Looking Back

I’ve been in South Africa for 3 weeks now. It’s the longest amount of time I’ve spent outside of the country. I think it has been a very valuable experience and I’d like to reflect on some of my thoughts looking back at the trip.

The purpose of the class was to study reconciliation in South Africa. We focused on post-apartheid race relations as a measure of the effectiveness of reconciliation and what that process entailed for South Africa. The rest of my summer will be spent applying this information to a project at a local level.

The main thing I’ve noticed through conversations with individuals is that reconciliation has occurred to different degrees for different people. The macro-level adjustment to post-apartheid relations is independent of each individuals progress of coming to understanding. Aretha, the Afrikaner who I talked with on the plane believed people naturally segregate themselves, which is why nothing is better for her now and in fact sees the country as sliding backward now that white influence has retreated slightly. Her view had some credibility added to it when Don Foster pointed out that contact isn’t happening between different racial groups with the volume necessary to create an integrated society.

Last night though we attended a book signing event that one of our lecturers invited us to and the audience was mixed 50/50 black and white with discussions taking place between the two groups and no evidence of “natural segregation” to be seen. Attendees were openly talking about racial issues as well as gender and sexuality discrimination. It was hard to imagine, looking at the crowd, that these people could not legally gather like this twenty years ago.

I think the primary difference between these totally opposing viewpoints is the level of engagement the individual had with the process. For the folks at the book signing event it seemed that many of them had been active in the anti-apartheid movement, were progressive on social issues, and pursued equality with every action of their daily lives. For Aretha, she was raised in apartheid and was unaware about it’s existence until it fell. Afterward, she sees her place of living become something completely different than what she grew up to. She attributes high crime rates to racial tendencies instead of socio-economic conditions; shanty town living to an African culture of village living instead of lack of access to basic resources and jobs; and sees the black population dominating the unskilled labor force as natural instead of the product of oppressing the education of several generations.

I believe much of this can be attributed to the conditions upon which contact hypothesis operates. These are as follows…

Equal Status, both groups taken into an equal status relationship,

Cooperative Activity, both groups work on a problem/task and share this as a common goal, sometimes called a superordinate goal,

Personal Interaction, the task must be structured so that individual members of both groups are interdependent on each other to achieve this common goal,

Social Norms, some authority that both groups acknowledge and define social norms that support the contact and interactions between the groups and members.

I believe that the individuals who were advocating for equal rights and were aware of the inequality before South Africa became a democracy had all of these conditions meet. They therefore came in contact to work on the common cause of bringing down apartheid and became friends and equals in the process. Don Foster said when he returned to South Africa after studying in London, he worked with political groups acting against apartheid and said he had some of the best experiences of his life and formed the strongest friendships. These types of personal interactions seem necessary for individual reconciliation. The collective reconciliation that then results from the accumulation of all these individual interactions allows for societal healing at large.

This distinction between the macro and micro level reconciliations is something that our group has dealt with extensively. My understanding at this point is that individual reconciliation may occur through a variety of processes including forgiveness, justice, reparations, apology, mindfulness, and contact. It is not the job of the government to make these interactions occur, but to provide a safe space for them to take place. This was the purpose of the TRC. For some, who felt that justice of reparations were necessary for their personal reconciliation, the TRC fell short. Others felt that the purpose was to provide a venue for truth telling, in which it partially succeeded. The final viewpoint I see regarding the TRC is that it was there to form a common history, something I believe it succeeded in. Every tour guide and lecturer have common aspects of South Africa’s history they consider important and while each one knows different smaller details. The academic and tourist industries seem to be on basically the same page when it comes to history.

So I leave South Africa optimistic. The complexity and sheer number of issues the country faces seems daunting, but the frank manner in which they are addressing them signals promise. Perhaps it’s a similar mentality that we should be adopting with our conflict mediation in our community at home. We’ve heard some people say that since the US has gone through the struggles of becoming a democracy sooner it should be South Africa learning from our experiences. This trip has proved both countries have wisdom to bring to the table and that the long walk to freedom is one that knows many bends and dips, not all of which can be conveniently charted out. It has been an exceptional experience to be able to learn from a new culture and a different history. I will continue to blog throughout the summer as I compile the many hours of video and audio I’ve recorded into a succinct project. Thank you very much for following this blog while I’ve been abroad and safe travels to my peers.

