Eastern Cape writer and businessman Mzukisi Silandela’s Facebook post about people who went to former Model C schools and ended up studying at Walter Sisulu University, has resulted in a backlash against the self-published author.
Silandela posted on his personal page: “You attend white schools for 12 years, and you go and study at WSU. Really now.”
This prompted users to reply with aggressive comments. One user wrote: “I’m let down by this view of yours. I would expect a better observation and interpretation from a ‘leader’ of society.”
Another posted: “WSU has many qualified doctors, teachers and social workers who are working at KZN, GP and Cape Town. In 2019, there is still a grown up black person who thinks attending a ‘white’ school is a definition of success. Even WSU students don’t have such inferiority complex.”
Silandela is the managing director of At 40 Publishers, a Komani-based publishing house. He served seven years in prison after pleading guilty to killing his girlfriend in 1999. He was released on parole in December 2005. While in prison he discovered a love for reading and literature and he has written five books since being released.
One person wrote: “You are forgetting we are the ones buying the books you write.” Silandela hit back, saying he did not depend on book sales to make a living. “To remind you, I don’t live by book sales. I don’t rely on books.”
Silandela said the status was not about undermining WSU.
“Schooling a child in a white school for 12 years and then taking them to a black university after that is confusing the children. They will be called names such as coconuts because even their accent is different. The post is not about undermining WSU. I could have mentioned any other black university but people have interpreted it in their own way. People on social media do not debate; they throw insults instead of discussing.”
Silandela said he wrote what he thought and said. “If a person agrees or disagrees with me, then that is their problem.”..