To Hope or To Despair Vol 2

Well, today (July 22nd) was without a doubt, one of the most emotionally exhausting days I have had since being in South Africa. Our first stop was to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. The museum was amazing down to every detail. The exhibits were set up to mirror the apartheid experience – surrounded by cages and prison bars, it was a powerful experience in architecture and design alone. To start with, the museum gave us a ticket – some said “Europeans only – White” and the others said “Non Whites.” They told us that we had to have the opposite of what we would have been classified as during apartheid. Since I am half Latina, I had to be in the Non White group. It was then that I realized that if I had been born in South Africa April 29, 1981 I would have been classified as “coloured.” In fact, I failed the hair ethnicity test established to prove my Non White status. This is where they would put a pencil in your hair, and if it didn’t easily fall out, it was proof that you were non-white. Your racial status dictated your entire life during that time. As a coloured person, I would have only have been allowed in certain neighborhoods, and could only attend certain schools, which would not have prepared me for college. At the museum, this segregation was simulated by having the non-whites enter through one door, and the whites through another. On my side the laws of ethnicity were posted, stating that to be white, you had to be 100% of European decent, and that while some people may appear to be, they might not actually be white. It just boggled my mind that I would have lived as a “coloured” person until 8th grade! Who knows how that would have affected and changed me? Even with the same family, could I possibly have ended up the same person?
Inside the museum we first went through an amazing temporary multi-media exhibit on Nelson Mandela that only heightened the admiration that I have for him. At the end of the exhibit you are asked to pick a colored rod that reflects your emotion after the exhibit. I chose blue… the color of everyone’s sky here in South Africa…
The next part of the exhibit outlined the rise and fall of apartheid. Some highlights were a series of interviews of Afrikaner politicians defending the system. Direct quotes:
1.I wouldn’t even call it Apartheid… I would call it a policy of neighborliness.
2.The passbooks aren’t a big deal. It is just an ID, and I even have one. What we have done for the black man is to give him a handy book to keep themselves organized.
3.We had to teach the black man to work, then we had to teach him to be satisfied with working, and now we have reached the stage that he likes work….You have to understand that these are barbarous individuals.

These ideas are so askew and so disturbing; it is hard to believe that is what people actually thought. It was actually sickening to realize the generations of white children that were taught this rationale and then perpetuated a system that is still so utterly present in the damage that it has done to this nation. He experience made it that much easier to understand how the system of apartheid created a level of
anger that exploded throughout the 80s and early 90s.

More insight to the violent attitudes came with Mandy, our guide for our day in Soweto. Mandy is a hilarious and bubbly woman who loves to joke around and tease us as Americans. Born and raised in Soweto, she had a fascinating insight and opinion on South Africa’s past, present, and future. There are many neighborhoods in Soweto… Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Orlando, and Kliptown are just some of the examples. She took us to the Hector Pieterson memorial in Orlando West, Soweto. Hector Pieterson was 13 years old and at a student led peaceful protest which had been organized to show their objection over a new law which required all education to be conducted in Afrikaans – a foreign language to most of the students and teachers in the townships. The police, saying they felt threatened by the marching children opened fired on the group, killing over 600 children. Pieterson is remembered specifically because of the famous photo of an older boy carrying him as he died.

As we were looking at the outdoor memorial, I heard Mandy casually mention that she was there when it happened. When she took us to the memorial within the Hector Pieterson museum, I took the opportunity to ask her about the protest and her experience.
What I didn’t know was that it was totally student led, with no input from adults. The high school kids had come to the primary schools and told the children to come to the march. Without any idea of what they were doing, hundreds of elementary school children came to the march. I asked Mandy if she really was there, and she began to tell me about that horrific day. Apparently, when the students saw the police they put the youngest children out in front, thinking that the police wouldn’t attack, but they did, which means that most of the children killed were especially young. I asked her what she saw, what she did when chaos broke loose and then she revealed that she was shot, lifting her skirt up high enough for me to see the scar on the back of her leg. All of the children fell on top of each other as they ran, and their tripping meant that even more of them were shot. She went on to say that the protest led to her older brother’s exile, and then subsequently frequent visits by the security police. The police came by regularly, and proceeded to harass and torture her family for information. By the time she finished her story everyone was listening in a heavy silence, and I found myself tearing up. She, like the ex-political prisoner who gave us a tour of Robben Island, said that giving these tours helps her work through her “hysteria” and heal her past. The only thing that really upsets her now (and I wish you could have heard the passion and anguish in her voice when she said this…) is that the uprising is now remembered in this glossed over way, calling it Youth Day, “when it was a massacre!” As I fought back tears, I realized that despite hearing these stories and witnessing this history over and over again, I am never ceased to be amazed by the tragedy, loss, and incredible suffering by so many of these people.

