I read Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk To Freedom, of course. I read Elinor Sisulu’s biography of her parents-in-law, Walter and Albertina Sisulu: In Our Lifetime. I read Antjie Krog’s reportage and reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa. I read Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s New News Out of Africa, Uncovering Africa’s Renaissance. I read veteran South African journalist Allister Spark’s books and columns. My Google alert brought me daily news updates of South Africa. And when I was in South Africa, March 7-April 5, 2010, I read various daily newspapers and talked to people I met about their country’s history and present. Now, I'm just beginning to reflect on my readings and the realities I saw.
Zwelakhe Sisulu
After the idealism ushered in by the end of apartheid and Mandela’s presidency, I was shocked by the rude and incendiary remarks of Julius Malema, leader of the African National Conference Youth League, and the apparent absence today of idealistic leaders of the caliber of Desmond Tutu or Mandela. I discussed this with Zwelakhe Sisulu. Many children of the struggle generation have led troubled lives, but he and his siblings are productive, creative members of the “new” South Africa. I first met Zwelakhe casually, at Walter Lippmann House, home of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, in 1985.
When I saw him again, four years later, he was triumphantly striding into Sanders Theater at Harvard during a spring 1989 dinner commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Nieman program. He had been in detention; it took the intervention and pressure of influential Americans such as Ted Kennedy to get him released. The third time I met him, last month, he was sitting in his office on a peaceful estate just north of Johannesburg. He has extensive interests in mining, energy and media. His sister Lindewe is Defense Minister; his brother Max (husband of writer Elinor) is Speaker of the National Assembly. He noted that his father Walter and Nelson Mandela were products of missionary schools, so were brought up with a strong moral code. Today, effects of apartheid are still harshly apparent in huge disparities in wealth, education and job prospects. Many young people are without direction in their lives or opportunities for productive work. Those who lived through apartheid and the triumphant election that made Mandela president call younger citizens the "Born Free" generations.
Mary Metcalfe
Mary Metcalfe, whom Zwelakhe fondly remembers as “really a champion for the detainees,” is now Director General of Higher Education and Training. The ANC heralded her appointment in August 2009: "Comrade Mary has distinguished herself as having been a champion of transformation in education in South Africa." Prior to this appointment, Metcalfe was head of education for the University of the Witwatersrand.
“When I was in detention in the State of Emergency, we used to refer to Mary Metcalfe as Mary the Lion Heart,” Sisulu recalled. “She actually was the one who was coordinating our studies, so she would supply books to the prison. We ran a school in the prison.”
I interviewed Metcalfe in her Pretoria office. She and her colleagues are charged with helping to alleviate the 40 percent unemployment rate among people 18-25, most of them black. In order to attend university, students must achieve good scores on their “matric” examination. But many students with weaker teachers, their own parents victims of the apartheid education system, don’t even reach the point of taking this examination. A system for life experience credit is in place, but if someone has just been hanging around, that is not an option, either. So her priority is strengthening short-term and college vocational programs where students can learn skills in demand in contemporary society, such as in the hospitality industry. Many South Africans are counting on the exposure of hosting the 2010 World Cup, the first time it’s ever been held on the continent, to boost tourism. Of course, tourists are discouraged by reports of high crime, fueled by that huge cohort of the unemployed. Metcalfe’s department was reorganized after Jacob Zuma became president; higher and basic education were separated. Last January, the Department of Basic Education issued a statement clarifying that the percentage of learners (the country's term for students) in 2009 "who have a attained a bachelor's degree pass in the National Senior Certificate examinations in 2009 is 19.8 percent," not the 32 percent quoted in a speech. "The Minister and the Department have throughout this process been forthright with the public and have presented the disappointing results for public scrutiny," the statement read. That means only a fifth, at best, of high school students even have a chance to enter university, and thousands are without marketable skills.