Mandela's Autobiography

I finished reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography a couple days ago. I thought the book was excellent, that the man is rightly the face of the liberation struggle and that he was the right person for the right time. It’s inspiring to see such a success story through all the struggles he endured.

The only thing I feel it left out were certain aspects of his personal life. The autobiography seemed to be about his political life more than anything else, especially in the later years. Perhaps this reflects how his life was focused and also didn’t feel this venue was an appropriate place to talk about it. I was just surprised that the separation with Winnie only took up two pages when it seems like that would be a pretty important part of his life. The emotional insight into these events usually came through citing the speeches or letters he wrote at the time, which was a good insight into how he felt, though it still seemed there was more in the background. Perhaps the section heading, “The Struggle is my Life” explains this allocation of time.

The other main theme we talked about was the model of leadership Mandela used throughout his life. From his early days as a boy he watched as the head of the town held a meeting in which everyone was given a chance to speak and would be heard without interruption. Mandela carried that mentality through his political career. Despite being very strong willed, he would carry out what the majority voted to do in the ANC executive committee. He recognized that he was there as a representative of all the people in the struggle. This brings on a sense of humility for the man. Granted that could be his writing style, and the book is intended to further an image, but this trait seems to be significant to how he tries to lead. He describes his leadership style as guiding a heard from behind. This styles seems very effective and makes him personable to the people.

We have recently seen a similar leadership style here in the US, from President Obama during the campaign season. Obama would use the word “we” instead of the word “I.” He pressed upon his values being raised with modest means and constantly referred to the desire for change as a societal movement. As a result, people described him as “personable” and “down to earth.” The conciliatory stance he’s taken on tense relationships with the arab world and for a sense of humility on the part of the nation as a whole has increased the popularity of his policies abroad. Many of our speakers on this trip have stated their appreciation that Obama is our President because of his foreign policy rhetoric.

I think that because this leadership style has seen such effectiveness it becomes clear that humility and group mentality are important characteristics for leaders. Mandela took this philosophy to every level as he worked to develop relationships with the warders at Robben Island. These traits make leaders personable and it’s those types of interactions that slowly generate change.

Capitalizing Race

My previous blog entry included references to another topic that deserves a discussion by itself, that of racial categorization. I noticed while I was typing the previous blog, in the sentence, “We have Black and Chinese sections of town…” I originally did not capitalize black, and Word automatically capitalized Chinese for me. I thought this was somewhat strange and asked Denise if it would then be appropriate to capitalize “black” as well and we agreed it would be. However doing so legitimizes the category as a representing a certain population. This would then support the concept of race in general which was something Professor Don Foster also questioned today. He asked us if race was real? Is it?

Skin tones have infinite shades. It’s more than simply taking some non existent color called “skin” on a color graph and adjusting the luminosity of it; there are so many variations that there is no way to objectively categorize people based on skin color. Yet we do so constantly. We do it for other characteristics too, like hair and eye color, which can be just as unique as skin color. All are products of our genetic makeup. Yet because of the way we evolved as humans we somehow decided that this variable, skin color, would determine so much of our lives compared to the other, equally variable characteristics we have.

The issue then really isn’t that we notice race, but how we use it. It’s necessary for identification purposes to record hair color, height, eye color, skin tone, weight and so on. These aspects of an individual should not be any determiner of admittance into a job or school in an ideal world. And without getting into an affirmative action discussion at the moment, it’s important to note that we are taught that race is a more important indicator of an individual, it does not come naturally.

I remember learning about the civil rights movement for the first time in 5^th grade. We were watching some video and then afterward had a discussion about how all people were equal and this was important to keep in mind. I remember thinking that such a concept was obvious, that we already were acting as such and by being taught about this part of history made me feel strange for even noticing the race of my peers. I was friends with a student who had one black and one white parent. I didn’t think much of it before that day and thought that teaching about how racism is bad may have negative implications because such a concept should be natural to a child. Anyhow, this is not to say I believe my education should have occurred differently, teaching about such history is very important and I would never advocate removing lessons about racism from course material. The issue is that recognizing others placed priority on this personal characteristic creates a chain reaction, causing our generation to deal with the consequences of this in a way that continues to focus on this factor, even though the purpose is to make it more neutral.

