The evidence is clear: relatively well-off university students are far more radical than poorer, working-class voters. The people of Khayelitsha and Alexandra are not voting for the EFF – but the voters in Rondebosch and Parktown certainly are.

 

South African universities are not alone. Highly politicised Marxist content is now standard fare across academia in English-language countries. Just one example is provided by Ian Pace, a pianist who is head of the Department of Music at the University of London. He has written about how the culture wars are killing Western classical music, with people being made to feel guilt or shame for enjoying or teaching music by white men such as Bach, Mozart or Wagner. According to Mr Pace, activists at the University of London have even “associated Western musical notation or theory with ‘white supremacy’.”[21]

 

In the United States, “the critical social justice industry” now generates more than USD 9 billion in revenue per year with some consultants charging large corporates $ 12,000 an hour in order to teach employees how to “dismantle their whiteness.”[22] In September 2021, an academic named Peter Boghossian announced his resignation as an assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University. His resignation letter has become a seminal text in the fight against wokeness:

 

“Brick by brick, the university… has transformed [from] a bastion of free inquiry into a Social Justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division.”[23]

 

The final straw for Boghossian appeared to be when activists left a bag of faeces outside his office door.[24] Meanwhile, over in New Zealand the government has invested $ 42 million in a programme called Te Hurihanganui which aims to address “systemic racism” in the education system. In 2021, a student at a primary school in Whangārei was made to stand up in front of their classroom and explain what they had done to acknowledge their “white privilege”.[25]

 

In short, emigrating from South Africa to any other English-language country is not a realistic solution if your objective is to avoid the toxic influence of Critical Race Theory on education.

 

 

The long march of the Woke Commissars

 

I suspect that the majority of aspiring teachers in South Africa are neither Woke nor anti-Woke, nor do they have any real interest in this topic. Most students at Nelson Mandela University probably just want to get qualified so that they can start work, and view “PEDS 400: Issues in Education” as just another course that they need to pass. These students are likely overwhelmed and intimidated by the complex academic jargon that emanates from the world of Critical Race Theory. Nevertheless, they will do what needs to be done and will say what needs to be said in order to complete the course.

 

A small minority of students – perhaps 10% – will be angered and repulsed by the curriculum and will find studying the course to be a miserable experience. The Trainee Teacher who contacted me clearly falls into this category, telling me that:

 

“I feel that being taught about Paulo Freire for four years – and paying the university R 300 000 for the privilege –  is a scam. It is fraudulent. I did not join a teaching course in order to learn how to be a politician or an activist. We chose the course because we want to teach. This whole experience has been humiliating.”

 

However, another group of students – again, perhaps around 10% of the class – will be left inspired, motivated and determined to take the Gospel of Wokeness into their future classrooms.

 

This latter group of trainee teachers will join the ranks of what I call the “Woke Commissars” of South African education. You can find at least one of these people in the classrooms and boardrooms of most Model C and private schools across the country. They tend to encourage decolonisation of the curriculum and run all sorts of workshops focusing on “Whiteness” or “microaggressions” or “cultural appropriation”. It is not difficult to identify the Woke Commissars: they often have blue or green hair and tend to project their political views prominently.

 

These Woke Commissars are small in number but they are highly effective at using activist tactics to bully and intimidate colleagues. Put simply, many are psychopathic sadists who crave power and control and who thrive on being the centre of attention. Woke Commissars derive gratification from persecuting people and this is amplified when their targets suffer public humiliation and personal destruction.

 

As I have shown in other essays, all it takes is for one teacher or student to be accused of racism – usually on completely bogus grounds – for a localised Woke revolution to begin. Whether or not the accused person is guilty of racism hardly matters. From that point on, the Woke Commissars are free to embark upon all manner of reforms based upon the principles of Critical Race Theory.  For they have now assumed the moral high ground – and from that point on everyone else is either too confused, too terrified or too stunned to do anything to stop it.

 

And so, just like Nelson Mandela University, the school becomes ideologically captured. At first, this happens gradually. However, in the aftermath of a catalysing event that is amplified via social media, the capture of the school’s ideological orientation happens quite rapidly, followed shortly thereafter by  the capture of its governance structures.