness ultimately makes illegitimate any revolutionary change 1] It implies that the only way the poor could achieve by the poor. a. place in the sun is by receiving generous deposits of wisdom, or "Eaterial aid from the privileged. This material and intellectual alms giving is in fact intended to legitimize the oppressor's right 'tO govern in perpetuity. For it is the oppressor's interest to 15 change the consciousness of the oppressed without changing the material conditions of Oppression.12 This is a pedagogical task. Through what Freire calls "banking education" the oppressors stuff the heads of the oppressed with their own world view. As Fanon puts it: There is a constellation of postulates, a series of propositions that slowly and subtly, with the help of books, newspapers, schools and their texts, advertise- ments, films, radio . . . work their way into one's mind, and shape one's view of the world and of the group to which one belongs.13 The oppressor thus treats the oppressed as the "pathology of the healthy and good society . . . which must adjust (them) to its own 14 patterns, by changing their mentality.“ In fact the oppressed develop a neurosis of incapability. They lose their own intention- ality. "So often do they hear that they are incapable of learning anything, that they are sick, lazy and unproductive, that in the end 15 they become convinced of their own unfitness." Their consciousness having thus been submerged by the exploitative situation they live in, they even begin to fear the creative responsibility of freedom; 'they become fatalistic about their lives, develop a magical belief iri the invulnerability of the master and now view him as a symbol of nuanhood. Freire calls this alienated consciousness "intransitive."16 He makes two subdivisions of this group: the magical and the naive consciousness.17 The former is possessed by men he describes as "living corpses," "shadows of human beings, hopeless men, women and Children" victimized by an endless invisible war,18 the type of men 16 19 Marx described as a "stomach." Their idea of their problem is always stated in biological and survival terms. They have no historical sense and do not even see the oppressor as oppressor. They have internalized the culture of the Oppressor only as instru- ments of his will and receive no reasonable share of the structure of exploitation. Those of a naive consciousness have risen above the magical. They too have no historical sense above the system. To them the system is good, but some individuals need reforming. They have internalized the oppressor and his culture and their quest is fer greater identification. For them "to be is to be like, and 20 to be like is to be like the Oppressor." Both these types of consciousness present us with man as an object of the historical process and not a subject. Freire, on the other hand, argues that man should be treated as a subject in the historical process. Against the old misinter- pretation of historical materialism that presented the objective Inaterial conditions as the exclusive determinants of historical change, Freire opts for a dialectical relationship between objective and subjective factors in history, between man and the world, between consciousness and objective reality. "World and men do not exist apart from each other," he writes, "they exist in constant inter- 21 And he adds: aetion." Just as objective social reality exists not by chance, but as the product of human action, so it is not transformed by chance. If men produce social reality (which in the inversion of the praxis turns back upon them and conditions them) then transforming that reality is an historical task, a task for men.22 17 This Freirean view is eminently Marxian. By arguing that "circum- stances make men just as much as men make circumstances"23 Marx did advocate the same interdependence between man and history. If both man and the world are historical, then reality is not a given, a completed creation. It is in a state of transformation, transform- ing man and man transforming reality. “For animals 'here‘ is only a habitat with which they enter into contact; for men 'here' signi- fies not merely a physical space but also a historical space."24 But since without man there is no world25 there could not be a 'here' without the consciousness to conceive it. Hence conscious- ness is eminently historical. Since the essence of man's consciousness is its intention- ality, man's humanization must consist of raising the level of his intentionality in the process of transforming the world. That is the meaning of conscientization. Conscientization recognizes not 26 but also that man only "that man is the supreme being for man" as an historical fact carries all the deformities that time and place have wrought upon him. Conscientization raises the con- sciousness of the oppressed to a transitive level, sometimes called <:ritical consciousness.27 Rivera compares the emergence of the (Jppressed into this level with the experience of a man that "gets a 28 new prescription for his glasses and then sees better." Here the “individual discovers his historical position as a member of the <>ppressed, identifies the nature of the system that oppresses him, and in solidarity with others commits himself to the cause of liberation. The man of critical consciousness is thus able to act 18 as a creative subject who can separate himself from the world, be critical of it, act upon it and transform it to suit the needs of his own humanization. The world ceases to be a closed order with pre-determined results laid down by the powers that be fbr every action taken by men and women. . . It (becomes) rather a theater of possibilities and problems to be entertained, thought about, worked on and solved, because they are experienced as limit-situations rather than the way things are.29 We can now explain some of the profound implications of Freire's view of consciousness and put to rest the criticisms of him we cited in our opening paragraph. The Freirean view is that the physical overthrow of the oppressor does not in itself constitute a revolution. A coup or rebellion can occur without a revolution.30 A revolution is qualitative change. It is primarily mental and incidentally physical. A revolution alters the pe0ples' whole out- look on life, society, politics, culture, etc., and above all it alters their awareness of themselves as subjects of the historical process who must strive for their own liberation. And so the claim that Freire is calling for an insurrection against reigning elites, 'that would bring an immediate utopia,3] is most unfounded. Freire 32 iri fact describes the revolution as a "process" and adds: "In a dynamic rather than a static view of a revolution, there is no absolute 'before' or 'after' with the taking of power as the dividing 1 ' ."33 Revolution as a process of conscientization must become a permanent feature of the new society: Originating in objective conditions, revolution seeks to supersede the situation of oppression by inaugurating a society of men in the process of continuing liberation. 19 The educational dialogical quality of revolution, which makes it a cultural revolution as well, must be present in all its stages. This educational quality is one of the most effective instruments for keeping the revolution from becoming institutionalized and stratified in a counter-revolutionary bureaucracy; for counter-revolution is carried out by revolutionaries who become reactionary.34 35 to human nature, it is precisely If indeed there is a dark side that dark side that Freire sets out to guard against by advocating the theory of continuing revolution. Freire's theory also implies the birth of the new man before the physical revolution. Viewed against traditional Marxism, where the new man was expected to emerge in the communist phase of a long process of development through socialism, this sounds like revision- ism.36 And Freire sees the need to explain: The oppressed have been destroyed precisely because their situation has reduced them to things. In order to regain their humanity they must cease to be things and fight as men. This is a radical requirement. They cannot enter the struggle as objects in order later to become men.37 By linking the process of conscientization with humanization. and by viewing the growth of consciousness as a permanent process of becom- ing, the revolutionary educator must treat the pedagogical work of ‘the revolution as a means for the development of the new man from the start. Herbert Marcuse, who like Freire, is concerned with the 38 writes: conditions that would "precondition man for freedom" "Radical change in consciousness is the beginning, the first step in Changing social existence, emergence of the new subject."39 Marcuse ‘insists that the conscientization process should be such that the lJprising of the new radicals ceases to be a question of "choice: 20 the protest and refusal are part of their metabolism."40 His view of 41 the new man, however, like that of Eric Fromm, is governed by the need to conscientize not for critical consciousness in the Freirean sense but for an esthetic sensibility that would mitigate against the instincts of aggression in the new man. "The beautiful would be 42 the essential quality of freedom." The esthetical ideals of Marcuse's new man and new society which he visualizes as a "work of 43 art" may be too utopian to be used as a basis for the formation of the consciousness of the oppressed. But it does point to the need 44 for revolutionary art to create "imaginative models" to sustain revolutionary fervor. Both the Freirean and Marcusean views on the new man are direct developments of the Marxist thesis on the role of theory in revolution. The old argument whether Marx advocated an economic determinism in revolutionary change that excluded the role of ideas45 was in fact settled by Marx himself when he wrote: "Material force can only be overthrown by material force but theory itself becomes 46 Inaterial force when it has seized the masses." The implied 'translation of theory into practice is possible, however, only when the theory is historically valid, that is, when it truly represents tflie ripening of socio-economic conditions for revolution. That is tflie meaning of Marx when he says that "being determines conscious- 47 ness." But once the society is structurally ripe for revolution ‘theory must take over. "Once the lightening of thought has pene- ‘trated deeply into this virgin soil of the pe0ple, the Germans will 48 emancipate themselves and become men." The imagery of the 21 "lightening," that of the peOple's minds as "virgin soil" and the implications of self-emancipation as humanization represent the very synthesis of the Freirean idea of consciousness. The Marxist- Freirean consciousness is like a procreative agent, matured by socio- economic factors for creative cognition of dialectical realities. But like dry inflammable cinder it must be lit by a generative ideology. And the whole purpose is to humanize man who has been destroyed.49 Freire's consciousness lends itself easily to the funda- mentals of Marxist epistemology whereby “the idea is nothing else but the material world reflected by the human mind and translated 50 This destroys the