I sit here listening to ‘Exile on Main
Street’, the highly-acclaimed yet relatively little-known (and recently
re-mastered) album by The Rolling Stones, one that Andy, Mac, Dan and I
listened to often back in Syracuse. Having been in South Africa a few days now,
I find myself reflecting back upon our hours ‘demonstrating’ against apartheid
in the mock shantytowns built on the campus of Syracuse University. It was a
long time ago, and I keep wondering if we truly understood the consequences of what
brought us there. Certainly we knew the rather obvious injustices occurring as
a result of the apartheid government’s ongoing legally-dictated segregation,
constraining any but whites from voting, etc. Nelson Mandela had at that point been
imprisoned three months longer than I’d been on this earth, and President PW
Botha had only then begun to hint at the reforms that would ultimately remove
from government the mere 16% of the population that held 100% of the power in
South Africa. The international sanctions of 1984 against the government of
South Africa were starting to take effect, causing the rand to collapse,
leading to an official state of emergency that would be in effect for 5 years
more, long after we’d graduated from college and entered the workforce.
Probably the only thing that drew our young attention spans back to South
Africa was the freeing of Nelson Mandela in 1990, though it would take an
additional 4 years before a draft constitution was written in 1993, followed
shortly thereafter by the first public elections allowing blacks and coloureds
to vote, despite the two groups being the 85% majority in the country.
‘Coloureds’, you say, isn’t that
rather racist commentary on your part? Well, not really, as the term is used freely
here to describe the difference between ‘blacks’, and those of mixed race-background,
be it white, Malaysian, etc. Our taxi driver for the day is Richard, a
self-affirmed ‘coloured’ in his late forties who currently lives with his
mother, having now waited 14 years for the government to provide the home that
was promised as a result of the first elections back in the middle 90’s. His
assertion is that the ‘black’ ANC government isn’t doing enough, is corrupt, is
unable to fix the problems resulting from decades upon decades of apartheid.
Richard either cannot--or refuses to--explain
the expensive BMW’s we see driving though the Gugulethu township where we ate a
BBQ lunch at Mzoli’s, a popular eatery for blacks and whites alike. Although
invited, Richard refused to join us, instead remaining with his car for reasons
unknown to me. At first I assumed his reasons to be related to protecting his
car, wanting to leave us alone, or some such other reason I could imagine. After some thought about
it, I now wonder if he wasn’t quite comfortable there, as it wasn’t a
‘coloured’ township we were in, but a ‘black’ one. Upon first parking, a black
woman in the car behind us appeared to want him to move so she could park where
we had parked; he had an amiable conversation about it, refusing to move,
politely suggesting that she should could park a dozen meters ahead, where
there was ample room. She disagreed, but Richard did not move.
Having now had more time to reflect
upon this ‘minor’ occurrence, I now believe we were actually witnessing South
African racism as it exists today, sometimes subtle, sometimes not, as in the
case of the xenophobic altercations that are now becoming so common in the
western Cape and Johannesburg. Despite South Africa’s extremely polar
distribution of wealth, it is still far, far better off than most other African
countries, and thus people are immigrating from countries like Zimbabwe in huge
numbers. Given the fact that unemployment nears 30%, the locals consider these
‘outsiders’ to be taking their jobs, and various forms of resentment are
manifested on a daily basis. Although Richard is not an ‘outsider’, racism in
South Africa remains, albeit with a different face, more subtle, perhaps less
resolute than before.
As we departed Gugulethu en route to
Spier winery, the views from Richard’s car were astounding, puzzling, and
depressing. Any of us ‘demonstrators’ back in the mid-eighties who thought that
the end of apartheid would naturally right the wrongs of nearly 50+ years of formalized
apartheid rule were mistaken. Sorely mistaken. In fact, many here posit that
any but the upper class here in South Africa are no better off financially than
the years prior to 1994, and perhaps many even worse off. Of course, ridding
their world of the oppressive rule that so suppressed the majority of the
population here in South Africa was necessary, but I don’t think anyone could
foresee how difficult it would be to right the socioeconomic disparities that
had accrued. How do you provide for virtually half a country who remains well
below the poverty level, some 30% of which make less than $1 per day? How do
you now stop paying unemployed women to, in effect, have children? How do you
pay for building housing with running water and sewer? How do you get people to
take advantage of what little housing has
been built, given that these small homes must be paid for in full at the time
of habitation, albeit at a mere 25% its value? How is it that people living in
plywood and corrugated metal homes are supposed to have 25,000 rand to take
possession, let alone 1,000 rand, or 500 rand, or…
The extreme disparity in income levels
amongst the population of South Africa is indeed a very, very significant issue,
one that virtually obviates the success of any given solution to any specific
problem, due in large part to how widespread the poverty is. The classic
chicken-and-egg scenario, if ever there was one. I’ve neglected to even address
the HIV issues here in South Africa, practically ignored by the government until
only a few short years ago. Ghana has been able to make significant advances in
curbing the spread of HIV amongst its population, and with far less resources
than South Africa has. South Africa’s rather low 0.5% population growth rate
belies not progressive planning on the part of the government, but an insidious
HIV pandemic that has yet to be curbed, remaining at 15% the total population.
How do you house people that aren’t
able to pay for it? How do you provide decent-paying jobs to people with little
or no skills? How do you educate children in the townships when the government
depends on only 9.1% of its population to provide 50% of its tax revenue?
Somewhere the cycle has to be broken, but it’s so hard to envision where the
catalyst to do so will be found; I now seriously doubt that the country has the
resources to do it without help from the outside, and political infighting
within the previously-dominant ANC suggests that further chaos may be in store
for the government here. Now stop and consider the fact that other countries
(most notably those in east Africa) face far more dire realities than those of the
people here in South Africa, and one is left with a feeling of helplessness
beyond comprehension.
So, do you care about the experiences my
family and I had today at Spier Winery, seeing cheetahs and holding hawks and
owls, having an absolutely wonderful lunch in a treehouse at ‘Moyo at Spier’, or
the fact that the boys and I finally obtained ping-pong paddles so that we
could let loose once back on the ship? I’ll leave that rather incongruous set
of experiences to some of the pictures that follow, as no number of my images
could possibly be worth the thousand or so words I’ve written above,
regrettably.
The Black Vulture got impatient if the handler didn't kick the food out every thirty seconds or so. |
Birds bllink with their inner, nictitating membrane, which moves horizontal (very rapidly, I might add). |
The Secretary Bird was mimicking killing a cobra with a kick that sometimes penetrates the leather glove the handler is wearing. |
Yes folks, that's a fifty-billion dollar bill from Zimbabwe. |
Our wonderful treehouse lunch at Moyo at Spier. |
The view off the back of Spier's property. |
The women's bathroom didn't have such a creative treatment on the door. |
I love this post, the photos and the descriptive observations. Incongruous, yes.
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