Education, employment, transportation challenges
There are parallels to the challenges facing inner city schools in the United States, but the problems and disparities seem worse in South Africa, contributing to class and racial resentment. Middle class families I met are scrimping to send their children to boarding and other private schools. Some (commentators I read, people I talked with) fear that Malema is exploiting resentments of the under-educated, restless youth. Malema himself is proud of living large, with showy consumption of luxuries. After weeks of criticism and the murder of a white supremist, Zuma rebuked Malema a few days ago, warning him to think before he speaks.
I had a list of friends-of-friends to contact in South Africa, and thus had the opportunity to visit people’s houses, not just be a tourist. Since I rented a car (and in the first days frequently took wrong turns), I observed many neighborhoods and ways of living. I knew there were rich people. I was surprised at how many fancy homes there are in and around Johannesburg. Even middle class residents have lovely gardens (the climate with lots of sun certainly helps) and are protected by thick walls, often topped with coiled barbed wire, and electric metal gates. You don’t just drop in. Many have separate quarters for domestic workers. Some liberals, I’ve read and heard, swore they would never have “servants,” but it is considered a decent job, and several people told me it's the right thing to do with such high unemployment. Several white people made a point of telling me the black elite also employ domestic workers. Although I saw a few white people jogging or walking, most of the people I saw walking, in neighborhoods and along the highways, were black. I saw very few people on bicycles.
Zwelakhe Sisulu
After the idealism ushered in by the end of apartheid and Mandela’s presidency, I was shocked by the rude and incendiary remarks of Julius Malema, leader of the African National Conference Youth League, and the apparent absence today of idealistic leaders of the caliber of Desmond Tutu or Mandela. I discussed this with Zwelakhe Sisulu. Many children of the struggle generation have led troubled lives, but he and his siblings are productive, creative members of the “new” South Africa. I first met Zwelakhe casually, at Walter Lippmann House, home of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, in 1985.
When I saw him again, four years later, he was triumphantly striding into Sanders Theater at Harvard during a spring 1989 dinner commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Nieman program. He had been in detention; it took the intervention and pressure of influential Americans such as Ted Kennedy to get him released. The third time I met him, last month, he was sitting in his office on a peaceful estate just north of Johannesburg. He has extensive interests in mining, energy and media. His sister Lindewe is Defense Minister; his brother Max (husband of writer Elinor) is Speaker of the National Assembly. He noted that his father Walter and Nelson Mandela were products of missionary schools, so were brought up with a strong moral code. Today, effects of apartheid are still harshly apparent in huge disparities in wealth, education and job prospects. Many young people are without direction in their lives or opportunities for productive work. Those who lived through apartheid and the triumphant election that made Mandela president call younger citizens the "Born Free" generations.
Mary Metcalfe
Mary Metcalfe, whom Zwelakhe fondly remembers as “really a champion for the detainees,” is now Director General of Higher Education and Training. The ANC heralded her appointment in August 2009: "Comrade Mary has distinguished herself as having been a champion of transformation in education in South Africa." Prior to this appointment, Metcalfe was head of education for the University of the Witwatersrand.
“When I was in detention in the State of Emergency, we used to refer to Mary Metcalfe as Mary the Lion Heart,” Sisulu recalled. “She actually was the one who was coordinating our studies, so she would supply books to the prison. We ran a school in the prison.”
I interviewed Metcalfe in her Pretoria office. She and her colleagues are charged with helping to alleviate the 40 percent unemployment rate among people 18-25, most of them black. In order to attend university, students must achieve good scores on their “matric” examination. But many students with weaker teachers, their own parents victims of the apartheid education system, don’t even reach the point of taking this examination. A system for life experience credit is in place, but if someone has just been hanging around, that is not an option, either. So her priority is strengthening short-term and college vocational programs where students can learn skills in demand in contemporary society, such as in the hospitality industry. Many South Africans are counting on the exposure of hosting the 2010 World Cup, the first time it’s ever been held on the continent, to boost tourism. Of course, tourists are discouraged by reports of high crime, fueled by that huge cohort of the unemployed. Metcalfe’s department was reorganized after Jacob Zuma became president; higher and basic education were separated. Last January, the Department of Basic Education issued a statement clarifying that the percentage of learners (the country's term for students) in 2009 "who have a attained a bachelor's degree pass in the National Senior Certificate examinations in 2009 is 19.8 percent," not the 32 percent quoted in a speech. "The Minister and the Department have throughout this process been forthright with the public and have presented the disappointing results for public scrutiny," the statement read. That means only a fifth, at best, of high school students even have a chance to enter university, and thousands are without marketable skills.
