South Africa Impressions

South Africa is incredibly complex.  Or course every country is, but here so much is communicated in English that it is much easier to learn about the history and social structure than it was in other places we’ve recently been.  Perhaps what strikes me the most about being in South Africa is how visible everything is.  Here you can see extreme wealth and extreme poverty at each other’s doorsteps.  Mansions in upper Cape Town and shacks in the townships.  Laborers in the countryside in the Western Cape, for example, earn an average of 50 rand a day (approximately six USD) for eight hours of hard labor. Meanwhile, a decent meal at a restaurant in Cape Town costs at least 50 rand.  The gaps are so large it is not hard to believe that crime is such a big issue (though to be sure most South Africans would never turn to crime and deplore it).  I rather like this quote from the book Disgrace by South African author J.M. Coetzee.  In it, the main character and his daughter were just robbed:

“A risk to own anything: a car, a pair of shoes, a packet of cigarettes.  Not enough to go around, not enough cars, shoes, cigarettes. Too many people, too few things. What there is must go into circulation, so that everyone can have a chance to be happy for a day.  That is the theory: hold to the theory and to the comforts of theory.  Not human evil, just a vast circulatory sytem, to whose workings pity and terror are irrelevant.  That is how one must see life in this country; in its schematic aspect. Otherwise one could go mad.” 

The legacy of colonial oppression and apartheid lives on as well, along with the categories it created: white (Afrikaans vs English), black, coloured, Indian, etc.  So much is determined which group you belong to: opportunity for education and jobs, where you can live, and the preconceptions people will form about you.  It is certainly impossible for the government to reverse 400 years of history in just the 14 they’ve had since apartheid ended, but also remarkable how little has changed for so many people. 

Coming from the US, I would be wrong to look at these issues as unique to South Africa.  It is just that nothing is hidden here as it seems to be at home.  For better or worse, we seem much smoother at glossing over such issues with politically correct language, and in hiding poverty and racial isseus away from site as best we can (both hidden away in our country and hidden even further away in the countries from which we send and receive goods or choose to occupy).  Having everything so open here certainly makes you think a lot, and at least for me, makes me far more thoughtful about my privelage, my actions and their consequences. 

And while I began with the negatives, there is also so much that is good and beautiful here.  So many of the people we’ve met have been hopeful about the future.  We visited Robben Island over the weekend, the island off of Cape Town where many opponents of apartheid were held (including Nelson Mandela).  Tours are given by former political prisoners who remarkably have come back to the island to share their stories and to heal.  Eight former prisoners currently live on the island, along with three of their former guards.  Our first guide had just returned to the island after several years away, and was full of emotion.  At one point he just started singing the national anthem of South Africa, which was quite moving knowing how much it meant to him and also when other people on the bus joined in.  At the end of his portion of the tour, he turned to the subject of truth and reconciliation - how could former political prisoners forgive their torturers and oppressors?  How did South Africans come together to forgive and reconcile gross wrongs after apartheid ended rather than turning to blame, revenge, or civil war?  He said this: ”It wasn’t about me.  It was for the good of the country’s future.  It was for the people, and it was for humanity.”  And that, I think, is pretty incredible. 

 -Julie