A World of Their Own by Meghan Healy-Clancy

A World of Their Own by Meghan Healy-Clancy

Author:Meghan Healy-Clancy [Healy-Clancy, Meghan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Africa, South, Republic of South Africa
ISBN: 9780813936093
Google: B3tHAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 2014-06-19T16:14:39+00:00


Nobody ever thought, you know, apartheid would end. But we were preparing ourselves, we were preparing to know how to maneuver, you know, and manipulate – we were not even going to manipulate the system, but we were going to survive the system, you know, we were going to survive the system, we were amassing a lot of personal weaponry – what do you know, what are you going to give when you get to the world out there? So by that time we understood apartheid, we understood its viciousness, but we also realised that the only way is to be educationally prepared.149

Inanda students’ writing reveals that they were not only cognisant of the world beyond their campus, but also believed that they could change it. In her 1966 application, Baleka Mbete described this goal in old-fashioned terms: ‘I like education devotedly, and am determined to continue my education as much as I possibly can. I want to encourage my people (Africans) and uplift them. I pray God to use me as an instrument for improving his people. There are some who are still in the dark, who need me to show them the way.’150 In Inanda’s campus newspaper in 1971, matriculant Faith Duma articulated a more expansive role of women’s potential. ‘Women have been considered as feeble inferior beings who either chain themselves to what their families need or become a nurse, a secretary or any of the “feminine” occupations,’ Duma complained. ‘I, being a woman, can be a mother of the nation, but, due to birth control, I should be aware of the gift of time which modern medicine has conferred on me. When my children are at school, what is there for me to do in a home besides cleaning it? I think I will have to go out and put my knowledge and skills to the service of my community. Through this, women see the need of being educated.’ Duma’s screed – which combined a homage to second-wave Western feminism with language of upliftment that would have been familiar to New Africans – concluded with a challenge to patriarchy:



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