possibility of looking into forms of thought." at knowledge as pre-existent fact to be transferred to the empty heads of students. The reason why existing knowledge exists "is that consciousness in its reflective power can know. Man as a con- scious body cannot only know the existing knowledge, but can know new knowledge, or can make new knowledge."51 Knowledge must thus be looked at as a process and not as a fact. For consciousness itself, the faculty by which man comes to know, is always in a state of becoming. Real knowledge arises from acts of cognition which involve a praxis, which is more than just a unity of theory and practice. Praxis in Freirean thinking is action and reflection. But reflection covers a process that starts with sense perception. Quoting from Husserl's Phenomenology,52 Freire sees man's act of perceiving as a movement of consciousness toward an object, thus creating an awareness or consciousness of that object. This leads 22 to reflection, which if combined with action leads to knowledge. The view that sense perception is the origin of all knowledge marks the meeting point between Marxist-Freirean epistemology and theorists of creative writing. It is on this point that my conscientization work through creative writing takes its cue. What is crucial in Freire's theory of knowledge is the dynamism with which consciousness comes to know. He states that consciousness is intentionalizing. Con- sciousness fOr him is never static; it is always on the way somewhere, engaged in some project, attaching itself to some object . . . . Freire does not believe that con- sciousness exists apart from relationships, but that the relationship between consciousness and its object is the stretching forward to the latter on the part of the former. Consciousness is not merely receptive stimuli from the world in which it lives; it is purposive in regard to it . . . indeed to learn about somethins is to change it, for to learn is to appropriate, name, and use.53 It is on the role that consciousness is to play in the learning process that Freire goes much further than Progressive and Experimental theorists of child-centered education. In fact, the Freirean approach would define learning in terms of a rise in con- sciousness from one level to the other: or as conscientization. This, as we have seen, is a project for liberation which becomes enshrined in the cultural idiom of a revolutionary society. We have now established that consciousness is that dynamic part of man through which he can be humanized or dehumanized; that what happens to consciousness defines the nature of a revolution; that consciousness raising, which involves raising man's intention- ality in the ontological vocation of becoming more human can be 23 tackled as a pedagogical task and that the rise of a sense of historicity in man's consciousness can be used as an index in determining the rise of consciousness to a critical level. It is fitting for us to move now from the individual con- sciousness of the person to that of the society in general, to examine how the level of man's consciousness reveals itself through culture and how and why culture thus becomes a target of the process of conscientization. This is the process that has come to be called cultural revolution. FOOTNOTES: CHAPTER II 1John L. Elias, Conscientization and Deschooling (Philadelphia: WestminsterTPress, 1976), p. 42. 2Aiso see William 5. Griffith, "Paulo Freire: Utopian Perspective on Literacy Education for Revolution," in Paulo Freire, A Revolutionary Dilemma for the Adult Educator, ed. Stanley Grabowski (Syracuse: Syracuse UniversitylPress, 1972), pp. 67-81. 3 4Bruce 0. Boston, "Paulo Freire: Notes of a Loving Critic," in Paulo Freire, A Revolutionary Dilemma for the Adult Educator, ed. Stanley Grabowski (Syracuse: Syracuse Uhiversity Press, 1972), p. 92. 5Elias, p. 132. "Conscientization is the heart of Freire's educational theory. In the past ten years, Freire has been asso- ciated more with this term than has any other Latin American educator. Freire tells us that the term was born during a series of round table meetings of professors at the Brazilian Institute of Higher Studies in 1964. Freire does not know exactly who coined the term, but he tells us that when he heard it he became fully convinced that educa- tion as an exercise in freedom is an act of knowing, a critical approach to reality. 'It was inevitable that the word became part of the terminology I used thereafter to express my pedagogical views and it easily came to be thought of as something I had created.'" 6 7 Ibid 0 9 pp. 68-89. Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 27. Ibid., p. 66. 8 9 Ibid., p. 71. Ibid., p. 33. 10 1]John Elias, in Conscientization and Deschooling, accuses Freire of ignoring the dark-side of human nature. Surprisingly he accuses Friere of believing in the doctrine of original sin because he advocates a revolution. On the contrary, it is John Elias himself who stands for the doctrine of original sin otherwise what would he mean by "the dark side of human nature"? By giving Ibid., p. 68. 24 25 historicity and dynamism to consciousness Freire in fact makes it impossible to retain the belief in original sin. To him every man is in a state of becoming (p. 40). 12 13Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1967), p. 152. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 60. 14Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. P- 60. lSIbid., p. 49. 16 Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness (New York: Seabury Press, 1974), p. 172. 17 18 19Karl Marx, "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts," in Karl Marx: Early Writings, ed. T. B. Bottomore (New York: McGraw- Hill Book Company, 1963), p. 169. Ibid. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 172. 20Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. P- 33- 211bid., p. 36. 221616. 23 Marx and Engels, "The German Ideology," in Marxism and Art: Essays Classic and Contemporary, ed. Maynard Solomon (New York: Alfred ATTKnopf, 1973), p. 43. 24Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 88. 251bid., p. 69. 26Karl Marx, "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," in Karl Marx: Early Writings, ed. T. B. Bottomore (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Companyi’l963), p. 52. 27 Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness, p. 18. 28William McLeod Rivera, "The Changers: A New Breed of Adult Educator," in Paulo Freire, A Revolutionary Dilemma for the Adult Educator, ed. Stanley Grabowski (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1972), p. 62. 29 Boston, p. 84 uni ’I N.- \ 26 30President Nyerere of Tanzania is an interesting example of a revolutionary leader placed into power without the people having gone through a revolution. He has had to complain to his people: "Sometimes you hear pe0ple talk about themselves as being simply ordinary men. They think their leaders know everything. When you talk to them and explain an issue to them, they will simply say, 'What can we say? You leaders know everything.I This is a bad habit. You have been brought up badly." Cited in J. K. Nyerere, Freedom and Socialism (Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press, 1968); p. 139. 31 Supra, p. 12. 32Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 132. 33Ibid. 34Ibid. 35Supra, p. 12. 36 Grandstaff, p. 14. 37Freire, Pedagogy of the OPPVESSEd. P- 55. 38Marcuse, Essay on Liberation, p. 10. 391bid. 4OIbid., p. 62. 41 Eric Fromm's idea of the free man as cited by Freire is a man who is free "to create and to construct, to wonder and to venture," Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 55. 42Marcuse, Essay on Liberation, p. 46. 431bid., p. 32. 44 Maynard Solomon, ed., "General Introduction," in Marxism and Art: Essays Classic and Contemporary (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), p. 16. 45 Ibid., pp. 11-19. 46Marx, "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," p. 52. 47Solomon, "General Introduction," p. 17. 27 48Karl Marx, "On the Jewish Question," in Karl Marx: Early Writings, ed. T. B. Bottomore (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1963), p. 22. 49Supra, p. 13. 50Cited in John N. Hawkins, Mao Tse Tung and Education (Hampden, Conn.: Shoestring Press, Linnet Books, 1974), p. 9. 5lPaulo Freire in a TV interview with David Brandes, 18 June 1971, CBC TV. 52 Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 70. 53Boston, p. 86. CHAPTER III EDUCATION, ACCULTURATION AND OPPRESSION In this chapter we shall attempt to present the Marxist- structuralist view of culture which to me is the basis on which some scholars have come to view the school in an oppressive society as an agency of cultural imperialism. Then I will present my understanding of cultural imperialism, analyze its destructive effects on the peOple thus educated and suggest the implication of the Freirean idea of the cultural revolution. Perhaps the most dramatic, effective and most unmistakable form that conscientization takes in the revolutionary process is that of a cultural revolution. Here the revolution aims at changing not just the individual consciousness of the oppressed, nor the political control of the social system, but "it aims at a total transformation of the entire traditional (establishment) culture."1 It arises out of a need to find a behavioral idiom of communication, expressive of the ideals and consciousness of the oppressed-turned- revolutionary, an idiom of indictment against the universe of domination. The view of culture upon which revolutionary thinkers base their analysis of its revolutionary potential is holistic. Lukacs calls culture ". . . the root of the whole development of a period."2 28 29 Marx had viewed the artifacts of culture as fbrms of consciousness under which he listed virtually all the behavioral productions of the mind like laws, language, morality, religion, metaphysics, art, etc. "Men are producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc., real active men as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces, and the intercourse corresponding to these."3 Freire, like all the others, shares this holistic view of culture. He talks of the cultural revolution as an attempt to reconstruct the "total society"4 and describes the Chinese cultural revolution as a transformation of the "intra-structure."5 A holistic view of culture leads to an inescapable conclusion: culture as a behavioral idiom of a pe0ple is historical and must change with the onset of the new revolutionary values. In short, the old bottles cannot hold the new wine. The term "cultural revolution" has been popularized only recently, but in practice all effective revolutions are of course always essentially cultural revolutions too. The French Revolution of 1789 is inconceivable without the French salon, the religion of the Supreme Being, the Thermidorian calendar, the Marseilles or the paintings of Jacques-Louis David.6 The American Revolution had its cultural refusal like men dressing in old clothes to demonstrate 7 their rejection of English imports. The anti-colonial revolution in Africa has produced Negritude poetry, a long list of novelists: 8 etc.; it has popu- James Ngugi, Chinua Achebe, Charles Mungoshi. larized