So by capitalizing racial titles we raise the significance of that form of categorizing over the other equally unimportant human traits which we leave in lower case. I’m going to attempt therefore, for at least the remainder of this blog to avoid capitalizing racial titles of racial groups in an attempt to show the insignificance of such classification.

Contact Hypothesis

Today we spoke with Don Foster, a graduate of Cambridge and the London School of Economics who currently teaches at UCT about the statistical data on the success of reconciliation. I was obviously very excited by this. I once read a quote that you are really a compassionate person if you can be moved by statistics. Martin Sheen, playing Jed Bartlet in the show The West Wing said something to a similar effect - that statistics are what put the meat in a subject. Today’s discussion provided evidence of what we’ve seen by physically being in South Africa and confirmed many of our observations. It also opened up the South Africa to be looked at in a way that is relevant to the US and human behavior at large.

So to dive in, the main concept that the discussion revolved around was the Contact Hypothesis. This is a new theory for me and from a quick look on the internet and the discussion today I summarize it to be that when certain criteria are met, interpersonal contact between members of opposing groups tend to humanize the other person and therefore reduce their prejudice for the other group as a whole. After hearing it I took it as common sense. Before volunteering with the homeless population my perception of them was stereotyped to criminals with little education. I did not think I would be able to relate so well or have such a respect for many of those individuals in the way that I do now. The same could be said for politicians, which the media portrays as quick to corrupt individuals putting words before action. Yet every politician that I’ve met I have a huge respect for. Every one showed caring for the issues that affected their constituents and the district or state they represented. So the contact hypothesis is more than an academic buzz word, it has earthly application.

The connection to South Africa is somewhat obvious. Now that apartheid is over and the process of reconciliation is still underway how to you help improve race relations that, 20 years ago, were on the brink of civil war? The answer for our speaker today was through interpersonal contact with the other race. Apartheid was essentially the perfect antithesis to the contact hypothesis, claiming that inter-race relations cause tension and therefore should be avoided by having segregating legislation. Since this idea was rejected and ultimately failed, it seems natural that for peace to prevail people would be willing to adopt the contact hypothesis. This is where the issues arise though, for the effort to make contact with other races is not happening on the whole.

This phenomenon is not unique to South Africa and can be observed nearly everywhere in the world. Look in a cafeteria, on a bus, or on a beach; in all these public areas you will see a subconscious organization of the masses in a way that places races into there own groups. Our lecturer called these groups silos, or for the beach example, umbrellas. We have Black and Chinese sections of town, certain groups of students who always sit together, and so on. The underlying implication being that natural segregation occurs and that certain ethnic or racial groups feel more comfortable with members of the same group. To bring it back to my earlier example, I would not naturally associate with members of the homeless population before volunteering in that area. We are conditioned to avoid that population because of the perception that they are dangerous. What psychologists have found is that this happens with nearly every group, that we form aversions to anyone that does not seem similar to ourselves. The possible reasons for this that we touched on include status’s associated with different races, stereotypes about groups, and fears about how mixing with other groups would affect one’s image.

So how do we reconcile the need for contact and the natural reluctance for contact? (Pun intended) A few days ago the question was asked during discussion, “what would it take you to forgive the nationalists if you were a Black African?” I wrote down, “integrated living, public apologies, public recognitions, financial reparations, and memorials.” The integrated living aspect of it was an idea I was tossing around in my head during that discussion even before our lecture today about contact, because it is our personal encounters that have the biggest influence on our opinion. The issue is that because of the Group Areas Act and forced removals, South Africa is heavily divided by region. People wouldn’t want to move to a strange new neighborhood for the sake of government policy, but what if you included financial incentive? For moving to an area that has a smaller portion of your previous racial categorization the government would partially subsidize the purchase? This obviously would be fraught with issues, the main one being such a subsidy program would reinforce categories that the post-apartheid regime is trying to dismantle. If we set that aside though there could be significant benefits to guiding the patterns of settling that occur from this point forward so that mixed neighborhoods start forming. We keep hearing that schools are becoming mixed rapidly, but this integration doesn’t translate into lifestyle changes because when students go home they play with the same children of their neighborhood, not school, and even while at school the anti-contact aspect of human behavior forms those racial silos anyway. So at this point, I consider the proximity of people of different backgrounds the key component to making the contact hypothesis succeed. Having an incentive program seems like the most practical method for this to occur despite it’s imperfection, though I’m sure there could be many other strategies as well.