Education, employment, transportation challenges
There are parallels to the challenges facing inner city schools in the United States, but the problems and disparities seem worse in South Africa, contributing to class and racial resentment. Middle class families I met are scrimping to send their children to boarding and other private schools. Some (commentators I read, people I talked with) fear that Malema is exploiting resentments of the under-educated, restless youth. Malema himself is proud of living large, with showy consumption of luxuries. After weeks of criticism and the murder of a white supremist, Zuma rebuked Malema a few days ago, warning him to think before he speaks.
I had a list of friends-of-friends to contact in South Africa, and thus had the opportunity to visit people’s houses, not just be a tourist. Since I rented a car (and in the first days frequently took wrong turns), I observed many neighborhoods and ways of living. I knew there were rich people. I was surprised at how many fancy homes there are in and around Johannesburg. Even middle class residents have lovely gardens (the climate with lots of sun certainly helps) and are protected by thick walls, often topped with coiled barbed wire, and electric metal gates. You don’t just drop in. Many have separate quarters for domestic workers. Some liberals, I’ve read and heard, swore they would never have “servants,” but it is considered a decent job, and several people told me it's the right thing to do with such high unemployment. Several white people made a point of telling me the black elite also employ domestic workers. Although I saw a few white people jogging or walking, most of the people I saw walking, in neighborhoods and along the highways, were black. I saw very few people on bicycles.
Many of the black working class get around via mini buses. There are fleets of them that stop along designated routes and can also be flagged down. Drivers struck and blocked traffic in Soweto while I was there in protest of the government’s modernized “rapid transit” buses, which ply some of the same routes. Although there are cars for hire and taxis like we think of them, these mini buses are also called taxis. According to a website dealing with worldwide transportation issues, “South African taxi drivers shuffle an estimated 10 million commuters to and from work every day… An introduction of more buses could ultimately see their taxis being phased out. In South Africa, a taxi is a symbol of their owners’ status and financial security.”
Transformation, nonracialism
In official literature and some conversations, the words transformation and post-racial or nonracialism come up. It’s clear that implementing those ideals in such an uneven and imperfect landscape is complex, especially with an ingrained culture of classification by skin color and ethnicity. Almost everyone I met still classified themselves and others by race and talked about it in ordinary conversation. I know from studying social psychology that our brains automatically jump to characterizations of others – male/female; old/young; black/white; safe/dangerous; like me/not like me. After more than three weeks in the country, I realized I had become accustomed to this way of thinking and speaking, and was taken aback when I met Zayd Minty in Cape Town and asked what his ethnic background was. He said he refused to engage in such discussions, that it should be a non-issue. I felt guilty that I had succumbed so quickly to this stereotyped way of thinking and glad he reminded me. And it’s not that I met only black people and white people. I met Indian people and colored people who told me that was their heritage. When I first met Justice Albie Sachs, in Chicago where he was a visiting professor last winter, he told me that his union with his wife would have been illegal under apartheid. He is white (and Jewish); she is colored (and beautiful). Now they have a tousle-haired, 3-year-old son, and people are more likely to marvel at their age difference than any differences in skin tone. I also met several gay couples, including happily married ones. The South African constitution, which Sachs helped write, is progressive. It specifies: “The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.”
Legally, there is no problem with same-sex marriages. As in the United States, however, tolerance is greater in urban areas than in rural ones. The rate of rape in South Africa is appalling, and some rapists deliberately target lesbians, according to news reports and documentation by such NGOs as Gender Links.
