Apartheid

While surveying South Africa, whether as a tourist or an historian, it is impossible to not view the remnants of apartheid. Considering apartheid--forced and violent segregation along racial lines--fell only 23 years ago, the fragments of such a system persist in various forms. I find it important to explain what I've seen to you.

Apartheid ruled every aspect of life. Through our experience of speaking and engaging with those who lived in that time, it is almost impossible to put yourself in their shoes. They speak of using a separate bathroom, or being abused by police, or being searched for their pass book to see if they are in the wrong place at the wrong time, or being forcibly removed from homes or family members. These things are not the passive forms of discrimination we see frequently today. They are intentional, in your face, discriminatory acts--with no motivation but pigment of skin. Not even blood or violence would stop such a motivation. It is impossible for me to imagine what being considered sub-human by another person does to one's psychological state. So when it becomes the time to hear about these abuses of power, I only felt numb, but not much more than that.

During our time here, we have seen the full extent of the income inequality along racial lines that persists to this day. Black experience: forced relocation outside of city centers, life in a township amongst crime and violence, wage laborers with high unemployment. White experience: elite status, large gates surrounding their houses as if to keep the black-ness out, endless wine, corporate jobs, social, economic, and political mobility. We experienced both of these. Paradise and hell in one. And after these realizations, I look at the lack of melanin on my forearm and don't know what to think. Due to the benefits of apartheid, these people are rich because they are white, and they are white because they are rich. I am sure this statement makes you uncomfortable and it shakes me to my core as well but, it is the reality of South Africa. While apartheid-era regulations have been repealed, the power and force of a violent history is still playing out.

Peace and prosperity, democracy and diversity, inclusion and new identity. These things, which were spoken of at the exchange of power from the white minority National Party to the black majority African National Congress, still seem like dreams to some. To others, they await more reform. Buzz words include affordable housing, economic transformation, and similar rhetoric. But, for most South Africans, the rhetoric rings hollow. And through my whole encounter with the remnants of apartheid and the study of it, I seem to only get more confused in a system much more complicated than I initially thought. I am not sure what to think of race anymore and a non-racial South Africa seems very far off.

The most impactful visit we have made was to the District Six Museum, where the coloured and black residents of the city center of Cape Town were forcibly removed, their houses destroyed, to make way for a white neighborhood. We spoke to a man who lived in District Six who spoke candidly about his experience. In one exhibition at the museum were poems written by those who had lived in District Six and I want to share a few with you.

The Day They Came For Our House

By Don Mattera

The sun stood still

in the sullen wintry

a witness

to the impending destruction.

Armed with bulldozers

they came

to do a job

nothing more

just hired killers.

We gave way

there was nothing we could do

although the bitterness stung in us

in the place we knew to be part of us

and in the earth around.

We stood.

slow, painfully slow

clumsy crushes crawled

over the firm pillars

into the rooms that held us

and the rooms that covered our heads.

We stood.

Dust clouded our vision

We held back our tears

It was over in minutes.

Done.

Bulldozers have power.

They can take apart in a few minutes

All that had been built up over the years

and raised over generations

and generations of children

The power of destroying,

the pain of being destroyed.

Dust...

I am Johannesburg

By Richard Rive

I am Johannesburg,

Durban, and Cape Town.

I am Langa, Chatsworth,

and Bonteheuvel.

I am discussion,

argument and debate.

I cannot recognize

palm fronds and nights

filled with the throb

of the primitive. I am

buses, trains, and taxis.

I am prejudice, bigotry, 

and discrimination.

I am urban South

Africa.

Where the rainbow ends

By Richard Rive

Where the rainbow ends

There's going to be a place, brother,

Where the world can sing all sorts of songs

And we're going to sing together, brother,

You and I, though you're white and I'm not.

It's going to be a sad song, brother,

Because we don't know the tune,

And it's a difficult tune to learn.

But we can learn, brother, you and I.

There's no such tune as a black tune.

There's only music, brother.

And it's music we're going to sing

Where the rainbow ends.

And one last note from me: take a look at your skin. What does it mean to you now?

Until next time,

Jacob F. Maestri