the "dashiki" shirt, and traditional gowns, regal walking sticks, colorful caps, even skin caps. The Black revolution has 30 created the black power salute, the religion of Islam, Black English, etc. Whatever be the system men revolt against, revolutionary generations have tended to find the old culture inimical to their self expression. Modern revolutionary thinkers--from Marx to Freire-~see arti- facts in a socio-economic system that is oppressive as instruments of cultural colonialism that serve to alienate the oppressed from their consciousness as beings for themselves, and transform them into beings for others. In this role the school holds a central place. In modern class societies the educational function of school is according to many thinkers, "to process people who should believe that the system is basically sound and the role they are allocated is the correct one for them to play."9 The structural hierarchy of the capitalist system is thus legitimized. The school, by function- ing on a level of middle class values certifies the inferiority of the working class child who may not make it in an environment differ- ent from his own.10 But our purpose is to examine cultural imperialism in education in a situation of explicit colonialism, subject it to basic structuralist criticism, and appraise Freire's idea of cultural revolution as a form of conscientization. In British India, the English saw the school as a vital part of their imperial system: The natives of India must be kept down by a sense of our power, or they must willingly submit from a conviction that we are more wise, more just, more humane, and more anxious to improve their condition than any other rulers they could have. If well directed the progress of educa- tion would undoubtedly increase our moral hold over India: 31 but by leading the native to a consciousness of their own strength it will surely weaken our physical means of keeping them in subjection.11 And the cultural ends of the education of the natives were spelled out thus: We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern ... a class of persons Indian in blood and colour but 12 English in tastes, in opinion, in morals and in intellect. In situations of internal race-colonialism the school has tended to be a processing plant for race-determined proletarians. "I am in thorough agreement with the view that we should so conduct our schools that the native who attends them will know that to a "13 And in great extent he must be the laborer in this country. situations where the resilience of traditional cultures made the task of proletarization difficult, the missionary educator became an essential auxilliary of exploitative settlerism. The missionary was the realist. He realized that while he kept to his old customs the native was of little use to the white man. . . . Only cultural change could break through such apathy, and the message of the church had the power to achieve this.14 And so the school in the colonial system was intended, through the curriculum, through school rules, through a pedagogical atmosphere that reproduced the metropolitan model, to turn out alienated functionaries of the oppressive order. A more detailed study of the cultural imperialism as it manifested itself specifically in Rhodesia is the task of a later chapter. A systematic summation of the alienating effects of the "15 colonial school as "cultural invasion is called for here. Victims 32 of cultural imperialism develop a split personality; they become men of divided emotional, intellectual and psychical allegiances. Despising their own culture "as something (they) should be ashamed of 16 rather than a source of pride" they develop an admiration for the oppressor whom they try to imitate. These are the "Black faces white masks"17 of Frantz Fanon, men who Edward Blyden called "Black Europeans" and who W.E.B. duBois described in graphic words: One forever feels his duality: being at once both American and Negro, both French and African, English and African, Spanish and African . . . . Two souls, two thoughts, two irreconcillable tendencies; two ideals conflicting in but one black body whose unconquerable spirit alone prevents it from being torn in two.18 In reality the evolue "sought identification with the oppressor, whose cultural idiom they had so perfectly internalized." The oppressor has become the model of manhood. "It is not to become free men that they want agrarian reform, but in order to acquire land and thus become landowners, or more precisely, bosses over other workers."19 This quest for identification with the oppressor that is displayed by the educated leads to their preference of the "security of conformity with their state of unfreedom, to the creative communion produced by freedom.”20 Even when they become leaders, the tendency is to use the banking methods in dealing with the people which Freire denounces as methods of domestication. Worse than the cleavage between the educated leadership and the masses is a state of "cultural dependency"2] displayed by the masses upon things foreign. Virtually every writer on the subject has noted a neurotic desire by the oppressed to adopt the clothing 33 styles of the oppressor. Wilson, in a study of working class Africans in colonial Zambia notes that "European clothes were dis- cussed unceasingly . . . they are tended lovingly and housed in boxes at night . . . . And the search for a status comparable to that of Europeans reached its climax in the European evening dress 22 Both Fanon23 and Freire24 noted worn at superior dance clubs." the same phenomena. The love for foreign names falls into the same category. In Rhodesia semi-literate peasants would give their children names like Kennedy, Elvis Presley, Churchill, Wellington, Burke25—-names that indicate their attachment to the traditions of the oppressor as standards of manhood, achievement and heroism. There are even laughable names like Psychology, Spinster, Providence, 26 names that come straight from the Oxford Dic- Takesure, Desire, tionary; names that indicate an almost subconscious attachment of a colonized people to a foreign linguistic idiom as an aesthetic symbol of a new manhood. And this is a crucial point. The dependency complex creates a sense of non-being in the individual. This is being alienated from one's "ontology-—the sense of being a man-~"27a very different form of alienation from that of the worker in the English context that 28 Bernstein writes about. Cultural alienation for the latter happens in an ontological universe to which he belongs. In the case of the Third World worker cultural invasion is the replacement of his ontological universe by a foreign one, usually in a bastardized 29 alienated form. Hence, insists Freire, the recovery of 34 consciousness for the alienated must mean "discovering themselves as Pedro, as Antonio or as Josepha."30 Taken to its logical conclusion, Freire's insistence that people's own "view of the world"31 or ontology, which in itself is a form of their traditional consciousness, be rehabilitated as a basis upon which to create a revolutionary consciousness is more in line with the thinking of modern structural anthropologists of the Levi- Strauss32 school than with traditional Marxism. Fanon, for example, ridicules the alienated intellectuals that attempt to re-identify with the people by returning to traditional culture and history. They only catch traditions "outergarments," its "outworn contrivances" its "casts-off of thought" and "its shells and corpses." And he adds: the native intellectual must realize that the truths of a nation are in the first place its realities . . . . He must go on until he has found the seething pot out of which the learning of the future will emerge.33 This is an elaboration of Marxist thesis of the primacy of being over consciousness that constitutes the kernel of historical materialism. Modern structuralists, however, view every aspect of a people's traditional culture as part of their conceptual idiom. Their customs and traditions from culinary arts to folk myths, stand for a symbolic collection of coded messages, which when properly decoded, reveal profound meanings that constitute the peOple's philosophical world view. Authentic re-acculturation which is implicit in the people's conscientization must be based on their 11119.11 11111.11 m; ‘ ertiai :éfIEr ”I" ‘5 :Ih" 35 authentic, i.e., customary, world view, other than superimposed on an alienated culture internalized from the oppressor. The superimposition of one cultural idiom over another through education is unsound. Dewey's view of education as experi- ential growth would imply that such an educational experience would 34 better be called mis-education: and would result in serious dis- tortions in the growth of personality. Edward Blyden once argued that a foreign education for the African would "force him from the groove which is natural to him, where he would be strong and 35 effective." Those who had already got this type of education, he noted, were men of "distorted tastes, confused perception and 36 resultless energy." The whole lot of educated Africans of the west coast appeared to him as "too many men of book-learning but too few of any capability."37 38 African literature teams with these pale men who like Conrad's helmsman don't even have the guts 39 shadows, to descend into real hell. At least in that story those who had escaped western miseducation still "had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy."40 If, as Freire has argued, the real essence of authentic consciousness is intentionality, educational thinkers from Dewey through Blyden as well as African novelists have demonstrated how cultural imperialism in education can destroy that intentionality. To reject cultural invasion is to suggest that transcendental humanism is inherent to every culture however "primitive." It is to reject the view that so called "primitive" peoples represent the child races of the world stuck at the tail-end of a linear scale of 36 historical progression.41 The revolutionary educator must heed Father Placide Temple's feelings when he first discovered African philosophy: We thought we had great children to educate . . . then all of a sudden we discovered that we were concerned with a sample of humanity adult, aware of its own brand of wisdom, and moulded by its own philosophy of life. . . . We have at length discovered the true point of departure.42 The eternal values of the human experience according to Marx were the very goals toward which the reform of consciousness was to be directed. Our slogan therefore must be: Reform of consciousness . through analysis of the mystical consciousness that is unclear about itself, whether in religion or in politics. It will be evident that there is not a big blank between the past and the future, but rather that it is a matter of realizing the thoughts of the past.43 My conclusion is that men as they exist in any society have the basic potential not only to live with each other by those eternal values of love, of understanding and mutual respect, but have in themselves the power to recreate their society to make it accom- modate those values. Unlike proselytization, conscientization does not try to import into people's