KGAUGELO MASWENENG | Dear Gauteng education dept, deaths of pupils are not a PR stunt

In African culture we honour and show deep respect for the dead. We treat mourning families with unquestionable compassion. When there’s a death in the community, we stop playing loud music, show up and be present, dress appropriately and express our condolences with respect. We take it further by observing the rituals and traditions of that family and offering them practical help. We are guided by benevolence.

The late former constitutional court justice Yvonne Mokgoro once said ubuntu is a concept that is not easy to delineate, but succinctly and poignantly defined it as something that "envelops" various key values such as compassion, group solidarity and respect.

On Wednesday the Gauteng MEC of basic education, Matome Chiloane and his team visited the families of the children who died in the Daveyton crash. Four schoolchildren died, and five were critically injured. I tagged along on the home visits.

As journalists, our pursuit of news stories often forces us to confront a reality that is too painful and appalling to ignore: to politicians, black pain is disposable.

There must come a time when we revise how we treat black families in mourning, bring back “ditlhong” [shame] and observe the loss of others from the lens of how we would want to be treated. It is therefore disheartening to watch politicians in this country, in their quest for photo ops and political posturing, act outside the ambits of African culture or ubuntu, when they themselves are black.

Arriving in their black SUVs, the MEC clad in Louis Vuitton shoes: I could not help but notice how distasteful, impolite and tone-deaf it is when politicians step into homes of grieving families, perform their condolences and vanish. They impose themselves on families that probably consented to the visit with the hope that they would get some help — their pain, privacy, struggles, poverty and homes become wide open. They never neglect to bring a media contingent with them.

A swarm of journalists and photographers immediately click and flash away, angling for the best shot of the family huddled together in their living room we have no business stepping in without individual permission. Like gunfire, they shoot away. Each snap is not only intrusive but probably unnatural for the subjects who did not have time to fix their faces — they have been crying and arranging a funeral all day.

No one asked for permission.

During the visits, they spent less than an hour in each family, and they were on to the next. I could not make out what the MEC was saying to the family, he spoke gently but I could not catch the impact of his words- even as an outsider and a media practitioner. It felt like listening to a poorly written script.

The universal culture that Africans share is that when you visit a family in grief, you bring something with you. A bucket of scones, a R20 “ya matshidiso” [condolences], flowers, your time and service or a mere shoulder to cry on. Through tea, the family will show their appreciation.

Where is ubuntu when officials arrive in style at grieving families and leave them with empty hands? What’s the point of these visits? Considering that by the time they visit these families, they would have announced that they have dispatched psycho-social teams to the schools or families? Beyond this, what are they offering these families? Who among them thought this was a brilliant idea worth repeating?

I ask because in one of the homes we tagged along to, there was an enamel dish on the table for “matshidiso” and there was only one monetary note pledged in it — in a room full of officials. No shame, just vibes. Of course, families do not put the dish out for hand-outs, but it is expected that out of courtesy one leaves a coin or note to cement the shared loss.

I asked the mother, Shelly Rapolai, the mother of the late Kgosi Malatji, how the government officials had assisted them. She sighed and essentially said all they did was say sorry and left.

Sadly this is the modus operandi of this department in Gauteng. We have seen it before. Like clockwork, when a learner dies in an accident, commits suicide, is poisoned, wiped out in a storm or reduced to ash by shack fires, the officials descend on that family or “rush to the scene”.

At some point, this showmanship "veza ubuso" [show face] behaviour needs to stop. This rude act where families are subjected to performing, articulating and explaining their pain and trauma while journalists snap away at the wailing mother, a father who is in disbelief and a confused sibling while everyone nods solemnly, needs to stop. Leaders, it seems, no longer attend to the community to help but are there simply to seem as though they are helping.

The cycle is cruel. They learn of a tragedy, there is the outrage, a visit, promises — and then silence. Meanwhile, the families are left in grief, with no closure, help or solution. The people who remain are the community, who will help them clean the pots and pack the many chairs and tables.

I’m in no way advocating for no appearances from officials. I’m simply challenging their intentions — and equally the purported impact of their photo ops at the cost of grieving families. I also recognise that ours is to report the stories, out of duty and care. Someone has to document the truth. But when will citizen’s pain and grief stop being used as a political tool? How far removed are politicians from reality that they think it's OK to use death — worse, of children — as an opportunity to pretend to be working?

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