The Langa Township

Today was jam packed. We started off by going to district 6 of Cape Town. The area had been forcibly removed during apartheid and a museum commemorates its existence. It’s a very different museum than the pervious one’s we’d been to, it had personal stories from people who had been there and poems for the town that once was. It felt more like a memorial than a museum.

We then went to the township Langa, which is the oldest township in the Cape Town area. It was good to be able to see this side of South Africa as well. The way in which we did was somewhat strange, a local tourist leader set up his own company, lives in the township himself, and provides access to the shantytown aspect of life in South Africa as a business. So I felt that I was still an invading tourist in an area where I did not belong. It was good to have the guide we did, and the people we met were very hospitable, but there were definitely cultural barriers to honest interactions. I felt those barriers would have be enhanced by brining my camera so for the shantytown aspect of the day I left it in the van.

The first thing we saw upon arrival was a table filled with severed lamb’s heads. There were bloodied and had been sitting there for some time it seemed. Flies were feasting on them and our guide exclaimed that the best part was the chin and tongue. There was a smell of burning wood and we were the only white people around. Our guide greeted several people and showed us the inside of a restaurant constructed from several pieces of tin. There was a burner in the back and a few plastic chairs scattered about for customers. The guide joked that the vegetarian menu was fairly limited so we’d keep going. We crossed the street past a line of businesses built into the sides of freight containers from cargo ships. Many people’s homes and livelihoods rest in these containers that fail to hold heat in the winter but are too efficient at holding head during the summer. We leaned into one such house to find a makeshift bed and some scattered cooking supplies. A whole family might have lived there.

We were now approaching our destination, a “shebeen,” or underground pub. The alleyway was caked in burned wood, someone was taking their trash out to ignite it and the smell was very strong. We hunched into a small structure with a wood frame and black cloth to act as walls. It was about 10 feet along each wall with benches on three of them. Three men were already in there to wait for the alcohol the “shabeen queens” were preparing to serve. Our guide explained that the shabeen’s beer was very healthy for you, contained roughly 3% alcohol and was made in a large tin bin. He paid for the bin by tossing money on a piece of contrete on the floor and blew the bubbles on top off to the side to take a sip. He offered the bin to the rest of us explaining the call and response you can say before partaking. It translated to be something like, “pass the bin.” Most of us in the group decided to try it, myself included. It was very watering tasting, with a yeast aftertaste and a hint of alcohol. I wouldn’t of had more but I was glad to try it. We chipped in a little more money and let the men already there have the rest. I appreciated that we were able to sit with them, even though the experience was facilitated by a middle man. It was a very humble experience. There were many signs of hope surrounding the shantytown, the abject poverty of so many South African’s 15 years into democratic governing is distressing to many. Granted the United States has been a democracy for hundreds of years now and still deals with issues in health care, education, and poverty, that may not be as severe as South Africa’s, remain as great challenges.

We continued along to the hostiles where men were kept for 11 months at a time to do manual labor. They remain in much the same condition as they were then and as we were walking through the streets many of the children who had been running around came over to greet us. I’ve seen many pictures of United States citizens holding up African children or seeing them massing around the visitors thinking it was very stereotypical. It was somewhat surreal to have such a similar experience. They ran up and held hands with us, several of the kids grabbed my hand and Denise’s at the same time and lifted themselves in the air, flipping over, and landing. We acted as mini-jungle gyms as we walked down their street. They were very precious and very kind to great us without reservation. They made us feel less like outsiders. We looked into an abandon apartment to get an understanding for the size of the living corridors. Some of hostiles had been renovated and we visited one kid who was watching MTV on a sofa with a Hip-Hop magazine next to him. The room was nice enough and we could see some progress on the part of the government. As we were walking down that second street one kid noticed Ryan’s “superman” t-shirt and put his fists in the air as if to fly. It’s interesting to see how much we export our culture and how little we import others’. There were more advertisements for Coca-Cola there then I’d seen in my life. People were selling American music CDs at kiosks, listening to it on the radio, wearing our clothing. It was strange to have such an imbalance in knowledge about the other. They could understand our culture to a degree, but we remained ignorant of theirs.