consciousness ideas of human goodness from without. It rather sets out to unearth the power and goodness within a people's cultural idiom and let them discover their own power for good. Their quest for excellence in terms of humane values historically lands them at the same level where they began. "The just societies of the future" writes Levi-Strauss, "like societies 37 studied by anthropologists will function at a temperature very close 44 to zero." The need for a cultural revolution arises because the oppressed man is a destroyed creature, alienated from himself, his culture and his species-being by the operations of an Oppressive system. Cultural revolution is first of all human rehabilitation. It is intended to restore man "to all the plenitude of his being, the wealthy man endowed with all the senses, as an enduring reality."45 Such humanization cannot be conducted through authoritarian regimenta- tion. Freire is emphatic that revolutionary cultural action be dialogical. Authoritarian methods would, like the cultural invasion of the Oppressor, lead to dehumanization. And so the task of the revolutionary_leadership is to send "a clear invitation to all who "46 wish to participate in the reconstruction of society. At the same time Freire insists: Cultural revolution takes the total society to be reconstructed, including all human activities, as the object of its remolding action. . . . Cultural revolution is the revolutionary regime's maximum effort at con- scienfijzacao--it should reach everyone regardless of his task. I think that a movement so total in its operations is unlikely to retain the optional and dialogical approach Freire advocates. The chngers of excessive state control have been amply borne out by (fisastrous effects of Socialist Realism upon Russian literature.48 0n the other hand giving free reign to the masses to exorcise society of the remnants of the old order can lead to the kind of excesses the 49 Red Guards have comnitted in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. In 38 short, Freire has provided a not so satisfactory an answer to the difficult question of the role of leadership in the cultural revolu- tion. Nevertheless, looked upon from the context of the Third World, where the pedagogical aspect of the cultural revolution involves not matters of literary genres, but issues of basic literacy, Freire's call for cultural synthesis between the revolutionary leadership and the people is most farsighted, and subject to positive interpretations. Tanzania's reacculturation program demonstrates one possible inter- pretation. By providing the institutional frame-work of seminars, workshops, publishing houses, village museums, and various specialized government departments like those of Swahili Language and Literature, of Traditional Music, of Theater and Drama, of Antiquities,50 etc., to sponsor these activities, it has proved that a dialogical approach to the cultural revolution after taking power is possible. The pe0ple themselves can thus participate in producing the new curricula, in producing new text-books, in suggesting new methodological approaches, that could meet the need to implement theory into practice. We have now established that the cultural revolution in the context of cross-cultural imperialism demands the rehabilitation of the people's traditional world view as their authentic mode of per- ception; that it is on this world view that a new culture imbued with a new revolutionary consciousness must be built. Just as the arti- facts of the old society engendered the facets of domination, the «natural revolution sets out to create new artifacts or infbrm old ones with a new idiom of creative freedom. "The new consciousness 39 leads to the emergence of a new language to define and communicate the new values, language in a wider sense, which includes words, 5] The question of language and its role images, gestures, tones." in domesticating or liberating consciousness is crucial to this study. For it is through language teaching that the work of con- scientization described in Chapters VI and VII was carried out. FOOTNOTES: CHAPTER III 1Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), p. 79. 2George Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness, trans. Rodney Livingston (London: Marlin Press, 1971), p. 4. 3 Marx and Engels, "The German Ideology," p. 35. 4Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 157. 5Freire, cited by Rivera, "The Changers," p. 55. 6Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture (New York: Polygraphic, 1937), pp. 56-57. 7James Truslow, New England in the Republic (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1926), p. 75. 8Heinemann Publishers, London, are making roaring business out of their new venture, African Writers' Series, to meet the literary outburst. In spite of stiff competition from Oxford and Longmans, they now have over 200 titles in their series. 9Martin Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York: David McKay, 1974), pIT13} 10Basil Bernstein, Class, Codes and Control (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971). This Study’df’problems of working class children in middle class schools in London, is perhaps the most definitive work of research done on the subject. 1]A member of the Bombay Government, J. Farish, 1938, cited by Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism, p. 92. 12Lord Macaulay, in a Minute, cited by Carnoy, p. 100. Macaulay came to India in 1934 to push for English education among the natives. 13A Minister in the South African Government, 1948, cited by Ian Robertson, "Education with a Political Purpose: The South African Case," a Qualifying Paper (Harvard University, March 1959), p. 31. 4O 41 14James McHarg, "Influences Contributing to the Education and Culture of the Native People of Southern Rhodesia from 1900 to 1961," (ed.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1962), p. 29. 15Freire. Pedagogy 0f the OPPEESSEd’ p. 150‘ 16Julius Nyerere, cited in L. A. Mbughuni, The Cultural Policy of the United Repoblic of Tanzania (Paris: UNESCO Press, 1974), p. 16. 17 Fanon's book published in 1967. 18Cited by Herbert L. Shore, "The Magic Wonder: Art and Education in Modern Tanzania," in Revolution by Education, ed. Idrian N. Resnick (Dar es Salaam: TLongmans of’Tanzania, 1968), p. 194. 19Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 30. 20Ibid., p. 32. 211bid.. p. 160. 22Cited in Richard Gray, The Two Nations (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 22. 23 Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask, p. 25. 24Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 151. 25Names of secondary school students I taught at Nyatsime in Rhodesia, 1965-1967. 26From a list of names of children coming to the well-baby clinic at Mt. Silinda, 1970. 27Grandstaff, p. 12. 28Supra, p. 30. 29 Grandstaff, p. 12. 30Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 175. It would appear that Freire here does not go far enough, for these names, which happen to be Jewish, Roman and Christian in origin, would represent a form of cultural imperialism if the author is referring to American Indian peasants. The revolution in names has been very dramatically conducted in Africa. Among the most well known are leading writers: Awanoor Williams changing to Kofi Awanoor, James Ngugi to Ngugi wa Thiogo, and among my own student writers, Bonus Zimunya changing to Musaemura Zimunya, Godfrey Bopoto changing to Nyasha Bopoto, etc. 42 31Variously talked of as “philosophical world view," "philosophical outlook," "conceptual idiom," or "weltanschauung." 32C1aud Levi-Strauss's book, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960) appears to sum up the Structuralists' view better than any other. 33 34John Dewey, Experience and Education (New York: Collier, 1938), pp. 25-26. 35Cited in Hollis Lynch, Black Spokesman (London: Cass, 1971), p. 19. 36 Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, p. 181. Ibid. 37Ibid., p. 234. 38It is interesting that the weakest characters tend to have an overseas education, like Obi in Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease. 39Fanon, to whom I owe this criticism, cites an interesting story. One day St. Peter saw three men arrive at the gate of heaven: a white man, a mulatto and a negro. "What do you want most?" he asked the white man. "Money." "And you?" he asked the Mulatto. "Fame." St. Peter turned to the negro who said with a wide smile, "I'm just carrying these gentlemens' bags." 40Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (New York W. W. Norton, 1963), p. 23. 41 Grandstaff, pp. 6-7. 42Placide Temples, Bantu Philosophy (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1959), p. 170. 43 p. 58. 44Claude Levi-Strauss, Conversations with G. Charbonnier (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969), p. 42. 45 Karl Marx, in a letter to Arnold Ruge, Marxism and Art, Karl Marx,"Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts," p. 162. 46Freire, Pedagogy of the OPPr955999 P- 132- 47Ioid., p. 157. 48Henry Arvon, Marxist Esthetics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970), pp. 56-59. 43 49Alan P. L. Liu, Political Culture and Group Conflict in Communist China (San Francisco: Clio Book§, 1975), p. 3. 50 Mbughuni, pp. 54-59. 5lMarcuse, Essay on Liberation, p. 33. CHAPTER IV LANGUAGE AND CONSCIOUSNESS The role of language as central to the process of conscienti- zation receives great emphasis in Freire's pedagogy. The "subver- sive" effects of dialogue in teaching according to Freire are limitless. Dialogue implies that the teacher submerges his ego and humbly, faithfully, lovingly, and trustfully discourses with his students on the state of their oppression. “Without dialogue," he writes, "there can be no communication and without communication there can be no education."1 Since the nature of political educa- tion is humanization, the nature of the pedagogy used must permit the emergence of the students' own humanity from the start. Dialogue is in itself a process of humanization. For dialogue permits the student to express his own intentionality about the world. "Dialogue is the encounter between men, mediated 2 by the world in order to name the world." And the only domination allowed is that of the world by the dialoguers.. It is the conquest 3 At the center of Freire's of the world for the liberation of men." whole argument are two basic concepts: that of the "word" and that of the act of naming. Human existence cannot be silent, nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words with which men transform the world. To exist humanly is to name the world, to change it. Once named the world in 44 45 turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a new naming. Men are not built in silence but in word, in work, in action reflection.4 The linguistic activity that involves the act of naming, and the use of the word thus focuses upon the world. All this is directed toward the humanization of man. The idea that dialogue must be "mediated by the world in order to name it "assumes its full meaning only when examined within the context of the Marxist view of cognition, and the Marxist call for the emancipation of the senses." Cognition is defined as “the 5 