After the memorial, Mandy had us all give R20 ($2.50), with which she bought about 50 small bags of rice, about 20 loaves of bread, about 50 packs of 6 eggs, and 20 bottles of oil – totaling R540 ($67), so that we could take it into one of the roughest parts of Soweto: Kliptown.
When we arrived, local kids took us through the shack town. The river of garbage water between the shacks, fences made out of bed springs, wires dangling low from shack to shack, rocks piled on top of the corrugated metal roofs to keep them attached, and people -- kids, babies, and adults all poking their heads out to watch us as we walked by. Our guide, a young man who has found himself orphaned and in charge of his young siblings told us of his dreams of becoming a pilot. Standing in his 10ft x 10ft shack with his baby brother sleeping behind a curtain, you couldn’t help but feel a sincere lack of hope that becoming a pilot would ever become a reality for this young man.

We left the shack, wound our way back through the tiny street to make our way back to the opening where our bus was parked. Immediately, I saw that there were around two hundred people standing in this opening in front of the bus. There was a long line of adults and a separate and equally long line of children. I asked Mandy why they were all here, and she said they were here for the food, and when I asked how they even knew, she said that whenever she comes the people know that she has brought some food. I looked at her in shock and said: “But, we don’t have enough for all of these people.” To which, Mandy hugged me, and said “They accept that, and know that when I come back they can try again.” It was then that I could feel their desperation as they stared expectantly at us. She also told us that the kids were lined up separately for candy, because that is what they expect from Americans. I realized that we hadn’t brought any, so Mandy took my friend Tracy and I to a little tuck shop where for R20 we bought 250 pieces of candy. The kids were lined up and we started to hand them out when things started getting a little frenzied. Many of these children were carrying babies and forcing their hands open so they could have their piece. Mandy had to help us keep them in line as they started swarming around, fighting over the candy, and who they believed had and hadn’t already gotten a piece.

None of the other groups were back yet and people had been in line for over an hour and a half, so Mandy had us begin to hand out the food. There was a lot of confusion in the beginning; because we didn’t realize that she wanted us to only give each person got ONE thing, not one of each. As supplies got lower things began getting hectic amongst the adults, leading to all of this confusion, cutting, and yelling. Amidst all of this intensity were people emotionally thanking us for giving them something to eat for that night. Suddenly, my initial excitement to help and hand out food began shifting to a concentrated sense of anxiety and claustrophobia as people came up to thank me, to beg for money, and even to gloat, as some of the children came up to show their extra pieces of candy that they had gotten by cutting the line. As some of these children were reveling over their little victories, I realized the power of the survival instinct – to get those pieces they had screwed over other children, but they didn’t care. All of these emotions, the overcrowding, and general sensory overload hit me hard, and I knew that it was time for me to return to the bus.
My last sight in Kliptown, Soweto was of a young man staring at me as he leaned against an electric pole next to the bus. I stared at the ragged and holey sweatshirt he was wearing, but it wasn’t until I was on the bus that my brain was able to process what it said: Proud to be and American, Where Freedom isn’t Free.
I am still reeling…
Apartheid is over, but the effects of it are still entrenched incredibly deep. How long can people live this way? How long before there is real and significant change? I do not hesitate to state that the events of the day have certainly given all of us good reason to despair for humanity, but despite this, I still have to believe that there is hope, because without hope there is just giving up… and that simply isn’t an option.