Behind the progress, free homes, and renovated apartments, lies the real reason Langa is the focus of reconstruction. The town sits right next to the highway to the airport. The first thing I noticed while we were driving to Cape Town was the shantytown followed by the new apartments and a massive billboard boasting ANC’s housing policy to expand housing to the poor. It was pointed out to us earlier that the proposed construction of houses won’t even keep up with the inflation rate of the population and that in 10 years time there will be even more people homeless or in shantytowns than there are currently.

The strangest part of the trip to Langa though was the pickup for the van was located at a row of merchants selling goods like it were a gift shop at the end of a museum. People’s poverty was on display. I understand supporting local merchants as a way to work out of poverty and promote community markets instead of mass markets but the experience seemed farther from reality as a result. Within 10 minutes of leaving Langa we were in a mall that you could probably lick the floor of and not worry about getting sick. The rapid transition probably could bring upon nausea for some, my self included. A diamond store sat right next to the entryway. We needed to get on a boat to go to Robben Island, the place where Nelson Mandela was held for many years. That aspect of the day was very nice as well, and it was surreal to see the cells and courtyards pictured in his autobiography in person. The emotional impact that the island had on me was miniscule in comparison to Langa though, which is where I’d like to focus most of my thoughts.

Much of my volunteer work over the past four years has been focused on extreme poverty and disease issues in the developing world. I’ve seen hundreds of pictures of poverty, shantytown living, and sickly children. I feel that I’ve become partially numb to such images and while I try not to accept these images as something that is okay, it’s hard not to simply say, “this is just the way things are and they’ll never change.” When you can have successful diamond store 10 minutes away from a town that has running water only every 300 meters there is room for improvement to say the least.

I was talking with Denise afterward about the experience and she was saying the tough part for her is many people that visit poverty areas want to adopt those kids that come and play with you and take care of them. We rarely look at the infrastructure issues that create a situation you’d want to be saved from.

Now to connect this back to the course at large. We’re working with post-conflict resolution at a macro level. It’s easy to focus reform on the sectors of the population that are politically active and neglect those who have less access to political information, or don’t have the luxury to become knowledgeable. Strangely though we saw advertisements for the ANC even in the doorways of the hostiles. The political outreach to the poor remains despite criticism the government had yet to deliver on it’s promises to them. The ANC did not support a communist form of government, it did however promote equality and still today the slum areas are nearly 100% black. In Mandela’s autobiography he recalled walking to his law office one day and passing a poor white woman picking away at the bones of a discarded fish and feeling sympathy for her, thinking of giving her change. He then caught himself and realized the only reason for his sympathy was because she was white and such a sight was uncommon. He did not have the urge to give change to the poor black on the side of the road because it was expected. It seems that a similar situation is occurring still at a macro-level. Despite the fact that the government is now being led by a black government, the status quo of the impoverished being black seems inescapable. The process of transitioning to equality is something that takes an extremely long time, starting with equal access to Education and protection under the law, then progressing through other social needs and desires. The education system remains in a desperate state and while many more minority groups are able to attend school in larger numbers, it’s going to be many years until economic equality starts to emerge.

Our guide for the Robben Island portion of the trip provided us with a different definition of reconciliation than we’ve been hearing. He said it means, “not taking revenge.” This seems simple enough. My working definition remains as a process of healing societal wounds. And our sub points that we are still working with are the role of justice and the role of forgiveness. Justice is the one that may apply to the shantytowns.

I say “may” because of our last lecturer, who said that he does not believe it’s the governments job to fix most of the issues South Africa is facing. He believed the government’s job is to provide equal access to health care and education and that’s it. If justice is being served it means those two things are the same for all citizens. Because of the condition of the current health care system and because of the unequal access to education, we can see that justice is not being fulfilled in the society.

The health care system here is a mix of public and private care. Taxes provide for the public hospitals which provide emergency care and care for those who cannot afford private care. From the conversations I’ve had the quality of this care seems dismal. With a population that has an unemployment rate greater than 40% according to our guide today, a large percentage of the population uses the emergency room as their primary form of care, placing a huge burden on the state to provide that funding with the result being a sacrifice in quality. To avoid shifting the demand to those that are insured it seems that South Africa opted to allow those able to pay for their heath to do so in private hospitals. These two have quality issues but are better than the public option. The hospitals don’t have “blacks only” and “whites only” signs above them, but the economic oppression of blacks during apartheid has created a society where those signs are invisible but still present. Because of unequal access and quality of care we can see that this aspect of justice as defined by our most recent lecturer is not being met.