which is eternal, endless approximation of thought to the object" virtually what Marx meant when he said that "the idea is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and trans— lated into forms of thought."6 Although the dictionary definition of the word "cognize" is given as "to know" or "perceive" it is the implication carried in the third alternative "to recognize" that Marxist epistemology tends to lean upon. That epistemology assumes the existence of the material world, independent of mind indisputably knowable in its materiality when man's genuine perceptual faculties are properly trained on it in order to cognize it. "Men teach each other," writes Freire, "mediated by the world, by cognizable objects."7 The sources of error cannot lie in the objects of cognition, that is, in the world; but in the inadequacies of per- ceptual powers.8 Hence the world need ever be present to mediate at the "scene" of learning while men together help each other to straighten their distortions about it. 46 The connection between what some call sense-data and con- ception is fundamental to all language: All thinking begins with seeing; not necessarily through the eye, but with some basic formulations of sense per- ception in the peculiar idiom of sight, hearing or touch, normally of all senses together. For all thinking is conceptual and conception begins with the comprehension of Gestalt.9 In the same vein Susanne Langer sets out to destroy the possibility of the idea of the primacy of the senses in the formulation of thinking leading to a theory of a dead uniformity of ideas. The activity of our senses is mental, not only when it reaches the brain, but in its very inception whenever the alien world outside impinges on the furthest and smallest receptor. All sensitivity bears the stamp of mentality. Seeing itself is a process of formulation; 10 our understanding of the visual world begins in the eye. Arthur Koestler, in his monumental study of the creative act, arrives at the same conclusion: "The beholder may be convinced that he is simply perceiving images on his retina, but he is in fact perceiving with the whole of his brain: and what he sees is modified by the perceptual codes which operate in it."11 In short, seeing is conceiving. Linguists tend to see man's history, personal or collective, as providing the "perceptual codes" that constitute that tinted material which color his vision. Marxist epistemology adds a dialectical dimension to the whole problem. The reflection of nature in man's thought must be under- stood not lifelessly, not abstractly, not devoid of move- ment, not without contraditions but in the eternal process of movement, the arising of contradictions and their solution.12 47 The need to identify these contradictions by a people whose varying perceptual codes create differing visions of reality means that no one can get the truth alone. "Knowledge emerges only through inven- tion and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing hopeful inquiry men pursue in the world, with the world and with each other.”13 Dialogue is the only road by which man can attain any level of authenticity in conception. Freire here goes to the fundamental nature of language as vocal. It is talking rather than writing that constitutes the basic linguistic activity of man. What distinguishes man from the animal is not "language as such, but the special form of human speech, the articulate language shich permits of concepts and so enables man's thoughts to achieve higher results, which distinguish man in this 14 We have already seen that man as a 15 respect from other species." conscious being is aware of his consciousness and intent upon it. It thus seems logical to infer that the need to establish a common referent for his individual perceptual code is a fundamental drive behind the socialization of that perceptual code in form of living speech. "Speech is the living expression of our thought and its existence is rooted in the life of society and conditioned by it."16 In dialogue people set out to name the world, that is, re- align or re-invent a new relationship between word and object or distinguish between the word that conceals from the word that reveals something. Freire, like many philosophers of language, sees the act of naming as an act of creation. Langer describes naming as "the Vastest generative idea that ever was conceived; its influence might 48 well transform the entire mode of living and feeling, in the whole 1 . 7 The name is never a neutral refer- species within a generation." rential symbol for the object. The name, as word, interpentrates our experience of the object. Hence, the virtual identity of word and 18 And object which man creates in magic spells and ritual chants. this is of course no more primitive than the behavior of a naturalist who does not feel that he is truly in touch with a flower until he has mastered the names of a great many flowers . . . "as though the primary world of reality were a verbal one."19 Christian interpreters of Freire view his idea of naming in biblical terms. They pose an idealistic approach to language by insisting that in Freire: The word goes before men, that the Word became flesh, that in the beginning was the Word. In the process of libera- tion men and women speak the word that they would become. Essential to the dialectical process is that we take each other at our word, for only in this way can we become what we might yet be. The act of naming calls forth a new reality for ourselves and for others.20 There is nothing here to restrain us from altering Brewster Kneen's initial premise in order to accept the rest of his interpretation. We can as easily remain Marxist existentialists and argue that in the beginning was man, and that it was he who made repetitive syllabic noises conoting certain experiences; noises which when they became fixated to certain experiences and objects came to be called words. A word fixes something in experience, and makes it the nucleus of memory, an available conception. Other impres- sions group themselves around the denoted thing and are associatively recalled when it is named. A whole occasion~ may be retained in thought 5y the name of an object or a person that was its center. 49 And so the interplay of object, symbol and experience, make the true word a praxis: a unity of action and reflection. The utterance of the word evokes a response (active or verbal) in the hearer, or denotes an action in the speaker himself. The so- called empractic22 use of language like that of a child who sends off the nurse to the cookie jar by calling out "cookie" is a sim- plistic illustration of a profound truth.23 William Smith tested a sample of people in order to classify them according to the Freirean typology of magical, naive and critical consciousness. He discovered that their responses to the question "What is the most de-humanizing problem in your life?" closely corresponded to the types' capacity for action or lack of it in the struggle for their own liberation.24 The magical named poverty, or hunger or some biological condition over which they could have no control as the fault. The naive type would name things like laziness and bad individual characters as the cause of all troubles. The critical type saw the system as at fault. The magical had to wait for god or better luck to change their condi- tion; the naive sought to reform individual persons in the system; and the critical type set out to conduct a revolution and create a better system. The word uttered by men that have attained critical consciousness is the only word Freire calls praxis, that is, action- reflection. For it is the word with which men "come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in 25 transformation." That is how the word expresses one's intention- ality. That is how it becomes praxis. 50 But there are other words that are not true words. Most of these words are part of the false myths the oppressor creates in order to maintain his grip on the oppressed. Freire lists a few: that an oppressed is a "free society," that the "order respects human rights," the myth of being "defenders of Western Christian Civilization," the myth that violence is a sin against god,26 etc., myths that have been used with almost ritualistic persistence by oppressive regimes throughout history. Often the oppressed internal- ize the oppressor's linguistic idiom and accept his naming of them.27 The rise of the oppressed to a level of critical conscious- ness means the falling away of the oppressor's universe of words. But the recovery of language as authentic intentionality, must also depend on the emancipation of the primary senses, the very tools of perception. Marcuse sees this Marxist idea as "the most radical and integral idea of socialism."28 Marx's thesis was that the senses of the exploited are deformed and exploited and therefore no longer human. . . . to the starving man, it is not the human form of food that exists; but only its abstract being as food; it could just as well be there in its crudest form, and it would be impossible to say wherein this feeding activity differs from that of animals. The care-burdened man has no sense for the finest play; the dealer in minerals sees only the mercantile value but not the beauty . . . he has no mineralogical sense.29 The emphasis is on the word "human." The needs that have become animal when operating in a state of exploitation, become human when Operating in freedom. They can also be humanized by the process of conscientization. As the objects of the senses become humanized, 51 30 the senses themselves i.e., "objects emanating from man for man" become human. Also just as the most beautiful music has no sense for the unmusical ear, all the sensuous in life exist only so long as man's own sensory powers exist, in full flower as human senses. It is not only in thought but also through the senses that man is affirmed in the objective world. This total man that sums up Marx's humanistic program marks the definitive resolution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man and man. It is the true solu- tion of the conflict between existence and essence, between objectification and self affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species.31 The emancipation of the senses naturally means a complete redefinition of man's outlook on the world, and a new language through which to express that outlook. The growth of a new critical awareness constitutes a rediscovery of the familiar. A new idiom, a new vocabulary, a new and fresh use of old words emerges as the "32 For if "new language to define and communicate the new values. indeed the senses are now free to see what is and not what the world of domination compels them to see, liberated man needs a new language to name what he sees. Freire leaves unexplored the relationship between the lin- guistic universe of revolutionary praxis and creative literature. It is my contention that the sharpening of man's perceptual powers implied by the process of conscientization, can be conducted through properly organized dialogical sessions of a creative writing course; and that creative literature must be an essential part of the cultural revolution. It should stand as the crystallization of