Tik Tok Buries Cinderella

Religion is not the only vehicle for swaying the mind from left to right or vice versa. War and physical occupation of defeated countries also lead to the realignment of the mind through what is falsely called education. That’s all gone now. TikTok and YouTube are the new school principals.

Education was a means to an end in the British Empire and colonizing countries that came from the sea such as France, Germany, Spain and Italy.  

They could not communicate with nations they conquered in Africa, America, Asia, South America, Australia and New Zealand so they branded local languages uncivilized and instituted English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and other European languages.

In the case of southern Africa, education was mainly about learning English. English was commercial. Conquered nations had to understand what the new rulers were selling and buy tea, salt, sugar, condensed milk, jam and butter. 

British kings took their land and introduced the head tax. They had to pay it by slaving in the mines, extracting gold and other mineral resources that were shipped to England. Teachers used the cane to punish children who spoke African languages such as isiZulu, isiXhosa, isiVenda and Sesotho.  ‘Speaking vernacular.’  That is how school prefects wrote the charge.

Education included teaching conquered children the importance of the sun and moon, which presupposes that conquered countries had no solar or lunar knowledge. European folklore was also part of what was called education.

Enter Cinderella.  African children learned about a girl tortured by evil stepsisters. Super natural forces transformed this Cinderella into a beautiful princess and sent her to the royal ball where she caught the eye of the prince and got married after the rigmarole of a glass slipper being lost and found. Needless to say, the stepmother and stepsisters were left twiddling their thumbs.

The question is, does Queen Consort Camilla believe in the Cinderella story? Did she learn it at school? This is under the assumption that she went to school, like the millions of little girls the royal family forced to unlearn their folklore, through English.

By:  Nonqaba waka Msimang.