On the education front school fees act as a rationing device for access that prevents those from lower income brackets have access to higher education. As with health care, because of apartheid, the ability for families to pay for children’s education remains very low. At some point during this trip, I don’t remember when, a very passionate speaker stated that by removing education from a group of people you do the most damage possible. It’s even worse then violent suppression because even when the oppression ends, the effects last for many generations. This uphill battle keeps people unequal and further concludes that justice is missing in today’s society.

Yet we knew that the minute we got out of the van today. You don’t have to chart out an argument to know if your gut that people’s standard of living is drastically worse because of differences in economic opportunity.

We have been going to museums throughout the duration of this course to get a sense of what apartheid was like, but today we saw it first hand, as if apartheid was still there. The effects of forced removals, denying proper education, and starving away the possibility of self-improvement will have effects that will last past my lifetime. How do you find forgiveness for that? How does a society move one when a large portion of it’s population literally cannot? These are the issues I’m still struggling with. The citizens we encounter day in and day out seem confused by our prodding questions about the TRC and reconciliation, “what has changed?” they ask back. Our student guide from interstudy explained, “people still hate each other, they just don’t show it now.” It seems that for a large part of society, they have not moved past apartheid. The state may not be on the brink of civil war, but mutual equality and respect seem like lofty goals even 15 years later.

Pictures from Cape Town

Click to enlarge...

Looking out over Cape Town
A cool lizard that was up on the ridge with us.
A beautiful view of Cape Town from 3,000 ft.

Airplane Conversation

I just got off the plane in Johannesburg. We left this airport about 5 hours ago for Cape Town, found the cross wind to be too significant to land and came back to land. I had a chance to read a pretty good crunch of Mandela’s autobiography while on the plane which was great. I’m now waiting in line to reschedule our flight. On the way back I decided to strike up a conversation with the person next to me, a woman named Aretha. She said she grew up in Pretoria and had lived in South Africa her whole life. I ventured to ask her what she thought about the TRC and it’s effectiveness. She smiled and said she didn’t think it was very good because it didn’t seem to have much benefit or do much for the country. She said it also only told part of the story, what the whites did to the blacks, not the other way. I thought that was a good point. There were plenty of instances where whites were killed that had nothing to do with the event. In Soweto we read about several events like that. She elaborated, saying that she was of course happy that apartheid ended and thought it was bad. But also said that there was definitely still differences between people and that those who thought there could be one people who could all be together were kidding themselves. She said it’s only realistic to recognize that there are different cultures that should be different. She then said that her whole life growing up she called herself Africa. However in her adult life she started considering herself European. She said she no longer identifies as African because she doesn’t like the way things are going. She sees a trend of reverse-discrimination to make up for the apartheid years. I can understand this viewpoint though by this time I was catching hints of a hidden racism in her tone that kept me from really empathizing with her. I recognize this counter discrimination as a possibility and even a likelihood after a civil rights movement. I wonder about the implications of affirmative action here in the states. So that point was well taken.

One interesting story she told was that a recent newspaper publication called a white female politician and whore. The paper claimed she was sleeping around with her predominantly male cabinet. Aretha pointed out that if the same thing was ever printed about a black politician it would be deemed racist and condemned. I agreed and was surprised. I wonder what paper it was and the full context of the story but from her statements alone I considered it a valid point regarding reverse discrimination.

The conversation that followed thereafter was more troubling to me though. She stated that whites coming to South Africa is what made it prosperous, and would not have been otherwise. She feels that if the white population left today, South Africa would degrade to the level of Nigeria or Zimbabwe. The felt that Africans were inherently an underdeveloped society that could not become industrious naturally. She felt that the past 15 years of democratic, black leadership had damaged the country and she was fearful of the future. She said the health care and education systems were very poor. That quality doctors were not being produced by the education system and that those that were of high quality were leaving the country. She said many whites were leaving. Most significant to her was that in her youth she called her self African. Today she identifies as European, despite being born and raised in Pretoria.

Some of her more drastic statements included the belief that the recent rolling blackouts, that included the electric company having to ration out electricity was because the company fired its white executives in favor of black ones, who were not far-sighted enough to see the increasing demand.