the 52 revolutionary consciousness and play a vital role in "keeping con- sciences that are drowsy by nature alert, spurring men on toward the ever-widening horizon of the future, or revealing to men the 33 Above ever changing and permanent meaning of their existence." all the existence of a new type of man with a new critical conscious- ness must mean the growth of a sensibility which stands for the new 34 The morality of freedom imbued in the ideal of the beautiful. revitalization of language and the growth of a new idiom to meet the new sensibility, is primarily a task of aesthetics. Language, after all, is primarily esthetic in its original function and not communicative. Esthetic attraction, mysterious fear, are probably the first manifestation of that mental function which in man becomes a peculiar tendency to see reality symbolically, and which issues in the power of conception and the life- long habit of speech.35 Discursive language is now generally regarded as "faded metaphor,"36 much lower level of symbolic development in the story of language. The so-called language of communication is thus a pauperization of 37 Creative man's primal language, that is expressive symbolization. literature constitutes a return to that attraction, revulsion, fear, wonder--for the object which restores to language its original role as esthetic symbolism. The reclamation of language from the universe of domination is certainly a task for creative literature. Marcuse has demonstrated how the new language of the revolu- 38 To the Blacks in tion could mean a reversal of traditional idiom. an era of civil rights uprising, soul is no longer the lily-white image of tender, deep and immortal innocence of the Christian 53 tradition. "Soul is black, violent, orgiastic; it's no longer in Beethoven, Schubert, but in blues, in jazz, in rock 'n roll, in soul food."39 That creates a whole new esthetic for the new Black. In Langston Hughes: I have known rivers ancient dark rivers my soul has grown deep 40 like the deep rivers . . . the imagery of salvation abandons the pilgrim's progress to a heaven up high, and assumes the nature of a descent into psychic depths as the true road to human sublimation. The language of domination could turn into a language of the new consciousness when focused on the realities of the oppressed. Such a process amounts to "de-Anglicization and deracialization"4] of the English language in some contexts. Chinua Achebe illustrates the nature of the new idiom thus: instead of saying, "I am sending you as my representative among these people just to be on the safe side in case the new religion develops" his priest in Arrow of God says, "I want one of my sons to join these peOple and be my eyes there. If there is nothing you will come back. If there is some- 42 The first statement is thing there, you will bring home my share." out of character. It is an Englishman talking, or a black man talking like an Englishman. The second statement gives us the voice of an African using English words to express his own reality, steeped in the idiom of his traditional philosophy. The new language also "tells it like it is,“ for it is a language of indictment, a language that sets out to capture the raw 54 realities of exploitation with a concreteness that gives new fresh- ness to old words. Thus, Mungoshi, exploring the nature of land discrimination in Rhodesia, writes: Not until you cross Chambara River into the old village with roofless huts and gaping doorways and the smell of dogshit and burnt rags are you at home. And then the signature of time truly appears in the work-scarred body of an abandoned oxcart with its shaft pointing an accusing finger at the empty heavens, and the inevitable stray dog-- all ribs and the fur worn down to the sore skin--rummaging for something to eat among the ruins.43 It is the new way of seeing things, or of experiencing things, that makes this language so interesting. The new consciousness appears in the way the object has ceased to represent "things as they are" but has become historical, "a signature of time," a symbol of exploitation which constitutes a limit-situation that must be over- come. Mungoshi is writing of the nature of exploitation in Rhodesia. Since the conscientizing work that is described in this exposition was carried out in that country, it is necessary that we examine the role that formal education has played in Rhodesia to facilitate the exploitation of the blacks. FOOTNOTES: CHAPTER IV 1Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 81. Ibid., p. 76. Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 76. (31th Lenin, cited in Mao Tse Tung and Education, p. 10. Marx, cited in Mao Tse Tung and Education, p. 9. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 67. oouai The inadequacies arise from the fact that we see con- ceptually. As we see, we interpret, and usually according to con- ceptual tools given to us by society. So if society tells us that peasants are ugly, our eyes are likely to distort the most beautiful peasant face into grotesque proportions, like a cartoonist does. ‘ 9Langer, p. 266. 10 1]Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (London: Hutchinson 1964), p. 367. 12 Ibid., p. 90. Lenin, cited in Mao Tse Tung and Education, p. 10. 13Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 14Rocker, p. 284. 15Supra, p. 13. 16 17 Rocker, p. 284. Langer, p. 142. 18Edward Sapir, Culture, Language and Personality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), p. 8. 55 56 19Ibid. 20Brewster Kneen, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," a review in The Canadian Forum (July-August, 1971), p. 29. 21 22 23 Langer, p. 135. Ibid., p. 131. Ibid., p. 136. 24William A. Smith, "The Meaning of Conscientizacao, The Goal of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy" (Amherst: University of Massa- chusetts, Center for International Education, 1976), pp. 41-90. 25Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 71. 26Ibid., p. 135. 27Gray, The Two Nations, pp. 164-170. The author records many African organizations that called themselves "native" like the “Native Women's League," or the "Rhodesian Native Association," in spite of the fact that whites used the word "native" to mean a "member of an uncivilized race." See the Oxford Dictionary. 28Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, p. 64. 29Marx, cited in Istvan Meszaros, Marx Theory of Alienation (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 201. 30 Ibid., p. 202. 3lMarx, cited in Erich Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970), p. 34. 32 33 Marcuse, Essay on Liberation, p. 33. Arvon, p. 117. 34Supra, p. 20. 35Langer, p. 110. 36Ibid., p. 140. 37Sapir, Langer and several creative writing theorists concur with this view. When my professor writes "wow" at the end of a startling line, he is engaged primarily in using expressive language, which is connotative rather than denotative, and I believe this was the primordial function of language. 57 38Marcuse, Essay on Liberation, p. 35. 39 4O 41A1i Mazrui, World Culture and the Black Experience (Seattle: University oleashington Press, 1974), p. 99. 42 Ibid., p. 36. Cited in Fanon's Black Skin, White Mask, p. 127. Ibid., p. 100. 43Charles Mungoshi, Waiting for the Rain (London: Heinemann, 1976). pp. 40, 44. CHAPTER V EDUCATION AND OPPRESSION IN RHODESIA 1953-1970 Introduction African education in Rhodesia represents, to a remarkable degree, the facets of the Freirean-Marxist model of exploitative education. According to that model which a host of modern educators accept,1 education in an exploitative system is only an arm of Oppression with which the oppressors process their victims for a servile role in the economic system. There are two types of exploita- tive systems: .One explicit and another implicit. The former obtains in imperial old time colonial, racial or settler ruled communities; and the latter obtains in one-race class ruled societies. In a society of explicit exploitation the oppressors state their intentions loud and clear. In the latter societies the oppressors cover up their exploitative designs in more subtle and innocuous language. Rhodesia is a country Of explicit racial exploitation. Although at no time in its 80 year history did the population ratio of white to black ever get better than 1 to 16 (see Figure 1). Political and economic power has always been held by white men sworn to rule forever. The inequities created to retain such an unjust order are great. In land distribution (in 1969), for example, each of the two races had one half the land mass of the country allotted to them separately in spite of the fact that Africans outnumbered 58 59 TABLE l.--Population Growth in Rhodesia. Proportion of Year Europeans Africans Africans to Europeans 1901 11,032 500,000 45:1 1911 23,606 740,000 31:1 1921 33,620 860,000 26:1 1931 49,910 1,080,000 22:1 1941 68,954 1,400,000 20:1 1951 135,596 2,170,000 16:1 1961 221,504 3,550,000 16:1 1961 228,044 4,818,000 21:1 Source: A.K.H. Weinrich, Black and White Elites in Rural Rhodesia, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1973), p. 15. 2 whites by 21:1. In the wage structure, the average white wage in 1969 was pounds 1,361 as against the African wage of pounds 138.3 Likewise education for the white child has been compulsory and free since 1930 but for the African child it is neither.4 The problem for white men in Rhodesia has always been how they could create an educa- tion system for blacks that would keep the latter in a state of permanent servitude when the injustices perpetrated on them are so clear. Three approaches were attempted to resolve this problem. The first set out to process the African child into an efficient laborer for the white man.5 The second approach sought to Offer a few black men opportunities to high level academic education, form an 60 alliance with these in order to exploit the rest. The third approach set out to use the school as a processing plant for the alienation and domestication of the African child, thus turning him into an obedient, pliable and worshipping servant of things white and western. Yet beneath the appearance of white solidarity against blacks there were class divisions. Always working beneath the surface it was this unseen hand of production relations that became the main determinant of the historical process. The educational system meted out to the African people was a function of the turbulent swirl and eddies of the class struggle translated into the historical idiom of Rhodesian racism.6 The Kerr Commission and the Epoch The Kerr Commission 1953 made far-reaching recommendations on all aspects of African education. But these recommendations, and indeed the Commission itself, can be understood only in the context of the period. The Commission was set up in response to socio- economic needs that had emerged during and soon after the war. The wartime period experienced an unprecedented economic boom. This was a result of factors like rapid industrialization to produce goods otherwise available from overseas, encouragement of agriculture to meet increased demand for foodstuffs overseas, sudden rise in the tobacco trade, the rerouting of international capital from South Africa to Rhodesia when the