ABSTRACT

South Africa faces several massive, interconnected challenges that reverberate through its political economy, society and education system. This paper offers lessons for the current conjuncture by exploring radical democracy and educational experiments in two other contexts: Brazil, as a point of close comparison, and Rojava (northern Syria), as a point for dissimilar comparison but which offers a “real utopia”. The Brazilian student movement (2015–16) involved several waves of mass school occupations in the “student spring” (primavera secundarista), with students demanding free, quality public education and, within the occupations, experimenting with democratic, dialogical, caring educational spaces. The Revolution in Rojava, emerging in 2012 and continuing to date, offers an alternative model of social organisation guided by women’s liberation, ecological harmony, and “Democratic Confederalism”, a form of anti-capitalist radical democracy. It has provided fertile ground for a profoundly different education system from the statist, authoritarian models previously imposed in the region. This paper draws out several prominent themes from each context, drawing these into conversation with the contemporary South African context. First, the movements demonstrate the pedagogical importance of language and culture, history and social dynamics, the decommodification of education, feminism and ecology. Second, they highlight the political importance of education for self-organisation in relation to broader processes of social transformation.

摘要

南非面临着几个巨大的、相互关联的挑战，这些挑战在其政治经济、社会和教育系统中产生了反响。本文通过在其他两个背景下探索激进民主和教育实验为当前形势提供了经验教训：巴西，作为密切比较的一个点，以及罗贾瓦（叙利亚北部），作为一个不同的比较点，但它提供了一个“真正的乌托邦” . 巴西学生运动（2015-16 年）在“学生之春”（primavera secundarista ）中涉及了几波大规模的学校职业。)，学生要求免费、优质的公共教育，并在职业范围内尝试民主、对话、关爱的教育空间。2012 年出现并持续至今的罗贾瓦革命提供了另一种以妇女解放、生态和谐和“民主联邦制”（一种反资本主义激进民主形式）为指导的社会组织模式。它为与该地区以前强加的集权、专制模式截然不同的教育体系提供了肥沃的土壤。本文从每个背景中提取了几个突出的主题，将这些主题与当代南非背景进行对话。首先，这些运动展示了语言和文化、历史和社会动态、教育去商品化的教学重要性，女权主义和生态学。其次，他们强调了自组织教育在更广泛的社会转型过程中的政治重要性。