Patriarchy
It is still a patriarchal society. There are many competent women in Zuma’s cabinet, and Helen Zille is the premier of the Western Cape and leader of the “official” opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, but no woman is poised to run for the presidency. Zuma has three wives, one fiancée, one ex-wife (who was appointed Foreign Minister by his predecessor), and many children. It made news last week when Zuma agreed to get an HIV-AIDS test, following widespread criticism that he was setting a bad example by having unprotected sex with women not his wife, most recently with the confirmation that the baby of a friend's daughter was his 20th recognized child. People in South Africa are upset that taxpayer dollars go to support the staffs of the three First Ladies and that, due to the custom of having government offices in Pretoria and the legislature in Cape Town, each politician charges cars and living expenses in both places to their government accounts. My old friend John Mojapelo said people feel they “owe” the ANC for their liberation, and won’t vote the party out. Indeed, it seems entrenched for the foreseeable future, from my shallow understanding.
As Metcalfe told me, “Gender relations in this country are still very conservative.”
Not so scary, but...
Transformation, nonracialism
In official literature and some conversations, the words transformation and post-racial or nonracialism come up. It’s clear that implementing those ideals in such an uneven and imperfect landscape is complex, especially with an ingrained culture of classification by skin color and ethnicity. Almost everyone I met still classified themselves and others by race and talked about it in ordinary conversation. I know from studying social psychology that our brains automatically jump to characterizations of others – male/female; old/young; black/white; safe/dangerous; like me/not like me. After more than three weeks in the country, I realized I had become accustomed to this way of thinking and speaking, and was taken aback when I met Zayd Minty in Cape Town and asked what his ethnic background was. He said he refused to engage in such discussions, that it should be a non-issue. I felt guilty that I had succumbed so quickly to this stereotyped way of thinking and glad he reminded me. And it’s not that I met only black people and white people. I met Indian people and colored people who told me that was their heritage. When I first met Justice Albie Sachs, in Chicago where he was a visiting professor last winter, he told me that his union with his wife would have been illegal under apartheid. He is white (and Jewish); she is colored (and beautiful). Now they have a tousle-haired, 3-year-old son, and people are more likely to marvel at their age difference than any differences in skin tone. I also met several gay couples, including happily married ones. The South African constitution, which Sachs helped write, is progressive. It specifies: “The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.”
Legally, there is no problem with same-sex marriages. As in the United States, however, tolerance is greater in urban areas than in rural ones. The rate of rape in South Africa is appalling, and some rapists deliberately target lesbians, according to news reports and documentation by such NGOs as Gender Links.
Patriarchy
It is still a patriarchal society. There are many competent women in Zuma’s cabinet, and Helen Zille is the premier of the Western Cape and leader of the “official” opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, but no woman is poised to run for the presidency. Zuma has three wives, one fiancée, one ex-wife (who was appointed Foreign Minister by his predecessor), and many children. It made news last week when Zuma agreed to get an HIV-AIDS test, following widespread criticism that he was setting a bad example by having unprotected sex with women not his wife, most recently with the confirmation that the baby of a friend's daughter was his 20th recognized child. People in South Africa are upset that taxpayer dollars go to support the staffs of the three First Ladies and that, due to the custom of having government offices in Pretoria and the legislature in Cape Town, each politician charges cars and living expenses in both places to their government accounts. My old friend John Mojapelo said people feel they “owe” the ANC for their liberation, and won’t vote the party out. Indeed, it seems entrenched for the foreseeable future, from my shallow understanding.
As Metcalfe told me, “Gender relations in this country are still very conservative.”
She noted that all official documents give strong support and even require quotas “to address those gender imbalances, but those are very resistant to change in deep consciousness and in changing the dynamics of how people relate to each other and the dynamics of how power operates.”
Then, pausing to think this through further, she merely added: “Yeah.”