Nationalist victory of 1948 threatened wideSpread nationalization of foreign capital, etc.7 The boom 61 resulted in the emergence of a large class Of white bourgeousie and manufacturing capitalists. Their interests lay in the growth of a class of skilled and semi-skilled Africans earning a reasonable wage, to supply the manpower requirements of the expanding economy and to serve as a ready market for their produce. Vocational educa- tion for the African thus became a major concern of the Kerr Commis- sion and of the period. There was another consideration. The operation of the race laws of the 1930's led to a progressive proletarization of the African peasantry.8 The peasant drifted into town where he lived under the most gruesome exploitation. Said one Old man: I have grown up under white people . . . . My wish is that . . . we get better treatment in the way of wages. Today I am getting older and I have nothing. I have not saved anything. I might die and do not know how my children are going to manage. There was a powerful growth of a workers' consciousness. In the 10 to 15 years from 1940 there was an unprecedented upsurge of workers movements: e.g., the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, Rhodesia Railways African Workers Union, Bantu Benefit Society, Joint Industrial Committee for Railway Workers Union, Bantu Congress, Industrial Welfare Society, African Workers Trade Union, Reformed Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, Waiters Association, African Workers Voice.10 Protests and strikes become endemic, leading to the violent nationwide strike of 1948. Huggins, the Prime Minister, like Todd, his successor, saw the meaning very clearly. YOur experience is not unique," he said. "We are witnessing the emergence of the km” proletariat and in this country it happens to be blac Being a 62 representative of the white bourgeousie, Huggins, like his successors saw the need to create an African middle class as a buffer against the proletariat. "We shall never do much with these people until we 12 have established a native middle class," he said. The Kerr Commis- sion was intended to suggest educational processes for doing this. Education for Labour Exploitation The Kerr Commission's Report 1953 made some epoch making recommendations on vocational education for the African. Their sig- nificance, however, can only be understood against the background of the traditional white attitudes on the subject. Before the second world war the majority of white Rhodesians, who are generally men of working class backgrounds from England, saw any form of technical training or artisan training for the African as anathema. "Educate the natives by all means," said one Legislator, "but don't teach them trades. What position would our sons have to "13 face at this rate. Hence all types of non-academic education for the African took the form of industrial training and community development. It was made clear that "the simpler forms of industrial 14 training were intended." This meant that the training must produce "a better workman and a more useful servant to the EurOpean,"15 or enable a boy to "build stables, outhouses, or under white supervision, plain cottages, but would not fit him for working in a municipality 16 or on first class buildings." Taking their ideas from the 17 industrial education movement in America the Rhodesian Government pioneered with two institutions, Tsolotso 1922 and Domboshawa 1921. 63 Several Mission stations followed suit: Mt. Silinda, Tegwani, Waddilove, Gokomere, etc., training the African in rudimentary skills in agriculture, hygiene, brick laying and smithing to be used in his 18 or to "fetch and carry for the European worker"19 in own village, industry. White criticism had to be allayed with the assurance that the type of training given in these institutions was equal to only one year of apprenticeship training.20 White workers were nevertheless not satisfied. In 1933 they forced the government to pass the Industrial Conciliation Bill which gave them power to determine who will be accepted for artisan train- ing.21 That stopped the possibility of industrial schools becoming real technical colleges or any form of on-the-job technical training for blacks. And by the time the Kerr Commission reported, the racist framework set up by the white working class was still the worst obstacle they faced. The Commission condemned in no uncertain terms the equivocation of the industrial conciliation act that in one breath permitted employment of African artisans on the same pay with whites and in another denied him training. Yet we need the unbounded confidence of the African in order to mould his character successfully and to educate him properly. A bar that is imposed in such circumstances therefore becomes a major obstacle to successful African education.22 The Commission admitted that the government had difficult problems in this regard. But the demands for more technical and vocational training for blacks were overwhelming. "In view of the rapid industrial growth which has gone on within the colony during the past decade the demands are reasonable and only to be expected."23 64 The existing system of two year industrial training in eight institu- tions after primary school was "totally inadequate both in content and extent for the times in which we are living."24 Finally, they strongly recommended changing existing trade courses to three years, introducing new courses, and establishing further training facilities for graduates of these institutions so that they could rise to the level of fully qualified journeymen. They further recommended that commercial courses in bookkeeping, typing, business methods and 25 At the bottom of the whole commercial arithmetic be introduced. problem the Commission referred to the occupational color-bar as the greatest obstacle to progress. The Commission, like the Government that appointed it, represented the voice of the national bourgeoisie and national capitalism, the class, as we have seen, whose interest lay in creating a class of artisans and professionals. The uneasy coalition between the national bourgeoisie and the working class established by 26 still held. But it was Prime Minister Godfrey Huggins since 1933 too fragile for the government to take bold steps like repealing the Industrial Conciliation Act. Yet this was what was needed. "If we are to produce a multiracial society in this country and provide sufficient trained manpower to meet the growing needs of industry-- we must educate and train the African for skilled employment."27 In spite of the current myth that the black worker was lazy, irresponsible and incapable of competing with the white man, the white working class knew that they were threatened. It took much persuading and cajolling on the part of the government plus five 65 years of parliamentary bickering and manouvering (1954-1959) to get the Industrial Conciliation Act amended. The central point in the amendment was the inclusion of the African worker in the definition of employee. This gave him a legal voice in the industrial concilia- tion machinery. It meant that apprenticeship conditions would now no longer be decided by white unions that had so successfully kept Africans out of the artisan training. Fear of "African-controlled unionism 28 The was the most powerful consideration behind the opposition." compromise arrived at was that only multiracial trade unions be included in the industrial conciliation machinery. That way the whites could still act as senior partners of the organization and control it. It was a most unsatisfactory compromise which, as we shall see later, virtually left the technical and artisan education of the African still in the hands of the white working class, the class most unwilling to permit it. Meanwhile, in areas less directly concerned with the question of training artisans, the Kerr Commission recommendations were carried out to the letter. Commercial courses were opened in commercial practice, business, calculations, bookkeeping, typewriting, short- hand, commercial English in a few schools to meet manpower needs of industry. The aim was never in doubt. "NO shortage of good employ- 29 ment for the stable, skilled African clerk." Domestic Science courses were opened for women. The Old industrial courses were up- 30 graded. From two year training they became three year courses and later four year.31 More subjects were added including a health 66 demonstrators' course. The terminal diploma was upgraded to the 32 National Technical Certificate Part I and Part II. The ultimate aim was to meet the Kerr Commission's recommendations that graduates of these institutions be dovetailed into real apprenticeship train- ing.33 But for a while they appeared to serve the old Huggins policy of the dual pyramid, a policy of non-competitive parallel development by each race. The fact that the training given at Domboshawa and other centers has produced good solid citizens cannot be denied as such persons are met in all districts playing their part and exerting a steadying influence on the local community. In spite of the fact that these courses were very much lower than real apprenticeship, the demand for admission to industrial schools was very high. In 1958 Mzingwani had 862 applicants for 100 places, Domboshawa had 796 applicants for 100 places; in 1960 35 For the student it Domboshawa had 915 applicants for 95 places. was a matter of grabbing at whatever was available. The trend was clear, however--more and more Openings for blacks into the forbidden world of industrial and technological know-how were on the way. But there was one important variable: the alliance between the white working class community and their capitalist and bourgeoisie partners must hold. The capitalists and bourgeoisie elements that ran the country since 1933, in the persons of Huggins, Welensky, Todd and Whitehead, must continue to carry working class support with them, by calming their fears of the black threat and this they tried: 67 No white trade unionist worth his salt (Wellensky told the trade union congress) need fear for his leadership in he field of labour . . . the growth of African skill, slow though it undoubtedly is and inevitably will be, can only mean one thing: a greater level of consumption throughout the whole country, the expansion of industry and so a greater demand for skilled men. Far from taking away the white man's leadership it will, in fact, provide an ever increasing sphere into which that leadership can be extended.36 The fact that it was thought necessary to keep preaching this theory of domesticating the enemy shows how uneasy the alliance of the white classes was becoming. Before that alliance finally broke down in 1962, the most dramatic changes in the government's vocational training policy took place. As indicated earlier the repeal of the Conciliation Act opened doors to apprenticeship for Africans. In 1960 the Apprentice- ship Act placed African apprentices On par with whites. Meanwhile a full scale technical college was Opened at Luveve opening oppor- tunities for four year standard training and full apprenticeship. In the same year junior technical schools were Opened, and the question of closing down the Old industrial