Honey, I'm Home! (Day 1 and 2)

The first thing I saw on my way to the Stanford house in Capetown, were the townships on the outskirts of the city. They seemed to be strategically placed out of sight and out mind…which brought to my remembrance the analysis Tupac gave of urban American in his Christmas interview when he spoke about blacks living in an “outer city” far from the American psyche. Likewise, the townships appeared to me to be something most considered best forgotten. It was an instant and stark reminder of the vestiages of apartheid and the legacy of inequality.

Upon arrival on the Stanford house, I noticed that all the program coordinators/directors were white and that the cleaning staff was black. I had hoped Stanford being the place “where the wind of freedom blows” would be more progressive in the composition of their staff, but I guess idealism and diversity are only important in the states and amongst the undergraduate population. (sarcasm) Later I found that 2 of the 7 professors were African black, but I still can't help but think about the message that I had internalized about the value that my institution seemed to place on African blacks.

Always the explorer, I decided to venture out my own and get a feel for my surroundings. I immediately found the internet café and was surprised at the Whitney Houston and Anthony Hamilton blasting from the overhead. After appeasing my net addicition, I wandered into a used bookstore looking for Steven Biko, although they had none of his writings. Luckily, I picked up “A legacy of liberation” by Mark Gevissner in the house, and spent the next day reading all 350 pages. The book was a good read and brought up to date in terms of Capetown politics and the achievements and shortcomings of the African National Congress since the end of apartheid.

Thabo Mbeki was the protagonist of the book and his journey was very inspiring. He was literally born into the movement to liberate South Africa and put that above everything, including tranditional family relationships. I most empathasized with him as he left his home and his community to pursue education in London and learned to be at ease with privlege and to leverage that network to help liberate his people. By all accounts, Mbeki was a brilliant man and proved pivotal in the negociations between the ANC and the Nationalist party and in appeasing successionist groups like the Zulus and some Afriikaners during South Africa’s transition to democracy . The biggest takeaway from his story for me was the danger of being an ideologue. When he became South Africa’s 2^nd post apartheid President, he made everything binary and saw criticism, policts, and global politics through a racial lens, meaning that every criticism was racist at heart and an attempt to discredit African self-determiation. Although this may have been true, that ,in my opinion should have not have caused him to dismiss criticisms and critiques wholeheartedly.

After reading the book, what I am most excited about learning is the transition of the ANC from a liberation army to a governing structure. How can you govern a state where the majority of the population was underdeveloped and not invested in for a century?!

While exploring the area of our house a little while on my on, I had a good conversation with an Indian man who had been out of work for three weeks. When I told him I was America, he asked me was America a place where everyone has jobs. You shouold’ve seen his face when I told them that in some segments of the African-American population at home unemployment hovered around 30-40% (those without or just with high school degrees) and that although not as abject, there are places in the United States that are similar in terms of developments to the townships. We then talked about causes of criminality and he remarked that the government shouldn’t be surprised that crime was up when so many people couldn’t eat. I smiled and told him that we had similar problems in America.

Towards the end of my 2^nd night, I went out with the Stanford crew to experience the nightlife close to our home. It was fun and cool as it was a pool hall, but I thought it was interesting that the place was at least 85% white. An older man showed me how to play pool, we departed to McDonald’s afterwards and walked through the drive through and I got ready for bed.

Thus far, South Africa has been a paradox to me. I have not yet had the opportunity to engage with Africans and in my program and in my social scene thus far I have spent the majority of my time with white South Africans and Americans. This has given me in these short 2 days a different experience than the one I expected, but one that has taught me a lot. From my interactions, I have not noticed any racial tension (because social life seems to be extremely segregated) and the White South Africans I’ve met out have been extremely talkative and kind to me.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from reading and from watching and from talking is that nothing is simple and everything is complicated. I’ve also learned that nothing, especially people, are static, and everything Is subject to change.

On a final note, I remarked to my roommate today that this would be like studying in Alabama or Mississippi in mid 1980’s America. (in the heart of the Reagan Revolution, crack epidemic, and the war on drugs!) I am suspicious that as a student studying abroad then, I would’ve been insulated from many of the hard realties of the adjustment to democracy after an apartheid state. I am then fearful, that unless I’m intentional, that I will have a similar experience in South Africa, 20+ years after the end of apartheid.