Family values
I discussed what might be called in America "family value issues" with several people, including Thabang Titotti, my guide to the Cape Town flats. He said people in the townships value education, but on a daily basis, if a parent gets a chance to work for a few days, he or she may ask an older child to skip school and watch the younger ones. Many of the parents and grandparents are illiterate, he said, so there is not a culture of reading (although I saw many people all over the country reading newspapers). He told me Vicky Ntozoni, who runs her own B&B in Langa, sends her own four children into Cape Town to school, believing that they will get a better education there than in the township. Zwelakhe was close to his father and to Nelson Mandela, whom he knew his whole life and served as press aide when Mandiba made his post-prison triumphal world tour. Zwelakhe credits his mother, Albertina, with holding her own family and many others together with strong deeds and values.
“Our home was really a community center. [His childhood home in Soweto is right across the street from a clinic, where his mother helped deliver many babies.] My mother was one of the first nurses and midwives. Our home was also a transit center..." (for people on the run, for people just moving to the city).
He said people would leave clothes for the extended family, so he found himself as a boy literally in the “big shoes and big suits” of struggle leaders. “Clothes were dumped at my house," and with them came stories: "This was so-and-so’s who was sentenced…” Life was hard, but inspiring. "It was not just the sense of the extended African family, but the extended ANC family" He says he has childhood “memories of joy and happiness and memories of sadness,” but he remembers more the sense of sharing happiness. The community also had the ability to share pain and comfort one another.
He told me the prior weekend, at the suggestion of his 10-year-old grand-nephew, the extended Sisulu clan gathered at the Johannesburg Zoo. There were more than 60 of them there, presided over by Albertina. A long walk with a happy ending for his family.
Family values
I discussed what might be called in America "family value issues" with several people, including Thabang Titotti, my guide to the Cape Town flats. He said people in the townships value education, but on a daily basis, if a parent gets a chance to work for a few days, he or she may ask an older child to skip school and watch the younger ones. Many of the parents and grandparents are illiterate, he said, so there is not a culture of reading (although I saw many people all over the country reading newspapers). He told me Vicky Ntozoni, who runs her own B&B in Langa, sends her own four children into Cape Town to school, believing that they will get a better education there than in the township. Zwelakhe was close to his father and to Nelson Mandela, whom he knew his whole life and served as press aide when Mandiba made his post-prison triumphal world tour. Zwelakhe credits his mother, Albertina, with holding her own family and many others together with strong deeds and values.
“Our home was really a community center. [His childhood home in Soweto is right across the street from a clinic, where his mother helped deliver many babies.] My mother was one of the first nurses and midwives. Our home was also a transit center..." (for people on the run, for people just moving to the city).
He said people would leave clothes for the extended family, so he found himself as a boy literally in the “big shoes and big suits” of struggle leaders. “Clothes were dumped at my house," and with them came stories: "This was so-and-so’s who was sentenced…” Life was hard, but inspiring. "It was not just the sense of the extended African family, but the extended ANC family" He says he has childhood “memories of joy and happiness and memories of sadness,” but he remembers more the sense of sharing happiness. The community also had the ability to share pain and comfort one another.
He told me the prior weekend, at the suggestion of his 10-year-old grand-nephew, the extended Sisulu clan gathered at the Johannesburg Zoo. There were more than 60 of them there, presided over by Albertina. A long walk with a happy ending for his family.
Not so scary, but...
Many aspects of life in South Africa for a white woman, an academic and a writer, were not nearly so scary as some people had predicted. Comfortable, familiar, even. But so much is unpredictable. So many people are scarred. Sachs, for instance, lost an eye and an arm when secret police tried to kill him. I met a woman at the Art and Social Justice conference who had been imprisoned by Somalis for 10 years. So, on the surface, things seem fine. But…
And then there are the quite different ways people live their daily lives: the middle class and up behind gates at the driveways and bars on their windows. The poor and working poor in townships, where people come and go freely, but “know each other’s business,” says Titotti, who no longer lives there. It’s not as brutal and demeaning as wealthier people might imagine, but it’s not so romantic as some would have it, either. And then there are the economic refugees, many from Zimbabwe, begging in the streets, mothers with babies squatting on concrete medians throughout Johannesburg in between asking motorists for money.