courses was mooted.37 With full scale technical education opportunities available at all levels, these handyman courses were deemed unnecessary. But just as these new courses and programs came into the system, so also were they closed down. The handyman courses were ended in 1963.38 Simultaneously, the junior technical schools, which had started to replace them, were also closed. -The Ministry had argued that these schools were a necessary preparation to full scale apprenticeship training.39 Now they stated the opposite: 68 There is no doubt that general basic training is the correct ore-requisite to vocational training. A student entering a vocational course is unlikely to undertake it save for the reason that he wishes that kind of employment.40 And so after only three years in existence, the technical secondary school closed its doors. In that same year, 1963, a parliamentary committee was appointed to consider "whether Luveve 41 should continue in its present role." The committee was of course window dressing. The Secretary of African Education actually made it clear that the aims for which Luveve was built were either totally fulfilled in the three years of its existence or were no longer necessary, especially since apprenticeship was now non-racial.42 And so just as hundreds of African youth were getting down to take the first full time technical educational opportunity ever devised by the Rhodesian government, they were informed that "Luveve had done 43 the job for which it was established," and the doors were now shut. Its masses of equipment was shared between the all white Bulawayo Technical College and the quasi-multiracial polytechnic in Salisbury. But we get an idea of the real reason for the sudden shut- down of these institutions when the Principal of Luveve talks of the "trade unions' delay in welcoming African students into the work- 44 shops," and his remark that "the admission of student apprentices requires whole-hearted support of the trade unions before such train- 45 ing can be successful." As late as 1965 the Secretary for Education could still write: "We still await some satisfactory solution to the problem of African apprenticeship and the provision of technical 46 training outside apprenticeship." This is five years after the 69 passing of the Apprenticeship Act. These two remarks bring us back to the cause of the problem: the class struggle among the whites. The opening and closing of these institutions represent the shift of political power from one class to the other; from the national bourgeoisie and capitalist class to the working class and rural petty bourgeoisie. In 1962 the Rhodesia Front, a coalition of working class and petty bourgeoisie elements, ended the era started by Huggins in 1933. The uneasy alliance between the high and working class elements in the white community came to an end. The typical Rhodesian, a lower class Englishman and a large horde of uncouth farmers, mostly with south African parentage, won an election. "The R.F. whose case rested on the belief that Europeans should and must continue to rule were prepared to use all the powers and authority of the government to resist those who challenged this belief."47 Hence the sudden and unceremonious closure of all institutions Opened for African advancement, especially technical advancement which directly threatened the white working class positions. After that it was back to the '30s. Said one of Ian Smith's precedessors: Government must stop this ridiculous policy of theirs, this policy of appeasement, masquerading under the name of partnership, for to African nationalists it simply revealed weakness. British liberalism is all very well behind the English Channel, but we have got to be more realistic . we have got to be a great deal firmer and a great deal harder and take a lesson from those down south (i.e., South Africa).43 When Ian Smith took over he made it clear that he did not expect the country to be ruled by Africans in his lifetime. The previous government had thought the African under the new economic 7O circumstances could best be exploited by dividing him and fraternizing with his more enterprising brethren. To the new regime every African was an enemy, a potential pretender for the high seat and he must be reduced to servitude or kept in his own tribe. The community development aspects of industrial education all returned. In 1966 was presented a new Education Plan: 37.5% of primary school output--regardless of ability--were to enter a two year terminal secondary school whose curriculum is "directed towards the probable type of employment which will be available . . . . It is in commerce, industry and agriculture that work must be sought."49 Unlike the technical secondary school of the previous government, this new secondary school did not lead to apprenticeship. Unlike the academic secondary school it could not lead to university or higher institutions of learning. It led only to a life of unskilled and semi-skilled labour. The Government stated that it was seeking "the establishment of a relationship between the school and the area in which it is situated. The schools should be able . . . to provide the labour to meet the demands Of industry. In rural areas . . . it will be essential to link the two final years of schooling to agri- cultural activities."50 The role of the African in the economy must lie in his own segregated reserve, unproductive, unindustrialized though it is. His training for this peasant existence must thus remain rudimentary. And his relation to the major growth sectors of the economy lies in providing "both an efficient labour force and a growing domestic 71 market. He is not conceived of as setting up alongside his European compatriots in managerial, administrative or capitalist roles."5] Vocational education for the African has, over the years, taken many twists and turns and much restructuring according to the varying political strategies of the ruling classes in the white community. To the capitalist and bourgeois class it aimed at pro- ducing much needed skilled personnel for expanding industry. To the working class and petty-bourgeois it aimed at training the African into an efficient, obedient and unskilled servant who would "pull and carry" for the white artisan. To the African masses vocational education was always a system of exploitation. And their under- standing of the white man's meaning Of vocational training for the black man was typified by Tendai Training Centre opened in 1953 in Umtali. Its aim was to train African women in Domestic Science so as "to enable them to take up domestic service (in white homes) with 52 some knowledge of what is expected of them." Indeed as soon as it was opened: Enquiries about the centre have been received from all over the country and it may be that this experiment in Umtali will be the beginning of a large-scale effort to train African women to run European households and so release male labour for work in farming, commerce and industry.53 The Educational Pyramid Whereas vocational education was tailored to exploit African labour to the best advantage of the whiteman, academic education was so structured to create an African elite, divorced from the rest of the masses and allied to the white oppressor in his exploitation of 72 the masses. The most outstanding device used to achieve this was the pyramid structure of the system itself. The Kerr Commission epoch saw the growth of the pyramid system into full stature. The movement of educational reforms of which the Kerr Commis- sion was a part, meant a clear shift in government policy. Up to the outbreak of the war most current white Opinion preferred that Africans be educated only to an elementary level for service in their village, or as Bone puts it, "Within their communities, within their 54 way of life, within their culture." It was not intended that the "ultimate target . . . be the uplift of the African until he could take his full responsible role in the social, economic and political 55 life of the country as a whole." Missionaries who shouldered most of the burden required only basic literacy for evangelization and other whites supported them because they saw the educated black as a challenge and a spoiled servant. "If you want to spoil a good nigger send him to school. He is casual and approaches you as an equal."56 But it was competition with the blackman that whites feared most. Who wants the native to buy a pair of black trousers to cover his black legs? His black legs are infinitely preferable as a worker and as an individual. The native will continue to be honest if you leave him with his beads and blankets . . . . If we could clear out every mission station in this country and stop all this fostering of higher native education and development we would much sooner become an asset to the Empire. We are simply committing suicide.57 And so for the first fifty years of white rule in Rhodesia, there was not a single secondary school in existence although there were about 58 95,000 children in school by 1939. This policy rationalized by Atkinson, intended to reduce elitism and its attendant evils 73 suited the white's desires for a servile race of semiliterate workers in their mines and industries and on their farms. Changes to this policy were first signalled in 1938 by the new Director of Native Education who outlined the "primary Objectives of African education as mastery of the three R's and character train- ing to prepare Africans to meet the rapid changes of the urban 59 industrial society they were fast entering." In 1942 a school council was inaugurated for a secondary school and in 1946 Goromonzi Government Secondary School was opened. One mission secondary school, St. Augustines, had already been founded in 1939. In the 1950's and 1960's more secondary schools were opened by the government and by missions or African Councils. The University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland opened its doors in 1953. The pyramid structure of African education meant the opening of the greatest amount of educational Opportunities at the elementary or primary school level, and the progressive restriction of oppor- tunity as one climbed up the ladder to university. The full impact of the system can easily be understood by looking at a table of enrollments in the periOd under study (see Table 2). The diagonal line running through the figures enables us to trace the fortunes of the Grade I class of 1952. It shows that of the 84,444 children entering grade I in 1952, only 10,921 reached the last grade of the primary education segment and of those only 1,919 went to secondary school; of those only 386 reached O-level and of those only 56 reached the pre-university upper-sixth form. A simple piece of arithmetic will show that only one out of every eight 711 .Nm .n .Awom. consoooov e .02 .m mu.eo:ouw co pmecaoa memmuoza =.ewmouozm :* u:0§no.o>wo pace—uouast .ocou .u .x “oucaom co_.,o~ cae.e_ one.eee an. we_ Noe._ Nao.~ www.ec mmm.ac eem.km m-.ee eoe.mm ~e~.ma wmo.ca Fea.ee_ New.m__ emm.e~. weep .meo.omc mea.m_ co~.eae me_ mm. ~m~._ ~_e._ eea.m aoe.c ~e~.cm _eh.ne ep~.mm Nam.ma ene.ma enm.eop wom.n_p mae.e~P “cop Nam.a~a ene.m_ mmm.eec hm am. 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