As South Asians, the thought of visiting South Africa brought up a few questions in our minds - on the one hand we wondered how South Africans interacted with each other - whether they were African, Indian, white, or of mixed descent (called 'colored') - a decade after the end of apartheid. The Lonely Planet guide for South Africa even states that people of Indian descent might face low level racism from both blacks and whites- blacks because many thought Indians were treated better than blacks during apartheid, and by whites, becuase they weren't white. On the other hand, we had heard about the incredible natural beauty of the country and the rich musical heritage - we enjoy music from South Africa, such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Also, we did not know much at all about the pre-colonial history of South Africa. So with these diverse thoughts in our heads, we got off the plane curious to see the changes that time had wrought.
One of the hugely positive things about South Africa is that most of the people we met don't seem to be angry or bitter about the past. Mandela achieved a mostly non-violent end to the apartheid regime.
In Pretoria, the place we stayed, we mostly saw white South Africans with a few blacks- this was due to the neighborhood we were staying in. However, in Johannesburg, we saw many black areas, including the boroughs of Yeoville and Hillbrow.
We visited Soweto, which, as you know, was a township to which black Africans were forcibly moved during the years of apartheid. The Hector Peterson Museum dramatically showcased the events during the years of apartheid and especially of June 16, 1976, of the Soweto uprising when thousands of black students protested against the imposition of the Afrikaans language on their schooling and the inferior 'Bantu' education they were receiving. Hector Peterson, a 13-year old, was the first person shot in these protests where over 500 protestors were also killed. The famous photo (shown to the left) shows Hector in the arms of a fellow student (Mbusiya), after being shot. Subsequent to the riots, Mbusiya had to flee South Africa and has never been heard from since 1978. There is a quote from Mbusiya's mother talking about why Mbusiya was just doing his duty and was not really a hero for doing that. Interestingly enough, later on, Hector's sister said that Hector was not a hero for being the first one to get shot.
Driving through Soweto, we noticed that most of the shacks that we had seen in the news photos had been converted into solid brick buildings. Soweto is still 100% black and Pretoria seems to be very white - South Africa still has quite a way to go to achieve integration. We also saw the house where Nelson Mandela lived and learnt that Bishop Desmond Tutu also lived nearby previously.
We got to see the boroughs of Yeoville and Hillbrow as we were kindly invited by friends to watch a soccer match between South Africa and Nigeria. It was quite an experience! Passions were running high on either side - there is considerable animosity between Nigerians and South Africans as a number of Nigerian immigrants have come into South Africa in hopes of a better life - many South Africans attribute the high levels of crime in South Africa to the Nigerians. South Africa won the game - the first time that they have beaten Nigeria!
There is a large Indian community in South Africa as well. We arrived during the time of the Hindu new year celebrations (Diwali) and went to a couple of parties where we met tons of South Africans of Indian origin. Everybody is proudly South African, as their families have been living in South Africa for several generations. Unfortunately, we observed traces of negative racial stereotyping among some people.
I know that weather is not something that we normally talk about within the confines of these blogs but the weather has to be mentioned here. Almost everyday, there were violent thunderstorms in Pretoria - multiple and frequent lightning strikes and storms lasting for 2-3 hours each time. Here's a video of one of the more amazing lightning strikes nearby.
Smruti took time out of her busy schedule to meet the Indian High Commissioner to South Africa. They signed some international treaties of great significance... world economic growth is expected to double to 4.5% next year, based on these treaties... :-)
So, in answer to the question we posed to ourselves prior to arriving in South Africa (how do South Africans from different communities interact with each other?), in our opinion, the country is really moving forward. The spirit of reconciliation seems to have been internalized by many South Africans. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of work to do in terms of providing equal economic opportunity, increase wealth levels among blacks and coloreds, equal participation in sports, integration of neighbourhoods within the cities, removal of racial stereotyping etc. We asked some people how long they think this process would take - we got answers that varied from a decade to 50 years.
- Dev & Smruti
Comments