She stated that the black population in South Africa was much more educated and developed than the black population in America and that Obama’s autobiography was an excellent source for information on the lives of black people. She said this difference caused the existence of slums and shantytowns in South Africa and that even if you gave those people and house and clean water they wouldn’t know what to do with it because it was too developed for their natural state. She said the reason most blacks were still in the service industry and occupied jobs in the unskilled sections was because they were naturally fit for those jobs. This also explained in the increase in heart problems for blacks who pursued skilled labor and higher paying jobs, because the stress of these positions was more than a black individual was prepared to handle. These words were especially shocking and revealing to me. I wanted to learn as much about this woman’s opinions as possible and hear her perspective, which is of equal value as anyone else’s. I did my best therefore to remain silent and not voice disagreement. I knew my remarks would make her defensive and she would not continue explaining her views. Also, she would dismiss my opinion as that of someone who had only been in her country for three days and did not understand how things were. Her defense was that she was a realist, and did not fall into idealistic notions that everyone can be the same and equal.

Some other things she talked about that are not as directly related to race issues but problems that she seemed to attribute to African culture in general. She mentioned the high crime rate, that she could not go to the public park and feel safe, and that she could not leave her kid alone in a grocery store. I’ve recognized this heightened sense of security in Johannesburg as every house had barbed wire around it and the highways were lined with security cameras. She also said that in times of high traffic the cars would simply cross into the oncoming lanes and take them over, pushing the other cars off the road in some cases and create 6 lanes in one direction when there were previously 2 in each. She said she was considering leaving the country because of such a culture she could not live in, and that many whites already had.

It was a very vibrant discussion to say the least. I got a lot more than I bargained for and have been mulling over it sense. I read Mandela’s book more during the second (and successful) attempt at Cape Town. In it he mentioned that the ancient Egyptians were advancing to a degree that outpaced any other civilization at the time, including European. It was that migration that stunted the Egyptian progress according to Mandela. The small examples that the lady sitting next to me providing for her arguments and the disclaimer of her saying that this was a generalization and that there were exceptions to what she was about to say seemed to mask a set of opinions that she hadn’t been asked about in a long time, but that were looking for a release. Despite so much disagreement I’m trying to take her views as valuable and as a form of truth. Her truth should be taken with the same weight as Mandela’s in hopes of seeing a bigger picture. I am reminded of something a gentleman said to me a church many years ago, that the most you learn in life is from other people. It was very true today.

Pictures

The local cat had kittens in our bushes, 4 in total. You can see the third set of eyes in the lower right.

An amazing sunset. The sun was so red.
Constitution Hill Detention Center from Apartheid era.
This is where we are staying while in Joburg.
The plane we used to get from Heathrow to Johannesburg. 11 hour flight!

First Few Days

Today was our second day in Johannesburg. I have had limited access to email up until this point and haven’t blogged as much as I would have liked. Our flights here were great. British Airways made even those of us in coach feel like royalty. The flight attendants were bringing dinner by on our first flight and I asked if there was an additional charge for food and the flight attendant seemed surprised by my question and exclaimed that he never flies on American airlines. It was very comical.

Yesterday, we arrived early in the morning, met with our interstudy guide Ouma, who is very nice, and meet our faculty at the guesthouse. Yesterday we had a guest lecturer, Ayesha Kajee. She’s a researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs and a professor at Wits, where we met her. That lecture and discussion afterwards focused on modern South Africa political issues including the ANC, the modern view of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, and the future of the country. It was a different conversation than the one we had today. Today we visited the Johannesburg Apartheid Museum. The Museum traced South Africa back to its pre-colonial days through Mandela’s presidency. It contained raw video of protests, police crackdowns, speeches by Mandela and supporters, and by the Afrikaner government. Both days provided criticism of the anti-Apartheid movement, which was new to me. The museum pointed out the rocky timeline of negotiations and slips back to violence that occurred even after Mandela’s release, which I had been unaware of. Professor Kajee stated that many South Africans have been angered by the lack of trials against some of the perpetrators of Apartheid stating that some people who literally barbequed victims alive are walking the streets today without consequence. This was the biggest transition challenge that the museum noted as well, how to deal with a conflict that had hundreds of thousands of people accused of crimes. How to effectively deal with the grief that those actions caused, while reacting appropriately is something that has been a point of great tension. It’s impossible to imprison an entire country, but letting individuals who committed heinous crimes against humanity walk free seems even more unjust.