Coming home
On the plane on the way home, I read Krog’s latest book, Begging to be Black. In it, she posits an ancient interconnectedness of black people, exemplified by Chief Moshoeshoe, who reigned over what is now Lesotho, a mountain country completely encircled by South Africa. She wrote part of the book on an academic fellowship in Berlin, where she explored African and Western philosophy and tried to come to grips with what it means for her to be Afrikaans, with a mother who introduced her to classical music and endorsed apartheid. Krog believes Mandela was misunderstood from a Western, Christian perspective, and is better comprehended from a communitarian point of view as exemplified by Moshoeshoe. She calls out her own naivete, and tries to explain in English the concept of ubuntu: “a world view based on the idiom umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu – a person is a person through other persons.”
Photos
The portraits are of Mary Metcalfe in her Pretoria office; Zwelakhe Sisulu outside his office north of Johnnesburg; and Albie Sachs speaking to the Art and Social Justice conference in Durban about choosing the architecture, design and art work for the highest court and Constitution Hill.Other shots are of a weed growing above the wall at the prison museum on Constitution Hill; a cafe in a township along the Garden Route; scenes from the township of Langa outside Cape Town; a new Cape Town condo with a BMW outside; downtown Johannesburg; a typical gate between the street and a home in Johannesburg; domestic workers in a suburb; barefoot streetchildren inside the Durban Art Gallery watching a video of soccer games between schoolchildren held earlier that day and week; schoolchildren visiting Constitution Hill; dancing among delegates to the Gender and Local Government Summit, and a commentary on the end of the Mandela era by the famous South African political cartoonist known as Zapiro (Jonathan Shapiro).
And then there are the quite different ways people live their daily lives: the middle class and up behind gates at the driveways and bars on their windows. The poor and working poor in townships, where people come and go freely, but “know each other’s business,” says Titotti, who no longer lives there. It’s not as brutal and demeaning as wealthier people might imagine, but it’s not so romantic as some would have it, either. And then there are the economic refugees, many from Zimbabwe, begging in the streets, mothers with babies squatting on concrete medians throughout Johannesburg in between asking motorists for money.
Coming home
On the plane on the way home, I read Krog’s latest book, Begging to be Black. In it, she posits an ancient interconnectedness of black people, exemplified by Chief Moshoeshoe, who reigned over what is now Lesotho, a mountain country completely encircled by South Africa. She wrote part of the book on an academic fellowship in Berlin, where she explored African and Western philosophy and tried to come to grips with what it means for her to be Afrikaans, with a mother who introduced her to classical music and endorsed apartheid. Krog believes Mandela was misunderstood from a Western, Christian perspective, and is better comprehended from a communitarian point of view as exemplified by Moshoeshoe. She calls out her own naivete, and tries to explain in English the concept of ubuntu: “a world view based on the idiom umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu – a person is a person through other persons.”
Photos
The portraits are of Mary Metcalfe in her Pretoria office; Zwelakhe Sisulu outside his office north of Johnnesburg; and Albie Sachs speaking to the Art and Social Justice conference in Durban about choosing the architecture, design and art work for the highest court and Constitution Hill.Other shots are of a weed growing above the wall at the prison museum on Constitution Hill; a cafe in a township along the Garden Route; scenes from the township of Langa outside Cape Town; a new Cape Town condo with a BMW outside; downtown Johannesburg; a typical gate between the street and a home in Johannesburg; domestic workers in a suburb; barefoot streetchildren inside the Durban Art Gallery watching a video of soccer games between schoolchildren held earlier that day and week; schoolchildren visiting Constitution Hill; dancing among delegates to the Gender and Local Government Summit, and a commentary on the end of the Mandela era by the famous South African political cartoonist known as Zapiro (Jonathan Shapiro).
No comments:
Post a Comment