'Burning schools is bad.' Why is no one interested in why it's happening?
Frank Mukhaswakule Primary at Mashau village in Vuwani, Limpopo, was burnt on May 4 2016 — PICTURE: SANDILE NDLOVU Morality keeps societies together — moralising can tear them apart. Which is why there is no point in denouncing people who set schools alight if you have no interest in why they do it.The burning of schools in Vuwani in protest at a shift in a municipal boundary prompted a familiar response — a rush to denounce the culprits, but little effort to find out why it happened. Public figures and reporters have been quick to tell us that is bad to burn schools. But, except for some reports hinting at rivalry between traditional leaders as a cause, no one seems interested in working out what is actually happening in Vuwani.This is a problem, not because it is a good idea to burn down schools. It isn’t, and public figures should say so — as long as they mix their pious statements with a serious interest in finding out what went wrong and how to stop it. But if all opinion-forme...
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