The reading assignment we were asked to do during our travel time here addressed this by saying reconciliation can take many forms. The truth and reconciliation model that South Africa used is one approach of many. War Crimes trials, statements of apology, financial compensation, have been used in other macro level conflicts to try and facilitate a transition to peace. Whether or not those would have worked in this conflict is naturally up for debate though the TRC does have appeal to me. Perhaps South Africa should have added some of these other approached to make citizens feel the process was fairer. Any process would have its critics however.

The first explanation of apartheid and the TRC that I ever heard was from my youth pastor. Hansen was talking about something he had read about Nelson Mandela recently, the blank expression on my face launched him into a full discussion of apartheid and the truth and reconciliation approach to healing those wounds. In the Christian context, the idea of apologizing for your wrongdoings and receiving forgiveness in return was very powerful. I felt that this was a really great concept for moving past a crisis. I’d never heard of anything like it and was very inspired by the idea. Now, looking at the idea from all sides though I see its shortcomings. There is still a hunger for justice that seems to still be here. Our professor yesterday let some of her passion out and it seems that she is not in the minority. The issue for me though is that it is now 2009, many years after Mandela’s presidency and apartheid. It would be very hard to address crimes then when there is still so much to do today. What I’m starting to see is that the healing process is really one revolving around time more than anything else. The TRC was a large, very high quality band-aid on the severe wounds of apartheid. They are wounds that no quantity of band-aids or surgery would be able to heal overnight and the real key to a forgiven society seems to be in the next generation. While we were at the museum today we were walking in the midst of dozens of elementary-age school children. Ouma remarked that every time she had been to the museum there was at least this many children. Teaching them at a young age about apartheid when they themselves did not have to experience it is to me the best solution for the remaining oppression.

I feel like in the United States, children learning about the civil war and civil rights movement were soaked with principles of equality and fairness. And while the US is not free from racism today, Jim Crow laws are long gone and political progression continues to support equality. The children at the museum today will be able to lead in the future with the mentality that I had hearing about the civil rights movement and thinking to myself, “It’s obvious people are equal, why did it take so long for that to be reflected in our governing?” Hopefully the common sense nature of equality will be instilled in those children.

The final thing I want to talk about in this very disjointed entry is a conversation I had with Mindy tonight during the theater performance. We were talking about the museum and the focus on Nelson Mandela. We were surprised in his autobiography and in the raw video of him speaking about how he supported violent action if the current approach continued to fail. I had never heard this aspect of his political agenda and had previously assumed he asserted non-violence before all else. So I was a little surprised. I think that if Mandela’s release had occurred five years later violence would have erupted into civil war and Mandela would not be seen as the hero he is today. “Hero” was the word my grandfather used to describe Mandela when he was on TV one day for reasons I don’t remember. That really stuck with me and I think we place a lot of our best ideals in him, even if he doesn’t embody them himself. I see a similar hero-worshiping occurring today with President Obama. Some of his supporters talk about the reasons they support him having no basis in his policy or his beliefs, but because they value him so much, he can carry those personal ideals as well. I feel this caliber of leadership is rare, that we grab on to it very tightly when it does come around, and that we place a dangerous amount of blind belief of those individuals as perfect beings. Both men have flaws. The acceptance of violence Mandela was willing to incorporate scares me because one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist and the world could have easily seen him as the later if events escalated. I haven’t come to any conclusions about this thought and am looking forward to finishing his book in order to form a more concrete idea about it but that’s something that has been on my mind throughout the day.

Night before departure

I have pretty much everything packed now. I need to pick up a few last minute items tomorrow morning but the checked baggage is ready to go. I'm bringing more recording equipment than I am cloths. My flight leaves DIA tomorrow night, 10 hours to London, 7 hour layover, then 10 hours down to Johannesburg. I'll arrive Wednesday morning. I'm planning on blogging during the layover and starting on the video project for the trip. I'm hoping to be able to follow the group's thoughts on reconciliation as a way of moving through conflict throughout the trip. I then want to juxtapose that progression with reconciliation movements back here in the US. That's a very rough idea at the moment but it's a good place to start. Anyhow, very excited about going and am still in a little disbelief that it's actually happening and that in 48 hours I'll be halfway around the world.

Matthew-